Rate The Last Movie You Saw

__________________
Entertainment Log
Letterboxd profile

L'Avventura (1960)

Perché? Why? This question--repeated by each of the main characters at least once--is at the heart of this film. Nominally about the disappearance of a young woman, in the movie Antonioni (much like Lynch and the solution to the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer years later in Twin Peaks) is less interested in the specifics of the plot or the fate of the character than in the emotional waves produced by its occurrence. So the repetition of the word why is not so much intended to produce an answer as to emphasize the force of the question. The woman’s fiancee, Sandro, and her friend, Claudia are buffeted by the waves of her loss. And in the end,

8/10

Blind watch from the Cannes list and I liked the story. A vagrant with amnesia shows up in town and a woman believes it's her husband who disappeared many years earlier. It's a good looking and sad movie but it seemed like it was in slow motion. People move and talk slow. It's effective for the mood but I still noticed it. Worth a watch.



This is a short from our documentary list. It seemed like something that would be shown in school. There's not a whole lot to it but it has an amusing presentation and is of course easy to watch.

Russian Language Hall of Fame

The Thief (1997) -

This film shared some similarities with The Return as both films come from the perspective of a child who had lived with their mother for a while until a suspicious father figure whose intentions were mysterious entered their lives. While I think The Return is the better of the two films, I also enjoyed this film quite a bit. What stood out the most about this film was its focus on the three main characters. Tolyan was definitely the most interesting of the three of them. Little about his intentions were known and it was also unclear whether he genuinely cared for Katya and Sanya, or if he was just using them to help with his thievery both directly and indirectly. Though I wished the ending would've left his intentions more ambiguous than it did, I still really liked his character. Regardless of what he wanted out of Katya and Sanya though, both of them reacted to his behavior differently. For instance, Katya initially acted welcoming towards him in the first act. Though she treated her son as an outcast and rejected him in place of Tolyan during this part of the film, I also understood why she was grateful at Tolyan's arrival given she lost her husband several years prior to the start of this film. The impression I got was that she was in desperate need of the kind of love and attention he provided for her. But of course, Katya began to distrust him once she learned he was a thief. Sanya's reaction, on the other hand, was in direct opposition to his mother's. He initially distrusted Tolyan since he was often pushed around by both him and Katya, but warmed up to him as the film went on, even after he was made aware of his criminal behavior. Sanya acted rather naïve around Tolyan and was unable to fully understand or make sense of what he was doing. As mentioned earlier, the final act didn't sit right with me given the overly-neat way it wrapped up the characters, but in spite of this, I found all three characters to be memorable for different reasons and I think the dynamics amongst them carried the film really well.

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

I think you'll like it. It's probably Hitchcock's only pure comedy --black as it is-- at least in his modern era. The Man Who Knew Too Much is probably a better film, but it's hard to compare the two. Would like to hear your comments when you've watched each. Cheers...

Pretty much agree with you. Here's my commentary:

Arkansas

Director: Clark Duke; Stars: Liam Helmsworth, Clark Duke, Vince Vaughn, John Malkovich, Vivica A. Fox, Michael K. Williams.

This clever film had a mind numbing 30 producers/exec producers, and 6 production companies. Possibly this was to “spread the risk” a little for a movie which had a first feature director and a cinematographer who was also new to feature films.

It’s a Coenesque story with clever dialogue, and quirky drama. There were several twists in this offbeat tale of Dixie drug dealings which held one’s interest, but whose length at 115 minutes could probably have been trimmed a little in the middle to maintain pacing.

Duke, who directed and co-wrote, starred as Helmsworth’s partner, and was an odd bit of casting (as in Twins), but it was acceptable in a quirky picture. This was not too far off from a bullseye, but Helmsworth’s character might have been better cast, and the middle seemed to drag a little.

Doc’s rating: 7/10

Yeah, it's probably the highest on my list because of that. There's only about a dozen of his films I haven't seen, so I'll get to it. Cheers.

__________________

I don't think it's perfect, but it's pretty damn good, I think I rated it

Hell Fest (2018)

10/10

A teen scream that was actually scary, contained a very suiting tension between "fiction vs. reality". Movie makers did a bang up job of creating the set. I kinda wish there were theme parks like this!


...or not

Fat Girl (2001)

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53071915

The Lost City of Z - (2016)

I really enjoyed learning about the story of Percy Fawcett in The Lost City of Z last night. He's credited as being the inspiration behind Indiana Jones, a fact that is most evidently noticeable when Percy and his son are running like the clappers from pursuing South American tribesmen. But where Jones has become something of a comical buffoon these days, the trial of exploration Percy Fawcett undertakes in the Amazon is deadly serious. Heading into completely uncharted territories, allies and hired help dying by the day, Percy's determination to find that much-promised city of gold takes him beyond what most people could endure. As if that's not enough, Percy takes time out during the First World War to battle in the trenches - being gassed during the Battle of the Somme.

The film itself is nice to look at, and there was little scrimping when you consider a recreation of the French battle fields for a 5 to 10 minute section of the movie. The choice of Charlie Hunnam to play the lead was a positive step forward (I believe Brad Pitt was one of the producers - and I thank him for not feeling obliged to play the part himself.) Of course, Fawcett (along with his son) vanished during his 1925 expedition leading to varied theories as to what had happened and inconclusive searches all the way through the century that has passed since he disappeared. The film takes us on that last stretch, venturing it's own idea as to what probably happened. There's still a sense of mystery left though, and will leave viewers wondering. We've seen so many explorers die in so many different ways in this film that it's hard to escape the conclusion that the odds caught up with him.

A very enjoyable film, and even at 141 minutes it left me hungry for more...

7/10



Strange Colours - (2017)

With only 146 votes rendered on the IMDb chances are good you haven't seen Strange Colours, a pared back examination of an estranged daughter's relationship with her father off the beaten track in rural Australia. Milena is something of a drifter, but the impending death of her father has brought her to an Opal Mining town in the middle of nowhere. The locals are friendly, but at the same time vaguely threatening - sizing her up and invading her space somewhat. We learn that she's afraid of her father - and also that her father's claim and opal mine is being visited by a purple-headed thief (the result of a trap which has exploded with purple dye to mark him out) and the man picked to look after the place is broken after accidentally running over and killing a child. It seems that people seek out this corner of the world when they're running from something.

There's a nice atmosphere in Strange Colours which isn't saying "Isn't this beautiful?" as much as "Is this planet Earth? It doesn't seem like it." It appears that Milena is trying to withdraw from something herself. She lays in the dark at night, and takes refuge in rock quarries and bushland during the day. Opals are otherworldly looking rocks - full of colours and arrangements that seem put together by artistic aliens. Life here is as harsh as it would be on some distant planet, and the people stuck on this isolated outpost appear far older than they are. Bonding with her father in a place like this feels as hard as everything is in Outland (without Sean Connery to smooth things over.) Do human emotions exist at all out here?

6/10

great movies

BOSS LEVEL

I like Carnahan. I like Grillo. I like most of the cast. But I can’t abide yet another Groundhog Day film nor one with oppressive narration and an “aren’t I edgy/clever” script.

The ending is either the worst or the best thing about it so I really hope someone else has watched it to talk about it with me as it seems no one on IMDb cared or noticed (especially the 9-10 star reviews)

Nothing to say. An American classic.



Didn’t realize it’s a true story until it ended. Really rather good. Gere & Molina excellent together.

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

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) on Disney+. I enjoyed this. The animation was excellent and I liked the characters (especially the con baby). My rating is a .

Deliverance is one of the few films that I rated ...a flawless piece of filmmaking.

I don't know what happened here. This was the 6th movie I've seen from the director and it's the first I'm not a fan of. Well made with a fairly appealing lead actress but I just couldn't get into it.

It's one of my favorite movies. Kind of strange/supernatural. And some fantastic imagery (like when she pulls the string taut over the EKG). The pace is a bit odd. I dug it, but it's a film I could see some people not clicking with.