rate the last movie you saw

[Monterey Jack]

But didn't you enjoy how Abrams pretended THE LAST JEDI never happened?

No. That was incredibly childish and pandering.

[AndyDursin]

Nah it's called being smart and realizing you made a big mistake.

[Monterey Jack]

We will never agree of the Disney SW trilogy, Andy. Rise Of Skywalker was a mess of backpeddling, fanboy-stroking wank, whereas Last Jedi was a bracing act of pushing an aging franchise into fascinatingly risky and new directions. I will never understand why it was so HATED by a very vocal subset of the fandom, and know it will be more favorably re-assessed a few decades from now when the dust has settled.

[Paul MacLean]

We will never agree of the Disney SW trilogy, Andy. Rise Of Skywalker was a mess of backpeddling, fanboy-stroking wank, whereas Last Jedi was a bracing act of pushing an aging franchise into fascinatingly risky and new directions. I will never understand why it was so HATED by a very vocal subset of the fandom, and know it will be more favorably re-assessed a few decades from now when the dust has settled.

I can only speak for myself, but nothing in that movie worked for me. I suppose it did explore "risky new directions" but I don't think those risks payed off.

Luke throwing the lightsabre over his shoulder was an insulting way to "deliver" on a cliffhanger which everyone had been waiting on for two years. Killing-off Snoke (when his character should instead have been developed) was just a throwaway (and stupid) idea -- and it left the film with no bad guy.

The casino episode was a frivolous tangent that had nothing to do with the overall story. Laura Dern's character was invented for the sole purpose of being a "martyr" -- but since she was never in any of the other movies (and wasn't an appealing character to begin with), her demise had no emotional resonance with me. Plus it was preposterous that the ship had no remote control, or that a droid couldn't be sacrificed in her stead. They bring back Luke -- yay! And then kill him -- boo! And what was the point of the little kids -- especially at the conclusion of the film?

The "steam iron" gag was funny, and I actually liked Rose a lot, but the film had nothing else going for it. Rise of Skywalker was far from perfect, but I felt it had better sequences, and a sincere emotional payoff at the end.

I admit though, that Williams' score for Episode 8 was ob balance better than that for Rise of Skywalker.

[AndyDursin]

It just absolutely astounds me that MJ can't understand why people didn't care for it.

Take the beloved central hero of the series, turn him into a lazy, stupid hermit that doesn't at all resemble the character, and have him lectured by a young girl before killing him off? Check.

Take the pre-established logic of the series and now suddenly, inexplicably have a heroine defying death by floating in outer space? Check.

Make a "middle part" of a trilogy so badly written that nearly every plot point is resolved by the end? Check.

Make a movie so hung up on its rampant feminism that EVERY MALE CHARACTER in the movie is basically schooled by a woman before the film ends? Check.

Include an awful performance from Benicio Del Toro and a horrific casino sequence that stopped the movie dead? Check.

Instead of spending time with the characters just introduced in the prior movie, introduce shoehorned characters like Rose Tico that were likely part of an executive-mandated "minority checklist"? Check.

It's fine if you like it -- it's pretty clear you're really not much into STAR WARS anyway, which is why you NEED it to go off in "bracingly new directions" or whatever -- but to say it's just a "subset of fandom" that didn't like it is being really disingenuous. I mean you are totally off on that. Mark Hamill denounced it. The people who produced it basically denounced it as being an error from a conceptual level.

The film was flat out a mistake. Less a STAR WARS movie than some boring, 2.5-hour long (and you criticize running times ALL THE TIME yet never when a movie, like this one, deserves to be), super feminist-empowered fantasy more akin to Peter Jackson.

It doesn't fit with the tone, feel, sound, logic, or characterizations of the prior movies. It's basically like Rian Johnson made a Rian Johnson movie and didn't give a **** about STAR WARS to begin with. Sounds like you really don't either, which is why you liked it.

For the rest of us, it deserves to be held in contempt and forever will be. And IMO it's never going to be reassessed as being any kind of classic -- more like the movie that turned STAR WARS from "something special" into just another "Tentpole on the Calendar." The movie damaged the brand, and it's always going to have that stench associated with it.

[mkaroly]

One thing I will add to the RISE OF SKYWALKER stuff...I was really annoyed with the title of the film. Skywalker (Kylo Ren) rises up only to be killed. Just because Rey decides she is a Skywalker by adopting the last name doesn't mean she is a Skywalker biologically or otherwise. Maybe the film should have been titled The Spirit od Skywalker or The Rise of the Jedi or something like that.

Count ne among those who feel THE LAST JEDI is grade-A garbage. And Abrams did addrsss one part of TLJ in TROS...the Space Leia thing had to be addressed by making her a Jedi Master in TROS...out of nowhere in order to justify one of the most ridiculous things I have seen on screen from an A-List movie in a long time.

[AndyDursin]

Just because Rey decides she is a Skywalker by adopting the last name doesn't mean she is a Skywalker biologically or otherwise. Maybe the film should have been titled The Spirit od Skywalker or The Rise of the Jedi or something like that.

This is exactly why the end of the movie didn't work for me. It's such a useless, hollow scene. Like "YOU can be a Skywalker too if you just want to be!" Well, no, not really. She still isn't a Skywalker.

And BTW when it comes to comparing these two movies, this isn't some "Either or" argument. I can't stand it when people say "you just want comfort food, you can't accept something different!" NO, I JUST WANT SOMETHING GOOD. I didn't think RISE OF THE SKYWALKER was "really good" either. It was OK, I just liked it more than THE LAST JEDI.

Sure there's room to make a unique STAR WARS story that doesn't just rehash. The thing is that THE LAST JEDI wasn't it. It's just a profoundly BAD movie, badly written, no matter where it's supposed to fit in, on its own terms.

And Abrams did addrsss one part of TLJ in TROS...the Space Leia thing had to be addressed by making her a Jedi Master in TROS...out of nowhere in order to justify one of the most ridiculous things I have seen on screen from an A-List movie in a long time.

I can't think of many scenes that, individually, by themselves, sunk an entire movie faster than that one.

Never mind Leia was never like a "super hero" before, or that any character in STAR WARS had the ability to FLOAT IN OUTER SPACE before.

It's like all of a sudden the entire "rules" of the universe were rewritten in that one moment. Like you were no longer in George Lucas' universe, but watching an ANG LEE movie or THE WIZARD OF OZ or something altogether more ridiculous.

Right then and there it was clear Rian Johnson didn't "get" it. Along with Williams' overpowered "Leia's Theme" usage, people laughed outloud in the theater -- myself included.

[jkholm]

What's baffling to me isn't that Disney allowed a subversive Star Wars movie to be made, it's that they allowed it to happen in the penultimate installment of a nine movie series! I doubt fans would have been quite as angry if The Last Jedi was a stand-alone movie that had nothing to do with the main series.

[AndyDursin]

Even crazier is that they fired Edwards from ROGUE ONE and reshot large chunks of it; fired Lord/Miller from SOLO; fired Colin Trevorrow from EPISODE IX...and yet afforded Johnson, in the MIDDLE of "the main" trilogy, total creative freedom to not only make the movie he wanted to, but go in specific script directions that weren't mapped out ahead of time.

The whole way they've managed this franchise since they bought it is crazy and stupid (too much, too soon, without any care about quality), but this main trilogy in particular was baffling. At least hire one writer to figure out the core story so there's at least some consistency.

[mkaroly]

RENO 911: MIAMI - as a big fan of the Comedy Central series, I decided to finally watch the movie (the Unrated version). The Reno Sherriff's Department goes to a Police Convention in Miami where they find out they are not invited. Determined to make the best of it they have some fun before discovering that someone has sabotaged the convention with a biological weapon. With the streets devoid of any police presence, the Reno Sherriff's Department steps into the breach and tries to patrol Miami with the mission of finding Mr. Big, the mysterious bad guy behind the biological attack. The movie contains the classic lineup of officers with the addition of Mary Birdsong.

The TV show makes me laugh until I cry...I love the improvisational nature of the show in addition to its un-PC humor. Robert Ben Garant, Kerri Kenney-Silver, and Thomas Lennon are the core of the show...they are my favorite characters along with Niecy Nash and Wendy McLendon-Covey. Paul Rudd and Nick Swardson (as Terry) make guest appearances. I love how unfiltered the TV show is, and it was fun to see them do their skit based comedy in film form. The film is released in three versions: the original cut, the unrated cut, and the "Lost" cut (I have only seen the unrated cut). The skits in the film are generally okay and humorous. I found myself laughing really hard at two big set-piece sketches that are really well staged and performed, so much so that the more I thought about the two skits the harder I laughed a day after seeing the movie. The film works best if you know character backgrounds and faults because it just builds on those backgrounds and faults. Recommended for fans of the show only; I imagine if you have never seen the TV show you will probably think this is a stupid movie.

[mkaroly]

WEIRD SCIENCE - My brother came down this weekend to help clean out my deceased Aunt's property, and when we got home we decided to watch WEIRD SCIENCE, a movie we both enjoyed when we were younger. I have not seen this movie in ages so my expectations were low. While there are a lot of imperfections in the movie I still found it hysterically funny (especially Anthony Michael Hall and Bill Paxton) and laughed until I cried. It gets ridiculous and some of the dialogue is really bad, but watching AMH's nerd navigate his way through everything is what makes the movie for me. I would never say this is the greatest movie ever made, but I still find it funny and worth watching.

[Eric Paddon]

The Last Man On Earth (1963)
-The cheap Italian production starring Vincent Price in the first film version of "I Am Legend" is tediously dull and also because you have the film made in Italy with an oh-so-obviously dubbed Italian cast surrounding Price in surroundings that are about the fakest stand-ins for "America" there ever was, it's impossible to be drawn in. Heston wrote of screening this film during preliminary work on "The Omega Man" and didn't have a single kind word for it.

The World, The Flesh And The Devil (1958)
-I had seen it once before and found it interesting, but revisiting it now in the new Blu-Ray release, it's flaws were far more evident because like the Price film there's too much time getting things rolling. It's a familiar complaint of films in a later generation that they don't take enough time to get to the "main" part of the story but this film and the Price one just gives us one character meandering solo for over a half hour plus before anything notable really gets started and consequently that makes the rest of the action more rushed. Inger Stevens is well-cast playing her usually troubled type of role but Mel Ferrer's sudden arrival is handled much too quickly and not given enough time to breathe.

Both films with the "last man in abandoned city" theme I thought would make for more interesting viewing than it turned out to be.

[Monterey Jack]

-The Mask Of Zorro (1998): 10/10



Sat down with this for the first time in a while on the gorgeous new UHD release, which has only enhanced what was already one of the most entertaining summer blockbusters of the late 90's. The clarity and color of Phil Meheux's golden cinematography now has a hyperreal quality, making it easier to appreciate one of the last action/adventure films before the advent of post-production "color correction" digital tinkering. Seeing a gloriously old-fashioned swashbuckler shot on actual film is a treat, and director Martin Campbell has fashioned one of the very few modern updates of an old pulp hero that never feels ashamed of or "above" the bracingly corny nature of the material (I will never forgive that awful Lone Ranger movie for giving Armie Hammer a hearty, "Hi-ho Silver, AWAY!" at the end, only to smash-cut to a scowling Johnny Depp who admonishes him to "Never say that again, EVER...!" ). Zorro is brimming with superbly-choreographed swordplay and horse riding stunts, and since everything we see is "real", offers far more bang-for-the-buck excitement than has ever been generated by the plasticine fakery of the Avengers over the last dozen years. It's brazenly funny, emotional, wonderfully-acted and set to a rousing, melodic James Horner score that stands as one of his finest efforts (and is overdue for an expanded/remastered 2-disc soundtrack release).

And, dear God in Heaven, what an exquisite creature Catherine Zeta-Jones was in that film. She positively glows here, and I remember gasping out loud the first time I saw the film when she was first introduced. Like Jennifer Connelly in The Rocketeer, she's just hypnotic to watch, and manages to play a strong, independent female character without the shoehorned "woke" agenda that has polluted genre cinema in recent years.

Shame, thought, that Sony's UHD disc has a "main menu" pop-up that intrudes during the end credits! Yes, it tactfully waits until the "main" credits have finished, is relatively small, and can be made to go away immediately just by pushing "down" on the remote cross, but still...bad form, and I hope this doesn't become standard on Sony UHD releases in the future. I have to put up with this garbage on Netflix and Amazon Prime, I shouldn't have to for movies I own on a physical disc format.

[Paul MacLean]

-The Mask Of Zorro (1998): 10/10

I actually haven't even seen Mask of Zorro since it was first released! I remember being thoroughly entertained and impressed though. I'm really overdue for a re-screening of this movie.

[Monterey Jack]

I actually haven't even seen Mask of Zorro since it was first released! I remember being thoroughly entertained and impressed though. I'm really overdue for a re-screening of this movie.

It holds up beautifully, and the UHD disc is demo-worthy. Shame the new deleted scenes included are in such rough shape, especially since one of them has additional footage of Banderas and Zeta-Jones' scorching dance scene.