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dont forget to watch other 3 missiom impossible films they filming number 7 right now and then number 8
I've seen them all, most of them multiple times. This was a rewatch since it's my favorite of the bunch.
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the samoan lawyer's Avatar
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Yes Sookie, good movie, I enjoyed it. Very clever and inventive and the animation was great, as always from Pixar. I wouldnt say its a young kids movie, themes maybe a bit too deep for mine, aged 10 and 5 and slow in parts.
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Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Pieces of a Woman (2020)

Sad topic and unlikable characters don't make for much of an enjoyable watch.



Your Name Engraved Herein (2020)

This Taiwanese teen almost-love story starts well, but becomes a bit overwrought and starts throwing in a few cliches. I don't know if I missed something, but I didn't understand what seemed to be a change in the characters' personalities half way through. Some touching scenes though.

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Yes Sookie, good movie, I enjoyed it. Very clever and inventive and the animation was great, as always from Pixar. I wouldnt say its a young kids movie, themes maybe a bit too deep for mine, aged 10 and 5 and slow in parts.
i love pixar they make amazing movies .



Victim of The Night
Zero Dark Thirty (Bigelow, 2012)



The greatest manhunt in history.

WARNING: spoilers below
I don't think I have to remind anyone by now that, before it became the punchline for multiple Family Guy gags (some of them even good!), 9/11 was the definition of a watershed, earth-shaking moment, not just in American history, but the entire world's as well. However, in addition to the tremendous historical impact of that September morn, it also holds a certain personal importance for me, as, while I fortunately didn't lose anyone in the attacks, it still happened after I had just become a teenager, which makes it feels like the unofficial dividing line between when I was a "kid", and when I became an "adult", as the world became a much] scarier place after it; I mean, how could I and an entire generation of Americans not be traumatized by what was our version of Peal Harbor, as we were pulled out of class to watch the firey deaths of thousands of our fellow countrymen on live TV? However, as our nation rushed to obtain some sort of vengeance, the fallout from that response has proved to be grotesquely overblown, as the deaths of 3,000 people doesn't justify the displacement of over 30 million, or the deaths of over half a million, many of whom were innocent, making the so-called "War On Terror" one without the relatively clear-cut good or bad guys of certain previous conflicts, and rendering it far more difficult for Hollywood's nuance-hostile industry to churn out its inevitable dramatizations. However, with 2012's Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow not only attempted such a dramatization, but also succeeded extremely well (although that's not a huge surprise, considering that her previous effort was The Hurt Locker), resulting in a film that's not only a superb, true-life espionage Thriller, but also the current peak of the director's late career renaissance.

It tells the story of the hunt for bin Laden through the lens of "Maya", a green CIA operative who was recruited fresh out of high school, who, over the course of the film's 2 & 1/2 hours, slowly grows from being just one more small cog in a massive bureaucratic machine, to being the main driver of the hunt herself, as she obsessively digs through mountains of digital data, goes from anonymous, grime-covered "black site" to anonymous, grime-covered black site, and becomes an increasingly willing participant in various, dehumanizing forms of physical & psychological torture, as the stakes become increasingly personal for her, and she comes to display a pathological, quasi-religious fervor for hunting bin Laden, one that borders on being just as fanatical as the actual religious fervor of the terrorists themselves.

Of course, I have to address the elephant that's been in the room since the film's release, which is that it takes a "pro-torture" stance, which strikes me as cherry-picking, and part of a justified backlash against the American war machine that has nonetheless been misdirected at the film itself. I think this is obvious when the film shows multiple times that beating, force-feeding, and waterboarding prisoners is not only unable to consistently produce reliable intel, but also fails to prevent an actual attack in one case, which feels like a defusal of the theoretical "ticking-clock" scenarios that right-wingers loved to spew on Fox "News". In addition, you also have to consider the film's portrayal of the torture itself, which, rather than glossing over it, chooses to magnify it instead, with the lingering close-ups of one detainee in particular's filthy, bloody face, especially as he violently vomits up water, making the film an extremely uncomfortable watch, especially if you viewed it in a packed theater like I did. And finally, while this is outside the "text" of the film itself, I'm still skeptical of the idea that the film's screenwriter, Mark Boal, intended it as some sort of pro-torture cheerleading, considering that he wrote it at the same time he was working on an article about American war crimes, with the humanization of Maya and her co-workers when they're off the job not feeling like an endorsement of their "on the clock" actions, but a way to emphasize the level of sociopathy required to torture people for a living, while still functioning as a human being.

Anyway, as for the film's overall portrayal of the manhunt itself, ZDT does a superb job of conveying just enough of the maddening minutiae so we can grasp how knotty and dizzying a tangle that the world's biggest needle in a haystack search was, while also avoiding becoming unnecessarily bogged down in those details, with the rapid-fire, globe-trotting jumps between locations, intense handheld camerawork, and Bigelow's sharp, tense direction helping to cut through all the potentially confusing intelligence community jargon and bureaucratic back room meetings, in order to create a engaging, thrilling experience on the whole, with references to shifts in the political landscape to keep us grounded in the timeline, as well as occasional asides to portray real acts of terrorism, driving home the urgency of hunting down the man who's continuing to inspire those acts.

Finally, as for the film's moral stance on the "War On Terror", its overall viewpoint is appropriately as muddy as the war itself, as it refuses to turn a blind eye to the brutality of the conflict, and never strings up easy strawmen, but presents multiple perspectives in a solid fashion, too solidly to be interpreted in good faith as taking any one side, as Maya, though portrayed as being admirably iron-willed at times, still seems to hunt for bin Laden less as an act of collective justice for 9/11, and more for the personal vengeance of a colleague of that was killed in a suicide bombing. And, even then, neither Maya or us get to feel any final sense of fulfillment, as the climatic, half-hour raid sequence, a masterclass in glacial, nerve-wracking tension on its own terms, still takes us back to square zero with the lingering, haunting image of another aircraft on fire, bringing the events full circle, and hinting at an endless, ever-perpetuating cycle of violence as a result. And, even after Maya has personally glimpsed the corpse of bin Laden himself, this closure still fails to bring her peace, with her hunt for him being all she's lived for the past decade, and, when a pilot asks her where she wants to go after, she tellingly doesn't (or can't?) answer his question, as she stares blankly off into space, and a tear runs down her exhausted face, as we abruptly cut to black.

Best Moment:



Final Score: 9
Yeah, I thought this movie was fantastic. Unlike many, I liked Argo, but I would have chosen this film over that one for BP 100/100 times and I thought it was serious bull**** that Bigelow wasn't nominated for Best Director for this. Serious bull****. Like, I wondered if there wasn't some kind of Hollywood-backlash at her for making a better film than Avatar (not hard) back in '08 and taking the statue from that film and from Cameron, or even if maybe there was a little misogyny of, if Bigelow wins BD twice in four years, do we have to admit that the best director in Hollywood might actually be a woman?!



The Empty Man (2020)


A difficult film to rate. Ultimately disappointing despite all the good things in it. It's like three movies mashed together with an extra short as an introduction. Cut the intro (it's good but totally unneeded), remove the teens + urban legend stuff, and concentrate on the cult and cosmic horror, and we have a winner.
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Yeah, I thought this movie was fantastic. Unlike many, I liked Argo, but I would have chosen this film over that one for BP 100/100 times and I thought it was serious bull**** that Bigelow wasn't nominated for Best Director for this. Serious bull****. Like, I wondered if there wasn't some kind of Hollywood-backlash at her for making a better film than Avatar (not hard) back in '08 and taking the statue from that film and from Cameron, or even if maybe there was a little misogyny of, if Bigelow wins BD twice in four years, do we have to admit that the best director in Hollywood might actually be a woman?!
I need to rewatch this, and Hurt Locker for that matter. Both films have a lot of ingredients that I like, and overall I enjoyed them, but I couldn't help but feel detached from them. They didn't really click with me.



Victim of The Night
I need to rewatch this, and Hurt Locker for that matter. Both films have a lot of ingredients that I like, and overall I enjoyed them, but I couldn't help but feel detached from them. They didn't really click with me.
I think detachment is actually part of her style in these films, particularly ZDT. I think it's one of the things that makes that film so good is that it doesn't play on any of the genre tropes really, including how the action is handled. Like she intentionally sidesteps on them to focus on the real.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

Running Stumbled (John Maringouin, 2006)
6/10
Story Conference (Roy Mack, 1934)
6.5/10
Ring of Terror (Clark L. Paylow, 1961)
+ 4.5/10
Someone, Somewhere (Cédric Klapisch, 2019)
+ 6/10

Two lonely Parisians (Ana Girardot & François Civil) live right next to each other but never seem to meet.
White Sun of the Desert (Vladimir Motyl, 1970)
6/10
The Louisiana Hussy (Lee Sholem, 1959)
5/10
The Astrologer AKA Suicide Cult (Jim Glickenhaus, 1975)
4/10
Captain Salvation (John Robertson, 1927)
+ 6/10

Seminary student Lars Hanson does battle with his New England town about a woman of sin.
Doomsday Machine (Lee Sholem & Harry Hope, 1972)
- 4/10
White Sister (Alberto Lattuada, 1972)
5.5/10
The Tijuana Story (Leslie Kardos, 1957)
5/10
Crying Fist (Ryoo Seung-wan, 2005)
+ 6/10

Boxers Choi Min-sik & Seung-bum Ryoo, whose lives are on downward spirals, work hard to get in an amateur championship fight.
Romulus, My Father (Richard Roxburgh, 2007)
5.5/10
The Touch of Flesh (R. John Hugh, 1960)
+ 5/10
The Naked Road (William Martin, 1959)
4/10
Fear No More (Bernard Wiesen, 1961)
6/10

Mala Powers is aided by nice guy Jacques Bergerac when she gets involved in a humongous mystery.
Out of the Wild (Paul Krizan, 2019)
6/10
Mickey One (Arthur Penn, 1965)
5/10
Stallone: Frank, That Is (Derek Wayne Johnson, 2021)
6.5/10
Abnormal Family (Masayuki Suo, 1984)
5/10

Porno shot in the style of Ozu by the director of Shall We Dance?
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Yes Sookie, good movie, I enjoyed it. Very clever and inventive and the animation was great, as always from Pixar. I wouldnt say its a young kids movie, themes maybe a bit too deep for mine, aged 10 and 5 and slow in parts.
May give this a go then Samoan Lawyer, wee man 12 and I love the pixar.



Avengers: Endgame - Having finally watched Captain Marvel I decided to give this another go from beginning to end. No interruptions or catching it in bits and pieces. It turned out to be a surprisingly cohesive and more or less fulfilling coda to the franchise. I thought I had watched it before but there were parts I didn't remember. Parts that either helped to clear up questions I had or deepened character arcs. I've never been much of a Marvel fanboy so I don't know if that had anything to do with
WARNING: spoilers below
the Tony Stark death not really resonating with me. The Natasha Romanoff death was a little better. And the final showdown with all the "desaparecidos" reappearing was a foregone conclusion so all that was left was to sit back and marvel at all the CGI.
I do appreciate all the artistry and storytelling involved in this and know full well that DC can only hope to make something as good as this someday.




Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
The Louisiana Hussy (Lee Sholem, 1959)
5/10
This has been on my list for a while. What should I expect?
Weird combo of down-home folksiness/friendliness, cruelty, technical incompetence combined with good on-location photography, music ranging from foreboding to cutesy. The plotting and characters are all obvious. I think my fave part was a sorta precursor to the fist fight in They Live.



matt72582's Avatar
Please Quote/Tag Or I'll Miss Your Responses
Sunday in August - 7/10
A bit of a hectic start, but it's only because the movie revolves around many different characters, and takes some getting used to, but gets better. I wonder why Marcello Mastroianni's audio was dubbed in by an awful sounding voice.








Madhouse, 1981

Julia (Patricia Mickey) is a teacher at a school for deaf children. At the urging of an old family friend, she goes to visit her mentally and physically ill twin sister, Mary (Allison Biggers) in the hospital. But the visit is disastrous as Mary taunts Julia about the abuse she used to inflict on her and swears to torment Julia again on their upcoming birthday.

Normally I post stills with my reviews, but the poster is legit 85% the reason I watched this film.

Unfortunately, the poster is maybe the best thing about it.

Okay, maybe that's not entirely fair. There are two different, creatively nasty sequences that stand out in a good way from a horror point of view. One in particular manages to be surprising and emotionally involving.

But for the most part, this film is kind of a flop for me. It is easy to sympathize with Julia, who has long repressed her childhood trauma and doesn't totally understand her own complex emotions regarding her twin. But for the most part it just doesn't go anywhere. The film should build and build and build to the final confrontation between Julia and Mary, but in the last third it veers into confusing directions, spending too much time with characters who are not compelling.

There are also some horror movie decisions that are beyond the pale, such as when Julia gets a friend to sleep over . . . but then that friend stays in a different room and also Julia shows no signs of worry when she mysteriously disappears (?!?!?!).

This movie is, especially for a horror fan, fine. A few good moments here and there, albeit with a deflated ending that feels like it was trying to swing big but strains under the weight of some really dumb gimmicks.

That poster is dope, though.