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

[kihei]

The Worst Person in the World (2021) Directed Joachim Trier 8A

The Worst Person in the World is so human it aches. Julie is in her mid 20's at the start of the movie and hits 30 or so by the end of it. What happens to her is par for the course, nothing terribly unexpected in a character-study movie: she changes her career path frequently, falls in love with her prof, falls in love again, finds herself in situations of her own making that she nonetheless didn't expect, engages in abrupt endings, and takes a long time to know her own mind, if she ever indeed does. But if the content seems ordinary, director Joachim Trier transforms this stuff of life into art as though he is performing alchemy. I would be surprised if any reasonably socially active person above the age of 30 would not find something here that landed pretty close to home. Director Joachim Trier seems to understand Julie's complesities in a way that Julie doesn't, not fully anyway. He also remembers clearly what it is like to fall in and out of love, sometimes in a heartbeat. Winston Churchill famously said that lovers of sausage and democracy should never require knowledge of how either is made. Maybe you could say the same for the messy process by which humans find and lose one another.

subtitles


Best of '21 so far

1, The Power of the Dog, Campion, New Zealand
2. Drive My Car, Yamaguchi, Japan
3. Annette, Carax, France/US
4. The Worst Person in the World, Trier, Norway
5. The Cloud in Her Room, Zheng, China
6. The Hand of God, Sorrentino, Italy
7. Bergman Island, Hansen-Love, France
8. Identifying Features, Valadez, Mexico
9. Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue, Jia, China (documentary)
10. Azor, Fontana, Argentina

 

[Puck]

10. Velvet Underground, Haynes, US (documentary)

Alas poor Velvet Underground, we hardly knew ye!

 

[member 51464]

10. Velvet Underground, Haynes, US (documentary)

Alas poor Velvet Underground, we hardly knew ye!

I remember when Red Moon Tide was #1 back in April!

 

[nameless1]

Metro Manila-2013

A farmer struggling to make a living, decides to move with his young family to the city and look for work. It all looks bright and promising at first but reality soon sets in as they are swindled of their money. The father is able to find a job with an armoured courier service (a very dangerous job) while the mother finds work as a scantily clad hostess at a bar. Just when things appear to be looking up...Sad, violent, riveting, quite the story. Subtitled on YouTube.

I really enjoyed this one. Not only is it a well-done thriller that keeps the audience engaged with believable and unexpected twists and turns, it also wants to tell a deeper story of poverty and the desperate state of the poor in the Philippines. Overall, the movie is poignant and memorable, and I have it at 7.25/10.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

That's cool, especially that you were able to watch it with your daughter. That must've made it even more surreal.

Spoiler: YouTube video

Was that you that Christmas?

Yeah, I related to more in the movie than I chose to mention. I similarly have a dad who was into woodworking (and even built what the movie dad builds) and bought a camcorder to film us opening presents. In fact, 1988 is the first Christmas of ours that we have on tape. Also, my mom was always making cookies and other baked goods for school and church events that we couldn't touch, so I related with the dad there.

I agree that they could've made it feel more like the 80s, but it's a rather low budget film, so it's partly understandable. One thing that I found kind of funny is that the family looked a lot more 80s than the extras in the mall scene, as if there was wardrobe for only the former while the latter were simply asked to wear their own decade-neutral clothes. Also funny to me was the NES mall kiosk that was never in use when the main character was there. In 1988, that thing would've had a kid on it at all times and several more watching. That was probably the most unrealistic thing about the whole movie for me.

It was definitely fun watching it with my daughter, I suspect the moral of the story will escape her though - even if I keep reminding her.

I was a laid back kid that wasn’t easily excitable, but if I could find that old VHS when my dad surprised me with the NES, I know I was jumping around like a goober.

It was the only gift I ever got in my life that got me so excited that I acted that way, which was totally agt my personality.

It will always be my favorite Christmas memory for what I was given.

My mom wasn’t a baker or a particularly good cook, so I wish I could relate to that part with you - but my wife and I have made up for that over the years.

The kiosk comment made me crack up. Totally unrealistic.

One had to have the strength and courage of He-Man to step into those mosh pits, just to get maybe five minutes of NES bliss.

 

[Chili]

I really enjoyed this one. Not only is it a well-done thriller that keeps the audience engaged with believable and unexpected twists and turns, it also wants to tell a deeper story of poverty and the desperate state of the poor in the Philippines. I have it at 7.25/10.

Found it thought provoking, reminded me some of The Grapes of Wrath in a different setting, handbills and all. A memorable film.

 

[kihei]

I remember when Red Moon Tide was #1 back in April!

Actually, I'm thinking of watching that again to see if recency bias has influenced my rankings. Currently stands at #13 behind The Green Knight. In my defense, I must point out that nothing very interesting of quality came out for the longest time this year, but 12 places seems like a big drop.

 

[kihei]

The book comes in handly lately:

Metro Manila (2013), Directed by Sean Ellis 7B

With their two little girls, Oscar and Mai move from rural Philippines where farmers can no longer make even a subsistence living to the big city of Manila. Once in Manila the family lives in abject poverty and become targets for con-artists. Eventually Oscar meets Ong, who befriends him and helps him land a job as an armored truck guard. Oscar may have caught a break; then again, maybe he hasn’t. The first hour is a straightforward neo-realist account of the little family's struggles in the hard, mean city. But once Oscar starts driving around in an armored truck, the movie suddenly begins to develop a great deal of tension and suspense. The plot eventually takes a major turn, and when it does, all I can say is that I sure didn't see it coming. For once, exciting action and serious themes are knit together tightly and convincingly. If you can tolerate the deliberate pacing, Metro Manila is definitely worth a look.

So another thumb's up in terms of the general concensus.

 

[Byron Bitz]

S.W.A.T. 7/10

This 2003 Colin Farrel film blew my low expectations out of the water. Some amazing action sequences and the story kept me intrigued throughout. Jeremy Renner stole the show in his breakthrough role as the main antagonist.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Premonition (Yapo, 2007) - I guess I'm in a Sandra Bullock frenzy - thanks to Netflix's recommandation, this is my second Bullock film this week, which might be as much as I'd ever seen before. This one plays with the timeline and tries things narratively, but always falls short of doing anything interesting. It feels like it's a very distant cousin to interesting stuff, Robbe-Grillet's La jalousie, or Sautet's Les choses de la vie, but despite its clear efforts to be a little dark and unpredictable, it lacks the depth to be considered as anything else than a low-end commercial flick. 4/10

 

[kihei]

Cliff Walkers (2021) Directed by Zhang Yimou 6B

How much of a deal breaker is convolution, serious convolution? Chinese director Zhang Yimou's first foray into the spy thriller genre is confusing from the very beginning when two couples, trained in the Soviet Union, parachute into a snowy woods in Manchukuo in the 1930's. The scene is so beautifully shot that I didn't even mind the confusion that quickly ensued.

And that's sort of the way it went throughhout the movie. The plot, something about rescuing a revolutiionary from evil clutches, gets throroughly lost amidst all the plot twists and all the double crosses, secret codes, and double and possibly triple, and who knows, maybe quintuple secret agents. But while the plot is hard to follow all this absolutely gorgeous cinematography is taking place and some great set pieces were grabbing my attention--a '30s car chase on snowy streets; spies galore trying to outsmart one another on a train; and the aforementioned parachuting into snowy trees, to name a few. I could at least appreciate these dazzling sequences individually even if I couldn't plug them into an actual context.

Zhang is an iconic director who makes the most beautiful movies to gaze upon on the planet, his visual flair is absolutely audacious and second to none, maybe in the history of cinema: Ju Dou; Raise the Red Lantern; Hero; House of Flying Daggers; Curse of the Golden Flower; Shadow; and now this one, among others). His gift is so jaw-dropping that I tend to forgive him the awkward plot foible, though he is really asking a lot of his fans in Cliff Walkers. So to answer my initial question: How much of a deal breaker is serious convolution? Not much in Zhang's case; I had fun anyway. And by the way, just for good measure, the title has nothing to do with anything.

subtitles

 

[kihei]

Rewatched Red Moon Tide, a thoroughly unconventionally-told folktale about a grieving mother, witches, a timeless sea monster, and a sailor missing at sea told largely through images, sound and voice overs, and it is a unique experience. I could make a case for it anywhere from #6 through #14 of my current yearly picks. Red Moon Tide probably dropped more because it seemed in retrospect like a fascinating and original curiosity rather than something more substantial. Mesmerizing piece of work, though--could definitely move up significantly in my final rankings.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

Venom let there be Carnage I'm not going to write a big detailed review because I don't need to.

Did you like thefirst movie? Then you'll probably like this even if PG-13 Carnage does not work because of course it doesn't.

If you didn't like the first movie then you might not like this.

 

[kihei]

Drive My Car, The Worst Person in the World and The Hand of God make the Academy Award international film shortlist. As well, Procession, Velvet Underground and The Rescue make the documentary short list. Good luck to them all.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Lethal Weapon (1987) - 7/10

Mel Gibson wasn't mad enough in Mad Max so they told him to try to go all out here and it leads to a bit of cheesy fun but sadly takes way too long to really get tense, not until the final third and even then it's a bit clumsy. Watchable because of good chemistry but Die Hard was much better (and Die Hard 3).

 

[NyQuil]

Lethal Weapon (1987) - 7/10

Mel Gibson wasn't mad enough in Mad Max so they told him to try to go all out here and it leads to a bit of cheesy fun but sadly takes way too long to really get tense, not until the final third and even then it's a bit clumsy. Watchable because of good chemistry but Die Hard was much better (and Die Hard 3).

I love the hilariously kitshy acting from the drug dealer in town.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Gator Bait (Sebastian & Sebastian, 1973) - The part and the movie was written for its star, a Playboy playmate, so the expectations are naturally quite high but, surprise, this ain't the sleaze masterpiece you'd think it'd be. It all starts perfectly well, the sherrif's son hunts down a foxy lady that lives in the swamps to rape her, things go bad and he ends up killing his mate and putting the blame on her. A little rapy expedition is then organized and the sherrif recruits the dead boy's white trash family (we meet them while the father's whipping his son in the yard for trying to rape his own sister). All fine and dandy, up 'til there the film feels like a soft cross between I Spit On Your Grave and The Farmer's Daughters, with some of the most laughable acting I'd seen in a while. But no, this ain't no freak show, just a very poor movie, with cruise speed boat chasing scenes, and senior citizen fights. Funny stuff, not hilarious. The playmate's part doesn't include much dialogue (as expected), but not much skin either - still, Swamp Thing probably wished he'd end up in that swamp and not with Adrienne Barbeau. 1/10

 

[heatnikki]

The Power of the Dog.

Great performances from Cumberbatch, Dunst and Plemones. Worth a watch

 

[KlausJopling]

Being the Ricardos (free on Amazon Prime)

The movie did not need the present-day interview scenes at all. They served no purpose to explaining the story, in most cases you didn't know who the characters with that matched up with the past characters, were not acted or shot very well. And that fact that it starts with them doesn't help.

Some of the threads they go down make no sense and are in opposition of each other, and kind of seem ham fisted in there in the wrong way. The whole women of different generations and Viviane losing weight scenes probably needed to be in a movie about I Love Lucy but i dont think they were handled well. Main issue is with the whole thread about Desi not getting credit. Issue one we never really see Desi have an issue Lucy being the boss on set. Two, having a man be the one to tell Lucy this probably not the right choice (especially when the character most likely to know Desi's true role is a women, the writer). Three, it doesn't match with what the viewers see which is all the behind the scenes stuff where Desi is solving all the problems and Lucy is just indifferent to 2 of the problems and mad about the other but doesnt really do anything about it other than continually bring it up to everyone. And the fact that Desi has all of the best lines in this film. So when we have the scene explaining to us he doesn't get credit it makes no sense. Did not look into it but not sure what is going on with Nicole Kidman's face, at first i thought it was just to differentiate between Lucy during the show and Lucy when they first met, but scene to scene it seems to be different. Again for Sorkin, probably a film that would be better with him writing and not Directing.


For me Javier Bardem's performance is the best part of this film. And maybe a reason to see it even with the issues.

 

[OzzyFan]

The Matrix Resurrectons (2021)
2.75 out of 4stars

"To find out if his reality is a physical or mental construct, Mr. Anderson, aka Neo, will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more. If he's learned anything, it's that choice, while an illusion, is still the only way out of -- or into -- the Matrix. Neo already knows what he has to do, but what he doesn't yet know is that the Matrix is stronger, more secure and far more dangerous than ever before."
Probably one of the more fearless big budget sequels ever with it's offbeat choices and decisions. It's overstuffed with commentary on everything...including itself, sequels, mental illness, existentialism politics, society, individualism, religion, and love. Yeah, it's a lot to take in. There are also action sequences that are great, comedy that earns it's laughs, a story that touches the heart and keeps the brain active, and characters you like and care for (it helps knowing them previously, but Keanu earns his sympathy and he and Moss are great together and apart). It's not perfect though. It's a bit choppy and uneven, some of the meta stuff is repetitve and has near clone scenes/speeches which are cute the first time but beating a dead horse after the fifth time, and a couple of the action sequences are done incoherently. All that said, it's an incredibly refreshing gamble of a sequel that is never boring, unless you don't want to sit through the slower more cerebral moments and were only longing for action and straight up sci-fi, which would then make you hate a large part of the first quarter of the movie.

Better Watch Out (2016)
2.70 out of 4stars

"Ashley travels to the suburban home of the Lerners to baby-sit their 12-year-old son Luke at Christmastime. She must soon defend herself and the young boy when unwelcome intruders announce their arrival."
Christmas horror comedy movie that is full of twists and wit. This is another one of those "the twists kick in early and often" movies where I can't say too much without ruining it, nor do I suggest reading much about the movie going in if you choose to see it. That said, the best way to describe it would be part mildly raunchy comedy in a fun good way, part bad plan unraveling, and part nightmare.

Dead End (2003)
2.70 out of 4stars

"Christmas Eve. On his way to his in-laws with his family, Frank Harrington decides to try a shortcut, for the first time in 20 years. It turns out to be a big mistake."
Twilight Zone-esque Christmas horror comedy that I feel people are either going to enjoy or hate. I personally really enjoyed it and found it interesting, but I feel some could find the ride and it's characters annoying and making subpar choices. I'll argue against that angle by saying that the characters are a dysfunctional family whose emotions are bursting through the surface with everyone on edge in one way or another. And you could probably guess the twist, which I hear has gotten mixed results for it's decision, but this one is all about the journey. The journey plays with your mind in all the right ways, and I don't know if budget or creative choices were the reason for some decisions made, but it definitely lets your imagination run a little wild with joy. Sure, I wish the twist was more fantastic and climactic, but it's not a poor choice imo, but arguably one that prevents this movie from becoming a "great"/"cult classic" horror movie. Low budget and made a ton of money in DVD sales (yes, you read that right, made $76million~ PROFIT in DVD sales).

Rare Exports (2010) (subtitles)
2.55 out of 4stars

"On Christmas Eve in Finland, Santa Claus is unearthed in an archaeological dig. Soon after, children start disappearing, leading a boy and his father to capture Santa and, with the help of fellow hunters, they look to sell him back to the corporation that sponsored the dig."
A somewhat clever Finnish Christmas comedy horror. It pretty much spins Santa into a Krampus figure. I'm quite surprised it's rated R, for language and nudity apparently, the latter mostly unnecessary and the former could have been worked around. This feels like it is and would be a great movie for adolescent aged 'kids' and enjoyable for adults too. I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I should, and that's probably because early on I didn't 'buy into' the slower burn/more uneventful 'childhood wonder'/'coming of age' elements that were earlier on in the movie. That said, the twists are fun, acting is surprisingly great, and the last 3rd of the movie or so really comes alive.

A Christmas Horror Story (2015)
2.35 out of 4stars

"Interwoven stories that take place on Christmas Eve in a small town that is suddenly plagued with malevolent spirits, zombie elves and Krampus. A family brings home more than a Christmas tree, a student documentary becomes a living nightmare, a Christmas spirit terrorizes, and Santa slays evil."
Definitely doesn't live up to the premise it throws at you, but there is still Christmas horror fun to be had. As with movies that interweave 4+ separate stories simultaneously, anything that isn't of similar quality to the other stories sticks out. Sadly in this movie, the most fun story has the least screentime. That said, the other 3 stories do have their own merits and mischief and 'lessons' and are entertaining enough, but this movie is at it's best when it's trying to be more funny and less serious (which feels a bit too often imo). Tightly paced and breezy low brow fun.

The Children (2008)
2.30 out of 4stars

"A relaxing Christmas vacation turns into a terrifying fight for survival as their children begin to mysteriously turn on their parents."
Christmas horror movie that has good ideas that are executed less than par. The concept of a virus/bacteria causing aggression and/or mental blackouts has been done before and after better, but the way the kids/parents horror relationship is done was well thought out. Great job on playing on the whole kids as unsuspecting murderers/non-threatening 'beings', parents blind love/forgiveness, and even parents sometimes overregarded sense of their children. All the side story elements are mostly rubbish, as the brits would say about this low budget brit movie.

Cliff Walkers (2021) Directed by Zhang Yimou 6B

subtitles

Where and/or how did you see Cliff Walkers?

 

[ItsFineImFine]

This new Matrix Resurrections movie is bad. Started out intriguing but man this is like a B movie with a big budget isn't it? Cramming a bunch of big vague sci-fi words doesn't turn it into a good world. The acting is B-level too. Halfway in and I could not give less of a shit.

 

[mouser]

Nightmare Alley (7/10)

Filled with a wide slate of great actors and performances, Del Toro is still at the top of his game with his usual wonderful cinematography.

Yet felt the pace of the story was a little too plodding. I can’t put my finger on any part I’d remove since the acting is so good, but I think Del Toro should have found a way to cut out 20 minutes of this movie, or adjusted the story for a better pace of plot development.

I did really enjoy the movie, for perspective I’d give Del Toro’s previous movie The Shape of Water a 9.5/10 rating.

 

[kihei]

Where and/or how did you see Cliff Walkers?

I tried to PM you the site, but oddly a message to you is not possible for some reason. PM me and we can try doing it that way.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Cry Macho (2021) 5/10

Probably the worst film in Clint Eastwood's career. What was the point? If it wasn't for the rooster saving the day, it would score even lower.

Sick Boy's Unifying Theory of Life.

 

[kihei]

C'mon C'mon (2021) Directed by Mike Mills 7B

Through family circumstances beyond Johnny's (Joaquin Phoenix) control, he takes on the task of looking after his semi-estranged sister's nine-year-old boy Jesse (Woody Norman) for a few weeks. Trying to get over the death of a parent, Johnny has been working on a project in which he records children's answers to some fairly cosmic questions. He has to learn how to fit Jesse into his work and more than anything else, doing so requires learning how to listen to the child. C'mon C'mon is a low key movie in black and white that stays entirely away from cutesy antics and cheap or easy sentiments. In fact, the film presents a child/adult relationship with greater empathy and honesty than any similar movie that I can remember. This is not a feel-good movie, but neither is it a downer. C'mon C'mon is an observant movie about the nature of family, about what drives us crazy and about what comforts and protects us. While Phoenix never really gets out of third gear, Norman provides a wonderful portrait of how demanding but rewarding children can be. As one critic pointed out, director Mike Mills can engage in a bit too much navel gazing along the way. However, he creates a movie with the ring of messy truth about it.