Rate The Last Movie You Saw

its an alright horror movie

Le jeu avec le feu/Playing With Fire (1975) Watched on blu ray. Stylish and filled with beautiful women, the film looks great. Storywise, not everything works. It's not always coherent and is somewhat muddled, but I still enjoyed watching this.

LOL, "every bit as terrifying as you could hope for" really sounds like damning with faint praise (e.g., "Danny DeVito ran the marathon as fast as you could hope he would").

The Black Scorpion (1957)

Based on the novel of Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island follows the adventures of young Jim Hawkins (Bobby Driscoll) as he embarks on a sea journey for a lost pirate treasure. What he doesn't know is that most of the crew accompanying him are pirates led by the treacherous Long John Silver (Robert Newton). It is him who says the above quote when he fears that young Hawkins might be onto him.

The relationship between Hawkins and Long John Silver is interesting, and Newton is clearly having a lot of fun with the role. Driscoll is also pretty good, but I feel like there needed to be a bit more to make me believe the kid would go to the lengths he goes to help the pirate. On the other hand, I think the film needed stronger characters on the "good side" to help balance things out. Squire Trelawney is a bit of a fool and Dr. Livesey is too bland.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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1st Rewatch...One of Woody's most raw and uncompromising works. This look at two different marriages travelling in two different directions (or are they?) that's mounted in the form of a documentary is one of Woody's most stomach-turning films, reminding me a lot of his earlier masterpiece Interiors. Judy Davis' explosive, Oscar-nominated performance still galvanizes the screen. That scene where she interrupts a blind date to make two phone calls to yell at her ex-husband (Sydney Pollack) never gets old and neither does that scene where Pollack is leaving a party with his new girlfriend (Lysette Anthony). As for Woody and Mia, this is the last film they made together and the tension between them is apparent throughout, which was perfect for this voyeuristic drama that makes the viewer feel so intrusive.

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Teacher - (2019)

I have to admit to finding films where kids are bullied very stressful - there's nothing worse than dumb kids who decide might is right and act like thugs, and there's nothing worse than seeing good kids fold to them under threat of physical harm. Nowadays, bullies have a whole new avenue to explore with the internet. That's why I found Teacher such a tense experience. English teacher James Lewis (David Dastmalchian) was bullied himself as a kid, and when two of his brightest students are being threatened and tormented by another student - one protected by his rich parents - he goes to extreme lengths to try and solve the issue. Oh man, there are attempted suicides, horrific beatings and all kinds of stuff I found hard to watch, and Dastmalchian's character lacks the fortitude to handle it in a way you could be confident about. You just know something really bad is going to happen. David Dastmalchian has had a weird career trajectory. I first noticed him in The Dark Knight, where he really stood out with a very small role as one of the Joker's henchmen/victims. After that role he found a lot of work - he's been in Blade Runner 2049, Ant-Man and Prisoners while more recently it's Oppenheimer, Dune and Ant-Man and the Wasp : Quantumania. My favourite role of his, though, was when he played Polka-Dot Man in The Suicide Squad - that was a riot. I was kind of expecting Class of 1984 stuff here, but we go down an unexpected route, and if I were to tell you which film it reminded me of in the end, I'd be spoiling it.

7/10


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The Keeper of Lost Causes - (2013)

The Millennium series by Stieg Larsson and adaptation of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo seems to have set off a spate of crime solving detective films and TV series in Scandinavia. This one, The Keeper of Lost Causes feels like a pilot to a TV series - but in all actuality it's the first in a series called "Department Q" written by Jussi Adler-Olsen, three of which have been adapted as feature films. This first one follows Carl Mřrck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) who is demoted to looking at cold cases after he gets two fellow detectives shot by jumping the gun and going inside a suspect's house before backup arrives. He's partnered with Assad (Fares Fares) a rookie with the disadvantage of being of Arab in an all-white department. When Carl picks up some early clues about an apparent "suicide" in one of the first cold cases he reopens, he goes down a rabbit hole - discovering clues that lead him closer and closer to some shocking conclusions. In the meantime, his bosses order him to close the case - without knowing, as we do, that the victim is still alive and being held captive. Solid crime stuff from Denmark.

6/10


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Taking Chance - (2009)

Taking Chance has the unfortunate aura of propaganda, but I think it was made far too late to be any attempt to smooth over America's involvement in Iraq. It's just a straightforward ode to the Americans who have given their life in service to the nation. Be warned though, I've rarely come across a film as heavy-handed about it. Even Joseph Goebbels would look at Taking Chance and say "That's a bit much isn't it?" Lt Col Mike Strobl (Kevin Bacon) stuck behind a desk in the U.S. as the Iraqi insurgency takes a toll on his comrades over there, volunteers to escort a fallen one home - and we follow the process, from being put in an ice-filled metal box and sent to the U.S, being cleaned and dressed, and brought to his family with care. Strobl is struck by the dignity and respect afforded him and his comrade - from airline baggage people taking care not to treat the coffin like baggage to the people he meets who are extra deferential to him. Although he never met this man his experience is a profound, life-changing one. Cue an endless series of slow, sad salutes.

6/10

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??????? huh

1st Rewatch...I love Barbra and I really wanted to love her first vanity project as producer, director, co-screenwriter, and star, but I still have the same problems with it that I had the first time I watched. The whole story seems to hinge on the gimmick that everyone in this movie who encounters Anshel believes he is a man, but there is not a single second during the running time where Barbra makes me believe Anshel is a man. Julie Andrews was more convincing as a man in Victor/Victoria. I was also troubled by the fact that Barbra produced a musical where she didn't allow anyone else to sing, including her musically gifted leading man, Mandy Patinkin. No argument that she produced mad chemistry with Patinkin, but hearing them sing together would have been magical. Also the screenplay's constant reminders that woman are brainless get really tiresome, but Barbra's real fans will find entertainment value here, though it's not the movie it should have been.

SF = Zzz


[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it

This controversial Indian film is based on the true story of Phoolan Devi, and I knew nothing about it prior. She ended up being assassinated in 2001. I knew a little bit about arranged marriages and the caste system through a close female friend who left India in 2007, escaping an arranged marriage. She is now an American citizen. This particular story and film is pretty brutal, with a lot of rape and other violence. It's powerful and disturbing without being exploitive. I'm sure I'd like it more if it were exploitative but that's just me. On YouTube with subtitles.

You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

5th Rewatch...This 1987 comic re-working of Cyrano de Bergerac has it's problems. The Chris McConnell character is too stupid to live and why was he unable to talk to Roxanne (Daryl Hannah) but had no problem talking to the cute bartender? And Roxanne Is a shallow snotty bitch who took way too long to figure out she couldn't have it all (and she couldn't tell the difference between CD's voice and Chris'?). And the comic relief involving CD's volunteer fire department really weighed the film down, but it's purpose becomes clear later, but everything wrong with this movie becomes irrelevant thanks to the richly layered and often beautifully understated performance by Steve Martin as CD Bales, the intelligent and engaging fire chief of Nelson, Colorado, a performance so beautifully realized it should have earned Martin his first Oscar nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor, an honor that has still alluded him to this date. Martin's tour de force performance is an acting class by itself, whether it's his verbal lambasting of the bully in that bar or that lovely balcony scene where he seduces Roxanne with his words, everything Martin does works here and makes this movie worth watching and rewatching and rewatching again.

Night of the Blood Beast - 1958 scfi schlock. Shot on a budget of around 68,000 dollars and does look threadbare. Or maybe it was the crappy print I found on youtube. I watched this about a week ago and I'm having trouble remembering all but the most basic of plot elements. An astronaut dies while in space, or maybe he dies when his rocket ship crashes. Anyway his team recovers his body and brings it back to their tracking station. While there his body reanimates. Turns out the he picked up some alien hitchhikers that want to use his body as an incubator. It's not remotely as interesting as it sounds and this was an egregiously low energy movie.

25/100


Invasion of the Saucer Men - From 1957 and just as dull and poorly made but in a different way. Aliens land near a small town's lovers lane and it falls to a group of teenagers to battle them. The alien makeup is better than Night of the Blood Beast (which was just laughable) but the actual reveal is so sporadic and poorly shot that it's mostly confusing. It really leans heavily on the "this is a wacky comedy" bit without really earning any honest laughs. Not much in the way of tension either if you don't count the odd disembodied hand crawling around. My experience might have had a great deal to do with the terrible copies I watched. At any rate you probably shouldn't bother wasting your time on either of these dogs.

35/100

3rd Rewatch...Paul Thomas Anderson has never really topped his 1997 masterpiece, robbed of a Best Picture nomination. This look at the decay of the porn industry and what happens when some of the industry's biggest movers and shakers get chewed up and spit out is a riveting cinematic journey no matter how many times I watch it. The late Bu rt Reynolds and Julianne Moore were both robbed of the Supporting Actor Oscars for their work here. Anderson's screenplay creates a dangerous and inviting canvas filled with characters we genuinely care about as the final credits roll. I read Leonardo DiCaprio was originally offered the role of Dirk Diggler, but had already committed to something called Titanic allowing Mark Wahlberg to turn in a star-making performance. And I have to say that the characters played by William H Macy, the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Don Cheadle might be the most heartbreaking movie characters I have ever seen.

South of the Border follows director Oliver Stone as he travels through different countries in Latin America, investigating the shift to the left within many countries of the region towards the beginning of the 21st Century; the so-called "pink tide". In the process, Stone meets with leaders like Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Raúl Castro (Cuba), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), and several others.

It is not a secret that Stone has a certain agenda. He doesn't hide it, so it's there for everybody to see. He has been a hard-core critic of U.S. government, the establishment, and a firm detractor of President Bush, among other things. Take from that what you may as you watch this documentary, but he still does a great job of presenting facts in a neat package. The rise of leftist governments was indeed surprising and I suppose worrisome to the U.S. establishment.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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Bunny and the Bull - (2009)

This was Paul King's (best known at the time for directing The Mighty Boosh) directorial debut feature-wise - it kind of scampered through unnoticed, and it deserves some attention. Although it features Richard Ayoade, Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt (all in very funny roles) it's two leads are played by Simon Farnaby (as the titular Bunny) and Edward Hogg (as Stephen Turnbull). Stephen is a shut-in recluse, not having left his house in a year, and as he goes about his day we flash back to a fateful holiday he took with best friend Bunny, where the two met Eloisa (Verónica Echegui) - forming a love triangle as the three traveled to Spain so Bunny could fight a bull. It's a strange remembrance, where flashbacks feature scenes made up of cardboard/newspaper scenery, and very fake-on-purpose scenic and prop design. It's the way Stephen remembers things. It'll depend very much on who views it, but the various characters who flow through the story tipped the balance for me, making for a delightfully funny and very different movie. If you like things like The Mighty Boosh or anything the likes of Richard Ayoade would be in (King was involved with co-directing Garth Marenghi's Darkplace back in the day) - then you might want to give it a shot. It's a charming little fun-filled snowglobe of a movie.

7/10


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Taxi - (1998)

Daniel Morales (Samy Naceri) is an ace driver who has finally been granted a taxi license - using his souped-up car to get clients to where they want to go fast. Émilien (Frédéric Diefenthal) is a cop who simply can't pass his driving test. When Émilien uses Daniel's taxi, without telling him he's a cop, he ends up busting the driver for traveling at 175k/h - around 3 times the speed limit. To square things up, Daniel helps him via his driving skills to try and bring down a gang of German bank robbers terrorizing France. This was a pretty mainstream buddy-type comedy - fast-paced, with pretty decent comedic performances. So popular in France that it was followed by 4 sequels. Marion Cotillard features in it - a very early role for her. I watched the dubbed version without knowing I had the option to watch it in French with subtitles, and it would have been better the other way - but I still thought it was okay.

6/10


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Hannibal Rising - (2007)

Dark and dour, Hannibal Rising tells the story of Hannibal Lector's early life, from his Lithuanian childhood to his trip through the Iron Curtain and quest for vengeance after a group of militia during World War II kill and eat his little sister. Relentlessly sour, the audience has nothing and nobody to cheer for as the malignant sociopath chops up people who insult him and visits a terrible revenge on his enemies. It's simply one rotten thing after another, and doesn't give much insight into anything other than the fact that Hannibal's wartime experiences damaged him and turned him into a monster - the film keeps playing that one note, over and over, and in the end it just felt like an relatively empty experience.

4/10

The rest of the film has nothing to do with Laurie. Instead, it follows the crew of a reality show called Dangertainment, as they prepare to film a group of young volunteers that will spend the night at the abandoned Myers house. What they don't know is that, after Michael's encounter with Laurie, he has returned home and he doesn't like visitors.

Putting aside how ludicrous the logistics of this alleged show are, the film has very little to offer. Characters are paper-thin, the film doesn't really bring anything new to the franchise lore or themes, but rather just unleashes Michael Myers in a house full of meat bags for him to slice through. Oh, and did I mention that Busta Rhymes "kung fu fights" Michael Myers in the end?

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

Lookin pretty crispy there, Mikey.

Oh, Busta sure got the chance to bust some killer one-liners.

"Trick or treat, motherf**ker!"