Rate The Last Movie You Saw

We'll have to agree to disagree on Superman Returns...I thought that movie sucked.

I wanted something light and entertaining after the horrific news day of July Fourth.

I watched Fire Island. It was light, but not so entertaining. It's not very funny. I can't really remember laughing at any of the jokes. The plot is based on Pride and Prejudice. So you know all the beats this movie is going to take.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it. I like both Joel Kim Booster and Bowen Yang, so their line deliveries alone kept me on board.

Oh the acting and the other production values were fine. The script just needed work.

By IMP Awards / 2019 Movie Poster Gallery / Uncut Gems Poster, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61865131

Uncut Gems - (2019)

I completely forgot I was watching Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems, as he disappears so very far into his role - a slimy anti-hero who is addicted to gambling and almost completely lacks any morals. When the film starts, he's being hounded by loan sharks who look dangerous, so when he scores some easy money (in a very dishonest way) you'd expect him to at least pay off some of his debt, lest these guys really hurt him - but no, he gambles it. No matter how much trouble this guy is in, he'll do something awe-inspiringly stupid and get into more trouble. At one stage, after humiliation after humiliation and physical injury, Sandler's Howard Ratner bursts into tears and asks "What am I doing wrong?" - that he can't see it is the lesson for us, for it's very obvious to the audience. Ratner has bet everything on a rare opal he had shipped in from Africa, and his money-multiplying scheme involves that same amount of risk he loves. He's addicted to the adrenalin rush, and seems incapable of normality. This character-driven film again highlights Sandler's talent, just like Punch-Drunk Love did - and I want to see more of this side of him. The Safdie Bros have arrived, and get better with every feature they write and direct.

8/10

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It was ok. Some good sword fighting but the story was a bit kid-ish.

I was glad that Dominic Cooper used his American sounding voice because I can't stand his natural British voice. It makes me cringe. Nice to see Ed Stoppard in this even though he plays a king again. He plays King Philip of France in Knightfall which I love . I haven’t seen Olga Kurylenko since To The Wonder but apparently she was in Black Widow .

I really enjoyed this one. I had some negative things to say about it as it seems really chopped up, interfered with sometimes, but it's positives, particularly the climax, ultimately overwhelm the negatives.

Which one?

Dressed to Kill is surprisingly sleazy for an American thriller. Stylistically De Palma is somewhere between Hitchcock and Giallo. There are some really nice scenes (like the art museum) but the ending is kinda cheap. Still, I'm sure I liked this a lot more now than I did when I first saw it like 30+ years ago.

Big Trouble in Little China is one of the Carpenters I've never really got. This rewatch didn't change that. Despite almost non-stop action, I find it somewhat boring. They also missed a great gag with the names; why is Russell's character Jack instead of Dick considering that he's adventuring with Wang?

Mausoleum is an average and bland B-horror that probably offers very little to people who aren't horror aficionados. Maybe a rewrite or two could have salvaged the silly story? It has somewhat nice euro-trash lighting and some good kills, though.

Talking about needing some rewrites, Mardi Gras Massacre is a great example of a film that almost manages to ruin itself by having an atrocious script. The story itself would lend itself to a proper investigative horror but it's so haphazardly put together. I think the filmmakers thought the three (practically identical, monotonous, and badly made) murders are the main attraction but to me, they felt like poor padding. Just show the ritual once (and use triple the money for the effects) and focus on the story. I guess I padded my rating with the potential.

Freddy vs. Jason weirdly even fits the Elm Street universe. It starts slow and dull but once things start to escalate it gets more entertaining. The whole end sequence at the Crystal Lake is hilariously cheesy (and extremely non-PC by modern standards - which, obviously, is a plus for me).

The Prowler is a top-tier 80s slasher (not a huge fan of slashers so that doesn't go any further than 3.5). It has quite brutal and nasty murders (thanks to Tom Savini) but it's also pretty atmospheric. And yes, it's better than The Burning.

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Thought to be one of the first films to depict the AIDS epidemic, this film released in 1985 is a moving and realistic portrait of what it was like to be around the gay community living with the disease in New York in the mid 1980s.

It centres around a young guy David (David Schachter) who volunteers in a hospice to help care for Robert (Geoff Edholm who with make up on looks like across between Klaus Kinski and Willem Defoe!) who is dying of AIDS. At first the two men don't particularly get on but as time grows, so does their bond and eventually they become like two mini soul mates relying on each other for support. They swap stories of their experiences and the audience gets to hear their stories, there is even a comedy element when David brings Robert some top shelf VHS tapes to help him pass the time.

Despite the low production values and TV-Movie quality, it just works because we are in their world and there are no factors to distract us. The only faces we see in the film are the two characters. Everyone else is behind a shower curtain or on the telephone or has their back to the camera. It's a technique that is perfect for the film.

The 80 minute running time feels right and it's not too short. The ending is predictably emotional but sensitive and very deftly directed. It's additionally moving to learn that director Arthur Bressan and Geoff Edholm both actually died of AIDS shortly after the film was completed.



7.9/10

gosh its was so amazing movie i loved it. lots of comedy, loved korg he was so hilarious 😂, natalie portman did amazing job as mighty thor im glad shes one of my favourite actresses and ahhhh all the casting amazing so speechless. loved thor naked scene 😍😍😍 lol

Two of Bressan's films were recently restored and release on Blu-ray: Passing Strangers and Forbidden Letters. They're gay pornos, but surprisingly sensitive about their central relationships and directed with a good amount of style. The former has a lot if great footage of an early Pride parade as well. Worth checking out if you're interested in digging further into his work.

Thanks, I did look at his filmography and saw those as two I'd like to check out at some time. Seems an under talked about director.

I imagine the genre he mostly worked in as well as the lack of availability of many of his films (the two I mentioned I don't think have been available on home video since the 80s) probably contributed to his obscurity. But nice to see him get rediscovered.


If you're the podcast listening type, the Important Cinema Club did an episode on him recently, and the Ask Any Buddy podcast has covered a few of his films (one of the cohosts of the latter was actually involved in the restoration of those two films).

Excellent! Thank you.

After mentioning Crimes of Diogo Alves in another thread, I checked if they're on YouTube and gave both versions a go. They're Portuguese short films from 1909 and 1911, and they seem to be considered the first films about serial killers.

According to Wiki, Alves killed 70 people between 1836 and 1840. Based on that number alone, it feels weird that both films depict pretty much the same crimes. That makes the films very similar (although the newer one is about three times longer).

The older film has one terrible pacing decision and pretty much wastes 10% of its duration. The newer one has a more even flow. They're both technically quite crude, but the way they portray the murders is surprisingly effective (maybe even more so in the older version) -- especially the ones that gave him the nickname Aqueduct Murderer.

I'm not usually into silent films (even less into silent shorts, I guess) but these weren't bad. I'd give them both an OK .

LOVED this movie and agree with everything you say here...I agree that it is his best work since Punch Drunk Love and I think he was robbed of an Oscar nomination.

Life is Beautiful (1997) -

I'm very torn on this one. Sugarcoating the Holocaust just seems like such a bad idea and, while I get what this film is going for with having the light-hearted tone of the first half translate to the second half, the tone is too inconsistent for me to take it seriously. Given all the suffering shown in the second half of the film (not to mention that most of it is shown offscreen, which wasn't the best idea either), I found it hard to feel the cuteness the second half seemed to want me to feel. In one scene, for instance, after Giosuč unknowingly escapes from certain death, the film has a "cute" scene between him and his father talking about it, but given the knowledge that the people who didn't understand the rules all died, I couldn't take that seriously at all. Sugarcoating the first half of the film works just fine, but the closer the film moves towards the Holocaust, the more this magic wears off.

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I sort of agree with all of this.


I really like the first twenty minutes or so of the movie. I like Roberto Benigni. He can be enormously charming.


But there was a line I found myself unable to cross with the rest of the film. For me, the notion that a father trying to distract his son with a child's game could have the power to distract the boy from the impossible horribleness of what was happening around them, just undermines how not ignorable that horribleness would be. A starving child forced into slave labor, surrounded by disease and hate and death cannot have these experiences brushed under the rug by a bunch of Benigni branded whimsy.


In theory, I think the concept could work. In fact I think Jojo Rabbit plays in the same kind of territory, successfully.



But this movie really bugs me. In some ways it reminds me of the scene in Gimme Shelter, where people are being murdered and hit by pool cues in front of him, and Mick Jagger thinks a little chicken dance can solve everything. I think Life Is Beautiful believes in such Jaggerisms. Basically if it just gives us bunch of scenes where Benigni makes funny faces, and sentimental music is cued, we will somehow be able to overlook what the extermination of 6 million people looked and smelled and felt and hurt like. You know, like a six year old kid playing funny games with his goofy dad might.