Rate The Last Movie You Saw

1st Rewatch...The undeniable charm and charisma of Paul Rudd in the title role helps this movie appear a lot better than it really is. Rudd plays a sweet-natured loser who gets out of jail and proceeds to turn the lives of his three sisters (Elizabeth Banks, Emily Mortimer, Zooey Deschanel) upside down. The story is kind of busy but Rudd's character is so likable it's not difficult to stay invested. Shout out to Kathryn Hahn who provides solid laughs as Rudd's ex-girlfriend.

At least he was able to turn in some good performances before being assassinated.

She had some nerve claiming Willie Nelson the way she did.

The poster is VERY cool.

The movie is VERY underwhelming.

I read the book not too long ago and it's clear that Ratched had the young doctor intimidated. She was also a master manipulator and the back and forth and adversarial battle of wills with McMurphy had been playing out for some time. McMurphy was a rogue and a schemer and also manipulative but over the course of the novel ended up feeling empathy for his fellow patients. It literally confused the hell out of him and he somehow knew it would lead to his undoing. I think he was just as surprised as everyone else when he did what he did.

I know, right?!?

Ha, good one.

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Rhubarb, 1951

Eccentric millionaire Banner (Gene Lockhart) comes across an intelligent, belligerent, feral cat on his golf course and decides to capture and adopt the animal. Calling the cat Rhubarb, he takes him as an unofficial mascot. But when Banner dies, it’s revealed that he has left a baseball team he owns, and it’s up to PR rep Eric (Ray Milland) to win over the upset baseball players and keep Rhubarb safe from Banner’s bitter daughter, Myra (Elsie Holmes).

There’s nothing deep here, but I found it fun and engaging from beginning to end. Bonus points for the quirky touch that Rhubarb has a penchant for stealing golf balls from the golf course, as it’s an accurately quirky/malevolent cat-like thing to do.



FULL REVIEW

The Sword and the Sorcerer, 1982

The wicked Titus (Richard Lynch) and his right hand man Machelli (George Maharis) raise an evil sorcerer named Xusia (Richard Moll) so that Titus can conquer nearby kingdoms. Successfully toppling his neighbors, Titus makes two enemies when he betrays Xusia and kills the family of young Prince Talon (Lee Horsley). Talon later returns as an adult, grudgingly getting involved in a rebellion to overthrow Titus led by Princess Alana (Kathleen Beller) and her brother Mikah (Simon MacCorkindale).

You’re too good for these guys, Alana. You’re too good for all of them!



FULL REVIEW

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Queen & Slim - (2019)

Rewatch. Hit me even harder the second time around - the story of a young lawyer, Angela "Queen" Johnson (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Ernest "Slim" Hines (Daniel Kaluuya), two black people on a tinder date who are pulled over by a white police officer after Slim swerves the car - the two are bickering over her looking at his phone. Antagonism and tension make the exchanges between the cop and them terse, until the overreacting officer pulls his gun on Slim. When Queen intervenes and pulls out her phone to record the incident, the cop shoots her in the hip, causing Slim to step in physically to save her. They fight, and Slim ends up shooting the cop in self defense. Knowing what this means, the pair go on the run - and during their flight they peel back many emotional layers and disable the defense mechanisms from each other that made their tinder date a disaster. In the meantime they became national folk heroes and an emblem of the injustice which darkly clouds an American landscape, where many African Americans have been killed by police despite being unarmed, and in some cases completely innocent and non-threatening. This Melina Matsoukas movie feels fresh and new, despite the fact that there are plenty of films being made today about this issue. It's a moving love story set inside a larger cultural framework that works in a natural and very easy to digest manner. Holds up extremely well after having already seen it once. Being so emotionally moving is the added bonus that makes it a must-see.

8/10


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Ucho (The Ear) - (1970)

Made in 1970, this Czech film couldn't be released until 1990 because of the Soviet puppet government very much frowning upon it's comment on the way officials were often spied upon and persecuted. To have even made it, Karel Kachyňa was risking a lot himself. In it, a bickering married couple, Ludvík (Radoslav Brzobohatý) and Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová) return from a political party celebration and slowly realise they have had intruders, and are being spied upon. When they think back to the party, moments that seemed innocent at the time take on a new, darker complexion. Very good film, made with considerable skill and meaningful insight. My review is here, on my watchlist thread.

8/10

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Saltburn (2023)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Self Reliance (2023)


A clever idea that never seems to take advantage of what it could have done. None of the jokes worked for me, but the pacing and fun of it kept me interested. Some parts are predictable, but I would lightly recommend nonetheless.

3rd Rewatch...For my money, Melissa McCarthy's best movie. This big budget spy spoof goes all the right places and I have to give a big shout out to Jason Statham, who steals every scene he's in as a fellow spy who keeps interfering in McCarthy's case, cleverly spoofing Statham's own onscreen persona.

7th Rewatch...Probably my favorite Jim Carrey comedy, one of my guilty pleasures that I will always watch if I run into it channel surfing. Carrey plays a divorced workaholic attorney who has allowed his job to cause constant disappointment for his son, so at his 5th birthday party, the little boy makes a wish that his father can no longer lie and the wish actually comes true, causing all kinds of complications for his latest case. Carrey's expertise at physical comedy is given a healthy workout here and there's a terrific supporting performance from Jennifer Tilly as his voluptuous new client. Though if the truth be told, the funniest thing in the movie are the outtakes shown during the closing credits.

Intimacy (2001)

First watch of this slightly controversial film due to strong sexual content. I thought it was excellent with London playing as much a part of the story line as Jay and Claire. The sex-scenes (well, one in particular) could have easily been omitted as adds nothing to the story but it's not offensive at all. The relationships, widerly, are interesting and the acting and script superb in a very emotionally charged tale. Rylance really at his peak film-wise here.
Fair dos to the 2 main actors, not for the unsimulated oral sex but for sacrificing for their art and rolling about on that filthy carpet!

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

I’ve wondered if Paramount hadn’t taken a bit of a risk with this title, since it makes it sound like a melodramatic love story. The fact is that the picture is one of the best examples of classic down and dirty noir. The film is epic in nature, the tale beginning in 1928, and concluding in 1946. It stars Van Heflin, Barbara Stanwyck, Lizbeth Scott (in her second film role),Judith Anderson, and Kirk Douglas (in his first). Directed by Lewis Milestone (Casablanca), and photographed by the veteran Victor Milner (The Lady Eve).

Martha Ivers (Janis Wilson, Stanwyck as an adult) is the niece of a wealthy industrialist (Anderson) who has been Martha’s guardian since the demise of her father, a man named Smith. She hates her cold domineering aunt, and tries to run away with a young rogue friend Sam Masterson (Daryl Hickman, Heflin as an adult). The aunt has her captured and brought back telling her that she’ll never be able to escape. Another boy, Walter O’Neil, Jr. (Mickey Kuhn, Douglas as an adult), the son of her tutor, Walter O’Neil, Sr. (Roman Bohnen), is responsible for ratting out Martha’s escape.

Soon Martha attempts another escape with Sam, but Mrs. Ivers overhears them upstairs. During Mrs. Ivers’ walk up the stairway she stumbles upon the pet cat, and starts to beat the cat with her cane. Martha and Walter Jr. appear, whereupon Martha grabs the cane and strikes Mrs. Ivers, who tumbles down the stairs to hear death. Walter Sr. appears but agrees to testify that Mrs. Ivers’ death was an accident as long as he and his son can benefit.

Years later Sam happens by the town on a trip, where he learns that Martha is now the wealthy industrialist, and that she has married Walter Jr. --who has become the town’s district attorney-- in a pact to keep Martha’s involvement in the Ivers death a secret. Sam visits his old home which is now a boarding house, where he meets a girl who is on probation, Toni Marachek (Scott). Sam soon approaches Walter to see if he’ll rectify Toni’s legal problem, but Walter wrongly suspects Sam is blackmailing him.

What follows are several twists and entanglements which lead to a classic memorable noir ending.

The picture was a huge success, and along with Double Indemnity two year prior, it cemented Stanwyck as one of the best femme fatales in film history. In fact she was never again to do a comedy. It was Heflin’s role in this film that made me realize what a great actor he was. Like Stanwyck, he was completely at home in any type of film. In addition this is the picture that put Kirk Douglas on the map. One can recognize the kernels of depth that he exhibited in his many subsequent films. And Lizabeth Scott was absolutely smoldering in her portrayal of a blithe probationer who gets her man.

The success of Robert Rossen’s complex screenplay insured his future succcess as a director in such memorable films as All the King’s Men (1949) and The Hustler (1961).

Doc's rating: 9/10

Yes, indeed. And I thought Under the Silver Lake was a very good neo-noir...."stoner noir"..

My commentary: https://www.movieforums.com/communit...19#post2390519

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Mustang - (2015)

Here we have something like the Turkish version of The Virgin Suicides, although as to whether any of the girls in this film do commit suicide I'll leave spoiler-free. A group of 5 sisters celebrate the end of a school term by frolicking innocently by the beach and in the water - but back home a fussy neighbour accuses the girls of performing "indecent acts" (the boys were carrying the girls on their shoulders) - and this sets their father and grandmother off into a bout of extremism where they lock them up (as the girls escape, the guardians make their home more and more miserably like a prison) - and then start marrying them off. I hope there's a special place in hell for people who act in cruel or capricious ways just because of what neighbours or other people might be thinking - if you can't be kind to your children above and beyond that there's something missing in you. This film attracted a lot of criticism from Turkey because of various inconsistencies in accents, general behaviour and specific stuff - but I think that's missing the point. Often these Turkish reviews go on to say that these things happen, and that women's rights is a huge problem in the country. I think it'd be fair to look beyond which dialect is being spoken and see the bigger picture. Any culture that condones girls and women being married to complete strangers against their will is one that's dealing in unnecessary misery. Also, any culture that predetermines that a specific girl's life will be one of servitude to their husband without giving them any choice in the matter. Somehow the thought that "It's their culture and their ways so I shouldn't get involved with it" doesn't lessen the frustration and anger that it happens and is a part of life for many people around the globe.

I've now seen all five of the Foreign Language Oscar nominees for 2016 - over the years.

7.5/10


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Weird: The Al Yankovic Story - (2022)

This caught my attention when it came out, and it took this long to getting around to see it. I don't know if it fully lived up to it's promise, but it had many funny moments - my favourite, the poolside get-together of all the weird stars and celebrities of the day. I counted the likes of Frank Zappa, Divine, Paul Reubens/Pee-wee Herman, Alice Cooper, Andy Warhol, Tiny Tim, a couple of members of Devo, Elton John, Salvador Dali and Elvira to name a few. Sometimes the movie lost me a little, but a few nice gems like the pool scene made it just worth my while in the end.

6/10


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A Bad Son (Un mauvais fils) - (1980)

Hard to find this one - but I got there. Un mauvais fils is a low-key French film by Claude Sautet about a young ex-con and the difficulty he has relating to his father and the world after 5 years in an American prison. Great performance from tragic French film star Patrick Dewaere. My review for it is here, on my watchlist thread.

7/10

I love this film, and especially the way that it captures the sense of a lack of control that these young women have. When their sisters are married off . . . they just disappear.

Then, of course, there's also the blatant hypocrisy that the very men who are policing the girls' morality are themselves acting in incredibly immoral ways. I thought that the grandmother was a very interesting character.

I also really loved the character of

Well that's a completely different story then. I just didn't assume that from the movie. I never meant to suggest she was doing the right thing or that the men were being treated the way they should be. I just don't see Jack Nicholson's character as a positive influence, or part of a solution. Just a person trying to assert a different sort of control.


The movie still doesn't click for me, but that's just my opinion/preference.