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

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Midnight In the Switchgrass (Emmett, 2021) - Terrible on every level (I think Machine Gun Kelly is the best actor in here, that says a lot), but the direction is the worst (it's not even bland, it's crap). From the IMDB trivia: Megan Fox claims that she and boyfriend Machine Gun Kelly skipped the premiere for this movie due to the mask mandate for Los Angeles county, but MGK admits they skipped it because the movie is "trash". 2/10

 

[OzzyFan]

I See You (2019)
2.80 out of 4stars

"Strange occurrences plague a small-town detective and his family as he investigates the disappearance of a boy."
A crime thriller horror that has more twists and turns than a soap opera. And I mean that as a compliment. Seriously, and read and go in knowing as little as you possible can because this is one of those types that lessen the experience from any knowledge before hand. Accompanied by a good score that ups the intensity, it lives on it's uneasy "anything can happen to and by anyone mood" in the most mysterious non-stop kind of way. That said, is this one of those movies who's events can play true to life? Eh, I don't think so, but it's still a very entertaining smart ride.

The Devil-Doll (1936)
2.60 out of 4stars

"Wrongfully convicted of robbery and murder, Paul Lavond breaks out of prison with a genius scientist who has devised a way to shrink humans. When the scientist dies during the escape, Lavond heads for his lab, using the shrinking technology to get even with those who framed him, and vindicate himself in both the public eye and the eyes of his daughter."
Interesting sci-fi horror from Browning with Lionel Barrymore having fun with his dual role as a man and elderly woman. The special effects are obviously dated, but still fun and entertaining. Seeing those figurine sized humans do their bidding and hi-jinks is a treat. You know exactly where the movie is going, so you either are going to like the movie's gimmick and turn from Barrymore or feel this is too plodding. I enjoyed it. Fun and light, but fleeting and empty minus the beginning and ending sequences.

Resolution (2012)
2.15 out of 4stars

"Michael ties up his best friend in a remote cabin to get him sober, and strange things start occurring."
Early Benson/Moorhead film that just missed the mark completely. I enjoy must of the duo's sci-fi/horror stuff, and see it as intelligent, odd, smart, entertaining, funny at times, and thought provoking, but this movie was just a mess. You know how 2016's The Void throws a lot of fun crazy stuff at you and in your face throughout? Well imagine those imagination and ideas cranked down from 11 to 2 and "talked about" sporadically throughout with minimal visual thrills. That close to sums up what you get, a little talk here and there about oddities and a whole lot of nothing going on with some amateur acting and subpar dialogue.

Licorice Pizza (2021)
2.80 out of 4stars

"The story of Alana Kane and Gary Valentine growing up, running around and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973."
An overly nostalgic young forbidden love romantic dramedy satire. I think it does an excellent job at doing what it wants to do, showing how a first love connection can be a confusing, foolish, memorable, emotional roller coaster of a ride, especially between an adult and a teenager who have different priorities and experience in this situation. That said, the story is all about the relationship between the 2 characters, which is uneven at times and takes you to odd and repetitive places. The film is endearing, deservedly funny, earns it's characters' sympathies, and drowns you in pre-1974 nostalgia with some purposely or not commentaries on things of that time and setting. There's not that much depth, and there's not that much to take in that you already don't know or didn't live through, but it does what it sets out to do. And last but not least, as other posters have stated, have the gender's been swapped for the main couple, this movie instantly becomes a statutory rape/stalker tale that's boycott bait.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The Ghost of Peter Sellers (Medak, 2018) - I'm a huge Peter Sellers fan, so I was curious about this. It really is more about Peter Medak's guilt trip and redemption from a perceived disastrous failure than about the ghost of Sellers. Apart from a few anecdotes about how crazy Sellers really was, and a cute ending showing how much Medak admired him still, it's not an interesting film if you're looking for something about the genius actor. The therapeutic motivations behind the making of this doc might just be more interesting than the film itself. You feel that Medak was trying to make his own My Best Fiend, but it never gets close to it. 3.5/10

 

[heatnikki]

Red notice - really good and lots of fun. The twists could be seen a mile off but did not detract.

 

[Pink Mist]

Undine (Christian Petzold, 2020)

I went into this more or less blind, knowing only that it was a romance based in Berlin by Christian Petzold who is one of the leading directors in the Berlin School. I am not well versed in my fairy tales or mythology so the reference to the mythical beings of the undine went right over my head until I googled it after watching the film. For those like me who are ignorant, undines are beautiful mythical female water beings who live in springs and under waterfalls who can gain an immortal human soul through eternal love with a human. In Undine, Christian Petzold uses this ancient myth to tell the story of an undine (played by Paula Beer) who is an architectural historian in Berlin who gets dumped by the man she loves. If you know the mythology of undine, dumping an undine = murder or death. But simultaneously Undine’s situation becomes complicated when she meets a new love who is an industrial diver (Franz Rogowski). Undine is a film about reconstruction over past scars. This is told both in terms of love, as we watch Undine reconstruct a new romance after losing her last love; and through Undine lecturing about the reconstruction of Berlin in her day job as a historian. Berlin is one of my favourite cities in the world with such a rich and interesting history, so I found these lectures personally fascinating. The film flirts between a few too many ideas and for some the fairy tale aspect may be off-putting or confusing but I found the film effective at addressing complex emotions regarding love and identity with strong performances by Beer and Rogowski. It's not Petzold’s best work, but it is one worth watching for fans of him and German cinema.

 

[Chili]

Man with a Movie Camera-1929


Have camera, will travel. It's like a time capsule of the period it was filmed, all kinds of shots of life from different angles and perspectives. From a camera mounted on a train track to high rise shots of the busy street below to riding in a car filming a horse and buggy to a mine & blast furnace to a close up of a mother giving birth. As the intro says there is no story, not even inter titles, just a montage of glimpses into the world at the time. A cool soundtrack has been added. Makes a nice historical reference, found it fascinating.

The Flight of the Phoenix-1965

In WWII a cargo plane goes down in a sand storm in the Sahara desert. The survivors are left with few supplies and not alot of hope. Tension mounts as the days go by but one of the passengers has a long shot idea. Real life WWII pilot Jimmy Stewart a good choice for the lead. Good story and well done.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

The Fisher King (1991) - 7/10

Terry Gillam movies are tiresome enough to watch as they are but you add a maniacal Robin Williams and man it takes some endurance. Between him and Jeff Bridges, I actually enjoyed Mercedes Ruehl's performance the most, two Frasier actors in one film, this is great. Movie itself had its romantic 90s cliches and a lot of wasteful scenes in between but when Gillam isn't being silly, he manages to get his actors to really be visceral and have a good conversation when he lets them be still.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

The special effects are complete shit but I thought it was a very good film. The Japanese prostitute who speaks impeccable English while every thug around her speaks in Japanese is such a pleasant, stylish sonic touch. And great caption.

The awful FX are where I thought a lot of the cartoony stuff comes from there. Gouts of pressurized blood shooting out by the gallon from neck wounds...yeah. They'd be totally dry in like a second; reminded me of the Kill Bill movies (which I really didn't like).

Apparently the English-speaking prostitute was Chinese, and yeah. That was odd that she just randomly replies to things in English and people around her all understand it like Han Solo talking to Chewbacca.

And thanks.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

THX 1138

with old people

George Lucas' directorial debut finds Robert Duvall as the titular THX 1138, a worker in a now very steampunkish future where everyone has numbers instead of names, shaved heads, inescapable drug regimens and bright white walls and clothes as far as the eye can prolapse. Sex, family, and emotion are all verboten to some degree, but THX ("Tex") has a roommate LUH 3417, a freckly woman who fiddles with their drugs. After flipping through some holographic tv shows, they end up experiencing desire and sex...or the closest thing to it a shaven-headed Robert Duvall and a ginger chick can manage. But without the drugs, he's dangerously flaky at work...which involves manipulating radioactive materials to manufacture police robots. Along comes SEN 5241, a shaved Donald Pleasence, who fiddles with the rooming assignments because he lustily covets THX as his own roommate. Yeah, try getting that image out of your head. Tex just wants Luh, and reports Sen to the...something. But a non-drugged Tex makes a critical mistake at work, and he's found out for sex and drugs. Uh-oh. Robotic beatings and futuristic malaise happens.

It's an interesting artifact to go back and rewatch. You can see a lot of early ideas Lucas developed for Star Wars, particularly in the audio communications. A lot of the visual stuff is also interesting, as is usually the case when you're going back 50 years (50 years?! Wait, what? No...I really don't like that this film being over 50 years old is a true thing...) to look at what they thought the future would be like. Cool cars at least. And oh yeah, what's out now is the new Director's Cut with extra footage. Because of course it is.

Also, thanks to George Lucas for sparing us the full horror of a non-consensual love/sex scene between Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasence.

Just feel the raw sexual tension...or rather don't. Ever.

 

[hangman005]

I watched Age of Ice or something. one of the many B Disaster Movies on youtube. The effects weren't too bad for a budget move, the premise was ok, but the main cast of Characters were so insufferable and grating I hoped the disaster would kill them, A trope I've picked up on in these B disaster movies. I get there needs to be conflict, but the characters need to be redeemable.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Dirty Harry (1971) - 8.5/10

f***. Yes. Give me this over that rambling Cassavetes stuff any day for 70s films. Also this is a surprisingly good looking film, the night scenes are dark and poorly done even when viewed in HD but San Francisco during day time in technicolour is juicy.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

The awful FX are where I thought a lot of the cartoony stuff comes from there. Gouts of pressurized blood shooting out by the gallon from neck wounds...yeah. They'd be totally dry in like a second; reminded me of the Kill Bill movies (which I really didn't like).

Apparently the English-speaking prostitute was Chinese, and yeah. That was odd that she just randomly replies to things in English and people around her all understand it like Han Solo talking to Chewbacca.

And thanks.

You are right, she is Chinese. But boy did I think it was such a great touch. My grin was so wide. Almost a slick way to point out how confident the character ultimately is in a sea full of goons. It works both narratively and sonically. For me, the cartoonish blood isn't a problem, so much as how bad it looks. There's that one scene where we get Kakihara's full Glasgow Smile and it just looks so cheap. Same with Jijii's muscular body. At any rate, for all its (minor) shortcomings, this movie's movements, sense of flair and ballsy (yet sensical) narrative are all worthy of praise, IMO. Make Kakihara American and he's a cult character in the Western world. Ichi doesn't pass the mustard because of how uncool he is (which is the right call in terms of serving the story). But Kakihara is the perfect mirror to go after him.

 

[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

Tick, Tick... Boom!: 7.3/10 decent musical

The Hand of God: 6.8/10 average movie

The French Dispatch: 6.5/10 below average movie outside of the painting part that was mostly good.

 

[Pink Mist]

36th Precinct / 36 Quai des Orfèvres (Olivier Marchal, 2004)

When the chief of police retires, two cops (veteran French actors Daniel Auteuil and Gérard Depardieu) go head-to-head in a violent duel for the vacant seat. 36th Precinct draws a lot of comparison to Heat. It has a lot of parallels to Michael Mann’s work both in the story taking place in a gritty world full of corrupt cops and with the use of veteran actors, but it feels like a bad imitation of the work. Don’t get me wrong, both Auteuil and Depardieu are at the top of their game (something which is rare for late career Depardieu) but that isn’t enough to raise it above the lazy and convoluted directing and script. Marchal’s script and direction is the work of a hack. Terrible dialogue, overwrought music constantly playing, and a lazy and predictable plot. To emphasize how lazy the production of this film is the music for the end credits ends like 30 seconds before the credits finish so there’s just awkward silence for the last few names rolling by. It’s no Heat, that’s for sure.

 

[Puck]

I believe Riders of Justice was covered in the previous thread. I just saw it and wanted to add that it is very entertaining. The computer hacking geeks are like The Three Stooges and it seems everyone in that movie is psychologically damaged in some way. It shouldn't be funny but it is. Highly recommend it.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11655202/

 

[Martinez]

The 355 (2022)

It’s a somewhat predictable female action/spy movie with a low IMDb rating. Sounds exciting right? Well I got dragged to see it tonight and was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t suck, not saying it’s a good movie or anything but it was entertaining. Good acting/characters, pretty funny, pretty good action. 6/10

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

The Green Knight (2021) -

If a big mutant comes to your castle one snowy Christmas evening offering you a chance to cut off his head, there is probably a catch to it all.

While that may sound enticing, there is no grand adventure here with pulse pounding action.

The beginning of the film is simply a big tease for the viewer. Depending on how you like your movies served, this will either result in frustration or appreciation.

The Green Knight is more of a deliberate work of art about the conflict between a man’s word and defying his conscience.

I really enjoyed this film, but it’s certainly not for everyone.

If you aren’t too keen on heavy dialogue, but blood lust and action are your thing, it’s best you avoid this one.

 

[kihei]

Memoria (2021) Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul 9C

A loud thump wakes Jessica (Tilda Swinton) in the middle of the night. She thinks it is because of a construction project, but finds out there is no such work in progress anywhere near her. Troubled but not panicked, she seeks to find out what this strange sound is. Memoria chronicles in a very oblique way how her exploration moves forward in unpredictable ways. Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul makes movies that reflect a radically different world view from what we hold in the West. The Thai cultural view of reality is a multi-dimensional one, incorporating the incorporeal as it were. There is plenty of mysticism in Weerasethakul’s vision but not the kind with which we are familiar. There is nothing exotic about this mysticism; rather it is commonplace, just the way things are in the Thai way of seeing things. Memoria is a movie about displacement and memory and the weight of the past, but these things are filtered through that unique cultural lens. So is the approach to narrative, to specific answers to specific questions, to closure--are all radically different than what we expect from most movies. A series of almost random scenes explore Jessica’s quest to learn about the sound in the night, scenes that speak indirectly while, nonetheless, constantly widening the scope of what is happening to Jessica. A dog that seems to follow her; an acquaintance she was sure was dead; dreams that haunt her as if from a separate, distant past; a colleague who may not actually exist—it is no surprise she feels unglued from time.

Memoria is a movie that does for sound what Blow Up did for the still photograph. At points I got the feeling that I was watching this movie with my ears. There is a wonderful scene between Jessica and Hernan, an acoustic technician, as they try to recreate the sound that she heard in the night. We listen with rapt attention as they come closer to capturing It. But once they nail it, what do they really have? The sequence recalls the David Hemmings scene in Blow Up where he looks at the blown-up prints of the shots he took in the park and tries to unravel the mystery of what really went on there. Here sound serves the same function as the blow ups. They reveal something, yes, but the full import of what they reveal never quite becomes tangible. The beautiful framing of scenes, the subtle dialogue, Tilda Swinson’s perfectly judged performance, all contribute greatly to a movie whose immersive meditative quality requires a totally different response from its audience than most will have experienced at the movies.

Subtitles and English


Best of '21

1, Memoria, Weerasethakul, Thailand/Columbia
2. The Power of the Dog, Campion, US
3. Drive My Car, Yamaguchi, Japan
4. The Lost Daughter, Gyllenhaal, US
5. Annette, Carax, US
6. The Cloud in Her Room, Zheng, China
7. The Worst Person in the World, Trier, Norway
8. The Hand of God, Sorrentino, Italy
9. Red Moon Tide, Patino, Spain
10. The Trouble Being Born, Wollner, Austria

 

[Puck]

Another good review of Memoria here but be careful if you have not seen it yet, some might consider too much info in the spoilers category.

Memoria

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Is Memoria really never going to be released on disc or for streaming? Saw an article about that and it seems....quite the decision.

 

[Pink Mist]

Is Memoria really never going to be released on disc or for streaming? Saw an article about that and it seems....quite the decision.

I saw that too, but I also know that Mubi bought the distribution rights to it during the summer so I don't know

 

[izzy]

Don’t Look Up - 3.5/5

Didn’t even try to be a bit discreet about what they were about, obviously no faith in the people watching to understand without it jammed in their face.

Still, there were quite a few very funny moments, mostly from Jonah Hill. Leo was excellent in it and his character had some good development. Perlman was hilarious in his bits and the recurring joke about the free snacks was pretty funny.

What gave the movie an extra .5 for me, was reading how pissed off it made far righters and seeing them rant and rave online about how bad the movie was. Lol

 

[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

Riders of Justice: 8/10 very good movie.

Boîte noire (black box): 7.8/10 very good movie. Pierre Niney is great in it.

Harry Potter reunion: 7.5/10

Don't Look Up: 6.5/10 Not very good. Global warming is bad and so is ours leaders reaction to it. Beside that there is not a lot of reason to watch the movie outside of Cate Blanchett.

 

[Tkachuk4MVP]

Dirty Harry (1971) - 8.5/10

f***. Yes. Give me this over that rambling Cassavetes stuff any day for 70s films. Also this is a surprisingly good looking film, the night scenes are dark and poorly done even when viewed in HD but San Francisco during day time in technicolour is juicy.

This and Bullitt make an awesome SF cop double feature.

 

[Pink Mist]

Harakiri / 切腹 (Masaki Kobayashi)

I had always seen this film heavily praised and thrown into all kinds of all-time lists, but I was not at all familiar about why it was highly praised or what the film was about. I thought it was just another samurai film along the lines of Kurosawa’s work (not that there’s anything wrong with that, I have nothing against Kurosawa’s samurai films, or samurai films in general). I also did not know what the word harakiri meant, as I was only familiar with the word seppuku for the form of ritualized suicide where you disembowel yourself. This is to say that Harakiri subverted my expectations.

While made around the same time as Kurosawa’s highly regarded samurai films, Harakiri couldn’t be anymore different than something like Seven Samurai. This is primarily because the film is a deconstruction of celebrated samurai culture. The samurais in Harakiri are not noble or honourable people, they’re cruel and corrupt. They are willing to take bribes, dole out harsh punishments, and mock your family when they deliver the body. The film is also less of a samurai film than say a family and legal drama as the film interrogates the societal and family pressures which led to the protagonists seeking harakiri - to bring it back to Kurosawa it’s closer to Rashomon than Seven Samurai. There is certainly an Italian neo-realism influence in the film in this aspect in depicting the harsh realities of 17th century Japan and its concern for the plight of the poor, as well as in its subversion of the samurai character. This adds a lot of depth to the film, both in terms of the themes Kobayashi is articulating and to the character of Tsugumo Hanshirō (brilliantly played by Tatsuya Nakadai). Don’t be put off by all this drama and depth though, there still is a lot of action as the film ends in an orgy of violence, but it is a patient build up to that point. A superb deconstruction of the samurai genre and an impressive masterpiece by Kobayashi.

I’m also shocked this was never remade into a western film during the ‘60s as I feel its plot translates a lot better to a western setting than many other Japanese samurai films that were adapted into spaghetti westerns during that time.