Rate The Last Movie You Saw

I’m a huge fan of all of the above (though outside of expat Jimmy Wang Yu and King Hu, I’m not as familiar with Taiwan as the others) so if you find yourself needing some more recs, hit me up.

Logan's Run, 1976

In a futuristic society, citizens are eliminated at the age of 30 under the guise of a ritual called "renewal". Logan (Michael York) is a "Sandman"--part of a police force tasked with finding and terminating any "runners"--people who attempt to escape the city. After a chance encounter with a woman named Jessica (Jenny Agutter) who questions the rules of society, Logan is assigned to go undercover to find something called Sanctuary where it is rumored that runners are escaping. Logan's partner, Francis (Richard Jordan) doesn't know about the undercover operation and ends up hunting Logan.

Overall I liked this a fair bit more than I expected. I remember trying to read the book as a teenager and quitting after like 20 pages.

On the positive side, the film does a pretty nice job with some well-worn sci-fi tropes. Some of the aspects of the futuristic world are very well-realized. The sequences of the "renewal" ceremony, called the Carousel, are an amazing feat of special effects and elaborate wire-work.

In general I thought that the performances were pretty strong, especially Jordan as Logan's conflicted partner. York makes for a decent lead--a man whose rock-hard convictions begin to erode as he learns more and finds himself in the crosshairs. Agutter makes for a decent lead, although her character comes across as a bit passive at times.

There is something kind of interesting in the way that the film has elements that are bold, and yet a lot of the execution feels very dated. In the "Oh, interesting!" category, probably the most notable element is the portrayal of sexuality. When Logan summons a sexual partner from something called The Circuit, his first choice is a young man. And while he politely passes, it is nice that it doesn't feel like he does so out of homophobia or disgust. And when Jessica shows up and changes her mind about sex, he casually asks if she prefers women. Later we get a scene of that old futuristic stand-by, the orgy room. But I loved the way that the scene was shot in slow motion and without sound. It makes the scene both sexual and threatening.

But there are so many ways that the film falls into bad sci-fi tropes, and especially along gender lines. As we have come to expect from so many sci-fi movies, all of the men wear fully-covering bodysuits, while the women all wear outfits that are short, sheer, and easily removed. My favorite moment of absurd nudity inequity comes when Logan and Jessica are soaked and freezing. Logan says they need to get their clothing off before they freeze. Jessica strips down totally and we see her fully nude. Logan . . . takes off his shirt. Because, as we all know, men have no interest in keeping their genitals from freezing. Similarly, we later see frozen dead bodies encased in ice. We get a nice long look at several fully nude women, while the male bodies have conveniently placed blurred ice. Is it surprising? No. Does it remind you that a lot of fantasy and sci-fi writers can only imagine a future that is designed to double as a weird masturbatory fantasy? Yes.

There are also some elements of the world that are not fully realized, such as a strange "Cathedral" where feral children are kept. I was honestly confused by the whole concept. And this set-piece and those characters are used just for one sequence and then seemingly forgotten. Not having read the book I couldn't tell if backstory had been dropped in the interest of time, or what. I had other questions about the reality of the film (like the nature of the computer that seems to run things). They didn't bother me tremendously, but there was just a nagging sense that this world wasn't complete.

Above average, but not quite as bold as it could have been and hampered by some dated elements.

24th Hall of Fame

In a Glass Cage (1986) -

This is definitely the most controversial film to be nominated in this thread. There's already been a lot of discussion on this film. Both positive and exceedingly negative. I wasn't looking forward to this film going into it, but while it was definitely a hard watch, I did enjoy a decent bit about it.

To get it out of the way, yes, this film is a hard watch. While I don't think certain things should be off-limits from being portrayed in movies (pedophilia is a real thing which goes on in the world, so I think it's completely fine for media to portray it), the way the film handled this was nauseating. During the pedophilia scenes, the film didn't use stunt doubles, camera techniques, etc. so that the child actors wouldn't actually experience the pedophilia. The young actors were, in fact, disrobed and sexually touched onscreen by an older man. These scenes were disturbing and I ended up looking away from the screen during those scenes. After researching it, I saw that a child psychiatrist authorized the film during production, but this didn't make those scenes any easier to watch for me.

Given this, I don't think I'll rewatch this film. However, there are some genuine strengths I'll like to address which I think the film deserves credit for.

For one, the film offers a compelling dynamic between abuser and abused, specifically how an abuser's behavior can be contagious for their victims. This dynamic largely applied to Angelo as, due to the abuse Klaus treated him with many years prior, Klaus's personality transferred over to him. Angelo then attempted to replicate the same behavior that Klaus treated him with. While the pedophilia scenes were hard to watch, this undercurrent of cyclical abuse made them disturbing for thematic reasons, not solely for visceral reasons. This dynamic also applied to Rena as she acted naïve throughout the film, occasionally treating Angelo as her lover and underreacting to the heinous acts he committed around her. The ending was a compelling culmination to her arc, in particular.

I also appreciated the visuals and production design of the film. The entire film was shot with a blue tint. While colored filters normally don't do much for me, I think this look worked since it contrasted with the blood in the film, making Angelo's murders, while hard to watch for reasons mentioned above, all the more shocking. I also liked the gothic look of the house, especially when Angelo modified it in the latter portions of the film to make it more creepy (starting a bonfire inside the house or putting up a wire fence around the staircase). Regardless of what one thinks of the objectionable elements of the film, there's still this aspect to enjoy, at the very least.

Overall, this film was incredibly disturbing and it's unlikely I'll watch it again due to the pedophilia scenes, but I also don't think it was a waste of time by any means. Its themes on the cyclical pattern of abuse and its visuals and production design impressed me quite a lot.

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I recently watched The Assassin, from Hou Hsiao-hsien out of Taiwan, and was highly impressed. *It’s not your traditional Wuxia, however.

Amazon has the Kinji Fukasaku
series, Battles without honor and humanity, so I plan on binging those.
Also has a few of his other films, like Cops vs Thugs, and a few of his sci fi films (Virus, Message from Space).

I’ve owned the Assassin since it dropped on Blu-ray but for some reason, I haven’t watched it.

Similarly, I own all the Yakuza Papers but have only watched Battle Without Honor and Humanity. I am a big fan of Fukasaku though. He’s kind of anti-martial arts in his depiction of violence. Chaotic, messy and primal violence abound.

If you want Yakuza filtered through something chanbara-esque, check out the Outlaw Gangster VIP series. Goro is basically a modern Yakuza Yojimbo with a wakizashi.

Will do! Last year I was on a western kick, this year martial arts and yakuza films.

I went on a western kick last year too, in preparation for writing my own western screenplay. I love doing deep dives for inspiration. What were some of your favorite new watches? My favorite first timers were The Devil’s Doorway, the Ox Bow Incident, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, My Darling Clementine and Kid Brother.

This year, I’m just trying to clean up my unwatched masses of blind buys with an emphasis on Criterions.

From last year, those that I watched for the first time and really enjoyed were: The Big Country, Johnny Guitar, Rio Bravo, The Horse Soldiers, The Good The Bad and the Weird, The Salvation, The Shooting. *
Of the ones you mentioned above, I’ve already seen The Ox Bow Incident (loved it), and My Darling Clementine (liked it).*

I watched a handful of spaghetti westerns as well. Watched several of the Sartana series, which were ok.

I haven’t seen JG or THS yet but I’m a fan to varying degrees of all the others.

I also watched the Sartana series last year. I particularly enjoyed the one where he showed up blonde. Not particularly noteworthy (I probably liked them a bit more than the Ringo films and a bit less than the Sabata films) but they definitely scratched the pasta craving.

Sabata
*sigh*
I planned on watching that trilogy next, but Amazon removed them from streaming. So now I wait. Hadn’t seen any of the Ringo films, although I’ve heard of them.
I did find a few other westerns that I want to watch yet, soon. Bad Company, The Dark Valley. Especially The Dark Valley. Pahak introduced that to me via the western countdown we did last year. Austrian revenge western? Sure, I’m all in.

Oh no, there's almost nothing redundant or indulgent about The Irishman, and it certainly doesn't feel like a "victory lap" for anyone involved, quite the opposite, in fact; it actually feels targeted at the people who thought Henry Hill was "cool" because he was a (relatively) rich gangster who did whatever he wanted, when they're ignoring all the obvious things wrong with his lifestyle, so Scorsese responds by stripping away all the glamour/power fantasy that often comes with Gangster films, so that it's impossible for anyone to miss that point this time. It's most akin to Unforgiven, in that it feels like a deconstruction/eulogy for its particular genre, and speaking as someone who found Casino to be somewhat redundant, and Wolf to be somewhat bloated, even though The Irishman obviously treads over similar territory and is even longer than both of those films, there's still almost nothing that should've been cut from it, IMO (in fact, I think Goodfellas actually had more bloat to it, with the sub-plot with "Spider"). Anyway, again, I think it's one of Scorsese's best, and certainly the best he's done in over a quarter of a century, so it's totally worth checking out, even if you're not a huge fan of his recent stuff.

Phantasm (1979)

This will probably make some more people hate me, but why is this exactly considered a classic? It's below average B-horror of its era. Acting, writing, pacing, cinematography, and everything else is bad here. It's also way too boring to provide some unintentional chuckles. What a disappointment.

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Project: Metalbeast (1995)

Yes, this was more entertaining than Phantasm. It's technically pretty much as bad, but the monster is quite well done and it has much better unintentional comedy. Anyway, I should probably watch something else than B-horrors next.

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Synchronic (2019, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead)

Very disappointing compared to The Endless. Not that the latter didn't have its flaws but the mystery and atmosphere were far more compelling. This one, put simply, falls flat on a number of levels, especially in the second half.


Palm Springs (2020, Max Barbakow)

A surprisingly decent and very entertaining take on the Groundhog Day formula. Hilarious dialogue, good acting by (and chemistry between) the two leads, a cool little twist in the plot - all the elements come together to make for an invigorating and sheer fun viewing experience. Plus, like Another Round, it's a perfect 2020 metaphor. Being stuck in the same boring desolate place for eternity and desperately trying to escape - who wouldn't relate? Thank god there's a woman there to save the day!

What do you think of this list, then?:

Be forewarned, while I'm a pretty big fan of the Sabata films, the second, ADIOS SABATA, doesn't have Lee Van Cleef and instead replaces him (and the character's silly iconic pistol) with Yul Brenner. It may even be the "best" one but it doesn't feel like the other two.

I'm unfamiliar with either of them. They seem to be in the lower budget end of the genre. It's odd how modern westerns mostly seem to be A list big budget affairs or DTV fare. Not much going on in the mid range.

Powerful performance from Ahmed, really amazing. Olivia Cooke is awesome too, but this guy just steals it.

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There has been an awekening.... have you felt it?

I thought this was pretty bad even for the genre. A genre which really only has one film worth watching.

I've seen all but 4 (Duel to the Death, Journey to the West, the Victim and Ten Tigers of Shaolin) but I like to love all the others. The format creates some extremely dubious omissions (Lau Kar Leung and Chang Cheh only having one entry each), along with some questionable additions (the Quest is only there because Q was a really hard letter, I'd imagine). It also skews more modern than I'd like (though the inclusion of Scott Adkins' Ninja 2 pleases me very much) but it's a fine list that would offer a lot of great martial arts action cinema.*

Hard to complain.

As long as you don't post the Every Frame A Painting video on Jackie Chan, I'll be alright.

Is that one film Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS?

Well, that's definitely food for thought. Thanks for taking the time to make the case.