Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Spring 2021 Edition

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I prefer a more reasonable and rational approach to those kinds of themes, like in Arrival. It just seemed more plausible.

Only seen it once, didn't dislike it. It's certainly a more realistic film, but I don't necessarily prefer films that present characters that use their brains more efficiently, I prefer films that ask of me to use mine (and from there, it really depends what gets you going). Sci-fi philosophical explorations? I prefer Solaris, I also prefer Melancholia and to some extent, Je t'aime, je t'aime.

 

[NyQuil]

I liked Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris so that automatically disqualifies my opinion.

I think I preferred Stalker to Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I liked Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris so that automatically disqualifies my opinion.

I think I preferred Stalker to Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

Liked it too!! My memory of Stalker is blurry. It was far from Solaris and The Mirror for me from Tarkovsky, and even further from Nostalgia, IMO his best film. But I certainly need to watch it again.

 

[Osprey]

Coming 2 America (2021) - 4/10 (Disliked it)

Akeem (Eddie Murphy) returns to America after 30 years to find the son (Jermaine Fowler) that he never knew that he had. It's impressive how many actors who appeared in the 1988 original turn up in this one. That includes James Earl Jones, John Amos, Shari Headley and so many more that I won't spoil. It was fun to see them again, as well as Murphy as Akeem, Arsenio Hall as Semmi and both as several of their other characters. Wesley Snipes joins the cast as the General and leader of a neighboring African nation who is presented as a threat if Akeem can't procure a male heir to marry the General's daughter. He really got into the role of a military dictator and seemed to be having fun. The first 15 minutes or so were nostalgic and had me smiling a few times.

Unfortunately, I liked it less as it went on and I realized that all that it has to offer are callbacks to the original. So much of the plot doesn't make sense, either, like why Akeem would temporarily leave Zamunda without its ruler when he fears invasion and how he could leave and come back without his wife knowing why. The initial stay in America is also seriously short and the middle half of the movie takes place in Zamunda and centers around the male heir, not Akeem. "Coming to Zamunda" might've been a more accurate title. Even more disappointing to me is that Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan have somewhat large roles and I'm not a fan of either's brand of humor. Worse, they were clearly added to contribute a lot of the film's humor because the script doesn't give Eddie Murphy many chances to be funny. I, personally, was expecting an Eddie Murphy comedy, not a Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan comedy. Between Jones and Morgan, a lot of modern music, much of the plot revolving around the younger characters and the film incorporating flashbacks (including not one but two clip montages in which characters summarize the first movie for viewers unfamiliar with it), it felt like a film trying to appeal to younger audiences in addition to older ones. I wish that it would've just tried to be the best sequel for those of us who love the original, instead of movie for everyone, including those who haven't even seen the original.

Anyways, this one is a little hard to rate because it's pretty bad, but also pretty nostalgic. I wanted to like it, and I did like parts of it, but those parts were the callbacks and the rest was unoriginal at best. Ultimately, it was a little more disappointing than satisfying. It was worth watching once, but I don't see much reason to watch it again because it doesn't add anything and I'd rather just re-watch the original for the 15th time.

It's on Amazon Prime (with subscription).

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

The Conformist. One of the more beautiful movies about emptiness. Stunning to absorb visually and equally compelling in story, which is saying something since the main character by design is such a passive, sniveling void. Like Antonioni's The Passenger you get the political intrigue of a Graham Greene-like story filtered through the art house sensibilities of a master.

Midnight Run. For my money, one the funniest movies ever. Absolute entertainment comfort food. A perfectly cast world class collection of grumpy foul-mouthed bastards sniping at each other for two hours straight. Possibly the first time DeNiro showed he could be a deft comedic actor with the right material. Ideal use of Charles Grodin. The supporting cast of bastards — particularly Dennis Farina's mobster and John Ashton as a bumbling rival — nearly steal the movie. Is there an absurdly ridiculous number of one-punch knock-outs in this movie? Yep! Don't care. It makes me laugh. Apologies for a second literary parallel in two consecutive reviews, but this might be the best Elmore Leonard movie that isn't actually based on an Elmore Leonard book.

Tequila Sunrise. All the ingredients are here. A triumvirate of toothsome leads all at or near peak — Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfieffer, Kurt Russell. A good neo-noir setup — cop and (ex?) drug dealer are long-time best friends put on a collision course by a woman and their respective professions. But it just doesn't fully add up. I think the big culprit is the plot. Writer-director Robert Towne is a legend in the biz, but this story just felt sloppy to me. The Pfeiffer-Gibson relationship makes a leap at one point that's borderline comedic. I know Mel Gibson is good looking, lady, but damn. A couple of characters have to be incredibly dumb to even slightly make the story work. One character makes a choice at the end that while it makes sense it still leaves the viewer with a whole open can of worms sitting in their laps. All that said, the performances elevate it slightly. Slick-haired Russell swaggers while Gibson broods and emotes (kinda forgot he can play QUIET). I will NEVER say a bad thing about Michelle Pfeiffer. I think the script lets her down. The real gem in this though is Raul Julia who bounds from charm to menace and back with such ease. Off the charts charisma in this.

Hal. A documentary on Hal Ashby. Nothing deep or hard-hitting (it touches on but glides by some of Ashby's failings as a person, particularly a husband and father), but still an engaging overview of a significant editor (in the 60s) and director (in the 70s) whose influence is still relevant today. I'm stopping short of proclaiming Ashby as being forgotten or underrated or underappreicated ... it feels like that was true at one point (80s/90s), but he has been subject to enough revisiting in the past 20 years that claim no longer holds. Properly rated, I say. Though even as a fan, I sometimes forget how staggering his 1970s were (The Landlord, Harold & Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home, Being There). Interesting as a film retrospective if not super insightful about the man.

 

[kihei]

Only seen it once, didn't dislike it. It's certainly a more realistic film, but I don't necessarily prefer films that present characters that use their brains more efficiently, I prefer films that ask of me to use mine (and from there, it really depends what gets you going). Sci-fi philosophical explorations? I prefer Solaris, I also prefer Melancholia and to some extent, Je t'aime, je t'aime.

Je t'aime, je t'aime is such an underrated movie. It's sort of haunted me for years.

I find it hard to rank Tarkovsky's seven feature film because they are all so good. I can't think of any director with a higher batting average, not even my favourite director Satyajit Ray. You could rank Tarkovsky movies by picking them blindfold out of a hat, and I probably wouldn't object too strongly. That being said, here's my current attempt:

Mirror
Nostalghia
Stalker
Solaris
Andrei Rublev
Ivan's Childhood
The Sacrifice

 

[nameless1]

The Conformist. One of the more beautiful movies about emptiness. Stunning to absorb visually and equally compelling in story, which is saying something since the main character by design is such a passive, sniveling void. Like Antonioni's The Passenger you get the political intrigue of a Graham Greene-like story filtered through the art house sensibilities of a master.

For some reason, the tiniest historical inaccuracy in the Chinese restaurant scene, in regards to the bottle of Maotai that should not have existed in the 1930s, bugs me to no end. It is not even that important either, because that mistake does not affect the movie one little bit, but I docked a full point off my score because of it.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

For some reason, the tiniest historical inaccuracy in the Chinese restaurant scene, in regards to the bottle of Maotai that should not have existed in the 1930s, bug me to no end. It is not even that important either, because that mistake does not affect the movie one little bit, but I docked a full point off my score because of it.

Ha. It's funny how something small like that can really throw you for a loop in a movie.

I watched a movie recently that I liked a lot about but the characters kept walking down the middle of the street which is a movie trope that I absolutely hate. The walking in the street has no bearing on the actual movie (other than a director really jonesing for symmetrical framing) but it drove me nuts every time it happened to the point where it negatively impacted my feelings.

 

[max21]

Tenet, all I gotta say is wtf lol. 6/10, it made sense but also made no sense.

 

[Chili]

Tequila Sunrise. All the ingredients are here. A triumvirate of toothsome leads all at or near peak — Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfieffer, Kurt Russell. A good neo-noir setup — cop and (ex?) drug dealer are long-time best friends put on a collision course by a woman and their respective professions. But it just doesn't fully add up. I think the big culprit is the plot. Writer-director Robert Towne is a legend in the biz, but this story just felt sloppy to me. The Pfeiffer-Gibson relationship makes a leap at one point that's borderline comedic. I know Mel Gibson is good looking, lady, but damn. A couple of characters have to be incredibly dumb to even slightly make the story work. One character makes a choice at the end that while it makes sense it still leaves the viewer with a whole open can of worms sitting in their laps. All that said, the performances elevate it slightly. Slick-haired Russell swaggers while Gibson broods and emotes (kinda forgot he can play QUIET). I will NEVER say a bad thing about Michelle Pfeiffer. I think the script lets her down. The real gem in this though is Raul Julia who bounds from charm to menace and back with such ease. Off the charts charisma in this.

Re-watched this recently, agree on Raul Julia he was the highlight of the film. Real cops couldn't have been thrilled with their portrayal. A bit like a Burt Reynolds buddy film from the 1970's without the ha-ha HA.

 

[kihei]

Notturno (2020) Directed by Giancarlo Rosi (documentary) 8B

Italian documentarian Giancarlo Rosi (Fire at Sea) turns his attention to the uneasy peace in the aftermath of the war in the Middle East. His focus is the border areas between Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Kurdistan. As in his previous works, Rosi eschews voice overs, explanations, and talking heads in favour of images. The only dialogue that occurs is when one of the subjects speaks naturally for himself or herself. A young boy tells his teacher how he and other children were tortured by ISIS; an old woman visiting her dead son's prison cell talks to him as though he could hear her. The rest of the time we are watch images, images of vigilance primarily, men patrolling streets, streams and lakes, the middle of nowhere. This is a society not so much licking its wounds as wondering where the next blow will come from. Sometimes Rosi's images are so impressively composed that their formal perfection is almost a distraction, but in the end they are the best way to tell a story that might otherwise beggar description.

subtitles

TIFF.net

 

[Devilmademedoit]

welome 2 america

1/10

the moment I saw the 12 age notice and leslie jones' name--I knew this would suck

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Coming Apart (Milton Moses Ginsberg, 1969) - A psychotherapist on the verge of a breakdown films the different encounters he has with women in a New York apartment, unbeknown to them. The film really is about the apparatus - hidden in a mirrored box - and not about the characters, who come and go and lose most interest along the way (though the cast is very good). Thus, when a gun finally shows up, the camera and the image (the mirror) are the obvious victims (the male gaze is the target, this is as far as you could get from a feminist film, but the whole thing is a gender studies' students' wet dream, the paper writes itself). There's no real story - or it's a film about bad sex and depressing orgies - when the main character wants to make important confessions to the camera or have short bursts of honesty, the technical problems accentuate and everything is taken out. When one of the women wants to make a movie ("our movie within the movie"), it's time to call it quit. If you're into overexposition, black screens, static shots of empty sets, hard cuts with loud scratch sounds, and of course a lot of reflexivity - and if you don't care about a story - this is the film for you. You end up looking a lot at the city through the windows. It's kind of a little of Cassavetes meets a little of Andy Warhol meets a little of Michael Snow, and with a little of 1969 sleaze. 6/10

 

[ItsFineImFine]

I liked Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris so that automatically disqualifies my opinion.

I think I preferred Stalker to Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

The Clooney Solaris is far more entertaining a film imo. The Soviet one....I have serious qualms about its pacing, I thought the only thing it did better was maybe the acting (Soderbergh one suffers from that millennia overacting) and the Soviet one felt more expansive in terms of sets.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Rewatched:

8/10

 

[Osprey]

The Clooney Solaris is far more entertaining a film imo. The Soviet one....I have serious qualms about its pacing, I thought the only thing it did better was maybe the acting (Soderbergh one suffers from that millennia overacting) and the Soviet one felt more expansive in terms of sets.

You didn't like the 5-minute silent car ride at the beginning or the 2-minute pan across a 19th century painting?

As for the sets, that was definitely the style for space pictures in the 60s and 70s: large spaces and long corridors with hardly any people to populate them. 2001: A Space Odyssey is the best example and no doubt further influenced the style and the 1972 Solaris, in particular. The 2002 Solaris, on the other hand, was more realistic with its tighter quarters. Such realism helps make for harder sci-fi, but loses some of the fantasy of living in space. Do you want imaginative and unrealistic or realistic and unimaginative? I like both styles, but one is certainly more old fashioned and the other more modern.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Hitman (Gens, 2007) – This is a pretty bad film, but it has some kind of an aura. It's daring enough to stand out and there must be some ways to rethink the reflexivity at play in order to make it meaningful, but that went over my head. I'm not too fond of the jokey “they're playing the Hitman game in the Hitman movie!”, but the visuals are at times very close to the game and that is the result of real aesthetic work (you'd wonder if some of the shots weren't rendered through some form of game engine, especially some of the textures – even in Olyphant's face, which could explain why he looks like Agent 47 one third of the time, and like a kid in a suit the rest of the way... and this guy was 40 when the film got out!). It's still a pretty bad film. 3.5/10

Hitman: Agent 47 (Bach, 2015) - What about casting? Isn't that a thing anymore? Olyphant was a weird casting choice, but the people who thaught Ruper Friend could play 47 were either blind or lobotomized. It doesn't help that the film is utterly terrible (don't reboot a failed adaptation to do even worse, please), and that despite what the title would suggest, the film isn't really about Agent 47, but more about Agent 90, or Quatre-vingt-dix, or Katia Van Dees (now that might have been clever if it wasn't spelled out in the film). I guess next attempt will be the right one... 2.5/10

 

[Puck]

Crank High Voltage, Written and Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, 5.0+

I've gotten into a series of weird WTF absurdist films recently. I might be going thru a phase, it might be pandemic related . This is the sequel to Crank, I had seen the first one but not the second. The sequel is just as absurd as the first but it is entertaining. Gag script writing, they don't take themselves seriously, it is obvious they are pulling your leg. Jason Statham as 'Chelios' fights a mobster who has stolen his heart and replaced it with a battery-powered artificial heart which requires regular jolts of electricity to continue operating. Most of the film is a series of preposterous skits revolving around Statham chasing the mobster while finding new and ingenious ways to recharge the battery. It's billed as an action/thriller, surreal comedy is more apt. If Jason Statham had not been available to reprise the role of Chelios, Woody Harrelson would have fit in nicely here as a replacement. Drive-In B-Movie but good for a laugh. You have to get into this one with the right frame of mind, alcohol helps (I paired it with a nice Cabernet Sauvignon).

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I had seen the first one but not the second.

I've never seen the first one, but I've watched High Voltage because Mike Patton did the score.

 

[kihei]

Anne at 13,000 Feet (2019) Directed by Kazic Radwanski 5B

Anne (Daragh Campbell) who is in her early ‘20s, teaches at a big daycare centre in Toronto. When we meet her she is already is some sort of serious emotional crisis though exactly what the root of the crisis is never becomes clear to the audience. In other words, we don’t know how she got to this point or how long she’s been like this. Filmed entirely with a hand-held camera in close ups, often extreme close ups, we watch as Anne goes from one breakdown to the next one. The constant close ups get annoying and the question as to how this young woman could ever get a job in a daycare centre, let alone hold onto one, hangs over the movie like a cloud. The goal of the film seems to be to make the audience continuously uncomfortable about Anne and her mysterious state. That’s not much of a payoff by any standards. However, Anne at 13,000 Feet has one huge plus, the performance of Campbell as Anne. She gives a thoroughly naturalistic performance that is utterly convincing. That’s not enough to make the movie more than a less than fully successful experiment, but it at least is one good reason to consider seeing it.

 

[kihei]

You didn't like the 5-minute silent car ride at the beginning or the 2-minute pan across a 19th century painting?

Actually I did like those sequences. I especially liked the five-minute car ride which I took as a friendly nod to Kubrick's psychedelic sequence of about the same length at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Thought it was downright witty, a little sly humour in a film that didn't possess much levity.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

No Way Out. One of my favorite 80s movies. Peak Kevin Costner and one of my all time favorite actors in Gene Hackman. Just great all around. 10/10 for me.

 

[OzzyFan]

Willy's Woderland
2.50 out of 4stars

Cage plays an anti-hero with no name and is given no spoken dialogue in a movie with murderous human sized kiddie animatronic characters. It's just about every bit of fun as it sounds with Cage giving another great wild crazy turn.


Chaos Walking
2.00 out of 4stars

Skip it. I tried thinking about what redeemable qualities that would make it worth a watch on a little or big screen, but I just couldn't do it. It's incredibly messy. The visuals aren't pretty enough, the parlor trick of hearing ones thoughts isn't executed efficiently or meaningfully enough, the characters are tremendously underwritten, the story is incredibly cliched, etc. Sucks that such an interesting premise with versatile story pieces went sideways so quickly. Oh boy, it had a $100million budget too.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Watched:

8/10

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Rewatched for the first time in years:

9/10