Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Cinema at the End of the World Edition

[nameless1]

I strongly dislike Ryan Reynolds.

He is part of our sexy Ryan collection though.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

He is part of our sexy Ryan collection though.

I much prefer Gosling, who I think is a great actor. I find Reynolds to be a smarmy actor who routinely plays in smarmy films. And he's not funny.

 

[nameless1]

I much prefer Gosling, who I think is a great actor. I find Reynolds to be a smarmy actor who routinely plays in smarmy films. And he's not funny.

His humour is basically dad jokes, and rather low-brow ones too. He is definitely not for everyone.

I do appreciate that he does strike a good balance, as he never goes too overboard, and he is quite witty. If he is put in a spot, he can usually give a pretty good off-the-cuff response, and not every celebrity can do that. Personally, he is one of my favourite guests on talk shows. He does not take himself too seriously, and he does not expect anyone else to either.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The Making of 'Rocky vs. Drago' (Herzfeld, 2021) - This is not really a "making of", nor is it an interesting documentary. It's Sly "working" on the director's cut of Rocky IV, emphasizing how good of an artist he's become every chance he gets while trying to sound modest. It's on YouTube, but it feels like more of an effort to get through this than it was to put it together. 2/10

Black Widow (Shortland, 2021) - Oh, this one feels like a filler episode on a TV-show. Just like Eternals, it's disappointing to see a director with good potential offering such bland results (and contrarily to Eternals, here the comedic elements are highly detrimental to the film, making it seem even less relevant). I gave 3/10 to the Zhao film, so I guess I should go even lower? 2.75/10? Or maybe 3, and 3.25 to Eternals? Or just 3s everywhere for these bland movies.

I really should go back to the gialli.

 

[kihei]

Personally, this is probably my favourite Antonioni film that I have seen. It is by far his most exciting work, and it is one of the few works that balanced mainstream and arthouse filmmaking quite well. That final long take is a true standout. A lot of film courses studied that scene, and to get that effect where the camera goes through the steel bars, those bars are actually removable.

One of the things that I like most about The Passenger is how it is a compendium of all of Antonioni's favourite themes: alienation, existential ennui, the slippery nature of identity and reality itself, lack of purpose, inadequate values, and a sense of being adrift in the modern world. All of that is in The Passenger, so much so that if I were teaching a course on Antonioni, The Passenger is the first movie that I would begin with and then I would screen earlier films. I would rate The Passenger at or near the bottom of his greatest works (Blow Up, L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse, Red Desert), which is still extremely high praise.

 

[nameless1]

One of the things that I like most about The Passenger is how it is a compendium of all of Antonioni's favourite themes: alienation, existential ennui, the slippery nature of identity and reality itself, lack of purpose, inadequate values, and a sense of being adrift in the modern world. All of that is in The Passenger, so much so that if I were teaching a course on Antonioni, The Passenger is the first movie that I would begin with and then I would screen earlier films. I would rate The Passenger at or near the bottom of his greatest works (Blow Up, L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse, Red Desert), which is still extremely high praise.

His other works might be better, but The Passenger is really the only work that does not leave me with a sense of dread and loneliness. That is why it is by far my favourite out of all his films. In fact, it is probably his last great work.

 

[Osprey]

Spectre (2015) - 3/10

It took me three nights to finish this. What a slog.

No Time to Die (2021) - 4/10

This was a little better. It took me only two nights to finish it. Near the very end, a character sadly says "If only we had more time." You just had over 2.5 hours... on top of nearly the same in Spectre. How much time do you need?

 

[kihei]

After thinking more about its flaws, Belfast drops to a 6A.Funny, now I have two 6s in my top ten. What a bad year.

 

[Chili]

I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang-1932

With his new freedom, a returning war veteran decides to head out on the road to find his calling. While down on his luck, he is drawn into a crime and caught. He is sentenced to hard labour on a chain gang. The treatment of the prisoners is brutal, they are used as cheap labour.

The story has some elements of Les Miserables also reminded me of Cool Hand Luke. Paul Muni in the lead role is very good. The film was largely based on a autobiographical book by Robert Burns. He was an advisor to the film (while still a fugitive!).

Dark drama, very well done.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?-2000

It`s a film about escaping a chain gang. Or is it a film about a well groomed man trying to get home to his wife and family? Or is it a film about some lip synching musicians being discovered? Or...

Anyway it`s entertaining and good fun. Enjoyed it.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Red Notice (Thurber, 2021) - Contrarily to most here, I thought there was a few funny moments in the first half of the film (before RR drops a few of his usual reflexive "jokes", something he can't seem to get away from and that got old quick). Beyond that it becomes a huge snoozefest, they work way too hard to force a few "twists" in there and should have kept it around 90 minutes. It doesn't help that none of these actors are very good, RR kind of looks like a genius among very poor performances by GG (as a 90 lbs master fighter) and The Rock, who despite being a very charismatic person, is never believable as a human being. 4/10

 

[kihei]

I really should go back to the gialli.

I hope not. I like it when you start branching out.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I hope not. I like it when you start branching out.

The whole thing was to get me in the mood to return to the Cattet/Forzani films and to finally watch Un couteau dans le coeur, but it got to an extent where I couldn't see the end of it... I still have 6 or 7 gialli lined up that I wanted to watch or rewatch...

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The Guilty (Fuqua, 2021) – Pretty impressive cast of people you never see in the film. This one is a pure pandemic movie, filmed in a single location with the director away from the set, isolated because of COVID protocols, with mostly only Gyllenhaal on screen (making the whole film sit on his sole performance, which is not bad, but really far from great... he does a lot, and I mean a lot, of tearless crying). I haven't seen the original film, but read on IMDB that the remake is pretty close to it. Honestly, I thought for a long while that the film was meant as a metaphor of a father's helplessness in a separation/divorce case – and as such, I thought it was pretty interesting and driven even if not executed that well. That reading would also have explained some of the film's flaws (and most of all, the non-reaction or lack of concern of everybody around him for a case where a women and kids are in danger), and justified both the "twist"** and the sudden break in focus to the main character's (underwhelming and botched) story at the end. It could have been a pretty interesting film, it's just not. 3.5/10

**

Spoiler

Oh no, you all thought the father was the one to blame, well you're intuitions were crap

Parasite (Bong Joon Ho, 2019) – At last, I've seen it. I managed to get in fresh, with no idea whatsoever about the film except that it had been hyped and winner of all these prizes. I guess my expectations were too high because, though it is a good and fun little film, I wasn't impressed that much, considering all the fuss. I was expecting a serious film, so the comedy might have thrown me off a little. And, more importantly, I was expecting a serious film, and thus a social commentary of a little more depth than The Platform that got out the same year. I know, I know, Parasite is overall a much better film, but its comments on class disparity is of the same order, and not a lot more subtle (stairs and basements might be a little more sophisticated a metaphor than the huge floating platform, but serve the same purpose – the rest might be even easier, the poor family being fumigated like insects, or later crawling and hiding under the table with the crumbs, for example). A weird switch in narrative style got me a little confused at the end, when we suddenly end up with the son's voice-over narration. This is usually a sign of little narrative control when not otherwise justified or part of a larger structural scheme and I couldn't figure it out. 7/10

 

[Osprey]

Pranzo, when kihei said this morning that he likes when you start branching out, I'm not sure that going out on a limb to criticize Parasite is what he had in mind.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Anderson Tapes. A jazzy heist film blending The Italian Job with a dash of The Conversation (yes, I know Anderson came out before The Conversation I'm still using that as a comparison). Late Connery Bond-era Sean Connery playing a charming rogue of a safecracker roped into a big job by the mob. Eclectic assortment of co-horts including a Martin Balsam performance that I can't decide if its dated/offensive or not and a super young Christopher Walken in his film debut. A good time if you like these things. Interesting (though kinda annoying) decision to punctuate a lot of the surveillance moments with a really grating audio screech.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Sweet Sweet Lonely Girl (Calvo, 2016) – I have to admit that it's the poster that convinced me to have a look at this one. Very stylish 70s-like aesthetics, on which the film itself doesn't disappoint either. If you like your films without much exposition/explanations, this might be the one for you. If you like your films to make sense, maybe not so much. It's too bad because it's a slow burn that could have been highly effective, but its suspenseful/horror elements are either too obvious (the focus on that old photo said way too much), or left unexplained and inefficient (the whole ending is rushed and sloppy). Like the very best haunting films, it feels like something you should understand through Nicolas Abraham, it has the crypt, the phantom, the family secret – there's just too many things left in the shadows to make it work. 4.5/10

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Pranzo, when kihei said this morning that he likes when you start branching out, I'm not sure that going out on a limb to criticize Parasite is what he had in mind.

It's still a pretty good film, one of the best I've seen in a while. It's just pretty far - IMO - from the masterpiece I was expecting.

 

[kihei]

Pranzo, when kihei said this morning that he likes when you start branching out, I'm not sure that going out on a limb to criticize Parasite is what he had in mind.

Love the play on words.

But, no, these types of reviews are exactly what I had in mind. PO has a distinctive take on things that sometimes excites thought. It doesn't matter if we agree about the quality of the film in question or not.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Love the play on words.

But, no, these types of reviews are exactly what I had in mind. PO has a distinctive take on things that sometimes excites thought. It doesn't matter if we agree about the quality of the film in question or not.

I love you too, man!

 

[NyQuil]

I love you too, man!

Geez, get a

 

[kihei]

Geez, get a

Well, if we did, it wouldn't be that one.

 

[kihei]

Prisoners of the Ghostland (2021) Directed by Sion Sono 3A

A real bad-ass criminal (Nicolas Cage) is sprung from prison by a nasty warlord who demands he find the warlod's daughter who has run away. To guarantee his compliance, the criminal is forced to wear a leather ensemble that will blow up if he fails to do the job in five days. So let's not waste time here. I have seen a dozen of director Sion Sono's movies, and this one is at the bottom of the barrel by an almost fathomless margin. True, there is some fun eye candy and set design, but otherwise the thing is like one of those movies made to fulfill a contractual obligation that the artist doesn't care about anymore. At his best Sono's movies are both terrific Japanese pop art and, simultaneously, observations about Japanese pop art, a combination that can be almost neo-Godardian when Sono is at the top of his game (Love Exposure, Why Don't You Play in Hell?; Cold Fish; Strange Circus; Tokyo Tribe). Nicolas Cage and Sion Sono seem like a marriage made in heaven as Sono can do gonzo mashups with real flair, but the script for Prisoners of the Ghostland could not be less inspired. It is disappointing that Sono's first film in English is so lacklustre. He didn't participate in the writing of the script, so that's one big thing. But, perhaps, this is the inevitable result that happens when you take a director so in tune with a particular culture out of his natural element.

 

[Osprey]

I hadn't seen any of Sono's other films when I watched it, but I did get the sense that he was a big deal in other markets and that this dud was not his best work. I had a similar reaction and score in my review.

But, no, these types of reviews are exactly what I had in mind. PO has a distinctive take on things that sometimes excites thought. It doesn't matter if we agree about the quality of the film in question or not.

I know, but where's the fun in letting something silly like the truth get in the way of a joke? If I'd known the direction that the thread would go in, on the other hand...

 

[Puck]

I saw the new Bond movie today. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't understand those that didn't. I do get people who did not like Red Notice though. Still decent but the writing was bad there, I agree.

And I agree that Pranzo should get off his jell-0 movies and expand his sights to other fare, he has a good film mind and I like his shtick but it's wasted on some of the content reviewed. Keep at it if you wish, no harm done, but throw us a bone and review other stuff like Annette or Titane.

I enjoy reading most reviews here, thanks guys,

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I saw the new Bond movie today. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't understand those that didn't. I do get people who did not like Red Notice though. Still decent but the writing was bad there, I agree.

And I agree that Pranzo should get off his jell-0 movies and expand his sights to other fare, he has a good film mind and I like his shtick but it's wasted on some of the content reviewed. Keep at it if you wish, no harm done, but throw us a bone and review other stuff like Annette or Titane.

I enjoy reading most reviews here, thanks guys,

Funny how, in the same breath, you can say you enjoyed the last Bond, that Red Notice is a decent film, and that the gialli are a waste... You might want to consider expanding your sights!
(well, I say that and the one I started watching is absolutely terrible, but yeah, the best ones are 100x better than anything Bond related)

I'm the first one to find regrettable my state of laziness and wish I could go back to the times where I could string tens of great films in a row, but hey, the brain juices are getting thin (and again, I'd still watch those gialli even if I could still consider myself an intellectual!).

I'll watch Titane and Annette for sure, all in good time.