Rate The Last Movie You Saw

The Hall of Infamy

God's Not Dead (2014) -

This was a bad film for the reasons I was anticipating going into it. For one, it's definitely one of the most hateful films I've ever seen. Every Christian character is portrayed in a positive light, while every atheist character is cartoonishly bad and stereotypical. Virtually no levity exists for either group. This is the kind of film which should appeal to the "Atheists are all evil and are trying to destroy Christianity" group of Christians and Evangelists out there. I also found most of the characters underdeveloped and bland. They generally fell into two categories: (1) Atheist who's a jerk to all Christians they come across and (2) Christian who's persecuted for their religion. The individual arcs for most of these characters were uninteresting and predictable and since so much time was devoted to exploring those characterizations, this made most of the film really dull to sit through. Amy is the only character who (kind of) stood out in the entire film due to one decent scene she had near the end. With that being said, I wouldn't say the film is a complete waste of time. In terms of the quality of the filmmaking, it's actually fairly good. Some of the Christian rock in the film (especially in the final act) sounded really good (I'm not referring to the overbearing sentimental score which played throughout a decent chunk of the film, btw), the acting was decent across the board (Kevin Sorbo gave a solid performance as Professor Radisson), and I suppose the cinematography looked good. Overall though, this movie is pretty bad, even if it's not quite the abomination I thought it would be.

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I would highly recommend doing this, as the DVD has a really fun and informative commentary by the director.

It's because of the turtleneck, isn't it?

Yes plz.

According to Netflix I rented it back in 2009 and they no longer have the DVD lmao.

Jess + Moss - (2011)

This independent, approx 80 minute film is a little bit like a poor man's Licorice Pizza, but I don't want to undersell it, because it was quite good. It comes off like a series of memories of either Jess (Sarah Hagan) - an 18-year-old pining after her mother but left with her neglectful father, or Moss (Austin Vickers) - a 12 year-old boy who is cared for by his grandparents after being abandoned by his parents. The two of them are extraordinarily close, and spend most of their time together exploring ruined houses in their small U.S. country town. Wonderful visually, with lots of little touches that really do make the film feel like a series of memories. The two share a love which they're not sure how to properly express - Jess is undergoing a sexual awakening, but Moss just needs the care and attention he never gets at home. A constant motif are the audio tapes they have made together, which bring all kind of moments back to life.

7/10


By Vertigo Releasing - https://westendfilms.com/screeners/the_banishing.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67236549

The Banishing - (2020)

Watching The Banishing you never forget for a moment you're watching a movie, and as it tries to ignite some sense of creepiness in it's first third it dissipates due to it's uneven pacing, bad screenplay and lack of decent score. The ending seems to have been rewritten a dozen times, and swiftly closes the film without a really satisfying last act preceding it. It's hardly scary (there are some interesting moments concerning mirrors which subdivide two worlds) and includes a Nazi subplot which is just confusing. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody except the most easily pleased.

5/10

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You're really committed to this bit, eh?

Warner Archive released a bluray. Currently $17.98 on Amazon.

I’ve not seen it but have been waiting for it to drop about $5 before I grab it.

NEPTUNE FROST

https://boxd.it/2Y1l39

3.5/5

You made a glib post. I responded in kind.

Another who loves The Hidden. Had it on my horror list for the last countdown, though really it's sci-fi all the way but it qualified and I wanted to include it. Great film.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I'm usually with you on the Hackman thing. The Conversation was easily my favorite first-time watch last year.
I think what would've helped is if there were some philosophical differences between GH and EB. Like maybe GH's plan would without a doubt save 10 people, but EB had a plan that was riskier, but if it worked it could save 50 people. That would give the viewer a dilemma to consider and chew on. But instead it was more like
Hackman: "Everybody climb that ladder!"
Borgnine: "You're not the boss of me!"
And I guess I'm just not in the mood right now to watch people bickering.

And again, I didn't hate it, but its prominence in pop culture when I was growing up had led me to expect something better than it was.

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Captain's Log
My Collection

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

I'm sorry, but I like Tom Cruise. I'm not even going to question it anymore. The dude is a high-wattage Movie Star of the classic variety, and he does not cut corners. I respect that. Plus, I gotta appreciate a sex scene between two 50-year-olds (who both look great, it must be said) that appears to consist mostly of chatting. You can ding it for all the things it's dingable for--Navy propaganda, plot predictability, high-concept dialogue--but I was still entertained. God knows I wouldn't want a world where all the movies were like Top Gun, but I'm glad they still make them. 7/10

I think that horror and sci-fi have a LOT of overlaps. I think of The Hidden as almost equally both.

No you didn't miss the boat (*nudge nudge wink wink*) on this. It's just gained sort of a cult status and that's always so subjective.

It was an Irwin Allen production and at the time he was sort of a disaster movie impresario. Two years later he did The Towering Inferno. He also did killer bees (The Swarm) and a Poseidon sequel. Also TV movies. With those he just cut to the chase and titled them Flood and Fire. The latter also starred Borgnine.

Plus he had a hand in so many 60's scifi TV shows like The Time Tunnel, Lost In Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Land of the Giants.

Just curious on the word choice, is it "cult status," or "known existence (iconic status?) in pop culture"?
I'm not familiar enough with The Poseidon Adventure outside of knowing its name, but I thought it was more the latter because I thought it was a big box office draw for the time.

Hmm. It was considered a hit and truly launched the string of disaster flicks in the 70's.

Yeah, I suppose it was too much of a commercial success to be considered a true cult classic. But outside of maybe Airport in 1970 (which had more of a soap opera feel to it) it was the first of it's kind and sort of begat Earthquake, Towering Inferno, Avalanche, City On Fire etc. But you're right. I tried using "cult" because of it's unique forerunner status. Poor choice of words.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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This will of course be retitled Carbuncle overseas.

Yeah, the thing is I knew all of that so I had no reason to expect Poseidon to be any better. I don't know what I was thinking.


Been wanting to see Flood and Fire for a while. Those titles crack me up.