Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Reese as a “married pig who is the mother of 25” has convinced me to put this movie in my watchlist, which would make it the first animated movie I have ever seen (at least I think so).

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Three excellent movies.

2nd Rewatch...William Shakespeare blends with the 80's teen comedy to mixed effect in this teen comedy that finds its inspiration in Taming of the Shrew. The film follows the adventures of two very different guys (Andrew Keegan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who are in love with Bianca Strafford (Larisa Oleynik) the most popular girl in school, who is not allowed to date anyone until her older sister, Kat (Julia Stiles) starts dating someone. Unfortunately, Kat is a snooty b*tch who has no interest in any form of socialization. The guys then decide to pay a transfer student with a shady past named Patrick Verona (the late Heath Ledger) to date Kat. The screenplay is a little above the head of its intended demographic, filling the story with names and dialogue from Shrew that most teens probably wouldn't have caught anyway, but a few performances definitely hit the mark. Larry Miller had one his best roles as the girls' father. I didn't remember how good Oleynik is as Bianca and Gordon-Levitt is a charmer as well, but it is Ledger's dazzling lead performance as Patrick Verona that makes this film worth watching all by itself.

Immaculate (2024)

Mish mash of The Omen with a healthy heaping of nunsploitation. TBH it's not great in my eyes but delivers a few scares. I'd not heard of Sydney Sweeney before but she does a good job here even if the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired.

How have you gone through life haver NEVER seen an animated film? Never? Not one?

If I have, I have no recollection of the title. I think I did watch a Japanese one about 2 kids surviving Hiroshima or something like that & I liked it.

Your review has encouraged me to see the movie you reviewed so let’s not make a negative out of it.

What about Disney movies when you were a kid?

Barefoot Gen?

Nope.

Found it: Grave of the Fireflies.

Stand Up Guys (2012)

Not the movie but...

Tv Show
7,5/10

All Good Things (2010)

Beyond White Space - A 2018 joint American/Hungarian production. Moby Dick in space. There's really no one worth rooting for. Most of the characters are cyphers. Captain Richard Bentley is played by Holt McCallany who mostly played heavies in movies and TV and, despite playing the lead, the role isn't much different. The obsessed captain is looking to avenge his father who was killed by a mythical space dragon called Tien Leung. He's got his younger brother among the crew of six onboard the commercial fishing vessel Essex. There are space pirates called Boomers and creatures called clickers which are apparently a delicacy on future earth but which are also teeming with mind bending parasites. They of course work that into the third act which is not your typical ending but still manages to comes off as uninspired.

Decent visuals, costumes and set design but a subpar script, stick figure characters and a lackluster lead are ultimately too much to overcome. When it's over you'll be hard-pressed to feel much of anything.

50/100

But you're here.

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Boldly going.

The Promised Land (2023)

Denmark has another contender for best film of the year.

"Six go up, six come down" is said to be the most important mantra of the Blue Angels, the demonstration squadron of the U.S. Navy.

Surely, nobody wants to see a demonstration pilot have a deadly accident in the line of duty.

Started after WW2 as an exercise in public relations by the Navy, the Blue Angels perform in over 30 U.S. cities each year. The new IMAX documentary doesn't tell you how much this costs taxpayers, but a quick online search produced an estimate of about $40 million a year in taxpayers' money.

Whatever one's feelings about the U.S. armed forces, it's hard to deny that the Blue Angels might perhaps be the most successful project ever created by the U.S military - at least as far as PR efforts are concerned.

And, whether or not one feels that this is a good way to spend millions in taxpayers' dollars, one cannot deny the unbelievable feats accomplished by these brave pilots - at one point in their show, the multi-million dollar fighters are flying just 12 inches apart. They are expected to perform flawlessly despite operating under G-forces that quickly send most of the blood in their bodies to their feet.

While this isn't really the most amazing made-for-IMAX documentary ever, it's still a pretty good show, especially if you like watching navy pilots performing their best and most dazzling displays of flying prowess.

If Back to Black weren't based on the very real Amy Winehouse, the script would probably have been dismissed for being nothing more than a compendium of movie cliches about talented but flawed singers who died tragically young due to addiction or substance abuse.

That's why it's a shame that this biopic feels like exactly that. it has the feelings of a by-the-book repeat of almost every scene that you've ever seen in any movie about singers like her. It also doesn't help that the movie practically condones the awful way she was treated by some of the men in her life (the director has regrettably tried to justify it by claiming it's just showing how Amy saw these men).

In any case, unless you caught the one-time-only Dolby Cinema showing earlier in the week, the movie's best assets will not even sound particularly impressive in most movie theaters.

This one ranks right up there with Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody as far as disappointing biopics about gifted singers who succumbed to their addictions.



2024 has been a dreary year for movies about imaginary friends, and John Krasinski's IF is a particularly awful disappointment in light of the talent involved.

Let's just say the movie might suffice for very young kids and particularly undemanding viewers. I think it will fall flat for most other moviegoers; the premise feels very much half-baked and even the usually energetic Ryan Reynolds feels like he's just not into it.

The movie doesn't even bother trying to get its parallel reality straight; one minute it's saying that the imaginary friends of kids who've grown up need to find other young children to "adopt" them, another minute it seems to be saying that they are better off reconnecting with their grown-up creators. Also, it makes sense that most grown-ups can't see the imaginary friends, so how can these "IFs" (some of whom are very big) take up a large amount of space when walking in crowded sidewalks?

Don't bother trying to make any sense of it - it's clear the filmmakers didn't, and neither should we.



This biopic of writer Flannery O'Connor is one of the most engaging indie films of the year, and one can only hope its appeal will help it find an audience even with viewers who aren't familiar with O'Connor's writing.

Ethan Hawke directed his daughter Maya in the lead role, with Laura Linney playing O'Connor's mother. In addition to playing Flannery and her mother, Maya and Linney also have multiple roles as characters in her stories and novels.

The movie isn't shy about portraying race relations in certain parts of the U.S. in the 50s and 60s; the movie brutally depicts the kind of racism that someone like O'Connor was exposed to (it seems to have made a very deep impression on her).

The phenomenal cast includes Vincent D'Onofrio, Steve Zahn, Alessandro Nivola and Liam Neeson (playing - what else? - an Irish priest).

Scoob! (2020)

Those seeking a Rashomon-like cinematic experience will be disappointed, and even die-hard Scoobers may be underwhelmed.

While the gang's backstory is sweetly presented, I'm afraid things go downhill from there as the plot becomes more and more and more and more and more and more complicated even as the animation remains ploddingly unmatched to the action. (Rorry Rooby.)

Sad to say that while she's quite good at voicing Daphne, Amanda Seyfried's enormous eyeballs could have been put to better use than reading this lame script and later voicing one of its iconic characters.

On the positive side, the redo of the title song is quite bouncy, but hardly worth the price of admission.

One brief passage does stand out, shared here for your hoped for amusement...



1/5 Scooby Snacks.

The Reader (2008)

Gorgo - 1961 scifi giant creature feature starring Bill Travers as Captain Joe Ryan. He's in charge of a salvage ship working off the coast of Ireland. An undersea volcano erupts, damages and nearly capsizes his boat and he and his first officer Sam Slade (William Sylvester) row ashore to a nearby fishing village in search of fresh water. Two of the local divers disappear and when one floats to the surface he's described as having died of fright. A giant lizard looking thing with glowing red eyes also surfaces and is eventually repelled with fire.

Ryan and Slade capture it and instead of donating it to the University of Dublin for scientific research they sell it to a circus in London. More people die and it starts weighing on Slades conscience. He and the orphaned village boy they adopted can't convince Captain Ryan that the creature belongs back home in the sea. That is until they learn that the 40 foot tall creature is actually an infant and his Godzilla-sized parent/legal guardian shows up looking for it. Big momma proceeds to lay a hurt on London that would do Tokyo proud. It's a quick 78 minutes long and a fun watch.

65/100