Rate The Last Movie You Saw

And Justice for All (1979)

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3889172

Porco Rosso - (1992) - Japan

I thought this was endearing and full of great humour. The world Porco Rosso lives in is one where noble people rescue damsels in distress, but treat their enemies with as much consideration. When a group of air-pirates kidnap a group of children, the kids have the time of their life, and comically banter. When Rosso rescues them he makes sure the pirates won't go out of business or lose their sea plane. That's the kind of movie this is and it feels good to live in such a world for 94 minutes.

Rosso (who at some stage has been transformed into an anthropomorphic pig) is part Sam Spade, part Indiana Jones and part Baron von Richthofen. His dry humour, bravery, confidence and morality infect the very world constructed around him. I think people who aren't even into Japanese animation would be hard pressed not to enjoy this.

8/10


Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17682916

Vampyr - (1932) - Germany/France

Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr is a haunting, surreal dream - although there is a narrative to it. It's amongst the very best the genre has to offer - and I find myself wondering if there are people out there today, brave enough to produce something like this. Maybe David Lynch, once. Surrealism is often underrated - but even when it's just to service a dream sequence as a small part of a film, it's often undercut when it's too logical and/or understandable. Vampyr dares to go beyond all of that and leave a trail of fascinating questions and conjecture.

9/10

BLADE RUNNER 2049 SPOILERS BELOW!!!:


What, you didn't feel anything for them in this scene?:



Because damn, that's kind of cold...While I haven't seen Whiplash yet, I do agree with you that I'm tired of people willfully misintrepreting movies, and assuming that just because it shows a character doing something or advocating for a particular worldview, that automatically means that the film is endorsing that particular kind of behavior or mindset; it's how we get people acting like The Last Jedi contradicts its "message" that you should let the past die (when that philosophy is held by the main villain of the movie), or that First Man holds an overly downbeat attitude towards the quest to land on the moon just because Armstrong's wife expressed something to that effect once. It's like, a movie can show something without trying to straight-up endorse it, guys.

Would you care to demonstrate SpelingError's "willful" misinterpretation? It's one thing to disagree with someone's take on a film, but it's a more serious accusation to impune their motives for it.

Agreed in principle. Disagreed with the Last Jedi example. The film contradicts ANY potential theme it could have and builds that one up through the villain (Kylo), fallen hero (Luke) and voice of reason (Yoda) only to do nothing with it. Other themes like "protect what you love" from Rose/Finn are contradicted directly by their own actions and the actions of others (Holdo's flight). Poe seems to only learn a lesson about blindly following orders? And the theme about helping the helpless on the casino planet contradicts the entire conflict of both Poe and Finn's conflict. It's a film that contradicts itself to the point of having no theme at all.

It definitely depicts things though. That it does.

Ok, well, we just disagree on these points, which is fine. You can watch your version and I'll watch mine.

Interesting. I find Shlesinger to be very sharp.

Really love this movie.

Obviously that's the scene in the whole movie that has a bit of resonance... but it's in a bit of a vacuum.

Sol Madrid (1968)
Directed by Brian G. Hutton
Starring David McCallum, Stella Stevens, Telly Savalas, Ricardo Montalban

Pretty decent Friday night entertainment. David McCallum is generally kicking ass as the undercover cop, thwarting Telly Savalas' drug dealing operation and taking names with gusto. Poor Stella is a victim but gets saved in the end. All good fun.

6/10

Story of a young Jewish kid in Poland who escapes the Germans at the beginning of WW2, lands in a Soviet orphanage where they try to start to teach him all their BS, is later captured by the Germans, who find him useful as a translator on the front lines, he becomes an accidental war hero and then gets shipped off to join the Hitler Youth where they teach him all their BS. He does all this while obviously trying to conceal the fact that he is Jewish, which gets increasingly difficult especially when he falls for an attractive German girl who is all in with the Nazi ideology. There are some pretty infuriating scenes and a lot of them are in the classrooms. Very good movie

GENERAL SPOILERS FOR WHIPLASH YA'LL

I haven't seen either Midsommar or Phantom Thread, so I can't speak to those comparisons.

But you say "Great art IS often created via horrible abuses and conditions". I totally agree!

But what I take some issue with is, again, I think that the depiction in Whiplash is more of a trial-by-fire scenario where the hero comes out of the experience better and stronger. Yes, there has been sacrifice and loss along the way, but in the final moments, we get the sense that the main character is exactly where he wants to be and that we should be celebrating along with him. That last part is where I have mixed feelings. And maybe this comes down to personal viewpoint. Maybe you watched the movie and at the end the feeling you had was, "Dude, that was NOT worth it." But that's not where I felt the film pushing me.

Again, I don't think that the film is so simple as to be explicitly endorsing abusive teaching methods. But the way that the character of Fletcher is used, he basically becomes the monster to be slain by the main character and that final concert is their ultimate arena. It is the strength and determination of the main character that sees him through to the end, and I go back to having really mixed feelings about what that says about someone who died of suicide after similar treatment, ie if they had been talented/driven enough, they would have also been refined by the process.

I think that dangerous/abusive/unhealthy situations can make people stronger. And everyone loves a story where someone overcomes those obstacles (like rising above poverty to become a judge or making it out of an abusive home). But I think that such stories risk romanticizing the process by downplaying the human cost of the people who don't make it through (and end up in jail or dead or addicted to drugs or never escape the cycle of abusive relationships, etc).

So it's not so much that I see the film endorsing the teaching methods as I see it romanticizing the experience of enduring and triumphing over them.

Vampires vs the Bronx, 2020

Three friends living in the Bronx--Miguel (Jaden Michael), Bobby (Gerald Jones III), and Luis (Gregory Diaz IV)--are alarmed when a new real estate firm begins buying up buildings left and right in their neighborhood. Soon coming to suspect that the new interlopers have a lot more on their mind than gentrification, the boys set out to defend their territory from a vampire menace.

I won't lie--part of my interest in this film came out of the weird little downvote campaign on IMDb (5% give it a 1/10? Really?). The movie turns out to be exactly what you'd expect--a fun little romp with shades of Attack the Block and People Under the Stairs.

I read a few remarks about how comparing vampirism to gentrification was hateful toward white people. But I think that the film isn't even equating the two. It's more that gentrification provides a cover for the vampires to infiltrate the neighborhood. While it generates some good laughs ("White people holding canvas tote bags are always the first sign" one boy glumly notes, looking at an artist depiction of a renovated building), the film ends up with a bit of a muddled message. The vampires repeatedly state that they like living somewhere that people can disappear and no one really does anything about it . . . but if they start to move a richer, more powerful class of people into the neighborhood, they will lose their hunting ground.

Fortunately, the logic gaps don't make too big of a dent because the film is mostly after a fun time and it succeeds on that front. The three stars are charismatic, and they are well supported by an adult cast--especially The Kid Mero as Tony, the owner of the local bodega--that gives the neighborhood some texture and provides some strong line deliveries. ("Those little sh*ts stole my Sprite!" gripes Method Man as the local preacher, after the boys take soda bottles to steal holy water).

And while I felt that some of the gentrification stuff was a bit muddled, I did appreciate the way that the film drew parallels between the strategies used by the vampires and the strategies used by the local drug dealers--both use a mix of bribery and intimidation to get the residents to do what they want. There's also interesting to note that the police shown in the film, also used by the real estate firm, are both Black. There are some interesting observations about race and power and systems, and I wish that they came together in a more coherent way instead of more isolated moments of insight.

The film is littered with visual gags and other references to vampire films and mythology. (The real estate firm is Murnau Enterprises; Luis reads Salem's Lot in an early scene, and there is a direct Nosferatu homage as a shadow advances on a character). These are fun, but at times they have the effect of reminding you of better vampire movies. The final showdown is okay (and there's a great visual gag as two girls obliviously walk through the confrontation with their eyes firmly on their cell phones), but it lacks a bit of heft. The vampires are taken down way too easily.

Overall a fun little horror-comedy and the kind of movie that might be good especially for someone who is like 8-10 years old and wanting to watch "horror" that isn't too intense.

I mean, I wasn't deliberately misinterpreting the film. I'll concede that my reading of the film wasn't correct, but I wasn't self-aware of this at the time I discussed the film. That was genuinely what I thought at the time.

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

あなたにゐてほしい~SOAR~ [SOAR: I Wish You Were Here] (2015) -







Whispering of trees
a fairy of my dearest
appears in sunlight







Tradition and modernity. Trees and films. Film and digital. Villages and cities. A forest fairy and a soaring cat. A woman who lost her beloved to the war resolves to realize her fiancée's dream. As Japan enters the post-war era, everything seems to be in danger. Spelling, nature, the village, memories. But this clash of the old and the new is inevitable. Longing for the past while wondering what the future will bring. What would I be doing now if I was alive? A tree is a calm observer of us, humans, and it was here long before film. Tree rings work like film reels. Now if only they could talk and share their wisdom. Instead, they whisper. Can you hear their voice? Will the children of tomorrow hear these whispers? A foundling is a realized dream of an unrealized life. Time passes. All things must pass. The antenna on top of a mountain. A Moonlight Man carries his dad. Thank you, daddy. Now I can't even remember your shadow. Anything can't change and nothing can change. You mean the world to me.

__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

Cruella (2021)

A Quiet Place Part II (2020-2021)

The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

Good on Paper (2021)

The Ice Road (2021)

I wasn't specifically accusing SE of misintrepreting Whiplash, because, again, I haven't seen it yet; that's why I went into the tangent about the other movies I mentioned, Mr. Instigator.

If it helps, it's still pretty close to my reading of the film. *shrug*

Yeah, but I feel like you guys are better at discussing this than I am, so I don't know lol

There is nothing wrong with your interpretation of it. Everyone sees films differently.