Rate The Last Movie You Saw

I've seen it so many times I have it memorized but it never stops being terrific.

"Of course she was legitimate-she was my mother! Peaches LaTour was her name..."

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Captain's Log
My Collection

The league of extraordinary gentleman **6.2**

I don’t get the resounding hate for this movie, sure it’s stupid at points. For example how does a massive submarine/ship make it through the tight Venice canals? You can’t complain with the all out action on offer, everything with captain Nemo enticed me I loved his swordplay. There were characters I enjoyed seeing on screen well the characters powers mostly.*

What’s fascinating about it is that Grant thought it was his worst performance and that he went far too over-the-top and always attempted to put blame of Capra for coaxing it out of him and not following through with reshoots after Pearl Harbor.

It’s an odd thing to feel like “well, you’re wrong and I’m glad there weren’t reshoots!” given the context but we could’ve lost an all-time great comedic performance so... thinnest of silver linings?

I haven’t seen a ton of Capra (It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life round out my familiarity with his work). Any of y’all know if this an outlier or does he have others like this that I was under the wrong impression about?

Isn't this the movie that made Sean Connery retire from acting?

LOVED this movie...rated it higher than you did.

I think You Can't Take It With You was good, there's one other I can't remember.

I don’t mean good, I’m a fan of Capra-corn after all. I mean “dark.” It’s Wonderful Life flirts with suicide and heavy concepts but it’s a pretty far cry from a screwball premise tied to a multiple serial killer plot.

Is this his Monsieur Verdoux, an outlier in Chaplin’s work, or does he have a more diverse body of work than I realized?

I've only seen 2-3 more than you and I've never come across a full-on black comedy like this, if that's what you mean. You Can't Take it With You is about a family of eccentrics, so I guess it's the closest to A&OL that I've seen.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

Outlaw of Gor -

In this budget sword-and-sandal tale, our hero - who I'm pretty sure is named Cabot - and his pesky wingman Watney return to Gor and get wrapped up in a betrayal plot. It's watchable, the story makes sense and there are some decent battle scenes, but it's by no means good. The acting and line delivery are miserable - Jack Palance's performance as an evil priest is particularly offensive - the costumes define unintentional comedy, and while I could follow the story, it's one I've heard dozens of times before. Also, there's nothing wrong with a movie having a limited budget, but it's another story when the limitations are on full display. Thrre's one shot, for instance, where we see a modern farmhouse, which stands out quite a bit amongst the ancient Roman...err, Goran marketplace.

Characters say Cabot's name so many times that the movie must break the records set by how many times we hear "Michael" in The Lost Boys and "Rusty James" in Rumble Fish. This is one of the many subjects for riffing in this movie's Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. I also got a good laugh at the riffs about the costumes like Palance's seed pod hat as well as the skit where they read his diary. Like I said, the movie's full of unintentional comedy, so much so that it probably doesn't need to be riffed. Even so, I by no means discourage you from watching this movie with Mike and the bots.

Le Bonheur, 1965

I was incredibly relieved to read someone describe this film as "a horror movie wrapped in sunflowers," because that was how I felt about it and especially as it moved into its shocking final act.

Francois (Jean-Claude Drouot) is happily married to Therese (Claire Drouot), and we meet the couple and their two adorable children on one of their many idyllic picnics to the countryside. Francois lives a straight-forward and comfortable life--he works for his uncle in a wood shop and Therese works as a seamstress. One day, Francois catches sight of the lovely Emilie (Marie-France Boyer) and unhesitatingly embarks on an extra-marital affair with her.

The most fascinating and disturbing thing about this movie is the way that Francois frames his affair to himself and others. There is a sequence of dialogue in the film that contains almost every single red flag for abuse and manipulation. Like the character in the film, you can almost find yourself nodding along as Francois waxes poetic about how love is wonderful so isn't an affair just happiness building on happiness? But the specific language used and the physical actions that go with it tells a different story. As Francois

The ending of the film is, to my mind, truly horrifying. And, as noted in the quote above, it''s this technicolor horror that builds and builds in the last 15 minutes. I love that the film holds things so close to the vest until the end, and I could even see someone walking away from the film being on Francois's side. (I mean, they would be wrong, but I could see it happening.)

Therese and the children are played by Drouot's real-life wife and children, and the natural intimacy and affection that they have with each other plays incredibly well in the film. This especially comes across in the natural way that both of the Drouot's physically handle the children (scooping them up, interacting with them, etc) and there's a lived-in quality that establishes the family dynamic within the first few minutes of the film. It's interesting that only Jean-Claude Drouot is the only family member credited. Despite Therese being a key character, she does not appear in the credits (at least, I didn't see her there and on the IMDb she's listed as "uncredited").

Definitely a must-see.

DA 5 BLOODS (2020)
A war film



I had been meaning to watch this since it was released earlier this year, and it finally came to be. The film follows a group of four aging Vietnam vets that travel back to recover the remains of their squad leader (Chadwick Boseman) as well as a cache of gold they took from a CIA plane. During their journey, various confrontations and issues among them ensue, as well as past regrets and guilt. The main focus falls on Paul (Delroy Lindo), who seems to be the most affected by the war while also seeming to have motivations different than his friends.

Overall, I really liked the film. Director Spike Lee takes his time to set things up during the first half, and is helped by some great performances, most notably Lindo and Jonathan Majors, who plays Lindo's son, David. Boseman's role is a bit limited since we only see him in flashbacks and dream-like sequences, but he does carry that magical and ethereal essence that goes with the character. It also makes it all the more shocking to know that he's not with us anymore. The cast is rounded out by Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr. as the other "Bloods". They're all competent in their performances, but their characters lack the depth and presence of Lindo.

On that same line, I think the film would've benefitted of expanding those characters a bit, particularly Otis (Peters), since he seems to be the focal point of many of the plot devices of the film. I also don't think that the relationship between Paul and David was built that well, despite how good Lindo and Majors were. The way David is pushed into the plot felt a bit clumsy to me, and there was really no build-up to the emotional baggage that comes later.

Regardless of that, Lee does a great job of instilling the film with his accustomed social and racial commentary. Some nods and homages to other films and shows felt too on the nose (particularly the Whitlock "Shiiiiiiett", which really out of place), but ultimately I enjoyed the film a lot.

Grade:

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Just rewatched this for the first time in around 10 years.
From Zero to Hero, Hancock tries to win his haters around.
Some funny moments amongst the action sequences with Theron providing a bit of glamour.
Enjoyable if not an outstanding movie.

7/10

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I really love that one. There are so many themes to unpack from the film since Lee depicts a full picture of all the long-term effects the U.S. had on Vietnam. Here's what I wrote on the film some time back:

https://www.movieforums.com/communit...ad.php?t=62519

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The Wrong Man - #21 of Alfred Hitchcock movies I've seen. Henry Fonda plays Manny Balestrero, a bass fiddle player in the house jazz combo at the Stork Club in NYC. He's a devoted family man, father and husband and church going Catholic. The sh*t hits the fan though when he's tentatively identified as an armed robber. This is different from the usual Hitchcock films which are usually romanticized versions of what Manny ends up going through. The director’s subject matter had dealt a lot with wrongfully accused men (sometime women) who, through sheer grit, determination and blind luck, manage to overcome their predicament before the end credits roll. But this film has an almost cinema verite feel to it as it shows Manny going step-by-step through the onerous bureaucratic process of the accused. It’s almost as if this was Hitchcock’s rebuttal of his previous works. Or maybe an effort at candor because he supposedly felt that reality may often trump whatever Hollywood can come up with. Either way it’s not one of his more accessible films. Whatever dramatic impact is generated springs solely from Hitchcock’s retelling of the actual true story of Manny Balestrero. 90/100

P.S. The parting message flashed onscreen before the end credits seems more like a studio construct than something Hitchcock would do but there’s no way of telling.

I really dug this one. I think that Fonda did great and I love how Hitchcock, who had made a formula out of the wrongly accused man, decided to take it on a more serious and dramatic turn.

I have it at #13 out of 38 on my Hitchcock ranking.

Enjoyed your comments. "Arsenic" is one of my favorites. Here's some of the "Arsenic" portion of a review I did comparing it to His Girl Friday:

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Although Frank Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace does not quite rise to the level of lightning banter as in His Girl Friday, it’s close, and there is plenty of wackiness. It is a black comedy that sports a cast of some of the best in the business: Cary Grant, Jack Carson, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Priscilla Lane, James Gleason, Edward Everett Horton, Josephine Hull, and John Alexander.

Cary Grant again plays a newspaperman, but in this story we don’t see him at the newsroom. He’s just been married, and has taken his bride to visit his elderly aunts in Brooklyn. He discovers to his horror that his aunts have been poisoning old men, and having his crazy brother bury them in the basement. Most of the story is how Grant’s character tries to hide the circumstances from his new wife, all the while dealing with various and sundry relative and other characters who insert themselves into the action. There are numerous hilarious discoveries and send ups which ultimately culminate in a happy ending for all.

There was some criticism that Capra had pushed his actors to go too far “over the top” in their portrayals, especially the Grant and Carson roles. And in fact Capra had intended to go back and soften some of the most embellished scenes. But as the principal photography was winding down, the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor occurred, causing Capra to hurry on to military matters. The movie was not released until 1944.
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Yeah, there's a line towards the end that's more or less said in passing, but it stuck with me so I used on my Letterboxd entry for the film...

I think Vinh says it to Otis towards the end, but it carries that message of the long-term effects of the war. Any war. Like you mention in your review, from the individual baggage in each of the "Bloods", to the impact it has on their children (David and Otis' daughter), to the baggage on the Vietnamese "thugs" that had lost relatives in My Lai or something as seemingly literal as the mines that come back to haunt them.

Even though there are appearances of recovery, which you can see in each of the characters or even the seemingly "booming" city/country, the wounds are still there.

A one location thriller. Basically a middle finger to those people that leave comments on videos of people bullying others in public, with the comment saying something like "If I was there that bully would be dead". This film shows that nearly all of those kinda people are 'all bark, no bite'. It's an incredibly well shot and anxious thriller; the way the suspense comes from people acting in a threatening manner rather than anything violent happening onscreen reminded me alot of 'Funny Games'. I rarely post in this thread anymore, but I've never heard anyone talk about this great film, so I wanted to spread the word a bit (I might nominate it the next time I'm in a Hall of Fame).

I've heard that the Olivia de Havilland film 'Lady in a Cage' has a similar tone and premise, so I'll certainly watch that soon.