Rate The Last Movie You Saw

By Reynold Brown - Brown, Franz. Mutiny on the Bounty. This image was posted at the website operated by Reynold Brown's son, Franz Brown. The webpage offers a detailed discussion of Reynold Brown's poster art for Mutiny on the Bounty., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde...curid=17878408

Mutiny on the Bounty - (1962)

I'm glad I watched this before reading about how troubled the production was - Mutiny on the Bounty is a gripping real-life tale, and it's good to focus on the story and visuals without any distractions. Of course, Marlon Brando does the best he can to make us tilt our heads and ask "Huh?" It was around about this time he started to sabotage films with his bizarre behavior and need to make a creative input. He arrives wearing an 18th Century foppish costume I've never seen the likes of before - he has a grey pilgrim hat, bright red cloak and shiny silver top and pants. It's the kind of thing where I think to myself "I've no doubt that's historically accurate, but wow - it's so distracting." Takes me out of the scene. Then there's his British upper class (possibly gay - as has been suggested) accent, which is so unusual it made audiences laugh at the film's premiere. All of that aside though - I thought this was pretty good considering. It's 185-minutes flew by, so as pure entertainment it did it's job. Trevor Howard makes a very convincing Capt. William Bligh, despite his age, and the fact that they not only rebuilt the Bounty but filmed on location in Tahiti made for a very authentic sea voyage. It's not something I'll be compelled to see again in a hurry, but I never had cause to check how much running time was remaining (I also watched the deleted prologue and epilogue which were bonus features on the DVD copy I have.) It might be the least accurate version of the Bounty story, but if asked I'd say that it's definitely worth a look.

7.5/10

Oh, and by the way - I finally learned how keelhauling is done. I thought sailors were thrown off one side of the ship, and pulled up the other - but in all actuality it's from bow to stern. I guess that's why it's nearly impossible to survive it. By the time the Bounty sailed, it had been outlawed - but the Capt. Bligh in this film is all too ready to use it.

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Mikey and Nicky (1976)

I'm not sure I enjoyed this more than The Heartbreak Kid, which blew me away when I watched it a few years ago, but this film still lived up to my expectations. It chronicles a dying friendship on its last legs at the worst possible time for one of the two involved in it. Though Nicky initially comes off as panicked and not thinking straight due to his fear of being killed, the more you learn of his behavior (that he cheats on his wife, is openly racist, and assaults or threatens to assault most people he comes across), the clearer it becomes that he's a toxic individual who Mikey has been stuck with for years. Bearing witness to Mikey putting his own safety on the line to keep him out of trouble and putting up with his antics over and over again creates tension as to whether he'll finally reach his breaking point and betray his friend. Given the clear abuse and disloyalty Nicky shows to Mikey (as well as to the women in his life), it constantly seems like the film is about to build to this inevitable climax, yet in typical abuser fashion, Nicky appears to restore his relations by smooth talking and begging for forgiveness (and this pattern has likely gone on for years). But how long will these ingenuine apologies work? Since Nicky lacks empathy, the film could've just been a case of rooting for an inevitable ending from the start, but since Nicky's fate is basically in Mikey's hands, it puts him in a rough spot. He can either swallow his pride and stick by Nicky or sacrifice his morals and cause his death. Neither option is good and that Mikey is considerably more empathetic got me to hold out a bit of hope that he wouldn't lower himself. All these elements made Nicky's fate quite compelling to the point I was genuinely curious as to how the film was going to end. Overall, it was a really good character study and I'm glad to have finally watched something else in Elaine May's unfortunately small body of films.

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Well, you share something in common with my sister then. That's her favorite too.

Sanctuary (2022)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

That's too bad then, since Chapter 2 & 4 are much better than the original, if you ask me.

Wow, looking forward to it even more now.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

The Bad Batch - This is the third Ana Lily Amirpour film I've watched after A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon. So apparently I've watched all of her full length projects. She's also done several TV series episodes and short films. This sophomore effort was a bit of a misfire for her especially after her impressive debut with AGWHAaN.

In some non disclosed future reputed criminals along with the mentally ill and any and all fringe dwellers have been deemed the "bad batch" and exiled into the desert wastelands of Texas. The story opens with Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) being tattooed with her batch number and dropped off at the fenced entrance to the ad hoc prison. Things go south for her in a hurry after she's Yeah, it's that kind of film. It doesn't come off as torture porn though. Just very matter-of-fact which doesn't really add anything to the proceedings. That might be the first clue that Amirpour's script isn't really working.

Jason Momoa costars while attempting (and largely failing at) a Cuban accent as Miami Man. He's either the leader of the muscle bound barbarians (or he isn't) but he does have an artistic bent and loves a little girl who either is or isn't his daughter. It's character building 101 yet somehow doesn't succeed in making the guy any kind of sympathetic figure.

Keanu Reeves has the more interesting role as The Dream, the leader of a drug soaked Burning Man type of society also dubbed The Dream. Reeves plays a creepy David Koresh type who surrounds himself with a retinue of gun toting young women all of whom he has evidently impregnated. Again, it is that type of movie. This profusion of nihilism amounts to not much at all.

The most glaring thing that kept taking me out of the story was Stuff like that might not be so glaring when the narrative has you deeply engrossed but when the script is as anorexic as this your mind ends up distracted by the implausibilities. The ending also lands with a thud since Amirpour hasn't done enough to set it up or to even bolster her characters. It's not a terrible film but it's also not worth recommending to anyone.

50/100

What the hell is this?

Interesting. I had avoided this film for a long time because I was worried about the degree to which it would feel overly cruel and torture-centered.

Instead it's a reflection on what kind of lives you can live in a time of scarcity, freedom vs security, etc. Everyone is basically a predator, but it's deciding what kind of predator you will be.

Here is what I wrote about it when I watched it. (I'd probably give it more of a 4 than a 4.5 now).

And while I'll agree that Momoa's accent was iffy, I thought that he was incredibly charismatic and magnetic.

Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19784745

Room at the Top - (1959)

Oh yeah - I'm going to go big with Room at the Top. Reasons I like it? It's a great British film. It has a scintillating Simone Signoret in it giving the performance of a lifetime. It's about class, envy, greed and lust. It's just terrific. Jack Clayton didn't direct many films - but every film he did direct he tried to make great. Room at the Top was his first, and preceded The Innocents - another great movie. In this, Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) does a Billy Liar in the worst possible way and ends up with two sweethearts - the first, the very young Susan Brown (Heather Sears) - daughter of a wealthy industrial magnate. Susan's parents try everything they can to quash the burgeoning romance between them, because Lampton is poor. Lampton himself isn't sure whether it's Susan he wants, or the money that comes with her. In the meantime, he strikes up an affair with older married Frenchwoman Alice Aisgill (Simone Signoret) - although no less trouble (her husband threatens to ruin Joe) he's much more emotionally attached to her. When Susan becomes pregnant, disaster ensues. The way all of this plays out, it sounds like Joe was an okay fellow before class barriers between him and Susan drive him a little mad, and from there his character splinters and he starts going down the wrong path. To understand this, you have to see how character Jack Wales (John Westbrook) - wealthy, and an officer in the war (not to mention Susan's current boyfriend) - goads ex-sergeant Lampton, frequently patronizing him and humiliating him by outdoing the guy in every way possible very publicly.

Once Lampton has a chip on his shoulder, his usual cheerful conviviality drains away - he becomes more scheming and combative. On a trip to visit his aunt and uncle, when they ask him if he's seeing anyone he mentions Susan's wealthy parents before talking about Susan herself, alarming the couple. He's handsome and charming enough to win Susan's love, but she's very young and naïve - unlike Alice, Joe hardly spends any time at all with Susan and the two don't seem matched mentally. Susan is extraordinarily beautiful though (Alice is no slouch either - she's the "older" lover, 10 years Joe's senior, but Simone Signoret is so transcendently beautiful she's plenty attractive.) Alice is the one we cheer for in Room at the Top - she's the only level-headed mature character, and head over heels in love with Joe despite his occasional flare-ups in temper. He spends time with Alice because he loves her. He spends time with Susan to stick it to all the snobs, and defy Susan's priggish, ultra-wealthy parents who look at him as if he's a diseased dog, sliding in insults with their faint praise of him. You can see disaster coming for Joe a mile away - and he'll take just about everyone he's involved with in his not very well thought-out plans with him. Clayton conducts all of this tragedy like an old pro, and as such I enjoyed watching this one hell of a lot.

9/10

I have a fairly contrary view of Saltburn. I'd rather have spent those two hours trying to get salt to burn. Imagine a summer long party. Everybody is drinking all the time, and everybody other than the protagonist, Oliver, is entitled. Bodies start to fall. How could they not. If they hadn't been murdered, they'd have expired from the life style, so death is not unexpected, especially given the kind of movie it is. What kind of castle mystery could it be without murder?

It's not as witty as some British murder mysteries and I can't really say that I liked any of the characters. I didn't feel threatened by the murders since I'd never have consented to stay at this place for the entire summer.

Yeah, so production and acting were good, but also speech and sound were also indistinct, in a way that made me miss half of the dialog. That wasn't much of a loss since I still knew what was going on.

One of my recent visits to Film Noir - He Walked By Night - It's an early version of Film Noir (1948), in one of my noir DVD sets. Cops are assigned to catch a killer..."loosely based on the real-life actions of Erwin "Machine-Gun" Walker, a former Glendale, California police department employee and World War II veteran who unleashed a crime spree of burglaries, robberies and shootouts in the Los Angeles area in 1945 and 1946."

It's early in the noir cycle and has the additional aspect of having Jack Webb of subsequent Dragnet fame, pretty much being Joe Friday. Cops with hats talk fast, the telephone and walkie-talkie are state of the art and there's a serious male voice doing voice-over narration, Dragnet style. The story is interrupted by a female voice broadcasting police bulletins to cop car radios.

SF = Z


[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

Creep (2014)

When the Cat Comes 1963 Inventive and entertaining with style and substance. I loved the use of colour in the film. The magical cat with the cool shades is fantastic. Kitty should have gotten more screen time.

Noirs I watched today:

Roadblock 1951 A decent film noir. Nothing exceptional, but it is alright.

Repeat Performance 1947 The year repeating element feels like a gimmick and doesn't really fit with the film. It isn't necessary and they don't do enough with it to justify it. Performances are fine and there is some good drama, but I personally wouldn't consider this a film noir.

I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes 1948 This was a pleasant surprise. Directed by William Nigh, the film stars Don Castle, Elyse Knox, and Regis Toomey. Around Christmastime, a dancer is falsely accused of murder and his wife desperately tries to prove his innocence. Good performances from the leads and an interesting, well written screenplay make this an enjoyable film noir. Watched on the Criterion Channel.

May December (2023) Directed by Todd Haynes. Starring Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, and Charles Melton. This is a very well written film with a trio of strong performances and powerful moments. Good score too. Currently my 8th favourite film of the year. Watched on Netflix.

SF = Z


Oooo a lot of fun.



[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

Extinction (2018)


A family man keeps having visions and nightmares of an off-world invasion, soon the visions turn into a reality when spacecrafts appear in the sky. I enjoyed this and the twist was mind bending, some of the CGI was pretty terrible but I could look past that