MABB v6.6.6

I hadn't seen a movie in a long long time but on the plane ride to China I saw 5 movies and they were all great.


- The Return - based on Homer's Odyssey. FANTASTIC. Made me weep in the end, can you believe that?

- The Trap - this movie was a blast, some really good black comedy.

- Kraven the Hunter - surprisingly good super hero movie. I later found out it got really bad reviews, I don't understand why but this was a really good one.

- The Conclave - good slow drama but you've got to be in a receptive mood to get into the papal appointment business. I guess a timely movie given the passing of the most recent Pope Francis.

- The Crow (original movie) - you ain't gonna believe this but until that plane ride to China I had never seen this movie. I feel like an idiot missing out for so long! This is a great movie, with one of the most superb villain performances I have ever seen.

The Crow movie itself is...okay, I guess? I'm much more into the soundtrack than the movie itself.

Alien Romulus was the last recent movie that I watched. It's so and so. And I only watched it because it's part of a franchise that I'm a fan of. I have no problem rewatching classics like Goodfellas or The Thing.

I feel like my attention span is too short these days to actually sit down, watch and appreciate a new movie/TV series with a new storyline and such.

"Kraven the Hunter"

Anyway....

1. Bring Her Back (trauma/body horror directed by two Aussie prankster Youtubers who've now transitioned into film, and WHAT a film it is. Their second, and it's a disturbing whopper)

2. The Soul Eater (From the directors of French extreme horror INSIDE. Excellent mystery/thriller/horror in the vein of Se7en and other grim procedurals)

3. Ghostwatch (This 1992 BBC special was aired on Halloween, and was designed as a prank, with actual newscasters and TV hosts involved in inspecting ghostly happenings in a house, which goes very, very wrong. Supposedly traumatized a lot of children, caused PTSD and then some, because people thought what they were seeing was a real live event. Was quite ahead of its time, and a damn fine and creepy watch as well)

let's see

jean de florette/manon of the spring were pretty great, a generation-spanning story of betrayal and revenge set in the french countryside. yves montand is a real piece of shit in these (non-derogatory)

kurosawa's dreams gets a lot of flack for its didacticism but when it hits, it really hits. the visuals in the peach orchard & the water mills segments are enough to make it worthwhile

funny games was one of the more engaging meta-films i've seen recently although it's hard to call it enjoyable exactly

it's actually a very long list

yes stormy has been carrying the entire board in this department for a few years now

like imran, i also had the opportunity to watch a few recently as i got laid low by a stomach virus. that virus is continuing through my system in the form of explosive diarrhoea and has left me with a haemorrhoid. you're welcome. so i watched machete (1958) which was interesting for its mise en scene and setting, it was filmed on location at a sugar plantation in puerto rico in the 50s. actual story is typical femme fatale nonsense. next one was longlegs. i liked longlegs "as a package" and for its overall aesthetics and themes and the satan but its obvious narrative let it down big. heaps of wasted time, whole extraneous scenes, no red herrings, the mystery element was compromised to the tits. and a couple of moments that really broke verisimilitude.

funny games is awesome and not enjoyable

28 years later
Uncle Buck. Open up for daddy
Spartacus
The birds

I have mostly been watching anime lately nobody else on the board (to my knowledge ) likes that but movies I have watched recently were

The love witch - thought it was cool how dead on they were with the 60s aesthetic but it was a style over substance film def worth seeing if youblike 60s horror or giallo though

The Menu - I get it but feel this is overrated worth a watxh just lower expectations

the menu was a bit of a laugh, when i saw it i had never heard of it, the best way

I had been told how great of a parody it was and told it was also a great horror.

I should have known after Longlegs and other films to lower expectations. Reviews ruin movies.

Not reviews so much as overhype

I am scared Im going to be harsher on Sinners and Bring Her Back but will try to have lower expectations when I eventually see those movies

Noyka wrote: ↑

12 Jul 2025, 01:40

I have mostly been watching anime lately nobody else on the board (to my knowledge ) likes that but movies I have watched recently were

The love witch - thought it was cool how dead on they were with the 60s aesthetic but it was a style over substance film def worth seeing if youblike 60s horror or giallo though

The Menu - I get it but feel this is overrated worth a watxh just lower expectations

i am not really an anime hard-on bearer anymore, had something of a phase with it in the early 2000s but mostly lost interest. i had a roommate for a few years that would watch tons but he had a thing where he'd get really into something and then describe it in exhaustive detail to convince me to watch it, but it just kinda made the whole exercise feel pointless i think for me it kinda falls into the same general bucket as TV shows, just way too much time investment required for too small a payoff

someone recommended madoka magica to me last year though, because i'd been very specific in saying tv shows shouldn't be any more than one or two seasons. i was pleasantly surprised with it, very clever little mystical melodrama and it's only 12 or 13 episodes so it doesn't require an outsized time investment. probably the only anime series i've seen in the last decade (admittedly a pretty short list) that i walked away from feeling that was time well spent

I hated madoka i felt it was so overhypex for what it was

Best anime thats come out recently and is still short us Apothecary Diaries. Its romance, historical, mystery, and mainly character driven.

Ive been realky i to Golden Kamuy and Bungo Stray Digs lately both good easy watches but longer series. Gokden Kamuy being a historical comedy/drama thats really about the two leads playing off each ither. Bungo stray dogs being about a detective agency with specual abilities going against other organizations with special abilities.

I also watched Tokyo Revengers this one is trash but og lord it is enjoyable trash its been my kate night watch because with the dub every episode has at least ine laughably bad moment.

other than stuff like Miyazaki I just can't ever seem to get into Anime.

I always suggest people try Cowboy Bebop its the one non anime fans seem to like its also short and available in bith netflix and hulu. Its a sci fi series and a lot more mature than typical popular anime is.

The biggest issue people have is they think anime is all one piece and naruto (both are shonen action series). Shonen tropes turn folks away from it, they don’t bother me since I grew up with anime but can understand disliking it, it is very childish and some series rely way too much on said tropes (the immature humor, yay friendship, random fan service). I cannot stand series like naruto or demon slayer myself because of the reliance on immature humor and anime cliches found in series aimed at younger teens.

There are good series i mostly go for series aimedzat adults seinin (men) josei (women) and example:

Perfect Blue is an anime psychological horror movie i rec to folks as well it is a true classic and another one non anime fans like.

I dont want to mention long series because thats another thing that turns people off of anime i get intimidated myself if a series has more than 30 episodes.

absolutely everyone should watch perfect blue

Yes Perfect Blue and Spirited Away are mandatory watches for movie and animation fans in general

Perfect Blue is also only 90 minutes so not a lot of time invested

In anime, check out Made in Abyss. Just get over some of the character designs, and you'll be in for one helluva world and a disturbing story that really goes places.

Love Made in Abyss underrated one for sure

Wouldn’t rec it to non anime fans though.

- Threads 1984

- Ghost in the shell 1-2 (Innocance)

- Grand Torino 2008

- Under The skin 2013

- The Machinist 2014

under the skin

i watched how to get ahead in advertising a few nights ago and it was a blast. it's of a piece with the cook, the thief, his wife & her lover in that it is an over the top polemic against thatcherism, but it substitutes greenaway's artistry with a raving business lunatic as bruce robinson's stand-in. it's about as subtle as a sledgehammer and would've been terrible if not for the lead actor who completely carries the whole thing

i would have had so much to contribute to this thread if stormy was on this tear when i was doing the cinema studies degree, stormy you're 20 years too late. but if we were talking movies and drinking beer we would have such a nice time and i would have a notepad handy for recommendations.

Before sunrise

Ninny wrote: ↑

13 Aug 2025, 17:58

Before sunrise

have you seen the others yet? curious to see if you have a standout favorite and which one it is

User wrote: ↑

13 Aug 2025, 10:07

i would have had so much to contribute to this thread if stormy was on this tear when i was doing the cinema studies degree, stormy you're 20 years too late. but if we were talking movies and drinking beer we would have such a nice time and i would have a notepad handy for recommendations.

man i wish i could've been on this wave 20 years ago instead of whatever the fuck i was doing back then

I have seen all three of them. Before Sunrise was in the cinema, not something you would want to miss The other two I would have to watch again as it has been a while. I have a download.

It's funny, I was hoping for a part two for years and that seemed to take forever. Now part two is 20 years old

i saw them all pretty much in a row recently so i got to skip the whole 18 years of cliffhangers aspect

they had briefly entertained a fourth installment a few years ago but decided against, i think they couldn't come to any kind of agreement where it made sense. which is fitting because before midnight pretty neatly closes out the arc

i've seen all three of course but barely remember them

i saw the first one multiple times so i guess that remains my favourite as it was the freshest and i've the most memories of it

i dont know

it's not a movie but Andor might be one of the best TV series i've seen in fucking years. 2 seasons of absolute perfection. Tony Gilroy is god damn genius - it'll be held in high regard for decades no matter what the rest of the IP shit show manages to churn out.

andor was great, agreed, totally recommend it. not for the star wars side, the politics side. it gets a lot about revolution, fear, empire, just right, and made my wife and i cop the myanmar feels a lot.

i watched that new superman film and i enjoyed it, it was fine

september has been heavy on 70s paranoia and general thrillers. mattei affair, night moves, parallax view, all the president's men, three days of the condor, chinatown. i'm struck by the literacy for covert action a lot of these films had, which seems mostly to have vanished in the modern day. which isn't really an accident. unsurprisingly, you get a good dose of it in something like the inherent vice adaptation which i closed out august with, but generally it seems quite rare in the post-9/11 era

i showed my 14yr old sister the lost boys last night and she fucking frothed it

still holds up

Lost boys is a classic I declare

i haven't jammed the lost boys since vhs days i reckon

last night was the daughtsman's contract

motherfucking greenaway

Ya'll need to check out Strange Harvest. It's a mockumentary-style slasher horror film on these ritualistic murders in L.A. and an elusive figure at the center of it. Was quite enjoyable, with a rad ending.