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

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

One Fine Morning (2022) Directed by Mia Hansen-Love 5B

If film directors could be divided into novelists and short story writers, Mia Hansen-Love would definitely be in the latter category. She specialises in small-scale, naturalistic studies of urban middle-class lives. One Fine Morning is typical of her work. The focus is on Sandra (Lea Seydoux), a single mother in her mid-thirties, who is coping with an ageing father suffering from a degenerative disease that requires placing him in a nursing facility. She is also beginning an affair with a married man who has a son. One Fine Morning simply looks perceptively at how Sandra copes in each domain, as daughter and as lover. It almost goes without saying that the work is finely detailed and well observed--goes without saying because historically Hansen-Love practically makes a fetish of these attributes.

This time I was a little underwhelmed. Sandra didn't seem that interesting. In earlier years Sandra might have been played by either Juliette Binoche or Isabelle Huppert, both of whom have appeared in Hansen-Love movies. Seydoux is good in One Fine Morning, but it got me thinking. Take any ten Binoche roles at random and any ten Huppert roles at random. Note how even when they are playing similar characters, both Hupert and Binoche have the skill to make each character that they portray seem like separate, individual personalities. No two of their portrayals are exactly alike. Take ten Lea Seydoux movies, though, and that's not really happening in her case, Depending on script and direction, Seydoux can be good, even very good, or bad, but she has a much more limited ability to differentiate between similar characters. Whatever the role, she brings the same expressions, the same reactions, the same emotional tone--it always seems to me like she is playing the same character, adding only the odd pout here and there for variety sake. Sandra needs an actress who can make her seem interesting and Seydoux just ain't it. So while One Fine Morning clicks all the right slice-of-life boxes, this time around the Hansen-Love touch just seemed dull and ineffectual to me.

subtitles

What I'm seeing here is an aging Melvil Poupaud, who never was really good (and often terrible) but for whom I have much fondness because he was Ruiz's fetish actor once in France.

 

[shadow1]

Rush Hour 3 (2007) - 4/10

Two detectives travel to Paris in search of a person possessing secret information on the Hong Kong triads.

Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker return as Lee and Carter, who reunite in Los Angeles due to Lee attending an event at the World Criminal Court. Now-Ambassador Han (Tzi Ma) is giving a speech about anti-triad activities, and plans to announce the whereabouts of Shy Shen - a person with secret information about the triads. However, Han is wounded in an assassination attempt before he can reveal the information. When another attempt on his life is made in the hospital by French assassins, Carter and Lee head to Paris to find Shy Shen.

Rush Hour 3 was once again directed by Brett Ratner, with Rush Hour 2 writer Jeff Nathanson also returning. Coming out six years after the previous entry, Rush Hour 3 had a massive budget of $140M, which was more than the first two series entries combined. Chris Tucker earned $25M, while Jackie Chan earned $53M due to a combination of salary and a percentage box office revenue. I consider these huge salary figures to be lifetime achievement awards for the two actors work in Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2, as Rush Hour 3 is a travesty of a film that possibly killed the franchise.

The third movie in an established series is usually bad, and Rush Hour 3 couldn't avoid this pitfall. As a popcorn flick, Rush Hour 3 didn't need to do much to be successful: a simple plot, good comedy, and sprinkled-in-action is all audiences expect in a movie like this. Bewilderingly, the film misses the mark in all three areas despite having the same creative forces behind the first two movies.

Rush Hour 3's plot is flat out horrible. The entire concept of Carter and Lee traveling to Paris - in a completely unofficial capacity - to track down Shy Shen makes little sense. Even worse is the plot thread about Lee's Japanese "brother" Kenji (Hiroyuki Sanada) from the same orphanage being behind the assassination attempt on Han. Orphanage? The first two Rush Hour films spent a great deal of time discussing Lee's father, and Rush Hour 2's plot revolved largely around his father's killer. Suddenly Lee was an orphan? Sure, it's possible we've been hearing about his adoptive father this entire time, but that's giving this dumpster fire of a movie way too much credit. It's a dumb retcon, and is mostly inconsequential to the plot of this film.

The comedy in Rush Hour 3 is a real let down. A lot of the jokes from the first two movies are recycled, but in an exhausting way. Rush Hour 2 had a quick bit where Carter became confused over the use of the word "You", thinking there was a Hong Kong detective named "You". It was about 10 seconds long and was funny. Rush Hour 3 has a copycat bit, but it goes on for like 45 seconds and isn't funny or clever at all. While I say all of this knowing comedy can be subjective, I don't think I laughed during this movie a single time (in what was my first viewing in over a decade).

Action wise, there isn't much to say. The film doesn't have a lot of action by action movie standards, except in the final 15 minutes. The final fight sequence is decent, but is pales in comparison to the first two Rush Hour films, and isn't even close to some of Jackie Chan's other works. Though the film doesn't have the "green filter" look at that was popular at the time, it does have a lot of shaky/non-steady camera work, and definitely looks like a mid-2000's era film. The camera work is largely there to mask the actors inability to fight, for the record. It's also worth noting that despite the big budget, the green screen effects in this movie are very fake looking. It looks a lot worse than Rush Hour 2's effects, which doesn't make sense considering that movie was six years older.

Rush Hour 3 brings back a few characters from the first movie, including the previously mentioned Han, along with Carter's police Captain (Philip Baker Hall) and Soo Young (now played by Jingchu Zhang), but these characters only get limited screen time. Max von Sydow also has a co-starring role, but his talents are completely wasted. Roman Polanski also has a brief role, and I kid you not, his scenes revolve around a cavity check (and the humor associated with it) that he gave to Lee and Carter earlier in the film. One can't help but watch these unfunny scenes and their creepy context and not think about some of the civil cases levied against director Brett Ratner in recent years, but I digress.

Possibly Rush Hour 3's greatest insult of all is to the characters of Carter and Lee, especially the former. Carter is reduced to a comedy relief side kick in this movie, not having much to do at all. Assuming this wasn't a sequel to Rush Hour, you could've completely removed Chris Tucker from the movie and it would've changed nothing about the plot. Lee doesn't have much to do either, and his plot line of "someone from his past being involved in criminal activities" is too close to Rush Hour 2's plot (albeit executed far worse). Carter and Lee don't get to play off each other nearly as much either, and aside from a brief, very phony quarrel in the middle of the film (which feels ripped straight out of 2003's Shanghai Knights), there's no change at all to the two character's relationship by the end of the film.

Overall, Rush Hour 3 is a bad movie. The plot is incoherent (even by action movie standards), the comedy falls flat, and the action is barely present and not good when it is. Despite this, Rush Hour 3 was a big success commercially, earning $258M worldwide; however, it was panned by critics. The Rush Hour series has lay dormant for 16 years, but in December 2022 Jackie Chan revealed the heavily rumored Rush Hour 4 was finally in the works. I have a hunch that if and when Rush Hour 4 comes out, the plot will conveniently leave out the events of Rush Hour 3. As this film has a 6.2 on IMDB, take this review with a grain of salt.

 

[Osprey]

Please watch more bad movies and tear them to shreds, shadow1. It's a lot more entertaining.

 

[shadow1]

Please watch more bad movies and tear them to shreds, shadow1. It's a lot more entertaining.

It's probably not a good sign that I wrote so much more about a movie I disliked than some of my recent positive reviews...

I was expecting a 5 or maybe even a light 6, but Rush Hour 3 locked itself into a 4 pretty quickly.

 

[NyQuil]

Overall, Rush Hour 3 is a bad movie. The plot is incoherent (even by action movie standards), the comedy falls flat, and the action is barely present and not good when it is. Despite this, Rush Hour 3 was a big success commercially, earning $258M worldwide; however, it was panned by critics. The Rush Hour series has lay dormant for 16 years, but in December 2022 Jackie Chan revealed the heavily rumored Rush Hour 4 was finally in the works. I have a hunch that if and when Rush Hour 4 comes out, the plot will conveniently leave out the events of Rush Hour 3. As this film has a 6.2 on IMDB, take this review with a grain of salt.

You can just replace "Rush Hour 3" with "Shanghai Knights" and most of your review is still applicable.

 

[HanSolo]

Amsterdam 4.5/10

Threw it on recently from HBO. There's a few good things here. Some solid to great performances. Great costume and set design. But the script and direction is maddening. The movie is inconsistent in tone and meandering in the progression of the plot. I really feel like David O Russell didn't really know exactly what movie he wanted to make. Is it a murder mystery? Is it a conspiracy thriller with lots of intrigue? Is it an irreverent and quirky comedy that can't find the right balance between heavy and lighthearted/hopeful themes? Is it a period piece that explores an overabundance of social issues? Is it an exercise in themes of friendship, love, and being present in life? The answer is yes all at the same time. The end result is a sloppy movie with unnatural dialogue that feels more like a fever dream than some art house masterwork. Which is another thing that annoys me. The movie reeks of David O. Russell thinking his work is more artsy and original than it actually is. I didn't go into this with negativity bias around the director's problematic past but it's hard not to shine a light on the director when a lot of the issues stem from him.

The main story beats around the murder mystery and the performances of the cast were enough to keep me hooked but it's disappointing in that there's enough here for a pretty damn good movie, but it needed a different director with a better script. The ending in particular drove me insane. The main bad of the movie decides, with very little resistance to just admit to multiple authority figures that he was the villain all along. Bale's character goes into a narrative monologue that seems to fit every plot point in too comfortably until oop, mid monologue Russell injects more commentary that you can't even call half baked about how the rich and powerful don't get punished and every shitty outcome is outlined before Bale gives a quarter baked closing statement on friendship and how important Amsterdam was to the main characters and the overarching narrative. Putrid trite garbage. Just thinking about it, I edited my post and knocked off another point. f*** this movie.

 

[Osprey]

The Wrong Box-1966

A different type of lottery, a tontine or group life insurance. 20 members, all that is needed to collect is to be the last one alive. After many years the list has come down to two brothers, who haven't spoken to each other in ~40 years. Who will be the first to go? Dark humour from a great cast (John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Dudley Moore, Michael Caine...) as the end nears or does it? Peter Sellers is a riot as 'The Doctor' who has alot of cats. Wilfrid Lawson as the butler too. From an 1889 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Lots of fun.

I found this on YouTube. What a peculiar film. Only the Brits could make such a proper yet absurd comedy. It's also not every day that you see colored intertitles, especially in 60s font.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

The Blob 1958 - 6/10
One of those iconic 50's horror films, The Blob tells the story of a meteor fallen to Earth which contains some type of oozey... well.... Blob, which quickly latches on to the hand of the man who touched it and begins its reign of terror, traveling through the town, growing larger with each new victim. There's something just fun and creepy about the movie that really has aged rather well. It's got all the charm of a movie from the time period and the characters are (mostly) believable and relatable. It is a little bit funny seeing Steve McQueen playing some high school punk. It was one of his first film roles, but he was 28 at the time so it was a bit of a hard sell lol.

Of course it's got some weird plot elements and interactions between the characters, but it's not exactly like they're trying to put together a tightly wrapped knock-out story so it's easily forgiven. My favorite of these is when Steve McQueen's character is trying to find help to figure out what's going on with the blob, but then he "forgets" and starts messing around street-racing backwards against some other hooligans.

All in all, it's a fun film to watch. Coincidentally enough, the theme song was written by Burt Bacharach who was just announced to have passed away yesterday, the same day I watched the movie.



As an aside for anyone interested I am currently working through a list of every movie mentioned by Paramedic in the video game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. The game takes place in 1964 so all films are from earlier than that. Here's the list: Paramedic Movies Cited in Metal Gear Solid 3 [MGS3] - IMDb

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

Congo. 1995, My go to movie when I'm in a bad mood, or stressed out.



A rag tag group of mercenaries and dumbest scientists and I use that term mildly on planet Earth try to return a gorilla to the Congo and whacky hi-jinx ensue, then somehow stumble upon King Solomon's diamond mine. It has it all, a Joe Don Baker cameo going fully batshit insane, Ernie Hudson being a black Clark Gable, a not quite Steve Gutenberg dude who may or may not be in love with a little person in a gorilla suit, Tim Curry doing a hilariously bad Romanian accent. Laura Linny blasting on little people in bad gorilla suits with a laser weapon, and lastly this cinematic gem:




In the words of Joe-Bob Briggs, 10 stars check it out!

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Congo. 1995, My go to movie when I'm in a bad mood, or stressed out.

Excellent movie!! Been ages, I’m going to have to give it another spin.

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

Excellent movie!! Been ages, I’m going to have to give it another spin.

It's shit, but it's a highly entertaining piece of shit, it truly does exists on it's own ethereal plane.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Crossed another off my list tonight with:

It Conquered the World (1956) 7/10

An unappreciated and ridiculed scientist Dr. Thomas Anderson (Lee Van Cleef) makes contact with an alien creature from Venus via radio transmitter. He is initially the only person who knows of the creature, and is soon made to help the alien conquer mankind through mind control devices.

The film centers heavily around Anderson’s struggle between wanting to help the Venusian creature “fix” the problems of mankind and maintaining his compassion for the human race and relationships with his wife Claire (Beverly Garland) and his best friend Dr. Paul Nelson (Peter Graves).

I really liked this one! Van Cleef played his role to perfection! The film does a great job of looking at the various struggles of humanity and emotion. If you have any doubt in the message the writer and director were trying to convey, fret not. The ending monologue of the film lays it out in eye-roll inducing detail.

 

[OzzyFan]

The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
3.35 out of 4stars

“When a posse captures three men suspected of killing a local farmer, they become strongly divided over whether or not to lynch the men.”
An excellent western about lynch mobs and the court of public opinion, set perfectly during the time of gunslingers in late 1800’s Nevada. While people are touted as innocent until proven guilty, the public and media outlets generally paint them the opposite, IE guilty until proven innocent. And street justice or vigilantism, especially with lynch mobs, was once a major problem over the last 200years in the United States. A truly scary concept and combo where true justice does not exist. Emotion and impulsivity overpowers logic, power trumps discussion, barbarism wins over civility, revenge reigns over morality, and no due process or judicial system exists in a world seeking immediacy. I won’t ruin this movie, but the power of the last 15-20minutes of this film can not be understated.

The Tenant (1976)
3.10 out of 4stars

“A bureaucrat rents a Paris apartment where he finds himself drawn into a rabbit hole of dangerous paranoia.”
A great psychological horror drama that is a Kafkaesque tale of madness on the urban apartment living lifestyle. Accentuated by Polanski playing a foreigner, the film shows a man condemned, pressured, and subdued by his apartment complex neighbors and landlord. Because of this and his obsession with why the past tenant committed suicide, he becomes increasingly paranoid. We witness first hand the ostracizing and isolation such an environment can bring, detrimental to one’s mental health while minimizing their true self. Home and frequented rest-stops become prisons full of constantly intrusive and selfishly manipulative people. One may feel like they are incessantly being watched and judged, and throw on top an obsession that’s possibly connected to those conditions, and one may be deeply plunged into madness. And our point of view in the film is somehow diluted also, as we have no clear answer as to why we are seeing what we are. Is our protagonist a product of his environment? Does he choose to be a product of his environment as a stance? Is he already crazy and this situation brings everything to light? Is the answer a variation on these possibilities?

West of Zanzibar (1928) (silent)
3.05 out of 4stars

“A magician seeks vengeance upon the man who paralyzed him and the illegitimate daughter the man sired with the magician's wife (a wife whom the adulterer let die), within the depths of the African jungle.”
A great drama horror that is a bizarrely twisted revenge tale with a ruthless atmosphere from Browning and Chaney. Arguably redundant from me, but Chaney gives another noteworthy performance as “Dead-Legs”, a man whose whole existence is bent on retribution and wickedness. Another Chaney tale of how a man steals his wife and forever shapes the rest of his life. This time around the corrupted man’s spirit is monsterly empowered versus drained (as in He Who Gets Slapped). Dark ingredients of this nearly 100year old film include prostitution, paralysis, addiction, alcoholism, voodoo, cannibals, manipulation, starvation, magic, and worse. Surprisingly passed the pre-code Hays office by changing the name from the title of the play the film was originally based off of, Kongo.

Zodiac (2007)
3.00 out of 4stars

“Between 1968 and 1983, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.”
A great fact-based crime mystery thriller that is heavy on investigation and journalism, and light on action and thrills, which is not a bad thing. Interestingly, roughly 40% of murder cases go unsolved in the US I read after watching this. For whatever reason, I have mixed feelings on this film. Without question, what Fincher has done here with accurate information is impressive, creating an entertaining and insightful film through unorthodox means, while displaying everything overall with a pure neutrality on an unresolved case and all the major players that were involved with it. There’s so much to like on this tale about obsession and ambiguities with a communicative serial killer that taunts cops and the media. There’s also messiness with the film too, part of which is its reach exceeding its grasp. Gyllenhaal’s main character feels cardboard thin and his wife/family scenes mostly wasted, Downey Jr’s character’s importance but underusage is clearly evident, Ruffalo’s letter scandal’s ramifications are huge but barely skimmed upon, the cross jurisdiction and cross ranking police department involvements is barely scratched upon, and the compounding of these things and the slightly tediousness due to the fact of it’s over 2 and a half hours lengthy runtime. Essentially, character usage and development became highly problematic, especially in regards to story importance and their existence, alongside an already frustrating crime case. Definitely enjoyable but far from perfect. I’ll end with my favorite line on criminal investigation in the film: “Just because you can’t prove something doesn’t mean it’s not true”.

Basket Case (1982)
2.60 out of 4stars

“A young man carrying a big basket that contains his extremely deformed, formerly conjoined twin brother seeks vengeance on the doctors who separated them against their will.”
A good horror comedy that’s quite fun if you like low-budget, strange, bloody, cheesy, campy, grindhouse, “trash”, b-movies of the genre. Just a great mix of effective odd low-brow horror and humor. And the dirty city settings are choices executed well. The creature design is perfect; equally scary and comical/creepy and weird, as are its actions. Enough entertaining slashing to satisfy blood thirsty fans, and again of equal parts comedy and horror. There’s even bits of heart thrown in too. Also some subtext going on, but nothing more than skin deep from my eyes. Just the right touches all around, and it works.

 

[kihei]

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) Directed by Laura Poitras 7A

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed examines art photographer Nan Goldin's work that focused on the AIDs epidemic, on the lower east side LGBTIQA+ community of outcasts and outsiders in Manhattan, and on her memories from an extremely difficult childhood. The documentary has a twin focus: the tragic suicide of her sister at 18 and Goldin's long fight against art billionaire philanthropists the Sackler family. Nan was lucky to avoid overdosing on opioids and it is the Sackler family's Pharma Plus company that pioneered opioids and made a vast fortune as a result despite a rising death toll that now has reached half a million people and counting.

While the two parts of the story, artist and activist, don't always mesh--it's sort of like watching two separate documentaries--both are powerful. Goldin's parents were comfortably middle-class people, but they worried about appearances over all else and had their elder daughter sent off to an institution claiming that she was insane, when, in actual fact, she was merely rebellious like most adolescents her age. They gave Nan up to foster care rather than go through the same thing again. She struggled for a long time before finding her niche as a photographer and discovering a group of friends in the gay community that she could trust. Her often very creative campaign against the Sacklers proves partially successful as several international museums have now stopped taking funds from the family and have scrubbed their names off the museum and gallery walls.

The title comes from an assessment by a psychiatrist concerning Barbara Goldin's condition, that there was nothing much wrong with her except she perceived the future "in all its beauty and bloodshed." It is a description that fits Nan, too. Nan never once comes off as a victim. She is just about as uncompromising as I imagine her sister was and her activism is always collective and intensely focused in nature. She's had a very challenging life on the margin of her society, created some important art, taken on rich dragons, while remaining honest and true to herself to a fault. Eventually, and this is may be her saving grace, her art connected her to everything. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed gives the viewer a lot to think about.

TIFF Digital

 

[Chili]

Birdman of Alcatraz-1962

An old favorite, the story of Robert Stroud who spent almost all of his adult life in prison, most of that time in solitary confinement. A chance occurence, a branch with a baby bird in a nest landing in the prison courtyard eventually led him to becoming an authority on birds and their diseases. Performances are top notch especially Burt Lancaster in the lead role, also Telly Salavas as a fellow inmate and Karl Malden as the Warden. Found it impressive how well Lancaster was able to work with the birds. Well told story.

The Bad Sleep Well-1960 (subtitles)

Akira Kurosawa's Hamlet. The film starts with a large wedding reception for the daughter of an industrialist. The press are there talking about the arrest of one of the execs of his company and there are alot of long, nervous faces around the room. An unanticipated cake is wheeled in, a replica of the company's building. A rose has been planted in the same window as the location of a previous company exec's suicide jump. Rumours of an embezzlement scandal. A central theme is doing what's right for the company. One of the settings appears to be a real bombed out factory from WWII. Good mystery thriller as the facts come to light, another strong performance from Toshiro Mifune.

The Reivers-1969

Set in the early 1900's in the midwest, a new car arrives in town (maybe their first). While the owner is away Boon (Steve McQueen) decides to 'borrow' the car and take a trip to the city with two companions. A much different role for McQueen then his action films, reminds me some of Paper Moon. Even if predictable still fun, beautifully shot, really captures the feeling of the period.

 

[Puck]

 

[kihei]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Interesting article. Thank you.

She could have easily added several more movies to her list of problematic films. Ken Russell's gonzo trio of classical biopicks, The Music Lovers (Tchaikovsky), Lisztomania, Mahler, Bergman's Autumn Sonata, Visconti's Death in Venice, and Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped which is in turn based on Toback's Fingers.

I tried to think of post-World War II movies that showed the positive, joyful side of classical music but all I could come up with was a TV series, Mozart in the Jungle. Gael Garcia Bernal's Rodrigo is indeed an obsessive conductor and his musicians have no shortage of dilemmas, but Rodrigo has a lot of fun, too, and you can see why people dedicate their life to this kind of music making. Underrated series, for sure. Worth checking out.

 

[Savi]

Lately I've been spending a lot of time reading up on the Lebanon Civil War (1975-90) which has always fascinated me, in a tragic way, even if I didn't know a lot about it. So I was wondering if any of you have docu/movie recommendations on the subject. I have seen a few movies already, obviously the brilliant Waltz with Bashir and recently also 1982 and West Beirut both of which I really liked too. Any adds would be appreciated.

 

[Pink Mist]

Lately I've been spending a lot of time reading up on the Lebanon Civil War (1975-90) which has always fascinated me, in a tragic way, even if I didn't know a lot about it. So I was wondering if any of you have docu/movie recommendations on the subject. I have seen a few movies already, obviously the brilliant Waltz with Bashir and recently also 1982 and West Beirut both of which I really liked too. Any adds would be appreciated.

Skies of Lebanon is pretty decent for the domestic side of living through the civil war

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Maborosi (1995) - a very bland 7/10

Early Koreeda film which is disappointingly boring. Doesn't really have the charm or funner dialogue of his more modern films. It's very emotionally distant. I'm not someone who says I liked a film because it was 'measured' or 'lived-in' as I want something more engaging but those sorts of people probably love this. It does have nice shots, some funny kids, some touching humanism, etc it's just all dialed down to a nearly muted level and hard to get into.

 

[kihei]

Lately I've been spending a lot of time reading up on the Lebanon Civil War (1975-90) which has always fascinated me, in a tragic way, even if I didn't know a lot about it. So I was wondering if any of you have docu/movie recommendations on the subject. I have seen a few movies already, obviously the brilliant Waltz with Bashir and recently also 1982 and West Beirut both of which I really liked too. Any adds would be appreciated.

Where Do We Go Now? was the surprise People's Choice winner at TIFF a few years ago. It's about a group of Lebanese women trying to reduce religious tensions among the males in their village.

 

[Bounces R Way]

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) - 5.5/10

As a war movie enjoyer I have to say I didn't enjoy this one that much. It's not without its redeemable qualities; the cinematography, the directing, the costumes, and the set design I thought were all quality. The acting was fine, nothing incredible but decent. Even the script and the dialogue are mostly good. Unlike some other highly rated recent films I can see why critics liked it.

Where it fails for me is the story. Man goes to war and has not a great a time as he was expecting to have just didn't pull me in much. Was the point of it that war is pointless? I dunno, I don't feel I need a ton of plot or objectives or motivations but I did need more of a reason to watch this guy get his ass kicked all over the place for 2.5 hours.

 

[shadow1]

Wheels on Meals (1984) - 6/10

Two food truck drivers and a private investigator work to protect a pickpocket who's been targeted by a gang.

Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao star as Thomas and David, two Chinese men who own and operate a food truck in Barcelona. One day they bump into Sylvia (Lola Forner), a pickpocket who promptly robs them. However, the two become infatuated with her, and let bygones be bygones. Meanwhile, private investigator Moby (Sammo Hung) is searching for Sylvia, but he's not the only one - a gang of men are also after the pickpocket.

Wheels on Meals was directed by Sammo Hung, and marked the third movie featuring Hung, Yuen Biao, and Jackie Chan - long time friends who had grown up together at Peking Opera School in Hong Kong. The film's unusual title comes from the fact studio Golden Harvest had a string of movies starting with "M" that bombed commercially, so the words "Meals" and "Wheels" were flipped (Wheels on Meals was a commercial success). It's also worth noting that despite being more than 20 films into his career, Wheels on Meals was Jackie Chan's first starring role (and one of his only roles at all) in a film that was not a period piece. From this point forward, Chan would largely act in films set during present day.

Wheels on Meals is an action-comedy in every sense of the word. There is a healthy dose of action sequences, and the film never takes itself too seriously with little jokes peppered in throughout. There are funny cameo roles from comedians Richard Ng and John Sham, both of whom had starring roles along side Sammo Hung in 1983's Winners and Sinners (Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao had minor roles in the film). On the action side of things, the editing on the fight scenes in particular is really outstanding; even more so after watching several of Jackie Chan's America made films recently.

Wheels on Meals is perhaps best well known for its fight between Jackie Chan and professional kickboxer Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, and it is a great fight. Sammo Hung, sporting a jerry curl perm, also gets time to shine at the end of the movie and shows off some impressive work with a sword during a fencing match. Sammo doesn't get a ton of screen time with the other lead performers, as he stars in this film's "B" plot. But when he does, he gives a highly entertaining performance as bumbling P.I. Moby, and is my favorite part of this film.

However, Wheels on Meals does have one major problem: it has no plot. Yes, I know it technically has a plot; I even put a synopsis earlier in this review. But the story is so watered down and takes so long to get going that the audience spends most of the run time watching a random series of events centered around two extremely athletic men working in a food truck. By the time the plot materializes towards the end of the movie, it's hard to really hard to feel even slightly invested.

Overall though, Wheels on Meals is a solid action-comedy film. Though I personally snagged a Hong Kong DVD as a teenager, I've always thought the film to have a certain mystique around it due to never getting an American VHS/DVD release despite Jackie Chan's fame. IMDB has Wheels on Meals at a 7.0, but I'm going with rating of a 6. The film's practically non-existent plot holds it back in my opinion, and though the movie is good I don't think it's quite as good as the Armour of God or Project A movies, for example. A lot of fans have this movie in their personal list of top-5 favorite Jackie Chan films though, so take my review with somewhat of a grain of salt.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Skinamarink. I'm a little torn on this extremely lo-fi viral horror hit, though leaning positive. It's largely almost like a collage — fragments of sound, some of which you can make out, some of which you can't, some of which is aided by subtitles. Visually it's similar — cuts to and from obtuse angles in an anonymous house, carpet-eye shots of feet, high-angle shots of the tops of doorways and windows. A story of some sort gradually is revealed, but it's really mostly horror vibes. But those vibes are effective. Mostly worked on me in a dark, silent living room. I imagine they play even better in a dark theater. There's not much below the surface, but the surface ... well, I haven't experienced a movie quite like it.

Last Man Standing. Mentioned this previously but I'm reading a damn good book about Walter Hill's career (film analysis, not biography), which has me going back and visiting or revisiting some of his films. This was one that passed me by. Came out, flopped, forgotten. Yojimbo adapted to the Prohibition Era. There's an annoying voice over that runs throughout but otherwise Hill manages this with aplomb. Big action. Folks flying back 20 feet when shot. Bruce Willis is no Toshiro Mifune, but he's got enough presence. Christopher Walken, David Patrick Kelly, Bruce Dern and a young Michael Imperioli all get the assignment. Walken in particular. If you just approach it as a fun action movie and not as a remake of one of the greatest movies ever made, it more than gets the job done.

The Shout. Weird psycho-thriller-horror. Alan Bates, who is always game, plays a man who claims he can kill with the sound of his scream. Is he crazy? He's telling his own tale in bookend scenes from an asylum of some sort, though that's hardly definitive proof. He latches on to a couple and slow ingratiates himself into their lives. One wrestles a little bit with "Who would put up with this guy's shit?" but Bates does have a creepy magnetism. Ingratiates is the right word for this.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Aftersun (2022) - 7/10

The problem for me is the underlying tension here. It's not a movie I ever feel uncomfortable with. It's subtle about the depression it portrays but it's there and it doesn't need to smack you in the face with it but the subtle tension underneath makes for a mood that could've been almost a nostalgic slice of life turn into something that keeps you on edge for no reason. Then again I guess that's A24's thing these days but it doesn't always need to be. I don't need to hear A24 make Blur's Beetlebum get distorted at the end like something bad is going to happen when it just cuts to another scene and nothing particularly bad happens. Just make the enjoyable and more touching moments, actually enjoyable. Well acted by the two leads though.

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This is such a typical modern Guardian bullshit article lol. Says nothing while saying a lot, it's literally an article pointing to a contrived problem of "what this movie is about". I guess open to interpretation is not a thing anymort? It is what it is, we're in the middle of another financial eclipse, an energy crisis, and these f***s think a fictional character in a fictional film being possibly problematic despite clearly portraying itself as 'problematic', is a problem.