Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Loved that one too. The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'s Leo G. Carroll right? I found the DVD on Amazon and remembered four out of the five right away. Monster on the Campus took me a little longer because I haven't seen it in a while. All great movies.

By impawards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20132209

The Elephant Man - (1980)

That John Morris score, the photography from Freddie Francis and David Lynch's careful, delicate concoction add up to one of the most painful and moving films about human dignity and both kindness and cruelty in The Elephant Man. I saw this film for the first time way back in the early 1980s, renting the video from the back of the van that was Pam's revolutionary mobile video shop (the first video store I'd ever encountered.) It hits me harder now, with more life experience behind me - and for it's subject everything is so right. The soft, hazy black and white is where our sleeping, subconscious, shared remembrance comes from - a dream - through the many years to when Jack the Ripper was stalking the streets of Whitechapel and Joseph Merrick (John Hurt, as John Merrick) was looked after by a curious Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins). Nightmares on the verge of a new, revolutionary era itself - but very interesting that this film asks us if Treves is simply doing what the exploitative Mr Bytes (Freddie Jones) is - profiting from this man's misery. The film forces us to consider how isolating, humiliating, and debilitating Merrick's deformed condition is, and it's terrifying - but it also offers us a glimpse of what we can aspire to when we afford the unfortunate respect, kindness and a sense of worthiness. A grand achievement - and somehow beaten by Ordinary People for a Best Picture Oscar at the 1981 awards ceremony.

9/10


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I Wish - (2011)

After seeing Shoplifters and Broker I still feel like I need to see more of Hirokazu Koreeda's earlier films to decode his broad collection of 'family unit' contemplative pieces as a whole. Here, from the perspective of the children, we find out what two young brothers yearn for - the mending of their broken family. One is living with his mother, the other his father - a sad situation for everyone. But there always seems to be a need for magical intervention for all children, and as such the crossing paths of two bullet trains becomes the source of miraculous wish-fulfillment in their imaginative minds. I still feel like a newcomer to Koreeda films, but I'm building an appreciation.

7.5/10


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Elektra - (2005)

When Iron Man came out in 2008 and the MCU started building towards something truly spectacular, films like Elektra suddenly looked even more second-rate than they did to begin with. Blissfully, this only goes for 97 minutes. It's said that Marvel rushed this into release, but I don't know why. To clean up after Daredevil left fans begging for more? They were begging for you guys to stop. Anyway, I didn't feel completely insulted - I liked the over-the-top magical powers the villains had in this, because otherwise it would have been a dreadfully dull affair. Including Elektra (Jennifer Garner) herself, there are no characters in this - movies should be based around people who aren't just blank slates who either have to be fought or saved. I had some appreciation for the guy whose tattoos come to life and the Medusa lady, and that's about it. Thankfully, the whole genre was on the verge of revolutionary change - but is always threatening to slip back into 'hack' territory.

4/10

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Another one tonight from the DVD set....Them!, a 1950's sci-fi monster movie. In this case, a decent cast, including James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn and James Arness (pre-Gunsmoke) do battle with giant ants in yet another dusty, southwestern town. Everybody in the cast plays this one completely straight, especially Sandy Descher, a young girl who has been traumatized into catatonia by seeing the ants kill her family. She's a picture of total horror when she snaps out. This one is pretty good too, surprising for this genre.

Yeah....Leo was a misguided scientist (common in movies of that time) who turns into a deformed acromegalic.

I've always felt this is like the grand daddy of the genre. A consummate achievement and a true classic.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Cocaine Bear - I know. An interesting concept and the trailer did look kinda promising. Even those gifs look intriguing. It turned out to be mostly meh though. They did manage to assemble a good cast and it was Ray Liotta's last role before he died. But yeah, once the credits roll you'll forget even having watched it. They do string together some passable moments but then there's also dead space in between and too many uninteresting characters. The script is anorexic and Elizabeth Banks isn't about to make anyone forget Greta Gerwig. I wouldn't bother with this unless you have an hour and a half to burn. Not recommended.

55/100

"I promise I'll practice every day!"

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San Franciscan lesbian dwarves and their tomato orgies.

I watched The Guardian for the first time a few weeks ago, my rating being close to what you gave it. It was originally simply going to be a film about a nanny who steals babies - a much more serious tone. I guess somebody asked, "Well, what does she do with the babies when she steals them?" and somebody uncertainly replied "Gives them to...feeds them to a...magic...tree?" In all seriousness though, Dan Greenburg's novel The Nanny, on which this was based, was about a vampire nanny, or at least she was some kind of ancient milk-loving creature/seductress in need of newborn babies. If you ask me, the whole idea of a baby being stolen means you don't need to conjure up demons or magic trees, as it's scary enough as is. I think some of the horror elements were leftovers from Sam Raimi's attachment to the project, and as such I enjoyed it without giving it a lot of serious thought.

San Francisco in the 1950s - 7.5/10

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Ain't In It For My Health: A Film About Levon Helm

The Blackening (2022)


It started out poorly, with acting bad enough that I thought about turning it off. Once it gets going though, the mix of humor and horror works sufficiently. A couple jokes I laughed out loud at, though many of them landed flat.

Hail, Caesar! (2016)


Despite seeing reviews of this movie on here, I never read into it enough to grasp what the movie would really be about. I'm glad I finally gave it a chance, because this was terrific! Odd, funny, well-paced...like what Babylon was supposed to be maybe?

I was reading that the concept of the antagonist is that of a Hamadryad. Reading the Wikipedia page on them now and it makes the ending pretty accurate. Nothing about stealing babies, though, which the character says she needs to do to sustain the tree's life.

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Immortals -

Tarsem takes his unique visual style to a world where it's a good fit, Greek mythology, for a pretty good telling of the story of Theseus (Cavill). Our hero is a peasant whose strength and honor earned him the favor of the Gods, which is something our villain, King Hyperion (Rourke), would never want. He aims to kill them, in fact, and to do that, he needs the lost Epirus Bow, which will free imprisoned titans who can take care of that for him. It's up to Theseus to find it first, and he has allies in Phaedra (Pinto), the Oracle whose visions reveal what he's capable of, wisecracking thief Stavros (Dorff) and of course the Mt. Olympians, who assist despite Zeus's (Evans) command that they do not directly intervene in human affairs.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that Tarsem is one of film's best artists and he more than achieves his goal of making the movie seem like a moving Renaissance painting. From Theseus's cliffside home to the seas of soldiers in Hyperion's army, I wanted each cut to last longer than it should just so I could bask in their visual splendor. That applies to the scenery and to the action, which employs slow motion in ways that make 300's use of it seem juvenile. It's easy to see why Cavill became a household name after this came out for how much charisma and physicality he exudes. From his gravelly voice to how he milks Hyperion's disregard for anyone in his way, Rourke is a worthy foil. I'm also happy to see John Hurt (R.I.P.), who plays Theseus's mentor, in anything and every scene gets better once the Gods show up.

What holds this back from greatness, though, is even though it doesn't look like anything else, it still does, if you will. The story is too much like those in the typical comic book origin story. I wasn't surprised to learn it's a melange of many Greek myths because the writers probably massaged in a way to make it resemble the typical blockbuster's at the time. Again, it's worth watching if you also love visually rich experiences, if you're simply in the mood for a decent action movie or if you have even a faint interest in Greek mythology. Just don't be surprised if it doesn't make you more interested in the subject.

The OG Frankenstein (1931) was on Svengoolie the other day, man this holds up so well, as do most of the Universal Horror classics. Looks fantastic, love how it's shot love the sets. Karloff's performance has been parodied so often it's easy to loose track of how genuinely unsettling his monster is. Maybe the Dr. Frankenstein character was a bit overacted by today's standards but otherwise an eminently rewatchable classic.

Long movie. Not bad, I didn’t bail out. Bardem very good. Zero interest in I Love Lucy & the documentary about them was much more interesting.



This movie was shelved in my house for some reason even though I’ve never seen any of it. Not a memorable movie, I wouldn’t watch it again, but it was fairly good.



Indie movie. Not bad at all. Famke & the kid who played her son were very good. R.I.P. Torn too.



One of Kelly Reichardt’s earlier movies. I enjoyed it.

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Arabesque (1966)

It seems to be at least the first of the big-bug movies. It was predated by quite a bit by King Kong and some other dinosaur movies, but big bugs seem to be a 1950's thing and Them! seems to be the beginning of them (note the lower case here).

https://www.remindmagazine.com/artic...ig-bug-movies/

I just remembered I reviewed Them! and guess what my lead photo was?


Make no mistake about it, 1954's Them! is no B-budget movie. Warner Brothers studio went all out with an expensive production that used real military equipment and personal. There's a real military helicopter, plane and a number of jeeps too. Most impressive are the real flame throwers, that were operated by actors who had been in WWII and used them in combat. Add to that the on-location filming in a real California desert where the temperatures were 110 degrees!

We get authenticity not often seen in giant mutated insect movies. Plus we're treated to a unique view of the underbelly of LA, when the military go under the city into the actual water basins and viaducts of LA. This is an A list movie with a lot of money spent on it and it shows!