The Last Movie You Watched

[The Valkyrie]

The Librarian 3.

Meh.

[Gwaithmir]

It's time to bury the hatchet. 

[Angrboda]

I actually made it halfway through this one. It's rather old, but maybe I can find a download so that I can finish it. Peter Fonda is great in it.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I actually made it halfway through this one.  It's rather old, but maybe I can find a download so that I can finish it.  Peter Fonda is great in it.

I have a difficult time watching Jean Seberg. Makes me angry and sad at the same time.

Boru

[Fake Messiah]

Fireball - new documentary by Werner Herzog about meteors. It is kind of interesting look into meteor hunting. Like, you can find micro meteors on a big enough flat roof using a magnet.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project is Sean Connery's last film: Sir Billi, or, as Amazon calls it, Guardian of the Highlands.. Having retired in the wake of the disastrous reception of The LEague of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he was coaxed out of retirement to work on what would be Scotland's first animated  feature film. And it got such a shitty review that the SNP actually endorsed Brave over it.

• And the movie starts off in a depressingly obvious way: by a faux James Bond title, with the title song composed by Patrick Doyle and sung by nine other than  Shirley Bassey. And instead of the sort of haunting atmosphere her Bond themes had, this is just fucking boring. And one of the most brain-breaking art decisions of the film is foreshadowed, even as most of the figures are in shadow: every living thing in the film, human or animal, has a head that looks like a bong. 
  
• Why are there so many beavers in Scotland that they need several camps and an entire  dedicated police unit to keep and quarantine them all? And for that matter, why the fuck are they the bad guys? Like it or not, there's a good fucking reason the authorities try to not fuck around on introduced species. I could talk about how the Cane Toad has wrought untold damage onto the Australian ecosystem, or how the European Starling was introduced to the Americas because someone thought expanding its range would be a good idea on the basis of (I shit you not) its being mentioned in Shakespeare (and not even in a positive context), but here's one article about the American Mink and what it's done to... roughly the general area of Scotland where this movie is set.
  
• Why is there a duck in a biplane and barely keeping her hand on the wheel? And why is she talking to the audience? Is she supposed  to be the narrator? God, I hope not. Fortunately, no, she's not. She has a peripheral importance at best in the rest of the film.
  
• Why is St. Andrew's Cross on everything?
  
• And why does the goat dress like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill? And why is he coded gay?
  
• Beaver! Beaver! Where are you?
  
• Huh. I thought the whole thing about lemmings jumping off cliffs was a myth invented by Disney. But  then again, they never said anything about rabbits jumping off cliffs to express their envy over beavers bobsledding through trenches in a cliff on trashcans pulled by logs.
  
• And did they just call Bessie Boo the Beaver Billi?
  
  
  
• Wow, way to be discreet about the Baron's gambling issues while threatening to unveil them out loud in front of the entire town.
  
• And somehow, the goat's wardrobe isn't the only time he's reminding me of Kill Bill, because he also does this: 
  
  
  And, technically, she only moves her foreleg, but the result is the same.
• And, of course, the Admiral is German for some reason. Fucking Hell, the other part of my ethnicity I've latched onto hasn't been saved.
  
• McQ makes gadgets for Sir Billi. Yet another obvious Bond referenc- Is that a Russian nuclear sub off the coast of the highlands? And, no, Sir Billi, that was another Bond who was on the Russian submarine.
  
• Huh. They used the word "ass" in this movie and donkeys aren't even involved.
  
• And then, we have a long, pointless good times montage that mostly consists of the goat acting out scenes from musicals, and acting like a dog. I was briefly concerned that they were referencing ACO. Fortunately, it was just Singin in the Rain.
  
• He's not a real policeman for taking a beaver?
  
  
  
• Goddamn, do all these acrobatics hinge on some ludicrously precise calculations.
  
• Okay, so, somehow, I doubt that the charges the cop was arrested under would stick, Given that laws about interfering with wildlife on private property were to get rid of an invasive species, and I'm not sure about the law in Scotland, but I'm fairly certain they reserve the right to commandeer cars, although I don't think they followed proper procedure.
  
• Wait, he's never ever dated, but he's got a daughter?
  
• And why is there another weird music video? And why is this the worst version of the dance party ending cliche that I've ever seen? And why is there a stereptypical Mexican? 
  
• Why does everything in the credits look like it was made out of clay?

And, since we're still on genre cycles, I figure I may as well ask for your input on the comedy I'll take on next week:

• Chairman of the Board (Wherein someone decided that Carrot Top would be a compelling star for a film and almost immediately regretted it.)
  
• Breaking Wind (Wherein Craig Moss decides to make  fun of Twilight and somehow fucks it up.)
  
• Dirty Love (Wherein Jenny McCarthy decides to  do a topless dance with vomit covering her tits.)
  
• F The Prom (Wherein two YouTubers decide to make a relatable teen movie and fail spectacularly.)
  
• Hottie and the Nottie (Wherein Paris Hilton builds an entire movie around insulting people who are less attractive than her... even though her most attractive qualities were her fame, her money, and her refusal to wear panties.)
  
• InAPPropriate Comedy (Wherein the Sham-Wow guy decides to make a movie that's half a ripoff of Movie 43, half a ripoff of his previous movie, The Underground Comedy Movie).
  
• Loqueesha (Wherein a white guy decides that the key to success is pretending to be a black woman.)
  
• Lower Learning  (Wherein Rob Cordrry has to turn the worst school in America around in a single day.)
  

And hopefully, I'll find the time for a Deep Hurting Awards.

[Gwaithmir]

If you want to see one of Helen Mirren's early films in which she is running around naked more than she is clothed, this is it.

[Apollo]

Watched “invitation” last weekend—good twist at the end. Enjoyable.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2400463/

[Gwaithmir]

[Rev. Rye]

And now for the Deep Hurting Awards:

Awards that haven't changed:

• Most Reprehensible: Vaxxed. Nuff Said. 
  
• The Richie Cusack Award for Epic Fails: Yep, the scene from A History of Violence where William Hurt asks "How do you fuck that up?" is now a fixture of the Deep Hurting Project. And now, I've decided to devote his awards to simple fucking things that the filmmakers fuck up spectacularly. Do I give it to Hilary's America for setting out to make a movie claiming Democrats are the real racists and fail to do justice to targets who would seem like shooting fish in a barrel? Or The Apparition for somehow having more plot in the fucking trailer than the actual film? Nope, I'm giving it to The Emoji Movie. Why? Because they fuck up the most basic aspects of the plot: Gene has the unusual problem of having multiple emotions which forms the basic thrust of the film, except that other emojis actually show multiple emotions, and not just Steven Wright. They go for a "be yourself" moral, but fuck it up because when Gene tries to be himself, it risks THE ENTIRE PHONEWORLD BEING DESTROYED. And it somehow saves the day because the girl he's into is impressed by a weird emoji. They go for a feminist moral claiming that there was an era where female emojis could only be princesses and brides, except that Smiler (a female) was not only the first emoji, but was their leader from time immemorial. I feel I may need to create a  Richie Cusack Awards post at some point cataloguing the most jaw-dropping epic fails in the Project.
  
• The Raw Deal award for films that really deserved better: The Master of Disguise. I think we can all agree that this movie is utter crap, made even worse by catering to the narrow demographic young enough to find fart jokes, ass jokes, and a man named Pistachio Disguisey dressing up like a turtle and biting people's noses is funny, but old enough to recognise Bo Derek, Tony Montana, and Robert Shaw's character in Jaws and relate to Pistachio's ass fetish. But take the initial conceit: a spy comedy franchise built around a man with a preternatural ability to disguise himself, using that as a vehicle for the actor in question to showcase how versatile his performances can be. If Peter Sellers was still alive when this idea was going around, this would have been fucking perfect. Hell, if you've seen Holy Motors, the stuff Denis Levant does throughout the movie fits much the same MO (except without the espionage), and that movie is much better. Imagine what such a thing would have been if it wasn't picked up by a studio who pretty much exists as a welfare organisation for former SNL cast members who couldn't get roles in other studios. And you could even retain the weird borderline-autistic personality Pistachio had (at least if you put more work into it), perhaps adding a Little Voice element into the mix that could help explain why he's so good at it, like his impersonations are a way of trying to blend in to the neurotypical world.
  
• Most Brain-Breaking: Baby Geniuses 2: Superbabies. This one literally broke my brain to the point where all I could say was "why the fuck not?" after about 30 minutes. It  fucking wins.
  
• Most Ham-fisted piece of shit movie trying to be thoughtful and failing spectacularly: I Know Who Killed Me. Obvious symbolism that says nothing, a serial killer movie by someone who fails to understand what serial killing even is, and some twists so idiotic.
  
• Most enraging twist ending: The Devil Ins- The facts surrounding the Rossi case remain unresolved. Visit therossifiles.com for more information on the ongoing investigation. Or don't because the site went down after it became clear that nobody gave a shit. 
  
• Most insulting Sequel: Piranha 3DD. You take a good guilty pleasure film, a B-movie that actually fits a good balance between schlock and legitimate goodness, and they fuck up all the goodwill the original film gave them. They even ignored the sequel hook at the end of the first movie. Fuck this movie. 
  
• Most whiplash-inducing sequel: Escape Plan 2: Hades. You go from the more-or-less realistic The Hole in the original film, and the sequel (presumably set shortly after that) has it in a bored Sci-fi dystopia prison in Atlanta.
  

• Least Holly-Jolly Christmas movie: The Nutcracker: The Untold Story, because I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Nazi rats and the joyless new lyrics to Tchaikovsky's deathless music are never going to be topped when it comes to shit Christmas movies. Maybe with An Action Star Christmas, but it's not a Christmas movie.
  
• Most Frustrating experience as a viewer: Joe Dirt 2. Every scene goes way too long, the plot rips off several movies, including the original, the timeline makes no sense, it doesn't even square with the original film's timeline, and it doesn't even have the original's one clear redeeming quality: a kick-ass classic rock
  
• Megatron Award for Bad Comedy: See above
  
• The movie so boring I just stopped bothering to look for new shit after about 10 minutes: Reprisal.
  
• Best Worst Movie: Gigli. Somehow, I found the utter insanity of the film's execution breathtaking. Maybe it was Christopher Walken coming in to interrogate Ben Affleck and deciding he wants some pie, then leaving, never to reappear in the film again. Or maybe it was the mentally challenged kid saying Baywatch "made [his] penis sneeze." Or maybe it's Al Pacino coming in to explain why the movie's so stupid. The Bratz film is ineligible for this award to give others a fighting chance.
  
• Most Generic piece of shit:Daddy Day Camp. You just know there's nothing interesting or new for anyone, including the kids who were subjected to it.
  
• The The Eye Creatures Award for Just Not Caring (formerly Most Stunningly Incompetent): Movie 43. Somehow, a movie that took seven years to make and includes many of the greatest talents of Hollywood turns into an apathetically made anthology film with not a single laugh in ANY of its scenes.
  
• Most Damn Faint Praise: The Fog. It at least got me interested in what went wrong when Selma Blair tried to paint her toenails on air. And that big hat is the best character.
  
• Most enraging use of music: The Open House for introducing me to a great band like Shannon and the Clams with a very stupid movie.
  
• Most Jaw-dropping stupidity: Shut In. This teen has been faking being totally paralysed for several months and has fooled EVERYONE for all that time, even as he poisons his mother and fucks with her prescriptions without her noticing it.
  

• The Martian Award: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. This is a film that only makes sense if you assume that it was made by an alien who decided to watch a bunch of crappy turn-of-the-millennium action movies, assimilated their cliches, decided to try its own hand at it without understanding, well, much of anything.  
  
• Worst attempt at a cultural exchange: Kung Fu Rabbit. Incredibly, when China is given the chance to make their own version of Kung Fu Panda, it makes a film that was briefly a contender for the worst film I had ever seen.
  
• Most Wasted Opportunity: Nazi Overlord. You promise us Nazi zombies, and you give us three minutes' worth of zombies, none of whom do anything more than eat an ADI. Fucking Hell, the scenario from that episode of Last Podcast on the Left where Jeffrey Dahmer sent his zombie teen boyfriend on a beer run sounds like a better movie.
  

Updated Awards:

• Worst Film I've Ever Seen: A Certain Sacrifice wound up being a surprise. It's about an hour long, but every single scene goes on for far too long (one lunch scene between the protagonist and the villain takes up A SIXTH OF THE MOVIE'S RUNNING TIME); the plot, despite being generally shaped like a coming of age movie, makes almost no sense and it takes about 40 minutes in for the plot to take on any shape (to the point where several scenes in a row have no connection to anything before or after them, including one notorious scene where the protagonist does this slam poem for his love interest and it has so little connection that it took a lot of research to confirm that this actually was the main character and not just some random guy who never appears again); the sound recording makes it unlistenable; and then the movie ends with a guy being sacrificed to Satan (the titular sacrifice, and only foreshadowed when a school official tells him "certain sacrifices have to be made.") No wonder Madonna tried to have it buried.
  
• Worst Original Song: The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure. "It's Your Birthday (Happy, Happy, Birthday.)"
  
• The What the Fuck Do You Mean It's For Kids Award: Show Dogs. A dog has to have his balls fondled and is rewarded for lying back and thinking of re-enacting Dirty Dancing with Will Arnett. And this was actually in the movie until viewers complained.
  

New Awards:

• Ugliest film: Dwegons and Leprechauns. Just take a look at the movie. 
  
• Least sympathetic Hero: Larry the Cable Guy in Witless Protection. At least he's not a rapist. And when that's the best thing you have to say about it, you know you fucked up.
  
• Worst Adaptation: The 1999 The King and I. What's the point in remaking it if you're just going to turn it into Aladdin?
  
• Most fitting summation of a film: From Jack and Jill:
  
  
  
• Most Inexplicable Franchise: Norm of the North. Why the fuck have there been three sequels to this piece of shit? And why do I get the feeling there's going to be more? 
  
• Most Baffling Voice Actor Casting: Trolland. Who thought the fat kid from Stand By Me would still be a passable kid 30 years later?
  
• The Not A Movie Award: Fishtales is basically a glorified educational video about fish starring two CGI fish who, once the Finding Nemo ripoff that is the plot is discarded, just swim around real fish and explain factoids.
  
• Dumbest Villain Plan: The gangsters from Attack Force who want to get everyone in a 100-mile radius of Paris addicted to a zombie drug that either kills its users or turns them into homicidal maniacs.
  
• Least Badass Action Movie: Attack Force. For being a movie where Steven Segal is even lazier than usual.
  
• The Scooby Gang Mask Off Award: The Life Zone. Well, it's nice to see a movie where the pro-life movement is portrayed as caring about forcing pregnant women to carry to term at any cost more than literally anything else, as made by a rabid pro-lifer. To the extent that when their families are allowed to record video messages to the kidnappers, one girl's father and another's boyfriend's biggest takeaway is "How special! You're going to have a baby!" And the one whose sister is actually outraged at the whole "kidnapping a pregnant woman so she can be forced to give birth to a baby she doesn't want" thing is the bad guy.
  
• The Robert Bowers Award for Screwing the Optics and Going In: Also The Life Zone, for portraying their own movement as not only kidnappers and torturers, but also literally demonic and not giving a shit about the implications.
  
• Worst Sendoff in Cinematic History: Sir Billi. Sean Connery briefly un-retired for this?
  

---

If you want to see one of Helen Mirren's early films in which she is running around naked more than she is clothed, this is it.

And one of Michael Powell's last films, even if the title is really cringy... plus the fact that they give the movie a  love theme based around the song...