Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Tools    





I forgot the opening line.

By Impawards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12484454

Polyester - (1981)

I think I was in the perfect mood to watch John Waters film Polyester last night - every last moment of which was delightful in it's over the top melodrama and trashy battering of Americana. I haven't laughed all the way through a movie for ages, and this one had me from start to finish. I obviously haven't seen enough of his films - I remember catching Pink Flamingos many decades ago and loving that as well, but what I really should be doing is getting the Criterion of that and knuckling down to watching and appreciating his other movies. There's such abandon in Polyester - and John Waters seems to know exactly what he's doing - like some demented Mozart carelessly but brilliantly composing masterworks while sat on the toilet and laughing. There's nothing quite like it. My mind is refreshed and another cinematic avenue has opened up...

9/10


Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5320025

Bill - (1981)

I remember seeing this way back in the 80s, so this watch was more of a nostalgic revisit than anything - it's a television movie, and while movies made for the small screen can be quite dazzling today, back in 1981 they stuck to rigid, vanilla guidelines with little art or creativity. The story of Bill is a true one, and it still tugs at your heartstrings a little, while at the same time (and paradoxically) waking your inner cynic to chide the film for so shamelessly not even hiding the fact that this is what they were attempting. Mickey Rooney is great in this - I can't help but imagine what he was like when the cameras stopped rolling - and if the simple good-natured character was really a part of the actor himself - who amazingly still had 33 years of life left in him.

6/10
__________________
Remember - everything has an ending except hope, and sausages - they have two.
We miss you Takoma

Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



Victim of The Night

Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5320025

Bill - (1981)

I remember seeing this way back in the 80s, so this watch was more of a nostalgic revisit than anything - it's a television movie, and while movies made for the small screen can be quite dazzling today, back in 1981 they stuck to rigid, vanilla guidelines with little art or creativity. The story of Bill is a true one, and it still tugs at your heartstrings a little, while at the same time (and paradoxically) waking your inner cynic to chide the film for so shamelessly not even hiding the fact that this is what they were attempting. Mickey Rooney is great in this - I can't help but imagine what he was like when the cameras stopped rolling - and if the simple good-natured character was really a part of the actor himself - who amazingly still had 33 years of life left in him.

6/10
Also saw this when it came out, it was a sort of television event. And oddly, I just thought of it recently for the first time in years and here you are presenting it.
I don't know that I'll actually watch it again but it definitely brought back memories of 8 or 9 year-old Wooley.



Raven73's Avatar
Boldly going.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
8/10.
I sensed that the tears that the actors spilled over T'Challa were genuine and that they thought of Chadwick Boseman to generate them.
WARNING: "Vibranium Detector Required" spoilers below
WHAT I LIKED: How they incorporated various myths and legends, including Atlantis and the Feathered Serpent. I liked Shuri as the new Black Panther - she doesn't look like your traditional superhero (she isn't muscle-bound), but her brain is her muscle. I enjoyed Namor, and giving him the gift of flight makes him more versatile than Aquaman (yet his power is kept in check by his wet factor). I was at first perplexed about the way they used orcas, but I looked it up and it turns out orcas can live in many places in the globe, including both salt water and fresh water. WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: I didn't quite understand how Shuri survived a spear through the torso, while apparently missing every vital organ, and then she still went on to do flips and win the fight. Still, I found the movie very enjoyable and I'm looking forward to seeing more of the Black Panther and Wakanda.

__________________
Boldly going.



I don't actually wear pants.
We watched Downton Abbey Dawn of a New Age last night. It's identical to the series, except a bit longer, so I liked it. The movie isn't quite as good as the show, but it's a nice continuation of the stories.
__________________
Thanks again, Mr Portridge.



It Follows (2014)

Sort of a Ringu rip-off with a hefty pinch of Elm Street thrown in. Sadly copying two good films doesn't make one. Maybe I'm too harsh with this one, but it's infuriating how all the ingredients are there, yet it still manages to miss practically everything.

--
Medieval (2022)

For some reason, I expected this to be about medieval armies crashing, but it was more like Flesh + Blood. The action is brutal and the settings are fine, but the cinematography changes from OK to awful.

--
Werewolf by Night (2022)

So predictable and stupid but short enough to avoid massive boredom. The retro look was good and I wish the story had been more retro, too.

--
Terrifier 2 (2022)

If the first Terrifier was a tribute to sleazy old-school slashers, the sequel takes a deep bow to A Nightmare on Elm Street. Even as it is, it's a better film than the first one, but trimming it down to old-school 90 minutes would improve it. In addition to enormous bloat, my main issue was the abysmal acting (excluding Art). There's probably a 3+ film hiding somewhere in that mess (and by the mess I don't mean the little girl clown's diarrhea).

--
Smile (2022)

I wish they had been more honest and named the film It Smiles. In other words, this was a complete rip-off of It Follows. Acts one and three were even worse than in It Follows, but the middle one leaned more heavily toward Ringu (i.e. it was better). Modern horror has been such a disappointment lately.
__________________



The Worst Person in the World - 7.5/10
She's the center of the movie, crises, but without the twists and turns. It felt very natural flowing, without explosions or overly dramatic scenes. It was very subdued and not that predictable. Although I knew what was on the character's mind, I wouldn't mind if there were a few scenes where she's unsure, or if the audience isn't unsure... One user critic described it as an existential crisis on film relatable to many 40-year olds who are trying to adjust to a world much different than the ones we were born in. The internet changed the world, but who's to say things would have worked out if it wasn't invented. People still have many of the same problems they did a thousand years ago.

And then when you add music from the 60/70s, it's going to make the movie better, especially two very good songs by Harry Nilsson.

Terrific movie. Best one of the trilogy.
__________________
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.



Rosaline (2022)

It was fine.

Shame (2011)

I may like "shitty people doing shitty things to each other" paraphrasing Miss Vicky. Many years ago I didn't finish it, because it seemed too slow. This time I was in a different state of mind and quite enjoyed it. I think it portrayed sex addiction well.

Pearl (2022)

I prefer "X"

On the Line (2022)

I couldn't wait for it to finish.

Poker Face (2022)

It lacked focus, IMO.

Smile (2022)

Man, it was so scary, dude.



Shame (2011)

I may like "shitty people doing shitty things to each other" paraphrasing Miss Vicky. Many years ago I didn't finish it, because it seemed too slow. This time I was in a different state of mind and quite enjoyed it. I think it portrayed sex addiction well.
Coincidentally my Netflix dvd just arrived & it’s Shame for a re-watch.







Son of Frankenstein - This 1939 release is the third in the Frankenstein series following the 1931 original and 1935's Bride of Frankenstein. In this one Basil Rathbone plays Baron Wolf (that's right, Wolf) von Frankenstein, the son of Dr. Heinrich (Henry) von Frankenstein. He's moved back to his ancestral home and brought along his wife Elsa (Josephine Hutchinson) and son Peter (Donnie Dunagan). Wolf swears up and down to the villagers who meet his train that they have nothing to fear and that he's only there to reconnect with his heritage. Needless to say, the citizens of the nearby village aren't too keen on the idea of having Castle Frankenstein once more open for business.

While checking out his father's old laboratory Wolf stumbles across Ygor (Bela Lugosi) when the crazed, misshapen hermit tries to drop a block of stone on him. He had been tried and convicted for grave robbing and summarily hanged which didn't quite take, leaving him with an off-kilter way of looking at things. Ygor is eager to make amends for the slight attempt at murder so he shows Wolf an underground basement where he's been keeping, you guessed it, the Frankenstein monster (once again played by Boris Karloff).

It isn't long though before the son is attempting to revive his father's moribund creation which is further hindered by the appearance of a suspicious Inspector Krogh (a marvelous Lionel Atwill). This movie stands up on it's own as a Universal pictures horror classic but it's so much more delightful if you've seen Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. You'll recognize most of what Kenneth Mars spoofed in Atwill's unwavering performance. All four of the leads (Rathbone, Lugosi, Atwill and Karloff) are fully committed to their roles with Hutchinson and Dunegan providing able support.

This might not hit the heights of Bride of Frankenstein but it's certainly a fitting end to an unofficial trilogy and closes it up on a high note.

85/100






City of Fear - Low budget noir from 1959 and directed Irving Lerner. It's a short 81 minutes, shot in one week and stars Vince Edwards as escaped convict Vince Ryker. Despite all that it does get the job done as a straight ahead manhunt/thriller. Ryker escapes from San Quentin in a stolen ambulance with another convict and a metal canister filled with what he thinks is uncut heroin. But the jokes on him when it turns out to actually contain enough highly radioactive Cobalt 60 to infect and kill a good sized city. Ryker of course immediately heads to Los Angeles after first stealing a car and killing and burning both his partner and the stolen car's owner.

He contacts his old flame June Marlowe (Patricia Blair) and Eddie Crown (Joseph Mell), the money man behind his drug dealing business, all the while never letting the canister out of his sight. As he's slowly poisoned by radiation exposure the local cops with the aid of physicist Dr. John Wallace (Steven Ritch) hastily assemble a covert dragnet. They comb the city with geiger counters in hopes of locating Ryker and the unlined canister.

It's not prime noir or a classic by any means but the film will hold your interest as Edwards character slowly falls apart and the authorities just as slowly close in.

75/100





The Munsters' Revenge is an underwhelming TV movie that brought the monster family back after being off the air for 15 years. It's mostly a Herman and Grandpa caper as those two are framed for attacks by their robot duplicates from the wax museum. It's a fun premise and the returning stars slip right back into their famous roles, but the movie is ultimately let down by lackluster jokes. I was annoyed by their new uncle Phantom (of the Opera variety), who sings a lot and isn't funny. I think only diehard Munsters' fans should give this a whirl.





The Munsters' Revenge is an underwhelming TV movie that brought the monster family back after being off the air for 15 years. It's mostly a Herman and Grandpa caper as those two are framed for attacks by their robot duplicates from the wax museum. It's a fun premise and the returning stars slip right back into their famous roles, but the movie is ultimately let down by lackluster jokes. I was annoyed by their new uncle Phantom (of the Opera variety), who sings a lot and isn't funny. I think only diehard Munsters' fans should give this a whirl.
We owned this movie on VHS when I was little, so I have entirely unearned affection for it.





A Separation, 2011

Simin (Leila Hatami) wants to leave Iran with her husband and teenage daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). But her husband, Nader (Payman Maadi), is caring for his elderly father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) who is in the grip of Alzheimer's. When Simin moves back in with her parents, Nader hires a woman named Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to help care for his father. But when the two have a confrontation that ends in Razieh miscarrying, Razieh's husband Hojjat (Shahab Hosseini) files a formal complaint against Nader.

Always nice when a film with a great reputation more than lives up to the hype.

Going into this film I had been under the impression that the plot centered on the divorce proceedings between the couple, but instead it is more of a combination of drama and courtroom film as the various stakeholders make repeated visits to the local magistrate to plead their case and introduce new evidence.

Asghar Farhadi, who did something structurally similar in Salesman, presents us with a genuinely tricky situation to navigate. Nader is physically rough with Razieh when he kicks her out of the house. Did he cause her to fall? Farhadi deliberately withholds exactly what happens on the landing and stairwell. Either way, Razieh has lost her unborn child (at 19 weeks, which is particularly rough), and the more we learn about her situation, the more sympathetic she seems. At the same time, does Nader deserve to be found guilty of murder?

What comes through most effectively in the film is the fact that this is a nightmare for all involved. Razieh has lost her baby and lives with a husband who is depressed and volatile. Hojjat is still stinging from an unfair firing from the year before, and now has lost a child, plus he has creditors looming over him. Because he is of a lower social class than Simin and Nader, his perception is that the entire system is stacked against him. Nader is facing jail time, something that would be disastrous in terms of caring for her father. Termeh wants her parents to be together, and she is potently aware of the ways that the adults she loves are bending or distorting the truth to serve their own narratives.

The movie presents no easy answers, and it seems as if there is no real way to reconcile the pain caused by the situation. There are so many levels at work in the film, from the class differences, religious differences, and the domestic strife between the two couples. At the same time, there are so many parallels between the couples: both have daughters, both are experiencing marital stress, both worry over money, etc.

The acting across the board is very strong, but I was particularly taken by Bayat's performance. Over and over her words and actions are litigated. When she honestly answers that she can't fully remember what happened on the stairs (you know, because she fell and was hurt and misscarried), this lack of a firm answer is held against her. Again and again her attempts to do the right thing and tell the truth end up harming her.

A potent film that balances drama with courtroom proceedings in a compelling way.




Victim of The Night




Son of Frankenstein - This 1939 release is the third in the Frankenstein series following the 1931 original and 1935's Bride of Frankenstein. In this one Basil Rathbone plays Baron Wolf (that's right, Wolf) von Frankenstein, the son of Dr. Heinrich (Henry) von Frankenstein. He's moved back to his ancestral home and brought along his wife Elsa (Josephine Hutchinson) and son Peter (Donnie Dunagan). Wolf swears up and down to the villagers who meet his train that they have nothing to fear and that he's only there to reconnect with his heritage. Needless to say, the citizens of the nearby village aren't too keen on the idea of having Castle Frankenstein once more open for business.

While checking out his father's old laboratory Wolf stumbles across Ygor (Bela Lugosi) when the crazed, misshapen hermit tries to drop a block of stone on him. He had been tried and convicted for grave robbing and summarily hanged which didn't quite take, leaving him with an off-kilter way of looking at things. Ygor is eager to make amends for the slight attempt at murder so he shows Wolf an underground basement where he's been keeping, you guessed it, the Frankenstein monster (once again played by Boris Karloff).

It isn't long though before the son is attempting to revive his father's moribund creation which is further hindered by the appearance of a suspicious Inspector Krogh (a marvelous Lionel Atwill). This movie stands up on it's own as a Universal pictures horror classic but it's so much more delightful if you've seen Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. You'll recognize most of what Kenneth Mars spoofed in Atwill's unwavering performance. All four of the leads (Rathbone, Lugosi, Atwill and Karloff) are fully committed to their roles with Hutchinson and Dunegan providing able support.

This might not hit the heights of Bride of Frankenstein but it's certainly a fitting end to an unofficial trilogy and closes it up on a high note.

85/100
Absolutely, I think Son Of Frankenstein is just a ton of fun. And it really is the movie Young Frankenstein is most based on.
Also, the Igor character (spelled Ygor here) from most of Horror lore comes from this film and Lugosi's performance, which is another of his better characters (with Dracula and Murder Legendre).



I forgot the opening line.

By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6141345

Working Girl - (1988)

Saw this at the movies way, waay back when it came out - and although I thought it was passable enough at the time, I don't recall it being as good as what I saw last night. (I also don't remember hair being that big - holy smoke.) Helped by a sweeping soundtrack and score, with first-rate performances from Sigourney Weaver and Harrison Ford, I'd say it's the best film of the latter half of Mike Nichols' career. Showing women in positions of power was a bigger deal back then, I'm sure - I see that a lot more now than in the 80s. The only bad note rang at the film's very conclusion - because it intimates that the ultimate goal for humanity is a mid-level office with a view of the city - really, the film makes out like Melanie Griffith's character has reached enlightenment by achieving this lofty goal. To me it looked like eternal misery. But otherwise I was entranced by the false-identity story, and the romance and grandeur of New York. Kevin Spacey gets a small role (only then did I learn that the thing on his face was real - he must have had it removed in the late 80s/early 90s) and Alec Baldwin features as Mick Dugan - a lousy philandering boyfriend. I went in expecting average, but got very good.

8/10


Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19005570

I Know What You Did Last Summer - (1997)

Now this is what I call average. This slasher was a huge hit in it's day - it helped cement Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar as stars and starts with a classic red herring turn by Johnny Galecki. As far as slashers go, you could find a mystery or two that are much, much worse. The only problem with this are the flat and unconvincing performances, and lack of really scary and horrifying deaths. In their fight for a non-too-restricting rating, I'm sure the makers went easier than they had to. Without those two crucial components, the film itself is only good for it's chases and satisfying puzzle - who knows what these kids did last summer?

6/10


By May be found at the following website: http://www.impawards.com, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8178553

On Deadly Ground - (1994)

On letterboxd : "He came in a rising action movie star - and came out with his stocks considerably lowered and his reputation in tatters. On Deadly Ground isn't one of the worst films ever made, but it's peculiarities are what makes it worth watching instead of the action or story. Steven Seagal had advanced straight to a director's chair when he really should have given it more time, making novice mistakes and having nobody to reign in his more absurd impulses. The result came at a time when the internet was really taking off, and film lovers and critics had a ball pulling it to pieces. I still like to watch this film on occasion, because I never even really liked the actor after Under Siege, and if he'd wanted to send himself up, he could not have possibly done a better job." Couldn't resist getting it on DVD.

4/10


By http://www.luredesigninc.com/images/...ckling-leo.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43149500

Tickling Leo - (2009)

Very low budget film about a Jewish family tackling survival guilt, having been saved from the Holocaust by the controversial Rudolph Kasztner, who negotiated with the Nazis for Jewish lives. Eli Wallach appears at the end as the family patriarch and adds some heft to what's an average screenplay with some okay performances.

5/10



Absolutely, I think Son Of Frankenstein is just a ton of fun. And it really is the movie Young Frankenstein is most based on.
Also, the Igor character (spelled Ygor here) from most of Horror lore comes from this film and Lugosi's performance, which is another of his better characters (with Dracula and Murder Legendre).
It's so much fun watching Rathbone really sink his teeth into Wolf's steady deterioration. Some might accuse him of chewing the scenery but I thought his performance fit the film perfectly. Same with Lugosi. Director Rowland V. Lee must have given them free rein and to me it works. Atwill and the rest looked like they were having immense fun with their roles. Karloff, not to be left out, invested his creature with as much pathos as he could in what was essentially a smaller role. Fun movie to watch even without the added bonus of spotting all the Young Frankenstein references.