Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Part#: Some High Number +3

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Favorite films by US directors, off the top of my head, not in order:

Buffalo '66 by Vincent Gallo (1998) - Yes!
Mulholland Drive by David Lynch (2001) - I think I prefer Lost Highway, maybe even Blue Velvet, not sure.
Lolita by Stanley Kubrick (1962) - I prefer Eyes Wide Shut by a mile.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie by John Cassavetes (1976) - not my favorite for sure, I think it would be Opening Night.
The King of Comedy by Martin Scorcese (1982) - I don't care about Scorsese... but yeah good choice, maybe Raging Bull.
Before Sunset by Richard Linklater (2004) - Yes!
The Lighthouse by Robert Eggers (2019) - Haven't seen it!
Bad Lieutenant by Abel Ferrara (1992) - I prefer New Rose Hotel by a mile - Bad Lieutenant isn't in my top-5 from Ferrara, big fan of his.
12 Angry Men by Sidney Lumet (1957) - oh well... why not.
Miller's Crossing by The Coen Brothers (1990) - My favorite is Barton Fink, but I have no strong feeling towards the brothers.
Somewhere by Sofia Coppola (2010) - Prefered Lost in Translation, but don't care.
Killer of Sheep by Charles Burnett (1978) - haven't seen it *blush*

Couldn't help but think of...

- Some of my favorite american films by smaller names:

Julien Donkey-Boy by Harmony Korine (1999)
Ken Park by Larry Clark (2002)
The Lickerish Quartet by Radley Metzger (1970)

- And some of my favorite american films by foreign directors:

Arizona Dream by Emir Kusturica (1993)
The Golden Boat by Raoul Ruiz (1990)

- And again...

Zelig by Woody Allen (1983)
Hoop Dreams by Steve James (1994)
Images by Robert Altman (1972) - technically a british film

Ok, I'm out..... I'll post about the masterpieces I watched this week....

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Holden Jones, 1982) - Really weird that this was directed by a woman, I should give it more thought. Otherwise pretty common slasher - 3/10

Slumber Party Massacre II (Deborah Brock, 1987) - This is just too lame. It fails at everything, even at being fun - 2/10

Villains (Berk & Olsen, 2019) - Should have been better than it is, should have been funnier too. Still kind of entertaining, in parts - 4/10

 

[Osprey]

The Captain (2019) - 4/10 (Disliked it)

Based on a real life incident, a Sichuan Airlines flight is thrown into chaos when the plane loses cabin pressure. This hit Chinese film is kind of like China's Sully, though Sully was a much better film. It features somewhat good suspense and visual effects, but is also overly dramatic and sentimental. The first half hour feels like an airline commercial or those self promotion videos that they show you before takeoff. It gets better once the chaos starts and is a decent disaster flick until it loses steam in the final third and then drags on too sentimentally at the end. It tries really hard to make you feel good about flying, despite the subject matter, and putting your faith in authority figures (hmm). In fact, the movie includes a lot of scenes of China's civil aviation agency and credits them as one of the heroes in the postscripts (despite not really doing anything but saying "Sichuan 8633, do you copy?" a thousand times), including touting their accident rate as being 1/11th the global average. I had to laugh at that. I bet that their reported research laboratory accident rate is 1/11th the global average, as well. Also, the main reason why I checked this movie out is that RT reports a 96% audience score. I should've looked more carefully because I would've then realized that it was surely inflated by fake ratings and reviews, most of which were submitted over only a few days last Fall. I should've figured and been more careful. Oh well.

Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Holden Jones, 1982) - Really weird that this was directed by a woman, I should give it more thought. Otherwise pretty common slasher - 3/10

What a coincidence. I almost watched that last night. I probably should've.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

What a coincidence. I almost watched that last night. I probably should've.

As long as you stay away from the sequel - you've been warned!

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Zelig by Woody Allen (1983)

"As a child, Leonard is frequently bullied by anti-Semites. His parents, who never take his part and blame him for everything, side with the anti-Semites."

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Buffalo '66 by Vincent Gallo (1998) - Yes!
Mulholland Drive by David Lynch (2001) - I think I prefer Lost Highway, maybe even Blue Velvet, not sure.
Lolita by Stanley Kubrick (1962) - I prefer Eyes Wide Shut by a mile.
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie by John Cassavetes (1976) - not my favorite for sure, I think it would be Opening Night.
The King of Comedy by Martin Scorcese (1982) - I don't care about Scorsese... but yeah good choice, maybe Raging Bull.
Before Sunset by Richard Linklater (2004) - Yes!
The Lighthouse by Robert Eggers (2019) - Haven't seen it!
Bad Lieutenant by Abel Ferrara (1992) - I prefer New Rose Hotel by a mile - Bad Lieutenant isn't in my top-5 from Ferrara, big fan of his.
12 Angry Men by Sidney Lumet (1957) - oh well... why not.
Miller's Crossing by The Coen Brothers (1990) - My favorite is Barton Fink, but I have no strong feeling towards the brothers.
Somewhere by Sofia Coppola (2010) - Prefered Lost in Translation, but don't care.
Killer of Sheep by Charles Burnett (1978) - haven't seen it *blush*

Couldn't help but think of...

- Some of my favorite american films by smaller names:

Julien Donkey-Boy by Harmony Korine (1999)
Ken Park by Larry Clark (2002)
The Lickerish Quartet by Radley Metzger (1970)

- And some of my favorite american films by foreign directors:

Arizona Dream by Emir Kusturica (1993)
The Golden Boat by Raoul Ruiz (1990)

- And again...

Zelig by Woody Allen (1983)
Hoop Dreams by Steve James (1994)
Images by Robert Altman (1972) - technically a british film

Ok, I'm out..... I'll post about the masterpieces I watched this week....

The little I've seen of Korine and Clark, I've found weak, personally. I've never seen Julien Donkey-Boy, though. I had forgotten Zelig. It's an all-time favorite for me and I added it to my list. I'm surprised you rank Eyes Wide Shut so highly, though. While I like it more than some, I think the performances by Cruise and especially Kidman drag the movie a lot. It's not a particularly well-acted film and certainly the weakest Kubrick entry since probably Spartacus. With that said, I wasn't particularly enthralled by Dream Story (the novella Eyes Wide Shut is based on) until the end either.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

"As a child, Leonard is frequently bullied by anti-Semites. His parents, who never take his part and blame him for everything, side with the anti-Semites."

'The Ku Klux Klan, who saw Zelig as a Jew, that could turn himself into a Negro and a Chinaman, saw him as a triple threat.'

 

[ProstheticConscience]

'The Ku Klux Klan, who saw Zelig as a Jew, that could turn himself into a Negro and a Chinaman, saw him as a triple threat.'

I'm twelve years old. I run into a Synagogue. I ask the rabbi the meaning of life. He tells me the meaning of life. But he tells it to me in Hebrew. I don't understand Hebrew. Then he wants to charge me six hundred dollars for Hebrew lessons.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The little I've seen of Korine and Clark, I've found weak, personally. I've never seen Julien Donkey-Boy, though. I had forgotten Zelig. It's an all-time favorite for me and I added it to my list. I'm surprised you rank Eyes Wide Shut so highly, though. While I like it more than some, I think the performances by Cruise and especially Kidman drag the movie a lot. It's not a particularly well-acted film and certainly the weakest Kubrick entry since probably Spartacus. With that said, I wasn't particularly enthralled by Dream Story (the novella Eyes Wide Shut is based on) until the end either.

Oh I think Cruise is pretty good in it, and I understand exactly where you think Kidman sucks, and yeah that scene is pretty terrible, but I love films where the acting is way worse (see The Golden Boat from the same post) - there's some films that are just way ahead of the pack, and I think Eyes Wide Shut might be my favorite american film of all time. Kubrick never did anything close to being as complex (and risqué), and that says a lot about where I think it stands compared to other directors' works.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The little I've seen of Korine and Clark, I've found weak.

Don't even bother with Radley Metzger!!!

 

[McOilers97]

Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock (1954)

9/10

Awesome movie. I'm trying to watch more classic cinema during this time and this is one of the best movies I've seen in a while. You can tell it is "old" from the look, but it doesn't feel dated whatsoever.

 

[Trap Jesus]

Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock (1954)

9/10

Awesome movie. I'm trying to watch more classic cinema during this time and this is one of the best movies I've seen in a while. You can tell it is "old" from the look, but it doesn't feel dated whatsoever.

I'm really ignorant of classics, but I've just had such a rough time with the majority of movies I've watched from maybe mid-60s and earlier. This may be the only older movie I've seen that I thought was exceptional.

 

[kihei]

Tout va bien (1972) Directed by Jean Luc Godard and Jean Pierre Gorin 7C

So, Tout va bien popped up on MUBI today and as I remembered nothing about it when I saw it in the early '70s, I decided to give it a shot. Pretty interesting film, actually. Godard and Gorin opt for a more conventional narrative approach (by their standards) and cast two huge superstars Jane Fonda and Yves Montand to boot. The movie is a snapshot of the political upheaval that overwhelmed France in the late '60s to early '70s. It focuses on a reporter (Fonda) for a US news agency interviewing bosses and workers at a meat packing plant that goes on strike while she and her film director turned advertising huckster husband are there. They get taken hostage in the dullest, least fraught hostage taking imaginable. Several characters get to have their political say in long, uninterrupted monologues while at the same time we learn more about Fonda and Montand's strained marital relationship. The movie really is about the nature of change and how the social and theoretical can invariably influence the personal. Some of the movie, the boss trying to find a bathroom, for instance, is comic; other scenes, such as Montand's character explaining to the camera how he went from New Wave director to advertising hack and failed radical, is actually quite moving. Technically Godard has a lot of fun by taking out walls and creating long, back and forth tracking shots in the sausage factory that are almost playful. As well a similar long, back and forth tracking shot in a huge grocery at the end of the film suggests both the conflict of class warfare and the potential chaos of change. This sequence is very reminiscent of his long, tracking shot of car accidents that occurs in the middle of Weekend, another overtly political film but far more accessible and immediate. As for my previous memory lapse concerning this film, I guess it all depends on which end of the horse one is looking at. When I first saw Tout va bien, I had only experienced Godard's earlier works and found his new overtly political orientation too dogmatic for my taste. Now looking backward from almost the end of Godard's incredible career, I find it easier to recognize that Tout va bien really has a sense of purpose and is saying something important. Sometimes it takes a long time to get the point.

subtitles

 

[McOilers97]

This is the oldest movie I've ever seen honestly, and it's not even that old, compared to the stuff from the 20s/30s/40s.

I've been recommended to watch Casablanca as well, so I'm expecting to enjoy that.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

This is the oldest movie I've ever seen honestly, and it's not even that old, compared to the stuff from the 20s/30s/40s.

I've been recommended to watch Casablanca as well, so I'm expecting to enjoy that.

Don't expect Rear Window out of Casablanca.

 

[McOilers97]

Don't expect Rear Window out of Casablanca.

In terms of content, sure. Do you mean that, or that it isn't as good?

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

In terms of content, sure. Do you mean that, or that it isn't as good?

To me, it's a snoozefest.

 

[kihei]

Casablanca is one of the greatest romances in movie history. Definitely not a thriller in the Hitchcock mold, but one of the best US movies ever made. Hey, and try The Maltese Falcon, too, another Humphrey Bogart classic.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Juliet of The Spirits (1963) - Unfinished/10

Life's too short to be wasting time trying to finish aimless post-50's Fellini films.

 

[Osprey]

To me, it's a snoozefest.

It's certainly no Slumber Party Massacre. Maybe with a higher body and boob count, Casablanca could've become a classic. Shame.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

It's certainly no Slumber Party Massacre. Maybe with a few gory murders and topless women tossed into the mix, Casablanca could've become a classic. Shame.

Triggered much? at least aim at something I think is better than Casablanca, like Tourist Trap.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Mission Impossible II (John Woo, 2000) - Hadn't seen this one since its original run in theaters and thought it couldn't be as bad as its reputation make it to be, but I was wrong. After De Palma turned down M:I2, Cruise turned to another director with a strong signature (a trend that would end with Fincher ultimately going away from M:I3). But that's exactly the problem, Woo signs every second shot of the film, and since he's a big juicy turd, the whole thing ends up feeling like diarrhea. Oh and a misogynistic diarrhea, but no surprise coming from Woo (at its most dreadful, Sir Anthony Hopkins, phoning it in long distance, gets to teach Cruise about women and their universal training in lying). Certainly the worse M:I film - 2/10

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) Directed by F W Murnau 10A

After an exceptionally distinguished career in Germany, F W Murnau (Nosferatu; The Last Laugh; Faust) moved to Hollywood where Sunrise was his first American film. The movie is generally considered a masterpiece, and not just of the silent era. Sunrise is a melodrama all right, but one that kept me glued to the screen from start to finish. A man falls in love with a femme fatale who suggests he should drown his church-mouse of a wife. He goes so far as to paddle her out to the middle of a lake, threatens the act, but ultimately can't bring himself to do it. She is, of course, devastated, but he is so repentant that she eventually forgives him. They spend a day frolicking in the big city to the extent that it looks like the movie is going to transform itself into a comedy. But then rowing back home after their day of renewal and reconciliation, a monstrous storm comes up and both are thrown overboard. He survives but he can't find her anywhere. Has a kind of karma occurred; has the movie reverted back to tragedy? Yes, the plot twists are melodrama personified, but Murnau is such a marvelous director and such a brilliant technician that the movie, oozing in sensuality and atmosphere, often comes off as a kind of visual poetry. Many of the scenes are both gorgeous and imaginative as he uses a whole host of camera trickery to get his effects, and the story propels itself right along with great emotion and suspense. The gender relationship element is what one would expect from the 1920's (it's all the femme fatale's fault), but the end result is a gripping movie that is beautifully constructed.

intertitles

You win again, you jerk. This was pretty great.

One advantage I've discovered to my broad and historic struggle with silent films is that I (admitedly unfairly and inaccurately) always assume the direction is going to be stiff and then I see something like this and the damn thing is so visually vibrant. That it's genuinely emotionally engaging on top of that just adds to its power.

As I'm interrogating myself here I wonder why I associate such a stodgy blandness with silent film because as I actually think about the ones I've seen, most would not be called that. It's a wrong assumption that I still carry for reasons I can't quite figure out. Hmmm. I think I'm going to need a new bit.

 

[Osprey]

Mission Impossible II (John Woo, 2000) - Hadn't seen this one since its original run in theaters and thought it couldn't be as bad as its reputation make it to be, but I was wrong. After De Palma turned down M:I2, Cruise turned to another director with a strong signature (a trend that would end with Fincher ultimately going away from M:I3). But that's exactly the problem, Woo signs every second shot of the film, and since he's a big juicy turd, the whole thing ends up feeling like diarrhea. Oh and a misogynistic diarrhea, but no surprise coming from Woo (at its most dreadful, Sir Anthony Hopkins, phoning it in long distance, gets to teach Cruise about women and their universal training in lying). Certainly the worse M:I film - 2/10

Triggered much? Seriously, in case you couldn't tell, I was just having some fun with you earlier.

I agree about MI:2 being the worst of the franchise. I, too, saw it somewhat recently for the first time in forever and was turned off by Woo's direction.

Coincidentally, I was in the mood for a Cruise film last night, myself, so I watched Collateral for the first time. I don't really feel like reviewing it, so I'll just say here that it was OK, but I definitely didn't like it as much as most people. For one, it was too hard to take Cruise seriously as a villain, especially with that dumb hair, which is the main reason that I was never interested in the film in the first place.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Triggered much? Seriously, in case you couldn't tell, I was just having some fun with you earlier.

I agree about MI:2 being the worst of the franchise. I, too, saw it somewhat recently for the first time in forever and was turned off by Woo's direction.

Coincidentally, I was in the mood for a Cruise film last night, myself, so I watched Collateral for the first time. I don't really feel like reviewing it, so I'll just say here that it was OK, but I definitely didn't like it as much as most people. For one, it was too hard to take Cruise seriously as a villain, especially with that dumb hair, which is the main reason that I was never interested in the film in the first place.

Oh no worry - I'm aware (and I assume) that my tastes don't match most people's and certainly no lists of classics. It's true in films, music, and probably everything else - and I have fun with it (I just suggested a Radley Metzger film as one of the best american films ever made - I wasn't joking, but I'm not dumb enough to think it's going to be received with enthusiasm - luckily, it seems not a lot are familiar with his body of work).

As for Collateral, only seen it once. I have it at 3/10 on IMDB, but I don't remember much of it, pretty sure I'd push it up at a awe-inspiring 4/10 if I was to watch it again.