Rate The Last Movie You Saw

The Making of a Cheer Team (2021) I watched this on Tubi today. It's an informative and enjoyable short documentary. The cheerleaders are wonderful and charming. I liked seeing their interviews and their routines.

Zelig (1983)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

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Vagabond - (1985)

Tales of drifters and vagabonds can get depressing at times, but Agnès Varda's 1985 feature delivers a particularly strong and self assured character - Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire) is simply living the life she wants to live, free and unbounded by what society thinks she should be. At times it's a tough existence, but there's usually someone willing to share a drink, a smoke or some food (or some drugs) with Mona and if they have a car, share the journey for a short stretch. Disquietingly, the film starts with the discovery of Mona's dead body, and then Varda herself (as narrator) catches up with various characters and questions them as to the experiences they had with her. As would be expected, this film has some very nice cinematography - capturing the French countryside and dotted towns in all their guises. Bonnaire is enchanting, and troubling in her portrayal - a truly great performance. All-up, a thoughtful, bittersweet tale about one woman's need for individuality and freedom - and our need for each other's guidance and help.

8/10


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Le Bonheur - (1965)

Just because you're happy doesn't mean what you're doing is right - in this tale about infidelity and selfishness, there's something extraordinarily dark beneath the pictures of gardens and sweet family picnics. Really affecting French film. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

9/10


By Compagnie Commerciale Française Cinématographique (CCFC) - http://movieposters.2038.net/p/Cleo-De-5-A-7.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35925562

Cléo from 5 to 7 - (1962)

Two hours in the life of pop singer Cléo Victoire, waiting to see if she has cancer, and two hours in the life of Paris, which is exploding with art and culture - and portents of doom. I fell in love with this film straight away - it's simply everything I love about avant-garde/cinéma vérité filmmaking. Full review here in my watchlist thread.

10/10


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Dante's Inferno - (1911)

One of the oldest feature films ever made - this follows Dante's (Salvatore Papa) travails through the 9 circles of Hell ala Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy. Amazing locations and special effects considering when this was made! At times gruesome and surreal, this can get a bit wordy with the intertitles, and archaic with it's doctrine, but is fascinating nonetheless. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

7/10


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Man With a Movie Camera - (1929)

Everything movies can be, can do and can show us - it's in this Soviet extravaganza, along with a look at a day in the life of the average Soviet citizen during the 1920s. Full of dazzling ideas and expression through the language of cinema - a hectic race through everything cinema can be. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

9/10

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i really loved it, some scenes reminds me of my favorite show TRUE BLOOD and loved melissa from scream series and loved katherine newton from marvel and the girl who plays Abigail i knew she was on matilda the musicial and loved matthew goode also

A Dozen Summers (2015) Watched on Tubi. Directed by Kenton Hall and starring
Scarlet Hall and Hero Hall. A family comedy about two 12 year old sisters who hijack a kids movie to make a movie about themselves. I thought this was cute and enjoyable. Scarlet Hall and Hero Hall are absolutely charming and delightful, giving winning, natural performances. There is some amusing dialogue and clever film references.

This film is freaking brilliant.

1st Rewatch...The creative force behind Black Panther found a way to breathe new life into the Rocky franchise, lifting the Italian Stallion out of the cinematic dump where Rocky V and Rocky Balboa left him. In this film, we meet Adonis Johnson, the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, who leaves a cushy office job to pursue his passion for fighting, which brings him to Philadelphia and to Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to train him. This film effectively mines the history of franchise but locks us in the present by not looking past the fact that Rocky's days inside the ring are over, but it's time to pass on what he learned to the son of his deceased best friend. Michael B Jordan became an official movie star with his passionate performance as Adonis and Sylvester Stallone's conflicted Rocky actually earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

2nd Rewatch...From the "If You Liked the First One" school filmmaking, Keenan Ivory Wayans brings us another scary movie lampoon that borrows from a lot of different movies. After a perfect lampoon of The Exorcist featuring James Woods, Veronica Cartwright, Andy Richter, and Natasha Lyonne, the primary story finds Cindy (Anna Faris) and the gang spending the weekend in the mansion of a perverted college professor (Tim Curry). The film features nods to films like The Amity Horror, Rebecca, Bell Book and Candle, and a perfect recreation of the big fight scene in the film version of Charlie's Angels, though most of the laughs are courtesy of a parrot with a filthy mouth. Like I said, if you liked the first one...

Umpteenth Rewatch...The late Rodney Dangerfield had one of his best roles in one of his biggest box office hits playing Thornton Melon, a self-made millionaire who, discouraged by the news that his son, Jason (Keith Gordon) is miserable in college and thinking about dropping out, decides to go to school with him, buying himself entrance into the college as a freshman. This formulaic comedy goes everywhere you expect it to but is so richly entertaining because this guy Thornton Melon is just do damned likable you can't excuse his doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons. This film provides laughs from opening to closing credits and features a lot of familiar faces in the supporting cast. Sally Kellerman is a vivacious leading leading lady and Robert Downey Jr., Burt Young, Ned Beatty, and the late Sam Kinison also pop up along the way. The film also provides us with two of the best comic villians ever in Paxton Whitehead as Professor Barbier and William Zabka as the arrogant swimming champ Chaz. Endless re-watch appeal here.

Monkey Man (2024)

This is a good solid action/revenger from first time director Dev Patel. The story is good and while some of the violence is realistic (which I prefer, especially during the "boxing" scenes) some is downright silly. Including the old "12 baddies around me but each taking their turn to attack me" schtick. That said, this is enjoyable with a nice message behind it.

Asphalt City (2023)

Story about a rookie and a veteran Paramedic working in New York. All the social issues of providing care in a city that's degenerating whilst constantly taking flak from their management to avoid lawsuits etc. The performances are good and it reminds me of a cross between Bringing out the Dead and End of Watch. Theres a good depiction of the world-weariness of the veteran knowing that some people cannot be assisted (they will either die or do the exact thing the next night/day) and the commitment of the juniour member trying to get into Med School.

The Magic Flute (1975)

Luca Guadagnino's Challengers (yes, that really is how the film's title appears on-screen) was one of my most eagerly anticipated movies of 2023 before it got bumped to April of this year.

Maybe all the anticipation simply set me up for disappointment, because while I admire much of the craftsmanship behind the movie, as well as the lead performances, I can't say I'm much more than mildly indifferent about the finished film.

Let's just cut to the chase: I feel that the characters of this movie are way, way less interesting than the actors playing them. I can say without hesitation that I like Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist quite a bit, have enjoyed their past performances, and really look forward to their future film roles.

But this movie just doesn't work if you feel the main characters are a little too self-absorbed and myopic to look at the larger world that's theirs for the taking (if they would only stop looking exclusively at each other). I just couldn't drum up any interest for what they were after, and didn't much care whether they got it or not.

Mind you, I don't think that a sports-related movie has to have a likable character in order to be a compelling film. Scorsese's Raging Bull is one of the most fascinating and hypnotic movies of the 20th century, thanks to a spell-binding performance by Robert DeNiro - but the character of Jake LaMotta couldn't be more off-putting or unlikeable. And yet - the movie worked, because he was such a flawed character that, at some level, you couldn't stop feeling sorry for him, and for all the misery he caused to the people in his life.

By contrast, Luca Guadagnino's Challengers features some very photogenic and attractive lead actors - but they got stuck playing vapid, shallow characters and at some point, I was just kind of glad that they'd all gotten stuck with each other, rather than inflict any misery to any other people in their lives.

Since it's not secret (thanks to the trailers) that this movie involves a romantic triangle, I wish Guadagnino hadn't made such an obvious allegory here - essentially, it amounts to Zendaya's character being the tennis ball that her two suitors keep tossing back and forth, like in a tennis match.

I don't know that I would go so far as to call these characters toxic, but they sure do have a lot of pent-up issues and perhaps a better movie would have involved their efforts to understand themselves better and grow up emotionally, and becoming better human beings.

A better movie with a romantic triangle where the two guys definitely have some serious issues would be Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mama Tambien.

On a side note, this movie is the first to feature the 100th Anniversary logo for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the once-fabled studio that once boasted to have "more stars than there are in heaven". What a shame they couldn't get a better movie to mark that anniversary; but in any case, MGM today is but a pale shadow of the giant movie factory it once was - releasing at least one new movie every week, all year long!

Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer would be rolling in their graves if they saw what MGM stands for today...