Rate The Last Movie You Saw

I could see getting kind of swept up in it on the big screen, especially if the rest of the audience was really into it. But it felt at least 30 minutes too long, it's heavy with exposition, and the lead role is just so very flat.

That's part of the reason why I never watched it since I first saw it in the theater... but then again, I didn't even like it that much then either. Pretty much all of the writing and charaterizations were pure Hollywood boilerplate, and even the spectacle of the effects didn't leave much of an impression.

Don't forget a character name-dropping "shock & awe"; yeah, because I'm sure in the year 2154, people will still be casually referencing a military term used over a century and half beforehand.

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This is pretty good, in a very, very British way, also very quiet. I finished up The Dig on Netflix, about an eccentric amatuer archeologist, hired by a wealthy, but dying woman to investigate strange mounds on her property. The result is the discovery of a trove of Anglo-Saxon treasures, the "Sutton Hoo" discoveries.

Things get complicated as a "real" archeologist horns in, and World War II approaches. Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan star as Basil Brown and Edith Pretty. Accents are English enough to seem almost "foreign" and it's slow and somewhat somber, but done quite well and fairly close to the actual history of the discovery. It's a good counterpart to so many hyperkinetic movies, but probably one with limited appeal, mainly to fans of archeology.

My internet is back up - which leaves me with a backlog of films to rate, so I'll try to be concise...


By IMDB, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18346523

The Butterfly Effect - (2004)

Seen this before, and it left enough of an impression on me that I thought it was worth revisiting (once my memory of it had diminished to the point where I could barely remember a thing about it.) Time travel films interest me, and even ones like Project Almanac (as dumbed down as Primer is intelligent) leave their mark. My main problem with this one is Ashton Kutcher, who seems to still be in 'TV comedy' mode despite the starkly different material (with paedophilia, violence and the like showing up) demanding a less goofy turn. In this Kutcher's Evan leads a life out of order as he mentally travels back to moments in his life he'd blacked out. This 'blacking out' seems to happen because Evan experiences these moments in a non-sequential manner, and his ability to foresee what might happen leads to him making changes that disrupt his present-day existence in extreme manners. It's far from perfect, and I think seeing it twice is enough, but Evan's inability to control the destiny of all of those he loves, despite his best efforts, shows how our best intentions are sometimes overpowered by the randomness of a cold universe. However much we might believe we could live a perfect life if given another chance, the truth is there will always be tragedy. Other than that, some might find this not grounded enough in reality.

So much for being concise.

6.5/10


By Copyright: Skyscraper Films. Incorporates artwork by Mark Carroll; seeTinch, Roger Erik (December 27, 2011)

Sound of my Voice - (2011)

What was once going to be a series, or at least a trilogy, looks set to be just a stand-alone film - and that's a shame because this film sets up an intriguing premise that left me with a bit of a gasp as the credits started to roll. Two documentary filmmakers infiltrate a cult where leader "Maggie" (Brit Marling) has her followers enthralled. Maggie contends that she's from the future and appears to be using every trick in the book at brainwashing those who are already willing adherents, but chief skeptic Peter Aitken (Christopher Denham) begins to fall under her influence as well. When she demands he kidnap a young girl for her his loyalty is tested, as is his partner's love for him. The film's finale sent me into a spin - everything we've learned might be on the verge of being spectacularly upended. Overall this is an above-average psychological thriller, nicely understated, with it's performances and script doing the heavy lifting due to it's low budget.

7.5/10


By The cover art can be obtained from Movieposterdb.com., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34897096

Tattoo - (1981)

Bruce Dern really sells this well - his creepy turn as tattoo artist Karl Kinsky presents us with a character that is seemingly normal on the surface, but mental illness is bubbling down below and when he meets model Maddy (Maud Adams) an obsession develops which makes Glenn Close's Alex in Fatal Attraction seem perfectly well-adjusted. (A 'Wost Actor' Razzie nomination shows that some might consider he went a little too far.) I never really felt Maud Adams ever showed much as an actress. What you get is your typical stalker film where Kinsky captures his prey and tries to mark her as his own with his tattoo skills, and then the film plunges into a fairly stock standard "captive" arc. For what it's worth, I enjoyed watching it.

6/10


By [1], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33811442

Nicholas' Gift - (1998)

Typical "true story" television drama where parents Reg and Maggie Green (Alan Bates and Jamie Lee Curtis) take their two young children on a tour of Italy. When young Nicholas is shot during a robbery gone wrong, and he's pronounced brain dead, his parents decide to donate his organs to kids in need - which brings them much acclaim, as that kind of thing isn't done much in Italy. It's middling all the way through.

5/10


By Official James Bond 007 Website, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61977088

No Time to Die - (2021)

By the time a film series gets to it's 25th installment it can't help but carry with it some tired tropes and rehashed plot elements. There's a few things here and there which either recall some of Bond's long past glories that don't usually get brought up, or introduce a few fresh twists and notable departures from the norm, but the well-worn path is mostly travelled. No Time to Die falls well short of the series most enduring chapters, and why it has to grind on for 163 minutes is beyond me. That said though, I never found myself cringing or desperately bored as I did during some of Pierce Brosnan's outings, and mostly what we get is parceled out in a satisfying, slick and expert manner.

For me this entry was better than Spectre and Quantum of Solace - and most assuredly better than Die Another Day, The World is Not Enough and Tomorrow Never Dies. It didn't reach the great heights that the conclusion of Daniel Craig's arc really deserved and lacked imagination, but while what we got was lacking I was afraid of much worse, as I've been often deflated after watching Bond's latest outing and after this I felt I'd seen something that just passed muster. Who knows, after another watch I might feel more inclined to endorse or reject No Time to Die, but for now I have to settle on 'average'.

7/10


By Alternate Ending / Halloween Kills (2021), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68043908

Halloween Kills - (2021)

I thought this new trilogy of Halloween films were headed in a new and interesting direction, but it seems that they're definitely just the same old slasher films that the least in the series were. Halloween Kills introduces nothing except a brief comment on 'mob mentality' while Michael Myers simply stomps around killing person after person for the film's entire running time. The horror is very well done, and in keeping with the series best - but this is so devoid of ideas and creativity there's a huge gaping hole in it's heart.

5/10


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Underwater - (2020)

Big, lumbering, futuristic underwater creature feature where an oil drilling rig deep in the ocean is beset by catastrophe and a few survivors must make their way across the sea floor with monsters hunting them down. It's big, brash, loud, dumb and everything you'd expect from a film of this kind these days. The alien-like creatures aren't too bad, but the wham-bam pacing and constant mayhem mean things like building tension, claustrophobia, character development and many other helpful things have been pushed aside in favour of constant movement, big CGI effects and dismal nattering in place of dialogue. Maybe the brains of those from a younger generation are more geared to this kind of stuff - but I still reckon too many elements of good filmmaking are being completely ignored.

4/10

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The King’s Man is almost unwatchable. A mish-mashed montage of set pieces, ideas and tones barely held together by the broadest of character development and themes. I’m real disappointed because I liked the first one a lot and even the sequel is stupid fun, but I don’t know what the **** this was supposed to be.

Finch is also a dud.

Greyhound, however is 90 minutes of nonstop intense naval battles that makes for one helluva picture. I fear it’s fallen under the radar.

And I called it one of the worst. Guess there's a nice range of possibilities in this world.

Agreed.

Yes it is good but there are others better than it

The Tindler Swindler -

This is a pretty good Netflix true crime documentary about Simon Leviev, an Israeli man who charmed women on Tinder and later swindled them to fund his lavish lifestyle. It's filmed in a similar style and with nearly as much suspense as a globe-hopping spy thriller, which is appropriate since Leviev only stayed in one of the many European cities he visited during his spree long enough to not be caught. My favorite sequence is one in which we see a text conversation with seemingly sincere expressions of love contrasted with footage from Simon's lavish jaunt to Mykonos with his real girlfriend. Speaking of, expect to see several text messages - it's as if half of the movie consists of them - but since they're the actual conversations, they're all well-placed and on the movie's theme of our increasing dependence on mobile apps to find love, they're hardly an annoyance. The rest of the documentary consists of testimony from journalists, investigators and of course Leviev's many victims, the latter of which they deliver in a way that is bound to break your heart and make you loathe and pity Leviev for what he did to them. It's not a great documentary, but it's one of the better Netflix feature-length productions I've seen in a while and a must-see if you're fascinated by white collar crime.

Faking a Murderer (2020) Directed by Stuart Stone. Independent filmmakers Stuart Stone and his real life brother in law Adam Rodness play versions of themselves as they go on an investigation to find a man they believe to be a serial killer. I enjoyed this Canadian true crime mockumentary. I thought it was pretty clever and witty and I had fun with it. My rating is a .

The YouTuber Illuminaughti just did an episode about romance scams. It's a sad but also kind of complex topic.

Thanks for the rec. The podcast Swindled, which is also on YouTube, also has an episode about Leviev.

Not to spoil it too much, but it really makes you wonder what it would take to make you send a relative stranger your hard-earned money. I'd like to think I'd say "good luck" and end it right there, but would I? I hope I never have to find out!

I think that it comes down to two big things:

The first is that a lot of these scammers seem willing to let a victim build a relationship. They aren't immediately asking for money---they're getting past the initial "a little suspicious" stage.

The second is that emotions are a powerful thing. There was a local scam here where teachers were being called during the school day and told that they were missing jury duty and that they were in big trouble for not getting in touch with the court's clerk. Obviously the result is PANIC and many went along with the directions (which, surprise!, involved paying a "fine" for their delinquency).

I have been scammed twice (that I know of, LOL!). Not romantically, but just for money. Someone just finds you at a bad moment and before you know it, boom. And both times I realized IMMEDIATELY after it happened. It was humiliating and upsetting. And one time was when I was a video store clerk and so then I had to call the manager and be like "Hi, hello, I am a big dummy and I think someone just ripped me off for $50."

I also think that you shouldn't underestimate loneliness. I think that a lot of people are willing to "pay" (not just in money, but in time, physical affection, emotional support, etc) not to be alone or to be seen as valuable to their partner.

Senso, 1954

The Countess Livia Serpiere (Alida Valli) finds her loyalties to her country--and her patriotic cousin, Roberto (Massimo Girotti)--tested when she falls for a handsome Austrian soldier, Franz (Farley Granger) during the Italian-Austrian war of unification. Lost in the passion of the affair, Livia's own life begins to unravel.

This is a wonderfully involving film, balancing the intimate sexual affair against the large-scale international conflict and even showing how one impacts the other. As the film goes on, the sense of scope grows greater and greater, until both the emotions of the affair and the war itself begin to feel genuinely epic.

Alida Valli is an absolute revelation here. It can be frustrating watching a film where a character has an affair that you know is a terrible idea. I sometimes even find it alienating watching people make bad decision after bad decision. But Valli shows us a woman who is utterly immersed in emotion and infatuation. The emotional logic of her love is overpowering, foolish though it may be.

I'm mostly familiar with Farley Granger from his work with Hitchcock, like Rope and Strangers on a Train. My main association with him is looking sweaty and anxious. So it was interesting to see him here as the confident, swaggering lover, and then as an angry, vicious jerk. While I didn't quite feel the allure of his character, Valli sells the infatuation so well that me thinking Franz isn't that much of a dreamboat is totally immaterial.

The look of the film is really stunning, utilizing soaring city walls and wide open fields that dwarf the characters, and yet somehow still don't feel big enough to contain all the drama. At once the scale of their surroundings makes the characters' melodrama seem small and large. When Livia runs down an empty street, screaming her lover's name against the towering stone walls, she feels at once insignificant and like the only important person in the whole city. The costuming is a perfect compliment to the look of the movie.

The only little nitpick for me was that there were times that the dubbing was a bit too jarring. For instance, very early on there's a scene where someone asks Franz something and while Granger clearly says "Yes," the dubbed voice says "Si." In certain moments, this mismatch took me out of the sweep of the film.

Really great stuff, and it just gets better as it goes. The last 15 minutes are outstanding.

I'm surprised by this, this was a movie I thought would suck and couldn't understand why an A-list actor would sign on for it, but when I saw it I was surprised at how effective of a little thriller it was. Ended up recommending it.
Then again, I thought No Time To Die was easily the worst Craig-Bond so maybe we've just gotten out of sync for a minute.

I have come to like most slashers in my middle age, oddly. I didn't care much for them for a long time, with a few exceptions such as Black Christmas, My Blood Valentine ('80, of course), The House On Sorority Row, Terror Train, The Final Terror, and a few others (outside of the big obvious ones, of course, and depending on how we define "Slasher").
Somehow, over time, I have come to think of them like a Haiku or a Sonnet or The Blues, ya know, a particular form that is done a certain way and then it's just like, "Hey, was there some good imagination and maybe a splash of craft used here, or was it just bullsh*t?"
Now I seem to be able to watch virtually anything. I mean, Final Exam is a ridiculous little movie but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a certain charm.

I loved this. I posted about it in the DOCUMENTARIES thread.

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