Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

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Midway - (1976)

Up until the advent of CGI, it was much easier to film land battles than air or sea ones, and Midway had to be content with using actual footage of naval/aerial warfare in the Pacific theatre. I recently watched Overlord (1975), which did the same thing - mixing in real footage with that taken for the movie. Otherwise this film works best when confined to the Japanese admirals and brass (Toshiro Mifune, James Shigeta & Pat Morita) kind of acknowledging how damned risky their attack on Midway is, and then sweating their own decisions at probably the most crucial moment of the war as far as Japan was concerned. Risking and losing too much. Was it luck? Or was it the fact that the Americans were better at figuring out what the other side was up to? Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson and Robert Wagner - it's stuffed with stars, but neither this nor the Roland Emmerich version in 2019 could make much of a cinematic gem from this crushing victory America had over the Japanese in 1942.

6/10


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Texas Across the River - (1966)

Dean Martin and Alain Delon in a film together? I had to see this. I thought it'd be fun at the very least, but it was a little too much of a "muck around" movie for my taste. Nobody takes anything seriously, and for some reason Delon is playing a Spanish guy instead of a French one? I don't know. Not much in this made much sense, with impromptu bull fights and Joey Bishop in brownface as a Native American - all of whom get pretty rough treatment inasmuch as they're made to look ridiculous. It's absolutely silly for the most part, with Delon's Don Andrea killing a wedding crasher (in self defense) which has him pursued by some Union cavalry out for vengeance and justice. Martin plays a cowboy who hooks up with him and spars with him when they're not getting along - Delon getting to kiss Martin and slap him numerous times, in a couple of the movie's best running gags. I like comedy, but this was too loose and not very palatable.

4/10


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Hyenas - (1992)

Based on Friedrich Dürrenmatt's play The Visit, about a wealthy, powerful woman's return to the town she grew up in, and the power her promises now have to spill blood. All-up, the coming together of context and original narrative here makes up something pretty special, and this is one of the best African films I've ever seen - it works as a film of gravity, vision and poetry. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

9/10

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Bullitt (Peter Yates, 1968)



Very smart, mature and intelligent thriller. Nothing is overstated or spelled out to to the viewer unnecessarily. Dark, gritty, realistic, all while capturing San Francisco superbly. Also really liked Yates' The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which I watched the other week.

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Never Let Go (2024)

Is the third Twilight Zone esque something's in the woods or is it horror film I've seen this year. It stars Hallie Berry as a mother of two young boys who are twins... As she lives in this strange cabin in the woods where for her family to survive they must stay tethered to the sacred house the whole time.

The film does a decent job building the mythology and the trailers do an excellent job hiding the main theme of the story...which I will not spoil. To be frank the film is a soft R when it needed to be a hard R like Anti-Christ to really hit the messages and themes home. Not to say it's a bad film..it's a pretty good one. The story is incredibly solid the third act is very good filled with twists and scenes that the pulp fan in me enjoyed.

Alexendre Aja is a fine filmmaker...the film isn't dark to the point where nothing can be seen which is a common issue with modern films. However the actual cinematography, sound design, and effects could have used a better touch. If this was a streaming movie I think people would enjoy it better but it's not really worth a trip to the theater.

Haha yeah...I should probably drop that down a bit. It is still just a simple movie.

Rebel Ridge (2024)

Entertaining drama with a man (Aaron Pierre) trying to post bail for his cousin in the small town holding him. There he comes upon a deeply corrupt local force willing to try anything in the book to put money in the coffers so that they don't get subsumed into the State Police. It's a neat story, well executed, by the director of Blue Ruin which was no surprise. If Aaron Pierre can stick to these movies with story he could be a big star. Good support from Don Johnson, Emory Cohen and James Cromwell.

The Apple - 7/10

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The Moon (2023), Korean with English subtitles - 6 out of 10.

Had been looking forward to it and was a little disappointed.

Everything looked okay but the dialogue seemed strange, even when an American character was speaking English.

Maybe that's how people react in South Korea but everyone seemed to be ill-suited to their job and liked to complain a lot.

My main problem was with the main character who was supposed to be a Navy Seal and he comes off as this total wimp who cracks under pressure right off the bat - Neil Armstrong he ain't.

Watch Apollo 18 if you want a good Moon movie with a touch of horror.

Probably a rent, not a buy.

Trap (2024)

I've heard some damning opinions on this here but decided to give it a go anyway. I'm not a fan of M. Night Shyamalan's work really. I thought the Visit was okay. Same with this really but this doesn't really know what it wants to be. It's not dark at all, as I suspect the intention was. It's watchable for Josh Hartnett and I was surprised to see Hayley Mills involved. Overall, a weak film in an ongoing downward trajectory for the director.

Oh, nooooo! I was hopeful that this would be campy fun. I'll probably still check it out at some point, but the tepid-leaning-negative reviews are a real bummer.

Spoiler: it's really not.

Eddie Coyle movie is very good.

Seen Bullitt a million times. Huge crush on Steve McQueen.

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Good movie. Wouldn’t want to see it again. Wish there was more than a cameo of Jesse Plemons.



Excellent movie. Caleb Landry Jones is amazing in this strange movie.

If Gigi had been a French language film directed by a renowned French director, it would probably be considered one of the great French comedies of all time. But it's not a French film, it's a Hollywood movie shot in Paris. Gigi won 9 Oscars and I think I know why...it feels like a French film in it's risque story that pushed the boundaries under the Production Code. Had this been a typical Hollywood musical it would've been sanitized and had golly-gee-whiz characters with hi-jinks galore. But Gigi isn't that type of film, it's very French being based on the novel by French author Collette. It's a story of a young woman being trained by her wealthy aunt to be a courtesan.

What didn't sit well with me and confused me too, was the perceived age of Gigi (Leslie Caron). When we meet Gigi she's dressed in what I took to be a young school girl's type clothing. She's described as not having a figure yet and isn't old enough to drink champagne. All of that seemed to be suggesting a girl of 12 or 13 years old, which I found uncomfortable and certainly not charming or funny. I did find the personality of Gigi to be charming enough. Maybe I'm wrong about her intended age? As later we see her dressed up in a fancy gown and she looks to be a young adult woman. So that put a damper on the film.

I didn't care for Louis Jordan, he was too dull for a romantic lead, a rather boring actor in my book. Maurice Chevalier he's fine in small doses, but like Jimmy Durante too much of his character becomes an annoyance. I really dislike his singing & hamming smile to the camera. Hermione Gingold on the other hand was my favorite, not surprising I usually like her.


The plus side of Gigi is Vincent Minnelli's eye for art inspired sets, gosh the film looks beautiful! A big plus is filming on location in Paris with the cast and not just a second camera crew. We even see the inside of the famous Maxine's. The costumes are stunning.

If they had made it clear that Gigi wasn't a child but a young adult woman capable of making her own decisions...and if they replaced wooden Louis Jordan with a more charming actor and if they cut most of Maurice Chevalier scenes then I might have liked this more.

Targets, 1968

Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff) is an actor who made his name in the gothic horror boom of the 40s and 50s. Preparing for the debut of his latest, and last, horror film, Byron feels unsettled by the evolution of horror and the sense that he is being left behind. Meanwhile, clean-cut Bobby Thompson (Tim O’Kelly) wakes up and, for no apparent reason, embarks on a spree of violence that draws him closer and closer to the drive-in theater where Byron will premiere his new film.

This is a stunning directorial debut that shocks with scenarios and images that are hauntingly relevant nearly 50 years later.

Everything in this film, from the performances to the color scheme to the stunner of a climax, just absolutely clicks into place. If you have access to the Criterion Channel, I highly, HIGHLY recommend listening to Bogdanovich’s stellar commentary.



FULL REVIEW

As a huge Jodie Comer fan, I have to confess that Prima Facie was a bit of a letdown - though certainly not on account of her performance, which is magnificent.

The play was written by Australian-British playwright Suzie Miller, whose work I am not really familiar with.

However, without going into a lot of specifics which might constitute spoiler material, I'll just say that the play asks us to believe that the character of Tessa is both incredibly smart and super skilled at anything that involves lawyering, while at the same time capable of making incredibly poor decisions that she maybe could have known would lead to unwanted consequences.

This is a little bit like wanting to have the cake and eat it, too. I can believe one or the other, but the two aspects of her character simultaneously really stretches the suspension of disbelief into an area that is well beyond the Milky Way, to say the least.

There's another crucial misstep that comes late in the play, having to do with stage direction and the framing of the way in which it was filmed for cinema exhibition. It just completely destroys the immersive nature of everything that has come before, to the point that it just seems intended to remind you that this is just a stage performance and nothing more.

Having said that, Comer's performance really is amazing, and more than enough of a reason to watch this whenever you get a chance (it doesn't appear like this is streaming anywhere, and perhaps it never will).

The appeal of Wolfs is pretty simple, really: it's all about George Clooney and Brad Pitt's delightful display of star power and easygoing charisma.

That's all, really, but if you are already inclined to like them, then that's more than enough.

The premise of the movie is simple, like all buddy movies should be: they play fixers, who have to sort out a situation that is very compromising for a big-time politician, and they naturally make a big deal of how much they don't like each other, even though they really do have to work together on that thing.

Is that more than enough for a movie to be eminently watchable? With the cast that director Jon Watts has assembled here, it definitely is.

Try watching it on the big screen if you get a chance, you won't be sorry.

When it comes to Transformers One, there's a lot less here than meets the eye. Like, A LOT less.

I'll admit that the voice cast of the movie seems very appealing, which is the main reason why I even bothered with this in the first place.

Instead of an interesting (or original) narrative, the movie just made me wonder how many things we still don't know about the Transformers. Like, if they are machines, why do they even need to have a gender? They don't seem to reproduce sexually, since they are probably manufactured in an assembly line somewhere. Do they have lubricant instead of blood? Do they have any bodily excretions, like, you know, the occasional oil spill? How often are they supposed to visit the mechanic? Do they ever get a chassis transplant?

Alas, the movie does not offer any answers to those intriguing questions. Instead it's just a big, loud, bombastic mess with unappealing animation that doesn't really draw you into the story like the best animated movies do.

For Transformers fans, that will probably be more than enough. Everyone else should probably just stay clear.

The Substance (2024) This was wild. Demi Moore is fantastic and Margaret Qualley is great too. It's sharply written, ferociously directed, and a fun ride. One of the best films of the year.

SF = Z

Viewed: TV



[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