Rate The Last Movie You Saw

The short film follows two couples – Bridge & Kara (Bridge Stuart & Taylor Misiak) and Jamison & Ashley (Dustin Hahn & Julia Bales) – as they meet for brunch at a Peruvian fusion restaurant with Moroccan pots. The meeting results in a series of awkward exchanges, especially between Bridge and Jamison, that might end up revealing what they're really thirsty for.

The Last Brunch is yet another example of that as this awkward get-together keeps escalating each time with crazier, wackier, and more awkward reveals, each of them more hilarious than the previous one. Special props also to the cast for some excellent delivery. Hahn has the showier role and he excels in it, but I really love the subtle touches in Stuart's performance, right down to his final look.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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Horror in the High Desert (2021)

The Woman Next Door (1981)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74658478

The Teacher's Lounge - (2023)

This was an absolutely gripping drama involving an out of control psychological conflict between one teacher who just wants to do what's right, a staff member at the school caught stealing, the staff member's child (who is a student in the teacher's class) and the rest of the children. Teaching must be such a hard profession, requiring many different facets of communication, skills and much patience - but losing control of your students, and dealing with highly charged situations make upsets so volatile. Leonie Benesch is brilliant as the teacher, Carla Nowak. This film was nominated for a Best International Feature Film Oscar (I've seen 4/5 of the 2024 nominations now), and really deserved that nomination. I was on the edge of my seat the whole way through - as tense a film as I've seen this year, and it never eases up. Makes for riveting viewing, and much discussion afterwards.

8/10


By Copyrighted by Paramount Pictures. Artists(s) not known. - http://images.art.com/images/product...0/10134534.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde...curid=25318652

The Trouble With Harry - (1955)

Very amusing change of pace for Alfred Hitchcock involving the various attempts by a group of characters to deal with a dead body they think they may have done away with - mistakenly for the most part, constantly burying it and digging it up. It's really sweet and charming actually, and while not up to Hitchcock's usual great standard it's a whole lot of fun regardless. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

7/10

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Madame Web (2024) This wasn't that bad. The story and the writing are the weakest parts. I felt Dakota Johnson was miscast. Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor were fine in their roles, although their characters could have been better developed. Most of the supporting actors were decent. The villain didn't make much of an impact though. This got a lot of hate and really bad reviews, but this isn't even one of the ten worst films of this year. it is totally watchable and has some good moments.

LOVED The Trouble with Harry...a link to my review:


https://www.movieforums.com/reviews/...ith_harry.html

5th Rewatch...This is the antithesis of those semi-raunchy movies featuring the man/child character that Sandler brought to the screen during the 80's and 90's and made him a very wealthy man. Sandler plays Bobby Boucher, the 31 year old waterboy for a fictional college football team who is being ferociously protected by his smothering mother (Oscar winner Kathy Bates) until it is revealed that Bobby contains an inner rage that makes him unstoppable on the football field. Yeah, it's just Happy Gilmore taken off the golf course and placed in a college football stadium, but nobody really noticed and audiences ate it up. Bates is terrific as Mama Boucher, as are Jerry Reed as a rival coach and especially Henry Winkler, in a scene stealing performance as Bobby's coach.

3rd Rewatch...This movie was actually my first exposure to the charismatic Idris Elba. This slightly syrupy melodrama, written and directed by Tyler Perry, finds Elba playing Monty, an ex-con and divorced single dad who is doing everything right in trying to start his life over so that he can get custody of his three young daughters from his bitchy wife (Tasha Smith) who is living with a drug dealer.. Monty turns to a snooty, romantically-challenged attorney named Julia Rossmore (Gabrielle Union) to get custody of his girls. The story is a little soapy than it needs to be and it suffers from a really unlikable leading lady. Union brings zero likability to Julia and she has no chemistry with Elba, but then again, I have never seen Gabrielle Union create chemistry with anyone, JMO. Elba is SO good though that it's pretty easy to tolerate everything that's wrong with this movie.

OK, there has been a lot of revisionism lately around this title, and I decided to seek out the most recent copy of the movie (which is currently available on the Criterion Channel and other streamers) and see if it's worth it.

To be perfectly blunt, I think this movie still sucks, but does it suck a little bit less now than it did in 1980? The answer is, "possibly", but only because Cimino tinkered with it a little bit around 2012 and brightened up the image considerably, so that what you see when you watch the movie today isn't at all the same as what critics (and a handful of moviegoers) watched back in 1980.

The biggest problem with the movie is that the historic incidents depicted in it actually sound like they could make for a fascinating movie or even a mini-series - but this movie ain't it.

Cimino went out of his way to dedicate long stretches of the movie to things that don't really seem all that important, such as the extended opening sequence set at Harvard, which really hardly has anything to do with the rest of the story at all.

Or the story about the proverbial "prostitute with the heart of gold," about as worn-out a cliche as you will find in any movie, and which in Heaven's Gate has the prostitute (Isabelle Huppert) being torn between the characters played by Kris Kristofferson and Christopher Walken.

I swear, it really feels like Cimino just stuck that in the movie because, I don't know, maybe he just wanted to hire a French actress who would be happy to take her clothes off at the slightest excuse? The whole subplot about the love triangle with the prostitute feels like it takes almost a whole hour of the already insanely long running time.

A better movie might have spent more time telling us the stories of the actual immigrants and the government officials who were involved in the land conflict, which according to the best information I've gathered, actually did happen, but involved only 2 people dying - not hundreds, like Cimino depicts in this movie.

Honestly, if you have nothing better to do with almost 4 hours of your time than watching a pretentious load of manure posturing as a serious movie, then Heaven's Gate might just hit the spot. Otherwise, it still remains as good an example of wretched excess now as it did when if first (and very briefly) showed up in theaters.

Stella Maris 4/5 -- heart warming Mary Pickford film

The Indian Tomb 4/5 -- very nice exotic German 2 parter with the magnetic Conrad Veidt

The Year of Living Dangerously - 7/10
This movie plays on TCM endlessly, because I've deleted it so many times, since my DVR storage is always hovering at around 90%, but I gave it a chance today, and I didn't turn it off. Good story (Indonesian revolution), but the wrong characters, except the Indonesians. Linda Hunt playing a male dwarf? "I asked her to marry me" - sure you did... But some great lines. "I created you" the usual CIA prototype (ala "Burn"). A few other scenes that were too corny. The end was stretched out for "suspense" but I didn't believe any of their motivations, although I would have been interested in their prime/original motivations, which the movie did not go into.



But to my reading of history, Sukarno was the patriot, and Suharto was a CIA puppet.

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The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005)

A remake I believe, but this is immaculately played. Romain Duris plays a hard nosed Realtor trying to look after his and his fathers interests. Even through there is no love lost between them. Thomas and his dad are fairly grubby exploiters that are on the edge of, and beyond law. Learning of the piano seems to calm the brutal/confused soul of the manipulative central character. But this has consequences: he is losing the "edge" to be as effective in the day-to-day business that he is effective at but unappreciated for. It's a great performance and deep as I'd expect from the director Audiard.

It's a real shame this movie has been virtually ignored by mainstream audiences during its theatrical run, but one can only hope it will eventually find a larger audience, perhaps in streaming, as this is one of those movies that seems likely to gain "classic" status over time.

The story, simply told, involves two young kids growing up in the Cabrini-Green projects in Chicago in the early 90s.

There's two terrific performances by the young leads, but one should also acknowledge the role that Jurnee Smollett has served here, both as executive producer and in a supporting role as the mom of one of the kids.

We need more movies like this!!

Triangle Of Sadness


Finally watched this on Netflix last night after seeing the trailer like a year ago!


So it all plays like a metaphor, a study of rich and poor divide which is what one expected.


I haven't laughed so hard in a movie in a long time but ultimately it failed to meet my high expectations from the trailer. It was alright and worth a watch though.

I loved it.

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

Excellent movie. Loved it. You go girlfriend!



Excellent movie based on true facts. Definitely some parts were lost in translation, but I got most of it.

How have I never seen The Long Goodbye before? This movie was kinda ****ing awesome. Robert Altman, John Williams, Henry Gibson, Arnold Schwarzenegger?! The Big Lebowski directly parodies so many little moments from this.

Death Wish 3 (1985)

Where do you start here. This is Winners last directorial installment in the franchise. It's trying to be hard-edged but just comes across as camp in the extreme. It centres upon an ex military mate of Kersey's that he visits in New York that is living in an area controlled by a gang and there seems to be an ageist thing going on here too. Some good set-pieces but the acting (bar Bronson's) is awful. The scene where the lad is in full grief mode after his wife is abused to death then decides he's Chuck Norris mid tears is unforgettable. Good for a laugh. If this has a bit more scope location-wise and a tighter script it could have worked but Winner is phoning it in here.