Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Extinction - Enough time had passed so that I felt like a rewatch. Still sort of underwhelming. The main draw (at least for me) were the two leads who also starred in two of my favorite series, Matthew Fox in Lost and Jeffrey Donovan in Burn Notice. It's yet another end of the world, zombiepocalypse film but it does try something different by emphasizing the interpersonal aspects of the novel by Juan de Dios Garduņo. As it turns out the two protagonists, Patrick and Jack, loved the same woman. In a short prologue/flashback of sorts they're shown on a bus full of evacuees during the initial stages of the outbreak. The woman is pregnant and when the film jumps to present time it is nine years later and her child has grown into a little girl named Lu. The plot reveals very little as to the whereabouts of the missing mother. It is only much later that the three characters existence in an unidentified and bitterly cold part of the country is fully explained. They've ended up in a fenced in compound where the two men live as neighbors while having nothing to do with each other. The threat has passed with most of the inhuman creatures supposedly having died off from the cold. Anyone watching will know where this is going.

Although the film should be commended for trying to inject some family like dynamics in what is an overworked genre it never quite fully gels. Too much of the plot is allotted to the three characters but their story fails to fully engage the viewer. So when the fully expected "threat" finally rears it's head it doesn't have the dramatic impact it should.

So this is Mumblecore. Four friends head out to a cabin to write a film script for them to star in because they're tired of not getting good jobs as actors. The script they decide on is a cabin in the woods type horror film where the murderous lunatic runs around with a bag on their head. But what happens when a REAL Baghead shows up to crash the party? Wasn't a bad movie. Dips its toe ever so slightly into horror near the end but it's a relationship movie more than anything.

Yeah, it is such an excellent film.

Team Foxcatcher, 2016

In the late 80s/early 90s, American wrestlers were constantly coming second to the Soviet Union. Enter multi-millionaire John Du Pont, who agrees to fund a wrestling retreat called Team Foxcatcher, hosted at his sprawling estate. Many American wrestlers are delighted to come to the estate--where they are given homes to live in and training facilities--but Du Pont's increasingly erratic and paranoid behavior eventually leads to tragedy.

Maybe everyone is very aware of the tragedy that happened related to Team Foxcatcher. I was not, and so I will avoid mentioning it explicitly. (Despite it being mentioned in several of the synopses of the film!)

An acquaintance of mine came home one day last winter to discover a Black man out in the snow, fully nude. The man was clearly having a mental health crisis, and my acquaintance explained his quandary thus: "there was no one to call except the police, and I was afraid they might misinterpret his actions and kill him." (This was in Minnesota, a few months before the death of George Floyd). Even excluding the element of race (which is not a minor element!), there is an unfortunate pattern of people who are suffering from mental health issues being handled with violence by the police. Another acquaintance has a son with a severe disability, and she worries about what will happen when he is a grown man instead of a cute little boy, and how some of his behavior might be interpreted (for example, as a teenager he still really likes going to playgrounds).

Team Foxcatcher illuminates the opposite problem. In this case, a man's wealth prevents legal or even social intervention after multiple instances of concerning behavior.

John Du Pont, even from the beginning, is clearly exhibiting signs of mental health problems. His quick dependence on the wrestlers, for example, or his habits like filming and then watching hours of footage of his woods. And that's before you learn about the incidents involving his many, many guns. But he's a man with a lot of money, and when you're buddy-buddy with the police (as in, the police come and hang out on his shooting range), well, maybe they don't say or do anything when you fire a weapon out of a car window, or fire what looks like an automatic weapon out of your back door. Maybe they even laugh away a report of a man pointing a gun at another man's head. You know, cause that shooting range is so nice.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the documentary is watching the various men from his inner circle justify just how much they were willing to look past. At one point, Du Pont decides that the color black is the color of death and is thus bad luck . . . so naturally he makes all of the Black athletes immediately leave the team (including one of the best wrestlers on the whole squad). "Maybe that is when we should have said something . . . " muses one interview subject. But of course no one did. And once things really go wrong, the police chief(?) visibly squirms in his seat when reporters question the cozy relationship that the police had with Du Pont.

Not to go all poor-little-rich-girl on Du Pont, but it is sad that his circumstances (in this case, wealth) prevented him from getting the help he needed. Much like celebrities who are surrounded by people who won't intervene as they get addicted or pursue other unhealthy habits, no one wants to rock the boat when Du Pont is shelling out for uniforms and training facilities and other resources. One of the people most impacted by Du Pont's actions actually speaks about him with a lot of empathy. While there seems to be some truth to the fact that Du Pont later maybe played up his mental issues, there seems to be no question that he was a disturbed and unstable person who was allowed to indulge in thought patterns and behaviors that were headed nowhere good.

I thought that this film was thorough and empathetic and respectful to those involved in the story.

I didn't even know the name of the director until I looked it up after to see what else he'd done. It turns out that I'd already seen 2 movies from Fernando Di Leo (The awesome Caliber 9 and memorable To Be Twenty) and have 2 more on my watchlist (The Boss and Madness). I had no idea before. This movie was pretty good fun although typical of its sub genre. I feel like I've seen Woody Strode and Henry Silva in thousands of movies and I'd like to see them in thousands more. They play a couple of New York hit men visiting Italy for a job. On YouTube with subtitles.

Big fan of this one. Mario Adorf is a force of nature. Apparently he did his own stunts in the climax?

I don't know about the stunts but I thought he was going to have a heart attack during the chase before the climax. He was awesome in Caliber 9.

Have you seen a lot of eurocrime? Caliber 9 is really good, but I'd recommend checking out at least Execution Squad and What Have They Done to Your Daughters? as well. Both of them are quite nice.

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As someone with an Adorf-like physique, the danger was too real.

I've seen a few and I've got a few more I want to see. Off the top of my head my favorites are Caliber 9, Rabid Dogs, and Massacre Mafia Style. I've been searching for Gone with the Pope. Those 2 look good, added to watchlist.

Massacre Mafia Style has a great trailer and opening scene.

Dark Star, 1974

Deep in outer space, a small crew trudges along on a long (20+ years!) mission to destroy unstable planets. Things onboard are ramshackle, and we mainly follow a crew member named Pinback (Dan O'Bannon) who, among other things, pals around with a beach-ball-like alien and undergoes slapstick-like adventures trying to chase it down. Things really get rough as the ship's bombing system goes on the fritz.

I was very much ready to write this movie off. Yes, there were moments of fun in it, but they were sporadic and overall I just was not vibing with the film. And then the last 20 minutes.

SIGH. Do you ever have that experience where you are ready to dismiss something, and then you come to realize that you probably need to watch it again from the beginning? That's how I feel about Dark Star at this point. Now, do I think I will rewatch it and discover amazing depths? No. But I do wonder if one a rewatch I might gel a bit better with the film's sense of humor.

The best moments of the film are those that mix comedy and horror. For example, a sequence in which a crew member has a conversation with the ship's former captain, Powell, who was mortally wounded and is now kept in cryogenic storage on the ship. The conversation is both funny and creepy, and this was the part in the film where I felt my feelings begin to swing more toward the positive.

And despite the movie aiming for a dark comedy, I am not embarrassed to say that I was kind of moved by the film's last 10 minutes or so. It all kicks off with a straight-up funny sequence in which the crew has to talk one of their sentient bombs into not exploding. But then it goes to an unexpected, and kind of moving place. I thought that the last 10 minutes were funny and horrible and kind of powerful. In some ways it made me think a bit of Miracle Mile.

I wasn't feeling like this film was the best use of my time, but the final act really redeemed it. On that basis alone I would recommend it.

Wow, it's interesting you mention that conversation. I had seen Dark Star way back in the 1980s and the only thing I remembered about it was that creepy and yet cool convo with the frozen captain. I loved the way he responded so slowly like his very thoughts were frozen...and it just felt so lonely for him left there all alone in frozen limbo.

So I watched the film again a year ago and didn't really love it like I thought I would, but it was still kinda of cool...not great, but it had something going for it.

Completely agree.
I re-watched this a few months ago for the first time since the 1990s and it really is a great romantic comedy, like an all-time great. That era is not my favorite for these kind of films and sometimes it feels like its gonna be very of that era but then it kinda transcends.

I don't think I would ever love it. But I do think that on a rewatch I might appreciate more of the humor.

I really did think that the last 30 minutes were pretty cool.

May be a case where a film is more a sign of potential than a quality product in and of itself.

Agreed and that's all well said, especially the last sentence. You know it's one film I wouldn't mind a remake of.

Have you ever seen American Astronaut? That's what I kept thinking of while watching it.

The Salesman (2016)

The Tall T (1957, Budd Boetticher)


Ride Lonesome (1959, Budd Boetticher)

Two Budd Boetticher westerns with Randolph Scott - both pleasantly short and enjoyable but perhaps slightly overrated? I think I enjoyed The Tall T just a tiny bit more overall but the ending of Ride Lonesome gets the edge for me - that final shot is just iconic.