Rate The Last Movie You Saw

X (Ti West, 2022)

Ti West sure is great at making boilerplate horror movies i end up liking more than i should.

Whenever I've seen the title (and I feel like I've seen it more in the last two years), I always think of Pam Grier singing along to it in Jackie Brown.

Ever seen Jackie Brown, Wool?

Such a fun flick. Apparently, West wrote a prequel while in quarantine before filming this and because they already had the set, equipment and lead, A24 green lit them filming them back to back. Trailer just dropped.

Incantation (Kevin Ko, 2022)

Starts with some promise and then does everything wrong

loved that movie and the bloopers

Oscar Isaac made this movie for me. Having said that, this is a strange movie.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

The Queen, 1968

This documentary follows the competition for the 1967 Miss All-America Camp Beauty pageant--a competition that brings together drag queens from around the nation. In its short run-time, the film spends about half of its time in the hotel with the drag queens before the competition and about half of its time covering the competition and its immediate aftermath.

This film makes for a great companion piece to Paris is Burning, in part because of a few familiar faces that pop up and also because of the different cultures that they portray.

Like Paris is Burning, it is fascinating to hear the different queens talk about their relationship with gender. In particular, I thought that a conversation between three queens about their views on women and their attitudes toward gender-reassignment surgery was very interesting. One drag queen talks about the complications that drag creates in his relationship because his partner doesn't want to be with someone who looks like a woman.

The pageant itself is interesting, and very different from the balls seen in Paris is Burning. It's all much more mannered and like a traditional pageant with bathing suits and ball gowns and talent. The fallout afterwards--involving the very infamous sequence of Crystal LaBeija sounding off after she's denied a top spot--is also kind of fascinating. LaBeija accuses the organizer of essentially rigging the outcome in an effort to build publicity for a local queen. During the confrontation, Crystal is told that she is "showing her colors", to which she replies "I have a right to show my color[/i]". It's a charged moment that reflect that even within a marginalized community, biases can still create a hierarchy.

I was a bit disappointed that after the fireworks, the film simply ends. LaBeija wants to know if the judging panel was stacked. The organizer says that they can sort it out at the after party, but then nothing comes of it. Having raised the issue of racism within gay and pageant culture, the film simply lets that thread drop. It feels a bit like the movie doesn't genuinely want to engage with the question, and that's a let down.

A fascinating cultural artifact that might not have the same heart and soul as Paris is Burning but is nonetheless an interesting glimpse at the development of a subculture.

29th Hall of Fame

La Promesse (1996) -

Even though nothing about this film stuck out to me as great, it was still a solid film that I enjoyed very much. Igor, Roger, and Assita made for a memorable trio of characters who carried the movie really well. As Siddon noted, Roger borders on being a villain from beginning to end. In the second half, he obviously causes problems, but his behavior is spotty even before that as well. There are several scenes throughout the film where he shows abuse, creepiness, and love towards Igor. For instance, after he beats his son for giving away a lot of money to someone else, he laughs it off and tells his son he loves him, jokes about him getting laid, and brings him to a bar where an older woman flirts with him. The impression you get is that, while he isn't a bad person per se, some of his parenting choices are questionable and he might not be the best choice of a guardian for Igor. He doesn't quite cross the line into awfulness though. Assita is also memorable as she shows a certain level of distrust towards Igor throughout most of the film. She threatens him with a knife, tries to get rid of him at a couple points, and frequently asks Igor if he's hiding anything from her. It's clear she has experienced a lot of abuse/betrayal from those around her and, as a result, finds it hard to place her full trust in anyone. As for Igor, he may seem somewhat one dimensional on the surface, but a few things can be said about his character as well. He doesn't go to school, struggles to maintain a job due to the demands of being a human smuggler, and doesn't seem to have a future outside of taking over his father's profession. In terms of his personality, he seems somewhat blank in contrast to the other two characters, but I think he acts as a cypher for the audience. Since he's one of the only people in the film who help Assita, he's the one you may relate to the most. I also enjoyed how his morals weren't of a black and white level of nobility as, while he has good intentions, the details he hides from Assita throughout the film make his process of carrying out his goal questionable. Outside of these three characters, I don't know that there's a whole lot else for me to dig at, but there were a couple small takeaways here and there I enjoyed. Illegal immigration is a big political issue and it would've been easy for the film to feel preachy at convincing you to support one side or the other. However, I appreciated that it didn't get into the political arguments of either side and simply showed you their plight and their day-to-day activities as this was more than enough to invest me into the film. Aside from this, however, the three characters I discussed up above were my main selling points for this film. They were, of course, very well-realized and the payoffs to their arcs were good enough so that I wasn't left thinking the film was missing something. So yeah, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. It has a few things on its mind and does a lot with them.

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Letterboxd

Personally, I think you should like this one quite a bit.

I always forget it's in Jackie Brown since I can only tolerate that movie once every 7-10 years.

See my response to Tak.

Jackass Forever
3/10.
Literally the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Well, this and Star Wars: Force Awakens.

The very definition of hell is a bunch of guys hitting each other in the balls forever. Thank God this was only 96 minutes.

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Boldly going.

This was a strange movie, but Isaac was very good.

This is downright libelous! It deserves to be in the conversation or best Tarantino film. His love letter to Leonard, Melville, and blaxploitation.

Lots of people put it in that conversation, I am just not one of them. I keep re-watching it every 7-10 years hoping it will get better but it remains, to me, the least of his top-tier films. Which is still well ahead several Tarantino films.

The Dead Don't Die, 2019

Cliff (Bill Murray) and Ronnie (Adam Driver) are police officers in a small town called Centerville. When energy companies mess with the planet's poles in order to harvest natural gas, the Earth is thrown off of its axis and as a result the dead begin to come back to life as zombies. The whole town, including the eccentric new funeral home director (Tilda Swinton) must fight for their lives as the undead start to take over.

Movies in this vein either vibe with you or they don't, and for me this one was a miss.

The cast is great, of course, and they are all in a good rhythm with each other. The various cameos and secondary characters are too numerous to list.

But fundamentally the film felt overcrowded and fractured. There were a few moments that really landed for me. The sequence where Swinton's character slowly slaloms a car down a street of lumbering undead, with an eerie silence, was awesome. As a whole, though, everything felt too disjoint. And when the film really starts to get outlandish and meta, I felt myself disconnecting from the narrative and the characters.

It all looks good. And I can't fault the performances. But it never clicked for me in any deep way.

I’ll accept it. But I’m not happy about it.

It clicked with me. A big reason why was I saw it at an oddly crowded opening night screening where almost everyone in the audience seems to be expecting a straightforward Zombie flick. It was one of the most awkward and hilarious experiences, feeling many of them anxiously look at each other because the movie wouldn’t stop being weird.

Like a very mild Greasy Strangler (which of course, is the greatest film ever made).