What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[decastro]

Crazy Rich Asians (Jon M. Chu, 2018 )

I went to a VIP dinner in the Raffles Hotel ten or so years ago, sharing a table with three people from Singapore -two lawyers (female) and a banker (of Indian descent), an elderly Australian who made a fortune cleaning office buildings, and the beauty queen I was with who flunked out after the fish course much to my annoyance. What struck me that evening was just how dull Singapore Chinese seemed to be. You can see some svelte, well-heeled Chinese 20-somethings at Clarke Quay most nights, but my guess is that the super-rich would never go to places like that when they can buy private spaces -rather like the people in this film, which is unoriginal, and though reasonably well acted is, with a bland script, like 'Jane Austen with Chinese characteristics'.

Much as I admire Raffles, and their Singapore Sling is worth trying, next time I go I shall probably head in the opposite direction of the awful people in this film, and try those 'four floors of whores' in Orchard Towers. If we learned anything from 2020, it is that time is short, and not be wasted on dramas featuring pearl earrings, perfectly made dumplings, and a Singapore stripped of its Filipino maids, its forests of tower blocks where most people live.

Couldn't agree more. Completely jacked Coming to America without having the decency to pay homage.

[Stavros]

Why would anyone want to pay homage to rubbish like Coming to America? And is Prince/King Akeem a Muslim? He dresses like one, and has a Muslim name, but the trailer pans from a Mosque like building to the shot of men ringing a large bell, which is not Islamic. U know we don't need to overthink this, but then I wonder what thought went into this vehicle from the start.

[decastro]

havent seen the second one but the first is a classic. regardless of what your personal opinion is, its common courtesy in hollywood to pay homage to movies that you rip off.

[Stavros]

You may be right on the homage thing, I just don't get the kind of satire Eddie Murphy went into. I think his 'breakout' role was Walter Hill's 48 Hours, and it suggested Murphy could do comedy and drama, but to me his career went, either downhill or into graveyard films. But that's because there is a vein of light American comedy that I cannot stand, it doesn't make me laugh, it has gags that were old in 1920, and over the top acting that is embarrassing to watch. The most obvious casualties are Melissa McCarthy -she cannot act, and the voice alone is an abomination, not even the divine Sandra Bullock can rescue their films; the two woeful Seths: Rogan and Macfarlane, and Adam Sandler. I know they make films a lot of people like, fine, but not for me.

[decastro]

Eddie Murphy lamented recently his string of bad movies. Made it sound like it wasn't entirely in his control. I suppose the scripts for some of the hits look indistinguishable from the flops so it becomes hard to tell in pre production what a movie will finally look like. I too think he possessed a talent for both comedy and drama but like the late great Robin Williams, found it hard to consistently strike the balance. You would think that such a job could be managed by their people e.g managers, production team, talent agency as it is their literal job to figure out a way to best mine the raw talent these individuals possess. But after all these years the best Hollywood can come up with as a vehicle for their talents is the light American comedy genre you mentioned.

[broncofan]

havent seen the second one but the first is a classic. regardless of what your personal opinion is, its common courtesy in hollywood to pay homage to movies that you rip off.

I saw it in the theater as a kid and probably a dozen times total. Every time I watch football I think about that scene where Akeem is telling Mr. McDowell about the Packers of Green Bay kicking an oblong pigskin ball through an h. Certain lines just stuck with me like, freeze you diseased rhinocerous. And most goat herders don't go around quoting Nietzsche. As a kid I remember when they were deciding whether to go to NYC or LA I was always disappointed they didn't do a west coast version just because I was from LA.

I'm not going to watch the second one because I heard it was put together haphazardly but the first one was one of the most quotable movies ever and a favorite for me.

[decastro]

I saw it in the theater as a kid and probably a dozen times total. Every time I watch football I think about that scene where Akeem is telling Mr. McDowell about the Packers of Green Bay kicking an oblong pigskin ball through an h. Certain lines just stuck with me like, freeze you diseased rhinocerous. And most goat herders don't go around quoting Nietzsche. As a kid I remember when they were deciding whether to go to NYC or LA I was always disappointed they didn't do a west coast version just because I was from LA.

I'm not going to watch the second one because I heard it was put together haphazardly but the first one was one of the most quotable movies ever and a favorite for me.

Lol it was a favorite of mine as well growing up. I still bust out laughing when I watch that dude sing she's your queeeen tooo beeeeee. I'm leaning towards not seeing the 2nd either because I don't want it to ruin my memories from the first. But I guess we'll see. Boredom often dictates what I watch. More so than reason.

[Stavros]

Before I Go to Sleep (Rowan Joffe, 2014)

If you can't sleep, this nonsense mght help, though it is more likely to bore you. It aired on Channel 4 from 1.35am to around 3, when most of the country is asleep, except in Casualty Departments. The timing may not be coincidental.

The plot, taken from a novel that apparently is more believable or believably written than the film, is shaped by amnesia but begs so many questions as each day provides one reveal after the other that by the end of the film you either don't care, or wonder if even the people in the film do. A man who declares his love for a woman every day is also violent, why is never explained. So many things are left unexplained, other than the appearance at the end of a film of a man who, unlike 'Ben' actually does look like a wife-beating thug. So who knows? And who cares?

[Torris]

Salo, 120 Days of Sodom. Pier Palo Pasolini. Based on the unfinished De Sade novel he sketched out in prison. Four aristocratic libertines sexually abuse innocent virginal boys and girls before murdering them.

Set in the last days of Mussolini’s Italy when the Germans rescued him and put him in charge of a doomed Northern Italy rump state.

Last 10 minutes was perhaps the most disturbing scene I have ever seen in a movie. Horrific bc it is believable such sexual atrocities could have happened at the end of World War II when the Fascists knew their time was short.

Pasolini was horribly murdered, run over several times with his own car, trying to ransom stolen footage of the movie

[Torris]

Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1992)

I hated this film when it came out, and decided I did not like David Mamet either, though I did like House of Games (1987). Seeing this again has not completely flipped my view, but it is a 'tour de force' with a superb cast, and I can appreciate Mamet's craft, and also see how he influenced Tarantino, for one. The film differs from the play as he included a new scene featuring the speech the Alec Baldwin character (Blake) makes near the beginning. Rather like the films of Takashi Miike in which crime families fall apart through greed, the film is about a cohort of men, none of whom are likeable, turn on each other in an attempt to score more contracts, rather than co-operate with each other to achieve the same ends. The language is, to put it mildly, 'robust', but serves as weapons rather than the dealers choosing swords or guns. Al Pacino is particularly fine, and while this is a grim story about ruthless competition in which there are, in the end, no winners, it is a gripping film of the play to watch, and there are some alternatives on YouTube though they fail to match this version.

I have watched that Baldwin monologue many times. Don’t know who won the Best Supporting Acting Oscar that year, bc Baldwin deserved to win hands down.