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

[Sentinel]

Finally caught Sunset Boulevard (1950) last week and was thoroughly satisfied.
It's a classic noir film that is loaded with irony in the story and the cast.
Cecil B DeMille is an actor in the movie, playing himself, which was very cool to see.
This is a really good movie and especially interesting to fans of the early cinema.

My recent review:

Sunset Boulevard (1950). This is a noir standard all other noir films should be measured by. A tale of a struggling screenwriter trapped by a rich, demented, has-been actress is perfect in all areas: the story, the dialogue, the directing, the camerawork, and the acting. Gloria Swanson, a star of the silent era, is essentially is playing herself, but, unlike her character Norma Desmond, she demonstrates a remarkable sense of humor by playing the part which Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford, Mae West, and Norma Shearer (other superstars of the bygone era) all turned down. There are plenty of other people who play themselves or some versions of themselves. The script and the dialogue are simply perfect. Two lines from this movie are often quoted (“I am big! It’s the pictures that got small!” and “Mr. DeVille, I’m ready for my close-up!”), but my favorite line is “You are 50. And there is nothing wrong with that, unless you’re trying to be 25!” Billy Wilder, a director of Ace in the Hole, Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment (and also wrote Ninotchka, my favorite Garbo film) is now squarely my favorite filmmaker of the Golden Age of Cinema. And it sure was golden.

 

[shadow1]

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) - 5/10

A fashion photographer is able to see through the eyes of a killer as they commit their slayings.

Jackie Chan-er... Faye Dunaway stars as Laura Mars, a well known fashion photographer whose works depict violence. She experiences a vision of a colleague of hers being murdered - stabbed through the eye - and dismisses it as a nightmare until that colleague turns out to really be dead. As more people in her circle begin dying, with the deaths being mirror images of her photographic works, Laura teams up with Lt. John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones) to figure out who the killer is before it's too late...

Eyes of Laura Mars was directed by Irvin Kershner, and was adapted from the John Carpenter screenplay "Eyes". Originally written as a slasher, David Zelag Goodman re-worked the script to turn it into a whodunit, but retrained the original concept of Laura's Telepathic abilities. This is a decision that had extremely mixed results (more on that later).

The film has a couple good POV shots of the killer early on that give is a slasher feel, but the filmmakers also do a good job of setting up an array of potential suspects. These include Donald Phelps (Rene Auberjonios), a colleague of Laura's; Tommy Ludlow (Brad Dourif), Laura's driver with a checkered past; and Michael Reisler (Raul Julia), Laura's ex-husband with a drinking problem. As you can see, Eyes of Laura Mars has a heck of a cast, and everyone turns in good performances.

I do have a couple nitpicks with the film, including a romance subplot that seems to come out of thin air. I also thought Laura was a damsel in distress too often in this film. She has a couple moments of hysteria, one of which where she could've turned around and seen the killer's identity (from a safe distance) but didn't. Overall though, the movie flows well until the very end.

Speaking of which... the ending completely ruined the film, in my opinion. As characters on the suspect list continued to die off, the filmmakers - seemingly boxed into a corner - reveal the killer as a character which makes absolutely no sense, and justify it with exposition that said character was insane/suffering from multiple personalities. It left a terrible taste in my mouth because Eyes of Laura Mars was an enjoyable film until the last 15 minutes. I felt cheated.

John Carpenter's original screenplay features a killer that was just a random person. Carpenter said in a 1994 interview that the filmmakers called him because they were unsure how to end the film, but because they had changed so much of his screenplay he told them he couldn't help them. In the original screenplay the finale was a cat and mouse game, with Laura using her ability to see through the killer's eyes to gain the upper hand. In this film, we instead get melodramatic exposition, and Laura's ability never comes back in any meaningful way; the killer just shows up and says "I did it!". It's never explained or hinted why Laura has her ability and she never puts it to good use, which basically makes the film pointless. The filmmakers could've removed it completely from the film, focusing solely on the killer modeling their killings off of Laura's photographs, and it would've changed very little about the story they were tying to tell.

Overall, Eyes of Laura Mars is a frustrating film. A promising first two acts are negated when the film crashes and burns during the big reveal at the end of the film. It's a whodunit where the who and the why don't make any sense, and a film that features a unique gimmick that is never fully realized. Therefore, despite being mostly enjoyable, I can't go any higher than a 5/10. IMDB's current rating for this film is a 6.1, so take this review with a grain of salt.

 

[Chili]

La Bohème-1926

Paris, 1830's and a group of artists of little means, dream of becoming a success. Rodolphe (John Gilbert) is a struggling playwright. Mimi (Lillian Gish), a seamstress is a neighbour down to her last sous, forced to pawn her clothes in an attempt to come up with the month's rent. Rodolphe is drawn to her as is a would be wealthy patron. Classic story, so well done with two of the great stars of silent films. Have really enjoyed Lillian Gish in several films now (Way Down East, Night of the Hunter, The Unforgiven). Apparently she chose the cast and director (from The Big Parade). Brilliant, moving drama.

Caught-1949

A young model (Barbera Bel Geddes) dreams of meeting and marrying a rich man. This comes true after a chance meeting with Smith Ohlrig (Robert Ryan). He turns out to be a ruthless business man who treats all around him harshly, including his new wife.

Don't know how well it was known at the time but the character of Smith Ohlrig is loosely based on Howard Hughes. Hughes had gained control of RKO studios the year before and proceeded to purge staff en masse (similar to a recent event). One of those fired was the director of this film, Max Ophüls. Must have had some influence on the story although Hughes was still somewhat involved in originally getting the film made (i.e. loaning Ryan). James Mason's first hollywood film. Good film, dark, no 'greed is good' speech.

Lifeboat-1944

A group is shipwrecked in the mid Atlantic in WWII. They have some provisions but it could take weeks before they are located. Issues arise as they learn more about who they are on board with, including one of whom is injured and a woman who's baby died. Vintage Hitch, the film came out during the war and must have really hit home for many sailors and their families. What would it be like to be stranded on a lifeboat on the ocean in the middle of a war? Some fine performances especially Tallulah Bankhead as the media person and socialite. Great story, brilliantly told.

All the best in the New Year!

 

[shadow1]

Armour of God II: Operation Condor (1991) - 7/10

A treasure hunter searches for lost Nazi gold buried in the Sahara Desert.

Jackie Chan returns as Asian Hawk, treasure hunter and adventurer. Jackie is contacted by Count Bannon (Bozidar Smiljanic) with an unofficial request from the United Nations - locate 240 tons of Nazi gold hidden in a secret base in the Sahara Desert. Jackie is joined on his mission by Africa geology expert Ada (Carol Cheng), as well as by Elsa (Eva Cobo), a descendant of a German soldier who was in charge of the base. Unfortunately for the trio, other groups of gold seekers are hot on their trail...

Operation Condor was directed by Jackie Chan, and marks the second film in the Armour of God trilogy. The film was the biggest budget Hong Kong film ever at the time ($15M USD), taking 8 months to film and going wildly over budget due to tough filming conditions in the desert. This is somewhat ironic as it was made in an attempt for Golden Harvest to recoup losses on Jackie's previous film - 1989's Miracles - which was a box office bomb. As a result, Chan revived a familiar franchise and went with a very safe, accessible plot.

And it works well. Operation Condor is straightforward and simple, devoid of the head scratching plot decisions of its predecessor. The plot of various groups searching for lost gold is much better than Armour of God's "kidnapped girlfriend" plot, especially for an Indiana Jones-type film. In Operation Condor, the stakes are very low and the comedy is dialed way up.

Action wise, you get the great sequences you'd expect from a Jackie Chan film of this era. The most memorable fight takes place in an aircraft hangar, with high winds blowing the combatants all over the place. There's also a funny action sequence inside a hotel that's very memorable. I do think the original Armour of God had better hand-to-hand choreographed fights, but Operation Condor has better action-comedy.

Overall, Operation Condor is another great Jackie Chan action film. I can't really think of anything negative to say about it; it's a very simple, easy watch. The film surprisingly didn't do as well as expected, earning only $24M worldwide against its $15M budget; a total which includes $10M from a 1997 North American theatrical release. Regardless of underwhelming box office returns, Operation Condor has gone on to be a staple in Jackie Chan's filmography, and is a must watch for fans of his work.

 

[Nakatomi]

Holy Spider - 9/10 A great Persian-language film from director Ali Abbasi. It follows a female journalist in Iran on her journey to a holy city where a serial killer is possibly at large, killing prostitutes in an attempt to cleanse the place. I was surprised to learn it was inspired by a true story from the early 2000s, though the director added a few key details to change the focus of the story.

It was very well done, and had some memorable scenes. The end is a bit haunting as well, and I highly recommend this to anyone who can handle subtitles.

 

[hangman005]

13 Minutes (2021) - 3/10
It's a movie that tries to tie an Character Drama in with a Tornado Movie, and fails on both counts. It had the potential to work, but was poorly executed in almost everyway. It very much seemed like what a Hollywood exec imagines life in is like in Rural Oklahoma, and what tornadoes are like as opposed to what they actually are. If you want to kill a few hours with a disaster flick, there is a whole host of B grade disaster movies out there, watch them instead.

 

[shadow1]

The Invisible Man (2020) - 8/10

A woman believes her dead ex-partner is stalking her.

Elisabeth Moss stars as Cecilia, a woman desperately trying to escape an abusive relationship with wealthy tech businessman Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). Cecilia goes into hiding at childhood friend James's (Aldis Hodge) house and becomes a recluse, fearing Adrian will find her. When Adrian shockingly commits suicide, Cecilia begins healing and finds a new lease on life. However, after a series of unexplainable strange events, Cecilia believes Adrian isn't really dead...

The Invisible Man was written and directed by Leigh Whannell, and produced by Jason Blum. Universal initially planned on big budget reboots all of their classic monster movies, but those plans were scrapped after Tom Cruise vehicle The Mummy (2017) flopped. Enter Blumhouse Productions, the independent studio famous for making lucrative profits off a shoestring budget. The Invisible Man is yet another attempt at this, with a meager budget of $7M ($10M minus kickbacks for filming in Australia).

And it succeeds, big time. The film has limited sets and characters, and manages to create a claustrophobia and paranoia as both Cecilia and the audience aren't sure if she's alone. Elisabeth Moss gives a strong performance in challenging circumstances given that she is often acting alone in an empty room. Aldis Hodge also gives a strong supporting performance as her police officer friend, who is skeptical of Cecilia's claims yet remains supportive of her. Overall I thought the characterizations in the film were strong and the characters weren't stupid.

Plot wise, rather than going the psychological horror route, the film lets you know right away that Cecilia is indeed being stalked. However, there are lots of plot twists along the way (which I obviously won't spoil), and I was impressed once again with Whannell's writing. With that said, I have seen many negative comments online about the latter half of the movie going downhill due to plot and/or logic issues, but I can't say I agree. I thought the ending was clever and extremely satisfying.

Overall, The Invisible Man is a heck of a way to kick off the new decade in horror. It is another example that less is often more, and despite being impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the film earned $144M theatrically - over 20 times its microscopic budget. Blumhouse put out so many movies that the quality can be hit or miss, but this one is on their Mount Rushmore as far as I'm concerned.

 

[OzzyFan]

The Invisible Man (2020) - 8/10

A woman believes her dead ex-partner is stalking her.

Elisabeth Moss stars as Cecilia, a woman desperately trying to escape an abusive relationship with wealthy tech businessman Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). Cecilia goes into hiding at childhood friend James's (Aldis Hodge) house and becomes a recluse, fearing Adrian will find her. When Adrian shockingly commits suicide, Cecilia begins healing and finds a new lease on life. However, after a series of unexplainable strange events, Cecilia believes Adrian isn't really dead...

The Invisible Man was written and directed by Leigh Whannell, and produced by Jason Blum. Universal initially planned on big budget reboots all of their classic monster movies, but those plans were scrapped after Tom Cruise vehicle The Mummy (2017) flopped. Enter Blumhouse Productions, the independent studio famous for making lucrative profits off a shoestring budget. The Invisible Man is yet another attempt at this, with a meager budget of $7M ($10M minus kickbacks for filming in Australia).

And it succeeds, big time. The film has limited sets and characters, and manages to create a claustrophobia and paranoia as both Cecilia and the audience aren't sure if she's alone. Elisabeth Moss gives a strong performance in challenging circumstances given that she is often acting alone in an empty room. Aldis Hodge also gives a strong supporting performance as her police officer friend, who is skeptical of Cecilia's claims yet remains supportive of her. Overall I thought the characterizations in the film were strong and the characters weren't stupid.

Plot wise, rather than going the psychological horror route, the film lets you know right away that Cecilia is indeed being stalked. However, there are lots of plot twists along the way (which I obviously won't spoil), and I was impressed once again with Whannell's writing. With that said, I have seen many negative comments online about the latter half of the movie going downhill due to plot and/or logic issues, but I can't say I agree. I thought the ending was clever and extremely satisfying.

Overall, The Invisible Man is a heck of a way to kick off the new decade in horror. It is another example that less is often more, and despite being impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the film earned $144M theatrically - over 20 times its microscopic budget. Blumhouse put out so many movies that the quality can be hit or miss, but this one is on their Mount Rushmore as far as I'm concerned.

Whannell, the lesser known of the initial Saw/Insidious duo with Wan, hit a couple home runs with The Invisible Man and Upgrade in the last 5years. Too bad Upgrade didn't have a similarly wide audience for it's quality plot and execution, supposedly a TV series is in the work for it though. Whannell is someone definitely to keep on one's radar. I know he's tied to the production of the 5th Insidious coming out this year, and I'm curious of his take on a supposed new Green Hornet reboot. Too bad he detached from The Wolfman reboot, that would have been interesting.

Blumhouse's low risk/high reward style pays off so nicely, I'm surprised there aren't more copy cats in the industry.

 

[shadow1]

Whannell, the lesser known of the initial Saw/Insidious duo with Wan, hit a couple home runs with The Invisible Man and Upgrade in the last 5years. Too bad Upgrade didn't have a similarly wide audience for it's quality plot and execution, supposedly a TV series is in the work for it though. Whannell is someone definitely to keep on one's radar. I know he's tied to the production of the 5th Insidious coming out this year, and I'm curious of his take on a supposed new Green Hornet reboot. Too bad he detached from The Wolfman reboot, that would have been interesting.

Blumhouse's low risk/high reward style pays off so nicely, I'm surprised there aren't more copy cats in the industry.

I added Upgrade to my IMDB watch list right after finishing The Invisible Man. Between this, the early Saw movies, and his work on the Insidious franchise, Whannell's easily my favorite modern horror writer.

$9.2M budgeted for Saw, Insidious, and Invisible Man (combined) turned into $347M.

 

[JunglePete]

The Whale 9/10

Just back from the movies, Amazing performance by Fraser, he's winning his Oscars surely. This movie had everything you could ask for. Probably the best low-budget movie I've seen. We weren't sure we wanted to watch it but glad we did!

Not for everyone but I'm very into psychological dramas where you see everyone evolve depending on events/circumstances whether for the better or worse. Just a masterpiece of a story simple to tell but hard to understand. Kudos. Go watch it now.

 

[Mario Lemieux fan 66]

avatar 2: 8/10 Mostly for how beautiful it looks and world building.

the menu: 7.8/10 Ralph Fiennes is great in it.

Nobody: 7.3/10 good performance by Bob Odenkirk.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Detectorists Reunion Special (2022)

Like re-uniting with a comfortable old friend. It was the length of a short film so it counts.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Jackie Brown. Because of its historic and personal impact I'll probably always put Pulp Fiction tops in Quentin Tarantino's catalog. But this has long held the 2nd spot for me. When it came out it felt very much of a piece with his first two movies, also chatty crime thrillers, but as time has gone on it's clear that this is the big outlier in his filmography and my continued affinity for this and what he does here has somewhat tainted my feelings about all the Tarantino that's come since.

This is by far his most restrained and mature movie. It's got snappy dialogue and time-twisting trickery and a zippy who's-conning-who-plot but it also has an incredibly sweet and affecting grown-up romance between Pam Grier's Jackie and Robert Forester's Max, which is a bit of storytelling QT hasn't even tried to explore before or since. And it's a shame because it's great. The performances are probably a lot of that. Forester's work here isn't the best acting I've ever seen, but goddamn if it isn't some of my favorite. He and Grier's bittersweet final scene is among the great melancholy partings in movies and it's certainly an incredibly rare sort of emotional beat amid the entire QT experience.

It's also his most straightforward classic movie (which also can be rightully interpreted as the LEAST QT movie). Other than a middle stretch where a key event is replayed three times from different perspectives, it's pretty much an A to B to C story. There's style, but not a ton of flash. Everything feels at the right pace. Scenes that need to breath are allowed to, but nothing passes into "too much" as has happened with some of his more recent movies.

In some ways he gave up on doing a lot of the "connective tissue" of regular ol' movies, which at one point felt creative, now I'd argue it could be a crutch. He's become more of a playwright in a lot of ways who loves writing big, long, meaty scenes but doesn't have a lot of patience for the small things in between.

Something else that stands out: the silences. Multiple scenes where characters walk or think or drive (or walk and think or drive and think) and ... no one talks. No essays. No soliloquies. The movie's second best moment (behind that office parting) is a mostly quiet scene with Forester and Samuel L. Jackson in a car. A Delfonics song comes on and the two men bond briefly over it with no more than knowing looks a few words. It's wonderful. Watching it now I can't help but feel an alternate version where Jackson gives us a 5 minutes speech about the group and their underrespected place in soul history and I'm glad that's not the version here.

I think the reasons for his relative restraint are obvious. His deep affinity for Pam Grier and for Elmore Leonard keeps him tethered in ways he otherwise hasn't been. This remains the ONLY adaptation in QT's filmography and again, he's good at it! Just because it's less QT than normal doesn't mean it's any less a QT film. His touches remain everywhere. It's just not an all you can eat buffet of the stuff.

I don't mind him going nuts — Kill Bill is easily the MOST QT movie and I'd rank it 3rd among my favorites — but I feel like there's no opposing force to him on any movie since Jackie Brown and sometimes having a restraint to push against or to work within is a good thing (as it is here).

His reputation for creativity and originality (within his reference heavy style) has itself turned him into someone who keeps kinda doing the same thing especially on his "I'm going to rewrite this awful thing in history" bent. The irony is that adapting someone else's work once again wouldn't be seen as "original" but in actuality would be far more interesting and radical than a lot of what he's done in the second half of his career.

Final note to any hard-core QT stans: Deathproof is the only movie of his I dislike. I'm still a fan. Love Inglorious Basterds (my #4 FWIW), but I think a lot of what's creative there has turned into crutches in all the movies since with generally diminishing returns even if by diminishing I mean a movie is a B or B+ instead of an A or A-

 

[shadow1]

Jackie Brown. Because of its historic and personal impact I'll probably always put Pulp Fiction tops in Quentin Tarantino's catalog. But this has long held the 2nd spot for me. When it came out it felt very much of a piece with his first two movies, also chatty crime thrillers, but as time has gone on it's clear that this is the big outlier in his filmography and my continued affinity for this and what he does here has somewhat tainted my feelings about all the Tarantino that's come since.

This is by far his most restrained and mature movie. It's got snappy dialogue and time-twisting trickery and a zippy who's-conning-who-plot but it also has an incredibly sweet and affecting grown-up romance between Pam Grier's Jackie and Robert Forester's Max, which is a bit of storytelling QT hasn't even tried to explore before or since. And it's a shame because it's great. The performances are probably a lot of that. Forester's work here isn't the best acting I've ever seen, but goddamn if it isn't some of my favorite. He and Grier's bittersweet final scene is among the great melancholy partings in movies and it's certainly an incredibly rare sort of emotional beat amid the entire QT experience.

It's also his most straightforward classic movie (which also can be rightully interpreted as the LEAST QT movie). Other than a middle stretch where a key event is replayed three times from different perspectives, it's pretty much an A to B to C story. There's style, but not a ton of flash. Everything feels at the right pace. Scenes that need to breath are allowed to, but nothing passes into "too much" as has happened with some of his more recent movies.

In some ways he gave up on doing a lot of the "connective tissue" of regular ol' movies, which at one point felt creative, now I'd argue it could be a crutch. He's become more of a playwright in a lot of ways who loves writing big, long, meaty scenes but doesn't have a lot of patience for the small things in between.

Something else that stands out: the silences. Multiple scenes where characters walk or think or drive (or walk and think or drive and think) and ... no one talks. No essays. No soliloquies. The movie's second best moment (behind that office parting) is a mostly quiet scene with Forester and Samuel L. Jackson in a car. A Delfonics song comes on and the two men bond briefly over it with no more than knowing looks a few words. It's wonderful. Watching it now I can't help but feel an alternate version where Jackson gives us a 5 minutes speech about the group and their underrespected place in soul history and I'm glad that's not the version here.

I think the reasons for his relative restraint are obvious. His deep affinity for Pam Grier and for Elmore Leonard keeps him tethered in ways he otherwise hasn't been. This remains the ONLY adaptation in QT's filmography and again, he's good at it! Just because it's less QT than normal doesn't mean it's any less a QT film. His touches remain everywhere. It's just not an all you can eat buffet of the stuff.

I don't mind him going nuts — Kill Bill is easily the MOST QT movie and I'd rank it 3rd among my favorites — but I feel like there's no opposing force to him on any movie since Jackie Brown and sometimes having a restraint to push against or to work within is a good thing (as it is here).

His reputation for creativity and originality (within his reference heavy style) has itself turned him into someone who keeps kinda doing the same thing especially on his "I'm going to rewrite this awful thing in history" bent. The irony is that adapting someone else's work once again wouldn't be seen as "original" but in actuality would be far more interesting and radical than a lot of what he's done in the second half of his career.

Final note to any hard-core QT stans: Deathproof is the only movie of his I dislike. I'm still a fan. Love Inglorious Basterds (my #4 FWIW), but I think a lot of what's creative there has turned into crutches in all the movies since with generally diminishing returns even if by diminishing I mean a movie is a B or B+ instead of an A or A-

I read an article about a week ago where Pam Grier was so anxious after reading the screenplay that she didn't call Quentin/his reps to confirm her interest, and was instead waiting for him to call her.

Apparently she missed a note written on the back of the script to call Quentin. He was freaking out for weeks thinking she wasn't interested, and he had no backup actress in mind.

 

[kihei]

Avatar--the Way of Water (2022) Directed by James Cameron 6A

I think there will be a very broad consensus on this film. Most people will agree that it has lots of shortcomings--the over three-hour length; a shopworn revenge narrative; the often creaky dialogue; the done-to-death "fight for your family" battle cry; too much cliched family dynamics in general; the occasionally perplexing plot development (Cameron uses the exact same dramatic device twice in the space of a half hour, neither time in a fresh or interesting way); and a too frequently intrusive score. But who cares? The movie is a wonder to watch. Avatar--the Way of Water doesn't quite have the assault on one's senses that the original film had--which seemed like nothing I have ever seen before. Familiarity with Avatar takes a bit of the glow off its first sequel. However, all the problems the film has are certainly tempered greatly by the beautiful set pieces and technically accomplished underwater sequences. Once the characters hit the water, one visually stunning sequence follows another in rapid succession even though the story never really acquires much of a sense of urgency until the very end. Although on a couple of occasions I was squirming in my seat with impatience waiting for movie to finally take off, I saw the movie in IMAX 3D, and I thought the experience was absolutely worth the big bucks..

 

[shadow1]

Miracles (1989) - 7/10

A superstitious gang leader uses his resources to convince a poor woman's family that she's rich.

Jackie Chan stars as Kuo, a poor country bumpkin that visits 1930's Hong Kong and is quickly scammed out of his money. Kuo encounters Madame Kao (Ah-Lei Gua), a poor woman selling roses on the street, and reluctantly buys one. His luck immediately changes, and through a series of unlikely events becomes the head of a powerful gang, which he tries to legitimize. He continues buying roses from Madame Kao for good luck, until one day she disappears. He and his gang find her distraught; Madame Kao's daughter is marrying into wealth, and her soon-to-be in-laws are traveling to Hong Kong to meet her, but are unaware she is poor. Kuo cooks up a crazy scheme to help her: use his wealth and resources to convince Madame Kao's family that she's rich.

Miracles was written and directed by Jackie Chan, and is a remake/adaptation of the 1933 film "Lady for a Day", as well as 1961's "A Pocket Full of Miracles". The film had a $9M budget - extremely high for late 1980's Hong Kong productions - and you can tell due to its great 1930's set design. The movie was a passion project of Jackie's, but seems to have gotten somewhat lost in time. Part of the reason for this may be confusion around its naming. The film has been released under several titles: in Hong Kong it was released as "Mr. Canton and Lady Rose", and here in America I personally own two copies of it: my VHS has the title "Miracles", while my DVD has the title "Black Dragon".

Name confusion aside, Miracles is a change of pace for Jackie Chan. While the film does indeed have memorable fight sequences and stunt choreography, the movie - which clocks in at almost 2 hours and 10 minutes - is extremely plot heavy. Miracles starts by focusing on Kuo's rise to power and confrontations with another gang headed by Tiger (Chun-Hsiung Ko), and then focuses on Kuo's attempt to open a legitimate night club around star talent Luming (Anita Mui).

There are also a number of additional subplots, which include: the police's search for kidnapped reporters; a man within Kuo's organization who seeks to overthrow him; a crooked police chief who seeks to get rich; a romance subplot between Kuo and Leming. The main plot surrounding Madame Kao's family doesn't begin taking place until nearly an hour into the run time. There is a lot going on in this film.

The film mostly manages this huge load well. I attribute this to the strong performances, which includes a supporting cast featuring Bill Tung as a swindler, Wu Ma as Kuo's right hand man, and the always goofy Richard Ng as an incompetent inspector. However, Miracles does drag in spots, and a couple of the subplots feel underdeveloped (particularly when it comes to Anita Mui's Luming, whose character seems to move from a main role to a supporting role as the events play out).

This doesn't detract too much from the film's final product though. The Madame Kao plot line is very entertaining and drives home the lighthearted, "feel good" message Miracles is going for. I'd argue the fight scenes - which the majority of the audience undoubtably came to see - almost don't fit the film, but they are entertaining and it is a Jackie Chan movie after all.

Overall, Miracles is a good but flawed movie. Unfortunately, the film failed to make its money back in Hong Kong, earning only $4.5M at the box office. This led Jackie Chan to move on next to the much safer - and eventual classic - "Amour of God II: Operation Condor" for his next project. While Operation Condor being the byproduct of this film's failure was a good thing, it's a shame Jackie didn't take many chances with his films that came after Miracles. Jackie has been quoted as saying Miracles is his favorite of his own personal work, and it's a movie I recommend if you can find it. Because it's against type for Jackie's other work, this may be a movie that non-die hard fans of his enjoy more than his usual audience.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

A Man Escaped. I was just babbling a few posts above about how Quentin Tarantino has morphed into someone who only wants to do big moments in his movies and doesn't seem to have desire for the little moments, the process. Well here's the exact opposite. This is a thriller built entirely of small moments and patient process. Simple story: French resistance fighter is capture by Nazis and jailed. He immediately sets to free himself. Not much else to it. Spare backstory. The enemies are time and a lack of resources. There are no sadistic guards or shifty inmates, just a man and a focused mission. Perhaps the ultimate process movie. Simple and disciplined like the best plate of Cacio e Pepe you could possibly order.

The Menu. Speaking of food ... very solid dark comedy. A handful of elites head to a remote island for the exclusive dinner of a lifetime but all is not exactly as it seems. (trailers give all that away, sadly, though I'm not sure how else you can market this). Tension is thick and maintained and when I say dark there are moments where it gets real bleak. But it's genuinely funny too. Some of the guests are fish-in-a-barrel 1% cliches but they're well done. Lots of expertly delivered deadpan lines (there's a birthday gag that I howled at). It makes obvious points about wealth and privledge and art but I appreciate that Ralph Finnes chef is also not quite all he seems to be, bringing a bit of balance that I didn't expect or necessarily need, but was pleasantly surprised to see there.

Ravenous. (I must be hungry?) Gnarly little late 90s Western that developed a cult following. Soldiers stuck in a remote fort in the 1840s encounter a stranger who confesses to cannibalism. Bloody and I do mean bloody mayhem ensues. What an odd duck of a movie! It's weird — not in a trippy David Lynch way — but in that tonal mashup way. It has the sheen and performances of an action Western, but a strong vein of dark, dark humor. Hell the epigraph has two quotes, one of which is "Eat Me" (I lol'd) so it's not subtle about its intentions, nor is the jaunty score. Packed with recognizable faces and a fun and unexpectedly twisty plot. It's the sort of movie that you watch thinking "How did a studio allow this?" and studio execs definitely saw and thought "What the f*** did we just do? Who is this for?" Me. That's who it's for. I LOVED it.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I'm an avowed fan of Shane Black's shtick, for better and worse. Saw this when it first came out and really adored it. Hadn't revisted it in years and I have to say having gone back to it finally, I'm now pretty cool on it. Twisty Chandler-esque L.A. noir packed with chatty smartasses. I like these things. I like it when Black has done it before and since and I liked this once, but a lot less now. So what changed? The Robert Downey Jr. of it all is one thing. This was part of the pre-MCU comeback so 15 years ago or so he felt fresh and funny. I think I'm just burned out on him. Definitely didn't vibe with his character like I originally did. Much more irritating than charming. The other thing is the total onslaught of gay jokes. I don't think the movie is offensive per se. Val Kilmer's character is gay and is clearly the most competent person in the movie and he is a more than willing and able combatant in the verbal sparing. There's just so many and they're consistently unfunny. A lot of "stop looking at my dick" and "are you looking at my dick?" type bits. Made it feel more like a 1985 movie not a 2005 movie. Disappointing.

Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. Believe it or not this is the ONLY movie where Big John Studd and Vanessa Williams play husband and wife.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Jackie Brown. Because of its historic and personal impact I'll probably always put Pulp Fiction tops in Quentin Tarantino's catalog. But this has long held the 2nd spot for me. When it came out it felt very much of a piece with his first two movies, also chatty crime thrillers, but as time has gone on it's clear that this is the big outlier in his filmography and my continued affinity for this and what he does here has somewhat tainted my feelings about all the Tarantino that's come since.

This is by far his most restrained and mature movie. It's got snappy dialogue and time-twisting trickery and a zippy who's-conning-who-plot but it also has an incredibly sweet and affecting grown-up romance between Pam Grier's Jackie and Robert Forester's Max, which is a bit of storytelling QT hasn't even tried to explore before or since. And it's a shame because it's great. The performances are probably a lot of that. Forester's work here isn't the best acting I've ever seen, but goddamn if it isn't some of my favorite. He and Grier's bittersweet final scene is among the great melancholy partings in movies and it's certainly an incredibly rare sort of emotional beat amid the entire QT experience.

It's also his most straightforward classic movie (which also can be rightully interpreted as the LEAST QT movie). Other than a middle stretch where a key event is replayed three times from different perspectives, it's pretty much an A to B to C story. There's style, but not a ton of flash. Everything feels at the right pace. Scenes that need to breath are allowed to, but nothing passes into "too much" as has happened with some of his more recent movies.

In some ways he gave up on doing a lot of the "connective tissue" of regular ol' movies, which at one point felt creative, now I'd argue it could be a crutch. He's become more of a playwright in a lot of ways who loves writing big, long, meaty scenes but doesn't have a lot of patience for the small things in between.

Something else that stands out: the silences. Multiple scenes where characters walk or think or drive (or walk and think or drive and think) and ... no one talks. No essays. No soliloquies. The movie's second best moment (behind that office parting) is a mostly quiet scene with Forester and Samuel L. Jackson in a car. A Delfonics song comes on and the two men bond briefly over it with no more than knowing looks a few words. It's wonderful. Watching it now I can't help but feel an alternate version where Jackson gives us a 5 minutes speech about the group and their underrespected place in soul history and I'm glad that's not the version here.

I think the reasons for his relative restraint are obvious. His deep affinity for Pam Grier and for Elmore Leonard keeps him tethered in ways he otherwise hasn't been. This remains the ONLY adaptation in QT's filmography and again, he's good at it! Just because it's less QT than normal doesn't mean it's any less a QT film. His touches remain everywhere. It's just not an all you can eat buffet of the stuff.

I don't mind him going nuts — Kill Bill is easily the MOST QT movie and I'd rank it 3rd among my favorites — but I feel like there's no opposing force to him on any movie since Jackie Brown and sometimes having a restraint to push against or to work within is a good thing (as it is here).

His reputation for creativity and originality (within his reference heavy style) has itself turned him into someone who keeps kinda doing the same thing especially on his "I'm going to rewrite this awful thing in history" bent. The irony is that adapting someone else's work once again wouldn't be seen as "original" but in actuality would be far more interesting and radical than a lot of what he's done in the second half of his career.

Final note to any hard-core QT stans: Deathproof is the only movie of his I dislike. I'm still a fan. Love Inglorious Basterds (my #4 FWIW), but I think a lot of what's creative there has turned into crutches in all the movies since with generally diminishing returns even if by diminishing I mean a movie is a B or B+ instead of an A or A-

Phenomenal film and awesome review. The book's pretty fun too. I have JB as 2nd as well in QT films. KB first.

 

[shadow1]

A Man Escaped. I was just babbling a few posts above about how Quentin Tarantino has morphed into someone who only wants to do big moments in his movies and doesn't seem to have desire for the little moments, the process. Well here's the exact opposite. This is a thriller built entirely of small moments and patient process. Simple story: French resistance fighter is capture by Nazis and jailed. He immediately sets to free himself. Not much else to it. Spare backstory. The enemies are time and a lack of resources. There are no sadistic guards or shifty inmates, just a man and a focused mission. Perhaps the ultimate process movie. Simple and disciplined like the best plate of Cacio e Pepe you could possibly order.

The Menu. Speaking of food ... very solid dark comedy. A handful of elites head to a remote island for the exclusive dinner of a lifetime but all is not exactly as it seems. (trailers give all that away, sadly, though I'm not sure how else you can market this). Tension is thick and maintained and when I say dark there are moments where it gets real bleak. But it's genuinely funny too. Some of the guests are fish-in-a-barrel 1% cliches but they're well done. Lots of expertly delivered deadpan lines (there's a birthday gag that I howled at). It makes obvious points about wealth and privledge and art but I appreciate that Ralph Finnes chef is also not quite all he seems to be, bringing a bit of balance that I didn't expect or necessarily need, but was pleasantly surprised to see there.

Ravenous. (I must be hungry?) Gnarly little late 90s Western that developed a cult following. Soldiers stuck in a remote fort in the 1840s encounter a stranger who confesses to cannibalism. Bloody and I do mean bloody mayhem ensues. What an odd duck of a movie! It's weird — not in a trippy David Lynch way — but in that tonal mashup way. It has the sheen and performances of an action Western, but a strong vein of dark, dark humor. Hell the epigraph has two quotes, one of which is "Eat Me" (I lol'd) so it's not subtle about its intentions, nor is the jaunty score. Packed with recognizable faces and a fun and unexpectedly twisty plot. It's the sort of movie that you watch thinking "How did a studio allow this?" and studio execs definitely saw and thought "What the f*** did we just do? Who is this for?" Me. That's who it's for. I LOVED it.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I'm an avowed fan of Shane Black's shtick, for better and worse. Saw this when it first came out and really adored it. Hadn't revisted it in years and I have to say having gone back to it finally, I'm now pretty cool on it. Twisty Chandler-esque L.A. noir packed with chatty smartasses. I like these things. I like it when Black has done it before and since and I liked this once, but a lot less now. So what changed? The Robert Downey Jr. of it all is one thing. This was part of the pre-MCU comeback so 15 years ago or so he felt fresh and funny. I think I'm just burned out on him. Definitely didn't vibe with his character like I originally did. Much more irritating than charming. The other thing is the total onslaught of gay jokes. I don't think the movie is offensive per se. Val Kilmer's character is gay and is clearly the most competent person in the movie and he is a more than willing and able combatant in the verbal sparing. There's just so many and they're consistently unfunny. A lot of "stop looking at my dick" and "are you looking at my dick?" type bits. Made it feel more like a 1985 movie not a 2005 movie. Disappointing.

Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. Believe it or not this is the ONLY movie where Big John Studd and Vanessa Williams play husband and wife.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is one of my all time favorites (top-5), I meant to watch it on Christmas Eve this year (as its set during X-Mas season, like seemingly every Shane Black movie) but it slipped my mind. Good review!

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Phenomenal film and awesome review. The book's pretty fun too. I have JB as 2nd as well in QT films. KB first.

Leonard's one of my favorite writers. Rum Punch is among his best. I remember Tarantino securing the rights to several other Leonard books at one point. The only one I remember for sure is the western Forty Lashes Less One, which could still make a heck of a movie though a violent Western centered heavily on race relations is probably a bit redundant at this point in Tarantino's career. Freaky Deaky (great book) might have been another but I'm not sure. That eventually became a movie but without any Tarantino involvement.

I also vaguely recall him either having the rights to or at least expressing an affinity for Len Deighton's Game Set Match trilogy which would be a FASCINATING project for him since it's a restrained Cold War spy story heavy with personal relationships and discussion and kinda light on action.

 

[Pink Mist]

Corpus Christi / Boże Ciało (Jan Komasa, 2019)

After spending years in prison for a violent crime, 20-year-old Daniel is released and sent to a remote village to work as a manual laborer. After finding Christ during his incarceration Daniel aspires to join the clergy, and one quick lie allows him to be mistaken for the town’s new priest.

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Film and having the unfortunate experience of competing against Parasite that year, Corpus Christi would have won the Oscar any other year. Corpus Christi is a powerful film about a troubled soul seeking redemption that strikes a similar vein of recent priest films like First Reformed. Bartosz Bielenia puts in a fantastic performance as Daniel, the ex-con turned priest, benefiting from an expressive face and eyes that equals that of Renée Jeanne Falconetti in the Passion of Joan of Arc. A delicate and humane film with a knockout performance and a beautiful and provocative message.

 

[kihei]

Corpus Christi / Boże Ciało (Jan Komasa, 2019)

After spending years in prison for a violent crime, 20-year-old Daniel is released and sent to a remote village to work as a manual laborer. After finding Christ during his incarceration Daniel aspires to join the clergy, and one quick lie allows him to be mistaken for the town’s new priest.

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Film and having the unfortunate experience of competing against Parasite that year, Corpus Christi would have won the Oscar any other year. Corpus Christi is a powerful film about a troubled soul seeking redemption that strikes a similar vein of recent priest films like First Reformed. Bartosz Bielenia puts in a fantastic performance as Daniel, the ex-con turned priest, benefiting from an expressive face and eyes that equals that of Renée Jeanne Falconetti in the Passion of Joan of Arc. A delicate and humane film with a knockout performance and a beautiful and provocative message.

One of those hidden gems of a movie that are always wonderful to discover.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Decision To Leave (2022) - 7/10

Great example of a director having his head up his ass here to the point of the film's direction distracting and drawing out what is a decent albeit melodramatic story. Though I shouldn't complain about the direction, not like you can watch a Korean film expecting it to be normal. But there's a real desire to be clever here and it's almost childish at times. The best moments of this film are when it focuses on the story, the actual story I did feel got a bit drawn out to the point of making a murder investigation seem boring.

 

[kihei]

Interesting in that we share no common ground whatsoever. I can comprehend your criticisms, but I didn't notice any of the weaknesses you mention. So I will just try to explain my point of view and leave it at that. I actually like the movie even more greatly now that I have had more time to think about it. In order, what I like most about the movie is a} the ambiguity {and the many different ways it is created}; b} the romance; c} the ending; and d} Park's various ways of creating uncertainty. All of these things have to do with the relationship between the detective and the femme fatale because the whole movie revolves around the complexity of their obsession. I think Decision to Leave borrows in different ways from the three movies I alluded to: psychological obsession from Vertigo; danger to the point of self destruction from Body Heat; and swoony romance from Laura. The way that Decision to Leave combines these characteristics is unique. I find Seorae and Haejoon both fascinating complex characters, but I find Seorae the more compelling. Wei Tang mesmerized me with her performance. What sets her apart is how sympathetic a figure she can be seen to be from one perspective or, really, several perspecitives. She is perhaps capable of murder; on one occasion it seems almost certain. But her femme fatale credentials are tempered by kindness, grace and vulnerability. Both characters obsession with one another is believable to me; both are moths drawn to a flame. The complexity of those characters and their relationship is the heart of the movie.

But Park gives the viewer so much to think about--Decision to Leave has one of my favourite endings, because in a beautiful and appropriately ambiguous way it summarizes what a great role uncertainty has played in both these characters' stories. You can read that ending so many different ways; I find it romantic and tragic, but that's just my take. So many things about each character is uncertain in the movie, so many possibilities, so many potential motivations. Yet to me they are not presented in a confusing way but in a brilliantly suggestive manner, the interpretation of which may say more about the viewer than the movie. I don't think there is anything repetitive in the second half--which only deepens the mystery. In the end both characters obsessive love courts their own self-destruction. I don't think you can accomplish a movie of this psychological complexity without a risk-taking and technically brilliant director (the cleverly disorienting editing being one case in point). I didn't think Park wasted a frame. In fact I would compare the atmosphere in this movie to the work of Wong Kar-wai, no stranger himself to dangerous, bittersweet romanticism.

I append the above as a reference to an earlier response that I had to Pink Mist's mostly negative review of Decision to Leave (#1254). ItsFineImFine has now chirped in with an even more negative review, claiming Park is a director with "his head up his ass," one who engages in cleverness in a childish way, So I feel again a need to defend what is currently my #3 seed for the year. But I would like to make some different points than I made in my discussion with Pink Mist.

I can see where the movie is divisive largely because of its structure, which takes a romantic police noir and deliberately makes it a disorienting and destabilizing experience not just to the characters but to the audience, too. It makes for a complex narrative but pays off, for me, anyway, in artful ambiguity that ends up fitting the situation to a tee, This is a movie that delivers a strong erotic charge, almost Wong Kar-Wai-like, that emphasizes not desire so much as longing, a longing made more melancholy by the knowledge of the characters that there are self-imposed boundaries that each should be respecting for his or her own good.

I don't think a work of this kind of technical complexity can be achieved by a director just being clever. The structure is too intricate, the judgement about how far down the rabbit hole Park can take his audience and expect them to follow is too delicate, and the payoff in character development and thematic coherence is too difficult.

In one way I would compare Decision to Leave to Hou Hsiah-Hsien's more brilliant and even more intricate genre revision The Assassin (2015). Most viewers, certainly including me, aren't going to get all there is to get in one viewing from either of these movies. But that's okay, There are any number of complex works in literature that reveal themselves slowly and benefit greatly from more than one reading. What was interesting to me with The Assassin was after I had seen it for the third time how clear everything all of a sudden seemed to be. In other words all that complexity and technical razzle-dazzle led to a real payoff--Hou was indeed playing fair with his audience. I feel something similar, though of lesser magnitude, with Decision to Leave, In Park's film's case my further viewing led not to an elimination of uncertainty (which would have signaled superficiality) but more to an understanding of how all that uncertainty was central to and inseparable from the characters' emotional tangle and to how Park communicated these complicated feelings to his audience. I can understand why someone might think he fell short or even failed, but I think the talent and skill obvious in even the attempt would make clear that an artist with his head up his ass couldn't have even begun to attempt such a feat.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

White Noise (2022) - 7.5/10

Starts off with the familiar Baumbach/Gerwig style which at this point is a parody of itself and I say that as someone who has Frances Ha in their top 10 movies but it does settle into a nice grove eventually despite leaning unnecessarily into that whole Jordan Peele directing style. Loses a bit of momentum in the third half and just ends a bit bizarre feeling the need to be reflective rather than just being its own thing. It was based on a book which explained it and imo Baumbach probably made the adaptation more fun than what other directors would've done so I'll give him credit there. Someone commented it feels like a Simpsons episode at times and I'll give them credit because it does have that same fun level of chaos, mostly anyways.