Rate The Last Movie You Saw

6th Rewatch...The 2002 Oscar winner for Best Picture is a sizzling screen adaption of the 1975 Bob Fosse musical about two women who have been convicted of murder and are both pinning their hopes of acquittal on a slick talking attorney named Billy Flynn. Director Rob Marshall figured out a clever and simple way to bring the stage musical, which was a series of vaudeville musical numbers, to the screen. Marshall gets dazzling performances from Renee Zellweger as Roxie Hart, Richard Gere as Billy, and in an electrifying performance that earned her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, Catherine Zeta Jones as Velma Kelly. Also love Queen Latifah and John C Reilly, also nominated for their performances as Mama Morton and Amos Hart, respectively. Reilly's rendition of "Mr Cellophane" stops the show. Other standout musical highlights, brilliantly choreographed by Marshall include "The Cell Block Tango", "They Both reached for Gun", "And all that Jazz", "Roxie", and "Razzle Dazzle". One of the best stage to screen adaptions ever.

Umpteenth Rewatch...A guilty pleasure from my childhood that I am still able to mine laughs from. It's the story of a womanizer named Charlie Sorrell who makes a pass at a married woman on a yacht, where he is caught by the woman's husband who shoots him causing him to fall in the water. Charlie is assumed dead and his best friend George Tracy arrives in town for the funeral. A couple of days later, a disoriented woman washes up on the shore naked and not knowing how she got there. It's not long before it is revealed that the woman is Charlie reincarnated as a woman, apparently God's revenge for the way Charlie treated women all his life. There's a slight smarm factor to the comedy but it entertains thanks to a winning cast. Debbie Reynolds is a delight as the new Charlie and works well with Tony Curtis as George. Walter Matthau, utilizing a hard to decipher accent, gets major laughs as the guy who shot Charlie and Pat Boone is all kinds of adorable as the millionaire mama's boy who finds Charlie on the beach and falls instantly in love with her. Two of Charlie's exes are played by Joanna Barnes and Ellen MacRae. MacRae would later change her last name to Burstyn. It takes a little too long for Charlie to learn her lesson, but I still find this movie a lot of fun.

Haven’t heard of this movie, but it’s in my Q now.

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

The Freshman (1990)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Tracey Deer is a Native American filmmaker from the Mohawk tribe. Club Native is a documentary that follows the identity struggles within her home community of Kahnawake, in Canada. Although she covers different topics, the main focus is on blood quantum laws that are used to determine how "Native American" someone is, who they can marry, and where they can live.

Overall, the documentary is very insightful and well structured. I liked how Deer spliced the different stories, and I thought it was effective to her goals. At the end of the day, we shouldn't lose perspective of all the struggles that Native Americans have been through, but also of that most important piece that one of the interviewees brought up: not what's in your blood, but who you are, how you walk, how you act, and what you contribute.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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Civil War (2024) I don't think this is as good as Alex Garland's other films. I still liked it, but it felt like it was missing something. Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny are good here and there are some effective moments. I just was expecting more substance though. It doesn't make my top 10 of the year.

Put it in my watchlist a few minutes ago after reading NYTimes review.

Yes, it's quite interesting to see what a British filmmaker has to say about American politics...

Coup De Chance. Woody Allen's new film. This one is filmed in Paris and entirely in French. Not as good as some of Allen's other films, but still worth watching. The actors did a good job and the film moves at a good pace. The writing isn't as strong with this one though, but it is kind of neat to see Allen do a film in French. Now available to rent or purchase on demand.

Het debuut (1977) I watched this on Tubi today. It's a Dutch film about a 14 year old girt's romance with a middle aged married man. I thought this was really interesting and well written. Marina de Graaf is fantastic.

In the mood for a foreign language movie, this one qualifies, is Italian with subtitles, La Chimera. I'd actually like to see it again since I was not sure what to expect and got distracted by how Italian it was. It also dramatized something I've read about in my archeology publications, plundering of artifacts. In this one, a guy, out of prison, gets associated with a gang that is digging for and black-marketing Etruscan artifacts, against Italian law.

Wikipedia refers to it as a "romantic" drama, but to me, the drama is the plundering of the artifacts, something that's very real and quite well documented.

Curiously, I've also been recently hit with a lot of web links about the Etruscans, the inhabitants of that part of Italy where the Roman Empire began and had a non-Indo-European language that was only recently translated. They had a very high sense of aesthetics and left behind a lot of frescos of themselves eating and dressing well, dancing, playing music and having highly graphic sex. It seems like, unbeknownst to most of us, there are a bunch of Etruscan words in English, including autumn, antenna and person, not to mention the name of the city itself, Rome.

john wick movie style, i loved the fighting and the blood and everything
[color="red"]

Blade Runner (1982) - 7/10

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It was okay. Based on some of the reviews I went in braced for the worst, but it was enjoyable. It was, however, not as good as the previous movie. It's a little weird to me that despite the impressive visuals and great first 15~ minutes, after that the movie became fairly slow and dull, with a lousy plot.


The real core of the movie's problems is aside from Winston getting some much deserved screen time, none of the characters were developed in any way. It felt more like an episode of a TV show. Here are the characters and here's the situation. But nothing changes much, and everything ends pretty much where it started. It's a fun time, but kind of a pointless one.


C+

Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp (2024) Watched on Netflix. The acting in this isn't very good and the screenplay is poorly written, cliched and predictable. The movie isn't very funny or enjoyable. Woody is more annoying than cute or entertaining.

Shirley (2024) Watched on Netflix. Regina King is excellent here and the rest of the supporting cast are good too. The way the story is told feels a little by the numbers though and the writing doesn't live up to the performances. This feels like it could have been great, but as is, it is still a worthwhile, fine film anchored by a strong lead performance.

Legally Blonde (2001)