Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Look, if I can't trust the opinions of SkeeXDawg95 from 11 years ago, who can I trust?

I hate to break it to you, but I have it on good authority from jizzmop420 that SkeeXDawg95 is basic and not based at all. We’re all heartbroken but with time, wounds will heal and we will be stronger for it.

Sweet Virginia, 2017

Sam Rossi (Jon Bernthal) is a former rodeo champion who now runs a motel and lives with his girlfriend Bernadette (Rosemary DeWitt). When a hired killer named Elwood (Christopher Abbott) comes to town and ends up staying longer than planned, the two men end up on an intersecting path.

This one's been loitering in my Hulu watchlist for quite a while. It was . . . an interesting watch.

To begin with the good, I enjoyed all of the actors: Abbott as the socially awkward, perpetually angry killer brought something a bit different to the hitman character. (Though, honestly, I think that he got a little residual boost from his intensity in Possessor). Bernthal has basically mastered the role of "man who reluctantly engages in violence when pushed to the edge", but he also does well in a handful of scenes with Bernadette's teen daughter, Maggie (Odessa Williams). Imogen Poots only gets a few scenes as Lila, the woman who hired Elwood, but she does a great job conveying someone who has gotten in way over her head.

I also thought that the action sequences were effective, starting with the hitman's actions at the very beginning of the film and especially in two different "home invasion" type scenarios. Abbott's killer oozes the kind of unpredictability and anger that makes any of his scenes incredibly tense.

Finally, I liked the relationship between Sam and Bernadette, both of whom have a trauma in their past that helps bind them to each other. It made me think a little of the relationship dynamic at the beginning of Mandy, and I think that it's a dynamic that justifies the intensity of feeling that we see later in the film. Bernthal and DeWitt have a certain groundedness about them that lends realism to their relationship.

On the down side . . . this movie kind of feels like 20 or so minutes were missing? There's something a bit uneven about the dynamic between Elwood and Sam. It's like the film begins to set something up and then skips the middle bit and goes straight to the end. The pace of the last 30 minutes came off a bit odd to me.

I also didn't quite know what to make of a subplot about Sam trying and failing to get one of his guests to stop making so much noise in his room (and we later learn that the "noise" is abuse of the woman staying with him). The guest violently attacks Sam who . . . does nothing? I really, really didn't understand why Sam didn't call the police in this scene. It was genuinely very confusing to me. There's a woman being abused, he himself has been attacked---why isn't he calling 911? I understand that the scenes with the abusive guest is meant to establish a baseline for Sam's character that he is more passive and not very violent. So the function of the scenes make sense, but not Sam's actions within them.

This one fell a little short of my hopes, but it was solid enough and all of the actors were good in their roles. It went by really fast and I was shocked at one point to realize there were only about 7 minutes left.

I feel so betrayed. He swore he was peer reviewed. Okay, he said he was "pere reviewed" . . . should have known he wasn't on the up and up.

By [1], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31064204

Persona - (1966)

Finally got to watch this, and as such I'm going to go back and read all the comments posted about it in the Foreign Language Countdown thread. I went into it without knowing a thing about the film, and after the first few minutes I thought for a moment the whole thing would be one long Samara video tape nightmare - and I reckoned that stretching that over 88 minutes would be challenging. Well, the actual narrative is a bit challenging anyway, but I was pondering and making mental notes about possible interpretations. Especially in respect to the film's title - 'Persona'. I love abstract films that invite many different interpretations - and by God this film does just that. Rating it 8 feels way too low, so I'm starting with 9 with the possibility this film will become a 10 and enter the collection of my most revered films over time.

9/10

Foreign Language Countdown films seen : 41/101

While reporting from Indonesia in 1975, the Australian reporters known as the 'Balibo 5' were wearing shorts so small and tight that their shirts would cover them and it looks pretty much like they're reporting without any pants on. It was fashionable to wear pants and shorts as tight as humanly possible. So if tightness is the issue in Twentieth Century Oz, then yeah - it was definitely fashionable back then.

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Never trust a Frenchman with daddy issues.

I’ve lived my life by that single rule and it’s never steered me wrong.

Motherless Brooklyn (2019)

I feel like you're making my point that you are saying it actually should have been a completely different film, a totally different story, about a Native American cop and how he deals with a crime that takes place on Native Land, instead of a movie about a white cop who has to navigate dealing with a crime that takes place on Native Land. Those are two different movies, you think they shouldn't have made the latter movie and instead made the former movie and I'm just saying what I think about the movie they made. It was good.
Olsen's character is not the protagonist. If you wanna say "why double down and make Olsen's character non-native" that's another discussion (and on that can be totally defended too, because she is the true outsider and Renner is the person in the middle). But to say, let's change who the protagonist is and what the protagonist's position in this story is is to say, let's change the whole point of the movie.

How does changing him to being a Native American change the whole point of the movie aside from removing some needless exposition about his wife being native and that being why he’s vested in protecting the community?

This is a long time ago, guys. Please. I said I'm sorry. What more? It's done. Can we? Can we move on?

Tightness was definitely the main issue. At times the actors literally couldn't walk properly.

I feel like that's in at least two of my posts, including the one you quoted, and is obvious in the film. He's the guy caught in between. No matter how good his intentions may be he is never fully trusted. He is not a total outsider like Olsen, who would obviously be written off immediately, but is someone who is well-known in the community and well-intentioned, but is not one of them. And his Native ex-wife is not some hand-wave, it further makes the point that you actually were implying that "just because you married one of us doesn't make you one of us". He has not lived their experience and he has not been held back and down in life simply because of what he was born, in fact the opposite, he is able go wherever he wants, do what he wants, even marry "one of us", but he will never be one of them. It is that tension over the trust of Renner's character by people who cannot trust him because no matter how sympathetic he may be, he has not had their experience, that is central to his place as protagonist of the film. This is a common tension in real life, I encounter it daily with a friend who is black (I am really white, regardless of whether I have Native American blood or not because I grew up white with all the privileges that entails) and we are close confidants. But an integral part of any of our discussions about virtually anything is that I am not like him, I have never experienced the subtle and not so subtle challenges he has faced and still faces daily. So, no matter how sympathetic I may be, no matter how much he may confide in me and I in him, when push comes to shove, I am an outsider to him, to his wife, to his children and he will never trust me the same as he would trust another Black man. That's the reality of it and that is the point of Renner's position in this film. It is about the character who is locked in that tension trying to do the right thing even though he knows that, unlike a Dances With Wolves or some such thing, he is no savior and he'll never be one of them, even if he gets this one right. And all of that is a completely different movie than if the cop is one of them. Completely different movie. Again, if you think they should have made that movie instead and everything above is now unworthy to have a film made about, fine, that's your personal call, I'm just commenting on the movie I saw.

The Mummy, 1932

A team of archaeologists conducting a dig in Egypt unearths the body of an ancient priest, Imhotep (Boris Karloff) who was buried alive for some sort of religious transgression. When one of the scientists reads a scroll aloud, Imhotep is reanimated. Passing, just barely, as a wealthy Egyptian, Imhotep searches for his lost love, who just happens to share a bloodline with Helen (Zita Johann). As Imhotep's powers begin to take over Helen's mind, her fiance and others rush to stop Imhotep and save her.

This film made me think a lot about what I loved about Frankenstein. There are sequences that are odd and unsettling, and the whole film looks great. I was particularly fond of the way that shadows and off-screen events were used to suggest danger at the periphery. Karloff is imposing as the reanimated Imhotep, someone who knows just how much power he has over others. Johann is very sympathetic as someone who feels she is losing her mind, becoming fractured between herself and a past spirit.

This is a shorter film, but really well-paced. I quite enjoyed the scene where a man witnesses Imhotep's reanimation and simply goes crazy from the sight of it. His fate is revealed later, and it builds a sense of tragedy and mystery. While I'm not sure that the film meant the moment as commentary on British colonial policies, I appreciated the mention that Egyptians themselves were not able to dig up artifacts--only representatives from foreign museums. I also liked that Helen played a much more active role in the final showdown than I was expecting. (My expectation was that she'd basically be in a swoon as the dudes rushed in to save her, so having her actually participate in fighting Imhotep at the end was a nice surprise).

I was also relieved that the film didn't feel the need (that I could tell) for brownface with the Egyptian flashbacks. And there were several non-white characters who were actually played by non-white actors. Nice not to have to cringe through poorly-done makeup.

I suppose my only complaint, and a minor one at that, was that almost all of the male protagonists kind of blended together for me. Aside from the blond archaeologist at the beginning, they were all middle aged British guys, and they didn't leave much of an impression. Obviously Imhotep and Helen are the stars of the show, so it doesn't impact the viewing experience that much, but a few times I found myself thinking, "Wait, which guy is this?" and it was harder (ooh, this will sound harsh) to care when they were killed or endangered.

Richard Jewell (2019)

I love that you loved it, but "well-paced" is not something I've ever heard in regard to The Mummy before. And I say this with the giant poster hanging above my PC as I type this, but even I find it drags when I'm not in the right mood. Always fun to welcome a new fan to the club, though

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Captain's Log
My Collection

9 1/2 weeks.
I rate it 9 1/2 points of 10

Nice review. Interesting that this is probably the weakest of the Universal Monsters films I've seen. I will dig up to see if I can find a review cause I don't remember much beyond being kinda bored by it.

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This is hardly the focus of the movie and outside of that scene, it makes little to no impact on the plot or themes.

What the film is about is exposing national indifference to the treatment of Natives and disproportionate disappearances of Native women in this country (something of particular importance given hot topic political theater right now). The conflict is distinctly one of Native Americans and the film sidelined them entirely to victims or scenery. Given the nature of the films plot, setting and theme, this is a pretty damning oversight as they aren’t allowed to be anything more than a plot device in a story designed to expose their strife.

A great deal of what you’re putting onto this film is only textual given that exchange. Changing his race simply allows the people it claims to represent to be autonomous and have a horse in the race. It doesn’t change the dynamic of his job (protector from wildlife and outsiders), the plot, and only enhances virtually every other bit of subtext by making Natives both relevant but also emphasizing Olsen’s outsider-ness within this world.

Your argument about his being white being important is tantamount to “cuz if he weren’t white, they wouldn’t treat him as white” and… well, yeah. That’s what Olsen’s character is there for already.

Creating this film with a white savior and sidelining all natives isn’t demanding a different film be made. It would be the deletion of one conversation and changing “white” in the character description to “Native American.” Virtually nothing else in the film would change and it would make a substantial gain in representation and articulating the point it’s trying to make.

[edit] This isn’t even touching on how the film is built on the long tradition of having white leads in westerns that focus on Native Americans and waving it off as “he was raised by them since he was a young boy” or “he’s a half-breed”

And here’s an interview where Sheridan specifically outlines his purposes and goals for the film (which align with my claims):
https://www.interviewmagazine.com/fi...dan-wind-river

I’m just saying how he could have accomplished those goals more effectively and avoided classic racial pitfalls of genre filmmaking. Not make a completely different movie.

I really loved the look of it, the premise, and the dynamics of the final confrontation. I would need a rewatch to see if it feels slower without the novelty of a first viewing.