Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Shutter Island


I was being lazy and felt like watching something I know I love. If anything I appreciate it even more now, stunning cinematography, I could've just watched that storm in the woods for 2 hours and been happy, great acting all round, never a dull moment, ultimately a very sad tale about grief and guilt but boy is it an enjoyable ride. That twist still hits even though you know it's coming, love Shutter Island.

Leave the World Behind (2023)





Less of a thriller, more of an anxiety movie. A family go on holiday to an isolated house but then become cut off from the world due to... Something. Maybe a war. Maybe something supernatural. Nobody knows, not even the writers.


This had some really nice touches (note the wallpaper) and a couple of thought provoking ideas but it also had unpleasant characters in a house arguing (one of my least favourite subgenres) and a bit of lecturing. It didn't feel finished, like it didn't know where to go. I wasn't expecting everything to be explained neatly but it needed something more.


I did like the very end, though, which had the humour the rest of the film sorely lacked.

I watched Pearl. Partly because Evil Prevails recommened it, partly because I keep seeing Mia Goth's crazy smile pop up in memes. Thought X was just alright (nothing from Ti West has really blown my mind), so I didn't really go into this with high expectations.

I've had kinda a dull year for film, nothing I've watched has really left an impression. But I think Pearl tops the list for the year. The scene with the step sister near the end is easily the best thing I've seen all year. It's hella good.

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1st Rewatch...This smart and funny homage to gangster flicks and behind the scenes in Hollywood remains as brilliant as it was on its first watch thanks to a flawless screenplay, stylish direction by Barry Sonnenfeld, and a perfect cast led by John Travolta, in one of his most charismatic performances as Chili Palmer and Gene Hackman as the pathetic Harry Zim. Everything works here.

Glad I missed that one. One of my least favorite "genres" (if that's a genre), is a bunch of adults locked in a room arguing, bringing up each others' flaws and infidelities, usually accompanied by too much booze.

I just want to yell out to them to all go to their respective bedrooms (movie houses like that always have a lot of bedrooms), shut the "f" up, and wait for the storm to be over.

Final Destination (2000)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

I watched 27 Dresses and The Dead Center. One was my wife's pick, the other was my own. Unfortunately, I didn't particularly care for either of them. I bought a large lot of movies early this year and I am still sifting through all of them. 27 Dresses isn't my kind of movie, and it wasn't a pleasant surprise - it's an overtly manufactured, cliched film that looks like it could be made on an assembly line, whereas The Dead Center simply never captured my attention. It's a pity because it was the film I was mostly interested in from the movie lot (not because I thought it'd be good, but because I thought it looked unique and I hadn't heard of it before). I could see the influences of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the performances weren't bad, but it never went anywhere interesting for me.

What a double-feature!

I'd probably never go near 27 Dresses.

I watched The Dead Center because of its poster and also because this was before I knew that Shane Carruth was a terrible (talented, but terrible) person.

Here's what I wrote about it when I watched it.

*Googles*

... Oh, well, damn.

As for 27 Dresses, it is a film I would never normally watch, but I have a wife who loves it. She puts up with a lot of my darker horror movies, so I try to make sure to pivot extremely against my own comfort zone with things like Sweet Home Alabama and, now, 27 Dresses.

I don't hate romantic comedies, per se, but, man, neither Sweet Home Alabama nor 27 Dresses is at all good. The best I can say is that they are energetic and they don't dither around. It makes them bad, but watchable, but they ... are terribly lazy, cliched films.

It's rendered one of my favorite movies of all time (Upstream Color) basically unwatchable because seeing a person on screen with the person they abused just gives me the squicks.

I used to interview a lot of filmmakers. I was lucky enough to interview Robert Englund, Gregory Plotkin, and lesser known names like Josh Stifter, Stephen Cognetti (Hell House LLC.), and a few others.

I made the mistake of interviewing one of the filmmakers I wasn't too familiar with. I watched several of his movies and he was a "bit of a name," not huge but one of his movies was pretty well known. I interview him, and then, a few weeks later, I found out that he and his wife (who starred in the film he is most known for) had split - with his wife leveling some incredibly serious accusations against him.

It was a major yikes moment for me. Especially because I was 'this close' to contacting his wife to participate in the interview as well.

SF = Z


[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it

That's really neat!

That's too bad. As is well-documented, separating the artist from the art is my Achilles heel.

By IMDb, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51457253

The Commitments - (1991)

The Commitments soundtrack nearly hit #1 in Australia (both volume 1 and 2) - and that gives me the erroneous view that the film was a massive hit worldwide, but it struggled a bit in the U.S. The soul music it espoused and it's brief domination of the airwaves led to me feeling a little antipathy towards the film in my youth, but I'm going through a phase of giving these films I didn't want to watch back then a fair go. Fair enough, the music is actually great. It's an interesting film, because while many of it's ilk will focus on the newly formed, growing and successful band becoming tighter and tighter, the titular Commitments in this have many of it's members in direct conflict with each other - and this conflict is so red hot every gig they play is considered a miracle if a fight doesn't erupt mid-performance. This tension is what kept me engaged, and overall I thought this kooky film was good without being absolutely great. Nobody really stands out from the huge ensemble gathered here, and that might be one of the reasons why I can't see myself committing to the movie in any promising way - but there's an atmospheric, working-class vibe that I enjoyed all the same. It has a big heart, and if you're a fan of soul then that might just lift it into great territory for you. A mix of Dublin, Wilson Pickett and small-scale conflict.

7/10


By The poster art can or could be obtained from the distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51992862

Collateral Beauty - (2016)

Jeez. Part-way through Collateral Beauty I thought "this is actually really good", and then, by the time it ended, I felt so very differently. Watching this movie is like getting dressed up and getting in a car with your partner, intent on going to a great restaurant and having a good meal only to take a sharp turn before you get there and getting take-out at Burger King. Collateral Beauty is a film that's intent on becoming so magical and sweet that it chokes on the excessive sugar contaminating it's blood-stream, washing away all of the interesting themes and storylines in favour of Hallmark feelgood quotes, guardian angel twists and nonsensical ethereal enchantment. It became a mangled mess, and disappointed me. I thought this was going to be an excellent film about grief, and the story about three friends interfering in the life of a fourth in a morally questionable way with mixed intentions was interesting. There were a lot of moral questions being posed that were interesting. This film deals with them in a not so interesting way : magic. Magic, miracle, angels and the healing ability of magic. My expectations lay crushed, and dead. I tell you - big time studios, production companies and distributors look on us, the general public, as children. Will Smith, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Michael Peña, Naomie Harris, Kate Winslet and Helen Mirren all wasted.

4/10

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Robin and Marian (1976)

Stalker (1979)


An uneven film, with beauty and deep meaning placed like chocolate chips in a gigantic bowl of plain oatmeal.


There are a ton of gorgeous scenes throughout, but they are mainly to establish the films style and feel, rather than adding anything to the narrative.


It really rebounds in the last half hour, which at first infuriated me, but then it pulled off multiple cinematic stunts to more than make the journey worthwhile.


B+

Irwin and Fran

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

Bad Santa (2003)


Tis the season...a holiday favorite of mine. RIP Bernie Mac and John Ritter

Ummm, no? There's nothing plain about Stalker.

There's no shot wasted. Every take adds to the narrative. That's the difference between Tarkovsky and the later Slow Cinema movement. I do understand why people would have problems with Tarkvosky, though. Unlike many other directors, he never uses symbols. There's no "X means Y" that you can decipher and say your job's done. Every element is a thing in and of itself, but also a part of a greater whole. Every long take is a statement of sorts, or yet another thing that tells us something about one of the men or the Zone in general.

I'd love to see your TOP 10 movies of all time.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

Serpico - 1973

Pacino was very good. Interesting story based on true events. Felt a little tedious to get through at times though. I just wanted to yell at him to find another career lol. It was good but I don't see myself revisiting it anytime soon.

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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)