Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Movie-mber Edition

[Jussi]

I Am Greta - 8½/10 Airing right now on Finnish tv and available on the national broadcasting company Yle's streaming service. I watched there earlier. Very intimate documentary which follows Greta Thunberg and often her father on her attempts to raise awareness to climate change. Really should make every sane/rational person both angry and sad that such a burden has been taken on by a teenage girl, who herself feels she should have to be doing this on the boat ride to New York to the UN. But she says she has to, because people don't care. Really makes you frustrated how nearsighted the world's leaders, all mostly old men who do not have to see the consequences because they'll be dead by the time, that they have no interest for the state of the planet for you children, grandchildren. I already knew it, because I've explained details of Asperger's long before she arrived on the scene, but this also makes it very clear, that Greta is the one who drives that family. You can't control someone with Asperger's.

 

[Savi]

What do you mean, control?

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Sneakers (1992) - 7/10

Comedy/Suspense heist caper with shocking relevance in terms of its mention of cybersec/hacking/the NSA. It's a solid film but if Steven Soderbergh had directed this, it'd be at least an 8/10 when you have this ensemble cast, the guy who directed this did stuff like Field of Dreams, the rhythm was a bit disjointed. Also there was a random San Jose Sharks sticker logo on a hard helmet early in the film....neat.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

LA Confidential

with a surprising amount of people who aren't from LA.

1950's LA. Lots of sun, surf, rickety cars, police corruption, drugs, prostitution, blackmail, and unscrupulous gossip rag writers. Bud White (Russel Crowe), Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) and Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) are two detectives and their police captain, respectively. Bud busies himself bashing abusive boyfriends, Ed's a political schemer looking to move up in the world, and Dudley's their overseer, who's seen it all. Bud's former partner is shot to death with a host of other people in a seeming robbery of a restaurant, and from there we spin out into a prostitution ring, mysterious gunmen looking to take over the jailed Mickey Cohen's drug business, and all kinds of nefarious goings-on in sunny Hollywood.

Nominated for a host of Oscars (although Titanic swamped the awards voting that year) it remains a great movie, and one you don't hear much about these days. A very rare Hollywood outing that doesn't insult your intelligence and features a terrific cast; in addition to the above, Danny Devito, Kevin Spacey, and David Strathairn all shine, and Kim Basinger took home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Extra credit to James Cromwell as Captain Dudley Smith, a man with an ice pick where most of us have a heart. Watch it if you haven't already.

On Prime.

"You have the right to remain silent...you know what? You better just run."

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Sneakers (1992) - 7/10

Comedy/Suspense heist caper with shocking relevance in terms of its mention of cybersec/hacking/the NSA. It's a solid film but if Steven Soderbergh had directed this, it'd be at least an 8/10 when you have this ensemble cast, the guy who directed this did stuff like Field of Dreams, the rhythm was a bit disjointed. Also there was a random San Jose Sharks sticker logo on a hard helmet early in the film....neat.

I've always had a real soft spot for this one. I even still will make an occasional SETEC Astronomy joke.

 

[NyQuil]

I've always had a real soft spot for this one. I even still will make an occasional SETEC Astronomy joke.

Cootys Rat Semen.

 

[kihei]

Promising Young Woman (2020) Directed by Emerald Fennel 8A

Cassie (Carey Mulligan) is 30-years-old, still lives with her parents and has a menial job at a coffee shop serving up lattes. She has a strange hobby that she partakes in one night a week. She pretends she is blind drunk, and let’s the odd lecherous male pick her up. Then when he makes his move on what he thinks is a nearly unconscious woman, she schools him none too gently on the subject of consent. She had a friend, Nina, in university who was raped and eventually committed suicide under similar circumstances. Cassie decides to take revenge on those responsible for Nina’s death. Promising Young Women is the first feminist revenge black comedy, and it comes with very sharp edges. Mulligan dives into her role as Cassie and goes deep in one of the year’s finest performances. Promising Young Woman takes risks with the audience and won’t be to everybody's taste. However, the movie is a potent satire. Writer/director Emarald Fennell has taken a subject that excites an understandable sense of rage in a lot of people and has distilled that anger to a fine and worthy venom.


Revised 2020 Best of Year List

1) Nomadland, Zhao, US
2) First Cow, Reichardt, US
3) Small Axe: Lovers Rock, McQueen, UK
4) Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Hittman, US
5) Collective, Nanau, Romania
6) Beginning, Kulumbegashvili, Georgia
7) Promising Young Woman, Fennel, US
8) Sound of Metal, Marder, US
9) Babyteeth, Murphy, Australia
10) Swimming Out till the Sea Turns Blue, Jia, China

 

[Pink Mist]

Beginning [Dasatskisi] (2020) directed by Déa Kulumbegashvili

In a sleepy Georgian town (the country not the American state), a group of Jehovah Witnesses attend prayer at their place of worship when the building is firebombed by locals with them inside it. Due to this, Yana (Ia Sukhitashvili), the wife of the local Jehovah Witnesses religious leader becomes disillusioned with her life in the community and religion as she faces ostracization and brutal humiliation from a Georgian society who is not accepting to her religion and corrupt and unsympathetic police. Shot in 1:33 ratio and with long, deliberate, and slow takes the film is slow burn which articulates the suffocation and sense of imprisonment of living in a highly patriarchal society. The film is compellingly shot, in particular, the first scene which is an eight minute long take of a religious community celebrating heavenly bliss of their community until it transitions into a fiery hell. The film also features of the best performances of the year in my book by Sukhitashvili as she has the heavy burden of making these long takes captivating as they are heavily focused on her and she never fails in this regard; she has a powerful performance and is deeply haunting and harrowing. It is hard to believe that this is the first feature film Kulumbegashvili has directed because it accomplishes so much and is so confident in its vision and tackles such a complex and difficult subject with a graceful touch. I think this is the best film from 2020 that I have watched and hopefully it ends up on the shortlist for this years Academy Award for Best Foreign Film because it deserves the attention.

 

[Osprey]

Promising Young Woman (2020) Directed by Emerald Fennel 8A

Cassie (Carey Mulligan)...

That's the same actress from The Dig? Talk about unrecognizable...

 

[kihei]

Beginning [Dasatskisi] (2020) directed by Déa Kulumbegashvili

Just got done watching it. Have to think about it awhile. But. I agree, what a powerhouse. Certainly among the best movies that I have seen this year. Like my horse in the Oscar race, Hope, I don't think Beginning has a chance in hell of being nominated in the international movie category, but good on Georgia to submit it. Bet that was a tough argument somebody made.

 

[Jussi]

What do you mean, control?

It's a common agenda of the uninformed idiots/old men that she is controlled by her parents, lobbyists, the left, aliens whatever.

 

[Pink Mist]

Just got done watching it. Have to think about it awhile. But. I agree, what a powerhouse. Certainly among the best movies that I have seen this year. Like my horse in the Oscar race, Hope, I don't think Beginning has a chance in hell of being nominated in the international movie category, but good on Georgia to submit it. Bet that was a tough argument somebody made.

Yeah I agree, the odds are slim but it I'd love to be surprised and see it nominated. I still need to see Hope, I'm still waiting for it to be dropped on one of the streaming services

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Just got done watching it. Have to think about it awhile. But. I agree, what a powerhouse. Certainly among the best movies that I have seen this year. Like my horse in the Oscar race, Hope, I don't think Beginning has a chance in hell of being nominated in the international movie category, but good on Georgia to submit it. Bet that was a tough argument somebody made.

Yeah I agree, the odds are slim but it I'd love to be surprised and see it nominated. I still need to see Hope, I'm still waiting for it to be dropped on one of the streaming services

Looks very interesting. I already have Prime, Netflix, Shudder and Disney+...

 

[John Price]

The Karate Kid II (1986) - 8/10

Pretty good sequel to Karate Kid I. Enjoyed Miyagi and Daniel San going to Okinawa. Alarmed by how often the characters spoke to each other in English in Japan, even when both characters were Japanese Just a minor complaint, otherwise it was a good sequel that built on the previous movie.

 

[kihei]

Some initial thoughts on Beginning:

Such a devastating movie in so many ways. Certainly the film is a condemnation of how the male psyche can be warped by being in positions of authority, positions that both a patriarchal state and church practice can dangerously reinforce to the point that these men feel justified in their power and what they have become. If anything David is a more despicable offender than the rapist because his betrayal, one that he is not even self-aware enough to know that he is committing, is deeply personal.

There were some challenging choices presented by the director, too. A few scenes after Yana's terrifying interrogation by the detective, she, similarly off -screen, questions her own son about a page of his catechism that he is not reading. The latter scene echoes the earlier scene but to what purpose? What is the connection being made and what is the point Kulumbegashvili is making here? Perhaps something to do with the role of authority and its tendency to be abused in general. Not sure, really; but I found it disturbing and assume the juxtaposition was intentional. Beginning is a movie with a lot of layers.

I was really fascinated by how the style of the movie complemented its themes. I would call it an aesthetically clean but severe style, just perfect for the film. Kulumbegashvili seems to mix minimalist cinema with slow cinema scenes of some duration for an almost clinical effect. Her choices are directly related to her camera work. With most of her scenes shot in the mid-range with virtually no camera movement, she really began to remind of the great Japanese director Yashuziro Ozu, who she must have studied. Like him, she almost never actually moves her camera so the image remains static with no camera adjustment or camera movement within the frame. Even with shots that show motion, like from inside of a moving car, the camera remains in a fixed position in the car. She carefully guides our eyes; we look exactly where she wants us to look. The result of these stylistic choices is a narrative that we view at some remove. We are a bit distanced from the action by its formal presentation, perhaps in a position to judge more coolly what is occurring than we would be if the director tugged at our emotions more, which would have been a great mistake. The danger would have been in super-charging this material and cheapening its impact. Rather, in laying out her narrative dispassionately and relying on her principle actress Ia Sukhitashvili to deliver the feelings of her character, Kulumbegashvili, increases the power of her film tenfold. Extremely impressive film making, especially for one so inexperienced. Mind boggling, actually. 8C

 

[ItsFineImFine]

News of The World (2020) - 6.5/10

Bit of a mishmash of some predictable western tropes. You can put Tom Hanks to elevate a vanilla film and based on his filmography from the past 5 or so years, he's more than willing to, but it's still a vanilla film. The emotional demands were all over the place on the viewer here, I never really felt any of them outside of a bit between the child and Hanks. It does do a decent job of humanizing the old West which is where I praise it but I don't think this attempt at a heartfelt Western drama will be remembered at all.

 

[The Beyonder]

MANK (2020)

So finally got around to watching this. I watched Citizen Kane and enjoyed it, great film. With Mank, however, I've never seen something so well crafted bore me out of my mind. This is a film to me that aspires more to be a film shown at 3rd year universities courses on film history. It is a film that for 90% of it has nothing of consequence happening. It does not even remotely aspire to tell an engaging story, something the real life Mank valued more when he made his magnum opus.

The film has great production, cinematography, great acting and dialogue; but the story is utterly mundane.

6/10

 

[kihei]

Ashes (2012) Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (short film) 7D

Ashes is a twenty-minute film in which Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul plays around with a new camera, called Lomokino, which makes images appear almost like a series of still, jerky photographs going by at a rapid rate. Some critics think the short film is about “love, pleasure and the destruction of memory” and how Thailand is “full of beauty but a world slipping into darkness.” I prefer the description of another critic that the film is basically a “sketchbook,” kaleidoscopic “notes” on rural and urban Thailand and about, loosely, its contradictions. I found the images dreamy and immersive—a man walking his dog in a field; a cramped traffic jam; evocative natural settings; fireworks juxtaposed with fire--a little series of sketches on the mundane and its veiled significance, perfectly in keeping with Weerasethakul’s feature films. I will concede the “destruction of memory” guy may be on to something. I’ll probably watch Ashes a dozen times in the next month.

Sidenote: A few hours later....Translation: I saw a very abstract film and I really liked it. There, that's better.

subtitles briefly

MUBI

 

[Pink Mist]

The Rider (2017) directed by Chloé Zhao

Brady Blackburn(Brady Jandreau), a Lakota cowboy, suffers a brain injury during a rodeo accident on a bucking bronco. After his accident, his right hand is weakened and is prone to seizures and has been told to give up his dream of working the rodeo. Despite all medical advice he tries to rehabilitate and make a living breaking horses. The film documents the pain of having to give up on ones dream as well as the pressures to assert one’s masculinity by being a man and fighting through the pain while being deeply wounded. The film is obviously exploring quite literally idiom of getting back in the saddle, and doesn’t while it doesn’t necessarily explore new territory in its themes, it does so in a mostly graceful way and with beautiful performances and cinematography. While I was going to just say it’s a good not great movie, what really elevates it is its meta-narrative. The film’s actors are all non-professional and are playing versions of themselves recreated an event that actually happened. Brady Blackburn is actually Brady Jandreau a rodeo cowboy who also had a similar accident that left him brain damaged. So, this film is not only exploring a story of trauma and masculinity but of the actors’ own trauma through the recreation of the event. Powerful stuff and makes me excited to watch Nomadland, Zhao’s new film, which I’ve read also has this mix of fiction and documentary.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

The Kid Detective (2020) - 7.5/10

Inherent Vice & Under The Silver Lake can honestly go f*** themselves. You don't need high art, just the basic amount of style in a detective story but you do need some actual detection and a lead detective that's interesting rather than insufferable. It isn't exactly Knives Out or Agatha Christie levels of crime deduction here but it's an intriguing enough crime and at a good pace without resorting to pointless scenes in a drugged haze. And unlike those two other films, this one is able to focus on the detective as a character study while still sticking to the mystery.

 

[cupcrazyman]

Meet The Parents 8/10

Meet The Fockers 6/10

 

[kihei]

The White Tiger (2021) Directed by Ramin Bahrani 7A

The White Tiger is one of those movies about the rise of a notorious criminal. Only Balram Halwai (Adarsh Gourav) is no Scarface or Al Capone or even close. Basically, he is a poor, hard working, lower-caste schmuck in Dehli. He would be quite content to carve out for himself as good a life as he can by becoming an obsequious servant to a rich crime family. He wheedles his way into their good graces, and it goes well at first. But when the family’s supposedly liberal-minded son and his wife finally take advantage of Balram in a way that breaks his heart and leaves him legally vulnerable, he decides upon a course of action to extricate himself from a very unpleasant situation. Anything but a typical movie hero or anti-hero, for that matter, Balram provides narration along the way, and he claims that this is not just his story but the story of still caste-bound modern India. Despite lip service of its gradual demise among liberal Indians, the caste system still limits social mobility for millions of people like Balram. The White Tiger is a social satire that is jaunty, smart and cynical in about equal measure with some wicked humour along the way, especially right at the end when a cruel event takes place that might not be the tragedy it initially seems.

Sidenote: Looks like the real thing but The White Tiger is a US film, meaning no Bollywood song and dance numbers.

subtitles and English

Netflix

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

If you're a fan of 80's cheesy sci-fi cheese, check out Psycho Goreman.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Heaven's Gate. Quite possibly the movie I've read the most about over the years without ever having seen it. Until this week. I know its reputation has been resuscitated in the past few decades helped in part by the director's cut that now exits as the definitive version. I see its benefits, but I definitely am not in the misunderstood masterpiece camp that exists. Director Michael Cimino knows his way around a big set piece and damn does he love a long scene with masses of people dancing. Those work. All the stuff in between is pretty flat though and with a 3.5 hour running time leads to stretches of dullness. Characters are flat and mostly uninteresting — Kris Kristoferson in particular, which is problematic since he's the lead. Christopher Walken is good in a very un-Walken part. Wasn't prepared for Sam Waterston as the heavy (it works!). The long climactic fight is chaotic and compelling ... but there are a few head scratching developments that took me out.

 

[kihei]

The Trip to Greece (2020) Directed by Michael Winterbottom 6A

the Trip to Greece is the fourth go-around for what has become a franchise with British comedians Steve Grogan and Rob Brydon travelling to different European countries to sample the local cuisine and to wittily exchange barbs and insecurities about this, that and the other thing. For content, the pair depend greatly on quick wit (lots of sharp zingers), mostly good-natured ribbing (quite competitive, actually) and various impersonations (too often just annoying). Of course, like in a travelogue, we get to see the sights, too. The fun is often leavened with some starker moments as it is here when Steve’s dad becomes seriously ill back home in Manchester. People who liked the earlier films will enjoy this one. People who have had enough of this routine won’t find anything here to reawaken their interest. I’ve quite liked all four films and I will come back for a fifth if they make one as literate humour at the movies is damn hard to come by these days. They haven’t done France yet, so that could be next.

Later: Seems both are tiring of the idea of doing more. Perhaps, a good call.

Prime Video