Rate The Last Movie You Saw

https://letterboxd.com/film/monster-2019-3/

Ta ever so. Would never have figured that out. Hope they won’t blame the Irish famine entirely on the British in the movie. 😎

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

Great poster

5th rewatch...Second and the best of the three rom-coms starring Doris Day, Rock Hudson, and Tony Randall. Day and Hudson play competing advertising salesmen who through a case of mistaken identity find themselves competing for an account for a product that doesn't exist and falling in love along the way. This one has a little more bite than Pillow Talk but is not as pedestrian as Send Me No Flower. The solid supporting cast includes Ann B Davis, Jack Oakie, Edie Adams and if you don't blink you'll catch That Girl's Ted Bessell as an elevator operator. This is Day and Hudson at their best.

Hmm, maybe not entirely, but the British Government of the day certainly, extended the famine. Probably not for this thread though.

1st Rewatch...Director Norman Jewison's masterpiece that won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1967 that stars Rod Steiger as a redneck sheriff who must work with a black NYC detective (Sidney Poitier) on the murder of an important local businessman. The racial drama and the murder mystery blend to perfection here. Steiger won the Oscar for Best Actor and Poitier is equally Oscar-worthy in one of three Oscar-worthy performances he gave that year that earned him no love from the Academy. Decades later was turned into a TV series starring Carroll O"Connor and Howard Rollins Jr.

2nd Rewatch...Billy Wilder brought home 3 Oscars from the 1961 ceremony for the Best Picture of 1960, which he produced, directed, and co-wrote. This edgy black comedy stars Jack Lemmon as CC Baxter, a bean counter at a large Manhattan corporation who is hoping that lending his apartment key to junior executives for their extra marital trysts will help him climb the corporate ladder. Things become complicated when the big boss, JD Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) asks to borrow the key and it is revealed that his tryst is with the pretty elevator operator that CC has been crushing on (Shirley MacLaine). I love the way the Oscar-winning screenplay initially lures us with humor and then goes to some dark places we don't see coming. Lemmon received a third Oscar nomination and I understand his loss to Burt Lancaster for Elmer Gantry, but MacLaine was robbed of the Best Actress Oscar for the finest work of her career as the jaded and manipulated Fran Kubelik. She only lost the Oscar because Elizabeth Taylor almost died during an emergency tracheotomy a few months before the ceremony, Jack Krushchen received a supporting actor nomination for playing Dr Dreyfuss. but that nomination really should have gone to MacMurray, for his blistering performance as one of the smarmiest movie characters I have ever seen. The supporting cast also includes Ray Walston, Edie Adams, Hope Holliday and in small roles, David White, who played Larry Tate on Bewitched, as well as David Lewis, who General Hosital fans will recognize as the actor who originated the role of Edward Quartermaine. Wilder knocked it out of the park here.

Definitely not. 😎

An Easter Bunny Puppy (2013) Watched on Tubi. This isn't a good movie, but it is strangely compelling. The puppy on the poster is not in the film, but the dog who is in it did a fine performance. He narrates the film telepathically. Most of the human actors weren't very good. The screenplay was not well written and there are several subplots that are poorly developed. It should have focused more on the dog. In spite of all these flaws and overall poor quality of the film, some part of me secretly enjoyed it. I immediately added this gem to my list of movies I should be embarrassed about watching but am not.

Small Things Like These (2024)
From Claire Keegan, the same author behind "The Quiet Girl" and like that story, this is understated rather than explosive (but powerful, nonetheless). It's centered on one of the most shameful things in Irish Catholic history, the Magdalene Laundries.

I always liked understated performances too, and Cillian Murphy's acting -as a gentle, soft spoken but wounded soul- is a career best, and that's saying a lot.

Would I like to know the aftermath of his actions? Perhaps, but what we have is enough, as with "The Quiet Girl", it's enough just knowing that love and kindness exists in this shitty world.

Lifeforce (1985)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

I'm Still Here (2024)
Did not disappoint, I'd number it among the top 5 of the year.

I like the set-up, how it shows us this joyful, thriving family, before the fall into darkness, sorrow - and perseverance. Fernanda Torres showed so much emotional depth, but never overplayed it, never became theatrical, she was never anything but authentic. In my opinion, it's the best performance of the year - actor or actress, lead or support.



But yeesh, after these last two I don't have any tears left to shed. Maybe next movie I go with something light and frothy, a 60s rom-com, or Down with Love? I haven't seen that in ages, that would suit me fine.

March 4, 2025

THE MONKEY (Osgood Perkins / 2025)
DOG MAN (Peter Hastings / 2025)

March 11, 2025

MICKEY 17 (Bong Joon Ho / 2025)

March 18, 2025

BLACK BAG (Steven Soderbergh / 2025)

These are the four movies I've seen at my local theater over the past three weeks. And not to blow my own horn, but I think I seem to have a knack for making good choices. Or I've had one lately, at any rate!

The Monkey is a terrific splatter-horror adaptation of a short story from Stephen King's Skeleton Crew collection (whose title antagonist famously graces the cover of the book itself). Straightforward go-for-the-jugular horror and blackly tongue-in-cheek at the same time, this movie is directed by Osgood Perkins (yup, the son of Norman Bates himself) whose previous film had been last year's Longlegs with Nicolas Cage. A toy monkey with a drum haunts the lives of two brothers. When the diabolical toy is wound up, it brings one of its sticks down and hits the drum, whereupon someone very close to them dies under freakishly horrific circumstances. As usual with Stephen King stories, there's a lot more going on thematically than just a scary story. The film is kind of a meditation on fate, mortality and life's little accidents which we are powerless to control, even though we may blame ourselves and imagine ourselves responsible. Ultimately, the movie gets perhaps just a little too jokey at times, culminating in a throwaway multiple-decap right at the end. But it's ultimately a very good horror movie, with some very effective and grotesque gags. So you think you've got a good gag reflex? Hold on to your cookies for the "drop-kicked cherry pie"!

On a more lighthearted - if no less strange - note, Dog Man is a hilariously hyper-caffeinated animated action comedy that I learned was a spinoff of 2017's Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, which I admittedly haven't seen. If your idea of fun is watching the adventures of a heroic human police officer with a dog's head (the transplant takes place in a life-saving surgical procedure after an explosion) repeatedly attempting to foil the evil plans of a wicked criminal cat named Petey who is terrorizing the city, then this is gonna be right up your alley! (And on occasion, it's my idea of fun as well! )

Continuing the strangeness, we then get a work of satirical science fiction from Academy Award-winning South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho, telling the tale of a young man named Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), who in an attempt to escape from the drudgery of life on a rather dystopian future Earth - and the attentions of a loan shark - volunteers to become an "Expendable" in order to escape the planet. Traveling on a colony ship, he finds that his job is to repeatedly die over and over again for experimental scientific research purposes, and for his body to be cloned (with intact memory) after each death. I'm sort of reminded of the immortal inhabitants of the Vortex in John Boorman's Zardoz from 1974, who are not permitted to die in their futuristic society and when any of them dies or commits suicide, the super-computer known as the Tabernacle simply just resurrects them. Other than that, however, Mickey 17 and Zardoz don't really have a lot in common. Problem is, the title incarnation Mickey 17 manages to survive after Mickey 18 emerges from the cloning device, violating a long-standing taboo about "multiples"! In addition, the colony ship is being led to a human colony by an irritating egomaniac and failed politician named Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife Yifa (Toni Collette). I swear, not since Marcia Gay Harden as the fanatical Mrs. Carmody in Frank Darabont's 2007 film of Stephen King's The Mist (also collected in Skeleton Crew, coincidentally) have I so desperately wanted to see a villain (or in this case villains) bite the dust! Granted, in this case it's not nearly as gratifying as when Toby Jones' Ollie Weeks puts a bullet into Mrs. Carmody's chest, but let's just say that things are resolved fairly satisfactorily.

Incredibly enough, Black Bag is but the second movie I've seen in 2025 directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp (the other of course being supernatural thriller Presence)! You could describe this one as "a spy thriller with a difference." The geopolitical intrigue mainly centers around a top-secret software program code-named Severus, and the plot deals with an attempt to keep it out of the hands of the Russians. But all that's sort of beside the point - the MacGuffin, if you will - because this is primarily a character piece dealing with three sets of couples, all of whom work in the same intelligence agency. One of them is a mole responsible for giving Severus to the Russians, and George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) has to ferret out who that person is, even if it's his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). Gratifyingly, Soderbergh and Keopp are less interested in the mechanics of the espionage plot than it is in the dynamics of the characters. It's something of an analysis of the psychology of people who repeatedly lie and dissemble for a living, how that affects their relationships, and the methods they use to protect themselves. All of the actors playing the principals are very good, as you would certainly expect in the case of Fassbender and Blanchett, but of particular note is Marisa Abela in the role of Clarissa Dubose, who - while certainly having a neurotic streak - proves to be very good at cheating a polygraph test (although she certainly doesn't fool George). Highly recommended viewing for those who prefer their espionage served up with sophisticated characterization and strong writing more than 007/James Bond-style explosions (although there is one very effective drone strike which dutifully fills out that role).

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"Well, it's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid" - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)

"I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours" - Bob Dylan, Talkin' World War III Blues (1963)

The Badge, the Bible, and Bigfoot (2019) Writer/director Ashley Hays Wright stars alongside her husband David Owen Wright, and their three daughters, Jaina, Scout, and Cadence in this inspirational Bigfoot movie. This was quite...something. I have a fondness for the Wright family and their films, despite the noticeable flaws in them. This one has a fun story with some genuinely funny moments. The performances from the lead couple aren't great, but their kids do better with limited screentime. Bigfoot was my favourite character. The ending is terrible, yet somehow works with the rest of the film. I can't say this is a good movie, but I can say I enjoyed it.

Solitary Man (2009)

No argument 2024 was an underwhelming year in film but I loved Anora.

I wound up slotting it 35th on my top movies list for the year, so it made the grade, but was nowhere near a top-level flick for me.

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The North Water - (2021)

Those who watch The North Water should be prepared to be absolutely wowed by another knock-out, superlative performance from Colin Farrell - another one where he gained a significant amount of weight for his role, that of chief harpooner Henry Drax. The protagonist of this mini-series is surgeon Patrick Sumner (Jack O'Connell), who joins the crew of the whaling ship Volunteer under the cloud of his dismissal in disgrace from military service in India and a severe addiction to Laudanum. Unbeknownst to him, the ship's captain, Arthur Brownlee (Stephen Graham) has been ordered to sink his ship in Arctic waters by his boss Baxter (Tom Courtenay) for the insurance money. During the rough voyage a cabin boy is sodomized and murdered, and Sumner suspects the vile Henry Drax is the culprit. Great performances in this powerful, soul-stirring portrait of a brutal sort of working class people and the various different ways they all perceive the world around them. It's an adventure not to be missed in it's rugged, dark and brooding sentiment - an adaptation of Ian McGuire's 2016 novel, which is well worth checking out.

8/10


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The Blackcoat's Daughter - (2015)

It will be interesting to see this movie again, knowing full well what each of the moments we glimpse initially mean in context with the story as a whole - and they were eerie enough the first time around. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

8/10


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Demons - (1985)

The visceral gruesomeness and action are so befitting and enjoyable that most of us welcome the insanity in this movie, making Demons one of those films that most resembles a carnival ride - it's a formula hard to get just right, so hats off to this Italian horror classic. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

7/10


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Demon - (2015)

History looms over Marcin Wrona's Demon - crying out from beyond the grave despite a persistent need for many well-to-do Polish people to quietly ignore it. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

8/10

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Never heard of it, but your review has piqued my interest & it’s in my Q now.

Life of Pi, as the title says, follows the life of Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan) as he shares with a prospecting writer (Rafe Spall) looking for "an amazing story". Starting with his childhood in India and where he got his name from, the story continues with Pi's family emigrating to America and how he survived a shipwreck for more than half a year while sharing a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger called Richard Parker.

I'm a big fan of Khan, at least what little I've seen from him, ever since I saw him in the lovely romantic film The Lunchbox. His emotional delivery is a big part of why the story works, as he sweeps you up and takes you on this journey from the beginning. Spall doesn't have as much to do, but he does well as the writer, listening and reacting to the "amazing story". But special praise has to go to Sharma, who carries most of the film on his shoulders with equal doses of bravery, fear, doubt, and hope.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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