Rate The Last Movie You Saw

By May be found at the following website: http://www.banksyfilm.com/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27515445

Exit Through the Gift Shop - (2010)

Thierry Guetta is a somewhat obsessive fellow who followed street artists around filming what they did for a long time - and eventually tried his hand at it, lamely copying what they were doing but making a fortune. This documentary follows his path. After Searching for Sugarman I'm wary of being totally fooled by documentaries that bend the truth. Guetta (otherwise known as Mr. Brainwash) may simply be a construct of the artist known as 'Banksy' - but overall this doc shows us that people can be so easily fooled by crap and knock-offs that any artistic appraisal you give to anything should come with questions - always questions. I was on Guetta's side all the way until he decided to mindlessly copy other artists and sell his works for ridiculously large sums of money. When that happened my mind went "ugh".

8/10


By Sony Pictures Releasing - http://www.impawards.com/2019/beauti...ghborhood.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61900962

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood - (2019)

I got two conflicting things out of this film. The first is that Tom Hanks has crossed over into territory where he has the screen presence of a behemoth, and can take real-life characters like Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger or Fred Rogers, inhabit them, then magnify them so they transform ordinary films into noteworthy ones. The other thing is that without Hanks this would be a tired film, relying on well-worn clichés - though I did enjoy the sparkle the Wes Anderson-like toy cities gave it. Is everyone else meant to pale into insignificance next to Hanks as Rogers? Perhaps a little. There could have been something great here, but in the end it was an average film about healing old wounds in a family.

6/10


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Only God Forgives - (2013)

I'm going out on a pretty thin limb here, because this film is rated very poorly by many, but I love Only God Forgives. My reasons for doing so are very spoilerish...



It's a visually splendid film as well. Merciless. Fearless in travelling in a direction that would obviously upset a certain percentage of an audience right off the bat. I enjoy it's subversions, and enjoy watching Vithaya Pansringarm's inscrutable 'Terminator' Chang - the most unusual arbiter of justice I've seen in a film for a long time. In most other films he'd be the villain - a bad cop for a Mel Gibson or Brad Pitt to take down. In this cesspool he's the hero.

Yeah, I know I'm the only person who likes Only God Forgives.

9/10

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I absolutely love Only God Forgives, as well as the vast majority of Refn's output.

Vithaya Pansringarm is also in Ninja: Shadow of a Tear, one of the better DTV action flicks around.

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The Voyeurs (2021)

No. No you're not. I'm also a big fan of Refn's work. You should check out Too Old to Die Young. It's a 10 episode miniseries on Amazon Prime.

Could this poster be any more on the nose? Look, here are the voyeurs... ...they're lookin' in 'yer window, watchin' 'ya copulate!



Why is it that voyeur movies are almost always about people having sex? It's either that or someone is getting killed. Or it's both, as in Body Double where the voyeur tunes in for porn with a telescope and gets snuff instead.



Where are the "slice of life" voyeur films that just show us people learning about other people's lives by peeking in? Surely, there is another way to motivate a "peekaboo premise" than to show us the beast with two backs?

Maybe because it's the (most) common interpretation of the word? Someone who gets their kicks from watching others have sex. I know it has other meanings too, but I'm pretty sure that's the first thing that comes to mind for the majority of people.

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That's a fair cop.

Jurassic World (2015)

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I applaud your tenacity I found it too boring to finish.

Zodiac (2007)--enjoyable procedural with some gorgeous film of San Francisco. It really is beautifully filmed.
I give it 4/5 popcorn boxes and a handful of milk duds.

Close to a masterpiece. Chunks of French new wave. Chunks of Czech New wave. It's a dark, beautiful and graphic foray into the transvestite community in the underbelly of Tokyo's swinging sixties. Some wild editing and photography too.

9.2/10

........................................................................

Very intriguing Kiarostami film. Like a Kieslowski melded with Linklaters before/after trilogy.

7.8/10

The ending's the whole point for the movie. I gave it the same rating. 5.5/10

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The Abominable Dr. Phibes - This 1971 camp horror classic stars Vincent Price and is directed by Robert Fuest. He not only got his start on the seminal British spy series The Avengers but also directed another of my favorite macabre horror flicks The Devil's Rain. That one however was said to have essentially ended his career. That's how bad that supposedly was.

But this one is a decapitated horse of a different color. Price plays Dr. Anton Phibes, a once renowned concert organist. It's set in the 1920's so I suppose organists were the rock stars of their day. The film also makes full use of the period with beautiful art deco sets and designs. Phibes is believed to have died in a car accident while rushing home after hearing of the death of his beloved wife Victoria during a surgical procedure. But he didn't die. He was instead horrifically disfigured and is now busily at work avenging his wife by methodically killing off the team of surgeons and nurses whom he blames for her death. He's set in motion an elaborate plot based on the The Ten Plagues of Egypt where each victim will die in numerical order. Helping him in his quest for vengeance is his beautiful and mute assistant Vulnavia (Virginia North). Joseph Cotten costars as the head of the surgical team and Phibes' final target Dr. Vesalius. Terry-Thomas also appears as smut aficionado Dr. Longstreet.

This has a lurid sort of pulpy vibe that is different than anything that preceded it. Phibes clockwork orchestra, his (and other) vintage vehicles and the wardrobe choices are all part of an elaborate and elegant production design. There's also a 1972 followup titled Dr. Phibes Rises Again and even though it's worth watching it doesn't hit the heights this one does.

85/100

I saw this a couple of months ago and really dug it. It really puts your head in a spin as far as what people call art.

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You are not alone, mon frere, I too love OGF and, honestly, I just can never understand the arguments against it. To me, it is clearly great at being exactly what it is and wants to be, while being something I really like. It's like they made this movie for me. And made it well. And now I know they also made it for you. So, cheers.

This really has become one of my favorites. And Vulnavia has become one of my favorite Horror Henchpersons, if not my No.1.

Les bas-fonds aka The Lower Depths (1936) ++ Jean Renoir once more displays his intrinsic comprehension of life, humanity and the squalid dance we all perform.

Using Maxim Gorky's 1902 play, Renoir - apparently, Akira Kurasawa does the same in his 1957 version, albeit with a more somber tone, which I may have to check out at some point.

For now, I sit entrenched in the fluid mixture of the idyllic and the emotionally corrupt that Renoir seems to weave so beautifully (from my limited yet growing experience of his films) when it comes to the "Lower Depths." Set within a slum and its collection of misfits, unfortunates, and those foolish enough to dream of something more. Along with those quite comfortable to slip deeper and deeper into said depths. It is an entertaining sojourn into both their day-to-day squalor as well as their ash-ridden dreams and inability/fear to pursue them.

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