Rate The Last Movie You Saw

By May be found at the following website: http://www.movieposterdb.com/poster/d60ec5fc, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30632359

Touki Bouki - (1973)

A warning to anyone who might fancy watching Touki Bouki - a cow is slaughtered in the film's opening scenes, and it's not a quick death either. Later we have to endure the same, this time with a goat. Aside from having to endure that, this Senegalese film provides a lot of food for thought in relation to low budget, avant-garde filmmaking that shares a lot of the traits Jamaican classic The Harder They Come has. Basically you'd have every right to expect that films coming from these nations would direct their attentions towards the hopeless and nightmarish scope of escaping poverty by any means necessary - and so often these needs involve having to break established rules and customs. In Touki Bouki there's a concrete destination aside from the more immaterial one - France, and Paris. Mory (Magaye Niang) and Anta's (Mareme Niang) trials and tribulations on the road to getting there feel a little dream-like, and this film as a whole has the right attitude for having a direct effect on our subconscious. It's another "out there", interestingly original title rescued from obscurity by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project. Outside of my comfort zone, and definitely a film I won't forget in a hurry.

8/10


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Redes - (1936)

Redes is a Mexican film, and interesting because of the way it mixes documentary and drama together in an early "docu-drama" experiment detailing the lives of poor fishermen who are routinely cheated by the wealthy and powerful elite. Alone I would have thought the results to be marvelous, but it sinks somewhat and seems awkward when it goes full bore towards 'Socialist Revolution' type propaganda. During those moments the whole thing seems heavy handed and even somewhat naïve. Worth seeing though, just because of how rare Mexican films from this period are, and how the technique works.

6/10


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Scarecrow - (1973)

An acting masterclass by two of the best in their prime - Al Pacino and Gene Hackman feature as an odd couple who form a close friendship on the road. Cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is wonderful. Worth checking out - my watchlist review for Scarecrow is here.

8/10


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Kansas City Confidential - (1952)

Rough and gritty noir which features Joe Rolfe (John Payne) trying to find and get even with a group of robbers who framed him. My review is on my watchlist thread here.

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Wanda (1970)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

1st Rewatch...This bloody actioner from 2010 still holds up. In one of his few opportunities to be center stage, Danny Trejo crushes it as a day laborer who is hired by a pair of drug dealers to assassinate a US Senator. The violence is unflinching and unapologetic with a staggering body count. There were a dozen corpses about 30 seconds into the running time. Trejo makes the perfect anti-hero and Jeff Fahey is intense as one of the drug dealers. This movie was based on a fake trailer that was made for the movie Grindhouse and attracted so much attention that audience demand motivated director Robert Rodrigues to create a film out of the trailer. It even has two sequels that are mentioned at the end of this film.

1st Rewatch...If you think you know everything there was to know about the tortured matinee idol forced to live his life in the closet, you are probably wrong. Found myself moved even more by this documentary on the second view. The commentary offered by Doris Day and Linda Evans is just heartbreaking.

You're missing a star. Maybe a star and a half.

By CJ Entertainment, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70537867

Decision to Leave - (2022)

Rewatch. In 2022 Park Chan-wook gave us another classic to go with the likes of Joint Security Area, Oldboy and The Handmaiden (among others.) One about two very different kinds of people finding each other under circumstances which makes their meeting more of a tragedy than love story. I loved everything to do with 'mountain people' and 'sea people', the cinematography and the wonderful screenplay along with the film's winsome and brash humour. One of the best from '22.

8/10


By http://www.sinemalar.com/film/9056/Susuz-Yaz/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33027357

Dry Summer - (1964)

Great Turkish film about two brothers - one steals water from the surrounding farms by diverting it's flow back into his property, and the other takes the blame for a tragedy that results from it, leaving his new wife in the hands of his lusty, jerk of a sibling. Review is here on my watchlist thread.

8/10

Napoleon. Eh. Action scenes and acting was good but so many boring parts. Really didn't need to be 2 and a half hours long. I give it 3/5.

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“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Gandhi​

Blowout (1981)


Very well directed and visually striking. I'm glad it stuck with the dark Noir tone, especially during the ending, that's often missing in 'Neo noir' movies. (I'm looking at you, Theatrical ending of Blade Runner.)


Now onto the bad. There is only a single good performance in this movie, and it's John Lithgow's. Our hero and heroine fall completely flat for me. I've never liked any of Travolta's heroes though. Only his villains and anti-heroes.


Still worth a watch, for the beautiful, dark city scenes, and seedy noir feel.

The Vanishing (1988)

Body Double (1984)


I didn't like this as much as Blow Out, despite the acting being better. There's a line between making a 'Hitchcock inspired' movie and just combining major elements of 3 different Hitchcock movies and reshooting them.


To be fair, a lot of it works effectively, but it doesn't feel like it's own movie. It's okay. C+

Rogue Agent. 3/5. Excellent performances by leads, James Norton and Gemma Arterton. One of those "inspired by" movies that make you want to look up the real story. A bit slow, and thus oddly refreshing as it feels no need to be a showy action piece.



(Not having any luck using the IMDB "copy link" URL with the IMG tag here. Can someone clue me in on how to share a poster image? Thanks ...)

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Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain ... only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.

2nd Rewatch...Maybe the ultimate "the business of show business" movie. This 1996 HBO movie is a dramatization of the late night talk show war that erupted between David Letterman and Jay Leno when Johnny Carson decided to step down from The Tonight Show in 1990 after 30 years. The machinations involved in manipulating Leno and Letterman into making them both believe they were to succeed Johnny are a little hard to follow here and a bit hard to swallow, but they are absolutely fascinating to watch. Daniel Roebuck and John Michael Higgins offer remarkable performances as Leno and Letterman, respectively, and needless to say Rich Little made a perfect Johnny Carson. The real scene stealer here, though, is Kathy Bates in an Emmy-nominated performance as Leno's ruthless agent Helen Kushnick. Not sure how factually accurate this, but it sure is entertaining. As for the facts, it is documented in the epilogue in this movie that Helen Kushnick sued the author of the book upon which this film was based.

Umpteenth Rewatch...I don't know what it is about this movie, but it's timeless and remains as richly entertaining as it was 30 years ago. John Hughes' direction is sensitive and the cast is superb, especially Anthony Michael Hall as Brian.

Death Line (1972)

Nice little horror here featuring Donald Pleasance hunting a seemingly subterranean cannibal in the London Underground. Acting is not great and unless this was cut to bu$$ery Christopher Lee is woefully underused. Plusses are it is a good tale, the effects are not bad for 1972 and Donald Pleasance as a rather snooty policeman. Ending is good too. Brought out in the US as "Raw Meat"

I should revisit The Breakfast Club; it’s been a long time ago.

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

Davis, 2023





Sometimes when I watch a film, I will get a short ways into it, and will realize I am watching a new permutation of a familiar story. Or in the case of 2023's Foe, a new examination of a existential philosophical conundrum.

The film was recommended to me by my sister. My sister tends to like films like Little Women, A Star is Born, CODA, and things of this nature - sort of down to Earth human stories. I went into Foe knowing absolutely nothing about it, save that I saw a still of Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal on the Amazon splash page. I didn't read the description or even check the genre. Imagine my surprise when not only was I presented with a science fiction film, but a bleak, austere existential piece in the vein of Ray Bradbury,

Anyway, I quickly realized what I was watching was another take on artificial beings and their sentience. These days, when I realize this is what I am watching, I have to make a conscious choice not to automatically start comparing what I am watching to earlier works of the same nature, and I try to avoid the "oh, this again" knee-jerk. Otherwise, I am sort of admitting that everything has been said on the subject, and I should just move on from it as far as interest is concerned.

So, with that said, the focus for me sort of shifts to the filmmaking, the performances, and whether or not the film has something new to say about the subject. I think Foe excels in two of the three. The film looks great, again embracing a very bleak, morose atmosphere. A picture of a future Earth in dire trouble, with humans attempting to live in space in earnest as their home planet suffers from a variety of environmental crises. The performances are also excellent across the board. Ronan is pretty much money in anything she does, and the two other leads, Paul Mescal and Aaron Pierre and both stellar.

Where the film falters is in its exploration of the subject matter, where it hints at some deeper explorations, but doesn't end up examining them with much gusto. Relying on a twist that I picked up almost immediately, it shoots wide of the mark by not focusing enough on the effects of the twist on its characters after the fact, which are presented as more of a coda instead of a full third act. Also, for a film that exercises restraint throughout most of its runtime, I was surprised at a couple of the final scenes that leaned into a more heavy-handed approach to ensure the viewer that yes, this is twist and yes, there is more to it, and just in case you still don't get it, here is a final 10 second scene to really make sure you get it. Removing about 20 seconds of footage would have left quite a bit more ambiguity, which I would have preferred.

There is still some stuff to unpack, and I did find myself thinking about the film's implications after I was done watching it, but the overreliance on the twist, which is borrowed pretty much wholesale from other, better films, keeps this from being great. I liked it, though!

That said, while quickly googling the film to check the spelling on a couple of actor's names so I didn't accidently name one of them after a bottle of tequila, I noticed a really low RT rating for the film, which surprised me. This isn't a bad film, certainly not worth the rating I saw (I didn't check audience scores), and I think I would recommend it to any sci-fi fan without hesitation.

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I've never tried the IMDB copy link. But it seems to me the best way to post a picture is to load it onto your device, then upload it using the "Manage Attachments" button below the compose screen.

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Crime and Punishment - (1983)

I was going to work my way through Aki Kaurismäki's films at random but noticed some kind of follow on from others, so to avoid creating any chronological confusion I'm going through them in order. I hear the word "idiosyncratic" thrown around a lot in reference to this guy's films, and no other word best describes his take on Fyodor Dostoevsky's 19th Century novel, which is only a very loose template for the antics that go on in Helsinki here. Antti Rahikainen (Markku Toikka) murders the man who killed his fiancé in a hit and run, and when a caterer, Eeva Laakso (Aino Seppo), witnesses the murder the pair will be thrust into an intense platonic relationship - with the police constantly snapping at Rahikainen's heels. Rahikainen has the mannerisms of someone that is perhaps autistic, but nevertheless very spaced out and strange. Then again, many of the characters behave in a laconic and laid back way, with dry humour sprinkled into their dialogue. Events in the film remind me of real life inasmuch as how random accidents and events have unexpected consequences later on. It all plays out in a sometimes amusing, and always interesting way - there's a lightness and often slightly strange bent to everything. An interesting first feature.

7/10


By "Copyright 1950 Columbia Pictures Corp." - Scan via Heritage Auctions. Cropped from original image., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde...curid=87375215

In a Lonely Place - (1950)

Nicholas Ray's film noir masterpiece really knocked my socks off. My review for it is here in my watchlist thread.

10/10

I gave up social media so that I can give attention to books and movies. Facebook was killing my ability to concentrate.


Since then I have seen:
The Holdovers (2023) 4.5/5
What a wonderful, entertaining movie. Paul Giamatti is great. The other actors are all wonderful. The story is touching. The script is funny and charming. There is not a dull moment in this film.

The Maestro (2023) 2.5/5
It was so boring! I know others liked it. But I watched people walk out of this film. I wished I could've followed them. So much effort and so dull.

The Lesson (2023) 3.5/5
It's okay. It kept me interested even as the plot began to be obvious. I was somewhat disappointed by the script. Richard E. Grant and Daryl McCormack play well off of each other. It was sad seeing movie stars of my generation getting old. But it was lovely to see the handsome Daryl McCormack again. I hope to see him in something I like soon. As for Richard E. Grant, I kept wishing I was watching Withnail and I or Can You Ever Forgive Me? too of my favorites of his.