Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Movie-mber Edition
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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) Directed by Dario Argento 8A
Sam (Tony Musante), an American writer working in Italy, witnesses an attempted murder that takes place in an art gallery. He tries to intervene only to get helplessly trapped in the gallery's entry way. After this riveting incident, Sam desperately tries to recall something of significance that he thinks he saw during the assault but he can’t remember what it might be. He collaborates with the detective who is in charge of the case and gets ever more dangerously entangled in the mystery, However, what he is trying to remember remains elusive. Director Dario Argento is an absolute master of suspense in the conspicuously stylish The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. He knows how to expertly lead the audience into his web. He also throws in little gratuitous touches that whet our interest and keep us guessing. For example, during a brief, quick cut to Sam and his girl friend having a casual little post-coital chat, I noticed a metronome ticking directly behind them. Tiny, tiny thing, gone in a flash—but anyone with half a brain is going to start wondering about what that metronome had to do with their love making. Such a playful approach to film making adds to the pleasure of watching the mystery unfold and trying to figure out what is going on. As in most good Argento films, the journey is as much fun as the destination, maybe more.
Hamilton (2020) Directed by Thomas Kail 7A
Hamilton, a hip-hop spiced musical that celebrates America’s revolutionary past and its present diversity—the cast is made up almost entirely of people of colour—has ruled theatre like a colossus since its debut in New York in 2015 and quick succession to Broadway in 2016. This movie is not the usual radical adaptation of a Broadway play into film form. It is rather a photographed performance of the musical with carefully choreographed camera work to give viewers a more dynamic perspective on the play than they would ever experience sitting in a theatre. Like an opera in which dialogue is sung, not spoken, the diverse hip-hop, rhythm and blues, soul, pop, Broadway show-tune score recounts the life of American patriot Alexander Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda) and the contribution that he made to the American experiment. There are 46 songs in all. That’s a lot of musical for my taste, but the presentation is effective. Miranda, the show’s creator, and the whole cast are wonderful and the performance is infused with energy and commitment. I didn’t find Hamilton an overwhelming experience; for a Canadian it is a bit remote. However, I did enjoy it. The musical’s sense of optimism seems from a different era now, which, of course, it is. I remembered that this musical actually had part of its genesis take place at the White House during a poetry reading in 2009 during the early Obama years. It seemed to be appropriate to watch Hamilton on this day when, in a few hours, we will know whether this musical represents a celebration of the American dream or an elegy for it.
Little Miss Sunshine - 2006
A little girl wants to enter a beauty pageant, so along with her mom, dad, brother who refuses to talk, uncle who recently tried to commit suicide, and foul mouthed grandfather, they drive to California for the pageant. Lots of “fun” stuff happens along the way.
A cast that includes Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Steve Carrell, Toni Collette and Abigail Breslin. Not to mention pre Breaking Bad Bryan Cranston in a small role.
I had a good time watching this one. It’s fun. I would highly recommend it to anyone.
8/10
A little girl wants to enter a beauty pageant, so along with her mom, dad, brother who refuses to talk, uncle who recently tried to commit suicide, and foul mouthed grandfather, they drive to California for the pageant. Lots of “fun” stuff happens along the way.
A cast that includes Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Steve Carrell, Toni Collette and Abigail Breslin. Not to mention pre Breaking Bad Bryan Cranston in a small role.
I had a good time watching this one. It’s fun. I would highly recommend it to anyone.
8/10
Didn’t get to respond in time before the last thread closed, so thanks to those who responded. To go back to the horror subject again and specifically The Witch.
I watched it for a second time recently and I think I can sum it up best by saying that I wanted to like it more than I actually did. They did a great job with the atmosphere, but the story or lack thereof just didn’t do it for me. I wanted to feel as chilled and disturbed as many were, but I wasn’t.
Using Kihei’s scale, I’m a bit of a simpleton and probably more of a A/B type of guy and that movie probably falls more into the C category.
I watched it for a second time recently and I think I can sum it up best by saying that I wanted to like it more than I actually did. They did a great job with the atmosphere, but the story or lack thereof just didn’t do it for me. I wanted to feel as chilled and disturbed as many were, but I wasn’t.
Using Kihei’s scale, I’m a bit of a simpleton and probably more of a A/B type of guy and that movie probably falls more into the C category.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
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The Ninth Configuration. I initially was going to make this part of my annual horror movie marathon. In retrospect I'm glad I did not as it's not really horror. Maybe in a loose sense, a probing, getting into your mind and sticking way. It's one of two movies directed by William Peter Blatty (the other being underrated and uber-creepy Exorcist III). Blatty, of course, also wrote The Exorcist. I have to believe that Blatty was able to get a big fat blank check riding that Exorcist success because there's no other way in hell how I can conceive this movie existing. Stacy Keech plans Lt. Kane, a military man and psychiatrist, taking over a remote mental facility (it's a damn castle) filled with cracked-up fellow military men including an astronaut with an existential crisis and a soldier adapting Shakespeare's plays for dogs (there's a Great Dane joke that legit slayed me).
This is a weird one. Not in a hoooo boy you got to see this (like say, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats), but more in how did this get made. It's serious (mostly). Deeply philosophical and thoughtful about god, existence and the trauma of war. It's got a decent streak of Joseph Heller-esque gallows humor too (particularly the aforementioned playwrite). I wouldn't say that I buy everything that it's selling, but I was really taken with it, I'm still thinking about it and I'll probably want to revisit some time down the road again. It's got a few memorable visuals too — two of which are legit eerie/haunting. Bonus is that it's a really great cast of "that guys" from Keech to Scott Wilson, Robert Loggia, Tom Atkins (sans mustache), Joe Spinell, Ed Flanders and Jason Miller.
This is a weird one. Not in a hoooo boy you got to see this (like say, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats), but more in how did this get made. It's serious (mostly). Deeply philosophical and thoughtful about god, existence and the trauma of war. It's got a decent streak of Joseph Heller-esque gallows humor too (particularly the aforementioned playwrite). I wouldn't say that I buy everything that it's selling, but I was really taken with it, I'm still thinking about it and I'll probably want to revisit some time down the road again. It's got a few memorable visuals too — two of which are legit eerie/haunting. Bonus is that it's a really great cast of "that guys" from Keech to Scott Wilson, Robert Loggia, Tom Atkins (sans mustache), Joe Spinell, Ed Flanders and Jason Miller.
Guillermo Vilas: Settling the Score (2020) Directed by Matias Guiliburt (documentary) 6A
Guillermo Vilas: Settling the Score is for major league tennis wonks only. Few will remember, but Guillermo Vilas was an Argentine tennis player in the '70s whose prowess on clay was second only to the great Bjorn Borg, a player Vilas seemed to try to resemble in terms of hair and attire. He was never ranked #1 despite winning two Grand Slam tournaments in the same year, and he has felt, with reason, slighted. Settling the Score is both part bio-pick and part examination of the work of two respected researchers who were able to document that he was indeed #1 for several weeks. However, their efforts fall on deaf ears among the Association of Tennis Professionals ranking organizers, much to the distress of Vilas who feels he was denied an important achievement that he earned. Okay, okay, this is not an issue that 99.999% of people will give a rat's ass about. It isn't even that good a documentary because of too much filler. But I enjoyed remembering Vilas whose play I watched several times at various Canadian Opens. He was a superb player. And a little different, too--he wrote poetry, bad poetry. Arthur Ashe, a genuine intellectual, called Vilas "a pseudo intellectual," and he was right. Sportswriters wanted to see more in Guillermo than there really was. But I was actually shocked to learn that he was never ranked #1--I certainly thought of him as such for a year or so. So I feel a little bad that he didn't get the credit he deserved. Kind of nice trip down memory lane for me, if not for Vilas.
subtitles and English
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Rabid Ranger
2 is better than one
I'm a big Mamet fan and re-watched Heist. Great cast with one of my personal favorites Gene Hackman. Not a super complicated caper but enjoyable. 7/10.
Point Break - Kathryn Bigelow 1991
This movie is a shot of pure adrenaline. So much of it is completely absurb, but it delivers constant thrills and seems to be kind of winking back at the audience, knowing full well how insane the subject matter is. The acting (Reeves in particular) definitely leans into the cheesy/tropey nature that has long been inherent in action movies of the era. There were times where I was laughing pretty hard at what was happening, and I appreciate that I think Bigelow's intention was exactly that. The filmmaking was brilliant too. Such a fun movie.
Shutter Island - Martin Scorsese 2010
Not Scorsese's best work, but a well-acted, atmospheric slow-burn with nice filmmaking. Though the movie left the ending slightly ambiguous, I can't say that it intrigued me in a way that makes me want to dig deeper or re-watch multiple times. Not a classic, but I'm glad that I saw it.
Full Metal Jacket - Stanley Kubrick 1987
While not one of Kubrick's better movies out of what I've seen, the fact that a movie this good can be an average or below average result for a director just shows what a master Kubrick was. Bold choices were made structurally in this movie (the first 45 minutes being so different from the last hour and a bit gave it real tonal whiplash that I think was effective) and the warfare late in the movie was put together brilliantly in all aspects - sets, choreography and directing all really shined. It's not a movie where one character stands out for the full 2 hours, but everyone's performances were just right when it was their turn to take center stage.
This movie is a shot of pure adrenaline. So much of it is completely absurb, but it delivers constant thrills and seems to be kind of winking back at the audience, knowing full well how insane the subject matter is. The acting (Reeves in particular) definitely leans into the cheesy/tropey nature that has long been inherent in action movies of the era. There were times where I was laughing pretty hard at what was happening, and I appreciate that I think Bigelow's intention was exactly that. The filmmaking was brilliant too. Such a fun movie.
Shutter Island - Martin Scorsese 2010
Not Scorsese's best work, but a well-acted, atmospheric slow-burn with nice filmmaking. Though the movie left the ending slightly ambiguous, I can't say that it intrigued me in a way that makes me want to dig deeper or re-watch multiple times. Not a classic, but I'm glad that I saw it.
Full Metal Jacket - Stanley Kubrick 1987
While not one of Kubrick's better movies out of what I've seen, the fact that a movie this good can be an average or below average result for a director just shows what a master Kubrick was. Bold choices were made structurally in this movie (the first 45 minutes being so different from the last hour and a bit gave it real tonal whiplash that I think was effective) and the warfare late in the movie was put together brilliantly in all aspects - sets, choreography and directing all really shined. It's not a movie where one character stands out for the full 2 hours, but everyone's performances were just right when it was their turn to take center stage.
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Great review on FMJ and I agree entirely. As for Shutter Island, I tried to re-watch it sometime this year and found it so poor I couldn't even finish it. The weakest Scorcese film I've seen with The Wolf of Wall Street right behind it.
The Wolf of Wall Street is one I'm finally getting to in the next few weeks. I don't have an opinion on it yet obviously, but I'm surprised you feel that way about it, since it seems to have held up better in the public opinion, and is significantly more popular, than Shutter Island.
Best part of Wolf of Wall Street is Margot Robbie. Well, Dicaprio’s performance too.
True History of the Kelly Gang (2019) Directed by Justin Kurzel 6B
There have been at least ten movies made about the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly, starting with one in 1906. I’ve only seen one of them, the one that starred Mick Jagger who was well over his head in a not especially difficult role. True History of the Kelly Gang begins with a caution that nothing in the movie is true...given the title, I take this as a little slice of Australian humour. So the movie is, thus, a bit of a riff on an already legendary character. The Kelly Gang was notorious for its brutality, for wearing homemade armor, and for wearing dresses which they thought intimidated their victims. True History of the Kelly Gang is a patchwork thing with several very good scenes, some fine performances by Charlie Hunnam, Russel Crowe, and, especially, Nicholas Hoult, good cinematography and a distinctive style. But the movie proceeds in fragments and doesn’t worry too much about context. I give it some points for taking a different, studiously eccentric approach, but it is one of those movies where parts are more fun than the whole.
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TheImpatientPanther
Registered User
Anyone watch Tenet yet?
Keep seeing really good or really bad reviews with no in between grades
Nolan rarely lets me down
Keep seeing really good or really bad reviews with no in between grades
Nolan rarely lets me down
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Overacted, cringily in love with itself, and essentially a movie whose highest aim seemed to be to produce memes.
I get not liking the movie, but Dicaprio’s performance was great. Likely would have won the Oscar is not for Mr. Allright, allright, allright.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Not a big DiCaprio guy but this reminds me: Harold Perrineau's Mercutio in Romeo + Juliet is a highly underrated performance in a mediocre film. Superb acting. Over the top in a tasteful way that The Wolf of Wall Street actors completely fail at, IMO.
I will respectfully disagree with you on that one. I think Dicaprio is great in this movie. The movie ain’t perfect though.
I’m also not big on The Wolf of Wall Street. Agree with much of what was said about it above, but I think that the general subject matter also was a major turn off for me. I don’t want to be entertained by dirty white collar scumbags drugged out and banging strippers.
Shutter Island on the other hand I was a fan of. It was long and far from perfect, but I’d still give it a 6-7/10 and put it above The Wolf of Wall Street all day.
Shutter Island on the other hand I was a fan of. It was long and far from perfect, but I’d still give it a 6-7/10 and put it above The Wolf of Wall Street all day.
The Hill (1965) - 7/10 (Really liked it)
In a British military prison in North Africa during WWII, a prisoner (Sean Connery) clashes with officers who mistreat him and the other men. From the title and Connery's involvement, I assumed that this would be an action film about soldiers taking a hill on the battlefield. Instead, it's more of a character drama and prison film and the title refers to a two-story, man-made hill of sand in the center of the compound that inmates are ordered to climb when punished. Connery plays a character with a history of slugging officers (hence why he's in a military prison) and the film's principal suspense lies in the question of how much further he can be pushed before he does it again. It's mostly a reserved performance until the end, when it gets passionate and shows a bit of Connery's range beyond his Bond persona. Ossie Davis has a surprisingly substantial role as a fellow inmate and practically steals the film, IMO. It was neat to see him in such an early role, even though he was already 46 when he made this, a fact that's hard to believe because he looks much younger. Harry Andrews also gives a lively performance as the ever-yelling "warden" who leaves us wondering until the end whether he's going to sympathize with the inmates or not. I had one issue with the script, and that's that its weight rests on one side being solely responsible for the central event, even though, the way that it was shown, the other isn't completely blameless, but that's my only real criticism. You might say that it's a slow film and not a lot happens, but I was never bored, thanks to Sydney Lumet's direction and how the tension builds until the end. He was a good man for the job, since he also directed 12 Angry Men, which I've long admired for the same reasons. Anyways, I thought that it was a solid film and I really liked it, so thanks to @Hasbro and @Chili for the recommendations in the Sean Connery thread.
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Planning on watching that soon. I’ll post my thoughts in the next few days.
Stray Dog (1949) Directed by Akira Kurosawa 9A
I somehow never got around to seeing this movie before, and I really enjoyed it. Simple story line but, it turns out, with profound implications. Murakami (Toshiro Mifune), a rookie cop in Tokyo, loses his gun to a pickpocket on a crowded trolley, and then, crestfallen, spends the rest of the movie trying to find it. Stray Dog is like the ultimate police procedural before police procedurals existed. Along the way Murakami acquires Sato (Takashi Shimura), a very savvy veteran partner. The ramifications that come about in the wake of the stolen weapon gain ever growing importance, consequences about which the young cop feels desperately responsible. A simple act of carelessness ends up costing lives. The movie actually appears to acquire weight as it goes along, so that what starts out as a modest story becomes instead an important tale fraught with social and moral implications. A young Mifune is something to behold: fit, athletic, graceful, very handsome, and just radiating charisma effortlessly. But really director Akira Kurosawa is the star of this movie. His camera movement and editing are so incredibly fluid. He is the exact polar opposite of his contemporary equal in Japanese cinema, Yasujiro Ozu who almost never moved his camera (like, a total of three times in two movies, say--he brilliantly communicated movement through editing and camera placement, though). Kurosawa's technique isn't just for show either as it really lends punch and flavour to the story telling which involves the lives of people near the bottom of Japan's social strata. I doubt I will go three months without watching Stray Dog again.
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ItsFineImFine
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- Aug 11, 2019
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The Little Foxes (1941) - 7.5/10
Fairly strong classic drama starring Bette Davis and few others. It's maybe a bit too optimistic and golden-age hollywood at the start considering the story is dark and soap-opera-esque.
Actually I might like this better than Davis' more popular film All About Eve. It isn't as well made or as good looking but the storyline is just better because you have a juicy rich family backstabbing drama.
Waiting till I can get it in blu-ray quality/stream which looks like it will be mid-December. I want subtitles when I see it.
Fairly strong classic drama starring Bette Davis and few others. It's maybe a bit too optimistic and golden-age hollywood at the start considering the story is dark and soap-opera-esque.
Actually I might like this better than Davis' more popular film All About Eve. It isn't as well made or as good looking but the storyline is just better because you have a juicy rich family backstabbing drama.
Waiting till I can get it in blu-ray quality/stream which looks like it will be mid-December. I want subtitles when I see it.
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