Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Well, there are at least two of us... I loved this movie. Robinson, Bennett and Duryea at their finest, along with a nice part for the great Raymond Massey. It has one of my most favorite endings to a movie.

Unfortunately it was followed up with the same trio in Scarlet Street, which was a dud...

~Doc

Inherent Vice (2014) -

Unrelated note - 100 films watched this year!!

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Letterboxd

Wow pretty high score I barely gave it one star!

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Consumers will eat everything except the sequel

Drive (2011) -

Felt like rewatching this after being disappointed by Inherent Vice

Chappie (2015)



It was funny and entertaining. A cross between Short Circuit and RoboCop. A few characters were amusing. Once I realized it wasn't a kids movie, I gave it a try. I wasn't up for another WALL-E. The swear count was high. Not enough gore. Robots were pretty cool.

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"I may be rancid butter, but I'm on your side of the bread."
E. K. Hornbeck

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Letterboxd | ReverseShot | SlantMagazine

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

I wasn't convinced that the next Captain America could match The Winter Soldier but this one really does equal it. It's almost a new Avengers movie with quite a few of the heroes showing up, but when you break it down it's a three-way fight between Caps, Iron Man, and The Winter Soldier (Bucky). The collateral damage and deaths brought about by the Avengers fighting earth-threatening bad guys across the globe has brought the U.N. to mandate a law that will bring them under the U.N.'s heel. Tony Stark (Iron Man) is for this, Captain America not. Then comes the Civil War of the title, which only really comes about when Bucky is accused of bombing a U.N. meeting. Then it's all-out battle, with new heroes brought in to help; Ant-Man on one side, Spider-Man on the other. Plus, T'Challa, the Black Panther, is there with his own agenda: to get revenge for the death of someone at the bombing. Lots of super action and surprisingly quite a bit of humor, with great action set-pieces, including a terrific chase between Bucky, Black Panther, and Iron Man through a traffic tunnel. But Captain America's divided loyalties between Tony and Bucky is really what's at the heart of this story and it's filled in seamlessly with all the action. Great addition to the ongoing adventures of the the superheroes.





Appaloosa (2008)

Terrific Western starring Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, and Renée Zellweger. Ed and Viggo are traveling companions who ride the West searching for towns that are plagued by lawlessness and get hired as lawmen to clean up these towns. They come to the town of the title and set about stopping bad guy Jeremy Irons and his men from destroying people's lives. Harris does a fine job of directing, with an equal portion of action and equal parts of characterization. As long as the two buddies have been together, Zellweger threatens their peacekeeping ways when Harris falls for her. Very good movie with twists and turns. Recommended.

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"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."

It's hard to say something about a film that everyone has seen and most love. The Terminator is a sci/fi classic that catapulted James Cameron's career. Spitting out numerous sequels, Cameron started a franchise and made one of the biggest movie action stars of all-time with Schwarzenegger.

In 1984, a cyborg from 2029, known as The Terminator arrives with one purpose and one purpose only; KILL SARAH CONNOR. The resistance from 2029 sends back their best soldier to stop the machine and save her life. Why? She is the mother of John Connor, who will one day rise up and lead the resistance against the machines who have taken over the world.

One of the bigger questions to ask is; "does this film still hold-up by today's standards"? With the exception of a few effects shots, the answer is absolutely yes. The Terminator is basically one giant chase film and Cameron stages every set pieces beautifully. The best example of his talents are when the Terminator and Kyle Reese first meet Sarah Connor in Tech Noir, the dance club. Breaking down that scene showcases the amount of creative talent Cameron has, every shot has a purpose, every action is justified and the repetitive machine like music heightens the tension beautifully. I love the shot of Sarah bending over to pick something up just as the Terminator walks by in the crowd. Everything in that scene builds towards chaos, which then explodes onto the screen.

Michael Biehn plays Kyle Reese, the soldier sent back to protect Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton. I was wondering if I was going to believe them sleeping together this time around and you know what, I did. While the sex scene itself is pure 80's cheese, everything else that led up to it felt genuine to me. It helps that Biehn gives an unhinged, yet compelling performance of a soldier suffering from PTSD. He literally just went through time for crying out loud. When we first meet him, he looks like he barely survived the trip, which is a drastic change from the calm and collected Terminator who came before. These two scene show the uphill battle that Reese faces. Hamilton at first is the damsel, but gradually over time we see her slowly becoming the woman she is the in the sequel.

Cameron gives us a few flashbacks/flashforwards (however you want to perceive time) to the war. The first sets up the war itself, showing us our inevitable future. The second gives us a glimpse of how well trained and skillful Reese is as a soldier, giving us hope that he might be able to take on this machine. Finally the last one involves Reese and the photo of Sarah Connor, which cements the love he has for her and thus creating the paradox timeline of who's my daddy.

Those effects shots I mentioned, involves the Terminator, self operating on himself in a mirror. It's jarring to see shots where we know it is Arnold and others where we know it is a prop. It kind of works in a weird way because we know he isn't real, but the effect takes you out of the film no matter what. Overall though, this film is thrilling and showcases Cameron's talents as an entertaining filmmaker.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

This scene does almost the same thing.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit -

Gromit really is one of the best silent characters ever created.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

The Adventures Of Tartu (1943) - Reasonable WWII offering that has a little tension and excitement

This one was so much fun...Cary Grant, we're not worthy.

Yeah, I was surprised (and relieved) that it wasn't covered with Arnold snot.

I love this movie. It;s so excruciatingly slow to start and Refn could not have cast a better actor than Gosling for that role with the long nothing ever happens face, but then it goes off with a BOOM. I was so appalled at myself with how happy I was when the killing started. LOL

Gosling was perfect for The Driver. The right mix of odd and classically handsome, combined with the actor's "weirder than you might imagine" personality became the trend setter for this generation's ideal masculinity.

The film itself is no different with its retro as aesthetic, sharp visuals, hyper stylized and desensitized (actually, quite gratuitous) violence and how inviting for interpretation the story is.

I'm sounding hyperbolic but I think it's (and will continue to be) one of the defining films of the decade.

Wow!

- I was excited for Alien: Covenant. I enjoyed the first two Alien films, however, I disliked 3, Resurrection, and Prometheus. Still, I really had hopes that this film would have everything back on track. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. In-fact, Alien: Covenant may very well be my least favorite installment in the series as a whole. Simply put, the biggest criticism I have for the film is how ho-hum and bland it is. The characters themselves were underdeveloped, unworthy of even being considered as archetypes, these characters more closely resemble blank slates that wander around expecting me to care about them. The characters felt so lifeless and lacked any real direction to them, which is especially frustrating when you consider that so little happens in the first half of the film. Alien drags and drags and drags, yet it never really seems to get anything accomplished with its plodding scenes. Even in the final stretch where everything starts to pick up, I find myself too apathetic to be excited about it. Michael Fassbender's role as David is solid, but the film itself practically depends on it and it alone to carry the entire film, with nobody and nothing else, not even the aliens themselves, allowed to substantiate anything worthwhile to the film. After Prometheus, I thought Ridley Scott deserved a second-chance to create his vision, after Covenant, however, I think it's best we either have a new person helm it, or have nobody else at all.

The World's End (2013)



My least favorite because it feels uneven and not as warm and/or intricate as the virtually flawless Shaun of the Dead or epic action comedy Hot Fuzz, which are amongst my favorite comedy films ever. I want to give World's End another chance but this is my third time seeing it and although it works on some levels it just keeps losing me. Something feels off and I wish it wasn't so. I'll be back to it again, but for now I'll pop it 3 boxes.