Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Spring 2021 Edition

[kihei]

The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (1967) Directed by Peter Brook 7C

Talk about layers within layers in this fairly early post-modern war horse. We are an audience watching an audience watch a play set in an asylum in 1808 about the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, one of the pillars of the French Revolution, killed by Charlotte Corday in his bathtub in 1793. The Marquis De Sade (Patrick Magee, who can overact even when he is absolutely motionless) has the idea that performing the play will be of benefit to the wretched inmates of the asylum who occasionally burst into song to comment on the goings on like a crazed Greek chorus (the play isn't a musical but song is very important in it). They also have a tendency to get excited, causing the Warden to sometimes intervene. The nub of the play itself is dialogue among De Sade, the Warden, and the inmates playing Corday (Glenda Jackson) and Marat (Ian Richardson) who are sometimes in character and sometimes address themselves directly to De Sade. Originally written in German by the playwright Peter Weiss, we are dealing with the adaptation of a translation which adds another layer of complexity to the mix. The play, an existential examination of the insanity of society, is a field day for the actors: De Sade is suitably deranged; Marat wants even more violence; and Corday weaves between her own madness in reality and that of her character in fiction. Director Peter Brook, uses a few more extreme close-ups than I would like, but otherwise does a wonderful job of keeping this great leviathan of a ship afloat.

Sidenote: Ever wonder what happened to Glenda Jackson? She dropped out of acting and became a Member of the British Parliament for 23 years. When her political career ended, she returned to the stage in 2016 to play, get this, King Lear. Her performance as the mad monarch received rave reviews.

 

[NyQuil]

Excess Flesh (Kennelly, 2015) - This one will feel too amateurish (or too close to a student film - altough a good one) for most, but it still managed to remain interesting to me. It announces itself with enough fanfare to disappoint - a reference to L'année dernière à Marienbad (the worst kind of intertext, through dialogues) makes the "punch" way too predictable, and all the film's shortcomings only too obvious. It's tough to make socially relevant horror, even more so to try to flesh out a feature film with a subject that thin (puns intended). I have a friend who made a short film years ago with pretty much the same subject - it's not the most original and you can't help but think it could have went further and that it's thematically limited. The film is bordering on the experimental and Kennelly's background in music video (with clipping. among others) and performance art comes handy - Excess Flesh is far from a great film, but it has some aesthetics and narrative interesting moments. The whole thing walks a fine line that could have easily flipped in total ridicule if not for the absolute commitment of the main actresses. I wouldn't recommend it because it is higly flawed, but it was worth my time. 4.5/10

Er, what is it about?

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Er, what is it about?

Eating disorders / cult of thinness... (I never write a summary of the films, don't think it's interesting)

 

[NyQuil]

Eating disorders / cult of thinness... (I never write a summary of the films, don't think it's interesting)

Here's my review of something I had recently experienced:

Edgy, but committed to the overall thematic objective of the piece, ultimately transcends the medium but allows for a personal glimpse into the inner spirit of the artist. I wouldn't call it mainstream, but rather a satirical exploration of mainstream themes through a lens of progressive social dyamics.

You should totally check it out!

 

[kihei]

Eating disorders / cult of thinness... (I never write a summary of the films, don't think it's interesting)

No, it is annoying as hell. Surely one line summaries won't unduly compromise your approach.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Here's my review of something I had recently experienced:

Edgy, but committed to the overall thematic objective of the piece, ultimately transcends the medium but allows for a personal glimpse into the inner spirit of the artist. I wouldn't call it mainstream, but rather a satirical exploration of mainstream themes through a lens of progressive social dyamics.

You should totally check it out!

If you knew what you were talking about, I'd jump on that.

No, it is annoying as hell. Surely one line summaries won't unduly compromise your approach.

I'm sure you're capable enough to read IMDB's summary if knowing the plot of the film is of interest to you. It's not to me, and filling in most film reviews I read (often up to 80% of the whole text).

 

[NyQuil]

If you knew what you were talking about, I'd jump on that.

You should be able to tell from my review. Or go to the review site associated with the art form of the example I provided.

I'm sure you're capable enough to read IMDB's summary if knowing the plot of the film is of interest to you. It's not to me, and filling in most film reviews I read (often up to 80% of the whole text).

You're telling people to go elsewhere rather than provide them with one line about what you actually watched?

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

You should be able to tell from my review. Or go to the review site associated with the art form of the example I provided.

You're telling people to go elsewhere rather than provide them with one line about what you actually watched?

I'm not telling people to do anything. I'm saying that if it's something that's of interest to you, I'm sure you can find it. It's not of interest to me, and it's something I think is mostly dumb filling from people who actually have nothing to say about the films they are paid to comment on (and that it became an unnecessary model that others are just mimicking). I'm just saying, if that's what's of interest to you, you don't need me - it's neither pertinent to my opinion of the film nor my understanding of it.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

(spoilerish comments follow)

Timecrimes (Vigalondo, 2007) – Mainly a narrative exercise in complex causality, this no budget entry is a lot of fun – big thanks to @kihei for helping me find it in my DVD collection. Like most exercice de style, it might not survive repeated viewings, but it still ranks pretty high in the time-travel films I can think of. The film doesn't weigh itself down with explanations regarding the time machine, it is purely a narrative device that puts the character Hector as responsible of his own misfortunes through the causal loop paradox (and once being not enough, the film ventures into a second loop, hinting at a possible infinity). Schrödinger's cat makes an appearance, but the film seems to head in the opposite direction, making every actions and occurrences finite and rigid. While Hector 2 and 3 (new looping versions of the original Hector) think they have control and that their actions will rearrange their desperate situation, the film only negates their free will and demonstrates that everything they choose to do was already in place (and that they ironically are the source of all of their past self problems). The story is in the end quite simple, but the spectator's understanding of it is effectively filtered through the character's findings, something a lot of films fail at. I had it at 6/10 this morning, but had a lot of fun talking about it with the gf, so I'll push it at 7/10

IMDB Summary: A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.

6/10 = good film that you could want to see
7/10 = very good film that you should see

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Timecrimes (Vigalondo, 2007) - bonus comment: The film made me - and will make you - go back to two earlier shots (which is absolutely brilliant from a film about a man who goes back in time) in order to confirm how ballsy it was. The first of these was pretty ballsy. Not to the level of Argento putting the murderer on screen in Deep Red (with brilliant sight-direction through frame composition and editing), but still pretty impressive.

 

[Pink Mist]

Thor: Ragnarok (2017) directed by Taika Waititi

Following the events from Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor returns to his home of Asgard when his long lost older sister Hela (Cate Blanchett), the Goddess of Death returns to overtake the thrown. Banished from his kingdom, Thor reunites with the Hulk on a strange planet where they’re enslaved, and must fight to save his people from his sister. Directed by former indie film darling Waititi, he inserts some of his brandmark quirky humour, but don’t be confused this is a Marvel movie and it suffers from most of the same problems the plague the MCU (weak underdeveloped villain, dumb cameos, overuse of CGI). Also has a confused anti-colonial message in which after we learn the destruction and evils of colonial power, Thor is made a monarch. Mostly fun, and among the better films of the MCU, but I had higher expectations based on word of mouth of where people place this film in their rankings of Marvel films.



The Marvel Moment: My Ongoing Rankings of the Marvel Movies
1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2. Guardians of the Galaxy
3. Thor: Ragnarok
4. Captain America: The First Avenger
5. Iron Man
6. Doctor Strange
7. Thor
8. Spider-man: Homecoming
9. Ant-Man
10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
11. The Avengers
12. Avengers: Age of Ultron
13. Iron Man 3
14. Thor: The Dark World
15. Captain America: Civil War
16. Iron Man 2
17. The Incredible Hulk

 

[OzzyFan]

Thor: Ragnarok (2017) directed by Taika Waititi

Following the events from Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor returns to his home of Asgard when his long lost older sister Hela (Cate Blanchett), the Goddess of Death returns to overtake the thrown. Banished from his kingdom, Thor reunites with the Hulk on a strange planet where they’re enslaved, and must fight to save his people from his sister. Directed by former indie film darling Waititi, he inserts some of his brandmark quirky humour, but don’t be confused this is a Marvel movie and it suffers from most of the same problems the plague the MCU (weak underdeveloped villain, dumb cameos, overuse of CGI). Also has a confused anti-colonial message in which after we learn the destruction and evils of colonial power, Thor is made a monarch. Mostly fun, and among the better films of the MCU, but I had higher expectations based on word of mouth of where people place this film in their rankings of Marvel films.



The Marvel Moment: My Ongoing Rankings of the Marvel Movies
1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2. Guardians of the Galaxy
3. Thor: Ragnarok
4. Captain America: The First Avenger
5. Iron Man
6. Doctor Strange
7. Thor
8. Spider-man: Homecoming
9. Ant-Man
10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
11. The Avengers
12. Avengers: Age of Ultron
13. Iron Man 3
14. Thor: The Dark World
15. Captain America: Civil War
16. Iron Man 2
17. The Incredible Hulk

What type of rating would you give the movie out of 10? Out of 5? Out of 4 or whatever scale you choose?

 

[Osprey]

What type of rating would you give the movie out of 10? Out of 5? Out of 4 or whatever scale you choose?

Maybe he doesn't find numbers interesting.

It's kind of funny. Pranzo always gives a rating, but never a plot summary. Pink never gives a rating, but always a plot summary. We need to fuse them together.

(I'm kidding. All reviews are welcome and fun to read)

 

[Pink Mist]

What type of rating would you give the movie out of 10? Out of 5? Out of 4 or whatever scale you choose?

Probably a 6. Good, not great

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

We need to fuse them together.

Would be a great combo!

 

[kihei]

Maybe he doesn't find numbers interesting.

It's kind of funny. Pranzo always gives a rating, but never a plot summary. Pink never gives a rating, but always a plot summary. We need to fuse them together.

(I'm kidding. All reviews are welcome and fun to read)

I resisted giving my reviews ratings for years. I hated the idea. I figured if a reader can't figure out whether he/she wanted to see the movie or not on the basis of my review, that wasn't my problem. When my eventual manuscript was in the development stages, the publisher's editors didn't give me much of an option. So with the help of Invictus, I came up with the present scale and it works pretty well. Still don't like it, though.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I resisted giving my reviews ratings for years.

Same. In fact, before posting here, the only ratings I ever put on films were on IMDB and I kept that to myself (and used it pretty much only because I have zero memory). I even peed on people in the past for using ratings - but I don't see any of this stuff as important anymore.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Since we've all been schoolboys, I always thought an efficient way to go about it was Nabokov using an A-F rating when he rated every single short story published in The New Yorker over a 50-year period (only two stories got an A+. Of course since it's Nabokov, one of them was one of his along with Salinger's most famous) but I have deep appreciation for Kihei's accessibility rating to complement the quality rating. The only quirk that I have in my reviews is that I refuse to name the director as I believe the collaborative effort is simply too great for it to be fair as opposed to books, where I give the author's name. Partly because I believe the burden of a book's quality to be greater on the individual within that format and partly because the name is always on the cover.

 

[kihei]

Since we've all been schoolboys, I always thought an efficient way to go about it was Nabokov using an A-F rating when he rated every single short story published in The New Yorker over a 50-year period (only two stories got an A+. Of course since it's Nabokov, one of them was one of his along with Salinger's most famous) but I have deep appreciation for Kihei's accessibility rating to complement the quality rating. The only quirk that I have in my reviews is that I refuse to name the director as I believe the collaborative effort is simply too great for it to be fair as opposed to books, where I give the author's name. Partly because I believe the burden of a book's quality to be greater on the individual within that format and partly because the name is always on the cover.

I didn't know that about Nabokov. Surprises me a little that he would go to the trouble. He must have read a hell of a lot of short stories. Though I know there is no connection of any kind intended, I am going to enjoy a little the fact that this is the first and last time my name and his will ever be mentioned in the same sentence.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

I didn't know that about Nabokov. Surprises me a little that he would go to the trouble. He must have read a hell of a lot of short stories. Though I know there is no connection of any kind intended, I am going to enjoy a little the fact that this is the first and last time my name and his will ever be mentioned in the same sentence.

I might be overdoing it with the 50 years but definitely all short stories within a period that covers multiple decades. Only two A+, perhaps a handful of A's and a lot of C's. Other fun fact: he completely shunned The Atlantic when an editor wrote to him that he believed Nabokov was holding out his better stuff for other publications. This was in the late 40s when he was still an unknown but so sure of himself was he, he got supremely offended, told the editor that he was a rude little man and that he didn't want to have anything to do with the magazine anymore.

 

[Osprey]

Would be a great combo!

I was imagining the body horror movies in which parts of different people are fused together.

I resisted giving my reviews ratings for years. I hated the idea. I figured if a reader can't figure out whether he/she wanted to see the movie or not on the basis of my review, that wasn't my problem. When my eventual manuscript was in the development stages, the publisher's editors didn't give me much of an option. So with the help of Invictus, I came up with the present scale and it works pretty well. Still don't like it, though.

Ah, but, you see, the rating isn't to help a reader figure out if he wants to see a movie or not. It's to help him decide if he wants to read the review or not.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Godard, 1980) - This one had fallen out of my head completely, it was like watching (or listening?) to a whole new film. In an announced return to narrative filmmaking, Godard proposes a sexual politics tale that's really mostly about the use of sound in narrative. And he wants you to know it: from the opening credits having Godard as the composer of the film, to characters reacting to extradiegetic music, to the score orchestra appearing in the street in the end scene (only to be flooded by more extradiegetic music). When in line at the movie theater, a spectator gets out raging that "there's no sound! there's no sound!" - impossible to understand a (traditional) film without the sound, and almost impossible to understand the sounds from this Godard film. He makes a point of using every breaks possible (in musical counterpoints, or music appearing and disappearing, in missing room tones or mismatches in recordings, and in dialogues breaking mid-point). The very bland and stoical characters are only defined through voice, abusive dialogues and insults: the father asking to see his daughter's breasts, the prostitute asking her sister if she has ever licked a stranger's anus, and her many clients conducting her through weird vocal commands (and pushing it to absurd limits, the client who's directing a scene with two prostitutes and an employee, adding "ohs" and "ahs" to every perversions). In all of this, the only character who remains out of every conflict is Marguerite Duras, who only exists in sound (through an excerpt of Le Camion presented to film students and a faked offscreen dialogue through her ride to the airport, which is really archive recordings used by Godard). I think the Duras film excerpt is the key here: we don't see images from the film, only hear Duras. Godard bets that the spectator will still recognize the film through sound only. It's one of those many Duras films with no narrative images, where the "story" is only carried through her voice (and in this rare case, Depardieu's répliques), just like Godard presents the stories the prostitute narrates while being used - storytelling that go beyond the filth of the images. It's not the most entertaining or engaging of Godard's films, but like most of them, it has enough ideas to maintain attention and interest. 8/10

 

[kihei]

Deliverance (1981) Directed by Satyajit Ray 7A

I thought I had seen all of Satyajit Ray’s feature films but there was a 29th movie that recently made most lists, a little-known, shortish made-for-TV film called Deliverance that barely counts, but Ray completists are gonna be Ray completists. The movie is about a poor tanner, one of the “untouchables,” that is, a member of the lowest caste in India, who asks a Brahmin, a member of the highest caste, to help him set a date for his daughter’s betrothal. In response, before he will accede to the tanner’s simple request, the Brahmin makes the tanner do menial chores including chopping wood, something his frail body can’t take and tragedy occurs, a very unnecessary tragedy. Deliverance plays like a compact parable about the inhumane nature of India’s caste system. A great humanist, as evidenced in virtually all his films, Ray creates his angriest movie here. If the story is a bit on the nose for Ray, that is likely because Ray knew he was communicating to a more general audience on television than he did in his movies. The subtlest of directors obviously wanted to make a direct point and does so memorably. Certainly, Deliverance is not a major work, but it stands as an impassioned indictment to the horrific inequality that the caste system fosters and tolerates to this day.

subtitles

YouTube

 

[member 51464]

I resisted giving my reviews ratings for years. I hated the idea. I figured if a reader can't figure out whether he/she wanted to see the movie or not on the basis of my review, that wasn't my problem. When my eventual manuscript was in the development stages, the publisher's editors didn't give me much of an option. So with the help of Invictus, I came up with the present scale and it works pretty well. Still don't like it, though.

Still my greatest contribution to the arts

 

[OzzyFan]

Voyagers (2021)
2.00 out of 4stars

Pretty much Lord of the Flies in space, teens doing things unsupervised on a space ship. That said, new setting aside and newish premise, it doesn't bring almost anything fresh to the table and is fairly predictable and there are some likely unbelievably stupid decisions made by characters in the movie also. Whitehead plays a good psychopath though and it did bring up some of the age old questions on society and order. Most intriguing ones on that point for me are, would the world be mostly anarchic with only hand to hand combat weapons in existence "from the beginning of time"? Or an obvious direct correlative question to that: are human beings more logical or emotional at heart with their decision making? Main indirect answer is, probably depends who is and what type of "leader(s)" you have more than anything else. Power is power regardless of how someone got there. No spoilers, but one major turning point event in retrospect would have been an interesting decision if it went the other option that was laid out on the table as a possibility.