Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[Sedai]

Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor
Cognetti, 2023

3_5

https://pophorror.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/abb-800x415.jpg

I recall watching the original Hell House LLC back around the time it came out, and it was a pretty engaging little low-budget found footage flick. Creative staging and deft wielding of the camera made for some effective tension and scares. When the second one came out, we eagerly fired it up, but I don't remember much about it save that is wasn't anywhere near as good. At that point, I pretty much wrote the series off as all done.

I was poking around on Letterboxd looking for title to add to my watchlist for the Movieforums 31 Day Halloween challenge, when I noticed the 4th film in the series with quite a bit of positive feedback. Since it was also available on Shudder, it was an easy add. Boy, am I glad I put it on the list.

My wife adores the first film, so when I mentioned the 4th might actually be worth a watch, she insisted we get right to it. IMO, this film surpasses the original, with a couple of fantastic sequences that had us both stuck to the ceiling like frightened cats as we watched. Our actual cat didn't even wake up from his nap, but his brain is the size of a walnut, so what does he know.

The entire film is really effective, again using minimal resources and creative camera work to maximum effect. The acting from the smaller cast her is for the most part good, even if I found one of the leads to be ultra-annoying at times.

Fun location and several riveting scenes make this one a must watch for any fan of the found footage subgenre.

[Gideon58]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/Straight_Outta_Compton_poster.jpg


2nd Rewatch...This flawless blend of racial dram and the business behind show business just gets richer with each viewing. This is an often too up close look at the beginnings of gangster rap through the group NWA and infighting with Dr Dre, Ice Cube, and Easy E that eventually destroys the group. Love the scene where they perform "F**k the Police" even though the Detroit police have instructed them not to and the scene where the police stop them make them lie on the ground until they are rescued by their manager (Paul Giamatti) still makes my blood boil. There are standout performances by Jason Mitchell as Easy E, Corey Hawkins as Dr Dre, and especially O"Shea Jackson playing his real life father, Ice Cube. 4.5

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOWYxYjA0MjEtYmJhZC00ZjY0LTkzMDctZDZkYjE4YTdhODE1XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg



3.5

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjAwODVjM2QtNmVhNy00NjYwLWJhMzgtM2FlZjY0ZGJjZjQ2XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg




4.5

[Thief]

Amongst plenty of other films, I've watched two very different masterpieces this week:

https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sansho-the-Bailiff.jpg

https://hauntedjukebox.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/allthatjazz4.jpg

Sansho the Bailiff and All That Jazz.

Sansho the Bailiff is indeed great. I still haven't seen All That Jazz.

[Darth Pazuzu]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f3/Megalopolis_%28film%29_poster.jpg/220px-Megalopolis_%28film%29_poster.jpg

October 1, 2024

MEGALOPOLIS (Francis Ford Coppola / 2024)

Well, now... :D I must say I don't quite really know how to begin with this one! For one thing, I'm not even going to try making my usual canned plot summary, because I couldn't really do it justice at all. Suffice it to say, it takes place in a kind of alternate-universe mash-up of modern America and the Roman Empire (that is, if the latter had never fallen), and Adam Driver portrays a futurist architect named Cesar Catalina who has a grand vision of a futuristic city whose residency could potentially improve human existence.

The first thing I've got to say is, it's got an awesome cast. I've always liked Adam Driver a lot, and he makes an engaging protagonist here. And it's really cool to see Coppola working with Laurence Fishburne once again, who plays Cesar's driver and assistant. (He's also responsible for the film's narration, which I must say I got strong Morpheus vibes from, although I know that wasn't really Coppola's intention.) Giancarlo Esposito plays Mayor Cicero, who starts out being Cesar's adversary but warms up to him over the course of the story. Of course, part of that has to do with the fact his daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) has fallen in love with Cesar, and becomes his partner in his dream project. Jon Voight portrays Cesar's rich uncle Hamilton Crassus III, Aubrey Plaza plays Crassus' new wife Wow Platinum, and Shia LaBeouf plays Crassus' treacherous nephew Clodio Pulcher. Also look out for Dustin Hoffman, Talia Shire, and a whole slew of other noteworthies.

My reaction to Megalopolis is admittedly something of a mixed one. First of all, it's the kind of movie you feel really awestruck by, and even somewhat honored to be in the presence of. Not only is this the kind of movie about which you can say, "They don't make 'em like this anymore", but it's the kind of grand visionary fever dream that people have rarely had either the bravery or the resources to pull off at all at any point in cinema history. And for that reason alone, it is to be treasured. It has a genuinely experimental, even borderline-psychedelic quality to it which makes it stand out from practically anything else out there in American multiplexes today. While Coppola definitely avails himself of all the present-day digital FX technology has to offer, it possesses a very loose, improvisatory energy to it (very much reflected in the acting styles sometimes). It also has - and this is truly amazing for a story that was originally conceived in the late '70s - a real "Where are we now?" quality to it, drawing parallels between the decadence of ancient Rome and where America is today. It deals very much with class struggle, conspicuous wealth, politics and an interrogation into the very definition of "progress". But if that makes Megalopolis sound like some kind of overly socially conscious, heavily dystopian "message movie," rest assured that while it does have that side to it, it's also weirdly uplifting and you really do walk out of the theater on a bit of a cloud, feeling like there just might be hope - not only for America, but the world at large. It's the kind of movie that's very forward-thinking and very entertaining... at least for those who can keep up with it.

Having said that, however, the movie also feels somewhat misshapen and unwieldy at times. Perhaps it's the sort of movie you need to watch more than once. (On second thought, there's no perhaps about it. I think I do need to see it again, and I plan to do just that when the 4K release drops.) While there is much about the movie that is a glory to behold, it only loosely holds together, and one often has the impression of watching a very unique and idiosyncratic visionary folly. But hey! Those are often some of the most fascinating types of projects in the history of moviemaking. I myself have always had a strong appreciation of the work of John Boorman, who has always been very much respected as the man who directed classics like Point Blank (1967), Deliverance (1972), Excalibur (1981) and Hope and Glory (1987), but who has also made quite a few visionary "follies" of his own, such as Zardoz (1974) and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), that have often caused reviewers to question the man's very sanity. But truth be told, as imperfectly wayward as Zardoz and The Heretic are, they still rank among my favorite movies of all time, and overall I'd much prefer watching them over any sane, sober, well-intentioned mainstream package deal that ticks of all the right boxes. And I have no doubt that those people out there who have watched it feel much the some way about Coppola's Megalopolis.

Sooooooo... the question then becomes. How does this rank in Francis Ford Coppola's filmography. Well, admittedly not having actually seen each and every one of Coppola's films, I honestly couldn't say. Is it as good as The Godfather Trilogy (1972-1990), The Conversation (1974) or the mighty, fearsome Apocalypse Now (1979). Well... no, not quite. But comparing this movie to any other film, even Coppola's own, kind of seems unfair, because it's so much its own unique animal. One thing's for sure, if this were to end up being Coppola's final film (although hopefully he might have another in him), I couldn't imagine a better or more representative capstone for such a fascinating career.

[FilmBuff]

Perhaps it's the sort of movie you need to watch more than once. (On second thought, there's no perhaps about it. I think I do need to see it again, and I plan to do just that when the 4K release drops.)

I have watched this 4 times already, and keep finding new things with each viewing.

The story really is exceptionally well thought out, though maybe it might not seem that way at first.

At this juncture, I consider it Coppola's ultimate masterpiece, without a doubt.

[Miss Vicky]

101313

Joker: Folie à Deux
(Todd Phillips, 2024)

I'm not sure why people are acting like this was the worst thing ever. Maybe I just have shit taste (I've certainly been accused of that more than once), but I thought this was decent. Mind you, it's far from great, but I think it could have been a legitimately good movie if they'd been a lot more ruthless with the editing. I thought the performances were solid, I really liked the look of it, and there was definitely some potential with the story. It's just that there wasn't enough going on and the movie dragged a lot in some places. I think cutting it down by about 30 minutes would've helped considerably.

Also, after having just spent months watching musicals (my least favorite genre), I can say with absolute certainty that I'd sooner rewatch this than slog through a revisit of some of the other films of the genre I've seen. I didn't think the singing was out of place and was never annoyed by the songs themselves, though of course they did contribute to its pacing problems.

So yeah, I won't be seeing this again in the theater but I don't think it's a total waste of time or anything and I'll certainly give it another watch at some point.

3

[LeBoyWondeur]

Maxxxine (2024)

The third (last?) chapter in Ti West's "X" series, and in many ways it feels like it.
There's not enough suspense in it to call it horror, and it also doesn't really work as a whodunit slasher.
It looks terrific as a greatest hits of 1980s nostalgia, and the more I think about it the more it reminds me of the "Hollywood" novels written by Jackie Collins, Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon etc.
Those stories also dealt with themes like ruthless ambition, sleaze and gory violence.

But whatever the X series is meant to be, Maxxxine definitely qualifies as a "homage" film, and I think the trick is to use the genre's tropes in a clever or unexpected way.
That's not what happens in this film, and even though it harps on about the importance of fame, the character of Maxxxine doesn't really get fleshed out, so to speak.
Ironically, it's the motive of the antagonists that presents an interesting dilemma but that only happens in the last part of the story.

It's The Lonely Lady (1983) meets Hardcore (1979).
Very good looking and atmospheric, mildly entertaining but not very satisfying.

6/10

[skizzerflake]

minus :popcorn::popcorn:

Yeah....I'm one of those people who think Joker: Folie a Deux was just awful. I'll never have those 2 1/2 hours back. Between a lame plot line and Joachim Phoenix chewing every piece of scenery in sight there was not a moment I liked. So Joker has a crush on Harley Quinn. OK. Both of them get to indulge their sociopathic tendencies and somehow no matter how awful they are, there are squadrons of sycophantic followers who cheer them on.

I think we already knew that. Really, minus two popcorns is probably a high rating. It would have been four, except the look and FX in the movie are good. I found myself shifting in my seat, taking a bathroom break to get away from it, looking around at the empty theater and wondering why I came when I had been in the nearby food hall, eating some pad thai, having a beer and listening to some soft jazz.

Just WHY is Phoenix doing this to himself? Between his emaciated appearance and doing that so he can portray a vapid, violent character, what's up with him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OKAwz2MsJs

[FilmBuff]

Just WHY is Phoenix doing this to himself? Between his emaciated appearance and doing that so he can portray a vapid, violent character, what's up with him?


There's probably several million reasons he might have done it.... ;)

[KeyserCorleone]

It's the kind of movie that's very forward-thinking and very entertaining... at least for those who can keep up with it.

I actually had no trouble keeping up with it. My mindset when I went in there was to pay attention to the story more than the visuals.

[skizzerflake]

There's probably several million reasons he might have done it.... ;)

Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm cynical enough to have a good guess what those reasons are. All things considered, I'd probably do it too, although looking physically as bad and emaciated as he looks would make it a blow to my ego.

[stillmellow]

The Wild Robot


https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQcdu-t7sUuJ7PHdR2s0qZvQeqo_Twpfgz2Sg&s


A gorgeous movie, that succeeds on pulling on heartstrings while still finding time for existentialism. Yes, they make quite a few 'Disney-esque' contrivances,, allowing for talking animals and such, but I'm still quite impressed with the movie. DreamWorks may overtake Pixar/Disney as the studio best at making family films that's art, instead of just making sequels and spinoffs.

[FilmBuff]

DreamWorks may overtake Pixar/Disney as the studio best at making family films that's art, instead of just making sequels and spinoffs.

In all fairness, Pixar tried quite a few original films, only for audiences to stay away. Then they went back to make a sequel and, presto, audiences came back in droves.

You can't blame the studios for audience preferences.

[stillmellow]

In all fairness, Pixar tried quite a few original films, only for audiences to stay away. Then they went back to make a sequel and, presto, audiences came back in droves.

You can't blame the studios for audience preferences.



Elemental had legs and turned a profit, but I see your point.


Sadly, Onward and Soul just weren't that good, in my opinion. Even Elemental was marginal, feeling more than a bit like a re-skinned Zootopia. It had enough heart and feels to make it worthwhile though. And Luca and Turning Red went right to streaming, thanks to Covid.

[Fabulous]

The Best Man (1964)

3.5

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/cQhB9gFpkeD15OGsCgZNAAmmzGE.jpg

[Sedai]

V/H/S/85
Gigi Saul Guerrero, David Bruckner, Scott Derrickson, Natasha Kermani, Mike P. Nelson - 2023

3

https://nofilmschool.com/media-library/total-copy.jpg?id=50404351&width=1245&height=700&quality=90&coordinates=0%2C448%2C0%2C0

Another year, another V/H/S film. Actually, I am a year behind, as I somehow missed this one last year. There is another, even newer entry I will get to soon, which I will post about here when the time comes.

Anyway, we know the drill with these at this point. Some tapes are stronger than others, with a couple of standouts this time around in Dreamkill and No Wake. The wraparound is perhaps one of the better in the series, as well.

This film, perhaps more than any of the others, really embraces the format and leans into the time period. One of the better V/H/S flicks overall.

[PHOENIX74]

And so my hopes that the second Joker movie might be good dwindle and dwindle to near nothing. I'm already disappointed, and I haven't seen it yet!

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Wacknessposter.jpg
By Concept Arts - Impawards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15176369

The Wackness - (2008)

This was a rather refreshing coming of age film. Main character Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) is a dope dealer on the verge of graduating high school who only has one friend in the world - psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Squires (Ben Kingsley), who hovers around "Bad Santa" levels of disgrace and unusualness. Squires is a drug addict whose marriage is failing, and his advice to Luke is to enjoy his youth while he still has it. Luke is a cool enough guy, but forging relationships is foreign to him, so when the doc's step-daughter takes a romantic interest in him Luke falls hard, and ends up out of his depth. Man - I thought Ben Kingsley was hilarious in this, and I liked his performance, but all he ended up being nominated for is a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor. Apparently his showings in The Love Guru and War Inc. figure into the equation - maybe he was trying to break out in this direction and ended up with a schtick that critics ended up being bugged by. Anyway, The Wackness highlights a lot of the painful parts of being in your late teens, when life isn't exactly as rosy as they usually are in coming of age movies. That's why I liked this one - it wasn't so full of wonder and fortune, and therefore felt a little more genuine.

7/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d4/That_Sugar_Film_Release_Poster.jpeg
By The poster art can or could be obtained from the distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49923995

That Sugar Film - (2014)

Remember Super Size Me? Well, Damon Gameau copies the formula exactly here, except that he starts eating sugary foods (not candy, junk food or chocolate - just products with lots of sugar in them) and because this is a guy exceedingly careful when it comes to his diet, his body reacts to the changes - of course. What doesn't help is that Damon isn't the most expert onscreen presence when it comes to not being too cutesy or annoying. There's a lot of good information, so this film is to be lauded for actually trying to educate people, but the fact that it steals some other guy's process in such a corny manner means the end product isn't very enjoyable.

5/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/The_Cremator_Movie_Poster.jpg
By Unknown - The poster art can be obtained from http://rateyourmusic.com/images/all?assoc_id=1456&type=F, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36292238

The Cremator - (1969)

All-up, I think this movie evocatively highlights the power movies have to demystify and undress the horrors of murderous states - a testament to it's greatness. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2494478#post2494478), in my watchlist thread.

9/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/17/The_Manitou_-_1978_-_Poster.png
By Derived from a digital capture (photo/scan) of the Film Poster/ VHS or DVD Cover (creator of this digital version is irrelevant as the copyright in all equivalent images is still held by the same party). Copyright held by the film company or the artist. Claimed as fair use regardless., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29313291

The Manitou - (1978)

We all need a movie like The Manitou from time to time - out of this world while not taking itself too seriously, it keeps it's audience entertained throughout. It might be ridiculous, but I'd say that a copy of The Manitou would be a welcome addition to my movie collection, and hope that there's a really nice boutique version on Blu-Ray for me to buy one day. It's a hoot - no doubt. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2494698#post2494698), in my watchlist thread.

7/10

[Fabulous]

Prom Night (1980)

2.5

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/hLqHZyZq4Fi5YPnBDANHnaoysK0.jpg

[John W Constantine]

And so my hopes that the second Joker movie might be good dwindle and dwindle to near nothing. I'm already disappointed, and I haven't seen it yet!
Why do you say that?

[Allaby]

The Curse of the Necklace (2024) Directed by Juan Pablo Arias Munoz. An antique necklace is a conduit for evil that threatens a woman and her two teenaged daughters. I've been wanting to see this movie since I first heard about it. This is the first time that sisters Madeleine and Violet McGraw star in a movie together and I am a big fan of both. Madeleine previously starred in The Black Phone and Violet was in M3GAN. My thoughts n the film: it's a fairly average horror movie with a generic screenplay, but is redeemed by the McGraw sisters. Two of the most promising and talented young horror stars, sisters Madeleine and Violet McGraw, elevate this mediocre film with engaging and interesting performances. It's worth watching for them. 3

[Marco]

Leviathan (2014)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/Leviathan_2014_poster.jpg
An intriguing Russian film about a gruff and violent man played by Aleksei Serebryakov fighting against having his land being appropriated by the local bureaucratic councillors and Russian Orthodox authorities. He is a character that is difficult to sympathise with as he constantly has outbursts and permanently has a chip on his shoulder. His treatment of his second wife and son leaves much to be desired. *However* through the careful direction it allows you a window into his rage and you can understand if not quite empathise. Screwed over and feeling impotent he grows even closer to madness. 1st time watch and I thought it was excellent. What's implied to the viewer reflects Koyla's mindset. An achievement.
4

[matt72582]

Chicago: A Terry Kath Experience - 10/10

You don't even need to know the band to love this. And you'll find some great songs hopefully. Terry's daughter made this. She was 2 when he accidentally shot himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7egJTtz10E&feature=youtu.be

[Nausicaä]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/42/House_of_Spoils.jpg/220px-House_of_Spoils.jpg

2

SF = Zzzz

Viewed: Amazon Prime




[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it

[iluv2viddyfilms]

Cure - A-
Christine- B

[PHOENIX74]

Why do you say that?

My very well developed Spidey senses are tickling. A lot.

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2d/Seven_Pounds_poster.jpg
By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20047932

Seven Pounds - (2008)

I knew what I was going to get here, and although I have a heart I appreciated how everything neatly wrapped up in the end more than I appreciated the attempt to get my feelings all messed up. That's probably because I knew what Gabriele Muccino was up to here with this sad man tale. "From the maker of The Pursuit of Happyness" pretty much told me what I needed to know. A man, Tim Thomas (Will Smith) has a terrible secret, and a gift to bestow on 7 worthy people once Tim finds them - including the gift of giving his heart to someone. Pray you never become as troubled as Tim Thomas, who is a bit of a douchebag verbally, but has the heart of a saint regardless. Yeah, it's not subtle. Too much, even for Oscar consideration. Will Smith is trying though, and has talent.

6/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c8/Wall_Street-_Money_Never_Sleeps_film.jpg
By http://www.impawards.com/2010/wall_street_money_never_sleeps.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25987321

Wall Street : Money Never Sleeps - (2010)

I've never seen a movie threaten to become good so often, only to consistently let me down. It's almost like Oliver Stone tried too hard, and couldn't narrow his focus down to the potential of having Gordon Gekko let loose in the lawlessness of today's Wall Street. There are some good ideas that are at various times upturned, or let go. Don't even get me started on Shia LaBeouf, who doesn't have the look or gravitas needed for the role he takes on.

5/10

https://i.postimg.cc/FRrPs1hm/orlac.jpg
By Unknown author - https://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/tag/alexandra-sorina/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=144893597

The Hands of Orlac - (1924)

I thought there was a lot about The Hand of Orlac that was outstanding, and only it's age and a handful of issues stopped me from absolutely loving it. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2494996#post2494996), in my watchlist thread.

7/10

[Daniel M]

To Be Or Not To Be (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942) 5

https://images.mubicdn.net/images/film/1535/cache-37381-1651137891/image-w1280.jpg?size=800x

The easiest five stars I have given out in a while. I loved this film so much. Full of comedy, but all sorts of different gags, some slapstick, subtle stuff, recurring gags, satire... full of thrills and excitement working as a spy film, full of warmth... it's astonishing how such a multi-dimensional, ambitious screenplay/idea is handled with such aplomb. Wonderful stuff.

[John W Constantine]

My very well developed Spidey senses are tickling. A lot.

Well, I've seen it and I can pm you a few thoughts about.

[chawhee]

The Wild Robot (2024)
https://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/The-Wild-Robot-860x484.webp
4.5
Incredibly lovely movie all-around. The story isn't new (it actually felt very similar to last year's animated movie Migration at times), but the emotion and themes are deeply felt. My daughter was practically bawling at one point...

Only criticism I have was the end felt a bit overlong and silly in a sense.

[Sedai]

This weekend's films...

Double Blind
Hunt-Duffy, 2024

3_5

https://www.filmquestfest.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Double-Blind-1.jpg

A taut, single location Irish horror about a group of young test subjects taking part in a clinical trial for a new drug. The group is administered an escalating dose of the drug, and it isn't long before things go sideways, the facility is locked down, and the true nature of the drug starts to become apparent.

A film like this rests almost entirely on the performances of the cast, and they are good across the board. I was reminded of the film Cube multiple times, as this borrows from it in both concept and execution - a shot latter in the film is almost a direct reproduction of one of the more memorable sequences in Cube.

Hey, nothing new under the sun, right? This is an intense little film, and my wife especially really enjoyed this one.


Friday the 13th Part 3
Miner, 1982

3

https://a.ltrbxd.com/resized/sm/upload/3e/nf/n7/o2/friday-the-13th-part-3-1200-1200-675-675-crop-000000.jpg?v=7adb4eaaa2

One of the more divisive of the series, Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3D is a gimmick-filled cheese fest with what I feel is one of the best and most memorable casts of annoying victims in the entire run. It also features absolute badass Kristy as the final girl, who hands the hulking Jason Vorhees his ass over and over again. She screams and shrieks up a storm while easily repelling his every attack. She also clocks him with a piece of firewood as he is walking out a door, sending his flying ass over tea kettle through a porch railing as if he was hit by a Mack Truck. Kristy is one of my favorite final girls in all of horror, topping even the ridiculously hilarious Lar Park Lincoln from Part VII.

Let's face it, this film has quite possibly one of the stupidest screenplays this side of Troll 2, with strings of nonsensical dialogue and characters making senseless and obviously bad decisions in almost every scene. Add in Shelly, one of the most annoying characters ever put to film, and I see what this holds an 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Whatever. My friend's older sister snuck our 11 year-old selves into the theater back when it came out, and man did we have a great time. I have a conversion van full of nostalgia for this one, and I never get tired of it. Terrible film, and I love every second of it, from the tech-disco infused main theme to the those-eyeballs-are-obviously-on-wires head mashing goodness.


Haunt
Beck/Woods, 2019

4

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d3e481bc5a6e40001b215a8/1602380813235-IOBC0Q41ODOYGH0OV9TK/haunt2.jpg

I think this is my third time seeing this film since release, and I must say it is pretty damned good. After having my wife sit through Friday 3, it was her turn to pick the film, and she likes these haunted house flicks quite a bit. This features some good craftsmanship, with fun set design, and an excellent ramp-up of tension as it goes along.

I do scratch my head a bit at the reveal of the people running the haunt at the end of the film, as I do wish we got at least a bit more backstory, but that's not why we go to extreme haunts now is it?

Perhaps one of the better films of this nature, and one of the stronger entries in recent years.

[Stirchley]

101360

Rewatch of this Belgian movie. Excellent movie led by a 7 years old.

101361

Didn’t need to be so long. Touching, but slow from Iceland.

101362

Rewatch. Terrifying excellent movie. McAvoy looks so very young in this movie.

101363

Meh. Did George Clooney really think this a good movie. He’s made some bad choices lately.

[Gideon58]

https://www.gruv.com/assets/images/0/0/2/6/4/mm00264762.jpg



3rd Rewatch...After two previous nominations, Julia Roberts won an Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in this deliciously entertaining docudrama that, according to the epilogue, doesn't sacrifice the facts for entertainment. Roberts plays the title character, a financially strapped, divorced single mom of three who talks her way into a job at a small law firm headed by one Ed Masry (Albert Finney) who finds herself at the forefront of a class action lawsuit where a giant utilities corporation is accused of poisoning the water in a small community causing sickness and death in people and animals. The classic David VS Goliath story is given exemplary care by Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbegh (Traffic) that unfolds slowly by the end, you are cheering. Roberts has never been better, but was she really better than Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream? 4

[Stirchley]

https://www.gruv.com/assets/images/0/0/2/6/4/mm00264762.jpg



3rd Rewatch...After two previous nominations, Julia Roberts won an Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in this deliciously entertaining docudrama that, according to the epilogue, doesn't sacrifice the facts for entertainment. Roberts plays the title character, a financially strapped, divorced single mom of three who talks her way into a job at a small law firm headed by one Ed Masry (Albert Finney) who finds herself at the forefront of a class action lawsuit where a giant utilities corporation is accused of poisoning the water in a small community causing sickness and death in people and animals. The classic David VS Goliath story is given exemplary care by Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbegh (Traffic) that unfolds slowly by the end, you are cheering. Roberts has never been better, but was she really better than Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream?

Brilliant movie I’ve seen many times.

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZDBlMmZhY2EtOTgxZC00OTUzLWE3NWYtNzMzZGE0MjViZjc4XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg



2nd Rewatch...They were the two biggest movie stars on the planet at the time, but that doesn't change the fact that this is one of the most tiresome romantic comedies ever made. Burt and Goldie play Richard Babson and Paula McCullen, screenwriters who work together and live together and have no desire to be married. Of course, a third of the way into the film, Richard does talk Paula into marrying him, and, of course, the relationship changes as we watch them take a road trip to inform her parents (Jessica Tandy, Barnard Hughes) and his parents (Keenan Wynn, Audra Lindley). The film is based on the real life relationship of Oscar winner Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin (who appears in one scene as Goldie's BFF), but that doesn't make this film any less boring than it is. 2

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNTJjM2VhMDctMTIxYi00MzY3LWI5ZDgtZjFiNzg0M2QxNzI5XkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg



Umpteenth Rewatch...This energetic film version of the Broadway musical based on the 1960 Roger Corman film is still fun for the most part. Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene are delightful as the leads and there is a scene-stealing turn by Steve Martin as Orin Scrivello, DDS and a hysterical cameo by Bill Murray playing the role that Jack Nicholson played in the 1960 film. And you gotta love Tichina Arnold, Tisha Campbell, and Michelle Weeks as the Greek chorus known as the urchins. The film is a lot of fun until the plant gets really big and mean and then becomes squirm-worthy, but it's still solid musical entertainment. 3.5

[Gideon58]

https://ogden_images.s3.amazonaws.com/www.lockhaven.com/images/2022/07/06112615/Big1-560x840.jpg


Umpteenth Rewatch....Penny Marshall directed Tom Hanks to his first Oscar nomination in this delicious comic fantasy about a 12 year old boy named Josh Baskin who goes to the carnival with his parents one day and makes a wish that he could be big. He goes home and forgets about it, but the next morning when he wakes up, he discovers he has been turned into a 30 year old man. I don't know what else to say about this movie that hasn't been said...Hanks is perfection and so is his supporting cast and Marshall's direction. 4

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BODgxNzYxNTYxMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDM1MjgxMQ@@._V1_.jpg


5th Rewatch...The late Robin Williams had one of the biggest hits of his career with this slightly syrupy comedy about an unemployed actor whose wife (Sally Field) has divorced him, resulting in a custody arrangement where he only gets to see them on Saturdays. That isn't enough for him, so he disguises himself as a woman and gets his ex-wife to unknowingly hire him as her new housekeeper/babysitter. Williams is pretty much the show here and it should be known that almost all of his scenes are improvised. Research revealed that there is a vault somewhere filled with thousands of hours of film of Williams that didn't make it into the movie. It's still a little weird seeing Sally Field play the villain of the piece, the only time she has ever done that if memory serves, though there are attempts to inject sympathy into the character, but it doesn't matter because everyone takes a back seat to Williams here, who won a Golden Globe for his performance. 4

[Gideon58]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Ziegfeld_Girl_Movie_Poster.jpg


1st Rewatch...MGM stepped a little out of their comfort zone here with a surprisingly effective blend of musical comedy and melodrama that is so much more entertaining than expected. This is the story of three very different women (Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr) who get hired as Ziegfeld Girls and the varied effects it has on the three girls' lives. Garland's role here is thankless, though she does get to stop the show with "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" and "Minnie From Trinidad". But for me, the best thing about this movie is the sparkling performance from Lana Turner as Sheila, the elevator operator from Flatbush who lets the glitz and glamor of being a Ziegfeld girl almost destroy her. James Stewart also scores as Lana's truck driving boyfriend as does Charles Winninger as Garland's father and former vaudeville partner and we even get Tony Martin's velvet pipes which shine on "You Stepped Out of a Dream". And because it's about the follies, naturally the lavish musical numbers are staged by Busby Berkley. It loses points for being filmed in black and white, but if you're looking for something more than a rehash of Singin in the Rain, give this a shot. 3.5

[Thief]

THE MENU
(2022, Mylod)

https://i.imgur.com/PnC76bX.jpeg


"You will eat less than you desire and more than you deserve."



The Menu follows the visit of Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), a young food enthusiast, and his date Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) to the exclusive restaurant of eccentric celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). They are joined in the secluded place by an assorted group of diners – a food critic, her editor, a wealthy couple, a fading movie star, among others – all of which will receive a series of shocking surprises through the duration of the meal.

The Menu manages to put in front of us a full course of good direction, expert editing, solid performances, and a clever and witty script that manages to be both terrifying and fun. Although I thought the buildup was masterful, I still felt the payoff was less than I desired and there are certain things in the last act that wrap up perhaps too conveniently, but in a way, I still think the film was more than I deserved.

Grade: 3.5


Full review on my Movie Loot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2495158#post2495158)

[LChimp]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/815dXrdDK9L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

The Young Master - (1980)

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5125fLzD1qL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

Drunken Master - (1978)


Double feature with some friends on Saturday night. I've seen both these films (and a lot more of JC movies) many times, especially Drunken Master. I'd rate them 7/10 and 8/10, respectivelly.

[Thief]

TRICK 'R TREAT
(2007, Dougherty)

https://i.imgur.com/7cLJuvG.jpeg


"During the spookiest time of the year there are a few guidelines all ghosts and goblins should follow. Always stay on sidewalks. Never go to a strangers house, and never go out alone."



Halloween! Trick 'r Treat! We've all done it, right? So we've all probably heard some of the above "guidelines", something that either our parents or teachers constantly remembered us during that night. Trick 'r Treat is an anthology film that presents some stories of people that probably didn't stay on sidewalks, went to a strangers house, or went out alone, and how did things turn out for them.

As is usual in all anthology films, some stories work better than others. The first one with Dylan Baker as a school principal handing out candies to kids was probably my favorite. There are a couple of wicked reveals on it that I thought worked great. The second one about a group of kids recounting the "Halloween School Bus Massacre" was good, but felt too distant. Ironically, Sam's actual story, which is the last one, is the one where I feel the director most needed to rein himself a bit in terms of what to show and what not to.

Grade: 3.5


Full review on my Movie Loot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2495180#post2495180)

[Thief]

GHOST STORY
(1981, Irvin)

https://i.imgur.com/9eeKuQ2.jpeg


"I will take you places you've never been. I will show you things that you have never seen and I will see the life run out of you."



Ghost Story follows four elderly businessmen (Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, John Houseman), founders of the Chowder Society in the small town of Milburn in New England. Every week, the four gentlemen get together to share tales of horror and ghost stories. But what happens when the lines between story and real life get blurred, and ghosts from the past bring the above statement?

Generally speaking, I agree with most of Wooley's assessment. The film is a bit too long, the pace is a bit off, and the film drags a bit after the halfway mark. However, it does succeed in creating an eerie ambience and a general intrigue about what is happening. The few actual jump scares it has do feel like jump scares, if you get what I mean, but the special effects and makeup are effective, and they do the job.

Grade: 3


Full review on my Movie Loot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2495213#post2495213)

[FilmBuff]

https://whiteriverstatepark.org/wp-content/uploads/Joker.jpg

Joker Folie À Deux (IMAX 70mm)
0.5

Since I've always been a fan of large-format theatrical presentations, I absolutely had to go back to catch this one once again, as the first showing I went to was not an IMAX 70mm presentation.

Sadly, the IMAX 70mm presentation doesn't really do much to improve what is wrong with the movie in the same place; if anything, it actually magnifies the lack of imagination that went into the visual design of the movie.

The IMAX website claims that their 70mm version of the movie "features 54-minutes of IMAX’s exclusive Expanded Aspect Ratio (EAR). IMAX will be proudly presented at 11 global IMAX 70mm film locations." (https://www.imax.com/news/joker-folie-a-deux-in-imax-70mm-film)

When IMAX 70mm was used a year ago or so in the release of Oppenheimer, it actually made a pretty big difference, because Christopher Norton had actually used 65mm cameras for at least some of the movie.

With Joker 2, Todd Phillips either didn't actually use 65mm cameras or didn't quite figure out how to get the maximum resolution from them; the parts of the movie in the EAR don't have a lot of additional resolution or sharpness compared to the rest of the movie. In fact, I would say the use of 70mm film for this release is practically unnoticeable.

There's also not anything in the movie that could substantially benefit from a 70mm projection; most of the movie takes place indoors and there are noticeably less establishing shots of the Gotham metropolitan area compared to the first movie.

This is particularly annoying because the IMAX 70mm showings come with a couple of pretty big caveats; theaters showing these prints of the movie are unable to show previews before the movie (which for some people, might actually be preferable) and they also cannot use the theater's closed-captioning system.

Despite being a big enthusiast for special large-screen formats like IMAX 70mm, I am deeply saddened to see it being wasted on movies that don't know how to make the best use of it, when it they could instead have used it to re-release a classic movie like Lawrence of Arabia which would actually benefit from the format.

Even more unfortunate is the fact that, unlike Oppenheimer, the colossal bomb that is Joker 2 might dissuade theater owners from committing to more IMAX 70mm releases, instead of more of them.

[FilmBuff]

https://www.movienewsletters.net/photos/340648R1.jpg

Monster Summer
3.5

Surprisingly, one of the best late-summer movies came into theaters without much publicity or without making headlines as one of the lowest-rated movies ever made.

In its own unassuming way, the movie should provide plenty of laughs and some mildly spooky moments to family audiences for some time to come (I am assuming the home streaming release might be timed to coincide with Halloween).

The premise is simple: a bunch of young kids living in Martha’s Vineyard in the late 90s have to face off against what may or may not be a scary witch.

Still, the film makes the most of its simple premise, and gets maximum milage from two old-timers in the cast: Mel Gibson as a retired former police detective and Lorraine Bracco as a mysterious elderly lady who may or may not be who she appears to be.

This isn't really a horror film, the "spooky" stuff is really aimed at younger viewers although it is still fairly effective in terms of the movie's narrative, and the young kids in the cast are pretty appealing performers.

If you're looking for a fun family film that is ideal for this time of year, then Monster Summer might be your best bet.

[Thief]

THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION
(1975, Rebane)

https://i.imgur.com/m7cw3ar.png


"...and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth shall be an abomination. Only the pure of heart shall be spared."



Set in Merrill, Wisconsin, the film follows the attack of giant spiders that hatch from a meteor that crashes on a farm. For perspective, the film wasn't that well received back in the day, but regained notoriety when it was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The film is also ranked as one of "the 100 most enjoyable bad movies ever made", and I think I have to agree with that.

The Giant Spider Invasion has some bad performances, worst dialogue, poorly conceived characters, weird direction, and campy special effects. Plus, it takes about 30 minutes until we see *a spider* and about 30 more minutes until we see a full giant spider. For a film called "The Giant Spider Invasion", that's not very good, but the film more than makes up for it on that last act.

Grade: 2


Full review on my Movie Loot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2495229#post2495229)

[FilmBuff]

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/oDS4COK3uGP7lz8WdZ7tYMOCZxd.jpg

White Bird
2

Some movies clearly mean well but have absolutely no business trying to do so by means of a motion picture.

What's mostly disappointing about White Bird is that, despite the good intentions of the core message it's trying to sell (be kind to strangers, and don't be intolerant), it really amounts to nothing more than a rural remake of The Diary of Anne Frank; as such it's hard to feel all that much for a clearly fictional story when its real-life counterpart continues to inspire us to this day.

The movie does feature Helen Mirren and Gillian Anderson in small supporting roles, but decidedly doesn't give them nearly enough to do and as a result, their participation in the movie seems like a wasted opportunity.

[FilmBuff]

https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/sharedimages/2024/10/the-outrun-movie-poster.jpg

The Outrun
1.5


Saoirse Ronan is undoubtedly a gifted actor, which makes it all the more sad that her talent is wasted in the superficial, hackneyed The Outrun, a movie version of Amy Liptrot's memoir.

I have no doubt that Liptrot's memoir must be a compelling read; however I didn't get a chance to read it before watching the movie, and it's frustrating that the film, which has been fictionalized, doesn't offer anything new in the long-running obsession filmmakers have with alcoholics.

Ronan's performance here is technically proficient, but what she's been given to work with doesn't go beyond a totally two-dimensional characterization of a young lady confronting her alcoholism in one of the most picturesque locations of the UK (the movie was actually filmed in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland).

The authentic locations are gorgeous and definitely make me wish I could take a quick trip to Orkney; it definitely feels like a great place to get away from the rest of the world. However the movie doesn't really have much to offer beyond beautiful, picture-perfect exotic locations.

The film's non-linear structure also doesn't help make the narrative more compelling; if anything, it makes it easier for the viewer to distance oneself from the protagonist.

When the film was over, I had an unexpected urge to revisit Ray Milland's performance in Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend.

[Nausicaä]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/36/Haunt2019Poster.jpg/220px-Haunt2019Poster.jpg

3

SF = Z

Viewed: Netflix



[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it

[Fabulous]

Frenzy (1972)

3.5

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/3QPtKJM5nQOkx1Jcp38uAN6I3mW.jpg

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e8/Joker_-_Folie_%C3%A0_Deux_poster.jpg
By http://www.impawards.com/2024/joker_folie_a_deux_ver2.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76516046

Joker: Folie à Deux - (2024)

Wrecked it.

1

Wait a minute. Before I rate this film on pure reflex, let me reflect on it a little. I mean, up until two-thirds of the way through I thought I was going to buck the trend and really like this film. Maybe, just maybe, judged alone and out of context, this is a good movie. But nothing can take away from the fact that I left a cinema feeling absolutely gutted. Disappointed beyond all measure, and wanting to forget that Joker: Folie à Deux ever existed. I can dig not getting what I wanted, if what I get instead is still something good - but when I'm hoping for a banana milkshake and instead get sprayed with mace right in the face that's a little much. I didn't mind the musical interludes - I didn't think they all worked, but around half worked for me. But the screenplay as a whole felt like it was written to spite the first film. I'm so sick and tired of being chided for getting kicks out of these grotesqueries - it doesn't mean I'm celebrating murder or mayhem. There might come a day when I change my mind completely about this film, and see it in a different light - but at the moment I'm hurting.

4/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e6/Film_Poster_for_Gigot.jpg
By Max Corbeau - IMDb, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44155329

Gigot - (1962)

I was lurking around a local arthouse cinema which had a room designed with a kind of 'film library' motif, and had various film books laying about the place. One such tome was open at a page where a big picture of a disheveled Jackie Gleason beaming at me beckoned. I read a description of the picture, and it informed me about the film Gigot, directed by Gene Kelly. Gigot is a big mute bear of a simple man who lives in a filthy basement in Paris - kindly, happy and friendly, despite his poverty and the bottom rung on the social ladder he occupies. I knew I'd never get over that image until I saw the actual film, and I did that last night. Kelly was furious at how the film was cut, and disowned it. "So drastically cut and reedited that it had little to do with my version" he said. It was cute here and there, and I thought Gleason made the experience to be much more than it would have been without him. Grasping for another Oscar nomination after his one for Supporting Actor in The Hustler the year before - but it didn't work out this time. If you're not a complete cynic, this might warm your heart a little.

6/10

[PHOENIX74]

Well, I've seen it and I can pm you a few thoughts about.

Too late I saw it - but, you're welcome to send those thoughts. I'd like to hear a variety of thought on this big release and I'm interested in what you have to say.

[Sedai]

The Houses October Built
Roe, 2014

2_5

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/10/10/arts/10THEHOUSES/10THEHOUSES-superJumbo.jpg

Watched this to fill the in the 2014 requirement in the Halloween challenge. I had seen this around the time of release, and it's one of those films I ended up conflating with several others of its ilk. I read up a bit about the film this time around, and this was originally a straight doc to be released in 2011 about various haunts around the country, couldn't get proper distro, and was retooled into its current state for a 2014 release. I believe the original cut is kicking around out there somewhere, but I haven't seen it.

It's fine for what it is, but a bit boring on the whole. It has a few tense scenes, but offers very little in the way of surprises, mostly due to the silly decision to attach a piece of the final scene to the start of the film, revealing where it is all headed right away.

Is it a total dud? No. One of the weaker films I have watched this season? For sure.

[Allaby]

Autumn and the Black Jaguar (2024) I thought Lumi Pollack was quite charming and wonderful in the film. The story is just alright. This is a pleasant enough family film. Worth a watch. Currently streaming on Crave (the Canadian equivalent to HBO/Max). 3

[Allaby]

Ellis in Freedomland (1952) Recommended to me by Citizen Rules. I watched this on Youtube. This is like an all star, feature length commercial. It's kind of fun to hear big name stars of that time playing appliances. There is some amusing dialogue. A really unusual film unlike anything I have ever seen. Worth checking out for the unusualness of it all. 3

[FilmBuff]

Ellis in Freedomland (1952) Recommended to me by Citizen Rules. I watched this on Youtube. This is like an all star, feature length commercial. It's kind of fun to hear big name stars of that time playing appliances. There is some amusing dialogue. A really unusual film unlike anything I have ever seen. Worth checking out for the unusualness of it all. 3

It is also available from the Internet Archive!

https://archive.org/details/ellis-in-freedomland-1952

Any movie with Lucille Ball voicing a laundromat can't be all bad! :p

[matt72582]

Mask - 6/10


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/Mask85poster.jpg

[John W Constantine]

Too late I saw it - but, you're welcome to send those thoughts. I'd like to hear a variety of thought on this big release and I'm interested in what you have to say.

Forget it, it's Chinatown.

[FilmBuff]

https://lumiere-a.akamaihd.net/v1/images/5938_1_blink_master_canvas_van_f1_trim_1000_c9a32cb3.jpeg

Blink (2024)
2.5

This is one of those documentaries that exists with seemingly good intentions and yet its underlying message is ultimately one that is profoundly harmful to the disabled community.

In case you haven't heard, Blink follows a Canadian family on a year-long trip around the world, where they visit over a dozen exotic countries, mostly very far from Canada, to allow their children to experience their ultimate dreams.

And what is the cause for the year-long excursion? The parents have recently learned that 3 out of their 4 kids have retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary condition resulting in macular degeneration that gradually destroys peripheral vision and severely limits night vision.

At this point, you might be thinking that the parents have got the right idea - and, admittedly, to the extent that they would otherwise feel powerless to help their disabled kids, it does seem to be coming from a good place.

But the documentary absolutely sends the wrong message out there, because I'm pretty sure that the overwhelming majority of parents of kids with RP - and adults with RP as well - do not have the resources to just take a year off and go traveling to exotic destinations all over the world.

And while it's true that there is currently no treatment for RP, a lot of specialists have been working hard for a long time to come up with a cure - something that, very possibly, might involve gene therapy. Is it a sure thing that a viable treatment is likely within our lifetime? Possibly not, but that's just all the more reason to support greater funds be spent on the necessary research.

Granted, that might make for a less commercial documentary, and that's definitely not something that National Geographic would likely want; the documentary that exists is one that is both sincere and also calculated to produce the maximum emotional response from the viewer.

Sure, one definitely can only wish that these kids - as well as people with RP all over the world - might someday benefit from a cure for the condition. But until that time comes, maybe it would be better to actually try to find a working treatment so that affected people don't have to live in constant fear of untreatable blindness.

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/27/The_Professor_and_the_Madman_%28film%29.png
By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59721712

The Professor and the Madman - (2019)

I seem to be watching a lot of films with tortured post-production histories - Professor and the Madman is the true-life story about the writing of the first ever Oxford English Dictionary, which happened to be a much harder project than you'd at first consider. It took decades, and wasn't even completed by the time the two historical figures in this film - James Murray (Mel Gibson) and Dr. William Chester Minor (Sean Penn) - died. The latter of those two was stark raving mad, but just happened to have a knack for the English-language research needed for the project. At one stage - in a scene that rocked me to my core - he cuts own his doo-dad off. James Murray is as sane and reasonable as Dr. Minor is bonkers, but the two form a close friendship which lasts until events overtake it. It's a movie about obsessions - because who else but the obsessed could devise a system where a large group of dedicated readers read every English-language book ever published in all of history and extract every unique and definable word in them. By the time it was published, the dictionary had approximately 400,000 words in it, and over a million citations. I thought the story about Dr. William Chester Minor was fascinating, but the Mel Gibson parts of the movie and the minutiae over making the dictionary were a little dry and dull. In the end it was an okay but average movie, despite the fact that all the people involved in making it had come to hate the thing by the time all the lawsuits were settled and it was finally released, 3 years later than it was scheduled to be. It also features Natalie Dormer as Eliza Merrett, a woman who falls in love with Dr. Minor, despite the fact that he senselessly killed her husband in a fit of paranoia, Eddie Marsan as Broadmoor guard Muncie and Steve Coogan as the kindly academic ally to James Murray, Frederick James Furnivall.

6/10

[Thief]

DEATH AND THE WINEMAKER
(2021, Jaquier)

https://i.imgur.com/QjY6uyO.png


"Look at the unavoidable justice of my hourglass and you'll see that no one is more impartial than me. I seek out every person that appears in it; the old... the young... or the man in his prime. All, without exception, will die by my hand."



Set in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages, Death and the Winemaker follows a young winemaker (Kacey Mottet Klein) that finds himself smitten by love. But when Death (Virginie Meisterhans) itself comes to claim his bride, he's determined to do whatever it takes to protect her. But what happens when you trick Death itself?

Grade: 4


Full review on my Movie Loot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2495732#post2495732)

[Stirchley]

101408

Good movie & well acted. I watched it twice. Dark very dark. Polish cinema.

[Sedai]

Evil Dead Rise
Cronin, 2023

2

https://ihorror.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/evil-dead-rise-final-trailer.jpg

This flick got quite a bit of positive press, and my wife loves stuff like this, so we fired this up to continue along on our 31 films in 31 days challenge. I enjoyed the 2013 reboot well enough, which was basically a scene for scene remake of Raimi's original that added gallons of blood to the affair. I thought it was good, but not great - it stripped away a lot of the charm and roguish creativity of the original. That said, it's several orders of magnitude better than Evil Dead Rise.

The cold open has us in a familiar setting: a few teens or perhaps college-aged kids hanging out at a cabin in the woods. We are treated so several wink-wink callbacks to the first film to let us know we are in the Evil Dead universe. Look, this whole meta style that pervades many of today's films is getting tiresome. I have half a rant formulated in my head concerned this much larger and massively widespread problem, but I will save that for a later date or perhaps an essay. Anyway, without any background whatsoever, one of the characters is possessed. This is without even a single scene with this character, and she is asleep at the time with her back turned, so we haven't even seen her face yet. Mayhem ensues, people die and then a title card slams down saying "One Day Earlier." I am not a huge fan of this structure, but whatever, I guess it's time to see how these characters ended up in a cabin in the woods with a deadite.

Nope. Instead we are introduced to a different family living in a dilapidated building in LA - a building in such bad shape it is scheduled to be condemned - with everyone living there set to be evicted soon. After some sort of silly scenes of exposition and a minor earthquake, one of the kids ends up finding the Necronomicon in an abandoned bank (???), along with some dusty vinyl records. Of course, the kid is a DJ, so he pilfers the vinyl and the book, which bite him and causes him to bleed on the cover, starting an ancient blood ritual (lol). After reading the book and getting totally freaked out by the imagery, he does what any bright youngster would do, he tosses the demonic vinyl on the record player. Haven't these kids ever seen a horror movie? ;)

The film foregoes building any tension or suspense, instead just cranking things up to 11 right away with scene after scene of ultraviolence, much of it perpetrated on young children. Aside from the deadite makeup, this film stops feeling like an Evil Dead film very quickly, instead plunging into slick, overproduced generic horror territory. The constant excessive violence becomes almost unintentionally comical after a while, and is so relentless I found myself checking the clock several times to see how much of this nonsense was left to endure. It all ends as one would expect, I felt absolutely nothing for any of the characters, especially the two older sisters and their laughably bad sibling rivalry over of all things a derogatory nickname. Really, really dumb stuff.

Before I forget, because the film makers clearly did: there is a tacked on scene at the end with one of the kids from the cabin at the beginning of the film that reveals one of the kids lived in the building. Why they included either scene is beyond me, as they are totally extraneous and disconnected from the main narrative. None of the characters in the family ever interact with this person. I guess they wanted to reuse a key scene from the original film, - one that features a ticking clock - so they concocting a silly side plot in order to have an excuse to show an old clock in a cabin in the woods.

Fans of excessive gore and violence may get more out of this film that I did, but I found it to be in poor taste - a total miss for me.

[Allaby]

Anastasia: Once Upon a Time (2020) Watched on Tubi. This is a teen fantasy/comedy with an unusual plot: Anastasia Romanov escapes through a portal when her family is threatened by Vladimir Lenin, and she finds herself in the year 1988, befriended by a young American girl. This is bad, but I like it. The story is questionable at best, but it is not intended to be historically accurate or taken seriously. This is an intentionally silly movie. It has an unusal and interesting cast and I really liked the two main girls. They were quite charming and lovely. I liked the costumes too. The score was pretty bad though. In spite of its flaws and potentally problematic plotline, I had fun with this. 3.5

[FilmBuff]

https://cdn.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Salems-Lot-poster-600x892.jpg

Salem's Lot (2024)
0

The WB machinery seems to be cranking out cinematic garbage with increasingly frightening regularity. That alone is way scarier than anything in this so-called movie, which went straight to streaming despite having once been scheduled for a theatrical release.

The 2-hour version that was unceremoniously dumped to streaming is reportedly a heavily edited cut of a much longer 3-hour version. It's hard to imagine what, if anything, could have been improved by an extra hour of material, given the available evidence.

The movie fails to be at all scary, despite having a pretty good and charismatic cast headed by Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh and Alfre Woodard, and some good locations (much of it was reportedly filmed in Ipswich, Massachusetts).

Don't be surprised if WB eventually coughs up a 3-hour version of this, should the present cut draw up even a teensy bit of interest. But also, don't expect it to be any good.

[Gideon58]

Mask - 6/10


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/Mask85poster.jpg

I love this movie, I think Cher should have gotten an Oscar nomination for it.

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTczMzU0MjM1MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjczNzgyNA@@._V1_.jpg


4

[matt72582]

Ich War Neunzehn - 7/10


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpgOyIwnasY

[matt72582]

Faye - 7/10
2024 documentary on Faye Dunaway.


https://youtu.be/K52FxYhYW9o

[kgaard]

https://mr.comingsoon.it/imgdb/PrimoPiano/187526_ppl.jpg

Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, 2024)

I have a big Mike Leigh gap in film—the only other movie of his I’d seen prior to this was Vera Drake. Nothing intentional about this, I just hadn’t gotten around to them. Anyway, my impression is that this is much more of a prototypical Mike Leigh film than Vera Drake was—it focuses mainly on a woman, Pansy (played terrifically by Marianne Jean-Baptiste) who is from the jump fearful, bitter, and angry, a tyrant of misery who dominates the lives of those around her, especially her husband and son, who have largely withdrawn from the fight. Her main tether to the community of the world is her younger sister Chantelle, whose life and outlook are almost polar opposite of Pansy’s. Much of the film is actually quite comic—Pansy is humorless but witty and no one is spared her verbal rapier—but there is always pain and suffering underneath the humor. What makes the film work is Leigh and his actors’ commitment to humanity of the characters. Pansy is unlikeable, but not a caricature; acknowledging her pain doesn't flatter us, it is just the act of seeing a person.

8/10

https://lwlies.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/On-Becoming-A-Guinea-Fowl-1108x0-c-default.jpg

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, 2024)

Nyoni’s second feature (following I Am Not a Witch, which I have not seen) is also a drama mixed with comedy and also deals with family trauma. The trauma here is different, about family secrets commingled with grief and denial, centered around a young woman, Shula (Susan Chardy in her first film), who is caught between her generation and that of her elders, as well as between modern and traditional ways. Although the setting is Zambia and many of the cultural details are different from Western ones, the way that people deal (or don’t deal) with pain and harm will be very familiar to all of us. The film is beautifully made, and the sound design stands out as a way to get inside the characters’ feelings, often in contrast to what’s happening around them. A challenging but rewarding experience.

8/10

[Fabulous]

The Ceremony (1971)

3.5

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/1M3bYS0HmY2sbILlrXKKKvXHLgq.jpg

[PHOENIX74]

https://i.postimg.cc/5yFRsghc/violent-city.jpg
By Tino Avelli - https://images.static-bluray.com/products/20/3452_2_large.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66698801

Violent City - (1970)

This sizzling Italian thriller sees a hard-edged Charles Bronson play contract killer Jeff Heston - who has fallen in love with Vanessa Shelton (Jill Ireland), whereupon he'll get burned over and over and over again as she betrays him numerous times. I guess even the most streetwise crime masters have that one person in their life they go so goo-goo over that they constantly want to believe them. This poliziotteschi (spaghetti crime) film starts with an absolutely epic car chase through the narrow streets of Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands, and ends with a dazzlingly dramatic set-piece which has much flair to it. Telly Savalas co-stars as crime kingpin Al Weber, and since director Sergio Sollima thought much of his contemporaries he of course got Ennio Morricone to score this - adding a certain completeness to it. I have to say it has the feel of a proto-Tarantino genre film, with snappy dialogue and the like. The film was also shot in New Orleans - taking advantage of everything on offer there. The version I watched has had previously excised scenes and shots reinserted into it, but still dubbed in Italian (with subtitles) - so I've only seen the non-chopped up Violent City. There's a lot to like about it, and I'm really glad I came across it.

7/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/Leila%27s_Brothers.jpeg
By https://www.dropbox.com/sh/eez9acppcboiwed/AACX0_juayYUr34E4Qt29f1Wa?dl=0&preview=LEILA-Affiche.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71290925

Leila's Brothers - (2022)

A really powerful drama that gives you an experience of what family means to average, everyday Iranians, and what it takes these days for a not-so-well-off family in Iran to survive. Great stuff. Top drawer Iranian cinema. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2495705#post2495705), in my watchlist thread.

9/10

[Fabulous]

Empire of Passion (1978)

3.5

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/szjGnOo0sKlKvDcQp9ub6wmqXDz.jpg

[PHOENIX74]

Salem's Lot (2024)
0

The WB machinery seems to be cranking out cinematic garbage with increasingly frightening regularity. That alone is way scarier than anything in this so-called movie, which went straight to streaming despite having once been scheduled for a theatrical release.

The 2-hour version that was unceremoniously dumped to streaming is reportedly a heavily edited cut of a much longer 3-hour version. It's hard to imagine what, if anything, could have been improved by an extra hour of material, given the available evidence.

The movie fails to be at all scary, despite having a pretty good and charismatic cast headed by Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh and Alfre Woodard, and some good locations (much of it was reportedly filmed in Ipswich, Massachusetts).

Don't be surprised if WB eventually coughs up a 3-hour version of this, should the present cut draw up even a teensy bit of interest. But also, don't expect it to be any good.

The whole "From the creators of The Conjuring Universe" plug always turns me off, because I don't have a lot of respect for The Conjuring Universe, and as such, by implication, I don't have a lot of respect for what they're advertising either. I'm not at all surprised that this version of Salem's Lot failed to be at all scary - it's a trend you could bet your house on.

[Sedai]

V/H/S Beyond
Siegel, Long, Downey, Pal, Long, Martinez, Cheel, 2024

3_5

https://sm.mashable.com/mashable_me/article/v/vhsbeyond-/vhsbeyond-review-should-you-watch-if-youre-new-to-the-franch_zrjn.jpg

I considered ranking this a 4 at first, and I kind of still want to give it that mark, but a hokey monster in the first segment and a weak frame narrative keep me from pushing it up to that level. Otherwise, this is easily one of the best films in the series, with a couple of absolute banger segments that quickly jumped up to some of my favorites in the entire catalog. The skydiving segment, Live and Let Dive, was pulse pounding and had my wife chewing on her hands by the end. Stowaway was spooky and atmospheric, and then went full on surreal as it progressed along - I absolutely adored this one.

The rest were not bad at all, but as I mentioned, the first one had sort of a silly monster reveal, but was otherwise strong. Fur Babies was twisted af; I enjoyed it's razor wit and kooky take on body horror. Dream Girl was good, but not great, and was sort of a derivative blend of the far superior Safe Haven from V/H/S/2 and poorly conceived and executed TEKNOGD from V/H/S/85.

Speaking of V/H/S/85... that film has one of the strongest and perhaps my favorite frame narratives of the entire series, and it would have been a way better fit for V/H/S/ Beyond, which is heavily focused on sci-fi horror and aliens in particular. I would love to see an edit of V/H/S/ Beyond with that frame narrative inserted in place of the clearly weaker Abduction/Adduction.

Anyway - this kicked ass! I had a lot of fun with this one.

[Marco]

The Killing Kind (1973)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4d/The_Killing_Kind_poster.jpg
Genuinely creepy film about Terry (John Savage) who's just released after 2 years in prison after a gang rape offence. He get's home on release to continue his rather strange relationship with his mother that even the residents in their boarding house find strange. Terry is on the revenge trail though and clearly traumatised by his crime and his period inside. Then he goes beyond revenge and just goes tonto on various occasions resulting in the death of blameless residents. As I said, creepy and very interesting.
3.5

[pahaK]

I'm not at all surprised that this version of Salem's Lot failed to be at all scary - it's a trend you could bet your house on.

I think the book is one of King's weaker ones, and all the adaptations have failed to elevate themselves from the flawed source material. Still, the new version may be the weakest of them all.

[FilmBuff]

https://fr.web.img6.acsta.net/pictures/23/11/21/15/16/2391552.jpg

Les Chambres Rouges
2.5

There's an intriguing premise at the heart of Pascal Plante's latest, Les Chambres Rouges, even if the execution ultimately falls short.

Without giving too much away, the movie is centered around the trial of a man accused with being a dangerous serial killer, praying on young blonde, blue-eyed girls, whom he kills on live broadcasts.

Don't worry - none of that is really a spoiler! It is in fact just some background information that doesn't even touch on the movie's central characters.

The movie's protagonist is a young tech-savvy woman called Kelly-Anne, and played in a most compelling performance by Québécois actor Juliette Gariépy. She's terrific in the movie and I would love to watch whatever she's in next.

Exactly where Kelly-Anne figures in all of this is best left unsaid, the less you know about it, the more you're likely to enjoy the movie.

While I enjoyed the premise and the suspense that builds around the movie's events, I think it is ultimately undone by some flawed characterizations and at least one serious plot hole.

But if you don't think about it too much, the movie is an enjoyable, albeit unusual, psychological thriller.

[Fabulous]

Crimson Peak (2015)

3.5

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/rsaeEl8e06xgmo5FofBmpIb6LnI.jpg

[Sedai]

Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Harlin, 1988

2

https://indiemacuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/nightmare-on-elm-street-4-kristen-parker.png

Oh, Tuesday Knight...why did I watch you on a Thursday? Quite possibly one of the best so-bad-it's-good performances to ever grace the silver screen. Not quite on par with Lar, she of the Friday the 13th Part VII magnificence, but she definitely gets close. This girl would have gotten kicked out of drama club during sophomore year, but somehow managed to score the gig to replace Patty Arquette after she was a big "NOPE" to return for the continuation of the story started in Dream Warriors. Her every line delivery is laugh out loud funny, making this a fun watch every time.

The film is decent, but hasn't aged as well as some of the others. The scene with Alice in the cinema is pretty creative and it's executed fairly well, and the Debbie turns into a cockroach after a workout scene is memorable. Freddy is fine, but is maybe getting a bit long in the tooth at this point. No Dokken here either, so a point gets deducted for the change to Sinead instead of butt rock.

Probably the last of the series worth watching, although I haven't seen The Dream Child in ages, and really don't recall much about it.

[Allaby]

Mr. Crocket (2024) This was just released on Hulu (Disney+ in Canada). It's a horror film about an evil children's show host who kills parents and abducts children. This was fun. Elvis Nolasco is delightfully maniacal as the title character, a cross between Mr Rogers and Freddy Krueger. An enetertaining and satsifying horror film. 4

[Fabulous]

Fright Night (1985)

3.5

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/7LTtUBeHTc4msK3gIpnjKvkPfR.jpg

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91cdraNn3RL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg


1st Rewatch...A boring and offensive comedy that I'm sure everyone involved has removed from their respective resumes. The film stars Paul Rudd as Tim, an investment broker who is up for a big promotion if he agrees to attend a monthly dinner thrown by his boss where all the employees bring an idiot that they can make fun of. Tim literally runs into a nerd named Barry (Steve Carell) who is into mouse taxidermy and decides to bring him to the dinner. Barry shows up a day early for the dinner and, in that time, pretty much destroys Tim's life. I don't what else to say here, a complete waste of time for all involved, I expected more from director Jay Roach. I barely kept my eyes open for this rewatch. 1.5

[Gideon58]

https://resizing.flixster.com/-XZAfHZM39UwaGJIFWKAE8fS0ak=/v3/t/assets/p176708_p_v8_al.jpg


2nd Rewatch...A lesser Jim Carrey comedy that ranks with stuff like Bruce Almighty. Carrey plays a bank loan officer who since being dumped by his wife, has become a social expert, making up excuses to get out of any form of socialization. A friend convinces him to attend a seminar conducted by a New Age Guru (Terrence Stamp) who makes Carrey commit to saying "yes" to any opportunity that may arise. The complications that would develop from such a premise are predictable , resulting in a pretty labored comedy that seems a lot longer than it is. Zoey Deschanel makes an unconventional leading though and the two actors playing Carrey's best friends, one has won an Oscar since appearing in this and the other is in jail. 3

[Gideon58]

https://i0.wp.com/scriptophobic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/01-003.jpg?fit=1200%2C908&ssl=1


1st Rewatch...Though I personally prefer his Scream franchise, Wes Craven did score a bullseye with this minor horror classic about a killer who keeps entering the dreams of a group of pretty high school students and actually murders a couple of them. Not sure why it happened while watching this, but I came to the realization that I have been way too hard on this genre. For some reason, when I watch horror films, I put expectations of logic and realism on them that I don't demand from any other genre. I love musicals, but there's no logic involved in the way people randomly start singing and dancing on the street, so why shouldn't I accept some of things in horror films that I accept in other genres? Craven's direction is meticulous and there are some terrific special effects. I love when that sheet wraps itself around Nick Corri's neck like a snake when he's in the jail cell.. And Robert England is terrific as Freddy. This film also marked the film debut of a delicious young actor named Johnny Depp. This film was so successful that it has spawned seven sequels so far. 4

[Thief]

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM
(1961, Corman)

https://i.imgur.com/jJba2e1.png


"You cannot know what it is to live here, month upon month, year after year, breathing this infernal air, absorbing the miasma of barbarity which permeates these walls."



The Pit and the Pendulum is one of several collaborations between Price and director Roger Corman, adapting the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I'm not familiar with the story, but the film does a pretty good job of laying it all in a fairly simple way. The magic of the film is in the atmosphere of dread it builds around the mystery, but also in Price's screen presence and performance.

As usual, Price makes the most of the material with a performance that covers a lot of bases. His Nicholas is deeply troubled, but there seem to be some small hints of empathy in him. You usually know Price's characters are out for no good, but he still manages to instill a certain charm and charisma that's just magnetic. You can't help but feel drawn to his characters.

Grade: 3.5


Full review on my Movie Loot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2496325#post2496325)

[Thief]

Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Harlin, 1988

2

https://indiemacuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/nightmare-on-elm-street-4-kristen-parker.png

Oh, Tuesday Knight...why did I watch you on a Thursday? Quite possibly one of the best so-bad-it's-good performances to ever grace the silver screen. Not quite on par with Lar, she of the Friday the 13th Part VII magnificence, but she definitely gets close. This girl would have gotten kicked out of drama club during sophomore year, but somehow managed to score the gig to replace Patty Arquette after she was a big "NOPE" to return for the continuation of the story started in Dream Warriors. Her every line delivery is laugh out loud funny, making this a fun watch every time.

The film is decent, but hasn't aged as well as some of the others. The scene with Alice in the cinema is pretty creative and it's executed fairly well, and the Debbie turns into a cockroach after a workout scene is memorable. Freddy is fine, but is maybe getting a bit long in the tooth at this point. No Dokken here either, so a point gets deducted for the change to Sinead instead of butt rock.

Probably the last of the series worth watching, although I haven't seen The Dream Child in ages, and really don't recall much about it.

I generally agree with your thoughts. Up until last year, I hadn't seen this, or most of the sequels, for decades. For some reason, I tended to get it mixed up with The Dream Child, but upon a recent rewatch, I was surprised by how different they are in terms of tone. Granted, they're not "great", but this one is too jokey while the next one is a bit darker, and I preferred that.

[Sedai]

I generally agree with your thoughts. Up until last year, I hadn't seen this, or most of the sequels, for decades. For some reason, I tended to get it mixed up with The Dream Child, but upon a recent rewatch, I was surprised by how different they are in terms of tone. Granted, they're not "great", but this one is too jokey while the next one is a bit darker, and I preferred that.

Yea, I caught your write-up on letterboxd and saw you rated it around the same. With that you are saying here, I guess I will give The Dream Child another go, as well. Might as well!

[Darth Pazuzu]

Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Harlin, 1988

2

https://indiemacuser.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/nightmare-on-elm-street-4-kristen-parker.png

Oh, Tuesday Knight...why did I watch you on a Thursday? Quite possibly one of the best so-bad-it's-good performances to ever grace the silver screen. Not quite on par with Lar, she of the Friday the 13th Part VII magnificence, but she definitely gets close. This girl would have gotten kicked out of drama club during sophomore year, but somehow managed to score the gig to replace Patty Arquette after she was a big "NOPE" to return for the continuation of the story started in Dream Warriors. Her every line delivery is laugh out loud funny, making this a fun watch every time.

The film is decent, but hasn't aged as well as some of the others. The scene with Alice in the cinema is pretty creative and it's executed fairly well, and the Debbie turns into a cockroach after a workout scene is memorable. Freddy is fine, but is maybe getting a bit long in the tooth at this point. No Dokken here either, so a point gets deducted for the change to Sinead instead of butt rock.

Probably the last of the series worth watching, although I haven't seen The Dream Child in ages, and really don't recall much about it.

While I am definitely a fan of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, this one sort of ranks near the bottom for me, although not quite as low as Freddy's Dead: The Final :rotfl: Nightmare from '91. Yeah, the cockroach scene was memorable, but it was kind of ruined by that silly "déjà vu time loop" device which was apparently the only way that the writers could find to obstruct Alice and Dan. I also kind of like the scene of Alice getting sucked into the movie theater screen. But on the other hand, there's that silly "pizza / 'soul food'" visual gag...

The thing I resent most about The Dream Master is that it completely overturns all the hard work and suffering that the characters of Dream Warriors (my personal fave of the series) went through, and thoughtlessly kills off the survivors of that film. (I will say that I really like those songs by Sinéad O'Connor and Dramarama, though!)

Having said all that, I would recommend watching the fifth film, The Dream Child. While it's not necessarily great, it's kind of the most underrated film of the franchise. While not particularly gory or even scary (and the body count is really low this time), it's actually got a very compelling premise, the idea of Freddy Krueger infiltrating and corrupting the soul of an unborn child. The film also revisits the character of Sister Amanda Krueger from Dream Warriors, tapping into the Freddy creation myth again, drawing parallels between Amanda and Alice. I also like how Alice's alcoholic father has cleaned up his act and is really trying to be there for his daughter. It's a nice change of pace for the series, after the glut of unsympathetic, obstinate and/or clueless grownups that have populated the series in the past.

However... :lol: Again we have that tired tradition of knocking off the survivors of the last chapter, with poor Dan getting taken for a fatal nightmare joyride (also having to suffer a gratuitous Top Gun quote from Mr. K).

[Darth Pazuzu]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e8/Joker_-_Folie_%C3%A0_Deux_poster.jpg/220px-Joker_-_Folie_%C3%A0_Deux_poster.jpg

October 8, 2024

JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX (Todd Phillips / 2024)

I think this might just be the most misunderstood film of 2024 so far. And frankly, I can't see what all the negativity is about. For the most part, this works as pretty much an effectively straightforward sequel to director Todd Phillips' first Joker from 2019. Yeah, I know that all the fuss this time around centers on the film's "musical numbers." But Joker: Folie à Deux is only a "musical" in the same sense that Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (2000), starring Björk, is a "musical." By which I mean, the musical sequences with Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga represent a form of escape or fantasy in the minds of their characters, while their own life circumstances remain very sadly and sordidly earthbound. And when the film pulls back from the fantasy and shows their circumstances from an objective standpoint, we can see exactly how swamped in delusion the characters are. And I truly believe this is very much in keeping with both films' Scorsese / De Niro influence, in this case tapping into 1983's The King of Comedy to an even greater extent than its predecessor did (although that wasn't a musical).

The story this time around? Very simple: Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is incarcerated in Arkham State Hospital while awaiting trial for the murders he committed in the first film, and he meets a fellow prisoner named Harleen Quinzel - a.k.a. Harley Quinn (Gaga), a pyromaniac nihilist who's very much a fan of Joker. They fall in love, and Quinn makes an escape attempt by trying to burn the hospital down - which proves unsuccessful. At the trial, lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) attempts to make a case for Arthur by arguing that her client suffers from dissociative identity disorder, and that Joker was an "alternate" personality.

I won't go any further in attempting to describe the film. But I will say that I'm a very big fan of both of Todd Phillips' Joker films. One aspect of these films which I think is quite disturbing is how they remind us that sometimes, the way we as individual persons see and perceive ourselves is often quite different from how other people see and perceive us. All of us, to one extent or another, have a sort of idealized vision of ourselves which sometimes syncs up with our actions and deeds, but which is merely a form of escape or delusion for more damaged souls. And quite often, the self-image of lost souls is informed by images from popular culture, be they characters from movies or popular songs. Sometimes that's also true of those of us who are relatively sane and well-adjusted. And the brilliance of Todd Phillips' Joker diptych is the way it conveys how shaky and blurred the distinction is between what is considered sane and insane. Sometimes the difference is ultimately a matter of degrees...

[Sedai]

The thing I resent most about The Dream Master is that it completely overturns all the hard work and suffering that the characters of Dream Warriors (my personal fave of the series) went through, and thoughtlessly kills off the survivors of that film.

Yea, they certainly did the dream warriors dirty. I like Dream Warriors almost as much as the first film, but nothing tops that for me, as it is the OG.

[FilmBuff]

https://static1.moviewebimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/sharedimages/2024/10/the-apprentice-poster.jpg

The Apprentice
5



Always two there are, a master and an apprentice....

Wow, having seen the two latest performances by Sebastian Stan, I have to confess, it's hard to know which one might get more love from the Academy and the other organizations giving out awards to the best movies of 2024.

Stan, who until recently was best known to most moviegoers as the inimitable Bucky Barnes aka Winter Soldier of the MCU, so fully inhabits the different characters he plays in A Different Man and The Apprentice that he truly deserves to be called chameleon-like.

The degree to which Stan fully captures all the mannerisms of the public figure being portrayed here is truly uncanny, down to the enunciation and speech patterns. It is an amazing portrayal that will no doubt be talked about for decades to come.

Still, The Apprentice offers not just one, but two masterful performances: equal credit must be given to Jeremy Strong, playing the infamous New York fixer Roy Cohn, a master of the dark arts that included, but was not limited, to illegal wiretapping and blackmailing public officials.

Maria Bakalova gives yet another wonderful performance, effective yet more low-key, as Ivana Zelníčková, the Czech immigrant who realizes all too well that a marriage like the one she enters into in the movie must be negotiated down to the last cent.

Made on a reported budget of just $16 million, the movie does a tremendous job with period detail, using what appears a combination of archive footage and some VFX to recreate the NYC of the 70s and 80s.

One small trigger warning: the movie depicts an act of sexual abuse, as well as short glimpses of a series of vanity-related cosmetic procedures related to obesity and baldness.

With this movie, Ali Abbasi continues to impress as a filmmaker, and I am already looking forward to his next movie.

[FilmBuff]

https://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Caligula-The-Ultimate-Cut-1.webp

Caligula - The Ultimate Cut
2

In what is sure to be a bit of a milestone in the history of cinema, the new Caligula - The Ultimate Cut assures viewers that "it does not contain a single frame of footage seen in the original version."

That assertion might very well be true; I have never watched the original version, nor do I intend to.

This version has gotten rid of all the pornographic footage that made the original version so infamous, and is said to be much closer to the original intent of the filmmakers who shot this in the 1970s.

And, you know, it's a hard proposition to resist, given that the cast includes Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud.

Having said that, O'Toole and Gielgud's presence in the movie is all too short; and one could argue that the movie still doesn't come anywhere close to being among McDowell's or Mirren's best work.

The biggest problem with the new version of the movie is that it is still a dramatically unfocused mess, which reportedly was a result of the infighting between the two main creative forces involved - Gore Vidal and Tinto Brass - so that it's hard to truly ascertain what the movie is trying to say about the infamous Roman emperor.

It is also a bit jarring, in this day and age, to see Roman characters being portrayed as speaking with immaculate British accents!

And, at 3 hours long, the small pleasures the movie provides are simply too small to make it feel like a worthwhile effort.

As it is, the new version of Caligula remains something for the most enthusiastic of film scholars and movie buffs - one of those things you want to be able to cross off the list of movies you haven't seen at all.

[LeBoyWondeur]

101452

I didn't know anything about it but I couldn't resist the film's juicy title.

The characters are nondescript and it looks as if they had the checklist of obligatory plot twists ready and then build a story around it, kinda like putting the cart before the horse.
I'm not saying that a story can't be written that way, but the trick is to make it look like natural developments.
There's one particular scene that makes no sense at all but it justifies the explanation in the final twist.

With its underlying themes of internet/porn addiction and our modern version of anonymity I think there was a better and much more uncomfortable story to tell.
On the other hand, it certainly isn't a boring film and the performances are enthusiastic enough.

5/10

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/Real_Steel_Poster.jpg
By The cover art can or could be obtained from IMP Awards., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30011479

Real Steel - (2011)

I have a few movies to watch so I can tick them off a list, and so I wasn't overly enthusiastic about Real Steel but I wasn't in a mood last night to watch anything I'm really looking forward to - it was the perfect night to get this over with. I'd say Real Steal is a mix of Rocky and Over the Top - except with giant robots. It's the future - and everything is exactly how it is now except for the fact that there are giant robots which are operated by humans in fights with each other. It's a big deal, and Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is involved with it - someone who likes the business but is a terrible decision maker. He's suddenly saddled with the son he never wanted to be involved with for a period of a few weeks. Will their relationship only go down the proverbial hill further, or will father and son bond over robots and be impossible to tear apart once the few weeks are up? It's a movie! You know what's going to happen. The robot stuff is fantastic in Real Steel, but the human stuff is abysmal. So corny and cliched it's a pain to watch. If you love to watch robots fighting each other though, it might be worth battling through the braindead screenplay that goes through the motions like it's been written by a robot.

5/10

[Guaporense]

Satyricon (1969)
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71QyomkgJ9L._SL1500_.jpg

This was basically what I was expecting from a Fellini movie after watching La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2. It's basically pure European arthouse. It is not a movie in the conventional sense of being a well-structured narrative story. Instead, it feels more or less an audiovisual experience, like visual music. Fellini claims this is an adaptation of a Roman novel written 2000 years ago, but it is quite a loose one if the original had, like, a plot and stuff.

If I compare it to the only other arthouse movie I (re)watched this year, Andrei Rublev, I would say that this one is quite like Andrei Rublev without the seriousness, gravitas, and beauty. Not to say that it is a bad movie, but it is not something I would regard as a particularly exceptional piece of art. If I were 10 years younger, I might have been more impressed, but today I am not in the mindset, "Oh my god, this is experimental, so it must be great art."

[FilmBuff]

https://static1.moviewebimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/sharedimages/2024/04/terrifier-3-poster.jpg

Demian Leone's Terrifier 3
2.5

I think at this point, almost anyone who's into the Terrifier movies has come to know what to expect in terms of blood and gore, and that kind of stuff, in which case I think it's sufficient to say that on that department alone, the movie probably will not disappoint anyone who is into the movies mostly because of that.

Memory's a bit hazy but I seem to remember the earlier films in the series to have a more abstract quality, which somehow added to their appeal. There were parts that felt like you didn't know if you were watching something that happened IRL or in some weird alternate universe, or something along those lines.

In any case, the latest film in the series has, needless to say, come with a bigger budget and it looks more polished and feels more like a professional production than its predecessors. That, depending on your point of view, may be a pro or a con.

To me, it just felt like Leone has started adopting many of the story contrivances that became popular in other horror series, which makes this entry feel a little less original and more like a generic horror film with the trademark Art the Clown stuff added almost as an afterthought.

Sure enough, audiences seem to be reacting positively, at least on opening weekend, as the movie has become a top box-office hit and will likely end up outgrossing all its predecessors put together.

Leone has already said that he's working on a 4th film in the series, so it probably won't surprise anyone that this one may not have the most definitive of conclusions. With any luck, the next installment will be an improvement on this one.

[FilmBuff]

https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/sharedimages/2024/10/it-s-what-s-inside-movie-poster-for-netflix.jpg

It's What's Inside
4.5

Greg Jardin's It's What's Inside may be one of the most delightful of all the recent movies that didn't get a theatrical release mostly on account of Netflix buying them.

After the movie premiered at this year's Sundance, Netflix paid a cool $17m for it. It's difficult to ascertain exactly how well the movie would have done if given a traditional theatrical release, so it's easy to see why the Netflix offer seemed like a much more appealing option.

In any case, if there's any recent movie that deserves to eventually gain cult status, it is definitely this one - and it's kind of hard to describe what makes it so unique without going further into the plot details.

But this is also the kind of movie that's best enjoyed not knowing too much about what happens in it. Suffice it to say that the movie revolves around a group of youngsters gathered at a celebration and a very unique device brought to the event by one of them, which has some extraordinary powers.

The movie does have some sci-fi and horror elements in it, but to reduce it to simply being that strikes me as doing it an injustice. It has that, but it is also a tad more complex than perhaps a lot of viewers might be anticipating after the first 10 or 15 minutes.

Let's just say, it's one of those movies where not everything is at it seems. And after a certain point, the surprises keep coming at an ever-increasing rate, which is one of the most unique pleasures the film offers. There is definite cult potential here, even if it never becomes any kind of mainstream hit.

The ensemble cast is absolutely terrific, but the standout might be Brittany O'Grady, who most recently appeared in Sometimes I Think About Dying, and gives a wonderful, multi-layered performance here.

This is Greg Jardin's first feature - and I absolutely cannot wait to see what he will do next.

[FilmBuff]

https://cdn.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Caddo-Lake-poster-600x750.jpg

Caddo Lake
1.5

Try to imagine Back to the Future without any appealing characters, with a confusing and muddled plot line, which may not always make much sense, and without any sense of wonder and adventure, and you may have a good idea of what to expect from Caddo Lake.

The movie does have some very committed performances from good actors, and pretty solid production values across the board, at least for something that went straight to streaming.

Caddo Lake was produced by M. Night Shyamalan, but not directed by him. However, for people who are big fans of his work, this might actually play a little bit better (at least I would imagine it might).

When a movie has very unappealing and underdeveloped characters, it just really makes it a lot less appealing from the get-go, and it doesn't help that so much of what happens in the movie relies on some twists and reveals that come until fairly late, probably almost all of it in the third act of the film.

These twists and reveals are not dramatically satisfying in light of what's come before, nor do they always make a lot of sense. It's easy to get the sense that much more emphasis was put on pulling the rug from under the viewers, narratively speaking, than in developing a story that was more involving in the first place.

I think part of what made The Sixth Sense such a satisfying experience when it first came out, is the fact that we really grew to be involved with the characters even before the 'twist' was revealed. It seems sad to me that so many Shyamalan film have come to increasingly focus just on having a twist, rather than a more appealing story or characters that we could relate to.

[Robert the List]

You Were Never Really Here (2017)
8.75 because it kept me interested (not least because it's only about 10 minutes long - that's an exaggeration but it could easily have had another 20,30 minutes, but I guess it worked like this).
It also kept me quite confused, to the extent that I had to check the plot on wikipedia a couple of times.
Also some bits of it were really quite silly.
At the end it suddenly reminded me a bit of Leon The Professional.
It might also be a film that helps someone a bit getting over loss when they're about to give up, but I don't know, just a passing thought.
It's a strange film, and obviously quite disturbing, but effective in its own way.
Interesting to see Phoenix playing this type of character.

[FilmBuff]

You Were Never Really Here (2017)
8.75 because it kept me interested (not least because it's only about 10 minutes long - that's an exaggeration but it could easily have had another 20,30 minutes, but I guess it worked like this).
It also kept me quite confused, to the extent that I had to check the plot on wikipedia a couple of times.
Also some bits of it were really quite silly.
At the end it suddenly reminded me a bit of Leon The Professional.
It might also be a film that helps someone a bit getting over loss when they're about to give up, but I don't know, just a passing thought.
It's a strange film, and obviously quite disturbing, but effective in its own way.
Interesting to see Phoenix playing this type of character.

It's such a shame that Lynne Ramsay has only directed 4 full-length features in her life.

[*Sky*]

Top Hat (1935) - Mark Sandrich: 7/10

[skizzerflake]

:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

Lee Miller - The true story of Lee Miller a Vogue photographer who also went into WW II Germany as a photojournalist and was there to document some of the worst of it, including the death camps. She was there as an embedded photographer with a uniform, at the end when the reich fell apart, bathed in Hitler's personal bathtub as an act of defiance and followed the army into the camps.

You should be aware that this movie does NOT flinch. Parts of it are horrifying, explicit and hard to bear. Kate Winslet portrays Miller in scenes that are almost as horrifying as anything you've ever seen in documentary footage. It's not light entertainment at all, but it's a good representation of a piece of history that most of us don't want to even think about, much less see. Having grown up around some folks who were in places like that in the war, a lot of this movie illustrates things I heard stories about and have seen in documentary footage. This movie shows you about as much as you can probably take and should make you appreciate the luxury of sitting in front of your computer holding forth opinions on movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmFYkiUAAA8

[PHOENIX74]

https://i.postimg.cc/7Lrq26vR/the-circus.jpg
By Alvan "Hap" Hadley (1895–1976) - Heritage Auctions. Cropped from the original, lightly retouched. Unedited original can be seen in upload history., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85405517

The Circus - (1928)

I got a whole lot of laughs out of this one. Something about the Little Tramp interacting with circus acts without clownish intent (just trying to help) and getting speedily knocked down over and over again or else having other inappropriate things happen is hilarious. There are incredible moments in The Circus, like his tightrope walk (he loses his safety harness, his pants fall down, and he's beset with a dozen or so panicky monkeys crawling over him) which are so marvelous I'm wondering why they aren't more iconic. I know this was a difficult production for him, but it doesn't show onscreen - except perhaps for the fact that there's more heartbreak in this one on a romantic level. This is the Chaplin feature I knew the least about, so it surprised me how great it was. Not a lesser feature of his, but an equal in my mind.

8/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/The_Book_of_Life_%282014_film%29_poster.jpg
By http://markdubec.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/TBOL_ART-FINAL.png, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41908811

The Book of Life - (2014)

Playing Guacamelee! is probably the closest I've ever come to an animated taste of Mexican culture and folklore before watching this movie - but good memories all the same. It took a while to warm up, but in the end I thought this a great "for all ages" fantasy/adventure/comedy, with plenty of flair and great voice performances. Didn't think I'd like it at all after the first half hour.

7/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/Resident_Evil_The_Final_Chapter_poster.jpg
By Official site - OGshare, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51368523

Resident Evil : The Final Chapter - (2016)

I skipped a couple of entries - did it matter? Of course not. Resident Evil : The Final Chapter has a few moments that are promising, but overall the action takes place in scenes that are too dark, and comprise too many quick cuts, including what I'm calling "nano-cuts" which don't add a whole lot to action scenes. It's a shame, because there are a few (when Milla Jovovich's Alice fights Iain Glen's Dr. Alexander Isaacs) where a more measured approach make for easier to follow and thus more exciting action scenes. Nice production values here, CGI hoards of creatures show you what CGI is best at (background stuff) and a coherent plot help, but in the end this can't help drag such a moribund series out of the mud.

5/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/Sucker_Punch_film_poster.jpg
By Teen Hollywood, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30461384

Sucker Punch - (2011)

What a mess. This felt like I had Zack Snyder screaming "Doesn't that look cool??" at me for just under two hours as the fantasy world a young asylum patient invents takes her and her friends to places where they fight steampunk zombie Nazis, dragons, mythological Asian giants and the like - while a second fantasy has her and her fellow inmates appear as hookers in a brothel. Basically, much of the action takes the form of video game cutscenes - stultifying in it's pure excess, and uninteresting. In the meantime, cover songs related to the mind and madness blare with all the subtle magic of chewing on gum laced with rohypnol. A headache inducing movie that thinks it is far, far, far more clever than it actually is. All the while, Snyder keeps screaming "Doesn't that look cool???"

3/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c6/Brawl_in_Cell_Block_99_poster.jpg
By The poster art can or could be obtained from RLJE Films., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55335193

Brawl in Cell Block 99 - (2017)

There's something definitely amiss with Brawl in Cell Block 99's view of the world as a whole, but it gets so crazy and horribly violent in such a surprisingly fun and gory way that it makes me want to overlook all of it's faults. That's where I stand on this one at the moment. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2496194#post2496194), in my watchlist thread.

7/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/AmericanFriendPoster.jpg
By The poster art can or could be obtained from the distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26754941

The American Friend - (1977)

This reminded me of a Hitchcock film, but with a much more muted palate and a grounding in everyday ordinariness that's offset by Ripley's fantastical world. A really mature film for a 32-year-old to be making, and one that I admire one hell of a lot. Simply a marvellous creation that I'm glad I got to finally see after it being recommended for so long. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2496647#post2496647), in my watchlist thread.

9/10

[Fabulous]

Play It Again, Sam (1972)

3

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/fVDuybtyhRqrqZvHPULtKHCgr1b.jpg

[chawhee]

Malignant (2021)
https://www.startattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/malignant-2021-movie-hbo-max-american-netflix-amazon-apple-tv.jpg
3
I expected slightly better from James Wan, but who knows anymore. The dialogue is a little campy, the actions of the characters are a little stupid, but the story was actually pretty interesting to me. Some good scares...and I'll note the soundtrack was distracting to me (instead of eerie music there is a lot of heightened action-oriented music).

[Daniel M]

A Place In The Sun (George Stevens, 1951) 4

https://dkanut5j171nq.cloudfront.net/catalogue-images/ti110081.jpg

Much darker than I anticipated. Alluring and powerful. Montgomery Clift is an incredible actor.

[Robert the List]

I'd also give The Shape of Water (2017) an 8.75.

It's a beautiful film visually, and to an extent emotionally although I didn't completely buy in.

I like that the whole concept is so absurd that you just accept most of the more trivial absurdities for what they are.

There were a couple though that I struggled to accept (sorry, I don't know how to do spoilers so will just leave it at that).

The A.I. wasn't flawless but I could let that go. It was pretty impressive for the most part.

A lovely movie. Good cinema.

[Robert the List]

Leave Her To Heaven (1946) 9.25

A lot of it is nonsense, but even then it passes the time pleasantly and with some level of entertainment.
Throughout however it's visually stunning. It's to the 40s as Gone With the Wind was to the 30s and North by Northwest to the 50s.
The plot actually goes somewhere in the final 20 minutes or so, and includes the best courtroom scenes prior to Anatomy of a Murder.
I see that some critics compare it to Fatal Attraction. I see more of a mirror image of Varda's Le Bonheur.
Highly recommended. This is one everyone ought to see.

[Thief]

ALL HALLOWS' EVE
(2013, Leone)

https://i.imgur.com/jN5rqnf.jpeg


"I liked the clown."
"Yeah, he was great. I liked when he honked his horn at the lady."



But that's how filmmaker Damien Leone likes it. After creating the character of Art the Clown back in 2008, he has made a career out of him, featuring him in two short films (The 9th Circle and Terrifier) and three feature films, each more successful than the previous one because, again, a lot of people like the frickin' clown! All Hallows' Eve is an anthology film that combines those first two short films in an effort to put Art in the spotlight as part of an actual feature film.

The three short films are definitely not without their flaws, but there is a lot to appreciate and champion in all of them, especially Leone's affinity for practical effects. Granted, you can see the seams of some of his effects here and there, but considering the circumstances, being his first shorts and counting with limited budgets, it puts it on a different perspective. Leone more than delivers with effective jumpscares, dread buildup, and well staged gore. There are elements within the fate of a certain character in the last short that are puzzling, but I see it more as an expression of "shock horror" rather than anything else.

Grade: 3


Full review on my Movie Loot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2496866#post2496866)

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Annie_get_your_gunfilmposter.jpg
Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8741550

Annie Get Your Gun - (1950)

This gets flak these days by being judged by 2020s standards - but removed from that it's such an entertaining spectacle and Annie Get Your Gun provided me with a lot of joy yesterday afternoon. I was laughing and really in the spirit - although the comedy is at it's peak during the first act more so than later. Betty Hutton is the perfect Annie Oakley at the start, with her freckles, filth, and extraordinary scenery chewing - really funny stuff. The songs are mostly classics, but they shine all the more when you hear them in their proper places. 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly', 'There's No Business Like Show Business' and 'Anything You Can Do' have transcended the stage show/film - and the opening 'Colonel Buffalo Bill' is pure spectacle. Love the art direction and production values all 'round. I'm not sure if this would have been better with Judy Garland in the lead - I watched what they shot (the numbers 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly' and 'I'm an Indian Too') and I'm undecided. Looks and sounds great.

7.5/10

https://i.postimg.cc/HkCXGjPm/best.jpg
By "Copyright 1946 RKO Radio Pictures Inc." - Scan via Heritage Auctions. Cropped from the original image. Minor retouching to remove scratching and tearing from edges/corners., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85717826

The Best Years of Our Lives - (1946)

The Best Years of Our Lives takes the time to examine the subject of those who served returning from the Second World War in an intelligent, intimate, and meaningful way - not afraid to be frank when it needs to, and up-front about what capitalism lacks when it comes to not really rewarding the worthy, or even looking after them. Those occasional digs at the system was what sealed the deal for me, and made The Best Years of Our Lives a very gratifying watch. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2496879#post2496879), in my watchlist thread.

8/10

[chawhee]

The Rental (2020)
https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-Rental-Movie-2020.jpg
3
Same opinion as Malignant I think. Characters are probably dumber here, but the story is interesting, however predictable.

[Sedai]

Weekend catch-up time!

Talk to Me
Danny & Michael Philippou, 2022

4

https://ew.com/thmb/xitttk3oWGvIYbHXi83GjXiDRLg=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/talk-to-me-080823-b68c5911300c4b2ab8104abc87bc0eae.jpg

This was my second time seeing this, Still held up pretty well, has some very creepy scenes as well as a couple really disturbing scenes of violence. One of the better horror flicks of 2022.


Hellraiser
Bruckner, 2022

3

https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Jamie-Clayton-As-Pinhead-In-Hellraiser-2022.jpg

I had seen some of this film when it was first released. I don't recall why but I had stopped watching about half way through. I think it was one of those nights where this was the second film in a double feature at my house and I was just tired.

Anyway, there was much hullabaloo about pinhead being female this time around. As far as the mannerisms and sound design of the character, this version struck me as being more true to the book as I recall it. Jamie Clayton's performance is more subdued, and even though Doug Bradley's performance can be accurately tagged as over the top, I think he really had fun with the role, chewed the scenery really well and created a totally memorable and unique spin on the character. His portrayal is still the definitive pinhead as far as I am concerned.

Is this better than the original? No. But I think it's well made enough that you can at least ask the question. Maybe the cenobites are better realized here, with better makeup and practical effects. The locations are cool. The characters? Negative.

My issue is with the lead, who comes across as super off-putting and annoying; I really couldn't stand her. Come to think of it, none of the other characters are developed in an interesting way, and are sort of just cardboard cutouts with no dimension at all. The more I consider it, the more I think I should knock another half-star off. I will leave it at a 3 for now, though.

I probably won't return to this one, if even just because of that annoying main character.


The Mummy
Sommers, 1999

3_5

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsjuCGpnMKX-_jnDJzL2vQuu4ncMiXpWaAhW0662PjXOb_Mx6Mq3ABSICTMbMnSm4Z126_1WiFsfDYFTrPxHyYbs9HpRbOM_t1bhVoJeNVmsow1R Wd9Ija6Z34WY_3dAzRx5ijS0eITj-H/s1600/THE-MUMMY-CAST-99.jpg

Needed this to check the box for a 1999 horror for the Halloween Challenge. Is this a horror movie? Probably not...probably more of an adventure/thriller with horror elements but hey, I see it on multiple horror lists from 1999, so it gets a pass here. Mostly due to the fact that I just don't feel like watching The Sixth Sense or Sleepy Hollow again.

Anyway, this is kind of dumb, but also tons of fun in the spirit of the old school adventure flicks/serials of the past. It moves along at a brisk clip, has some scenes of horror and suspense, some goofy stuff sprinkled in to keep it light, and all the actors ham it up. A nice change of pace after all the ultra-grim stuff we have been ingesting over the past few weeks.

[Stirchley]

:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

Lee Miller - The true story of Lee Miller a Vogue photographer who also went into WW II Germany as a photojournalist and was there to document some of the worst of it, including the death camps. She was there as an embedded photographer with a uniform, at the end when the reich fell apart, bathed in Hitler's personal bathtub as an act of defiance and followed the army into the camps.

You should be aware that this movie does NOT flinch. Parts of it are horrifying, explicit and hard to bear. Kate Winslet portrays Miller in scenes that are almost as horrifying as anything you've ever seen in documentary footage. It's not light entertainment at all, but it's a good representation of a piece of history that most of us don't want to even think about, much less see. Having grown up around some folks who were in places like that in the war, a lot of this movie illustrates things I heard stories about and have seen in documentary footage. This movie shows you about as much as you can probably take and should make you appreciate the luxury of sitting in front of your computer holding forth opinions on movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmFYkiUAAA8

Looking forward to this. For those who don’t know (including me) Lee was American.

[Thief]

THE CYCLOPS
(1957, Gordon)

https://i.imgur.com/0mYpFgf.jpeg


"It stared at me... It stared at me, and then he came at me!"
"What came towards you?"
"The eye!!"



The Cyclops follows Susan Winter (Gloria Talbott), as she travels to the Mexico wilderness to try to find her fiancée, a test pilot who disappeared after his plane crashed 3 years before. She is joined by three men, all with different motives other than helping her. From scientist Russ Bradford (James Craig) who is secretly in love with Susan to Martin Melville (Lon Chaney Jr.) who is financing the trip but seems more interested in finding uranium.

But as it often happens with these low budget B-movies, they take the time to get things going. It's not until 30 minutes in that we see *any* giant creature, and it's not until the last 15-20 minutes that we see the titular creature. The rear-projection special effects look extremely cheap and amateur-ish, which can result in a laughable and fun watch, depending on your latitude. However, I think there was something worthy in the creature's makeup effects.

Grade: 1.5


Full review on my Movie Loot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2496932#post2496932)

[skizzerflake]

Looking forward to this. For those who don’t know (including me) Lee was American.

They duplicated the bathtub scene very carefully, including her dirty boots on the floor. I was curious when I saw the movie because it such an odd scene. It seemed that it had to be a recreation and it was.

https://uploads6.wikiart.org/00302/images/lee-miller/lee-miller-in-hitler-s-bathtub-hitler-s-apartment-16-prinzregentenplatz-munich-germany-1945.jpg!Large.jpg

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjA0ZDk1NDUtMjNiOS00MjZhLWExM2EtMTBjYjUzOTliM2ExXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg



4

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYmFjNzllOTEtNTE0Mi00NDI4LWE3NzItMjhlM2Y5MWEzZTQyXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg



1st Rewatch...For this reviewer's money, the best movie of 1957. Fans of the 1976 Best Picture nominee Network will have a head start with this blistering drama about an alcoholic drifter named Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) who is discovered by a radio show hostess (Patricia Neal) while he is in jail on a drunk and disorderly. He sings one song on the radio and before you can say "celebrity", Lonesome has his own radio show, which eventually turns him into a media celebrity and possibility political power play who steps on the people who helped him get to the top and eventually forgets about to them until he begins his inevitable tumble back down. Budd Schulberg was robbed of the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for this take-no-prisoners screenplay, respectfully brought to the screen by Elia Kazan, following their triumph with On the Waterfront. Andy Griffith was also robbed of a Best Actor nomination for his powerhouse Lonesome Larry, a performance that for viewers who only know the actor as Sheriff Andy Taylor will be shocked. There's also solid support from Walter Matthau as a cynical writer, Tony Franciosa as a slick press agent and, in her film debut, Lee Remick as a 17 year old baton twirler who Lonesome marries. A haunting motion picture experience. 5

[Gideon58]

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1st Rewatch...In the tradition of his Man of the Year, director Barry Levinson comes up with another winning black comedy that provides some internal chills because it's kind of frightening how easily something like this could happen. It is 11 days before the presidential election and it is reported that the POTUS has been accused of sexual misconduct with a teenage girl. In order to save the president the election, a white house staffer (the late Anne Heche), hires a DC fixer named Conrad Breen (Robert De Niro) to distract the voters from this scandal. Breen decides the way to do this is to mount a fictional war between the US and Albania, with the aid of a Hollywood producer named Stanley Motts (Dustin Hoffman) to mount the optics of a war for the country that will distract the voters from the sex scandal. This movie somehow manages to be genuinely funny and genuinely frightening as we watch Hollywood technology put stars in the eyes of the American people, with POTUS being completely being down with it, evidenced by the fact that he never appears in the movie. Especially love when they hire an actress (Kirsten Dunst) to run in front of a blue screen and make it look like she is escaping from her worn torn country. Hoffman earned his 7th Oscar nomination for Best Actor playing the producer who thinks this scam will finally bring him the respect he's always wanted as a producer. Woody Harrelson, William H Macy, Willie Nelson, and Denis Leary also make the most of supporting roles, but this film is really a testament to the genius that is Barry Levinson. 4.5

[Thief]

Such an unsung film. It's great.

[Gideon58]

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2nd Rewatch...Star power makes this romantic comedy seem a lot better than it really is. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon play a couple in a committed relationship, who have no interest in marriage and children. They lie to their parents every Christmas so they can go on a private vacation together, but this year they are caught on television as their flight to Fiji is cancelled. Because both of their parents are divorced, this means the couple is forced to go to four different Christmas gatherings. Secrets revealed about each at these family reunions bring tension to the relationship as do these reunions with their families. Vaughn and Witherspoon generate chemistry here (and I would like to add that Witherspoon has never been more beautiful onscreen) and the real treat is having their parents being portrayed by four Oscar winners (Robert Duval, Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen, Jon Voight). There's some silly stuff here, like the scene in the bouncy house, but there is entertainment value here. 3.5

[Gideon58]

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3rd Rewatch...Director Rob Reiner knocks it of the park with his expert, if difficult to watch mounting of Stephen King's novel. A writer named Paul Sheldon (James Caan) gets into a car accident during a snowstorm and is rescued by a spinsterish basket case named Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) who takes him to her isolated mountain cabin to nurse him back to health, where it is revealed that she is Paul's # 1 fan, of his novels about a heroine named Misery and when she learns Paul has killed Misery in his latest book, won't allow Paul to leave the house until he re-writes the book, resurrecting Misery. This claustrophobic chiller is not an easy watch, but is so worth it. Kathy Bates won a Best Actress Oscar for her frightening, funny, and slightly pathetic Annie Wilkes but the performance doesn't work without James Caan's often helpless victim. Caan's work in this film is so easy to overlook, but Bates' Annie wouldn't work without it. 4

[Allaby]

#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead (2024) Watched on Tubi. I enjoyed this. It has some effective and fun kills and some good twists and turns. Jade Pettyjohn is the MVP of the film. 3.5

[Gideon58]

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2nd Rewatch...Priscilla Presley was the executive producer and co-screenwriter on this sometimes dreary look at the relationship between Presley and a 14 year old Priscilla when they were both living in Germany. Sofia Coppola's direction is kind of static. I wish she had paid more attention to basic production values. There are scenes where the audio makes it almost impossible to hear what the actors are saying. Cailee Spaeny is lifeless in the title role. The only thing that keeps this movie watchable is the charismatic and sexy performance from Jacob Elordi as Elvis. 3

[Gideon58]

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2nd Rewatch...From the creative force behind It's Complicated, is another romantic comedy where the protagonists are over the age of 25. Jack Nicholson plays Harry Sanborn, a wealthy businessman and confirmed bachelor who only dates woman 30 years old or younger, who is currently involved with Marin (Amanda Peet). A health crisis finds Harry bedridden at the beach house of Marin's mother, playwright Erica Barry (Diane Keaton), a tightly wound romantically challenged woman who is still stinging from her divorce from Marin's dad (Paul Michael Glaser), but she finds herself drawn to Harry and without even realizing it, she is not only falling for Harry, she is turning their relationship into her next hit play on Broadway. Of course, we have the wrinkle of Harry's sexy young doctor (Keanu Reeves) falling for Erica as well. The plot is slightly more complex than need be, but the cast is spectacular. The 2003 comedy provided us with one of the last great Nicholson performances, a delicious performance by Keaton that earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination and a sex on legs performance from Reeves. 3.5

[Stirchley]

https://jchscaldron.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Screenshot-2024-04-07-at-6.00.55-PM.png



2nd Rewatch...Priscilla Presley was the executive producer and co-screenwriter on this sometimes dreary look at the relationship between Presley and a 14 year old Priscilla when they were both living in Germany. Sofia Coppola's direction is kind of static. I wish she had paid more attention to basic production values. There are scenes where the audio makes it almost impossible to hear what the actors are saying. Cailee Spaeny is lifeless in the title role. The only thing that keeps this movie watchable is the charismatic and sexy performance from Jacob Elordi as Elvis. 3

I liked it. Warts & all.

[liscarkat]

"Dead Ringer" (1963)

Directed by Paul Henreid

Good late-period noir starring Bette Davis as twins, also featuring Karl Malden and Peter Lawford.

Bad things happen.

Black-and-white grim realism, lots of scenes filmed on location in early-1960s Los Angeles.

[FilmBuff]

https://www.antoniogenna.net/doppiaggio/film1/lonelyplanet.jpg

Lonely Planet
3

The story in this May-December romance may be strictly by-the-numbers, but with charismatic leads like Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth, and plenty of exciting Moroccan locations, it's still a fun, enjoyable romp.

Dern plays Katherine Loewe, a super-successful writer stuck with (wouldn't you guess?) writer's block, which prompts her to take a flight to Morocco.

Hemsworth is Owen Brophy, the husband of first-time novelist Lily Kemp (Diana Silvers), who just happen to be in the same hotel as Loewe, attending a writers' retreat. He's a private equity guy, the kind of bro who wouldn't know that "Pip" is a character from one of Charles Dickens' most famous novels.

You can see where this is going, right?

Opposites attract, yadda, yadda, yadda...

There's nothing particularly great about this, but taken on its own terms, it is reasonably entertaining, particularly if you're a fan of Dern or Hemsworth (Silvers is also good, in a terribly underwritten role).

[Gideon58]

"Dead Ringer" (1963)

Directed by Paul Henreid

Good late-period noir starring Bette Davis as twins, also featuring Karl Malden and Peter Lawford.

Bad things happen.

Black-and-white grim realism, lots of scenes filmed on location in early-1960s Los Angeles.

Love this movie

[FilmBuff]

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Earwig
2

If movies were judged solely on the basis of being slow-burning, dark, moody, and deliberately oblique, then Earwig would have to be considered an absolute masterpiece.

The central premise has to do with a girl whose teeth are made of ice, initially; later on, she gets glass teeth. That would certainly seem to be an improvement, but then again, maybe not so much.

As much as the movie has going for it in terms of bizarro, moody atmosphere and minimalistic music, it just doesn't really add up to a hill of beans, and ultimately falls short simply due to narrative laziness.

Trigger warning: the movie includes simulated violence towards a cat.

[Fabulous]

Gloria (1980)

3

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/hQjCwC222uOusRsAqEOoTHY0sBX.jpg

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/The_Apprentice_%282024_film%29_poster.jpg
By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77844139

The Apprentice - (2024)

A horror movie! Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) - famous for prosecuting the Rosenbergs and for being an unorthodox, no-holds-barred attorney meets a young, kind of raw and innocent Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) and adopts him as a man only Cohn himself could love - not only willing to play along with immoral, illegal tactics when it comes to winning cases for him, but excitedly reveling in the great outcomes they produce. So, Cohn decides to mentor the real estate mogul and creates a monster the likes of which the world will one day basically see as Godzilla - destroying everything in his path. I was wondering when this precise story would be told on the big screen - and boy oh boy, Ali Abbasi and screenwriter Gabriel Sherman don't put a foot wrong. Biopics rarely come as cinematically satisfying, with each new scene peeling back the onion as our subject gains personality traits, tactics and pounds. What's most amazing is the heart the film has, with the horrifying friendship that is central to it being almost touching and tragic. The way it recaptures the 70s and 80s is really something as well, and I'm betting on the fact that New Yorkers themselves would be wowed at how it takes us back. It's hard to see the Trump of yesteryear after what we've been through, but this movie helps - and it's one of the best offerings from 2024 I've seen so far.

8/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/03/Oddity_film_poster.jpg
By http://www.impawards.com/2024/oddity_xxlg.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77103548

Oddity - (2024)

There was one thing very unique and odd about Oddity, and that's what sits in the background for so long, tantalizing the viewer and playing on our imaginations. There's an element of mystery to the film's central story, and that thing that's just sitting there. Waiting. Overall, the narrative reminded me a little of what you'd get from a story in an anthology horror film - only extended to feature length. A twin investigating her sister's death - blind but clairvoyant. A murder plot. A haunted house with the addition of haunted and cursed objects. I liked the feeling of dread that just built and built as this went along - it's all about that feeling of dread.

7/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e8/Heathers_%281989%29.png
By Movie Poster Shop, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56569951

Heathers - (1988)

I was in high school when this film hit and all of my friends had a special kind of reverence for it - but for some reason I was late in getting around to seeing it. When I finally did I didn't like it all that much - but watching it again last night, I felt like tipping my hat to the sheer charisma and immersion in the film's weird tone Winona Ryder and Christian Slater had. Shake up the status quo, but don't destroy yourself in the process and become something worse. This is the kind of movie you need to see multiple times, because it's always a bit of a shock how whimsical, strange, bright and breezy this is, considering it's about a murderous rampage in a high school. There's nothing quite like Heathers out there, and it continues to challenge my notions of how teenage rebellion (against one's peers) can be expressed.

8/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Memoir_of_a_Murderer_-_%EC%82%B4%EC%9D%B8%EC%9E%90%EC%9D%98_%EA%B8%B0%EC%96%B5%EB%B2%95.jpg
By Naver, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54954033

Memoir of a Murderer - (2017)

The silent bamboo groves and misty plains speak of the dead, and as such they drip with malevolent ambience. Memoir of a Murderer is a really good thriller/murder mystery, and although it's not as good as Memories of Murder or Memento, it's worth having a look at if you like this kind of thing. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2497199#post2497199), in my watchlist thread.

7/10

[chawhee]

Solace (2015)
https://www.heavenofhorror.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Solace-poster.jpg
3
My string of just okay movies continues with this crime thriller with a good cast including Anthony Hopkins and Colin Farrell. The acting and script seemed a bit robotic though, with basic and predictable dialogue. The last third of the movie was a bit reckless and haphazard, but it was fine overall I suppose.

[Gideon58]

Gloria (1980)

3

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/hQjCwC222uOusRsAqEOoTHY0sBX.jpg

Just curious,...why only three stars? A link to my review:

https://www.movieforums.com/reviews/2297016-gloria.html

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5th Rewatch...From the Joe Pasternak unit at MGM, this is one of my favorite Jane Powell musicals. her seventh film appearance found Powell playing the daughter of a Broadway star (Ann Southern) who finds herself not only competing for the lead in a new musical with mom, but for a man (Barry Sullivan) as well. Southern and Powell make a lovely mother/daughter and Carmen Miranda, in her second to final film film appearance, has a couple of fun musical numbers. Louis Calhern offers another of his dirty old man turns, but Barry Sullivan just seems out of place here, but nothing else matters when Powell opens her mouth to sing. Her rendition of "Musetta's Waltz" from La Boheme is breathtaking. 3.5

[ueno_station54]

hi everyone, its been awhile <3

guess i'll rate a few things i've seen recently to get back into posting

Axegrinder (David Palmieri, 2006)
mostly just another kids in the woods slasher but there's a strong low-budget charm and a few really out-there decisions
rating_3_5

The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024)
Didn't fully win me over until it goes banana sandwich at the end but the rest of it is still solid
rating_3_5

Red Rooms (Pascal Plante, 2023)
One of those movies would be pretty mid if it didn't happen to strike a chord, really got under my skin by the end
rating_4

Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010)
I get that its kind of stupid on purpose for most of it, and it does some stuff i like towards the end but its just a long time before any of that good stuff happens, also just really don't like it from a visual standpoint
rating_2

Joker: Folie à Deux (Todd Phillips, 2024)
not nearly as interesting as the positive or negative reviews suggest but at least this one's trying to be fun?
rating_3

Club Lingerie (Jared Masters, 2014)
Masters is one of the few guys who can crank out low effort tubi trash, that has no interest in hiding that fact, and have it usually work out and also not feel cynical at all. This one is really just baffling at every turn but its honestly a blast. Only held back a couple moments of cringe.
rating_3_5

Trap (M. Night Shyamalan, 2024)
Much like Joker this also isn't nearly as interesting as the reviews led me to believe, its fine.
rating_3

The Nightgown (Jared Masters, 2023)
Probably the least outright strange film i've seen from Masters so far, which should be a big let-down but its pretty cute and its a vibe idk
rating_4

[Allaby]

hi everyone, its been awhile <3

guess i'll rate a few things i've seen recently to get back into posting

Axegrinder (David Palmieri, 2006)
mostly just another kids in the woods slasher but there's a strong low-budget charm and a few really out-there decisions
rating_3_5

The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024)
Didn't fully win me over until it goes banana sandwich at the end but the rest of it is still solid
rating_3_5

Red Rooms (Pascal Plante, 2023)
One of those movies would be pretty mid if it didn't happen to strike a chord, really got under my skin by the end
rating_4

Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010)
I get that its kind of stupid on purpose for most of it, and it does some stuff i like towards the end but its just a long time before any of that good stuff happens, also just really don't like it from a visual standpoint
rating_2

Joker: Folie à Deux (Todd Phillips, 2024)
not nearly as interesting as the positive or negative reviews suggest but at least this one's trying to be fun?
rating_3

Club Lingerie (Jared Masters, 2014)
Masters is one of the few guys who can crank out low effort tubi trash, that has no interest in hiding that fact, and have it usually work out and also not feel cynical at all. This one is really just baffling at every turn but its honestly a blast. Only held back a couple moments of cringe.
rating_3_5

Trap (M. Night Shyamalan, 2024)
Much like Joker this also isn't nearly as interesting as the reviews led me to believe, its fine.
rating_3

The Nightgown (Jared Masters, 2023)
Probably the least outright strange film i've seen from Masters so far, which should be a big let-down but its pretty cute and its a vibe idk
rating_4

Hi, welcome back!

[Marco]

Zatōichi (2003)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Zatoichi_017.jpg
A pretty entertaining take on the legend of the blind warrior that has appeared in other films and TV serials. Beat Takeshi plays the titular nomadic warrior for justice....a ham fisted analogy buy rather like an "equaliser"! (Woodward or Washington). It is quite stylised in terms of sets but I think that was intended and contains good humour. The blond Kitano is impeccable as usual. The dance sequence at the end is amazing. Definitely not his best as director but distracting nonetheless.
3

[WHITBISSELL!]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/The_Apprentice_%282024_film%29_poster.jpg
By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77844139

The Apprentice - (2024)

A horror movie! Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) - famous for prosecuting the Rosenbergs and for being an unorthodox, no-holds-barred attorney meets a young, kind of raw and innocent Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) and adopts him as a man only Cohn himself could love - not only willing to play along with immoral, illegal tactics when it comes to winning cases for him, but excitedly reveling in the great outcomes they produce. So, Cohn decides to mentor the real estate mogul and creates a monster the likes of which the world will one day basically see as Godzilla - destroying everything in his path. I was wondering when this precise story would be told on the big screen - and boy oh boy, Ali Abbasi and screenwriter Gabriel Sherman don't put a foot wrong. Biopics rarely come as cinematically satisfying, with each new scene peeling back the onion as our subject gains personality traits, tactics and pounds. What's most amazing is the heart the film has, with the horrifying friendship that is central to it being almost touching and tragic. The way it recaptures the 70s and 80s is really something as well, and I'm betting on the fact that New Yorkers themselves would be wowed at how it takes us back. It's hard to see the Trump of yesteryear after what we've been through, but this movie helps - and it's one of the best offerings from 2024 I've seen so far.

8/10This is something I both kinda, sorta want to watch while also being understandably wary of. I envy you being somewhat removed from the experience but anything that casts the guy in a sympathetic light is something I would want to avoid. He didn't plant these ugly thoughts in anyone's heads. They were always there. But he did legitimize them and made it okay to say it out loud. He turned a rock over and now we're left to deal with them.

[Gideon58]

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2

[Robert the List]

Leave Her To Heaven (1946) 9.25

A lot of it is nonsense, but even then it passes the time pleasantly and with some level of entertainment.
Throughout however it's visually stunning. It's to the 40s as Gone With the Wind was to the 30s and North by Northwest to the 50s.
The plot actually goes somewhere in the final 20 minutes or so, and includes the best courtroom scenes prior to Anatomy of a Murder.
I see that some critics compare it to Fatal Attraction. I see more of a mirror image of Varda's Le Bonheur.
Highly recommended. This is one everyone ought to see.

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[Thief]

AFTER DEATH
(1915, Bauer)

https://i.imgur.com/lOE659g.png


"Today was a remarkable day... He is to decide my fate."



After Death follows Andrei (Vitold Polonsky), a scholar that finds himself smitten by Zoia (Vera Karalli), a young actress, after a brief meeting. When a misunderstanding leads to the two being uncommunicated for several months, she decides to kill herself. Burdened by guilt, Andrei becomes obsessed with her presence and join her after death.

The main thing that caught my attention was Yevgeni Bauer's direction and Boris Zavelev's cinematography. There is some really good framing in most scenes, and some great camera movement. Early on the film, there is a continuous long shot that goes on for a couple of minutes as we see Andrei arrive at a party and meet several guests. For a film made more than 100 years ago, I thought it was impressive.

Grade: 4


Full review on my Movie Loot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2497363#post2497363)

[stillmellow]

Existenz (1999)


https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjk3MGRhN2EtN2IyYi00NjFkLWFmNTUtNWI3MzZiYjI2ZjRkXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg


A weird mishmash of the Matrix and Videodrome that surprisingly works. It's a bit slow to start, and at times strange for the sake of strangeness, but that's Cronenberg's M.O.


I liked it.


👍

[PHOENIX74]

This is something I both kinda, sorta want to watch while also being understandably wary of. I envy you being somewhat removed from the experience but anything that casts the guy in a sympathetic light is something I would want to avoid. He didn't plant these ugly thoughts in anyone's heads. They were always there. But he did legitimize them and made it okay to say it out loud. He turned a rock over and now we're left to deal with them.

Up until 2016 I'd only known Donald Trump as a name - celebrity New York business person. I'd never watched his Apprentice television show and had no idea what he was like. His presidency was perhaps the most shocking long-term event I've ever lived through - and this coming from someone on the other side of the world! I have very strong feelings about what's happening over in the United States, and I read a lot about it. I'm sensitive about it as well, but I still found The Apprentice to be fascinating, enlightening and a portrait of Trump as he is - just much more intimate than we're used to seeing. The way Ali Abbasi and screenwriter Gabriel Sherman present this - well, if you feel strongly about it all, I don't think this would anger you or make you feel uncomfortable. The story of Roy Cohn and Trump doesn't allow for much sympathy, even though we get to see things that were hard to imagine (Trump falling in love, Trump crying despite trying to repress the feelings of guilt he has over his brother Fred's death.) In the end this is still a horror movie, with Cohn teaching Trump the dirtiest tricks in the book, and the man himself gradually morphing into a monster while Cohn - the devil himself - bemoans the man's lack of morals, empathy, decency, shame and honor.

[Marco]

Existenz (1999)


https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjk3MGRhN2EtN2IyYi00NjFkLWFmNTUtNWI3MzZiYjI2ZjRkXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg


A weird mishmash of the Matrix and Videodrome that surprisingly works. It's a bit slow to start, and at times strange for the sake of strangeness, but that's Cronenberg's M.O.


I liked it.


👍

I haven't seen this since it came out but recall liking it, rewatch required.

[Marco]

The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964)

Good made for TV horror with Martin Landau and Judith Anderson and a very gorgeous Diane Baker. It's got the feeling of a "Rebecca" about it and does crank up the drama pleasingly.
3 from 5

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/Dont_look_movieposter.jpg
By www.movieposterdb.com, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7404598

Don't Look Now - (1973)

My reverence for this film almost makes it impossible to write about - because I simply can't do it justice. Not with a few words. When I first watched Don't Look Now I was kind of expecting a normal movie, and as such my mind was constantly askew - because there's nothing normal about it. Before you've even settled down in your seat you're confronted with the horrifying vision of John (Donald Sutherland) and Laura Baxter's (Julie Christie) daughter drowning, and their reaction. From there it's off to the most creepy version of Venice you could ever dream up in a film. Overcast, muted, dirty and disheveled - it's a Venice where bodies are often being fished out of the canals and buildings as a murderer lurks the streets. Psychics speak to Laura about seeing her daughter, and a daunting kind of foreboding when it comes to husband John. John sees things - a red raincoat (worn by his daughter when she died) catches his eye everywhere he goes. Water takes on a menacing appearance - a remembrance of the water that engulfed the poor child. When John catches sight of his wife after she's jetted off back to England, it's a vision which only increases the sense of unease we've been feeling throughout this expressionistic, darkly charged work full of uncomfortable, personal and private moments between husband and wife. How could it have been her? He can't let it go. He goes to the police - and sets off a chain of events which will end in a creepy manner you could never have envisaged. Ghosts do haunt us - it just depends on how you define them.

10/10

[Gideon58]

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[Rating]3.5[/Ratng]

[Gideon58]

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Love, love, love, love this movie...due for a rewatch...Joan Crawford stole the Oscar Tierney should have won for this.

[FilmBuff]

Tierney did deserve it.

[WHITBISSELL!]

Up until 2016 I'd only known Donald Trump as a name - celebrity New York business person. I'd never watched his Apprentice television show and had no idea what he was like. His presidency was perhaps the most shocking long-term event I've ever lived through - and this coming from someone on the other side of the world! I have very strong feelings about what's happening over in the United States, and I read a lot about it. I'm sensitive about it as well, but I still found The Apprentice to be fascinating, enlightening and a portrait of Trump as he is - just much more intimate than we're used to seeing. The way Ali Abbasi and screenwriter Gabriel Sherman present this - well, if you feel strongly about it all, I don't think this would anger you or make you feel uncomfortable. The story of Roy Cohn and Trump doesn't allow for much sympathy, even though we get to see things that were hard to imagine (Trump falling in love, Trump crying despite trying to repress the feelings of guilt he has over his brother Fred's death.) In the end this is still a horror movie, with Cohn teaching Trump the dirtiest tricks in the book, and the man himself gradually morphing into a monster while Cohn - the devil himself - bemoans the man's lack of morals, empathy, decency, shame and honor.That sounds like driving up on a particularly gory car accident. You know you shouldn't but you simply have to look. I actually read his Trump: The Art of the Deal book long before he ran for office and I hate to admit it but I found it kind of fascinating. And even though I know it isn't as simplistic as the media would have us believe the guy brings so much baggage with him. He's too erratic and self-absorbed. Whoever gets elected will have their hands full with the entire world being so twitchy and all. Consider what someone like this would bring to the table. Yowzuh.

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOGRhZTRjODktMWU4Ni00MzM3LTg1OTEtODNjYzA1M2VhYjQxXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg


1st Rewatch...My parents took me to see this movie at the V Drive In in Vestal, New York when I was a kid during its original theatrical release and this is my first official rewatch. Three years after winning the Best Suporting Actress Oscar for The Miracle Worker, Duke was pegged to star as Billie Carol, a 16 year old tomboy who can outrun all the boys on the track team because of music she hears in her head she calls "the beat". Her special athletic ability not only interferes with her trying to get a boyfriend (Warren Berlinger), but her father (Jim Backus) is not thrilled either because his run for mayor on a "women souldn't compete with men" campaign is also being damaged. Duke lights up the screen sportiing a blonde Mia Farrow haircut and Backus is very funny as dad. All kinds of familiar faces pop up here. Dick Sargent plays Backus' campaign manager, Richard Deacon plays the school principal, Chalres Lane is the track coach, Billy DeWolfe plays the mayor and Ted Bessell plays Billie's older sister Jean's boyfriend. Jean is played by Susan Seaforth Hayes, who would spend the next 50 yeas or so playing Julie Williams on Days of our Lives and in case you don't recognize her as the lead dancer in that terrific but pointless dance number halfway through the movie wearing the red and white shirt, that's Donna McKechnie, who a mere decade later, would win a Tony Award for Lead Actress in a Musical for A CHorus Line (She is also billed as Assistant Choreographer). A cinematic curio to be sure. 3

[Marco]

Last Tango in Paris (1972)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d5/LastTango.jpg
Bertolucci's drama concerning a recently widowed man (Paul, Marlon Brando) who starts an obsessive sexual relationship with a free spirited, much younger Parisienne girl. The acting is good in both ends (I won't go into the controversy about Maria Shneider and subsequent complaints about filming techniques/ pressure to do sex scenes). It's a downbeat film with a few quality scenes (Paul at his wifes coffin for example) but it's a real mean-spirited and cynical one too. The final sequence of the chase ending up in the dance-hall really is rather depressing but I guess that was the intention? Bertolucci made 1900 after this which was a far better film IMHO.
2.5

[Tugg]

Deadpool 2 (2018) 3
https://p1.hiclipart.com/preview/703/795/628/deadpool-2-2018-folder-icon-pack-deadpool-2-v2-png-icon.jpg
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) 3
https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/deadpool-wolverine-ryan-reynolds-hugh-jackman.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1
Double Blind (2023-2024) 3
https://cineuropa.org/imgCache/2023/07/05/1688571091363_1000x0666_0x0x0x0_1688571114817.jpg
It's What's Inside (2024) 3.5
https://de.web.img2.acsta.net/r_654_368/img/df/30/df305c9fc9a72550af5e7992c8fc836c.jpg
Alien: Romulus (2024) 3
https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/66c08fc44d8d33fa7057d4b4/alien4/960x0.png?format=png&width=960
Depravity (2024) 2.5
https://dailyvictoriajustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Edit145.png

[Marco]

The Substance (2024)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/ff/The_Substance_poster.jpg
Bit of a weird one, body horror or comment on modern fame? Either way, I enjoyed the 1st half where the isolation is apparent in our "heroine" so she decides to take drastic measures. The the transformation bit is done really well also...very Cronenberg but the last 1/3rd of the film just got daft and negated any tension built up in the first 2. Someone posted on the likeness to the film "Society" and I agree, much more than parallels with a film like Videodrome. Both performances are great though but it just descends into farce in the final 3nd.
2.5

[LChimp]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZmQyY2ViOWUtMjhmOC00MThmLTlhYTUtZWI4NzQ4ZTFiNDZjXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg

Vesper Chronicles - (2022)

Kinda boring, actually. Great visuals, but the story isn't anything to write home about. 3/10

[Stirchley]

101518

Everyone should see this movie at least once in their lifetime. A classic of British cinema.

101519

Sweet indie movie. Very relatable.

[FilmBuff]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMWE0OGY5ZTgtNDRhZC00ZWY4LTkxZDgtYjAxMDU2NzU5MWJlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQzNTA5MzYz._V1_.jpg

My Happy Ending
2

I don't know much abut the play this movie is based on, but I have to believe that it was easily better than the film version.

For some reason, there are some ideas that might play well on the stage but don't necessarily translate to the big screen.

Having said that, Andie McDowell gives it her best as a famous actor whose late-career doldrums are upstaged by stage 4 cancer - which prompts her to check in to a British clinic full of spirited fellow cancer patients and an upright doctor.

The movie died a quick death when it was released theatrically, and it's not hard to see why.


https://www.kino-zeit.de/sites/default/files/styles/plakat/public/2022-07/american_carnage_1.jpg?itok=tpBj52Ul

American Carnage
1

I'll watch almost anything for another Jenna Ortega performance, but American Carnage was borderline painful.

The weak attempt at horror involves a bunch of youngsters who are detained under flimsy pretenses just to be put to work at an elderly facility where things, as the saying goes, aren't what they seem.

And all of this is somehow tied into a popular chain of fast food that's famous for its burgers.

If you don't see the way it all connects coming up 5th avenue, then maybe the filmmakers have found their target audience.

[Darth Pazuzu]

A couple more Western video acquisitions...

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81skAq6N0BL._AC_UY218_.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81h7XnmJ0CL._AC_UY218_.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81dgHZINISL._AC_UY218_.jpg https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/515KUw8h2dL._AC_UY218_.jpg

The Big Country (William Wyler / 1958)
The Quick and the Dead (Sam Raimi / 1995)
The Proposition (John Hillcoat / 2005)
3:10 to Yuma (James Mangold / 2007)

The Big Country is a classic 1958 Western, one of those big Hollywood productions with a bit of a subversive streak. Gregory Peck plays a former sea captain named James McKay, who is about to marry Patricia Terrell (Carroll Baker), the daughter of powerful rancher Henry "The Major" Terrill (Charles Bickford), and gets caught up in a power struggle between Terrill and rival rancher Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives). Charlton Heston plays Terrill's foreman Steve Leech, who becomes Jim's main rival for Patricia's affections. Jean Simmons plays Patricia's schoolteacher friend Julie Maragon, who holds the rights to yet another nearby ranch - now abandoned - called "The Big Muddy." Chuck Connors plays Buck, the no-good son of Rufus who (wrong-headedly) imagines that Julie fancies him. The movie deliberately undermines a lot of the expectations and conventions of the Western genre, mainly through Peck's lead character, who is an Easterner and an outsider to the West and who refuses to get pulled into the violent rivalry between the ranchers, or to be provoked by others into proving his own manhood through violence. All the principal actors are terrific, but in particular Ives as Rufus, who commands the screen every time he appears, starting from his introduction where he crashes a Terrill party with rifle in hand, delivering his ultimatum to Terrill.

The Quick and the Dead is splatstick horror maestro Sam Raimi's one and (so far) only Western, a very entertaining and kinetic homage to the Italian Westerns of the 1960's, in particular the work of Sergio Leone (although one can also detect the influences of Sergio Corbucci, Carlo Lizzani and Giulio Petroni.) Sharon Stone portrays a gunslinger who enters the town of Redemption, governed by a cold-blooded former outlaw named John Herod (Gene Hackman). She arrives just in time to enter the local fast-draw single-elimination shooting tournament, and it's Herod she has in her sights. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Herod's cocky son Fee, who imagines himself a faster draw than his father. Russell Crowe plays Cort, a former gunfighter who once rode with Herod but has renounced violence and become a preacher, arousing the ire of Herod. Overall, it's not one of the all-time great Westerns - even of the '90s - but it's a lot of fun. Hackman in particular is very impressive, further refining his tyrannical Western badman persona from Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992) - where he played "Little Bill" Daggett - which dates back all the way to the criminally underrated The Hunting Party (1971), where he played the vengeful rancher Brandt Ruger.

Third on the list is a Western of a decidedly different sort. The Proposition is set in the Australian outback during the 1880's and centers around the character of outlaw Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce), who is captured by the police along with his younger brother Mikey (Richard Wilson). The brutal yet thoughtful police captain Morris Stanley (Ray Winstone) makes a deal with Charlie, promising to free both him and Mikey if he succeeds in tracking down and killing his older brother Arthur (Danny Huston - son of John), who is wanted for rape and murder and is suspected of massacring the Hopkins family and torching their home. Emily Watson plays Captain Stanley's wife Martha, who was a friend of the Hopkins family. David Wenham plays Stanley's arrogant and very properly English supervisor Eden Fletcher. Tom Budge plays young Samuel Stoat, a member of Arthur's gang with a propensity toward violence as well as a singing voice to shame a nightingale. And John Hurt - just like Burl Ives in The Big Country - manages to steal just about every scene he's in as crusty bounty hunter Jellon Lamb. While The Proposition is certainly a brutal film at times, it's also extremely moving and often quite visually beautiful. It captures the feel of its particular time and place, also dealing with the troubled relations between the whites and the local Aboriginal people. One scene that stands out in particular is the scene where young Mikey is brutally flogged on orders from Fletcher, while on the soundtrack we hear the voice of young Samuel singing a beautiful a cappella rendition of folk song "Peggy Gordon."

And the last item is James Mangold's 2007 remake of Delmer Daves' 3:10 to Yuma from 1957. When I first saw TV ads for Mangold's film, I had no idea it was a remake of an older film. After all, the original, while certainly respected, wasn't necessarily a household name like High Noon (1952), Shane (1953) or The Searchers (1956). But I never get around to actually seeing either film until recently, when I got the Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition of the '57 original, and now I've just purchased the 4K UHD edition of Mangold's version. First of all, I think Mangold really opened up the story in a way that's very effective. More emphasis is placed on the actual journey to the town of Contention, which wasn't really dealt with in either the original Elmore Leonard short story or in Daves' film. This time around, Christian Bale plays rancher and Civil War veteran Dan Evans, who takes on the job of escorting captured outlaw leader Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to a rendezvous with the train of the title, which will take Wade to Yuma Prison. Evans takes on the job primarily out of desperation, needing $200 to pay off his debts and save his home, but becomes ever more committed to getting Wade to his destination. Bale is perhaps even more effective in the role than Van Heflin was in the original, and Crowe is every bit as good (and as chilling) as Glenn Ford. Ben Wade is actually kind of the Hannibal Lecter of Western badmen. While Wade can certainly be ruthless and vicious and cold-bloodedly pragmatic, he's also well-read and has an artistic streak. And he has absolutely no trouble whatsoever in reading other people like an X-ray, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, knowing which buttons to push and knowing how to exploit their vulnerabilities. While I have a slight bias toward the '57 original, I think that Mangold's 2007 remake is also a strong film and strongly feel that it deserves to be regarded alongside of it and mentioned in the same breath. (BTW, the theme song in the 1957 original is sung by Frankie Laine. If you're of my particular generation, you probably know him best as the guy who sang the theme song of Mel Brooks' 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles with a completely straight face. Because of that, I've usually had a hard time taking him seriously whenever I hear his voice singing some Western theme song. But so invincibly gorgeous is the theme song to the original 3:10 to Yuma that it's the one time I don't laugh at Frankie Laine.)

[Thief]

SERVICE DE LUXE
(1938, Lee)

https://i.imgur.com/mz7j2iL.jpeg


"Helen Murphy is not supposed to know anything but 'moon', 'spoon', and 'June'."



Service de Luxe follows Helen Murphy (Constance Bennett), the owner of a successful agency that performs daily routine chores and errands for wealthy people. When Robert Wade (Vincent Price), a young inventor trying to develop a tractor model, gets involved in a case of mistaken identity with Murphy, the two end up in love. However, she finds herself unable to tell him who she is without risking her business.

This is Vincent Price's feature film debut. Since I'm preparing for a podcast episode on him, I decided to check it out. The film doesn't really offer much beyond the stereotypical tropes of romcoms and mistaken identity films. Once the story gets to the main issue, it's pretty easy to guess where things will end up. However, for the most part, it is all executed in an amusing way.

Grade: 2.5


Full review on my Movie Loot (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?anchor=1&p=2497691#post2497691)

[Fabulous]

Fletch (1985)

3

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/caRqs1GIhwoJqn8JA3LakIUR0v3.jpg

[iluv2viddyfilms]

Island of Lost Souls (1932) - C+

[stillmellow]

Demons 2


https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81IsA-FuQML._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg


Meh. Not as good as the first one.

[Fabulous]

A Fine Madness (1966)

3

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/lDPx7Byf5Zwtxa9Kva6J0uD97V.jpg

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Wreckitralphposter.jpeg
By http://www.impawards.com/2012/wreckit_ralph_ver6.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37008195

Wreck it Ralph - (2012)

Took me a long, long time to get to Wreck it Ralph - maybe because I sensed this was skewed a little more towards children than your average animated blockbuster. Still, I love retro games - I grew up with them, so there were going to be a lot of references I would at least understand. Overall it was cute - and awe-inspiringly gorgeous in design and execution. Most of the backgrounds and animation were so beautiful I'd spend more time soaking them up than I did anything else. Just as well too - because the plot felt like a very tired rendition of a 40-year-old tune, once again relied on because the writers couldn't come up with anything really original or cutting edge. Voice talent was great - especially Jane Lynch. She raises everything she appears (or is heard) in a notch. There was so much room for so many video game jokes that never ended up materializing. Why not? Because some of the audience wouldn't get them? Have I spent too much time playing these games throughout my life? The answer is yes. Yes I have.

6/10

https://i.postimg.cc/pXJTbWPD/ani.jpg
By the animatrix / wachowski brothers - http://www.seeklogo.com/the-animatrix-logo-138033.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42925865

The Animatrix - (2003)

All in all good for me, and great for the fans - of which I'm really not one. The original film was great, but the concept morphed into something monstrously convoluted eventually. These animated shorts though - they're mostly really enjoyable, and don't go down any overly brain-taxing rabbit holes. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2497795#post2497795), in my watchlist thread.

6/10

[LChimp]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMGMxY2U2ZTQtNGU5MS00Mzg4LWEyOWEtMTU5ZTZlZDg1YjFhXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg

Strange Darling - (2023)

Awesome. A bit of Tarantino here and there, great performances, cool story and excellent visuals

[chawhee]

On the Line (2022)
https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w1280/8ZyHJGjo1BaFms3JjagREb697hg.jpg
2
My streak of okay movies ends with this dud. My girlfriend chose it, as I don't think I would ever willingly choose another Mel Gibson movie at this point, and it actually starts out fine. The acting and writing eventually wear down, culminating to a multi-twisted ending that makes the whole movie a waste of time.

[Sedai]

Blair Witch
Wingard, 2016

3

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/KSWchp3udGtioUAmpVIlr9pjjif9nq8oOCpRnUHIzLXrhgoMLKdjspZEHt4kvI-drRSAXjd6lpVY_WgYsDC7tsfS9EzTz2uOo36wueSOdphx8n2dyg

Watched to check off the "Rated lower than 40% on RT" category on the Halloween Challenge. This barely qualifies at 38% fresh, and I think this film deserves more love.

Not sure why people dislike this film so much, as I think it is a fine entry in the found footage genre. The first 20 minutes or so are admittedly weak, but once it gets going, it never lets up. Director Adam Wingard has a decent track record, with segments in the V/H/S/ films and full length features such as You're Next. I think he does a good job tying this into the original film while still giving this sequel its own identity.

The last 15 minutes are so are particularly good, with one of the actresses really dialing up the hysterical dread - Callie Hernandez just goes totally mental here, and I find her performance to be effective at ratting my nerves no matter how many times I see it.

Not great, but certainly worth a watch.

[Allaby]

Brothers (2024) Watched on Prime. Directed by Max Barbakow (Palm Springs), this comedy stars Peter Dinklage, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Brendan Fraser, and Taylour Paige. Dinklage and Brolin are brothers with a criminal past who go on a road trip. I expected more with this cast. This isn't very funny and the screenplay is fairly predictable and mediocre. The actors do what they can with the material, but this is a pretty forgettable film. I rate it a 6/10 based on the likeability of the cast, but honestly it is more like a 5/10. 3

[Galactic Traveler]

The Wild Robot

4/5

[Marco]

A Reflection of Fear (1972)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9a/A_Reflection_of_Fear_%281972%29_poster.jpg
Quite creepy and a decent thriller. Robert Shaw plays a man with a new squeeze coming to ask for a long overdue divorce from the mother of his child that he has had minimal contact with (Sondra Locke). The daughter wants to keep contact with him and it escalates in an unnerving way as they start a bond that is, well, a bit iffy. Shaw's wife (Mary Ure) plays the mother. It has it's moments but never get's above curiosity value. The ending is rather perplexing more than revealing.
2.5

[iluv2viddyfilms]

The Company of Wolves (1984, Neil Jordan) - B-

[Siddon]

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTio5B5D8ttsGMUU9o1Lnd7f3v7X6XCXXjyPA&s

Rumours (2024)

This is a movie you are either going to absolutely love or despise. Guy Maddin's film breaks so many narrative rules and creates such an exquisite take on the Zombie horror genre it's hard to put into words how deliciously weird this movie is.

What if we made a horror film with the leaders of the free world but then give you almost no gratification but constant character work. Oh and the characters act like teenagers in the Friday the 13th film but they are also nerds. It's so weird and wonderful and atmospheric and hilarious. This is what Megalopolis could have been and should have been.

rating_5

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e6/Dr._Strangelove_poster.jpg
Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8705446

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb - (1964)

I think this was the first time I'd watched Dr. Strangelove since first seeing Fail Safe - the former an amazing reaction to the terrifying situation that's being examined. "Comedy" is the last thing anyone else would have probably thought of, but it makes sense to examine something this grim and frightening in comedic terms. As much power as the leaders of the world's superpowers and nuclear powers had at their fingertips, Stanley Kubrick wielded some might himself. He was about to hit his peak, and had at his disposal a red-hot Peter Sellers - who should have beat Rex Harrison and won the Oscar he was nominated for. Every scene in this is sublime - and I need not quote anything, for I think most of it has entered our shared consciousness. Always a pleasure to watch, and still as powerful as a nuclear blast when you peek beneath what's deliriously funny.

10/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/41/MACKINTOSH_MAN.jpg
By The poster art can or could be obtained from Warner Bros.., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7931880

The Mackintosh Man - (1973)

There's enough suspense, action and adventure here to go a ways to make up for some of this film's negatives, even if it's not quite enough to lift it into classic territory. As a whole you'd need to be a big Paul Newman fan, or extremely devoted to spy thrillers, to love The Mackintosh Man. I thought it was okay - nothing more. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2498039#post2498039), in my watchlist thread.

6/10

[Fabulous]

A Room with a View (1985)

4

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/FGoVcYI88VqtbqMw6RA6FYZJ2T.jpg

[Sedai]

It's What's Inside
Jardin, 2024

4

https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hvqmu2oj2Its_Whats_Inside-Still1.jpeg?w=681&h=383&crop=1

It's What's Inside is tagged as horror comedy, but there is really very little that is horrific about it, so i am unsure it really qualifies. Regardless, I had a blast watching this twisty little thriller. In some ways similar to 2022's Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, not the least of which is its ultra-annoying cast, we have a similar set-up of a bunch of well-off partiers and trust funders hanging out in a massive mansion.

Pay close attention to who people are, their names, and what little background you get for each character, as it all comes into play later; this film requires your full attention or things will get confusing fast. I was able to keep track of all the twists and turns, but I see multiple reviewers complaining they got lost, or were tipsy when they watched so they ended up checking out halfway through because they couldn't keep everything straight.

Anyway, I woke up thinking about this one, so there is plenty to chew on, and I had a ton of fun watching. Recommended!

[FilmBuff]

It's What's Inside
Jardin, 2024

4


I think this is one of the best new movies of 2024. Been meaning to watch it a 2nd time but haven't had time yet.

[Sedai]

I think this is one of the best new movies of 2024. Been meaning to watch it a 2nd time but haven't had time yet.

I will watch it again, for sure. I do want to have a couple of friends over who haven't seen it, though. Would be fun to see their reactions.

[matt72582]

Last Tango in Paris (1972)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d5/LastTango.jpg
Bertolucci's drama concerning a recently widowed man (Paul, Marlon Brando) who starts an obsessive sexual relationship with a free spirited, much younger Parisienne girl. The acting is good in both ends (I won't go into the controversy about Maria Shneider and subsequent complaints about filming techniques/ pressure to do sex scenes). It's a downbeat film with a few quality scenes (Paul at his wifes coffin for example) but it's a real mean-spirited and cynical one too. The final sequence of the chase ending up in the dance-hall really is rather depressing but I guess that was the intention? Bertolucci made 1900 after this which was a far better film IMHO.
rating_2_5




I don't rate 10/10 too much, but this was one. I read an interview where Robert Altman said he thought about quitting after seeing this movie.

[Allaby]

Woman of the Hour (2023/2024) Watched on Netflix. Anna Kendrick does a good job directing and starring in this film. Daniel Zovatto is effective as a serial killer who can turn on the charm when needed. The way the story is structured doesn't always work and relying on text on screen at the end isn't completely satisfying. This is a fine directorial debut by Kendrick and there is both potential and room for growth as a director in the future. 3.5

[FilmBuff]

https://cdn.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Rumours-1-600x857.jpg

Rumours
4.5



Megalopolis aside, Guy Maddin's Rumours is the most bonkers movie to have played in theaters this year. If you like bonkers movies, you can't possibly miss this one.

Here's a movie that deftly plays its cards as both a political black comedy and some kind of bizarro world apocalypse the-end-is-near scenario.

Cate Blanchett leads the superb cast as Hilda Ortmann, the German Chancellor who is hosting a G7 summit in what might otherwise be an idyllic rural location. That is before the you-know-what hits the fan.

Charles Dance - still sounding very much like Charles Dance, thank you very much - plays American president Edison Wolcott; the cast also includes Alicia Vikander as the Swedish-speaking Secretary-General of the European Commission.

As for the movie itself - well, as you can see in the poster, it has been described as "Night of the Living Dead meets Dr. Strangelove". That's not a bad way to put it.

I won't give away anything regarding the actual storyline, since the movie is best enjoyed the less you know about what happens.

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71+1c8cOvsL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg


1st Rewatch...This sequel is just as silly and pointless as the first film. In this film, Elle Woods (Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon) learns that Bruiser's mom is being held captive in an animal testing laboratory and she wants Bruiser's mom to be present at her wedding to Emmett (Luke Wilson), so to get the animal out of the lab, she gets herself a job at the office of a congresswoman (Oscar winner Sally Field) where she initiates a bill to stop animal testing of cosmetics so that Bruiser's mom and all the other animals can be released. Witherspoon is as bouncy and annoying as she was in the first film and Wilson's role has been reduced to a glorified cameo. Oscar winners Field and Regina King are wasted in thankless roles, but the late Bob Newhart's role as a doorman almost makes this worth the time. There is entertainment value here, as long as you remember that, like in the Michael J Fox Film The Secret of My Success, NOTHING that happens in this film would EVER happen IRL. 2.5

[Gideon58]

I did a Joaquin double feature last night...

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81y5SGZtuoL._AC_UF350,350_QL80_.jpg


4th Rewatch...This movie just gets richer and richer with each rewatch. Joaquin Phoenix was robbed of an Oscar nomination for his performance as a techo-geek named Theodore Twombley who falls in love with the operating system installed into his computer, beautifully voiced by Scarlett Johanssen. A futuristic love story with some 1950's romance sensibilities at its core. This is becoming one of those films I never tire of rewatching. Spike Jonz' screenplay won an Oscar. Phoenix has never been sexier onscreen. 4.5

[Gideon58]

the other half of my Joaquin double bill...

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4th rewatch...I had to watch this again before I watch the sequel, which I'm pretty sure is going to ruin it for me. Nothing has changed here. Phoenix is extraordinary. 4.5

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91b2Iz2K08L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg



1st Rewatch...Silly comedy about three moms (Mila Kunis, Katheryn Hahn, Kristen Bell), who all feel they are failing as mothers but after an accidental meeting where they end up getting drunk together in a bar, instead of wallowing in what they're feeling, they decide to embrace it. The film features a lot of silly physical comedy and Hahn steals every scene she's in as does Christina Applegate as the bitchy PTA president mom. To be honest, the best part of the movie is the closing credits which feartures interviews with the stars and their real-life moms. There was a sequel called Bad Moms Christmas, but this movie wasn't good enough to pique my curiosity about the second one. 3

[Stirchley]

I did a Joaquin double feature last night...

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81y5SGZtuoL._AC_UF350,350_QL80_.jpg


4th Rewatch...This movie just gets richer and richer with each rewatch. Joaquin Phoenix was robbed of an Oscar nomination for his performance as a techo-geek named Theodore Twombley who falls in love with the operating system installed into his computer, beautifully voiced by Scarlett Johanssen. A futuristic love story with some 1950's romance sensibilities at its core. This is becoming one of those films I never tire of rewatching. Spike Jonz' screenplay won an Oscar. Phoenix has never been sexier onscreen. 4.5

Love this movie. If you recall Samantha Morton was supposed to have this rôle. She & the director both agreed she wasn’t quite right for the rôle & they amicably parted ways after shooting every one of the director’s scenes.

[Raven73]

Dream scenario
7/10
Interesting.

https://pics.filmaffinity.com/Dream_Scenario-729633903-large.jpg

[Darth Pazuzu]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/67/The_Apprentice_%282024_film%29_poster.jpg/220px-The_Apprentice_%282024_film%29_poster.jpg

October 15, 2024

THE APPRENTICE (Ali Abbasi / 2024)

(NOTE: I will be making some political observations here, as well as voicing my own opinions. Trust me when I say that the object is not to offend anyone else in any way whatsoever.)

First of all, let me just say that I really liked this movie a lot. I would also add that my reaction to it is somewhat paradoxical:

On one hand, I feel like I can't really hate Donald Trump in quite the same way I have for the past eight-plus years. Mind you, I think my reasons for doing so are been absolutely justified, and I feel like I am positively oozing schadenfreude from my very pores every time he gets in trouble or says or does something idiotic at one of his rallies or whenever Stephen Colbert roasts him every night on The Late Show. But The Apprentice provides a timely reminder for us that Donald Trump is, after all, a human being like anybody else, with his own unique set of flaws and foibles. Let he is without sin... etc., etc., etc.

But the other side of my reaction is that I feel more convinced than ever of the danger that Trump poses to our nation, and it's very much related to those particular flaws and foibles. Let me put it this way: By his own admission, his specialty is "the art of the deal." His forte is in making big promises, playing up to people's wishful thinking, setting up impossible expectations and - as often as not - somehow encouraging the creation of conditions out of which, by hook or by crook, they are actually fulfilled. But that which is appreciated and encouraged as gutsy or daring in the cutthroat worlds of business and high-finance - albeit still high-risk and ethically dubious - is an absolute non-starter in the world of global politics, in which the stakes are very much connected with real life and the ways in which millions of people's lives are affected. Everything about the way in which Trump operates - or rather shall we say the way he desires to operate - is absolutely anathema to the ideals of a democratic society.

People who support Trump or advocate his presidency naively believe that his longevity and the particular skill set which served him well in the past will somehow translate into a more proactive form of governance that can more conveniently cut through everything else and magically cure inflation and sticker shock or whatever else it is that ails our country. (And I don't scoff at their frustrations at all: I feel the pinch at the grocery store just like everybody else.) The problem is, democracy isn't supposed to be about instant gratification or an instant cure-all for whatever our frustrations at the moment happen to be. The fact is - and I know this is a horrible cliche, and I've always hated whenever conservatives have thrown this word around in the past - democratic ideals are rooted in values, our notions of what is considered right or wrong. And I wish those people who are presently snake-fascinated with Trump would just ask themselves exactly how it can be considered morally acceptable for one man to try and obstruct the rightful transfer or power and encourage a violent insurrection after a democratic election in which he's lost, as had happened on January 6, 2021. Or to repeatedly tell lie after lie in the belief that truth is relative and doesn't matter... or that Truth with a capital "T" doesn't even exist. Or to prize winning and success above everything else, no matter how such a victory is achieved or how counterfeit the success. Or even to repeatedly deny that one has even lost. Or to even deny anything that proves to be personally inconvenient, however true.

Wow... I guess I got a little sidetracked there. :lol: Given the subject matter, I guess that was bound to happen. But I suppose I should get back to the film now... :up:

Anyway, The Apprentice starts in 1973, and mainly deals with the young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan)'s early career and friendship with the notorious attorney Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), who had been counsel for Joseph McCarthy during his investigations of suspected Communists and had famously prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spying and got them the death penalty. (Besides Strong, other people who have portrayed Roy Cohn in the past include Al Pacino in the 2003 Mike Nichols-directed mini-series of Tony Kushner's 1993 play Angels in America - which I highly recommend - as well as James Woods in the 1992 TV movie Citizen Cohn. BTW, Woods made a far better Roy Cohn than he did Rudy Giuliani in a 2003 TV movie. Nowadays, he'd probably regard that as a very back-handed compliment, but it's not meant as such...) Sebastian Stan actually does a very good job in the role of Trump, playing him as a human being instead of a caricature. And everyone else in the cast is good, as well. Jeremy Strong makes for a wonderfully slimy and abrasive Roy Cohn, but just as with Stan's Trump, Strong makes him human and roots his aggression and hostility in personal vulnerability. What comes across most forcefully in the film's portrayal of Trump is his sense of need, of wanting validation, as well as the hole or vacancy within which makes him fail to recognize what is truly of importance or value. But I guess when your father is a real-estate mogul who discriminated against his African-American tenants, and who berated and ridiculed your brother for being a mere airline pilot, you're not going to have much of a solid grounding in common humanity.

At the end of the day, what The Apprentice produces within me more than anything else is a sense of pity. Not only pity for Trump - which he would probably contemptuously dismiss in any case - but pity for how American society has even gotten to this point in the first place, that we could even consider a man like Donald Trump a viable candidate for the highest office in the land.

[Gideon58]

Dream scenario
7/10
Interesting.

https://pics.filmaffinity.com/Dream_Scenario-729633903-large.jpg

This was a weird little movie but Cage was Oscar worthy

[FilmBuff]

http://www.nerdly.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/smile-2-poster.jpg

Smile 2 (Dolby Cinema)
2


There is only good reason to watch Smile 2 - and her name is Naomi Scott.

She's best known to most moviegoers as the live-action Jasmine in the recent Disney remake of Aladdin. And, as an actor/singer, she definitely brings some high notes to what would otherwise be a tremendously tedious sequel.

Running well over 2 hours, the sequel to Parker Finn's 2022 directorial debut pretty much hits almost all of the same beats, having replaced the protagonist of the original film with, surprise, surprise, yet another damsel in distress.

And despite the fact that it doesn't do much that's new, the sequel does benefit tremendously from Scott's extremely committed performance - it is hard not to be rooting for her, even if you know (from watching the 1st movie) more or less exactly what to expect here.

There are a few other cast members that do the best they can with the trite material, starting with Rosemarie DeWitt as Scott's mom. Then there's Jack Nicholson's son, Ray, in what amounts to little more than a cameo; and Miles Gutierrez-Riley who is having a bit of a hot streak between this and Marvel's Agatha All Along.

In the end, the movie offers few real surprises and the "scares" are both lacking in novelty and not particularly scary. The movie also suffers from being the 2nd one this year that prominently features a fictional female pop star; Scott is easily a cut above Saleka Night Shyamalan in Trap, but still.

Maybe it's time we declare a national moratorium on fictional female pop stars becoming a prominent part of horror movies and thrillers. It is starting to become a bit of a cliché.

[ueno_station54]

https://a.ltrbxd.com/resized/film-poster/1/4/8/7/2/3/148723-almost-invisible-0-2000-0-3000-crop.jpg?v=ebe17ec595

Almost Invisible (David Allingham, 2010)

Things if it had access to iMovie built-in effects and half-naked women. Incomprehensible, essential.

rating_4

[Marco]

I don't rate 10/10 too much, but this was one. I read an interview where Robert Altman said he thought about quitting after seeing this movie.
Ten out of ten? Wow. It was a decent film but indulgent. Also the sex angle (maybe intentionally) was stilted I thought.

[Takoma11]

It's What's Inside
Jardin, 2024

4

https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hvqmu2oj2Its_Whats_Inside-Still1.jpeg?w=681&h=383&crop=1

It's What's Inside is tagged as horror comedy, but there is really very little that is horrific about it, so i am unsure it really qualifies. Regardless, I had a blast watching this twisty little thriller. In some ways similar to 2022's Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, not the least of which is its ultra-annoying cast, we have a similar set-up of a bunch of well-off partiers and trust funders hanging out in a massive mansion.

Pay close attention to who people are, their names, and what little background you get for each character, as it all comes into play later; this film requires your full attention or things will get confusing fast. I was able to keep track of all the twists and turns, but I see multiple reviewers complaining they got lost, or were tipsy when they watched so they ended up checking out halfway through because they couldn't keep everything straight.

Anyway, I woke up thinking about this one, so there is plenty to chew on, and I had a ton of fun watching. Recommended!

This was recommended to me by an IRL friend, who said "Go into it knowing nothing about it" and I was glad that I watched the film and glad that I heeded the advice to just dive in.

In many ways, it is a very stupid movie. But it's also a very fun movie that lands in just the right place of being darkly funny without being too mean-spirited. I think it's definitely a people-pleaser type film and an easy recommendation to most people.

EDIT: I think Bodies Bodies Bodies is a great comparison tone-wise, though I'd give Bodies Bodies Bodies the edge in terms of both writing and acting ("He's a VET!").

[matt72582]

Ten out of ten? Wow. It was a decent film but indulgent. Also the sex angle (maybe intentionally) was stilted I thought.


By the third viewing, yes. I didn't love it at first, but every time I watched, I liked it more.

[KeyserCorleone]

I just found The Wild Robot on alternative streaming. This movie blows that overrated How to Train Your Dragon out of the water.

[Gideon58]

A couple more Western video acquisitions...

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The Big Country (William Wyler / 1958)
The Quick and the Dead (Sam Raimi / 1995)
The Proposition (John Hillcoat / 2005)
3:10 to Yuma (James Mangold / 2007)

The Big Country is a classic 1958 Western, one of those big Hollywood productions with a bit of a subversive streak. Gregory Peck plays a former sea captain named James McKay, who is about to marry Patricia Terrell (Carroll Baker), the daughter of powerful rancher Henry "The Major" Terrill (Charles Bickford), and gets caught up in a power struggle between Terrill and rival rancher Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives). Charlton Heston plays Terrill's foreman Steve Leech, who becomes Jim's main rival for Patricia's affections. Jean Simmons plays Patricia's schoolteacher friend Julie Maragon, who holds the rights to yet another nearby ranch - now abandoned - called "The Big Muddy." Chuck Connors plays Buck, the no-good son of Rufus who (wrong-headedly) imagines that Julie fancies him. The movie deliberately undermines a lot of the expectations and conventions of the Western genre, mainly through Peck's lead character, who is an Easterner and an outsider to the West and who refuses to get pulled into the violent rivalry between the ranchers, or to be provoked by others into proving his own manhood through violence. All the principal actors are terrific, but in particular Ives as Rufus, who commands the screen every time he appears, starting from his introduction where he crashes a Terrill party with rifle in hand, delivering his ultimatum to Terrill.

The Quick and the Dead is splatstick horror maestro Sam Raimi's one and (so far) only Western, a very entertaining and kinetic homage to the Italian Westerns of the 1960's, in particular the work of Sergio Leone (although one can also detect the influences of Sergio Corbucci, Carlo Lizzani and Giulio Petroni.) Sharon Stone portrays a gunslinger who enters the town of Redemption, governed by a cold-blooded former outlaw named John Herod (Gene Hackman). She arrives just in time to enter the local fast-draw single-elimination shooting tournament, and it's Herod she has in her sights. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Herod's cocky son Fee, who imagines himself a faster draw than his father. Russell Crowe plays Cort, a former gunfighter who once rode with Herod but has renounced violence and become a preacher, arousing the ire of Herod. Overall, it's not one of the all-time great Westerns - even of the '90s - but it's a lot of fun. Hackman in particular is very impressive, further refining his tyrannical Western badman persona from Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992) - where he played "Little Bill" Daggett - which dates back all the way to the criminally underrated The Hunting Party (1971), where he played the vengeful rancher Brandt Ruger.

Third on the list is a Western of a decidedly different sort. The Proposition is set in the Australian outback during the 1880's and centers around the character of outlaw Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce), who is captured by the police along with his younger brother Mikey (Richard Wilson). The brutal yet thoughtful police captain Morris Stanley (Ray Winstone) makes a deal with Charlie, promising to free both him and Mikey if he succeeds in tracking down and killing his older brother Arthur (Danny Huston - son of John), who is wanted for rape and murder and is suspected of massacring the Hopkins family and torching their home. Emily Watson plays Captain Stanley's wife Martha, who was a friend of the Hopkins family. David Wenham plays Stanley's arrogant and very properly English supervisor Eden Fletcher. Tom Budge plays young Samuel Stoat, a member of Arthur's gang with a propensity toward violence as well as a singing voice to shame a nightingale. And John Hurt - just like Burl Ives in The Big Country - manages to steal just about every scene he's in as crusty bounty hunter Jellon Lamb. While The Proposition is certainly a brutal film at times, it's also extremely moving and often quite visually beautiful. It captures the feel of its particular time and place, also dealing with the troubled relations between the whites and the local Aboriginal people. One scene that stands out in particular is the scene where young Mikey is brutally flogged on orders from Fletcher, while on the soundtrack we hear the voice of young Samuel singing a beautiful a cappella rendition of folk song "Peggy Gordon."

And the last item is James Mangold's 2007 remake of Delmer Daves' 3:10 to Yuma from 1957. When I first saw TV ads for Mangold's film, I had no idea it was a remake of an older film. After all, the original, while certainly respected, wasn't necessarily a household name like High Noon (1952), Shane (1953) or The Searchers (1956). But I never get around to actually seeing either film until recently, when I got the Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition of the '57 original, and now I've just purchased the 4K UHD edition of Mangold's version. First of all, I think Mangold really opened up the story in a way that's very effective. More emphasis is placed on the actual journey to the town of Contention, which wasn't really dealt with in either the original Elmore Leonard short story or in Daves' film. This time around, Christian Bale plays rancher and Civil War veteran Dan Evans, who takes on the job of escorting captured outlaw leader Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to a rendezvous with the train of the title, which will take Wade to Yuma Prison. Evans takes on the job primarily out of desperation, needing $200 to pay off his debts and save his home, but becomes ever more committed to getting Wade to his destination. Bale is perhaps even more effective in the role than Van Heflin was in the original, and Crowe is every bit as good (and as chilling) as Glenn Ford. Ben Wade is actually kind of the Hannibal Lecter of Western badmen. While Wade can certainly be ruthless and vicious and cold-bloodedly pragmatic, he's also well-read and has an artistic streak. And he has absolutely no trouble whatsoever in reading other people like an X-ray, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, knowing which buttons to push and knowing how to exploit their vulnerabilities. While I have a slight bias toward the '57 original, I think that Mangold's 2007 remake is also a strong film and strongly feel that it deserves to be regarded alongside of it and mentioned in the same breath. (BTW, the theme song in the 1957 original is sung by Frankie Laine. If you're of my particular generation, you probably know him best as the guy who sang the theme song of Mel Brooks' 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles with a completely straight face. Because of that, I've usually had a hard time taking him seriously whenever I hear his voice singing some Western theme song. But so invincibly gorgeous is the theme song to the original 3:10 to Yuma that it's the one time I don't laugh at Frankie Laine.)

Loved The Big Country

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/The_Thin_Red_Line_Poster.jpg
Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3154194

The Thin Red Line - (1998)

Who knew war could look so beautiful? Everything looks so crisp, with the bright greens of the vegetation contrasting with the reds, yellows and blacks of explosions. It gives the Americans fighting in this Guadalcanal campaign pause for philosophical musings - such is their proximity to death. I didn't appreciate The Thin Red Line enough when it first came out, but over time I've fallen in love with it's poetic wonder and visual refinement. Star-studded stupendousness.

10/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/BlindFuryposter.jpg
Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25283516

Blind Fury - (1989)

I remember this 80s action/comedy film from way back, and if I remember correctly didn't mind it at the time. Very simple and formulaic apart from the central feature which is that our hero, swordsman Nick Parker (Rutger Hauer) is blind. Throw a grape at him and he'll somehow hear it, and slice it very precisely in two with his sword. He cannot only hear a grape coming, he can hear exactly where it is and it's shape somehow. He was blinded while fighting in the Vietnam war, left to fend for himself when Frank Deveraux (Terry O'Quinn) ran screaming from the fray. Some villagers teach Nick the art of swordsmanship, he returns to the U.S., and finds himself in the middle of trouble because crime boss Claude MacCready (Noble Willingham) is forcing Frank (now a chemist of some sort) to make drugs for him. When Frank's wife, Lynn (Meg Foster) is killed by Claude's goons, it's up to Nick to look after his son, Billy (Brandon Call) and kill almost everyone else he comes across. The humour is on a "Dad jokes" level, and the score very eighties - but Blind Fury has a saving grace, and that's Rutger Hauer himself, who saves this from becoming absolutely irrelevant in the scheme of things.

6/10

[iluv2viddyfilms]

Ashes and Diamonds (1958) - A

[Fabulous]

Toy Soldiers (1991)

3.5

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/w5U8GsNxnbn9tCXpfaTFjxR3az4.jpg

[Sedai]

This was recommended to me by an IRL friend, who said "Go into it knowing nothing about it" and I was glad that I watched the film and glad that I heeded the advice to just dive in.

In many ways, it is a very stupid movie. But it's also a very fun movie that lands in just the right place of being darkly funny without being too mean-spirited. I think it's definitely a people-pleaser type film and an easy recommendation to most people.

EDIT: I think Bodies Bodies Bodies is a great comparison tone-wise, though I'd give Bodies Bodies Bodies the edge in terms of both writing and acting ("He's a VET!").

Bodies, Bodies, Bodies was certainly more incisive in its takedown of some of the tropes of Gen Z, and I recall a few laugh out loud moments. I think I still prefer It's What's Inside a bit more, though. When the film ended I had a huge smile on my face, I enjoyed the twists more, and I got just as many big laughs as well as a couple jaw on the floor surprises. Both sets of characters were equally annoying! ;)

[FilmBuff]

Bodies, Bodies, Bodies was certainly more incisive in its takedown of some of the tropes of Gen Z, and I recall a few laugh out loud moments. I think I still prefer It's What's Inside a bit more, though. When the film ended I had a huge smile on my face, I enjoyed the twists more, and I got just as many big laughs as well as a couple jaw on the floor surprises. Both sets of characters were equally annoying! ;)

I think visually, It's What's Inside is far more inventive, as well.

[Takoma11]

Bodies, Bodies, Bodies was certainly more incisive in its takedown of some of the tropes of Gen Z, and I recall a few laugh out loud moments. I think I still prefer It's What's Inside a bit more, though. When the film ended I had a huge smile on my face, I enjoyed the twists more, and I got just as many big laughs as well as a couple jaw on the floor surprises. Both sets of characters were equally annoying! ;)

I think that Bodies Bodies Bodies did more with its cast and its characters. It's What's Inside does almost nothing with the characters of Brooke, Reuben, or Maya. I'm not saying they needed to be fully developed, but it takes some of the bite out of later parts of the film. I think that with It's What's Inside, nothing actually surprised me, whereas Bodies Bodies Bodies surprised me until the very end.

But surprises aren't everything, and I still think everyone should check out It's What's Inside. Like I said, I give Bodies Bodies Bodies the edge (due to the acting and the writing), but both are solid and do a good job of skewering the entitled behaviors of the characters.

I still need to write up more of a review, but I wish there had been a bit more depth in certain parts. For example, (mild spoilers) Shelby's experience as Nikki is just "Hey, it's fun being really hot." And even that point is undercut a bit by the fact that the actress playing Shelby is really attractive.

[Raven73]

Furiosa
7/10.
Hard to follow-up a movie as explosive as Fury Road.
Oh well, I finally got to see Chris Hemsworth use his actual accent in a movie.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Furiosa_A_Mad_Max_Saga.jpg

[Fabulous]

Pacific Heights (1990)

3

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/brLuPoUOyEPLQveCA0DuX2p2wgs.jpg

[FilmBuff]

https://dcfilmdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/woman_of_the_hour.jpg

Woman of the Hour
3.5


Anna Kendrick makes a pretty self-assured directorial debut with Woman of the Hour, a pretty taut thriller based on the life of the serial killer who famously appeared on The Dating Game in 1978 - in the midst of his murder spree (he was later called "The Dating Game Killer").

Kendrick plays the show's contestant who almost ended up with the serial killer - Rodney Alcala, who would later go on to be caught and eventually die in prison.

The movie has been rightfully lauded for its keen examination of the intersection between systemic misogyny and violence; even if there wasn't a serial killer in the middle of it all, the movie serves as a pretty powerful reminder of just how much more sexism there was in the 70s.


https://seefilm.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/goodrich.jpg

Goodrich
2.5


Goodrich is the kind of movie that is seldom seen in theaters anymore - in more ways than one, it's kind of a throwback to the 1990s.

This is the kind of bittersweet family drama that used to pop up pretty regularly at the cineplex some decades ago; maybe it's not a coincidence that the movie is just as devoid of diversity as most of the movies of the 90s were.

With those reservations aside, it's kind of a pleasant look at the challenges faced by the upper-class folks of Los Angeles - Keaton plays the owner of an art gallery that has seen better days; Mila Kunis plays his older daughter, who is about to have her first baby (which will make Keaton's character a grandpa).

There's a few other complications, which mostly don't amount to much, and a few younger kids who will keep things moderately entertaining. The supporting cast includes Kevin Pollack, Andie MacDowell and Laura Benanti.

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMzE1NjUyYmMtZWZjNC00OTY3LWJjNDYtZDY2NDBkYzA4NGJjXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg


1st Rewatch...This lovely Australian export is about a recent high school graduate named Kol who is confused about his sexuality and is preparing for a dance competition with his BFF, a girl named Ebony. A couple of hours before the competition, Kol gets a call from a wasted Ebony asking him to come pick her up. Kol doesn't have a car but he does manage get hold of Ebony's brother who agrees to pick up his sister, but on the ride to get Ebony, Kol and Adam find themselves instantly attracted to each other but afraid to make a move. I love this movie because the camera has to tell the majority of the story because the three principals can't really be honest in front of each other about what's going on. I love the scene where Kol and Adam finally have a moment alone where Kol needs to change his shirt and they are both dying for the other one to make the first move. I was also impressed with the 11-year time jump in the story where Kol and Adam are apart and Kol is now an out and proud gay man. Needless to say Brokeback Mountain fans will have a head start here. 4.5

[Gideon58]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/X_%282022_film%29.jpeg


1s Rewatch...A gory and tasteless so-called erotic thriller that goes completely off the rails into some really disgusting territory. The film follows a group of youong filmmakers who arrive at a farm they have rented to make a porn movie called The Farmer's Daughter and what happens when the elderly couple who own the farm find out exactly what these people are doing. The film has an interesting twist from the standard horror movie as it tries to equate pornography with sin, but then it moves into so many disgusting directions that it's actually difficult to keep your eyes on the screen. Preferred the sequel Pearl. 2.5

[Gideon58]

https://filmartgallery.com/cdn/shop/products/Auntie-Mame-Vintage-Movie-Poster-Original-Half-sheet-22x28-4721.jpg?v=1675889976


3rd Rewatch...Rosalind Russell's dazzling, Oscar-nominated performance is the heart of this 1958 Best Picture nominee. Based on a book by Patrick Dennis that was then turned into a play, this is the story of an eccentric Greenwich Village kook whose world is changed when she becomes the guardian of her 12 year old nephew, Patrick. This episodic comedy provides solid laughs fromopening to closing credits thanks primarily to Russell, who, for my money turns in the performance of her career here. Love the opening party scene, Mame's adventures as an actress and a switchboard operator and the absolutely hialrious finale where she sticks it to Patrick's fiancee's upppity parents. This film actually broaches some daring subject matter for 1958, like racism and pregnancy without marriage but it is all approached in the name of humor. Coral Browne is roll on the floor funny as Mame's BFF Vera Charles as is 60's game show maven Peggy Cass as Mame's secretary Agnes Gooch, a performance which earned Cass a Best Supporting Actress. Also loved Fred Clark, delightful as always as the banker in charge of Patrick's money and the voice of Edwin Dennis, reciting his final wishes for Patrick, is the voice of Morton Da Costa, the director. A classic that still holds up effortlessly. Of course, eighjt years later, the story came to Broadway as a musical with Angela Lansbury playing Mame and another eight years later, a dreadful film version was released with Lucille Ball inheriting the lead.4.5

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81cVb2hSqeL._AC_UF350,350_QL50_.jpg

Umpteenth Rewatch...One of my first exposures to Bette Davis when I was a kid , this is the second film where she played twin sisters, But unlike A Stolen Life, one sister murders the other and spends the rest of the movie impersonating her sister. This is campy fun with Davis doing her accustomed scenery chewing, especially, the few remarkable scenes where sisters Margaret and Edith appear together. My favorite plot twist in the movie is that Margaret's dog couldn't stand her, but for some reason he loves Edith. Appointment viewing for Davis fans. 4

[Tcrum]

Cobweb 2023 Amazing for the first hour plus, the end brought it down for me 7.5/10

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/It%27s_What%27s_Inside_poster.jpg
By Netflix - http://www.impawards.com/2024/its_whats_inside.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77972755

It's What's Inside - (2024)

I won't go into what this is all about because I think it's best left to the viewer to discover - suffice to say I was thinking "oh, okay" once it was revealed, but that feeling suddenly transformed to "Oh, HELL!" once a certain event takes place and puts the cat amongst the pigeons. There's a complexity to this that the film goes to great lengths to try and help us with, and for the most part it really works. So vague - I know - but just know that this is a very clever and original "things get completely out of control" movie that's set to become one of the surprises of the year. A must see.

8/10

https://i.postimg.cc/NFbVsT1z/casa.jpg
By Bill Gold - https://www.hometheaterseattle.com/Casablanca-1942-Movie-Poster_p_160.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25315862

Casablanca - (1942)

Way back when I watched this for the first time it became the oldest movie that I really fell in love with at first sight (I think currently the winner is The Passion of Joan of Arc - released in 1928.) A love story amidst a potpourri of gangsters, Nazis, corrupt officials, resistance figures, crooks, the desperate and Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) - a heroic figure that for the moment has become self-centered and numbed because of a broken heart, and runs a café/nightclub in a city just out of reach of the Second World War, but close enough to feel it. Then in walks Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) - the woman who broke it, fate-bound and with her freedom fighter husband. Who couldn't love that? All the ingredients are there for endless intrigue, which play out in a very enjoyable cut-throat, romantic, and exciting style. I needn't say much more - Casablanca is still one of the most famous films in the world over 80 years after it's release.

10/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Hellboy_poster.jpg
By http://www.impawards.com/2004/hellboy_ver2.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=898987

Hellboy - (2004)

If forced to take a dozen comic book movies with me to a desert island, Hellboy and it's sequel would probably be two I'd bring with me. I think various characters are well fleshed out, and the production design and special effects absolutely magnificent. The surgically mangled, clockwork-operated Kroenen is a fascinating villain, and the various monsters in this are great (something the second Hellboy film actually improved upon.) Ron Perlman proves he was born to take on this role by giving his gung-ho half-demon a tortured kind of teenage angst feel and playing him in a very laconic style. Seems Guillermo del Toro was the perfect kind of filmmaker to pull this off (twice).

8/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/The_Accidental_Soldier.jpg
By Goalpost Pictures - https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Soldier-Dan-Spielman/dp/B00KRAXFJQ#immersive-view_1546096042454, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59514956

An Accidental Soldier - (2013)

This turned into a pretty sweet love story about an Australian soldier on the front lines in France during the Second World War who deserts and finds refuge in a French lady's house - neither of them speak the same language, and at times their relationship is fractious, but eventually this shy outcast (a 35-year-old virgin) and older woman (mid 50s maybe) develop an abiding love for each other. Can their love survive the constant threat of discovery? For a television movie this was really well shot, and well written as well - it was filmed close to where I live.

7/10

[iluv2viddyfilms]

Pathfinder (1987) - C+

[Fabulous]

The Birth of a Nation (1915)

4

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/qha83S6AjcUIj4F86cM8UqJVcSl.jpg

[Corax]

Hellboy: The Crooked Man

https://static1.moviewebimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/hellboy-the-crooked-man-poster.jpg

OK, it's not a good film. It's not really well acted and the production quality isn't great. That stated, there is something about the style and mythology in this one that I liked. The "vibe" they were going for was interesting. I want to like the movie. It feels like a bit of a rough draft or a student film. I think I like it despite its flaws. Not quite a guilty pleasure (as I don't know that I enjoyed it all that much), but there is something that I appreciated about it.

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjA5Mzg4NDk2OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwODk5MzU5._V1_.jpg



1st Rewatch...My first rewatch since I saw this on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies when I was five years old. The final film of director Frank Capra, this film is a remake of a 1933 comedy called Lady for a Day, which finds Glenn Ford playing a gangster with a heart named Dave the Dude, who every day purchases an apple from a peddler named Apple Annie (Bette Davis) because he thinks are apples bring him luck. One day, Dave can't find Annie and when he track her down he finds her in a drunken stupor and learns that she's hysterical because her daughter, Louise, who has been living overseas, i coming to visit for a week and she's going to find out that Annie is not the woman Annie has been pretending to be in her letters. With the aide of Dave's mistress, Queenie Martin (Hope Lange), Annie is cleaned up and set up in an elegant Manhattan penthouse with a fake husband (Thomas Mitchell) to fool Louise while she's here. The screenplay is a little long winded, making the film about 30 minutes longer than it needs to be, but the performances are so on taget you almost don't notice. I have never enjoyed Ford or Lange more than in this movie and Davis is charming and heartbreaking as Apple Annie...watch her when she marches into that hotel to get her letter from Louise or that scene where Dave is trying to get her to explain her predicament. There is an amazing supporting cast that includes Sheldon Leonard, Arthur O'Connell, Edward Everett Horton, Mickey Shaughnessy, Jerome Cowan, and Jay Novello b ut towering above them all and practically stealing the movie is Peter Falk as Dave the Dude's stooge, Joy Boy, a performance so on target that it earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. ANd if you don't blink, you'll catch brief appearances from two cast members of the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie...Hayden Roarke (Dr. Bellows) and Barton MacLane (General Petersen). 4

[*Sky*]

Touch of Evil (1958) - Orson Welles: 6/10

[Fabulous]

Saint Jack (1979)

3.5

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/vWwaNTA7IQsyB9SOKGXXhpdYZy5.jpg

[Robert the List]

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) 9.5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qFiw5VtmyI
I think this has to be my favourite silent movie.
I know it wasn't silent but from a similar era, I don't know how people rate M higher than this.
I know M has some new techniques, but this has some incredible shots, and the walking on the ceiling I have no idea how they did it even today!
A fantastic soundtrack added in 1999 as well. Perfect.
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[matt72582]

Wise Blood - 8/10
3rd time watching this last night since I can't think of any movie to see.. Still good, and I was able to go and make fun, etc..


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/01/Wise_Blood_poster.jpg

[Gideon58]

https://www.movieforums.com/community/attachment.php?attachmentid=52933


Vicky Cristina Barcelona

7/10 I saw it as an almost anti-romance movie, quirky and a must see even if just for the location. Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are magnificent as always.

Hated this movie…still can’t believe Cruz won an Oscar for it.

[Nausicaä]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/72/Brothers_2024_film_poster.jpg/220px-Brothers_2024_film_poster.jpg

3

SF = Zzz

Viewed: Amazon Prime



[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it

[ueno_station54]

https://a.ltrbxd.com/resized/film-poster/1/0/0/2/1/2/2/1002122-stay-out-of-the-basement-0-2000-0-3000-crop.jpg?v=6c16ff37a1

Stay Out of the Basement (Ryan Callaway, 2023)

Despite the hilarious poster and an intriguing rating spread on letterboxd, this is actually just competent enough to not be interesting or exude any bad movie charm. Also the movie just kinda stops? like, it hits the end of the second act and then credits roll, lol. Decent vibes and an easy watch i guess but can't say much more in its defense.
rating_2

[iluv2viddyfilms]

8-1/2 (Fellini) - A+

[FilmBuff]

https://www.superherohype.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/07/GSFVhFaXAAEM0jJ.jpg

Watchmen: Chapter 1
2


By now, it seems there have been endless adaptations of Watchmen - first they. made a movie, then they made a limited series, and now... an animated adaptation?

I'm not sure that there was a lot of demand for this, but the entire approach taken by DC Studios recently has been so scattershot, it just seems they're desperately throwing stuff at the wall, just to see if anything sticks.

The latest is an animated adaptation that has been split into two parts - the second one is to be released around Thanksgiving. Personally, I think it would have been a lot better from the viewer's perspective if the whole thing had been released all at once.

There are too many plot lines that get started here and obviously, no resolution for any of them. The voices are OK and the animation is, at best, serviceable.

The only real question that remains is, of course, after the animated version, will we have seen the last of the Watchmen adaptations?

[iluv2viddyfilms]

Ordet - A+

[PHOENIX74]

https://i.ibb.co/XZf6RkB/Solitude.jpg
By May be found at the following website: http://www.movieposterdb.com/poster/0228084c, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28990670

The Solitude of Prime Numbers - (2010)

This Italian movie was a welcome change of pace - if you love strange people and underdogs, take a look at the intersecting lives of Alice (Alba Rohrwacher) and Mattia (Luca Marinelli). Their parents just wish they were normal, and their idiosyncrasies make them targets as far as their childhood peers go - but this story follows them (in a non-chronological way) through childhood and into adulthood (to the point where three actors were needed for each character.) Mattia, who cuts himself, has a revelation for us and Alice about his past, towards the end of the film, that's absolutely mind-blowing - and even though he's a non-communicative outcast, he's scholastically talented enough to do well in life financially, if not socially. Alice sets her sights on him in high school, and never gives up on her hopes for a romantic relationship, even when the two form an especially close friendship that lasts through the years. It's a relationship and twin lives that make for an interesting narrative, and a couple of winsome performances. The second film I've seen in under a week that makes prominent use of the song "Yes Sir I Can Boogie"

7/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c4/Last_kiss_movie_poster.jpg
Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5854557

The Last Kiss - (2006)

Michael (Zach Braff) is living the perfect life, with his three best friends still a tight-knot group, and his loved and loving girlfriend, Jenna (Jacinda Barrett) just announcing that she's having a baby. Still - it all seems like his future holds no surprises and that terrifies him. When a young woman at a wedding makes advances on him, he makes a fateful decision to see where that might lead. There's nothing new about this narratively or the way everything is presented, and there's even a whiff of misogyny (for the most part there's a semblance of balance) in this remake of Italian comedy L' Ultimo Bacio. That said, there's an underlying maturity to the proceedings that saves what might have been not worth the effort, and despite some really iffy moments I can't bring myself to come down too hard on The Last Kiss, because there's a lot that's good about it. Temptation mixed with uncertainty is a recipe for disaster.

6/10

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/America%2C_America_poster.jpg
Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7036756

America America - (1963)

Hardly any of this movie is set in the United States, but at the same time it's one of the greatest exponents of the U.S. because of what Stavros Topouzoglou's (Stathis Giallelis) journey from Ottoman Turkey to New York represents. Full review here (https://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=2498897#post2498897), in my watchlist thread.

8/10

[Fabulous]

Fat Man & Little Boy (1989)

4

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/a9in0AcmuHD5w6Fptz6pvj59LEG.jpg

[Sedai]

Only got two in this weekend.

Poltergeist
Hooper, 1982

4

https://bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Poltergeist-e1554900351669.jpg

I had it in my head that last time I had watched this, which was years ago, that it had gotten sort of long in the tooth, and its time had passed. Not sure why, because this is still a pretty effective horror flick.

There are a few effects that are looking pretty dated, but I think most of them still work fairly well. There are several excellent sequences, and the pacing of the film is pretty much perfect. The final shot still left me with a smile, as well.

Yep - it's a classic.


Poltergeist II - The Other Side
Miller, 1986

1_5

https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Julian-Beck-as-Reverend-Kane-in-Poltergeist-2.jpg

Sadly, this is most certainly not a classic. Aside from a memorable turn as Kane by Julian Beck, this film now comes across more as an unintentional comedy these days. There are a couple of absolutely laugh out loud scenes, and I am pretty sure that was not the aim. I don't think Miller understood what made the first film work, both in tone and performance.

That said, this film was allegedly victim of the continued Poltergeist Curse, a curse that has been explored on shows such as E:True Hollywood Story and the like. Cast deaths, sickness, random disasters and the inexplicable choices made by crew, such as using actual cadavers in scenes containing dead bodies(!!!). Considering all that, I guess we were lucky to see the film at all.

[iluv2viddyfilms]

Vampyr (1932, Dreyer) - A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDXPWv4Gqsw

[Raven73]

I.S.S.
7/10.
A tense thriller that shares some similarties with Crimson Tide, but it's set in space.

https://resizing.flixster.com/wmlewPLx9wTithSYYKM57GH_RsA=/fit-in/705x460/v2/https://resizing.flixster.com/-XZAfHZM39UwaGJIFWKAE8fS0ak=/v3/t/assets/p26238249_v_v10_ag.jpg

[Stirchley]

101622

Not a bad movie. I did finish it. Hartnett made the movie - he was very good. Director’s daughter is in the movie and, very strangely, she looks like an A.I.

High budget movie for sure, but money wasted in the making of IMO.

Amusing to see Hayley Mills in a minor rôle. I didn’t even know she’s still around.

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81rYdwSOLiL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg



4th Rewatch...This overly cutesy and contrived rom-com grows a little more tiresome with each rewatch.. Jennifer Lopez plays Mary, a wedding planner who is absolutely amazing at her job but goes home every night to an empty apartment, eats takeout, watches Antiques Roadshow and is in a scrabble club with her father. Shortly after getting a shot at a wedding that could make her a partner in her business, she meets cute with a handsome doctor (Matthew McConaughey) and, of course, after the immediate sparks between the two, Mary learns that the doctor is the groom in the previously mentioned wedding. This movie is so predictable that you can practically recite the dialogue. McConaughey's doctor is a bit of a dog though...he goes on a date with Mary without mentioning he's engaged. We know where this is going in about 15 minutes long, making for a very long cinematic journey. Lopez and McConaughey both look amazing and there are some great supporting performances including Alex Rocco as Lopez' dad, Charles Kimbrough and Joanna Gleason as the brides' parents, and Justin Chambers, who some might remember as Dr Alex Karev on Grey's Anatomy is beyond adorable as Mary's arranged, old country fiancee, but this movie is still kind of "meh". 2.5

[Gideon58]

https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.5214247249.1094/flat,750x,075,f-pad,750x1000,f8f8f8.jpg


Umpteenth Rewatch...This one is a Halloween tradition for me. Robbed of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1973, this is the story of an actress (Ellen Burstyn) who is destroyed when she learns that her 12 year old daughter (Linda Blair) might be possessed by the devil. This film is more repellent and gory than it is scary, but it is an unprecedented motion picture experience that still can terrify a viewer watching it for the first time. I read a recent unflattering review of this film and they did mention one thing that I have to agree with...the opening scenes in Iraq definitely could have been trimmed, taking a healthy chunk of running time away because the film doesn't really move until they get to Georgetown. William Friedkin's Oscar-nominated direction and Ellen Burstyn's performance are the heart of this film. Burstyn was given a consolation Oscar for the following year for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. The film was nominated for ten Oscars, only winning two, one for William Peter Blatty's screenplay, losing the majority of their nominations to The Sting, which somehow won Best Picture that year? Seriously? 4.5

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91w8chgkk9L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg


4th Rewatch...Have never understood the lack of attention for this smart show biz comedy. Billy Crystal (who also co-wrote the screenplay) plays a press agent whose job depends on if he can get a famous acting team, Eddie Thomas (John Cusack) and Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones) to attend a press junket for their latest film. See, before they completed this last film, they divorced and Gwen is now dating a hot-blooded Spaniard (Hank Azaria). Then there's Kiki (Julia Roberts), Gwen's sister and personal assistant, who has been secretly crushing on Eddie for year. I don't know why I'm the only person on the planet who likes this movie, I think it's really funny full of outrageous physical comedy, mostly courtesy of Crystal and Cusack. There are also a couple of on target supporting turns from Stanley Tucci as the studio head and Christopher Walken as the wigged out director of Eddie and Gwen's movie. I wish people would give this movie a chance. 3.5

[ueno_station54]

https://a.ltrbxd.com/resized/film-poster/9/6/4/4/2/1/964421-tiffany-the-doll-0-2000-0-3000-crop.jpg?v=7aab09fcb4
Tiffany the Doll (Felicia Rivers, 2022)

Yeah its about an army of evil sex dolls. For its budget range the performances are actually not bad and there's some fun moments throughout but i do wish there was more to the kills. Also the second tubi movie in a row that just ended out of nowhere lmao.
rating_2_5

[Allaby]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91w8chgkk9L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg


4th Rewatch...Have never understood the lack of attention for this smart show biz comedy. Billy Crystal (who also co-wrote the screenplay) plays a press agent whose job depends on if he can get a famous acting team, Eddie Thomas (John Cusack) and Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones) to attend a press junket for their latest film. See, before they completed this last film, they divorced and Gwen is now dating a hot-blooded Spaniard (Hank Azaria). Then there's Kiki (Julia Roberts), Gwen's sister and personal assistant, who has been secretly crushing on Eddie for year. I don't know why I'm the only person on the planet who likes this movie, I think it's really funny full of outrageous physical comedy, mostly courtesy of Crystal and Cusack. There are also a couple of on target supporting turns from Stanley Tucci as the studio head and Christopher Walken as the wigged out director of Eddie and Gwen's movie. I wish people would give this movie a chance. 3.5

I enjoyed this one too. It's funny and the cast is great. It's definitely underrated.

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTUzOTg0MDEwOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTg1OTM2MQ@@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg


1st Rewatch...Director Hector Babenco gets the lion's share of the credit for this meticulously crafted blend of political drama and romantic fantasy that I enjoyed more on this rewatch. Set in a South American prison, we meet two very different men who are sharing a cell. Luis (William Hurt) is a gay man who is in jail for sexual misconduct with a teenage male. Valentine (Raul Julia ) is a political prisoner who is being held because of certain information he is believed to have but won't disclose. We watch as the two men pass time in their cell with Luis telling Valentine about a favorite movie of his that he's actually making up. Despite their differences, the story gets a little cringy with a sexual tension that is developing between the two men despite the fact hat Valentine is straight, We also drawn into the full production of Luis' movie being created in front of us in gorgeous black and white with lavish production values shockingly contrasting with the bleakness of the jail cell, but as the film moves toward the halfway point, we learn there is so much more going on here than a possible affair between two male prisoners. Babenco's attention to the look of this film is unprecedented, as well as the two performances by Hurt and Julia in the starring roles. Hurt won the Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actor that year and Julia won the Golden Globe for Outstanding Actor in a Drama. An intense and moving drama that provides surprises along the way. Actually turned into a Broadway musical many years later, but I say, stick to the original. 4.5

[Gideon58]

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNTBkNTYwZTctOTgxYS00ZmIyLTgzNDAtODJhZjg2MDUwNmFlXkEyXkFqcGc@._V1_.jpg


2nd Rewatch...The Scorsese/De Niro team up again for this somewhat effective remake of the 1962 classic. De Niro plays Max Cady, an ex-con who is released from prison after 14 years and wastes no time in going after his attorney (Nick Nolte), who Cady believes dropped the ball on his case. Despite a bone-chilling performance from De Niro that earned him a sixth Oscar nomination, I have trouble getting behind this version of the film because, except for Max Cady, the rest of the characters in the movie are made to look like freaking idiots, not a brain anywhere in sight. That scene at the school with De Niro and Oscar nominee Juliette Lewis is still one of the cringiest movie scenes ever made. 3.5

[FilmBuff]

https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/21upgpgdh32RxE85oAZOue4VVH5.jpg

Happiest Season
3.5


I decided to get a jump on the holiday-themed fare, and Happiest Season seemed like the ideal place to start - a cynic might say this movie is just a lot like the typical Christmas-set movie, but, my goodness - what a cast!

A lot of my favorite actors are in the movie - Mackenzie Davis, Kristen Stewart, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Steenburgen, Alison Brie, Daniel Levy... and they even got Victor Garber to play the cranky old dad!

With a cast like that, and a rainbow-themed story, it's hard to find anything to dislike about Clea DuVall's second directing outing. Sure, it has the same weak spots as most holiday movies, and the characters here don't sound anything like real people. And it is a bit uneven when it comes to balancing the moments of broad comedy with the "serious" and dramatic ones.

Having said that, you could do a lot worse with the holiday fare that's out there. I'm very surprised this hasn't already become a season classic!

P.S. I am seriously thinking about importing the Australian blu-ray of this movie, which is supposed to have some deleted scenes and a gag reel!

[Thursday Next]

1st Rewatch...Director Hector Babenco gets the lion's share of the credit for this meticulously crafted blend of political drama and romantic fantasy that I enjoyed more on this rewatch. Set in a South American prison, we meet two very different men who are sharing a cell. Luis (William Hurt) is a gay man who is in jail for sexual misconduct with a teenage male. Valentine (Raul Julia ) is a political prisoner who is being held because of certain information he is believed to have but won't disclose. We watch as the two men pass time in their cell with Luis telling Valentine about a favorite movie of his that he's actually making up. Despite their differences, the story gets a little cringy with a sexual tension that is developing between the two men despite the fact hat Valentine is straight, We also drawn into the full production of Luis' movie being created in front of us in gorgeous black and white with lavish production values shockingly contrasting with the bleakness of the jail cell, but as the film moves toward the halfway point, we learn there is so much more going on here than a possible affair between two male prisoners. Babenco's attention to the look of this film is unprecedented, as well as the two performances by Hurt and Julia in the starring roles. Hurt won the Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actor that year and Julia won the Golden Globe for Outstanding Actor in a Drama. An intense and moving drama that provides surprises along the way. Actually turned into a Broadway musical many years later, but I say, stick to the original. 4.5


I really liked Kiss of the Spiderwoman. I read the book recently but I think it works better as a film, because it's films he is describing and it's just better seeing those play out visually. There's also the figure of the Spiderwoman herself who is more of a presence in the film.

[Gideon58]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/Brothers_2024_film_poster.jpg


3

[Gideon58]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/72/Brothers_2024_film_poster.jpg/220px-Brothers_2024_film_poster.jpg

3

SF = Zzz

Viewed: Amazon Prime



[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it

Just watched this a couple of hours ago and gave it the same rating you did.

[Robert the List]

The Sweet Smell of Success 8.25
It passed the time nicely, and was in places beautiful to look at.
To me it's more of a cult film though than a real great. It kept reminding me in some ways of Touch of Evil, but not quite as effective (wouldn't surprise me at all if someone important worked on both films?).
It seemed prime material for a spoof, and seemed to me to take itself a bit too seriously. I didn't think it strung together all that well at times. For the first half hour or more I didn't really know what was going on, or even what type of film it was trying to be. It also seemed to rely quite a bit on some contemporary gangster cliches and street words, which didn't really give it the sincere kind of realism I think it was striving for.
It was well into the movie before I realised the serious gangster character that Lancaster's part was supposed to be.
Decent entertainment though, and some lovely camerawork. Glad I watched it.
I think it's the first time I've seen Curtis in a completely straight role (except for the prison escape movie), and I thought he did a good job.

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[iluv2viddyfilms]

Only Angels Have Wings (1939, Howard Hawks) - A

[iluv2viddyfilms]

Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, Jacques Demy) - A+

[Midnight FM]

Kiss the Girls - 5/10

[PHOENIX74]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/17/Smile_2_%282024%29_poster.jpg
By Temple Hill Entertainment / Paramount Pictures - IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77176410

Smile 2 - (2024)

I had to really grit my teeth before watching this, because I've been let down badly by sequels over the years (the last time only a few weeks ago when I went to see the second Joker movie - which was bad in almost every way it could be.) Fortunately, this is a "if you liked the first one" kind of movie - which I guess doesn't bode well for those who hated the first Smile, but I doubt they'd be rushing to see this anyway. It delivers what the first film did - only a little more so, and a little harder and faster. No surprise really - that's something you learn in Sequels 101 at college - more of everything. You'd have to have lived in a cave not to know that this time the smiley-suicide demon latches on to pop star Skye Riley (a fabulous Naomi Scott) - which allows for many unique and spectacular set-pieces. I had a great time watching this, but at the same time I felt a little empty when it ended - there's nothing new in this one, although it does end in a kind of apocalyptic fashion, and it relies very heavily on massive jump scares (which are effective nonetheless.) When Smile came along I kind of liked what a lot of people hated about it - the way it's a pastiche of all the successful horror trends in the past decade or two. It's a little bit of Drag Me to Hell, a bit of It Follows and a bit of Sinister and The Ring - along with many others. I think that's a little commercial and a tad cynical, but I also saw it in a theater full of screaming people which was a terrific blast. I had a blast watching part 2 as well, so although it may well be horror junk food, I ate it with relish regardless and now I just hope that the third chapter goes for broke like they seem to be promising at the end of this.

7.5/10

[I_Wear_Pants]

I've watched Sweet Smell of Success a handful of times, and it gets better every time. I love the film to pieces. Now I want to watch it again... It's one of my favorites.

I watched Lady Beware this afternoon. It's really good. Ginger Rogers plays something of an heiress who is connected as a relative of victims of a murderous plot. I watched it on Tubi if you're interested. I'm in the middle of Kangaroo on Tubi right now. I need to get back to it.

I'm going to have to check out Smile 1 and 2. I keep reading positive things about them so I am succumbing to my curiosity. No one strong-armed me into watching them. I am just keen on my own.