Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Act of Violence - Released in 1948 and directed by Fred Zinneman this tense melodrama stars Van Heflin as WWII veteran Frank Enley. When his local paper in Santa Lisa, California discovers his wartime record they run an article on the small business owner which is picked up by the national press. In New York City it's seen by Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan) who packs his suitcase and gun and hurriedly boards a cross country bus.

Zinneman lets the story play out at a measured, tension-filled pace as Parkson arrives in Santa Lisa and tracks Enley to his home. A very young Janet Leigh delivers an easy to overlook but ultimately pivotal performance as Frank's devoted but unsuspecting wife Edith. Without giving too much away, Parkson's relentless pursuit of Enley is rooted in their shared experience in a German prisoner of war camp.

The story takes an unexpected detour of sorts once Enley hastily leaves for Los Angeles under the guise of attending a business convention. It is there that the implacable Parkson again tracks him down and Enley eventually chances on barfly and implied working girl Pat (Mary Astor). After drunkenly unburdening himself to her and mentioning that his business is worth 20,000 dollars she in turn puts him in touch with a ridiculously shady lawyer named Gavery (Taylor Holmes) who consequently brings in the thuggish Johnny (Berry Kroeger). The implication being that Johnny will take care of the problem in a permanent manner.

The group watching this took bets on how this would shake out and we all got it mostly wrong. Still though it was an enjoyable 80 or so minutes of edgy, well acted drama.

80/100

Deadtime Stories 1986


OMG where has this quirky horror anthology been hiding all my life, this was so good and so 80s, utterly ridiculous! Bright.. colourful.. demented.. tongue in cheek.. real nice practical special effects too, definitely a labour of love, I think the third and last installment as my favourite, I'm positive the actors were told to be way over the top cartoonish, it's hilarious

Serpico (1973, Sydney Lumet)

A very good character study, based on a true story of a cop going against the grain and trying to fight police corruption. Loved how unflinching and gritty it was, and Al Pacino's performance was outstanding. I didn't like the music though (i thought it was very ill-fitting and distracting at times). Not the best Lumet film I've seen (I find his second collab with Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon, to be superior) but still very impactful.

The only bio-pic I like... Except the party. "Everyone loves you, Paco!"

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Until the recent batch of Marvel movies came out I actually had Iron Man 3 as the worst film in the MCU, below Thor: The Dark World.

Well, this looks right up my alley.

I saw this several times when I was young and I actually have it in one of my queues now, might have to revisit.

If you like movies and you like DDA (and to a lesser degree, this film) and you like to read at all, you might consider this book:


Great book on how movies are (or at least were) made as well as some great insights about DDA, which was one of his personal favorites, as well as Serpico, Network, and many other films of his.
Quick read too, his style is as if he were just talking to you at a cafe table.

The third one was better than the second one, but the first was the best.

Yeah I also like Iron Man 3. I like where they took that character.

The King (2019)



Very good movie because I really liked the realism of the setting. Really feels like the 15th century.

I think it might be. Touches of noir and Zinneman avoids any rah-rah moments, instead focusing on two flawed and damaged veterans and their respective partners. The cinematography by Robert Surtees is also a major selling point.

Pat and Mike (1952)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Something I want to watch.

Boy, 2010

Boy (James Rolleston) is a young man growing up in a small New Zealand town in the mid-80s. He lives with his younger brother, Rocky (Te Aho Eketone-Whitu), under the care of relatives. His mother died years earlier, and his father, Alamein (Taika Waititi, who also wrote and directed) has been long absent. But when Alamein suddenly reappears--hunting for "treasure" that he left buried at the home--Boy has dreams that they will all run away together as a family.

I thought that this was a really solid film and there were things I liked a lot about it. That said, I didn't like it quite as much as I expected to.

Rolleston makes for a very good lead. He does a really excellent job of portraying a mix of real and false confidence, as Boy tries to appear cool enough for his classmates, the girl he likes, and ultimately his father. As the stakes get more serious, the cracks begin to show in Boy's optimistic, cool facade.

Waititi is both funny and, I'm not sure of the right term, maybe "negligently menacing" as the no good Alamein. What I think this film captures in several moments is the way that adults can have the maturity of a child, but because they are adults they are capable of much more harm than a child. This is incredibly heartbreaking in a scene where an inebriated Alamein drives the boys home from a party and things go wrong.

I will also praise the very lived-in feeling of the setting and the characters. I read that this movie was filmed in the town where Waititi grew up, and used several specific locations from his childhood. There is a level of specificity and reality to the world of this film that provides a nice counterbalance to some of the more fantastical moments in the movie.

All that said, I was surprised to find myself held at a bit of an emotional distance from this film. In all honesty, I have a student in my class dealing with some really upsetting things relating to parental choices, and there's a possibility that I just wasn't receptive to the film because I didn't want to engage with the emotions I'm feeling around that situation. At some point if I rewatch the movie I will be interested to see if I can sink into it a bit more.

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Once Upon a Time in America - (1984)

I'll always remember Once Upon a Time in America at video shops in it's unwieldy double-tape VHS case - unlike in America, where most VHS came in close-fitting cardboard cases, here we had huge plastic sarcophaguses. Anyway, I watched the 229 minute version (in one sitting) and afterwards actually wished I'd seen the 251 minute version - for such a lengthy movie, there's surprisingly little extraneous material in it. A couple of plot points I didn't understand, but that was quickly sorted out with Wikipedia, and overall I was incredibly impressed by this film. Ennio Morricone's score got me half way there - and I thought Robert De Niro and James Woods were a great pairing (one could almost perceive a more intimate kind of relationship than what the film goes into.) Overall, spending so much time laying out the history of the group of friends we're presented with really heightens the emotional impact of where their story goes. I wish I'd seen more of Burt Young and Joe Pesci - their menacing characters were great, but their appearance so brief. The film left me with an emotional feeling, especially the way it closes - was all of the latter-day material just an opium-fueled dream? Everything in it was great - a brilliant swansong from Sergio Leone, whose films just got better and better as he went along. I never knew Jennifer Connelly had a big moment pre-Labyrinth. Anyway - I really loved this, and I'm glad to have finally seen it.

9/10


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Comedian - (2002)

Follows two comedians on the road - Jerry Seinfeld, who has just retired all of his old material and struggles building up a new repertoire that works, and Orny Adams - a comedian with an abrasive self-centered and narcissistic personality who is starting out. It was interesting seeing Seinfeld off-the-cuff backstage and in green rooms, chatting with other celebrities and non-celebrities. He says the 'f' word more than you'd expect, and actually comes off as an ordinary guy. For someone who must have had $600 trillion in the bank, it's surprising how he drives a broken down old car and wears your average Joe kind of clothes, eating regular meals at the small comedy places he's testing his new material in. Orny Adams is unbearable, insulting, ultra-sensitive and combative when given advice - he's egotistical and he denigrates all of the other comedians. He's on the cusp of making it to the big-time, but one wonders if he really has the temperament to survive in that hostile environment. Interesting.

7/10

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Being John Malkovich



While there are many movies about self discovery, self growth and identity, not many (if really any) have taken the approach of 'Being John Malkovich'. The general premise of the movie is: struggling puppeteer Craig discovers a portal allowing him to enter the mind of the actor John Malkovich. Through multiple attempts of possessing John Malkovich, he is able to take control of the actor and live his life through him. His wife, Lotte, and his new love interest Maxine are also entangled in the journey. The finale of the movie shifts the dynamics in the relationship as Lotte and Maxine find love and Craig is eventually forever trapped in a kind of 'sunken place'.

While the movies plot is somewhat straightforward and easy to follow, the movie is highly entertaining due to the great writing and screenplay along with the great pacing and performances from the small but highly talented cast (Cusack, Diaz, Keener and Malkovich). There are also enough elements of absurdity and surrealism to create this somewhat fantastical world we are immersed in. However, the real highlight of 'Being John Malkovich' is the number of ethical and philosophical questions about self identity and consciousness it evokes.

The central question asked in this movie, is what is identity and how do we define it? The central character Craig, battles throughout the film with his desire for both power and clout. As a highly insecure struggling artist, he instantly falls for Maxine, but it's clear his desire is more about what Maxine represent's (a highly confident and seductive women) rather than who she is as an individual. She is a means to an end to help make up for all that is lacking in Craig's life. He believes that having possession of someone like Maxine would help him in his endeavour as an artist and ultimately a man. Lotte on the other hand, while also struggling with self-acceptance, is looking for someone to fill the void which has been left by Craig through his disinterest in her romantically as her husband. Lotte appears to be somewhat of a victim throughout the film, as her struggle to find love, and embrace her own power comes through some rather difficult and unfortunate circumstances (e.g. being rejected by Maxine on multiple occasions and later being trapped in a cage with her pet Chimpanzee). Maxine, maybe the most interesting of the 3, comes across as opportunistic and rather shallow, but highly confident in contrast to Craig and Lotte. Her journey to eventual happiness comes in the way of realising the beauty within through falling in love with Lotte, but at first, only when she is in Malkovich's vessel. In contrast, her relationship with Craig when he has captured Malkovich is shallow and unsatisfying. The subtle similarities, and stark differences between these three characters leads to some interesting questions which are posed about self discovery and the journey each character takes to uncover about themselves. John Malkovich, although mostly just a device throughout the film, has perhaps the most bizarre scene in the entire movie, when he himself enters his own portal and see's a world full of different versions of himself. This scene has a number of different interpretations about how we often view ourselves, the different characters we play in our own lives, and how our subconscious can be visually represented.

Being John Malkovich is a special movie which takes a central theme of identity and makes the audience question what that really means. It does so in a highly engaging manner, never sacrificing an engaging story for the overall deeper themes at hand. It's a movie which viewers can come back to multiple times and still be in awe.

5/5

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Being John Malkovich

Barbie in the Nutcracker (Owen Hurley, 2001)

I don't know what compelled me to start watching these Barbie movies but this is my new thing I guess. Yeah, this is an extremely basic children's adventure film that's only surprise is how much I liked it lol. We're still in the era of 3D animation that really appeals to me, so that helps but yeah I just really bought in on the adventure and the romance even though its as bare bones as possible in both regards and there's some mo-cap dance scenes that had a cool feel to them (kind of like the skating scenes in Yuri on Ice if anyone has seen that). Almost teared up once even lmao. Loved this.



Barbie as Rapunzel (Owen Hurley, 2002)

This is probably a stronger film overall to Nutcracker but the magic just isn't there for me. It's an upgrade visually, there's stronger character dynamics, its just generally more fleshed out but it didn't really need three different comic relief animal sidekicks (we stan Penelope the Dragon tho) and even though there is probably more direct use of magic throughout the film it still feels so much less magical and the sense of adventure of the previous film was definitely missed. It does come together for a fairly satisfying conclusion though and there's two great songs in the end credits (wish they were worked into the film itself).

I remember they used to play some of these on YTV a bunch. 12-year-old-me was clearly not the target audience, but I remember not finding whichever one I caught part of to be terrible.