Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Part#: Some High Number +5

[kihei]

Sunday’s Illness (2018) Directed by Ramon Salazar 9B

Abigail (Suzi Sanchez) is just entering old age. She is very well off, elegant, but a little on the icy side as well, restrained, inward. Her comfortably settled life is interrupted when Chiara shows up after a dinner party. Chiara (Barbara Lennie) is Abagail’s daughter, the one she walked out on 35 years ago when the child was eight-years old and never saw again. Abigail’s rich husband thinks that Chiara is looking for a handout, but Chiara has a very different request in mind. She asks her mother to spend ten days in a cottage with her deep in the Spanish countryside. If you think you can guess the direction Sunday’s Illness is going in, you can’t. The movie is a deliberately paced, highly atmospheric, deeply moving glimpse at the inner world of two women, flesh and blood to one another, trying to negotiate feelings that are impossible to express in the time they have together, that still might be impossible to express if they had all the time in the world. Sunday’s Illness is about the price of abandonment and the primal debt that is left in its wake. Ultimately the movie is about love and the acceptance of responsibility. Both Lennie and, especially, Sanchez are superb. Sunday’s Illness is among the most beautifully realized films that I have seen in some time.

subtitles

Netflix


Top Ten so far this year

1) First Cow, Reichardt, US
2) Sunday’s Illness, Salazar, Spain
3) Corpus Christi, Komasa, Poland
4) Seducio da Carne, Bressane, Brazil
5) Before We Vanish, Kurosawa, Japan
6) Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Hittman, US
7) Beanpole, Balagov, Russia
8) The Portuguese Woman, Gomes, Portugal
9) Only the Animals, Moll, France
10) The Forest of Love, Sono, Japan

 

[Chili]

I remember a Habs game on HNIC when he was a superstar. It was a break between periods and the cameras caught a glimpse of Lafleur sneaking a cigarette in the hallway at the Forum. Stuck in my mind forever.

Guy was a smoker. A lot of others too back in the day.

Interesting article on smoking in the NHL here:

https://www.si.com/nhl/2012/02/29/players-smokingcigarettesnhlhockey

Mike Keenan, no saint but never a smoker, was shocked

"I had just come from Philadelphia, where there really weren't a lot of guys who smoked," he says. "But I walk in and see those ashtrays everywhere, and the first thing I told the guys was: 'OK, no more smoking in the dressing room. If you gotta smoke, do it out in the hallway.' So I'm coaching my first exhibition game and I go into the dressing room after the first period to talk, and there's no one in there. I'm wondering what in hell is going on, and take a walk out to the other side of the hallway and the whole team is out there, smoking cigarettes."

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Zelig (1983) - 7/10

Fairly amusing Woody Allen mockumentary film. But mockumentaries are at their best in 20-30 minute spans and without narration, this gets repetitive despite the short 80ish minute runtime. A nice little watch but obviously more notable films to watch first in Allen's filmography (I should add that he also plays a neurotic character in this one if you couldn't guess).

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Zelig (1983) - 7/10

Fairly amusing Woody Allen mockumentary film. But mockumentaries are at their best in 20-30 minute spans and without narration, this gets repetitive despite the short 80ish minute runtime. A nice little watch but obviously more notable films to watch first in Allen's filmography (I should add that he also plays a neurotic character in this one if you couldn't guess).

Humbug! It's his best film.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

It's neat but it doesn't really feel like much of a film tbh.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Amour (2012) - 7/10

It's a good movie but also a real bummer. I didn't realize it was by Heneke, relentlessly bleak. I should've known better than to have watched this on a Sunday night before work

It's made worse by the fact that I've seen both of these actors act when they were young and in their prime in the 50s/60s.

 

[kihei]

Amour (2012) - 7/10

It's a good movie but also a real bummer. I didn't realize it was by Heneke, relentlessly bleak. I should've known better than to have watched this on a Sunday night before work

It's made worse by the fact that I've seen both of these actors act when they were young and in their prime in the 50s/60s.

Amour is one of about a dozen "10"s for me this century. It seemed to me to be a compassionate, humane film from a director not known for either, but I suppose it could be read as about the estrangement of old age and in that respect it is pretty bleak.

 

[kihei]

Fail Safe (1964) Directed by Sidney Lumet 8A

There were some good Cold War thrillers in the early ‘60s of which The Manchurian Candidate is the most famous. However, Fail Safe is equally impressive. When an aircraft from an unknow origin enters North American air space, the US automatically scrambles its nuclear bombers just in case the country is under attack. The unknown aircraft turns out to be an off-course commercial flight, but one group of bombers headed for Russia still believe their mission is to bomb Moscow. When they pass their “fail safe” point, nothing can deter them. The President (Henry Fonda, don’t I wish) has to make an incredibly difficult decision, and a lot of people aren’t going to like it. Sidney Lumet was a director known for making well directed, socially conscious movies (Dog Day Afternoon; Serpico; 12 Angry Men; Network) and Fail Safe is one of his best. In addition to Fonda, Walter Matthau plays a hawk-like intellectual, Dan O’Herlihy plays a dove-like colonel and Larry Hagman plays a young Russian language translator. The real star of the film is the dark, shadowy lighting and accompanying cinematography that make the proceedings seem even more ominous and foreboding than they otherwise might. Fail Safe is a cautionary tale about how a nuclear war could happen almost by accident, but Lumet doesn’t let the message get in the way of a fast-paced, intellectually engaging, hard-hitting thriller.

Criterion Collection

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Criterion has a really diverse and stellar lineup of 70s horror this month (plus a few interesting 80s choices under their "Women Filmmakers of New World Pictures"collection.) Dove into a pair this weekend:

Images. This was unfamiliar to me both as a horror film and as a Robert Altman movie. It's a familiar subgenre I like to call: "Woman somewhat confined at a remote home slowly goes crazy. Hormones?" Polanski's Repulsion would be a clear comparable. I thought this was a nice, creepy little gem. Movies like this live and die with your lead and Susannah York is great. You never quite know what's real and what's not and much of that is conveyed through her. She's an interesting twist on a common character in that she takes a more pro-active approach to coping with her demons even if she seems fully aware they may not exist in a physical sense. They're real to her dammit. Altman's got a few simple, but effective tricks, particularly how characters enter and exit scenes. Looking for something under the radar that's more to the spooky than scary side? This might fit your bill. Makes me wish Altman dabbled in horror a little more.

The Witch Who Came From the Sea. Too trashy to be taken seriously but also just serious enough to not quite fully reach bad-good (or is it good-bad?) territory. It certainly puts forth some ideas about childhood abuse that I don't want to laugh at but the main character also ties up and murders two members of the LA Rams and she gets a mermaid tattoo that I'm pretty sure rubs off during the course of a later murder. If you have an affinity for odd, poorly made trash, the first hour of this is works pretty good. It's an entertaining jumble of sex, psychosis and talk of the sea. Starts to wear a little thin in the last 30 minutes or so though. Two interesting (at least to me) side notes: There's a character in here named Jack Dracula and he isn't even a Dracula! Also, in researching the director it feels like he's at least partial inspiration for Sam (Mark Maron) in the show Glow.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Criterion has a really diverse and stellar lineup of 70s horror this month (plus a few interesting 80s choices under their "Women Filmmakers of New World Pictures"collection.) Dove into a pair this weekend:

Images. This was unfamiliar to me both as a horror film and as a Robert Altman movie. It's a familiar subgenre I like to call: "Woman somewhat confined at a remote home slowly goes crazy. Hormones?" Polanski's Repulsion would be a clear comparable. I thought this was a nice, creepy little gem. Movies like this live and die with your lead and Susannah York is great. You never quite know what's real and what's not and much of that is conveyed through her. She's an interesting twist on a common character in that she takes a more pro-active approach to coping with her demons even if she seems fully aware they may not exist in a physical sense. They're real to her dammit. Altman's got a few simple, but effective tricks, particularly how characters enter and exit scenes. Looking for something under the radar that's more to the spooky than scary side? This might fit your bill. Makes me wish Altman dabbled in horror a little more.

The Witch Who Came From the Sea. Too trashy to be taken seriously but also just serious enough to not quite fully reach bad-good (or is it good-bad?) territory. It certainly puts forth some ideas about childhood abuse that I don't want to laugh at but the main character also ties up and murders two members of the LA Rams and she gets a mermaid tattoo that I'm pretty sure rubs off during the course of a later murder. If you have an affinity for odd, poorly made trash, the first hour of this is works pretty good. It's an entertaining jumble of sex, psychosis and talk of the sea. Starts to wear a little thin in the last 30 minutes or so though. Two interesting (at least to me) side notes: There's a character in here named Jack Dracula and he isn't even a Dracula! Also, in researching the director it feels like he's at least partial inspiration for Sam (Mark Maron) in the show Glow.

Images is one of my favorite horror films. I've been praising it for some time around here and I'm glad someone finally picked up on it!

 

[McOilers97]

Jojo Rabbit - Taika Waititi 2019
Had a fun time watching this one. It had the kind of energy that Waititi's movies all seem to have, and I was impressed by all the performances - especially Sam Rockwell in his limited time on screen. Movie was hilarious but also had some harder hitting moments, and I thought it was well scored too. I've seen some better 2019 movies, but this was pretty good.

Hard Eight - Paul Thomas Anderson 1996
PTA's first movie is a pretty good one - doesn't quite feel like fully-realized PTA yet, given that he didn't have the experience or the creative freedom like in his bigger subsequent films (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Master; haven't seen TWBB yet, but I know how well-regarded it is), but it's a well put together movie with performances that feel really natural. It's fascinating that John C Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Philip Baker Hall are all in PTA's first 3 movies (this, Boogie Nights, Magnolia) in a 4 year span.

 

[Langdon Alger]

Hard Eight - Paul Thomas Anderson 1996
PTA's first movie is a pretty good one - doesn't quite feel like fully-realized PTA yet, given that he didn't have the experience or the creative freedom like in his bigger subsequent films (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Master; haven't seen TWBB yet, but I know how well-regarded it is), but it's a well put together movie with performances that feel really natural. It's fascinating that John C Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Philip Baker Hall are all in PTA's first 3 movies (this, Boogie Nights, Magnolia) in a 4 year span.

Saw this a long time ago when I was really into PTA. Can’t remember it at all, but I’d like to go back and check it out again.

 

[aleshemsky83]

For anyone that's seen possessor uncut , can you explain the ending to me? Spoilers for those who haven't seen it obviously.


----


Why did the son have an implant in his brain? why didn't the mother give two sh*ts that her husband and son were just murdered? Did she not care? Did she not remember? Was the family a plant all along?

I feel like cinemasins asking these questions but I am genuinely confused.

 

[kihei]

Caligula (1979) Directed by Tinto Brass (who insisted his name be removed from the credits) 1C

I had never seen Caligula; now I have. I was tempted to end my review right there. What was intended supposedly as political satire seems to have been taken over by Penthouse owner and Caligula’s co-producer Bob Guccione who insisted that additional scenes of hard-core pornography be included in the film, a demand that director Tinto Brass firmly rejected. Difficult to imagine that anything in this movie was ever worth pursuing as everything in it is terrible. Somehow actors of the stature of John Gielgud, Peter O’Toole, Helen Mirren (walking through her role dead-eyed), and star Malcolm McDowell got talked into this thing which stands as very poor judgement on their part at the least. With no Roman history lesson, no real story, no character development, Caligula is just an ongoing orgy with brief moments of respite that gets more sexually graphic as the film progresses. By the time that we get to the, ahem, climax, all that remains is a hard-core porn film. Absent eroticism, seduction and playfulness, our cheap thrills are dependent upon a lot of dangling penises (way, way too many on my scorecard) and exposed vaginas with the odd explicit sex act thrown in to give the movie that Penthouse sheen. I had no problem whatsoever with the sex scenes in Blue Is the Warmest Color or In the Realm of the Senses because they are central to the story. I wish Last Tango in Paris, for one, had included explicit sex because it seemed silly not to do so. More genuine eroticism in movies would be fine with me as the medium seems ideally equipped to create it. But in this movie it’s just soulless mechanical sex for the sake of soulless mechanical sex. On every conceivable level, Caligula fails miserably.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

More genuine eroticism in movies would be fine with me as the medium seems ideally equipped to create it. But in this movie it’s just soulless mechanical sex for the sake of soulless mechanical sex. On every conceivable level, Caligula fails miserably.

So you think the film should have been eroticized and would have been more of a success had it been titillating? Not a big fan of this one, but I think the sex = spectacle was one of the main points here.

 

[kihei]

So you think the film should have been eroticized and would have been more of a success had it been titillating? Not a big fan of this one, but I think the sex = spectacle was one of the main points here.

I don't think anything would have saved Caligula (saying no to Guccione's money in the first place might have been wise, though). And of course the porn/spectacle is the main point. That doesn't make it a good point much less a successful one.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I don't think anything would have saved Caligula (saying no to Guccione's money in the first place might have been wise, though). And of course the porn/spectacle is the main point. That doesn't make it a good point much less a successful one.

You seem to imply it would have worked better had it been erotic, seductive and playful which would have been, IMO, counter to what was attempted. It's not a great film, but it's pretty effective at what it is. I haven't seen it in 20 years at least, but I'd probably have it around 6.5/10.

 

[kihei]

You seem to imply it would have worked better had it been erotic, seductive and playful which would have been, IMO, counter to what was attempted. It's not a great film, but it's pretty effective at what it is. I haven't seen it in 20 years at least, but I'd probably have it around 6.5/10.

Yeah, it was the "what was attempted" that I thought was trash, true. No argument on that one. You could take out the porn--you'd have a much shorter movie, but that would be a blessing in disguise--leave it out entirely, and it still would have been a lousy movie. You're trying to defend a Bob Guccione wet dream which is all it is.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Yeah, it was the "what was attempted" that I thought was trash, true. No argument on that one. You could take out the porn--you'd have a much shorter movie, but that would be a blessing in disguise--leave it out entirely, and it still would have been a lousy movie. You're trying to defend a Bob Guccione wet dream which is all it is.

Oh I'm certainly not defending the film (yet anyway, I'd have to watch it again and I'm not sure I'm down for it), I just think your argumentation against it isn't really valid (same with the "Bob Guccione's wet dream" comment that was meant - I think - as an attack to my humble person).

Looks to me like mauvaise foi and simplification. I had to check who Guccione was, and I don't know if he's been associated to other films, but this one still passed through the hands of both Vidal and Brass (and even though they didn't want to be associated with the final product, there's still some of their work and ideas remaining in it). It probably fails at a lot of them, but there's still a lot of things attempted here that not a lot of films dare to. Dismissing the whole thing because you got lost counting penises seems a little reactionary to me.

 

[kihei]

Oh I'm certainly not defending the film (yet anyway, I'd have to watch it again and I'm not sure I'm down for it), I just think your argumentation against it isn't really valid (same with the "Bob Guccione's wet dream" comment that was meant - I think - as an attack to my humble person).

To quote John McEnroe: "You cannot be serious."

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Amour is one of about a dozen "10"s for me this century. It seemed to me to be a compassionate, humane film from a director not known for either, but I suppose it could be read as about the estrangement of old age and in that respect it is pretty bleak.

I've seen other films like Make Way For Tomorrow and Tokyo Story which imo do the same thing better. Make Way For Tomorrow is bleak but it's laced in classic Hollywood-isms which make it more stomach-able.

 

[nameless1]

Fail Safe (1964) Directed by Sidney Lumet 8A

There were some good Cold War thrillers in the early ‘60s of which The Manchurian Candidate is the most famous. However, Fail Safe is equally impressive. When an aircraft from an unknow origin enters North American air space, the US automatically scrambles its nuclear bombers just in case the country is under attack. The unknown aircraft turns out to be an off-course commercial flight, but one group of bombers headed for Russia still believe their mission is to bomb Moscow. When they pass their “fail safe” point, nothing can deter them. The President (Henry Fonda, don’t I wish) has to make an incredibly difficult decision, and a lot of people aren’t going to like it. Sidney Lumet was a director known for making well directed, socially conscious movies (Dog Day Afternoon; Serpico; 12 Angry Men; Network) and Fail Safe is one of his best. In addition to Fonda, Walter Matthau plays a hawk-like intellectual, Dan O’Herlihy plays a dove-like colonel and Larry Hagman plays a young Russian language translator. The real star of the film is the dark, shadowy lighting and accompanying cinematography that make the proceedings seem even more ominous and foreboding than they otherwise might. Fail Safe is a cautionary tale about how a nuclear war could happen almost by accident, but Lumet doesn’t let the message get in the way of a fast-paced, intellectually engaging, hard-hitting thriller.

Criterion Collection

I watched this recently, and I was surprised by how well it held up. I also cannot help but compare the fictional president with the current one in office, and I honestly wonder what 45 will do if the same situation arises.


Critics points to some impracticability of the plot, but for casual audiences, it is a very well-made tense thriller that never stops to ask the hard questions. I might be the only one, but I particularly love the credits, when all the background noises suddenly just stops.

I never noticed it before, but almost all of Lumet's best works do not have any music in there. That is actually rather impressive, and at the moment, I cannot think of anyone else that actually produces his or her best works without any music.

 

[Osprey]

I just watched Fail Safe, myself, since I didn't remember that I'd seen it. It's very well directed, shot and acted, IMO, as well as pretty suspenseful. Unfortunately, I found it hard to take seriously because the plot is so unbelievable and dated. It's a very serious film, yet I ended up laughing at it too many times, especially in the second half, because it gets more and more absurd (but, unlike Dr. Strangelove, it's not meant to be absurd). It was a bit like watching those nuclear educational videos from the 60s. I still liked it, but I'd probably give it a point less than when I saw it years ago and a couple points less than if the plot were as solid as the rest of it. It's a film that seems to work best if you don't think about it too much.

I watched this recently, and I was surprised by how well it held up. I also cannot help but compare the fictional president with the current one in office, and I honestly wonder what 45 will do if the same situation arises.

Spoiler

The current President would never order a nuclear bomb to be dropped on New York City.

He'd have it dropped on Chicago.

 

[Puck]

This low budget flick at VIFF might be good for a chuckle
VIFF review: Low-tech sci-fi mystery Lapsis provides smart commentary on worker exploitation

a few reviews on other matters
Your guide to the 2020 Vancouver International Film Festival

 

[kihei]

On My Skin (2018) Directed by Alessio Cremonini 6B

On My Skin recounts the real-life story of the last seven days in the life of Stefano Cucchi (Alessandro Borghi), a young man from a middle-class family who is busted by the carabinieri for possession of drugs. What should be a relatively minor infraction turns into something far worse. He is beaten by two plainclothesmen, basically thugs with badges, and, thus begins his fatal journey through the Italian court, penal and medical systems. A series of doctors, lawyers, penitentiary officials, and judges manage to ignore his severely beaten body. A wealth of red tape and byzantine rules prevents his family from even seeing their son, much less finding out about his condition. Much like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, the film is an indictment of an entire social system that has ceased to function in human terms. However, where The Death of Mr. Lazarescu was a pitch-black comic film, On My Skin feels more like a dead serious expose of official indifference and incompetence. It is true that Cucchi did much to compromise his own cause, staying quiet for so long out of fear of retaliation. And it is also true there were some medical and penal staff willing to help him. But that in no way justifies what he went through. While On My Skin sounds hard as hell to take, I actually found it very watchable. It is well-paced, well directed, and benefits from a commanding performance by Alessandro Borghi.

subtitles

Netflix