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

[Langdon Alger]

Easy A - 2010

Fun teen comedy starring Emma Stone. Good supporting cast. I enjoyed it.

7/10

 

[ORRFForever]

The Cleansing Hour (2019):

Max was a Catholic Priest but he left the Priesthood. Now he performs fake exorcists on line and parties with groupies. Then, one night, a demon is real and Max is at a loss when he tries to save his friends.

The Cleansing Hour is not scary - even the jump scares are predictable and lame. The movie is one great big gorefest.

It's also very disrespectful to the Catholic Church.
1/10

 

[ORRFForever]

Once Upon a Time in America-1984
Needed to watch it a couple of times to appreciate it.

At almost 4 hours, that's a lot of movie time.

When I was young, I was able to watch movies over and over, again. Now that I'm older, with few exceptions, I can't.

 

[nameless1]

Once Upon a Time in America-1984

Not a typical gangster film. Still plenty of violence including a lot against women. Slow pace and great attention to detail. Rumoured that Sergio Leone turned down making The Godfather because of this film (which was in the works for many years). Best part is Ennio Morricone's score. Partly based on the memoirs of a real gangster. Leaves some interesting unanswered questions at the end . Needed to watch it a couple of times to appreciate it.

At almost 4 hours, that's a lot of movie time.

When I was young, I was able to watch movies over and over, again. Now that I'm older, with few exceptions, I can't.

It is 10/10 for me. In fact, it is on my top 3 films list. Despite its already formidable length, this is one of those rare films that I wish could be longer. Apparently, Leone's complete vision is supposed to be 5 hours plus that expands some of the relationships even more, but that never made it to the light of day. Now, all that is left is the 4 hours version, and a studio edited down chronological version that is universally panned.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Amityville Horror: The Evil Escapes (Stern, 1989) - Yes, the one with the infamous evil lamp. Sandor Stern is the guy who wrote the screenplay adaptation of the original Amityville film. He also directed, the year just before this one, the Canadian cult classic Pin. Yet, you'd still wouldn't believe he is not a total [pejorative slur] after seeing this non-Amityville Amityville film. As he thought the stories from the book he was hired to adapt were too weak, he decided to write an original one, "inspired" by them. In this story, priests cleanse the original Amityville house, but the evil hides in a lamp that gets sold in a yard sale and is shipped to an old lady in California. Just imagine how dumb must that book be. After that, it kind of feels like Le démon dans l'île, in which house hold appliances go rogue and terrorize an island (it's actually a pretty good film, nothing like this Amityville lamp turd). Apart from the faked original house in the beginning and the weak attempt at recreating something vaguely similar to Schifrin's amazing score, this has nothing to do with the three films that came before it. Oh, and I will spoil it for you, once again defeated (or thrown through the window by a 70 y/o lady), the evil ultimately hides in the cat. Yes. 2/10

Amityville Curse (Berry, 1990) - Is this better or worse? It's still a heck of a borefest, but it's a little funnier. Just too boring to be so bad it's good. It's kind of a never-ending Property Brothers episode. When it puts renovations aside and tries for horror, there's a few remnants of Amityville tropes. It's somewhat closer to an Amityville film than the previous entry, with zero trace of the house (didn't even bother to find something vaguely similar), luckily no trace of the lamp, but still with a poor faux-Schifrin. In fact, it seems to be the whole Amityville town that is cursed, and they put a lot of energy reminding us that we are, in fact, in Amityville (in dialogues, New York car plates, road welcome signs...). Fun thing is the film was shot just up here Northwest of Montreal (that's in fact the most fun I've had, paused it to find the exact house on Google map). 1.5/10

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

She's too young (22) for me but... she's so cute she makes my molars ache.

I love how you worded this

 

[Chili]

At almost 4 hours, that's a lot of movie time.

When I was young, I was able to watch movies over and over, again. Now that I'm older, with few exceptions, I can't.

It is long, I watched it a few years ago and it didn`t make a big impression one way or another. This time got more of the pace. I`m a fan of Sergio Leone so appreciate the way he takes his time to présent a story.

 

[kihei]

Three Lives and Only One Death (1996) Directed by Raoul Ruiz 6A

At first glance, Three Lives and Only One Death appears to be one of those cumbersome anthology movies, this one designed to give a visibly aging Marcello Mastroianni one more kick at the can at a very big role. Mastroianni plays a different character in each of the four segments of this movie: a long lost husband who returns after a 20-year absence; a Sorbonne professor turned beggar; a temperamental servant; and a rich industrialist. (So why shouldn’t this be called Four Lives and Only One Death…but I digress). The first story about the absent husband is the best, wittily surreal, but the others are pretty good, too. As the movie progresses, what is really neat is how these stories begin to twist and swirl back into themselves to provide an all encompassing, overarching narrative that we only gradually see emerging like a photograph during its development process. By the end of the movie, director Raoul Ruiz has become a magician who pulls a very large rabbit out of a hat, several hats, actually. While I found the movie fun and playful and while it was great to see Mastroianni one more time, Three Lives and Only One Death is more flash than substance. The movie served a useful purpose, though. I have in the past viewed surrealism as a rather limited artistic movement. But watching the very different approach to surrealism taken by film directors Luis Bunuel and Raoul Ruiz, I can see that surrealism has more possibilities and more elasticity than I imagined.

subtitles

YouTube

 

[Chili]

It is 10/10 for me. In fact, it is on my top 3 films list. Despite its already formidable length, this is one of those rare films that I wish could be longer. Apparently, Leone's complete vision is supposed to be 5 hours plus that expands some of the relationships even more, but that never made it to the light of day. Now, all that is left is the 4 hours version, and a studio edited down chronological version that is universally panned.

Too bad Sergio got sick and passed apparently aided by his grief of his movie being chopped up. Maybe he would have eventually been given the chance as Coppola was with Apocalypse Now to re-edit the film. Maybe somewhere the rest of the film exists and more will be added back eventually like it was with Samuel Fuller`s The Big Red One.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

It is 10/10 for me. In fact, it is on my top 3 films list. Despite its already formidable length, this is one of those rare films that I wish could be longer. Apparently, Leone's complete vision is supposed to be 5 hours plus that expands some of the relationships even more, but that never made it to the light of day. Now, all that is left is the 4 hours version, and a studio edited down chronological version that is universally panned.

It's been a few years since my last viewing but I'm a big fan as well. It's a different sorta flavor of gangster movie -- dreamy is the word I always use -- definitely not for everyone (especially if you want ACTION!) but I've always found it to be pretty compelling even at its considerable length.

 

[ORRFForever]

I love how you worded this

She's adorable. And nice. She makes me wish I was a young man - even more than I already do. It's no fun being old.

 

[sr edler]

The 9th Guest (1934) by Roy William Neill – 6/10

This film is kinda silly but also moderately entertaining somewhere in its silliness.

The plot is a precursor to one of Agatha Christie's most famous ones.

 

[Langdon Alger]

She's adorable. And nice. She makes me wish I was a young man - even more than I already do. It's no fun being old.

This sounds like the plot of a movie. Older guy (not saying you’re old) hangs out at a restaurant and falls for a young waitress.

 

[ORRFForever]

This sounds like the plot of a movie. Older guy (not saying you’re old) hangs out at a restaurant and falls for a young waitress.

I'm saying I'm old. The only thing I'm chasing at my age is the recliner and the remote control.

I don't have the energy (or the you-know-what drive) to be chasing a 22 year old - but a flirtation's here and a flirtation there, makes me feel young.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Three Lives and Only One Death (1996) Directed by Raoul Ruiz 6A

At first glance, Three Lives and Only One Death appears to be one of those cumbersome anthology movies, this one designed to give a visibly aging Marcello Mastroianni one more kick at the can at a very big role. Mastroianni plays a different character in each of the four segments of this movie: a long lost husband who returns after a 20-year absence; a Sorbonne professor turned beggar; a temperamental servant; and a rich industrialist. (So why shouldn’t this be called Four Lives and Only One Death…but I digress). The first story about the absent husband is the best, wittily surreal, but the others are pretty good, too. As the movie progresses, what is really neat is how these stories begin to twist and swirl back into themselves to provide an all encompassing, overarching narrative that we only gradually see emerging like a photograph during its development process. By the end of the movie, director Raoul Ruiz has become a magician who pulls a very large rabbit out of a hat, several hats, actually. While I found the movie fun and playful and while it was great to see Mastroianni one more time, Three Lives and Only One Death is more flash than substance. The movie served a useful purpose, though. I have in the past viewed surrealism as a rather limited artistic movement. But watching the very different approach to surrealism taken by film directors Luis Bunuel and Raoul Ruiz, I can see that surrealism has more possibilities and more elasticity than I imagined.

subtitles

YouTube

You can go "6A" all you want, but "more flash than substance" is wide off the mark. It's far from Ruiz's more complex works, but anybody with some interest in narratology, film theory or aesthetics (for example, anybody having acute appreciation for Méliès' visual experimentations with the filmic medium and deploring the lack of such initiative in modern directors), anybody with some interest in the concepts of palimpsest or mise en abyme, should find plenty of substance in here.

Also, even though some would associate Ruiz to surrealism, his approach to film has really little to do with the movement and should be thought of as baroque and not surrealist. Even Bunuel's films, beyond L'Âge d'or, have only little to do with surrealism IMO (even though they retain some of its ways and overall positions).

 

[McOilers97]

The Lobster - Yorgos Lanthimos 2015
Really strange, off-beat movie that I overall enjoyed quite a bit. The dialogue was written in such a stilted way that made the performances intentionally very awkward, and it was quite hilarious. I liked the first half of the movie better than the second half, but it really raised some interesting points and the ending really left me thinking.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire - Celine Sciamma 2019
I'd been hearing a lot of great things about this movie since early in the year, and I think it really lived up to that. It's a small movie with really emotionally effective, subtle performances, and a story that feels very thoroughly considered in it's every detail. This feels like it would reward repeat viewings.

Panic Room - David Fincher 2002
While not one of Fincher's better movies, I have to say that I had a total blast watching it. There's a sequence with some special effects that don't look that great, but I can't complain otherwise because the movie is just so thrilling and so much fun. Enjoyable performances and great concept. Fincher is such a master that even his less ambitious/smaller scale movies deliver a great experience.

 

[kihei]

You can go "6A" all you want, but "more flash than substance" is wide off the mark. It's far from Ruiz's more complex works, but anybody with some interest in narratology, film theory or aesthetics (for example, anybody having acute appreciation for Méliès' visual experimentations with the filmic medium and deploring the lack of such initiative in modern directors), anybody with some interest in the concepts of palimpsest or mise en abyme, should find plenty of substance in here.

Also, even though some would associate Ruiz to surrealism, his approach to film has really little to do with the movement and should be thought of as baroque and not surrealist. Even Bunuel's films, beyond L'Âge d'or, have only little to do with surrealism IMO (even though they retain some of its ways and overall positions).

I checked my "acute appreciation of Melies' visual exxperimentations" and it is low today. But my doctor tells me not to worry, there is a full chance of recovery. But, seriously, I think I gave ample credit to Ruiz's ingenuity in my review. For instance,"As the movie progresses, what is really neat is how these stories begin to twist and swirl back into themselves to provide an all encompassing, overarching narrative that we only gradually see emerging like a photograph during its development process. By the end of the movie, director Raoul Ruiz has become a magician who pulls a very large rabbit out of a hat, several hats, actually." I do indeed have some interest in the "palipsest" or "mise en abyme" concepts that you note. Not your interest, though. I had this friend who had an interest in discovering the perfect Bach fugue. I did not share that interest because the imperfect Bach fugues sounded just as good as the supposedly perfect Bach fugue. I think you are much more into technique for the sake of technique than I am. To me technique is of extreme importance, but not the whole ball of wax. Ruiz is a marvelous director but I wouldn't rate this particular work above most of the other films that I have seen by him.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I checked my "acute appreciation of Melies' visual exxperimentations" and it is low today. But my doctor tells me not to worry, there is a full chance of recovery. But, seriously, I think I gave ample credit to Ruiz's ingenuity in my review. For instance,"As the movie progresses, what is really neat is how these stories begin to twist and swirl back into themselves to provide an all encompassing, overarching narrative that we only gradually see emerging like a photograph during its development process. By the end of the movie, director Raoul Ruiz has become a magician who pulls a very large rabbit out of a hat, several hats, actually." I do indeed have some interest in the "palipsest" or "mise en abyme" concepts that you note. Not your interest, though. I had this friend who had an interest in discovering the perfect Bach fugue. I did not share that interest because the imperfect Bach fugues sounded just as good as the supposedly perfect Bach fugue. I think you are much more into technique for the sake of technique than I am. To me technique is of extreme importance, but not the whole ball of wax. Ruiz is a marvelous director but I wouldn't rate this particular work above most of the other films that I have seen by him.

I don't mind you not liking the film, and I agree it's not one of his best efforts (probably somewhere between top-7 to 10 for me), but it's still a hell of a film, that no other director could have come up with. And that's really not about technique, even though his playfulness and inventiveness always make me smile, I'm a lot more interested in his narrative construction and use and abuse of different concepts or themes. And it's beyond the story, which is often a means to an end, it is "pure substance" - films as theoretical essays. For this one and a few others, he uses Pascal Bonitzer's (another director who is also a film theorist) nack for dialogues to add to the apparent fluidity and continuity of what should be a disloquated narrative. There's a narratology thesis to write for every sequence.

 

[nameless1]

Too bad Sergio got sick and passed apparently aided by his grief of his movie being chopped up. Maybe he would have eventually been given the chance as Coppola was with Apocalypse Now to re-edit the film. Maybe somewhere the rest of the film exists and more will be added back eventually like it was with Samuel Fuller`s The Big Red One.

I really hope that is the case, but I fear that full version is truly lost. Studios have so much control by the 80s, that I doubt there is a print somewhere in an Argentina attic, ala Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

 

[kihei]

It is 10/10 for me. In fact, it is on my top 3 films list. Despite its already formidable length, this is one of those rare films that I wish could be longer. Apparently, Leone's complete vision is supposed to be 5 hours plus that expands some of the relationships even more, but that never made it to the light of day. Now, all that is left is the 4 hours version, and a studio edited down chronological version that is universally panned.

Wow, that is high praise coming from a respected source. I'll have to watch it again as I haven't seen it in years.

 

[aufheben]

Wow, that is high praise coming from a respected source. I'll have to watch it again as I haven't seen it in years.

I’d give it an 8-9/10. I can’t remember what—because I haven’t seen it in 5+ years and it’s an odyssey of a film—but something about it wasn’t “perfect” to me.

 

[ORRFForever]

Possessor (2017):

An assassin goes into the minds of others, kills, then needs to kill her new self in order to return to her old mind / body - does that make sense? Because she can't "off herself", there will be blood. Lots and lots of blood.

I didn't fully understand Possessor (I'll leave that to the sci-fi aficionados) but it's really well made - it's well acted, well directed and interesting. It's also Canadian.

7.5/10

 

[kihei]

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) Directed by Jason Woliner 4A

Sacha Baron Cohen's latest outrageous satire is a hit or miss affair. This time around Borat is sent to the US from Kazakhstan to deliver a monkey to Mike Pence as a token of appreciation of his work. The monkey suffers a cruel fate so Borat decides that he will give his daughter to Rudy Giuliani instead. Borat and daughter journey from Galveston to Washington on their mission. Second time around, the irreverant humour doesn't live up to the jaw-dropping standards of the first film except for a few scenes that are definitely worth the price of admission. For one thing, the world is sort of used to Borat by now. For another thing, some of the marks seem to be in on the joke. If so, they are pretty good-natured about it. But a couple of the big set pieces do live up to Borat's highest standards. It still amazes me what Cohen can get away with. Doubt Borat Subsequent Moviefilm goes over well in red states.

Netflix

 

[ORRFForever]

Borat 2 Subsequent Moviefilm (2020):

There are a lot of sight gags and crude moments. Many of the laughs feel cheap, recycled and disjointed. One segment, at a coming out ball, is so far over the line, it isn't funny at all - it's simply in poor taste.

The first 30 minutes is really funny but it slows down from there. During the final 30 minutes, minus Borat's return to Kazakhstan, the laughs are almost non existent - it's the same old, same old.

The movie will appeal mostly to people who like late night talk show humour, as Cohen makes fun of kind, good natured souls, who are right of center.

Hopefully this is the last time we see Borat because there really is nothing left.

5.5/10

 

[Osprey]

Suspiria (1977) - 5/10 (Didn't like or dislike it)

An American ballet student (Jessica Harper) arrives at a dance school in Germany that harbors dark, bloody secrets. This supernatural horror is very stylish, often suspenseful and occasionally gory, but felt like an Italian ripoff of Rosemary's Baby. At first, I liked that it was similar to that classic, but I lost some interest as I realized how unoriginal and predictable that made it. The story is also not nearly as well developed and many things are just not explained at all. To disguise that, the film relies on a strong sense of style that is very colorful and surreal. Many of the scenes are bathed in artificial color (especially pink) and the film features a dreamlike soundtrack by the band Goblin. I actually liked the music, surprisingly, but the color was too artificial for me and reminded me of how scenes in some silent films were tinted to evoke a mood. I also liked the main actress, but her character isn't given much depth and felt too similar to Mia Farrow's in Rosemary's Baby (demure and dangerously naive and curious). Basically, I feel that the film lacks originality and substance and tries to make up for it in style. It worked to a point for me, but not entirely.