Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate it | {Insert Appropriate Seasonal Greeting Here}

[kihei]

Passages (2023) Directed by Ira Sachs 6C

Tomas (Franz Rogowski), a guy with no redeeming values whatsoever, is at the centre of a toxic love triangle. Though he already has a partner Martin (Ben Whishaw), he decides to dabble in a heterosexual affair with Agathe (Adele Exarchopoulos). After their first sexual encounter with Agathe, Tomas runs right home to tell Martin about it. Dumb thing to do but Tomas is such a complete narcissist that he doesn't even notice stuff like that. During the rest of the movie he bounces back and forth between the two getting the most out of what the traffic will allow. His behaviour is so totally obnoxious, uncaring and stupendously indulgent that it is a wonder that either of his lovers puts up with him. His character is neither leavened by humour, charm or intelligence. A wannabe movie director, the most interesting thing about Tomas is his patchwork wardrobe, a collection of strange fashion rejects from various periods.

It would be easy to pan this movie because Tomas is the only developed character in it. Both Martin and Agathe are basically blanks--on the page, I assume, they would be closer to department store mannequins than believable people. They are just there as foils. Whishaw has the skill to give Martin some dimension, but Exarchopoulos remains a featureless cipher. This, of course, increases the focus on the repellent Tomas so, like his lovers, we are sort of stuck with him. Set in Paris but with English the spoken language, Passages seems like an homage to French director Maurice Pialat with a little bit of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder thrown in, both primarily naturalistic artists who were not afraid, or actually seemed to prefer, to focus on creeps. As a result, the shortcomings of the movie seem deliberately baked in--Sachs seems to want us to confront this character and examine our own reactions to Tomas. Something like being told by your mother to eat your spinach because it is somehow good for you.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Gone in 60 Seconds(2000) - 6.5/10

Re-watched this Nic Cage classic for the first time in a while. I dunno if I have a certain nostalgia for an early 2000s cheesy B action flick, or if it legitimately held up surprisingly well. Cage plays Memphis, the elder reformed ex car thief who is forced back in the game when his younger cockier decidedly unreformed car thief brother gets on a local gangster's bad side when a heist goes bad. To save his brother's life Memphis assembles the old crew, the gang, the posse. It is quite a cast of B and C listers (Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Delroy Lindo, Will Patton, Robert Duvall, Timothy Olyphant, Chi McBride, Scott Caan, Michael Pena) always enjoy Vinnie Jones beating people up.

The action is well shot, couple good car chases, shootouts, stealing cars and then some more stealing cars. Despite all the bravado in the character, Cage is actually fairly reserved for him in this movie. Probably due to the strength of the cast I'm guessing. The whole faux grungy LA underground warehouse thing got played out definitely back in that era but I'm still here for it. Satisfying rising action and climax makes this a thumbs up re-watch.

She Said(2022) - 7.5/10

Really important story they tell here. Quality gripping investigative drama that mostly sticks to the facts of the two journalists and the many many women involved in the NY Times article documenting Harvey Weinstein's sexual misconduct in Hollywood. Avoids heavy handed editorializing or pushing misandrist ideologies at all.

The film rather largely focuses on the power structures that enable abusers to continue their misconduct. It offers a mature and sober look at how people are valued and how power dynamics can lead to toxic untenable situations. I thought I knew the story mostly, but the sheer extent of it and especially that Weinstein's behavior was apparently very common knowledge for decades made me a little sick. Not going to claim this movie drastically changed my general outlook on people in positions of power, I've been a cynic for a long time, but certainly some of the perspectives expressed weren't something I had often considered.

Well edited, very polished. Lots of bright well lit establishing shots. Narratively there was some lull but several strong short interviews carried a lot. Some strong performances, liked Carey Mulligan, Andre Braughner, Patricia Clarkson. Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow appeared as themselves. Can't say I cared for Zoe Kazan, just a little too doe eyed or something. All in all I found it a somber serious look at a significant story that changed the social landscape for men and women alike. The power of the press has certainly been diminished and dulled in the last decade but She Said reinforced for me that proper journalism still has a lot of value.

 

[kihei]

Pain Hustlers (2023) Directed by David Yates 3A

A terrible movie about how unscrupulous pharmaceutical salespeople basically bribe doctors to prescribe dangerous, poorly tested opioids for pain relief, creating thousands upon thousands of addicts in the process, Pain Hustlers in so lame, so uninspired, so melodramatic, so devoid of likeable people that it is not worth reviewing further. So I will just throw in some off-the-cuff impressions.

Why does anyone think Chris Evans can act? I haven't seen most of his comic book stuff, but of the non-superhero movies which he has been in, he seems like a giant black hole in the centre of the screen who makes less memorable every scene that contains him. To slightly paraphrase a Bette Davis line in regard to a young starlet, he has all the range from "A" to "B."

One of the things that is really weird about this movie is the number of actors, including Emily Blunt, who appear to have a strange, grainy skin disease. Odd quirk of the filming process, perhaps. Who knows? To her credit, though, she is the polar opposite of Chris Evans. How can you not like Emily Blunt? She can't save this movie, though. Being a villain and then a hero--well, you can't have it both ways, not with that much blood on your hands. It's disappointing to see her in terrible material like this.

What percentage of Netflix movies are even marginally good movies? 10%? 5% 1% They've got money to burn, so why aren't they green-lighting better scripts? Do they care? Does it matter? Is there bottom line not effected one way or the other? Is it a case of just throw enough "product" against the wall and enough people will watch it regardless of quality? Kind of depressing.

Is it too early in the season to go "Bah, humbug."

 

[pegcity]

Killers of Flower Moon. I'm assuming it will get a best picture nomination. Maybe even win it.

Top 3 movie for me this year. Others were Blackberry and Guardians of Galaxy 3.

 

[kihei]

Killers of Flower Moon. I'm assuming it will get a best picture nomination. Maybe even win it.

Top 3 movie for me this year. Others were Blackberry and Guardians of Galaxy 3.

Oppenheimer will give it strong competition. But it is an extraordinarily weak year, one of the weakest in memory (and I have a long, long memory), so I think already it is down to a two picture race.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Rewatched for the zillionth time:

7.5/10

 

[Voodoo Child]

I mean…it was okay but you’d have to go back to Shutter Island to find a bigger miss for Marty.

An historical epic in a similar vein as Gangs of New York, if you take out DDL, Cameron Diaz (Though Lily Gladstone was very good) and Leo doesn’t give his best performance but he was serviceable.

Speaking of Gangs of New York - where was the climactic set piece? Gangs had Amsterdam vs the Butcher in the streets as the cannonballs flew…this had a court case and then a meta dick pull at the end where it’s presented as a true crime story? Weak.

Even a de-aged DeNiro showed he still has chops instead of mailing it in.

Excellent soundtrack and cinematography, good performances but far, far too bloated - could have shaved off at least 45 minutes of run time.

7/10

Edit: There Will be Blood is a far superior movie.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Slotherhouse ... is not good. BUT it's also not bad. For a knowing, intentionally goofy horror movie (killer sloth attacks a sorority) it actually is well put together and decently polished, which is to say it at the very least looks like a professional job, which I appreciate. Many movies can't even clear that bar. The cast is ok, though the comic relief character made some awful performance choices that grated on me in every scene. No one is too winky though. I can see how it could be a good time for some. I can at least say it wasn't a bad time for me.

The Unknown. A devilishly effective Tod Browning sideshow-set silent flick (staring Lon Chaney Jr. and Joan Crawford). Chaney's armless knife thrower (he uses his feet) Alonzo has an unrequited love Crawford's comely Nanon but a more strapping strong man stands in his way. Obsession and sadness and deception abound, but I wouldn't want to spoil any of the story's delights including its thrilling climax. Chaney's face, man. It puts in work.

 

[Babe Ruth]

Angel Eyes. (2001)

I had seen this years ago, as a Saturday afternoon hangover movie (probably on the WB or something). But it was generic enough, that I completely forgot its plot.
J-Lo plays a Chicago cop, who meets a mysterious widower. Typical J-Lo 'chick flick' in a lot of respects.. but it does have some good moments on dealing with the pain of the past.
Very strong early 2ooos vibe, and (honestly) not bad.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Cure. Been wanting to watch this for a long time and had planned to include it in my annual horror movie marathon, but I had my mind set on making double features and having not seen this and only knowing a 1-2 sentence summary of the movie I didn't know what the appropriate pairing would be. Having seen it now, I think The Vanishing would work nicely though that makes for a pretty bleak four hour sitting. This one is hard for me to talk about because I don't want to use words like transfixing or hypnotic since hypnosis is a key part of the plot, but damned if I can't find better or less on-the-nose ways to share my feelings. The elements of this are all familiar — the character types, the story beats — but it's executed in such a way it just FEELS more original than it really is. It's the sort of unsettling thriller that just kinda latches onto your brain (hence my The Vanishing comp). Bet it only appreciates on future watches.

Phantom of the Paradise. For my money, Brian De Palma's most enjoyable movie. There's a lot of fun to be had with all the verve and perversity in his darker efforts, but this Phantom of the Opera/Faust/Picture of Dorian Gray mashup rock opera operates with such an unabashed zany glee, it swoops me up every time. Richard Lester's Phantom of the Opera. Big and broad and colorful and poppy. CORNY, maybe even, to some. Not me. This is one of those "We're young, let's throw it all on the screen because we may never get to do this again!!" type of movies and that energy translates, baby. Hey, did George Lucas steal ideas for Darth Vader from this?

 

[flyersnorth]

The Purge: Election Year

It was ok, though it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. It's full of cliches and surface level political commentary, but isn't very compelling in any regard.

Was a fun watch to kill time around Halloween but it's pretty vapid.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Rewatched for the zillionth time:

7.5/10

What about its sequel? I'm a big fan of part 2.

Cure. Been wanting to watch this for a long time and had planned to include it in my annual horror movie marathon, but I had my mind set on making double features and having not seen this and only knowing a 1-2 sentence summary of the movie I didn't know what the appropriate pairing would be. Having seen it now, I think The Vanishing would work nicely though that makes for a pretty bleak four hour sitting. This one is hard for me to talk about because I don't want to use words like transfixing or hypnotic since hypnosis is a key part of the plot, but damned if I can't find better or less on-the-nose ways to share my feelings. The elements of this are all familiar — the character types, the story beats — but it's executed in such a way it just FEELS more original than it really is. It's the sort of unsettling thriller that just kinda latches onto your brain (hence my The Vanishing comp). Bet it only appreciates on future watches.

Phantom of the Paradise. For my money, Brian De Palma's most enjoyable movie. There's a lot of fun to be had with all the verve and perversity in his darker efforts, but this Phantom of the Opera/Faust/Picture of Dorian Gray mashup rock opera operates with such an unabashed zany glee, it swoops me up every time. Richard Lester's Phantom of the Opera. Big and broad and colorful and poppy. CORNY, maybe even, to some. Not me. This is one of those "We're young, let's throw it all on the screen because we may never get to do this again!!" type of movies and that energy translates, baby. Hey, did George Lucas steal ideas for Darth Vader from this?

Body Double and Blow Out are masterpieces to me, but Phantom of the Paradise, which also works a lot on intertextual bravado, is close behind.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

What about its sequel? I'm a big fan of part 2.

Amityville II is fantastic up until after the murder sequences.

Then it just turns into a shitty Exorcist ripoff.

 

[Nakatomi]

Angel Eyes. (2001)

I had seen this years ago, as a Saturday afternoon hangover movie (probably on the WB or something). But it was generic enough, that I completely forgot its plot.
J-Lo plays a Chicago cop, who meets a mysterious widower. Typical J-Lo 'chick flick' in a lot of respects.. but it does have some good moments on dealing with the pain of the past.
Very strong early 2ooos vibe, and (honestly) not bad.

I recall thinking it had the potential to go in some very interesting directions with the mysterious character but then it just....didn't. Jennifer Lopez was solid in her role, but all together fairly forgettable as a film, imo.

 

[kihei]

What about its sequel? I'm a big fan of part 2.

Body Double and Blow Out are masterpieces to me, but Phantom of the Paradise, which also works a lot on intertextual bravado, is close behind.

I never got over how Blow Out was a rip off of Blow Up, a serious sin in my book.

 

[kihei]

Slotherhouse ... is not good. BUT it's also not bad. For a knowing, intentionally goofy horror movie (killer sloth attacks a sorority) it actually is well put together and decently polished, which is to say it at the very least looks like a professional job, which I appreciate. Many movies can't even clear that bar. The cast is ok, though the comic relief character made some awful performance choices that grated on me in every scene. No one is too winky though. I can see how it could be a good time for some. I can at least say it wasn't a bad time for me.

I take it as a given that the movie is slow moving.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I never got over how Blow Out was a rip off of Blow Up, a serious sin in my book.

I really don't think it is. It clearly alludes to it and invites the spectator to investigate this intertext - and I think it establishes a dialogue with Antonioni's film about representation and referentiality that is just thesis-worthy, kind of like Kiarostami did with his Koker trilogy.

Amityville II is fantastic up until after the murder sequences.

Then it just turns into a shitty Exorcist ripoff.

I read that Damiani (who is a great director) wanted to go much further with a lot of the "shocking" elements of the film, but was restrained by production and was forced to try to stick to the Wallace screenplay (which has indeed a very poor and unoriginal ending). That's really too bad.

 

[Babe Ruth]

I recall thinking it had the potential to go in some very interesting directions with the mysterious character but then it just....didn't. Jennifer Lopez was solid in her role, but all together fairly forgettable as a film, imo.

Yeah, at the very end.. my wife's disgruntled reaction was "That's the ending?"
I mentioned in my first post, I saw it probably 15 years earlier, but barely remembered it.. and I assume my wife also watched/forgot it before.. but I actually appreciate that about J-Lo movies. They're generic entertainment that can be completely forgotten, but enjoyed again at a future time when you're laid up sick or hungover..

 

[kihei]

The Killer (2023) Directed by David Fincher 4A

The first ten minutes of The Killer are brilliant as Michael Fassbinder's multi-named assassin meticulously goes about setting up a kill while informing us of his overarching philosophy at the same time. I thought to myself. oh, boy, this is going to be fun. But it wasn't. There is a bare bones narrative. To keep it vague: something unexpected happens; some people are very upset about it; then our assassin gets pissed off by that lot and starts evening up the score. The movie is like a series of set pieces where the killer confronts the various bad guys and takes vengeance, just like we were in a more pretentious Liam Neeson movie or something. Director David Fincher is indulging in an exercise of pure style here, taking a genre turn, with no other purpose remotely in mind. He gets a lovely little cameo from Tilda Swinton, but that's it. The Killer is easily his worst film since The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

For a guy who has basically been on sabbatical for the last four years, The Killer represents a curious return to the screen for Fassbinder because he literally has nothing to do but look cool and lethal--a Steve McQueen role, in other words. His killer makes a point of pride about being free from emotions, and that doesn't leave an actor as skilled as Fassbinder any wiggle-room whatsoever--there is no arc to his character at all. It's not a bad performance. But for an actor of Fassbinder's range, it just seems like an ill-chosen waste of time. My time, too..

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Cure. Been wanting to watch this for a long time and had planned to include it in my annual horror movie marathon, but I had my mind set on making double features and having not seen this and only knowing a 1-2 sentence summary of the movie I didn't know what the appropriate pairing would be. Having seen it now, I think The Vanishing would work nicely though that makes for a pretty bleak four hour sitting. This one is hard for me to talk about because I don't want to use words like transfixing or hypnotic since hypnosis is a key part of the plot, but damned if I can't find better or less on-the-nose ways to share my feelings. The elements of this are all familiar — the character types, the story beats — but it's executed in such a way it just FEELS more original than it really is. It's the sort of unsettling thriller that just kinda latches onto your brain (hence my The Vanishing comp). Bet it only appreciates on future watches.

I'm not into horror films or suchlike but Cure is one of the best made modern films and certainly psychological thrillers I've ever seen. Not necessarily the most enjoyable for me but the way it's filmed and shot is unbelievably well-done.

 

[Ben Grimm]

A Haunting in Venice is already on cable.

 

[End of Line]

Hallloween (1978) 10/10

Halloween (2018} 7/10

Halloween Kills (2021) 8/10

 

[KapG]

The Covenant

5/5

 

[Sentinel]

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙 (2023). A mediocre but pretentious courtroom drama. A small man (Tommy Lee Jones) takes on a Big Bad Corporation that defrauded him. He does it with the help of a mouth-running, Bentley-driving, private jet-flying, gold-guzzling lawyer (Jamie Foxx). There are two massive downfalls here. First, the lawyer is, in fact, terrible. He and his team make every textbook mistake a trial lawyer can make, from openly bickering with his team in the courtroom to harassing witnesses to putting both his client *and* his own colleague on the stand to be skewered. Sure, we all love courtroom dramas where a hotshot attorney undergoes transformation, and their character development actually makes up the film’s substance: from 𝑀𝑦 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛 𝑉𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑦 to 𝐴 𝐹𝑒𝑤 𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑀𝑒𝑛 to 𝐴 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝐾𝑖𝑙𝑙. But nothing like that happens here. The lawyer is still the same. He is a loudmouth, fact-twisting, incompetent jerk who only has two things going for him: he manipulates the jury's emotions to make it forget the facts of the matter and he is black in a predominantly black courtroom. He keeps asking the defendant “How much does your plane cost?” to which the defendant gives a perfect answer “How much does yours?”, after which my sympathies wholly belonged to the Big Bad Corporation. The second downfall is that “the small man” and his lawyer literally have no case. There was no contract that the Big Bad Corporation breached. This contract was never signed. And without a signed contract there is no crime. Sure, we all love courtroom dramas where a small man takes on a Big Bag Corporation and brings it down: from 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑅𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑟 to 𝑅𝑢𝑛𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝐽𝑢𝑟𝑦. But in this case, there is no case. As my wife said, “everything I’ve been taught in law school and everything that I practice daily is discarded by emotional manipulation.” Yes, this movie is based on real events. I don’t want to know what these events were because if they were anything like this movie’s depiction, they constituted a gross miscarriage of justice. Oh, and Jamie Foxx acts his role like he is trying to be both Django and Dr. Schulz at once. 2/10

=====
𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑆𝑎𝑑𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 (2022). A black comedy from a Swedish director Ruben Östlund that received a standing ovation at the Cannes festival. A grotesque social satire that takes no prisoners and has all the finesse and subtlety of a steamhammer. A pair of fashion models start a relationship, go on a fancy yacht cruise, and end up on a desert island. This movie does not pretend to be even remotely realistic. It's an allegory of all social ills and issues, from inequality to gender roles, crammed together in a 2.5 hrs in-your-face carnival of disgust. Oh, look: rich people on a ship are suffering from seasickness in the middle of a storm, caught between vomiting and diarrhea, and their toilets are malfunctioning! How revolutionary (if you never saw Monty Python)! The message is clear: rich people are full of sh*t (a rich Russian Jew says "I sell sh*t" more times than I could count, in both a private conversation and over the yacht's PA system). Speaking of sh*t: after a shipwreck (or should I say "sh*twreck"?), only eight people survive, and the only one with any survival skills is a yacht's "toilet manager" (and she clearly had not been good at her work either – see above). There is not one likable character in this film, in part because the characters are not really human – they are cardboard cutouts for cliches. At times the director feels the need to introduce new characters without any justification: a drunk and incompetent Marxist captain (played reasonably well by Woody Harrelson), a black pirate (??), etc. The social issues are addressed with varying degrees of incredulity but the biggest sin here is that over the last hour, I couldn't wait for this film to end. It bored me. The only sympathetic emotion I felt was AFTER the film ended, having learned that Charlbi Dean (the lead actress) died at 32 before the film was even released. 3/10

 

[Sentinel]

Sabotage (1936) - 7/10

Solid early Hitchcock about a man who becomes a saboteur for the money. It's maybe a bit more humanistic than his later work and really doesn't focus much on the suspense at all. More low-key direction would've suited him in some of his later films but this is a good short watch.

Masculin, Feminin (1966) - 6/10

Antoine Doinel is the greatest villain in film history. Of course he's not in this movie but it's basically the actor playing the same neurotic character even if it's a Godard film instead of Truffaut. Truffaut had more respect for film as a media instead of trying to re-invent it with every cut to the point of distraction like Godard does but you do get some gems in between the schizophrenic scenes.

Never heard of him. What movie / character was he in?

Usually, the greatest villain in film history is either Anthony Hopkins or James Earl Jones.

My list:

HM: Amy Eliotte-Dunne (Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl)
10. Scorpio (Andy Robinson, Dirty Harry)
9. Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez, Pan's Labyrinth)
8. SS Commander Goeth (Ralph Fieness, The Schindler's List)
7. Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher, One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest)
6. T1000 (Robert Patrick, Terminator 2)
5. Darth Vader (James Earl Jones, Star Wars)
4. Dr. Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs)
3. Mitch Leary (John Malkovich, In the Line of Fire)
2. John Doe (Kevin Spacey, Seven)
1. Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine, Silence of the Lambs)

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

I'll watch a musical if I can skip past the musical bits but 10 minutes in, I realized this was not just a musical, they sang EVERY friggin line. Nah, I can't do that, left it at that but it looked like it had some nice scenery for anyone who can sit through it.

I thought it was cute, with the main musical line known to every child.

Mystic River (2003) - 6.5/10

Impactful is the word I'd use even if Eastwood tries to force it to be emotionally impactful with a baseball bat at times. Quite melodramatic with Sean Penn over-acting and everyone basically on edge for the entire film which sets up for a good opening third and an exhausting overall viewing experience. Oh and African-American actor Laurence Fishbourne, plays a character named "Whitey Powers".

I agree with you here. I thought Tim Robbins did a great job.