Rate The Last Movie You Saw

2nd Rewatch...From the composer of Hamilton and the director of Crazy Rich Asians, this exuberant, toe-tapping musical about life in the Washington Heights area of New York improves with each viewing and that production number in the giant public swimming pool called "96000" never gets old.

1st Rewatch...Ryan Murphy knocked it out of the park with powerhouse blending of docudrama and love story about a romance between a pair of writers that is challenged by the advent of the AIDS crisis, that was so new at the time it was still referred to as "gay cancer." Mark Ruffalo's ferocious, Emmy winning performance as Ned Weeks makes this HBO movie worth viewing all by itself.

Sonic The Hedgehog 10/10
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 9/10

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5/5 Stellar 70's naturalism about the effects on a dad with a son who's running from the cops. A favorite moment when they run after the stone throwers, i felt that, even after beating them up, there's a look on his face saying this doesn't help things, getting those arseholes back, little touches are galore here giving it's rich normalcy realized. Looking forward to more from Bertrand Tavernier.

My movie list for this year:

For reference a 1/10 would be something like Zoolander 2, and 10/10 would be something like a Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.

2023
1. Cobweb - 9.5/10
2. Oppenheimer - 9.25/10
3. Talk to Me - 9.25/10
4. Barbie - 9/10
5. Past Lives - 8.75/10
6. Infinity Pool - 8.5/10
7. Beau is Afraid - 8.5/10
8. Killers of the Flower Moon - 8.25/10
9. Saltburn - 8/10
10. Polite Society - 8/10
11. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 8/10
12. The Killer - 7.75/10
13. Godland - 7.5/10
14. No Hard Feelings - 7.5/10
15. The Flash - 7.5/10
16. Knock at the Cabin - 7.25/10
17. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves - 7/10
18. Pamela, A Love Story - 7/10
19. Missing - 6.75/10
20. Joy Ride - 6.75/10
21. Bottoms - 6.5/10
22. Evil Dead Rise - 5.5/10
23. Renfield - 4.5/10
24. Super Mario Bros. Movie 3.5/10
25. You People - 3/10

Still to watch:

- When Evil Lurks
- Return to Seoul
- Asteroid City
- The Iron Claw
- Concrete Utopia
- American Fiction
- Next Goal Wins
- Anatomy of a Fall
- Sanctuary
- Sisu
- The Zone of Interest
- Maestro
- May December
- Dream Scenario
- Haunting in Venice
- Poor Things - Yorgos Lanthimos
- The Boy and the Heron -
- Red Room
- The Holdovers
- Malibu Horror Story
- Saw X
- They Cloned Tyrone
- Priscilla
- Mutt
- Creed 3
- Late Night With the Devil
- Indiana Jones 5
- Guardians of the Galaxy 3
- John Wick 4
- Fingernails
- Godzilla Minus One
- Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse
- Rye Lane
- Thanksgiving
- Mission Impossible 7

(NOTE: From this point onward, I'm also posting my latest DVD / Blu-ray / 4K UHD purchases on this particular thread. From a purely selfish standpoint, I'm just not getting enough upvotes for the posts on my Movie Collection thread. )





I Want Him Dead (Paolo Bianchini / 1968)
El Puro (Edoardo Mulargia / 1969)
Wrath of the Wind (Mario Camus / 1970)
The Four of the Apocalypse (Lucio Fulci / 1975)

The Specialists (Sergio Corbucci / 1969)

The Day of the Locust (John Schlesinger / 1975)

JFK (Oliver Stone / 1991)
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass (Oliver Stone / 2021)
JFK: Destiny Betrayed (Oliver Stone / 2021)

They Call Me Trinity (Enzo Barboni / 1970)
Trinity Is Still My Name (Enzo Barboni / 1971)

I got myself some presents for Christmas and New Year's!

First of all, I got Savage Guns, the third volume in Arrow Video's series of Italian Western box sets (the first two being Vengeance Trails and Blood Money). The third one is probably the most eclectic of the three sets, focusing on some of the later films to be released during the late '60s/early '70s heyday of the Italian Western. I had been especially eager for the release of this particular set because it's got Lucio Fulci's The Four of the Apocalypse on Blu-ray for the first time! (That one definitely ranks among my favorite Italian Westerns, coming after Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" and Once Upon a Time in the West and Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence.)

I also got Sergio Corbucci's The Specialists, the third entry in what is often described as Corbucci's "Mud and Blood Trilogy", the first two of course being Django and The Great Silence. Mind you, it's far from being one of Corbucci's best films, but it's definitely got one of the most protractedly weird and insanely OTT climaxes of any Western film ever made! I'd go so far as to call it The Day of the Locust of the Euro-Western genre. And speaking of which, Arrow Video also just put out a really cool Blu-ray release of John Schlesinger's The Day of the Locust! It's packed with extras and the image and sound quality are truly excellent. Truly one of my all-time favorite films, and I'm glad it's finally out on Blu-ray. (The Paramount DVD was alright, but it was very much the definition of "bare-bones.")

And kudos to Shout Factory! for putting out Oliver Stone's chilling epic historical drama JFK on 4K UHD! I have to say that it's high time. And for good measure, I also got Stone's recent documentary JFK Revisited: The Complete Collection on Blu-ray, also from the good folks at Shout! Factory. It contains both the two-hour feature-length documentary JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass as well as the expanded mini-series edition entitled JFK: Destiny Betrayed. I haven't even gotten halfway through the latter version yet!

On a less serious note, I also got the two Trinity movies, bundled together in a nice little 2-disc Blu-ray package from Hen's Tooth Video. I was always sort of interested in what these Italian Western comedies starring Terence Hill and Bud Spencer would be like, having read good things about them and also having seen the Tonino Valerii / Sergio Leone film My Name Is Nobody from 1973, which teamed up Terence Hill with Henry Fonda. I actually really liked My Name Is Nobody a lot, so I was kind of looking forward to seeing the two Trinity films.

And the verdict? Well... They're alright, I guess. There was a good deal of amusing slapstick violence and humor, but I wasn't exactly bowled over by it. I was kind of hoping they'd be funnier than I found them to be. But maybe it's just that I'm on the wrong wavelength or something. I've never ever seen Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974) before, but I'm willing to bet that I'd laugh a lot more at that than I did at the Trinity films. What I find truly amusing is the fact that somehow They Call Me Trinity and Trinity Is Still My Name actually overtook Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" as the highest-grossing "spaghetti Westerns" in Italy! (Or they're practically neck and neck in terms of Italian box office, anyway.)

In short: I liked it, but didn't love it. Oh well, you can't win 'em all, I guess. And so my ongoing sojourn into the wilds of the Italian West continues apace...

BTW, purely as a side note...



Try watching both Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence and Lucio Fulci's The Four of the Apocalypse back-to-back, as I just did this weekend! They make for a perfect double bill. For one thing, they happen to be two of the most bleak and melancholy Euro-Westerns of all time. Also, The Great Silence ends with a brutal massacre in Snow Hill, Utah, while The Four of the Apocalypse begins with a massacre in Salt Flat... also in Utah! So the second one kind of picks up where the first one left off. Also, as brilliant as The Great Silence is, some people might find the ending a bit of a downer, while The Four of the Apocalypse, for all its brutality and bleakness, is leavened somewhat with a bit of hopeful sentiment, so they balance each other out rather nicely.

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"It's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid." - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)

Haunted
7/10
The best thing about this ghost story is Kate Beckinsale, who's lovlier than ever.

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Boldly going.

Very happy that you posted this because I hadn't heard of the show or the book.

In short, it's a riot! I've seen Crystal in several things over the years, and he was also one of the best Academy Awards hosts (9 times!), but only after watching 700 Sundays did I realize what a brilliant comedian and a writer that he is. His talent for mime and impressions are first rate.

I'm impressed that a 66 year-old guy has the energy and the talent to do a 2 hour one man show that must be exhausting. Bit after bit bring belly laughs. Highly recommended!

4/5 -- The Four of the Apocalypse (1975) --- Lucio Fulci does such a good job here, it's sublimely silly, Stubby, what a name for a hero. I've never seen a Fabio Testi film i didn't like, early on when he's smiling he looks so natural in that kind of role. Italians enriched a hallowed USA genre, God bless them.

Theater Camp, 2023

Joan (Amy Sedaris) has run AdirondACTS, an upstate New York theater camp, for years. But when a strobe light during a performance sends Joan into a coma, her influencer son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro) must take over. Actually running the day-to-day operations of the camp are old theater camp friends Amos (Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon), overwhelmed camp technician Glenn (Noah Galvin), and newbie Janet (Ayo Edebiri). With the camp in dire financial straits, can the staff and campers pull together and save the day?

While I wouldn’t say that this film is exactly groundbreaking, there is something really refreshing about a comedy that is just really solid. No relying on being overly meta or cynical. Not crude or mean spirited. It was nice to just spend 90 minutes laughing.

A good time, especially if you are a recovered theater kid yourself or (bless you) have one in your life.

Chronicle (2012)

Have you seen Cut-Throats Nine? It's another Italian ultra bleak and violent western. I think it's even better than the Fulci above.

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Hope to sometime, will be on the look out, sorta new to spaghetti westerns having not even seen Django!! ... Found it on Plex will test it out, thanks for the rec

By Studio and or Graphic Artist - Can be obtained from film's distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64246866

Relic - (2020)

Rewatch - Relic isn't the be all and end all of horror movies, but I felt compelled to watch it again because it's subject matter is of current interest to me. Seeing my mother (who has passed) and father's decline, I can't help but applaud films like Relic and The Father, which try to bring people to a higher level of understanding and acceptance. But this movie - it's heavy on the analogy, with the physical world and supernatural entities becoming a living embodiment of dementia and confounding terror. When Edna's (Robyn Nevin) granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) says "It's not grandma anymore!" it becomes the commonly heard saying of those dealing with loved ones whose minds are becoming so clouded and confused their personality is no long recognizable. The rot you see in the house and on grandma herself alludes to the creeping decay that can go on in the brain and mind - with this nameless haunting causing the same effect. I liked the ending to this film a lot - it's a simple, kind of average movie that is nonetheless more than an empty spook-fest.

6.5/10


By https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2616810/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41713259

Blind - (2014)

The man who collaborated with Joachim Trier on many great films such as Thelma and The Worst Person in the World made his directorial debut with Blind. It provides a lot of insight, and is a good addition to an impressive body of work - my watchlist thread review is here.

7/10


By All Movie Guide [1], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10423419

The Match Factory Girl - (1990)

Iris (Kati Outinen) - unloved by her parents and rejected by her peers, decides to reply to life's disappointments in a exceedingly blunt and surprisingly extreme way. I loved this film from Aki Kaurismäki - a minimalist, almost dialogue-free spotlight on the gravely unhappy. Reviewed here.

9/10


By The poster art can or could be obtained from the distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27365147

Los olvidados - (1950)

Superb movie from Luis Buñuel about a group of forgotten, filthy children living in a Mexican slum. When "El Jaibo" (Roberto Cobo) escapes imprisonment, he kills the kid who ratted on him - an action which has severe repercussions for younger cohort Pedro (Alfonso Mejía). You'll probably never see a film as unsparing but dignified in it's tone and purpose. Review here.

8/10

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The Hangover (2009)


Booked my next trip to Vegas, so watched this to prepare haha

The sequels are terrible, but this one still holds up as a masterpiece for me. Humor, direction, everything.

Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer
I woke up at 1am and started watching this at 6ish but fell asleep watching this, so I'll give it another chance, but as it kept playing over and over, but I didn't laugh.

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https://www.youtube.com/c/LoyalOpposition

WOW. I wish I could give you 3 reps. "Blind" is the most recent movie that is unique. Kaurismaki is one of three living directors I like (Loach, Leigh) and this is a fine movie. "Shadows In Paradise" is my favorite of his, and Matti is one of my favorite actors. "Los Olvidados" is the only movie I really liked that was made about 100 years ago thanks to the realism, as opposed to many who stress the costumes every 5 minutes, and reminding you what year it is with superficial references, but not this one. It might be my favorite Bunuel. I gave them an 8/10 each on here. "The Worst Person In The World" is also good.

There's an actual site with nothing except film nudity. But before, many would go to a movie (Swordfish? I never saw it) because Halle Berry was topless. Or there was talk about a busty woman in some horrible movie called, "Young Einstein"



Even if a movie sells a lot, it doesn't necessarily mean each person liked it. They get their money, and move on to the next thing. People I know seem to have stopped going to the movies, but when some do, it's only because they have a day off, and they just select whatever is available.

Control (2007)

A realistic portrayal of one of my favourite bands' singer. Sam Riley is just uncanny with the mannerisms and ticks of the late great Ian Curtis. Through the artistry, working at "the Labour Exchange", entangled love life and progressing Epilepsy leading to depression. A great performance from Samantha Morton too as Deborah Curtis. As you would expect not a laugh a minute but an intriguing window into the life of a man with many internal conflicts that passed away far too soon.

Really enjoyed Lie to Me. Haven't seen Cobweb. I must put that right. Thanks for the recommendation.

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