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

[Langdon Alger]

Is signing up for Netflix for 30 FREE days difficult?

Is it hard to stop it before the charges kick in?

I signed up so long ago I can’t even remember.

 

[ORRFForever]

I signed up so long ago I can’t even remember.

No worries. I found a YouTube video on how to sign up for a free month.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Under the Shadow (Anvari, 2016) - Big thanks to @ORRFForever for reminding me I was supposed to watch this. Most of its political and religious themes went over my head (I need to read about the role of the Djinn in the Quran), and some of the social stuff was a little overdone (mother and daughter trapped under the giant chador), but the only fact that you have these layers makes it a very special genre film. Even better, as a horror film, it's pure candy - short and effective, with very inventive direction. 8.5/10

 

[OzzyFan]

Tenet (2020) (Seen in a theater, like these type of movies are supposed to be seen )
2.90 out of 4stars

One hell of an achievement to put this concept/idea of time travel/time inversion onto film and on paper while making sense/being rational, for the most part (haven't quite put all the puzzle pieces together to see if there were some incongruencies, but I definitely questioned a couple of things/acts on this front, but never quite came to a definitive conclusion yet). I'd probably say Nolan's reach exceeds his grasp here for a few reasons, but when you shoot for the stars and are as effective as he is with what you do accomplish, it's still very entertaining.

Now that's made clear, let me get into the finer details. First and foremost the biggest things in this area that stick out to me are Washington and Branagh. Washington, whom I thought nailed his BlacKkKlansman role, just couldn't keep up with the "all star" cast he was surrounded by here for me. Don't get me wrong, he was more than livable, but he should have definitely brought more charisma and better deliveries(especially in some major line sequences) which he just didn't. Opposite side, Branagh nailed the villain for me so so well and threw himself into the character perfectly. Stole the show every time he was on the screen. Everyone else was solid imo. My last main notable critique here is the sound mixing with vocals/music/background noise during some very important dialogue explaining sequences, almost making the dialogue incomprehensible. It happened clearly 2 or 3 times from my count, and it's one of the worst sins you can make in a cerebrally complicated movie with a concept that the vast majority of the audience has never thought about in the terms presented.

PS=Also of note, I saw it right away and it was confirmed by the credits, one of the solider extras with dialogue in it was indeed Sean Avery, ex pain in the butt NHLer.

 

[kihei]

Under the Shadow (Anvari, 2016) - Big thanks to @ORRFForever for reminding me I was supposed to watch this. Most of its political and religious themes went over my head (I need to read about the role of the Djinn in the Quran), and some of the social stuff was a little overdone (mother and daughter trapped under the giant chador), but the only fact that you have these layers makes it a very special genre film. Even better, as a horror film, it's pure candy - short and effective, with very inventive direction. 8.5/10

Total agreement with this one, which made my Top Ten list in 2016. I love how Under the Shadow started out as a typical Iranian film and then took that turn.

 

[kihei]

The Woman in the Window (1944) Directed by Fritz Lang 8A

What a fun suspense movie. Richard Wanley, a middle-aged criminology professor, well above the age of playing around, meets Alice, the young woman whose beautiful portrait he has been admiring in a gallery window. They go to her place, have a drink, chat amiably, and then her crazed boyfriend shows up, and Wanley kills him in self-defense. What to do? Go to the police or get rid of the body? Reluctantly they choose the latter. It just so happens one of Wanley’s best friends is a detective (Canada’s Raymond Massey) on the case and he asks the criminology prof for assistance---for instance, making sense of all the clues he inadvertently left behind. Yes, the plot is far-fetched. Though interestingly, while the characters are stereotypes, they aren't quite the usual stereotypes--they are more like the down-to-earth model. Turns out there is a reason even for that. The suspense is delicious. Robinson, usually a gangster but here cast way, way against type, is terrific as Wanley, and Joan Bennett is sexy as hell as the not very fatal femme fatale. With very rare exceptions like Knives Out, real old-fashioned suspenseful murder mysteries don’t exist anymore having been replaced by police procedurals. It is a delight to be in the hands of a director like Germany’s Fritz Lang, by this point of his career safely in the United States, who is a master of all genres. The Woman in the Window also makes me want to see a whole lot more Joan Bennett movies.

Sidenote: I don’t understand why younger people aren’t more curious about vintage old movies. Sure, they are often dated, but so what? Look at it this way, it is as close as you are ever going to get to a time machine.

YouTube

 

[ORRFForever]

Under the Shadow (Anvari, 2016) - Big thanks to @ORRFForever for reminding me I was supposed to watch this. Most of its political and religious themes went over my head (I need to read about the role of the Djinn in the Quran), and some of the social stuff was a little overdone (mother and daughter trapped under the giant chador), but the only fact that you have these layers makes it a very special genre film. Even better, as a horror film, it's pure candy - short and effective, with very inventive direction. 8.5/10

Thanks for the "shout out". Glad you like it. I loved it, too.

 

[OzzyFan]

Synchronic
2.65 out of 4stars

Interesting sci-fi drama about a drug that alters your current reality/timeline or perception of it. First 2/3 started rather slow imo with surface scratching/story building, which imo was of the repeated kind you've seen over and over in these situations. Last 3rd was worth the wait though, lot of interesting dialogue and concepts and decent execution. Benson and Moorhead's films are intriguing: always atmospheric and thought provoking, even if they aren't labeled hitting that "great" or 'cult classic level' for me (although Spring might be close).

 

[Chili]

Gandhi-1982

Masterful telling of key points in a legendary story. Ben Kingsley's performance as Gandhi is about as good as I've seen of a real life figure. Ravi Shankur adds some beautiful music on sitar. The old expression 'cast of thousands' applies (est. 400k for one scene above). Many scenic views of India.

 

[ORRFForever]

Synchronic
2.65 out of 4stars

Interesting sci-fi drama about a drug that alters your current reality/timeline or perception of it. First 2/3 started rather slow imo with surface scratching/story building, which imo was of the repeated kind you've seen over and over in these situations. Last 3rd was worth the wait though, lot of interesting dialogue and concepts and decent execution. Benson and Moorhead's films are intriguing: always atmospheric and thought provoking, even if they aren't labeled hitting that "great" or 'cult classic level' for me (although Spring might be close).

I had this in the queue to watch.

 

[Osprey]

Now that's epic moviemaking. Not a single one of those 400K tiny heads is CGIed. The last time that I saw it was on DVD, which has a maximum of 345K pixels, so I was missing out. I need to watch it again in HD so that I can see each and every head for the first time.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Gattaca (1997) - 8/10

Why was everything so yellow? Anyways, this grounded sci-fi was a pretty good drama, just felt the pacing was a bit slower than need be and I didn't fully get Jude Law's character's motivations but the rest was handled well by the director. Between the style of AI and Catch Me If You Can, I feel like a director like Spielberg would've absolutely ruined this.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Outpost (2008)

with B movie people. The guy who played the Ukrainian mob boss in that one season of Dexter is the main guy.

Shady scientist/businessman in a seedy bar somewhere instructs mercenary honcho to hire a few stock hard solider characters (temperamental Irishman, psycho Russian, mean US marine, etc) to escort him through a war-torn area of Eastern Europe to a secret bunker in the forest. Inside is secret Nazi stuff left untouched since the War. Also eerily fresh-looking bodies...no wait! One's still breathing! WTF?! He may be alive but he's not talking. The place is creepy even by undiscovered Nazi bunker standards, and it's even got a secret machine in one of the rooms. It's a vaguely steampunky vacuum cleaner-looking thing the size of a Honda Civic...and it's what the shady scientist/businessman guy is after. Soon, weird paranormal stuff starts to happen, and the crew is suddenly down a couple of troops. Merc honcho's nerves are worn thin, and he wants to bug out. Can't blame him, but who are those guys off in the treeline there?

Haunted Nazi house fare. Boring. Predictable, and doesn't even bother to explain itself all that well. Meh. Don't bother.

On Prime.

...then the burglars stumbled on something in Rudy Giuliani's basement that would forever change their minds about their profession.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Bloodsport. 'Nuff said. 8/10.

 

[Langdon Alger]

Fun with Dick and Jane - 2005

Decent way to spend a Sunday evening, but I didn’t find this movie to be anything great.

5/10

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Borat 2

Sacha Baron Cohen continues to be the hero we need, not necessarily the hero we deserve. Well, some of us.

I don't think I ever sat down and watched the first Borat movie although I did watch Who Is America...which was terrifying. This continues to be. Some people you can give the benefit of the doubt to. The vet supply shop guy, the cake store lady (well, maybe...); some of the "normal" people, you can say that they just went "Okay, here's some weird foreign guy saying ridiculous things, whatever, say yes, nod politely, get him to go away." Sure. I can buy that with some of them. But others, not so much. The plastic surgeon people, the debutant ball people, (I have a daughter myself and I needed a break after that...these f***ing people...seriously...), the "women's health" clinic guy, everyone at the rally...go f*** yourself and never reproduce.

SBC moves between horrifying and hilarious like nobody else can in this generation. He holds a mirror up to the US, and the reflection isn't terribly flattering to certain folks. But in some cases, he's fair. Like the two guys he shacks up with after covid takes hold; on one hand, they're decent enough people to take in a total stranger who comes with his own camera crew. On the other, they believe total propaganda bullshit. On one hand, they care enough to get his daughter's attention and bring her back around. On the other, they happily join in with Borat's song at the rally. The song which gets folks spontaneously making Nazi salutes. Yeah, they do that at the anti-mask rally in Olympia, which is uncomfortably close to the Sane/Insane border at the 49th parallel.

Full marks to the actress playing Borat's daughter. She really went all out, and the whole thing falls apart with her. The Republican ladies seminar where she discovers her vagina doesn't have teeth and won't eat her arm if she masturbates was classic. The mirror's uncomfortable glare shines on a few people, not least of which of course, is Rudy Giuliani. Heard a lot, saw the stills, saw the talk...and man. The problem wasn't so much that he's a sleaze. Or that he rummaged around in his pants. The problem is that a man with direct, immediate access to the President of the United States of America, who is at this very instant is pushing a bullshit story (Laptop! Sex! Drugs! Pedophile! Human Trafficker!) about his political adversary in every medium he can find, is about as secure as a 7-11 graveyard employee's cellphone. And if you want to "Both sides!!!1!" that, you ARE the problem.

They got you. They really did.

 

[kihei]

Laura (1944) Directed by Otto Preminger 8A

A detective falls in love with the portrait of a beautiful woman whose murder he is investigating. I guess movies about “women in portraits” was all the rage in 1944. But Laura is a very different movie than The Woman in the Window. While both films have fine scripts, Laura’s script is acidly witty with veteran curmudgeon Clifton Webb playing a cynical writer who delivers most of the best lines. Asked to endorse a pen, he replies, “I never use pens. I use a goose quill dipped in venom.” The always slightly melancholy Dana Andrews perfectly plays the smitten but hard-nosed detective and gets off some good one-liners himself. Laura, the woman of his dreams, is played by Gene Tierney, beautiful, for sure, but with all the acting talent of a goose quill. I’m not usually a fan of background music in movies (cheap trick tactic) but Laura has a sumptuously romantic score that adds immensely to the atmosphere. Plus, the movie is a fun mystery with clever twists and turns. Laura and The Woman in the Window would make a great double feature. Anybody remember double features?

YouTube

 

[josra33]

Hocus Pocus. Movie holds up well. CGI limited which helps. Practical effects good. Comedy holds up. 8/10

 

[NyQuil]

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) (Netflix)

Star-studded Aaron Sorkin vehicle manages to demonstrate how limited film can be when it comes to trying to deliver on a portrait of seven (actually eight) significant characters involved either directly or tangentially in the Chicago riots surrounding the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968.

In essence, Sorkin manages to provide a razor-thin caricature of each community organizer (the stand-up, the buffoon, the scoutmaster, the politician, etc.) and you find yourself wishing for more three-dimensional character development.

It provides an interesting perspective on the trial itself, including the bias of the judge and the government, and the supposed impartiality of the prosecutor, but is ultimately doomed by the selective pressures of constraining a potentially sprawling narrative within 130 minutes of running time.

Sorkin, in keeping with the title of the film, tries to maintain the focus on the trial process itself, which is a worthy goal, but by doing so, we lose the capacity to really sympathize, understand or care about the defendants, some of whom are virtually ignored entirely. There just isn't sufficient background and understanding of these individuals prior to the trial itself.

The cast itself is impressive - Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Michael Keaton, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Frank Langella, Jeremy Strong, Mark Rylance, etc. etc. but there just isn't enough screen-time for all of them.

There is some degree of conflict created between differing approaches towards protest, resistance and revolution among the defendants, but ultimately they are all "good guys" and the government are the "bad guys" so any real nuanced exploration of these themes is buried underneath Sorkin's soaring violins and highly detailed historical anecdotes.

It's the kind of story that probably would have benefited from a mini-series where the events leading up to, and the lives of those involved, could be illustrated in greater detail.

 

[NyQuil]

Full marks to the actress playing Borat's daughter. She really went all out, and the whole thing falls apart with her.

She really does an outstanding job. Her segments (even entirely on her own) are equal to anything Cohen puts up, and the two of them together demonstrate an uncanny chemistry and ability to understand the goal of each particular scene.

It's an uneven film, and I don't think it's avoidable given the constraints of the coverage they are able to procure. Basically they end up with a bunch of candid scenes of Americana from a ridiculously absurd satirical perspective, and then they have to stitch it together to form some form of cohesive narrative.

It is not entirely successful, but I laughed enough times to enjoy it. It probably could have been cut down to 60 minutes as it sort of drags about 2/3 of the way through the film.

 

[NyQuil]

Sidenote: I don’t understand why younger people aren’t more curious about vintage old movies. Sure, they are often dated, but so what? Look at it this way, it is as close as you are ever going to get to a time machine.

I've mentioned this before in discussion with you, but sometimes the nuanced and mature, subtle performances in older films are ruined by other characters exhibiting the fast-talking loud patter of earlier styles of acting.

It really makes me wonder if people actually talked like that in the older days, or if this was a vaudevillian remnant where art doesn't imitate life.

Did people drop F-bombs in the 30s, 40s and 50s?

It's hard to feel like you're in a time machine if everything is sanitized.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The Amityville Haunting (Meed, 2011) - A found footage film in the Amytiville house? I guess I'm in. The house on the poster is clearly neither the Amityville house nor the house used in the film, and they didn't bother either to get their facts straight in the opening title cards (saying the Lutz lived in the house for 2 years instead of 28 days, making it... less scary?), so no surprise at all when you confirm right away that this is of abysmal amateurish levels. Not without a little drama (the realtor falls dead in the driveway when visiting and one of the movers falls to his death in the stairs with an empty box), a family of very poor actors moves into the house and the teenager son records everything, secret conversations and all. It's just terrible. 1.5/10 (but really, 0/10)

 

[McOilers97]

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm - Jason Woliner 2020
Really enjoyable. Borat original was probably overall funnier, but this definitely cut deeper in terms of political satire/commentary and feels more "mature" because of it. The beginning and ending also had a LOT of laughs, and I have to applaud the "twist" that he ended on. I'll watch just about anything Sacha makes, and this was time well spent.

Platoon - Oliver Stone 1986
Pretty riveting stuff. Sheen's character went through the emotional ringer in this film, and I felt watching it like Stone did a great job of putting us right there in the shit with the troops. Vietnam was a total disaster, and while I can't vouch for "accuracy" personally, it felt gritty and realistic. There were a few standout scenes - the village raid in particular was gut-wrenching - and Willem Dafoe gave maybe the most likeable military character performance I've ever seen on screen.

Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson 2009
This had the classic Wes Anderson energy and was fun the whole way through. Excellent voice acting from Clooney and Schwartzmann in particular, and the stop-motion animation was pretty dazzling. Movies like this one are proof that animated forms of entertainment can deliver the goods in the same way that live action can.

 

[kihei]

I've mentioned this before in discussion with you, but sometimes the nuanced and mature, subtle performances in older films are ruined by other characters exhibiting the fast-talking loud patter of earlier styles of acting.

It really makes me wonder if people actually talked like that in the older days, or if this was a vaudevillian remnant where art doesn't imitate life.

Did people drop F-bombs in the 30s, 40s and 50s?

It's hard to feel like you're in a time machine if everything is sanitized.

"f***" didn't become the all-purpose swear word of choice until the early '60s. Growing up to that point, it was still shocking to hear the word in public. Which is not to say that such usage was unknown, just not in general use at that time. President Kennedy was once accused of using the word in public and his use was defended by a reporter, Ben Bradley of Washington Post fame, I think, who said the word was used not infrequently in World War II. He said that the worst example that he ever heard was from a soldier whose jeep was mired in mud with a broken axle who said "The f***in' f***er is f***ed."

 

[ORRFForever]

I've mentioned this before in discussion with you, but sometimes the nuanced and mature, subtle performances in older films are ruined by other characters exhibiting the fast-talking loud patter of earlier styles of acting.

It really makes me wonder if people actually talked like that in the older days, or if this was a vaudevillian remnant where art doesn't imitate life.

Did people drop F-bombs in the 30s, 40s and 50s?

It's hard to feel like you're in a time machine if everything is sanitized.

It's a shame that so many people cannot get thru a sentence without swearing in 2020.

When I'm in a conversation with someone and they swear, I usually ask them very politely / meekly not to swear and they usually stop. Unfortunatly, most people don't even know they're doing it.