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Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)

Most enjoyable even given the disappointing lack of ghosts



“I was cured, all right!”


Good animation.
With hard work you can show your place in this world!





Terrible.
You don't need hard work, you're already born with gifts. Everybody who disagrees will bend their knees 'cause they're aren't as strong as you,
WARNING: "Mulanzzz" spoilers below
I mean, they aren't a women with a strong Ki; Chakra; Nen; Cosmos, whatever.



Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Gareth Edwards, 2016)

Absolutely nothing 'rogue' about this by-the-numbers entry but it's entertaining enough imo



matt72582's Avatar
Please Quote/Tag Or I'll Miss Your Responses
Wow, you liked this one a lot more than I did.
It's been my favorite movie of all-time for a few years now... I had no plans to watch it; I just wanted to see the introduction, but then I told myself I'd watch a little, and before I knew it, the movie was over. I've seen it many times, and some of my other favorites have moved down my all-time list a bit (just like listening to a song many times), but not this one.

I posted this movie (after I saw it would be on TCM) on many other sites, and people are always surprised by how great it is. Some are surprised and question why they never saw it, or how it flew under their radar, especially fans of The Honeymooners and Art Carney in general.



This film deserves more attention from the horror movie fandom. Especially for that nervy ending.

Evolution (2015) -
Aw, I liked this one.

The concept alone that these
WARNING: spoilers below
sea creatures evolved or something through unethical scientific experimentation and then used old medical footage to cobble together a sick version of in-virto fertilization
is worth at least two stars!



...
There was something about The Quiet Man that just didn't land for me.

...
But the whole sequence of him dragging her back from the train station was really off-putting to me. If a male character were disrespected and dishonored, a film would be on his side in reclaiming his dignity. But she is seen as being petty and selfish for wanting her dowry--the money that is rightfully hers. The sequence of them burning the money together is strong--showing that it was the principle and not the money--but I wish that the film had given her character the "aha!" moment that his character is given several times. I liked it, but didn't love it, thought it is gorgeous and the performances are excellent.
Yes, I can see where you're coming from, which seems to me a common theme in many of your reviews. However I don't think that John Ford in 1952 could have anticipated 21st Century doctrinaire feminist perceptions. I do agree with you about the cinematography and performances.



Yes, I can see where you're coming from, which seems to me a common theme in many of your reviews. However I don't think that John Ford in 1952 could have anticipated 21st Century doctrinaire feminist perceptions.
Thirteen years earlier he managed to make a film that treated a woman's desire for dignity as seriously as those of her male counterparts. We can assume that Ford's empathy regressed after he made Stagecoach or we can just chalk it up to a dynamic in the script that was very typical of the era.

I don't demand that filmmakers from the past be held to modern standards (whatever that would mean), I just acknowledge when their racism or sexism or portrayal of disability or homophobia or whatever makes a story less enjoyable to me as a viewer.



Leaving Las Vegas, 1995

I'm sick, work is sucking the life out of me, and two of the children I've been teaching in person are currently quarantining because they've been exposed to COVID.

So why did I decide to watch a movie about a man dying of alcohol addiction and his complicated, fraught relationship with an abused Vegas sex worker? No idea. You may not be shocked to learn that the film was kind of intense and a bit too much for me right now. LOL.

Ben (Nicholas Cage) is a former Hollywood screenwriter in the late stages of alcoholism. He forms an uneasy bond with Sera (Elizabeth Shue), a sex worker living a dangerous life working the strip. The two of them are able to be with each other because they develop a mutual understanding: she won't try to make him stop drinking, he won't try to make her stop working.

Most of the praise for this film has to go to Cage and Shue for their fearless performances. Whatever charm Ben used to possess has long since drowned in a sea of booze, and yet Sera still sees the fragments and unwisely pins hopes on them. Sera has developed a veneer of non-judgement, which is just what Ben needs--someone to look the other way while he drinks in the shower just so that he can calm his jitters enough to put away a basic meal. They are two lost souls who, in a romantic comedy, would save each other. But this is not a romantic comedy.

Mike Figgis's direction sometimes leans toward the melodramatic, especially in the repeated use of slow motion accompanied by somber jazz, but overall I liked the way that the film was shot. When it comes to Ben's withdraw or the humiliations that Sear suffers in her job, Figgis repeatedly walks just the right line between showing enough to help us understand their pain and suffering without showing so much that it feels like exploitation. Whether it's Ben violently experiencing withdraw or a violent, harrowing assault that Sear endures at the hands of a trio of men, Figgis draws the line at empathy. It keeps the intense events feeling real and doesn't force the actors to go to extremes--something that could have tripped the film into self-parody.

The way that the film is shot also makes Vegas itself into a third main character. Ben and Sera live perpetually on the fringe of people who are living much better lives. It made me think a bit of the dynamic in The Florida Project, where the degree of prosperity and escapism by the characters around them only heighten the plight of the central figures.

This was an emotionally brutal film, but one that I couldn't look away from.




Perdita Durango [Dance With The Devil] (Álex de la Iglesia, 1997)
+
Almost Shakespearean



Winter Sleep (2014) -

Clouds of Sils Marie (2014) -

A Dark Song (2016) -

The Strange Thing About The Johnsons (2011) -

Killing Ground (2016) -

Evolution (2015) -
Yeah, think I had A Dark Song at about 3.5 pocorns, ending was frikkin' weird.





Not much of a storyline, but a pleasant enough watch. Love sixties fashion & Audrey looked lovely.



Very very slow, but I really liked this movie.
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Bait (2019)

Good, grim, tale of a Cornish fisherman's struggles with the gentrification of his local village and the effect if has on his life and lively-hood.




matt72582's Avatar
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Krane's Confectionary - 7.5/10
First good movie I've seen in over 5 months.. Very unique for 1951, or any other year. Very minimalist, character-driven, and you are able to empathize with every character, even if they aren't put on a pedestal, even if the main character abandons her family/work/home.



I can't believe I'm only the 23rd person to even rate this on IMDB. I feel like there's a portal to movies I want to see, but I'm only being shown commercial crap I don't wanna see. However, it might still be available on TCM. One of my favorite movies "Mikey and Nicky" was shown right after, and it was part of "Movies by Women". The only other Danish movie I can remember was even more unique - "Sult" (Hunger).





The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)






A quirky, charming little film. Funny and fast paced with a fantastic cast. A refreshing delight to watch.


4/5 Stars.