Rate The Last Movie You Saw

The Conversation (1974)

Realise I wrote this a short thumbs up a while ago. Watched again on Sat night, my goodness, the styling. The intrigue. The reliability of an unreliable narrator (as we effectively see things through Harry Caul's insecurities, paranoia and guilt). A real bloody high ebb in Coppola's canon. It will still leave you with theories as the writing, direction and performances are *so strong*. I've heard references to "Blow up" but seen it and it's rather dated and affected...this film seems almost timeless, apart from the setting.

4.8/5 Popcorns...I'll let you share the 0.2 popcorns

Continuing my adventures in Tubi...

6 donne per l'assassino (1964)
aka Blood and Black Lace

I no longer need to guess where Dario Argento drew his inspiration to his visual style. Mario Bava's Giallo is absolute eye-candy. Almost every shot is a piece of art. Sadly the script isn't on par with the visual extravagance, and especially the big reveal is poorly managed through exposition. Still definitely worth seeing for the cinematography alone.

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Satanico Pandemonium: La Sexorcista (1975)
aka Satanic Pandemonium

A Mexican nunsploitation. It's nowhere near the quality of Alucarda, but still mostly entertaining. I guess I have a thing for these sexy nuns who turn to Satan. I was going to give this half-point more, but the ending was cowardly and stupid.

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The overall animation is pretty much flawless, but the real beauty and tragedy of the film lies in the relationship between these two siblings, which is one of undeniable love, support, and care. A snapshot of the millions of children from all "sides" that died during World War II. Beautiful creatures that brought joy and light to each other, for however long or short their lives were. Why did they have to die so soon?

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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You made some great points. It's a near perfect film. Here is my review (rather long):

The Third Man (1949)

Producer Alex Korda had sent British novelist Graham Greene to Vienna after WWII to conceive and write a screenplay which would capture the wantonness and treacherous times in the post war-torn city. After much research Green developed a screenplay, The Third Man, the novelization of which was published following the film’s highly popular reception.

The opening monologue over depictive scenes of the war-changed city, and how it was divided up into policing sectors by the Allies, set the dynamic expectant mood. Holly Martins, an American pulp western writer, has been invited to come to Vienna by his old friend Harry Lime, who has promised Martins a job. Unfortunately upon arrival Martins learns that Lime has been killed in a pedestrian auto accident. Martins soon suspects that there has been some foul play after inquiring about the incident with some of Lime’s associates, physician, girlfriend, and the porter where Lime resided.

Lime suddenly appears in the flesh, and eventually meets with his old friend. The truth comes out about Lime’s nefarious deadly black market schemes which had resulted in many innocent deaths. A British Major Calloway convinces Martins to help snare Lime, who has agreed to meet again with Martins and Lime’s girlfriend Anna Schmidt. On his arrival Anna warns Lime who flees to the city’s mammoth sewer system. The police lead by the Calloway and Martins chase Lime, who is ultimately shot.

This film is as close to perfection as one could imagine. Everyone involved in the production was at their finest: co-producers Alex Korda and David O. Selznik, Director Carol Reed, cinematographer Robert Krasker, musician Anton Karas, every single actor in the cast, and the phenomenal editing by Oswald Hafenrichter.

Reed had brought with him both Krasker and Hafenrichter who had worked with him on Odd Man Out, and The Fallen Idol respectively. With these men Reed captured the deepest essence of noir darkness and design, never to be outdone in film to this day. Although Reed had three crews working simultaneously (one each for night, sewer system, and day shooting), it was the impressive night framing, glistening cobblestone streets, back alleys, ubiquitous rubble, and foreboding mood that he captured so palpably.

Each actor was perfect. When David O. Selznik agreed to join as co-producer he brought along Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles to fill the roles of Holly Martins and Harry Lime, originally written as British characters. Also under contract to him was the ravishing Alida Valli, who was being promoted by Selznik as the next Ingrid Bergman. Some of Germany’s finest actors were enlisted: Paul Hoerbiger, Ernst Deutsch, Erich Ponto, and the feisty Hedwig Bleitreu as a landlady.

It’s hard to imagine the impact of this picture without the phenomenal score by zither artist Anton Karas. In a happy accident, Reed heard Karas play at a party, and was galvanized by the sound and its relevance to the story and mood of Reed’s picture. He practically hired Karas on the spot to fashion the sole music track, and brought him to London to overdub the music during a 6 week session-- the same amount of time used for the entire Viennese shoot. Never has a score represented the style of a film, and in this case the era of mid 20th Century Vienna, more exquisitely than did Karas’ stylings. It evokes the gamut of emotions from nostalgic, to haunting, to lively, to humorous. And its use was unique in film as being a single instrument without vocals. The only other score that comes close is David Shire’s eerie piano score for Coppola’s The Conversation.

The film includes two of the most famous scenes in movie history: Harry Lime’s electrifying first entrance into the film by suddenly shining a night time spotlight on Welles, framing him in a doorway displaying his sardonic and whimsical smile with hat askew; and possibly the most iconic ending in film history-- after Lime’s funeral, as Anna takes the long walk back to town on the autumn leaf strewn lane, she walks straight past Martins, who had been leaning on a wagon waiting to reconcile with her. Rebuffed, Martins lights a cigarette, then throws down the match in disgust. The screen goes to black.

Books and countless articles and lectures have been written about The Third Man. The British Film Institute selected it as the #1 film in their list of top 100 British films. In my view it’s one of the best films ever made.

Two thumbs way up for this one. It sets a mood like few others. Excellent story, acting, photography, and the score was simple but deadly effective. I have it as #7 on my Best All time list.

Yeah, The Conversation is great.

Fun fact! This was the first DVD my family ever owned because one of my parents' friends did something related to the film (maybe he was the sound editor?) and he sent us a copy when it was released. So this movie is the reason our family got a DVD player.

Overlord, 2018

On the eve of the D-Day invasion, a squad of paratroopers are tasked with destroying a signal-blocking device that is mounted in a church in a small German-occupied French town. After a disastrous landing, the group is reduced to Boyce (Jovan Adepo), the fresh-out-of-boot-camp nervous soldier; Ford (Wyatt Russell), the enigmatic, pragmatic new transfer; and Tibbet (John Magaro), the cynical, wise-cracking one who constantly provokes Boyce. But as they infiltrate the French village, they realize that there is something strange and horrific afoot.

The first half or so of this film was really enjoyable. Starting with a genuinely tense and character-building sequence of the men flying through a firefight to their paratrooper drop-point, there's a sense of momentum and stakes. Boyce is a good lead--just an honest man who wants to do his duty, but with too much empathy to ignore the human cost. Ford is a less interesting character--and a less lived-in performance--but he plays reasonably well off of Boyce.

And on the horror front, the sequences in an underground Nazi medical experimentation facility are brutal. There are wise choices made about showing fleeting glimpses of things--like a woman somehow suspended/impaled in some thing that looks half-medical and half-torture. These partial glimpses are much more satisfying than if we were given more time with these horrors.

Overall, I don't know. I started to get worried as soon as the men discover a frightened French woman in the woods, Chloe, and end up going back to her home. From there we meet a sadistic German officer named Wafner (Pilou Asbaek) who, surprise surprise, he is in the habit of coercing/forcing sex from Chloe. Wafner ends up being the film's main antagonist, and it's around this point that the story begins to feel overstuffed. The film hits a lot of familiar beats. It does them well, but at the same time there's some originality missing.

I know that this film has an overall good reputation among horror buffs. I can see why. The performances are good, the horror is well-realized. But by the final 30 minutes I started to have story fatigue. I just sort of lost interest, which coincided with the bulk of the action and bloodshed. And the more the film explains about the village/monsters, the less it makes sense.

Definitely worth watching for horror buffs, but just missed the mark a bit for me.

Pawn Sacrifice, 2014

This film follows the true story of Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) and his quick rise to prominence in the chess community, finally centering on his infamous World Championship run against Soviet Union player Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). In particular, the film focuses on Bobby's declining mental health as the pressure heats up and the chess matches become more and more explicitly an extension of Cold War tensions.

I'm not overly familiar with Bobby Fischer or the world of professional chess. I can't really comment on the accuracy of Maguire's performance, but I thought that he did a good job of portraying a man who is incredibly eccentric in a way that masks the slow decline of his mental health. Peter Sarsgaard plays a priest who becomes Bobby's advocate and second in the different tournaments and realizes the path that Bobby is on. I also enjoyed the film's portrayal of Spassky and Schreiber's performance of the character. Rather than be a one-dimensional villain, Spassky is another eccentric. It is hard to tell at points how much his own paranoia is simply feeding off of the vibes that Bobby puts out.

The most compelling part of the film, for me, was just the acknowledgement of the way that in the interest of the "greater good," people will look the other way when someone is being harmed. It becomes more and more clear that Bobby is going down a dangerous path in terms of his mental health. He begins to foster conspiracy theory about the Russians and "the Jews" (despite his family being Jewish). When his sister tries to get Bobby to a doctor, Bobby's representative smoothly intercepts her attempts. The film has sympathy for Bobby and for the Russian players, who have become symbols in a War that isn't their interest.

Often when I watch biographical films, I wish that I was watching a well-researched documentary instead, and this one was no exception. It wasn't bad, just the kind of film that leaves you wondering "Was that how it really happened?".

Really enjoyed that one, much to my surprise.

Haven't seen it in years, but I remember Bobby Fischer Against the World being a pretty good doc on the subject. I'll give that a rec if you haven't seen it.

This really is a gorgeous film, just a pleasure to watch.

Blood and Black Lace I was initially a bit cold on but came back to a few years later and ended up loving it. In my case an improved transfer was largely responsible (my first viewing was on a washed out, low-res DVD while the rewatch was the Arrow Blu-ray), but I think I also better adjusted to Bava's slower rhythms. I prefer Black Sunday and Black Sabbath over this, though.



I also liked Satanico Pandemonium more than you did, but I think a large part of it was that unlike some other nunsploitation I'd seen (I must disclose that I am far from an expert here), it seemed to take the heroine's temptation to blaspheme fairly seriously, meaning that her embrace of Satan had an actual dramatic impact. I contrast this with School of the Holy Beast and Behind Convent Walls, which treat their subjects largely as a joke and fall flat for me as a result.

I watched 5 movies today. Here are my ratings for each:

Watermelon Man (1970) 7/10
A Night to Remember (1958) 8/10
Snowkissed (2021) 6/10
A Novel Romance (2015) 7/10
Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) 6/10

Elephant Man -

I need more Lynch in my life.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Tubi has a pretty good quality 720p version of it. I haven't watched a lot of Bava, but I've rated Black Sunday the same as this. I haven't seen Black Sabbath. Thus far my favorite has been Kill, Baby, Kill.

First, I need to emphasize to our newer members that I'm quite stingy with ratings (there was a time when some mofos thought I hated every movie). As silly as it is, even my top-25 ballot for the all-time countdown had more 4.5 films than 5's. 2.5 is pretty much an average film (just as it's the average score mathematically) and 3 is already above average.

I agree about the seriousness of Satanico Pandemonium. I'm not a nunsploitation expert either, and I haven't seen the films you mentioned. I'm pretty sure I'd dislike them for the reasons you mentioned, though. The only films of this sub-genre I've seen from the top of my head are The Devils and Alucarda which both take themselves quite seriously. Alucarda as another Mexican film from the 70s is an easy comparison and, in my opinion, a superior movie. Even without the lackluster ending Satanico Pandemonium wouldn't have been even close to that level.

All this talk about nunsploitation is seriously making me consider buying that book that lists every grindhouse film made.

I have a history with this movie after first stumbling across it on television when I was a kid. It was a B&W set so all those marvelously lurid colors weren't a factor. All I remembered were the scantily clad women and that notorious scene with the red hot stove. I finally got a chance to watch it again in glorious technicolor and I'm in complete agreement with all the points you made.

The Vampire Doll (1970)

A Japanese vampire film (sort of) that combines influences from many western movies (The City of the Dead, Hammer's vampire films and Corman's Poe films are the first that come to mind) with some local folklore and the always popular hypnotism. I didn't particularly like this mess, but Yuko (like most female ghosts, spirits, monsters, etc. in Japanese movies) was kinda cute. A disappointment after mostly positive reviews in Letterboxd and IMDb.

The Little Things - 2021

Figured I'd give it a whirl. Denzel is always massively entertaining. It starts off very promising then just gets progressively more disappointing as the film goes along. It's bizarre where it ends up going. Denzel is rock solid per usual, but I gotta say...I thought it from the trailer...Malek is miscast as a lead cop. I think he should have been the suspect he still has that Bond villain creepiness he needs to shake off. His performance was just out of place to me along side Washington. I haven't seen him in much but wasn't impressed in this. Leto plays the creep well enough I suppose. He is fine enough...nothing spectacular but adequate.

The movie itself just decides to go down a weird path. The ending will remind you of a poor man's famous movie ending. I won't say it to spoil it. But it gives you the vibes that's what they are aiming for, it almost feels ripped off lol. Anyways I found the ending very underwhelming. I'll give it credit for the atmosphere and for being engaging, but that could be because of Denzel alone ha.

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I came here to do two things, drink some beer and kick some ass, looks like we are almost outta beer - Dazed and Confused

101 Favorite Movies (2019)

that movie reminds me of cod zombies