Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Part#: Some High Number +4

[nameless1]

Never have done a Quebec list, but now's a good time. Can't narrow it down beyond a dozen:

Mon Oncle Antoine (yes, I am one of those)
Les Ordres
Cafe le Flore
Mommy
Polytechniqe
Heatbeats
Le Bons Debarras
Curling
The Salesman
Before Tomorrow
Boris without Beatrice
The Far Side of the Moon

Xavier Dolan is a prodigy. His whole filmography is worth a look.

I will add Antigone and 1:54 to the list. Antigone is a modern adaptation of the ancient Greek tragedy that is quite refreshing, and 1:54 is a taut high school thriller on bullying. Sarah Prefers to Run is also a very interesting coming-of-age tale about a women's sexual awaking, and I do think it is worth a watch, but it is definitely a notch below.

What about Incendies, War Witch and Monsieur Lazhar? I have not seen those myself, but they are Oscar-nominated.

 

[nameless1]

Not a big fan. I like Le déclin de l'empire américain and its sequel, but that's maybe 7.5/10 films for me. Le confort et l'indifférence is by far his most relevant/interesting film, but not a great film in itself.

I'd like to add to my list:

5) Mourir à tue-tête - brilliant film

I actually have never seen any of his movies, so I do not have an opinion myself, but he is very accomplished. I will take note. Thanks.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I would love to do a Anglo-Canadian recommended list too.

From the top of my head:

Calendar
Speaking Parts
The Sweet Hereafter

Crash
Videodrome
Naked Lunch
Dead Ringers

There's such a huge drop after these two directors......

Last Night
Emotional Arithmetics
My Winnipeg
The Saddest Music in the World
Waydowntown

Black Christmas
The Hanging Garden

 

[nameless1]

From the top of my head:

Calendar
Speaking Parts
The Sweet Hereafter

Speaking Parts
Crash
Videodrome
Naked Lunch

There's such a huge drop after these two directors......

Last Night
Emotional Arithmetics
My Winnipeg
The Saddest Music in the World
Waydowntown

Black Christman
The Hanging Garden

I forgot about Cronenberg. Of course.


I would recommend Mina Shum too. She is not a master by any stretch of the definition, but I think she captures Vancouver, and more importantly, the Chinese-Canadian experience, well-enough.

 

[kihei]

Xavier Dolan is a prodigy. His whole filmography is worth a look.

I will add Antigone and 1:54 to the list. Antigone is a modern adaptation of the ancient Greek tragedy that is quite refreshing, and 1:54 is a taut high school thriller on bullying. Sarah Prefers to Run is also a very interesting coming-of-age tale about a women's sexual awaking, and I do think it is worth a watch, but it is definitely a notch below.

What about Incendies, War Witch and Monsieur Lazhar? I have not seen those myself, but they are Oscar-nominated.

Incendies definitely, War Witch, maybe; Monsieur Lazhar, big no--I found it whiny. C.R.A.Z.Y. should also make the list easilly

My Rest of Canada real good movie list:

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
The Sweet Hereafter
The Grey Fox
Away from Her
Last Night
Enemy
Calendar
Videodrome
Twenty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould (documentary)
Double Happiness

HMs:

My Winnipeg
Dead Ringers
Warrendale (documentary)
Manufactured Landscapes (documentary)
Isabel
Goin' Down the Road
Sleeping Giant
Last Train Home
My American Cousin
Pontypool
Water
The World Before Her (documentary)

* Triples of Belleville needs to go somewhere, but I'm not sure where.
** Fubar and Anvil: The Story of Anvil should maybe get a nod, too. Ginger Snaps has its adherents, as well.

 

[ORRFForever]

White Lie (2019) :

“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” - Will Rogers

I really hate "lie movies" because watching films where the protagonist lives a lie, such as The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Informant or Bad Education, weighs on my gut. Seeing someone spin falsehoods, while getting themselves in deeper and deeper, and knowing it will all fall apart is painful to watch and I'm always on the verge of turning the movie off. Fortunately, I never turned White Lie off (I never even considered it) and I was rewarded with a smart, entertaining movie.

Kacey Rohl is a young woman faking cancer. She has a fund raising campaign, a scholarship based on her illness, and she's playing everyone with no end in sight. Unfortunately, every step she takes to reinforce her lie makes her more vulnerable to the inevitable truth.

White Lie is a southern Ontario movie (my alma mater makes an appearance) and it's impressive to see how far low budget Canadian films have come because the acting, the directing, and (especially) the writing are terrific.

8.25/10

 

[kihei]

Cure (1997) Directed by Kyoshi Kurosawa 7A

Takabe (Koji Yakusho), a police detective in Tokyo, confronts a baffling crime. The murder victims all have a deep "X" carved into their throat and chest areas. While one might think this is an indication of a particularly demented serial killer, each of the victims is murdered by a different perpetrator. Takabe has to figure out what is going on while keeping some semblance of his sanity. Cure is a very good psychological police thriller that gradually develops horror overtones. Director Kyoshi Kurosawa, who, by the way, is not related to Akira, is a director with whom I blow hot and cold, but he is at his best here. Watching this movie, it dawned on me how seldom I experience genuine suspense in a movie anymore, the kind Hitchcock could create. It almost seems like a lost art, too complicated and time consuming to set up properly. But the suspense generated in Cure is pleasingly old school, painstakingly devised and thoroughly engaging. I wish the solution of the crime could have been as imaginative as the rest of the movie, but it will do.

subtitles

Criterion Channel

 

[KlausJopling]

The Report (2019) Available on Amazon Prime. I'd give it a recommendation, but only if your into investigatory films. The synopsis says it a political thriller, but its not. As someone who never read any news stories related to the actual report I would like to believe this film is very factually accurate. If follows Adam Driver playing the lead Senate Investigator into the CIA's use of torture following September 11th. Expect alot of Driver reading reports on his computer screen with flash backs to the CIA waterboarding (and more) detainees. Also some good old fashion politics (this is really bad but do we want to make it public if it could hurt our re-election campaign or other initiatives we want to get done).

 

[McOilers97]

Past weekend I watched:

Manhunter - Michael Mann (1986)
The original Red Dragon movie adaptation. I haven't actually seen the 2002 Ratner one, but have heard that the direction left something to be desired. Mann definitely put his stamp on this one with a very distinct colour palette and soundtrack, and I enjoyed all the performances. Not an "all-time great" calibre movie for me, but a good one.

Interstellar - Christopher Nolan (2014)
Somehow had never seen this movie, though I had meant to see it for quite a while. Really liked the opening half and the father-daughter relationship that was built up, but the last 45min or so in particular kind of got away from me. In these high concept Nolan movies like Inception and Interstellar, I get the feeling that "more confusing/weird/complex = better" is the mantra when they're putting the script together, but the conclusion felt very over-written this time around and I think something simpler would have helped it stick the landing more. Visually stunning movie though, as can be expected from Nolan, and I enjoyed the way they played with the real-life consequences of relativity. I'd put this near the bottom of my Nolan rankings, but it is a movie that I'm glad to have seen once.

A History of Violence - David Cronenberg (2005)
Simple but effective movie. Wasn't blown away by it, but it was the best of these 3 movies that I watched. Mortensen is great here, and the final scene is quiet and slightly ambiguous while still being very satisyfing.

 

[McOilers97]

My Rest of Canada real good movie list:

Enemy

Watched this a few months ago - wicked movie that was near the start of Villeneuve's hot streak. I still need to see Incendies.

 

[OzzyFan]

Lethal Weapon
2.70 out of 4stars

Feels slightly dated, albeit a fun funny buddy action comedy with charismatic acting all around. Not a classic imo based on it's finished product alone, but supposedly it's more iconic for it's impact and foundations creating/setting in this genre. Right? Anybody?

 

[ORRFForever]

Lethal Weapon
2.70 out of 4stars

Feels slightly dated, albeit a fun funny buddy action comedy with charismatic acting all around. Not a classic imo based on it's finished product alone, but supposedly it's more iconic for it's impact and foundations creating/setting in this genre. Right? Anybody?

It's the best of the series - by far. Other than the silly ending (fight), I liked it (many years ago).

 

[ORRFForever]

Past weekend I watched:

Manhunter - Michael Mann (1986)
The original Red Dragon movie adaptation. I haven't actually seen the 2002 Ratner one, but have heard that the direction left something to be desired. Mann definitely put his stamp on this one with a very distinct colour palette and soundtrack, and I enjoyed all the performances. Not an "all-time great" caliber movie for me, but a good one.

I disagree. It is one of the all time greats and the best in the series - the remake is garbage, as is Silence Of The Lambs.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Needed a couple easy, mostly mindless movies to put on while I accomplished some tasks so I took the opportunity to catch up with the last two X-Men movies. I don’t have any meaningful contribution to the discussion on either. I wouldn’t say I hated either, but both are very rote, very in-one-ear-out-the-other. Neither are good. Everyone is riding out their contracts and you feel that, though I have to give some credit to Michael Fassbender who always remains as compelling as the material allows and never looks like he’s mailing it in. Jennifer Lawrence (who I generally like) on the other hand in Dark Phoenix especially gives one of the great “I only have a weekend to shoot and I’m not really in any scene with the other actors” performances of all time. It’s so obvious she’s with stand-ins it’s almost comical. Poor Sophie Turner (who was perfectly fine in Game of Thrones) just feels outmatched in every scene. The series definitely needs to be in the penalty box for a while after landing Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain as their villains in these last two movies and just completely wasting them (especially Chastain).

I still have a soft spot for the series overall and feel like it’s almost underrated in some ways. It’s roughly 50-50 hit rate good v bad movies is worse than the MCU. I think the bad entries weigh down the memories of the good ones.

Thinking about the two series it’s kinda interesting. I MIGHT be tempted to take the best of the X-Men films over the best of the MCU though I have a built-in bias since even since childhood I’ve thought X-Men were generally more interesting the Avengers, et al.

What the MCU has really done well compared to X-Men however is not having too many outright bad movies. I feel like the X-Men series is pretty consistently good or bad with not much in the middle whereas the MCU is really proficient at making “fine.” X-Men is repetitive to the point of annoyance. MCU manages to make its tropes almost comforting.

Interested to see what the future holds for the series now that it’s in new hands.

 

[Langdon Alger]

I disagree. It is one of the all time greats and the best in the series - the remake is garbage, as is Silence Of The Lambs.

The only movie with Hannibal Lecter that was garbage was Hannibal. Silence of the lambs is great, red dragon is good. Just my opinion of course.

 

[ORRFForever]

The only movie with Hannibal Lecter that was garbage was Hannibal. Silence of the lambs is great, red dragon is good. Just my opinion of course.

I thought Manhunter was way better than SOTL. Roger Ebert also felt Manhunter was the superior film - even tho he really liked SOTL. Not me. I found SOTL long and Hopkins' performance corny.

 

[Langdon Alger]

I thought Manhunter was way better than SOTL. Roger Ebert also felt Manhunter was the superior film - even tho he really liked SOTL. Not me. I found SOTL long and Hopkins' performance corny.

It’s only 2 hours, but I guess if you’re not into a movie, two hours can really drag. Ebert liked Silence of the lambs more than Siskel. Ebert gave it thumbs up and siskel gave it thumbs down. I was surprised that Siskel didn’t recommend the movie.

 

[ORRFForever]

It’s only 2 hours, but I guess if you’re not into a movie, two hours can really drag. Ebert liked Silence of the lambs more than Siskel. Ebert gave it thumbs up and siskel gave it thumbs down. I was surprised that Siskel didn’t recommend the movie.

You have a good memory. I'll try and dig up their review.

 

[ORRFForever]

I found it...



I agree with Gene Siskel, 100%.

 

[McOilers97]

I disagree. It is one of the all time greats and the best in the series - the remake is garbage, as is Silence Of The Lambs.

Fair enough. As I said, I did like the movie, but more as like a B+ kind of grade than an A. It's close to SoTL for me -not much separation, so maybe it will grow on me when I eventually go back to it. I know that many feel that Cox as Lecter is better than Hopkins because the performance feels more "real" and less hammy.

I also know from some internet research after watching Manhunter that many out there do consider it to be the best of the series as you do - there's no objectively right way to feel about anything, though I feel like anyone that watches Manhunter should find it to be at a minimum "pretty good" (it certainly isn't a bad movie in any respect).

One thing that is definitely shocking to me is that Manhunter bombed at the box office. Seems like it has grown significantly in reputation since then.

 

[ORRFForever]

It’s only 2 hours, but I guess if you’re not into a movie, two hours can really drag. Ebert liked Silence of the lambs more than Siskel. Ebert gave it thumbs up and siskel gave it thumbs down. I was surprised that Siskel didn’t recommend the movie.

I was pleasantly surprised Siskel didn't like it because I felt the same way...

* Hopkins performance was WAY over the top.
* The music blared.
* I never felt anything - no suspense, no interest, not scared.

I prefer Brian Cox's understated performance...

 

[Langdon Alger]

I found it...



I agree with Gene Siskel, 100%.

“Gene this is the movies what did you want?”

That part makes me laugh.

 

[member 51464]

Past weekend I watched:

Manhunter - Michael Mann (1986)
The original Red Dragon movie adaptation. I haven't actually seen the 2002 Ratner one, but have heard that the direction left something to be desired. Mann definitely put his stamp on this one with a very distinct colour palette and soundtrack, and I enjoyed all the performances. Not an "all-time great" calibre movie for me, but a good one.

Interstellar - Christopher Nolan (2014)
Somehow had never seen this movie, though I had meant to see it for quite a while. Really liked the opening half and the father-daughter relationship that was built up, but the last 45min or so in particular kind of got away from me. In these high concept Nolan movies like Inception and Interstellar, I get the feeling that "more confusing/weird/complex = better" is the mantra when they're putting the script together, but the conclusion felt very over-written this time around and I think something simpler would have helped it stick the landing more, in my opinion. Visually stunning movie though, as can be expected from Nolan, and I enjoyed the way they played with the real-life consequences of relativity. I'd put this near the bottom of my Nolan rankings, but it is a movie that I'm glad to have seen once.

A History of Violence - David Cronenberg (2005)
Simple but effective movie. Wasn't blown away by it, but it was the best of these 3 movies that I watched. Mortensen is great here, and the final scene is quiet and slightly ambiguous while still being very satisyfing.

Fun trivia for you: A History of Violence was the last major studio release to me released on VHS.

 

[ORRFForever]

Fair enough. As I said, I did like the movie, but more as like a B+ kind of grade than an A. It's close to SoTL for me -not much separation, so maybe it will grow on me when I eventually go back to it. I know that many feel that Cox as Lecter is better than Hopkins because the performance feels more "real" and less hammy.

I also know from some internet research after watching Manhunter that many out there do consider it to be the best of the series as you do - there's no objectively right way to feel about anything, though I feel like anyone that watches Manhunter should find it to be at a minimum "pretty good" (it certainly isn't a bad movie in any respect).

One thing that is definitely shocking to me is that Manhunter bombed at the box office. Seems like it has grown significantly in reputation since then.

^^ That's fair.^^

Manhunter is certainly not flawless...

One of the problems with Manhunter is that song(?) at the end that goes on forever. It is also dated with its Miami Vice look. Still, I loved it when I saw it in the theater in the 80's and I love it now.

I agree, Hopkins was "hammy" <-- well said.

 

[Langdon Alger]

^^ That's fair.^^

Manhunter is certainly not flawless...

One of the problems with Manhunter is the ending and that song(?) that goes on forever. It is also dated with its Miami Vice look. Still, I loved it when I saw it in the theater in the 80's and I love it now.

I agree, Hopkins was "hammy" <-- well said.

All the way to the F-B-I.

Ever notice Lecter never blinks?