Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi! File 02: Shivering Ghost (Koji Shiraishi, 2012)

Part 2 of Shiraishi's urban legend/folklore investigation mockumentary series and while its maybe more consistently good than part 1, it lacks the memorable moments the first one had. One thing it does clarify to an extent though is how the audience is supposed to feel about the main dude. He does some shitty things in the first one but its unclear whether they're meant to be seen as shitty and this one makes it much more clear that yeah this dude sucks. Perhaps its because I'm totally ignorant to this particular legend but this did go places I was not expecting given the initial set up and that's cool and all but I also feel like I still don't know anything about this legend. Anyway, its still got the good presentation of all Shiraishi's work in this vein but lacks in terms of imagery (despite the pic I used here being sick as hell as a still lol) and doesn't really stand out in any way. Still excited for the next instalments though as I'm familiar with and interested in the legends presented in next 2.

The King of Staten Island (2020)

This was better than I thought it was going to be (as I'm an old git) but still formulaic despite good performances. Funny bits are not funny enough and the serious bits are somewhat trite.

Lake of the Dead, 1958

A group of friends goes to visit Bjorn (Per Lillo-Stenberg), the brother of one of their party, Lillian (Henny Moan). But when they arrive at his secluded cabin, they find him missing and his dog dead by a nearby lake. Finding strange clues (such as a diary that doesn't seem to quite be in Bjorn's handwriting), the group begins to experience strange events, seemingly related to a legend about the lake and its fatal pull on anyone who dares stay nearby.

This was an interesting, kind of subdued horror mystery: like a slightly more procedural Dracula or a slightly more supernatural And Then There Were None.

For me, the strength of the film was definitely the visuals. There is a lot of really neat imagery around the lake, including a fabulous shot of a woman diving into the lake and slowly vanishing into its depths.

Overall, however, I was not all that taken by the way that the movie unfolded. The target of the supernatural activity is Lillian, who sleepwalks out to the lake at night and seems to be a victim of a force that is trying to induce her to drown herself. And yet she is involved in none of the conversation around what is happening. The women are just shuttled off to rest of whatever while the men hold these self-serious conferences about what's going on.

I don't object to movies speaking of supernatural or extrasensory things as if they are real and have consistent rules. That's fine. But the way that a mix of psychology and the supernatural is applied to solving the mystery didn't work for me. There's a lot of withholding information seemingly for the purpose of saving it as a "twist" at the end, not because it makes sense in the reality of the movie.

The visuals are, as I said, really strong. And the question of what is actually happening (human, supernatural, or something in-between) is intriguing enough. But I was overall disappointed in the lack of thrills and the repeated "middle aged man lecturing" stretches of exposition that were used to develop the story.

The Robe (1953) Rewatched on blu ray. I've seen this before years ago, but didn't remember much of it. The film looks beautiful, with wonderful cinematography and a great score. I also liked the costumes and sets. Performances are pretty good too. I did feel that the film goes on too long and drags a little at times though. Overall, a good watch for Good Friday.

I had no idea what to expect, but, more or less, agree with your review.

Kim Kardashian & Pete Davidson are the oddest couple ever.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

The Passion of the Christ (2004) Rewatched on blu ray with the theological commentary on it. I really enjoyed the commentary and thought it helped enhance the viewing experience. The Passion of the Christ is controversial and divisive (much like Jesus Himself), but for me this is a powerful and beautiful film. Jim Caviezel is excellent as Jesus and I liked the film's portrayal of Satan. The score is beautiful and the film is really well directed. Yes, it is a violent film, but intentionally and purposely so. The violence packs a punch and definitely has an impact on the audience. The film is definitely not torture porn as some have tried to claim and I don't see anything anti-Semitic about it. I think this holds up really well and it remains on my list of all time favourite films.

The Great Beauty, 2013

Jep (Toni Servillo) has just celebrated his 65th birthday, but as he tries to enjoy the sights, art, and social scene in Rome, he begins to realize that his life has become hollow. Working as a journalist, Jep is haunted by questions about why he never wrote a never novel after a popular book that he wrote many years earlier. Through various encounters--forming new relationships and reevaluating old ones--Jep begins to reconsider what it means to live a good life.

From the opening minute, I knew exactly why this movie had won an Oscar (and various other awards). If it had nothing else going for it, the imagery and the way that those images are staged alone would keep someone's attention for two hours. Fitting for a film about art and life and the way that the two mix, several sequences started with me thinking they were paintings, only to realize they were real. The art in this film takes on all forms: paintings, sculpture, performance art, circus acts, magic, dance, burlesque, writing, architecture, and so on. And those different mediums are woven into the fabric of the story with such intention that the art itself becomes a character.

The narrative itself is a wry, often funny look at a person who is struggling to find his place in the world having realized that what he thought he wanted just isn't cutting it. As much as Jep has surrounded himself with vivacious characters and beautiful things, there is a lack of resonance. Jep no longer connects with the beautiful things around him, except with a sort of ironic distance. Much of the story is framed around the death of Jep's first love.

One question I had about the film was the noticeable gender disparity in terms of who is framed as being ridiculous in the art world or just generally in life. In the beginning, Jep uses an interview to expose the vague, nonsensical philosophy of a woman who has just performed a piece in which, nude, she runs herself into a wall. Soon thereafter, Jep softly-but-firmly puts a woman novelist in her place for thinking herself superior. When a woman he's slept with offers to show him some photographs she's taken, he says yes but then leaves her apartment without saying goodbye. This isn't to say that there aren't interesting women in the film, but it seemed odd to me that the people being highlighted as frauds or unworthy artists were all women. I'm not sure if this connects to Jep's own relationship with women (as his muses, as his love interests, as his peers, etc), I just found it confusing.

This movie is a feast for the eyes, and it has a playful, ironic sense of humor that is very appealing. If you haven't seen it I would highly recommend it.

Hello.

Okay, well say some things about it. I was underwhelmed! I wanted to be at least whelmed!

I watched 7500. Jay-Go-Lev is a pilot on a plane that gets hijacked. Dry, intense, upsetting. This was really good but it’s realistic nature really bummed me out. I found it randomly browsing Amazon Prime.

By IGN Southeast Asia, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62028508

The Grudge - (2020)

The curse comes to the United States, and as such these now Americanized ghosts start demanding money. No, I thought maybe, but instead they're just inferior CGI demonic-zombies - the series now completely relying on jump-scares that immediately fade, because although the film can make you jump there's nothing inherently creepy about the visuals in it. First of all, why trade makeup for CGI? It makes no sense. Is it laziness? The budget is estimated at between $10–14 million - they could afford makeup. Next, why trade the creepy form the ghosts take in most Grudge films for grungy/dirty demon-like zombie things that don't look spooky anymore? The rest is just a repetition of that old non-sequential storyline that tells of a series of personal hauntings - but everything now feels sub-par. The film repeats old familiar moments from previous films, with less panache and more CGI. Jackie Weaver should stop showing up in movies like this as well. Sack your agent. Nicolas Pesce, I hate you.

3/10

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One of the best horror directors of the last 20 years.

That's a bold statement to make from the basis of such a small body of work (that contains a bona fide extra-large turkey.) Unless you were being ultra-sarcastic.

Having now seen this, I can confirm that it absolutely rules, owns, rips, slaps, all the verbs. The drone shots are the absolute coolest things I've seen in a movie since the backwards stuff in Tenet. God tier Jake G performance to boot.


I'd probably give it a 4.5 though, only because this theoretically could have been a transcendent ninety minute movie.

No, no, that's my bad. Somehow I didn't read the very last sentence of your write-up and so you had my interest piqued with this but then maybe not.

You're going to add that .5 back when you realize it managed to rule that hard for that long, which is more impressive than ruling that hard for 90 mins.

But glad to have you on board.

I think this is like 13 Hours where I don't have an issue with most of what's in the movie, but think it might have benefited from a shorter runtime.




WE DON'T STOP.

On the Basis of Sex (2018)

I'd still recommend it to any horror fan, but is smacks of something that could have been much better given the premise and spooky setting.

I'm not afraid to admit that I like 'shlocky' movies. I'm a horror movie fan, that is the genre that I love, and will give leniency to films like this. Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is a film where the characters question why they are in yet another escape room and then proclaim, "what is this, some kind of tournament of champions?" cue camera stare and wink. The reason our characters find themselves stuck in yet another escape room is paper-thin and you don't even have to think about it for it to not make sense. The idea that not a single pedestrian would walk into this subway train is bonkers. But for argument's sake, let's just accept it and move on.

As the title suggests, our characters are all previous champions from the game. So when they find themselves locked in again, it's safe to assume they can work things out pretty quickly. I've done several escape rooms and the rate at which these characters figure things out, with the stress of dying on the line is insane. I'd be dead in the first room, yet these characters figure out how to get from point A to point B incredibly fast. But for argument's sake, let's just accept it and move on.

Much like the first film, this one has extremely extravagant escape rooms, with death lasers, quicksand, acid rain, and the works. Even trying to imagine how they are able to pull these things off and where they do it is impossible to comprehend. But for argument's sake, let's accept it and move on.

The first movie had the characters be survivors of trauma. Each one was given a unique backstory and that story was incorporated into the game. This one lacks any of that. I don't know much about any of these characters and didn't really care if they lived or died. I can't even remember their names. Even our lead character lacks the personality she had in the previous movie. But hey, people want to watch the SAW-like traps and cheer for the characters to find their way out of them. So, for argument's sake, let's just accept it and move on.

The film tries to throw a few surprises your way, but the in-your-face foreshadowing feels a little too, well, in your face. Escape Room is fine and not for everyone. The majority of people will find it dumb, I sure did, but I found it dumb with a weird charm to it. I don't see myself revisiting this movie any time soon, or ever again, but I didn't hate my time trying to escape.

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