Rate The Last Movie You Saw

By Movie Emporium, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40403022

Philomena - (2013)

It does tug at your heartstrings, Philomena - mainstream as it is. Judi Dench embodies the lower class, Irish Philomena Lee. Open with her emotions, lacking intellectual awareness (the nicest way to put it) and searching for her son, who was taken from her by cruel nuns at the Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, and then sold into adoption when he was a 3-year-old. During those three years, Philomena was allowed to bond with her boy, and then not even allowed to say goodbye when he was wrenched from her. Steve Coogan plays Martin Sixsmith, ex-journalist and government advisor - he's depressed after losing his job, and searching for something to do when he happens upon this story. The two characters, Philomena and Sixsmith, and their relationship, form the core of the film. Sixsmith is completely cynical, a non-believer, and lacking in manners - he can be snide and nasty, and it's Philomena's calm, forgiving demeanor that saves the pair from what could be an irrevocable break-up at any time in their journey. He's affected by her story, but mostly he's angry at the nuns - with good cause. They...



Two stories in one. Philomena's, and the partnership between her and Sixsmith. It's these true stories alone that almost guarantee the film great interest - but great casting, Coogan's own screenplay and direction from Stephen Frears keep it steady, interesting and at times very funny. I'd seen parts of this before - and it took me too long to watch the whole thing.

8/10


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Some Kind of Wonderful - (1987)

John Hughes was riding high having either written the screenplay to or directed a whole generation's worth of great teenage themed movies in the 1980s. Some are now classics, and he wrote this Howard Deutch-directed teen romance between writing/directing Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It was a remarkable decade for him, and he'd virtually give up directing after it ended. Some Kind of Wonderful is what it is - a non-comedic departure for Hughes, and seemingly made just for teenagers, but engaging enough to be enjoyable for all ages to watch. Funny thing is, I simply cannot think of Eric Stoltz as anything other than Lance the drug dealer in Pulp Fiction. Anyway, you've got your rich, powerful jerk, the beautiful girl, the worthier girl and Keith Nelson (Stoltz), who is about to learn an early life lesson. Performances are actually top drawer - I can't fault anyone in this.

7/10

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I think about this, but mainly when I realize that I've seen the same actor play a child molestor TWICE. Like . . . I wonder what it's like knowing that casting directors are like "Hey, you need a guy who looks like he'd rape a child? I've got a name for you!"

I found this movie devastating. A friend of mine found out when she was in her early 20s that her mother had been in a Magdelene house back in Ireland (her parents immigrated to the US in the 80s). Then she found out that her mother had TWO BABIES taken from her and adopted (aka sold to "good families"). Over the last ten years she has found her half-siblings and connected with them. So much generational pain.

Heaven Down Here (2023 tv movie) This was really sweet, lovely, and touching. The acting was quite good and the screenplay was well written. An uplifting and inspiring film. One of the best Hallmark films I have seen (and I have seen quite a few).

I've always been interested in what happened to Bud Cort post Harold and Maude because he either never had, or else rejected, that self-awareness. He couldn't find a single role for 4 years after his breakthrough - something of an anomaly. He was offered the role of Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - a role that would have pretty much put him back amongst big performers again - but he refused, demanding that he be given the role of R.P. McMurphy. If that doesn't show a lack of what you're talking about, I don't know what does. In a conversation with Paul Giamatti years later, before Giamatti was really established, Cort advised him to embrace his whole 'little weird guy' aura, lest he end up like him. I wish we'd seen more of Bud Cort - he's shown up here and there, but he never recovered due to his refusal to accept who he was.

Ghost World (2001)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Candy Cane Lane - 1 Star

Eddie Murphy looked bored. A bit like most of the audience I suspect.

Oh yeah, there's more or less extreme versions but obviously there's a similar "you just look like a bad guy" thing. Like with Rufus Sewell or Mads Mikkelsen, at least for American audiences. That's probably more fun than looking pervy, whatever that means. I'd have said it means a small mustache and no other facial hair (and slicked hair on your head, I guess?), but the mustache thing has come back in a big way so maybe not now.

Anyway, it's wryly amusing to imagine what all that's like. I have a weird admiration for the actors who just sort of accept and embrace it, even though we can probably never know who most of them are.

BlackBerry -

This is a sometimes funny, sometimes sad and always entertaining dramatization of one of the 2000's classic rise and fall stories. Mike Lazaridis (Baruchel) and Doug Fregin (Johnson, who also directed and co-wrote) of Research in Motion, which began as a small IT company in Waterloo, Canada specializing in modems, had the idea for the phone as early as when Id Software was making waves. Unfortunately, they lacked the business savvy to sell it, not to mention prevent stakeholder U.S. Robotics from ripping then off. Enter Harvard grad Jim Balsillie (Howerton), to whom the duo makes a failed pitch and who later joins RIM as Mike's co-CEO. While Jim provides the much-needed savvy, his questionable methods and...well, other developments - consider how you're likely reading this - do not guarantee longevity.

The Yin and Yang dynamic between the ambitious, big-mouthed Jim and the much more introverted Mike could be the secret of the movie's success. Is Mike that reticent and is Jim really that obnoxious in real life? Doubtful, but the movie does a good job at playing up their dichotomy and in many ways, such as rarely having them be in the same scene during their company's heyday. While Howerton is getting the most attention for playing such a love-to-hate guy and rightly so, Baruchel's more understated work is just as praiseworthy. Besides obsessing over a device of some kind in nearly every scene, he makes his devotion to what he calls the "best phone in the world" apparent. Johnson is just as memorable for how he makes Doug a guy who in his headband and nerdy T-shirts constantly pines for the days when RIM hosted movie nights. There is a big time jump in the middle of the movie, with Doug looking and dressing exactly the same as he did before, which says it all and is as funny as it sounds. Speaking of the good old days, the period accuracy is commendable despite the obviously non-Hollywood budget as is the use of handheld cameras for the authenticity and immediacy they add. That the soundtrack is full of period-accurate and standout needle drops is icing on the cake.

Since this movie's approach is to simply dramatize how it all went down and let the audience pick up the pieces, it's not surprising that each review I've read has different takeaways. It is invaluable as a movie about Canada’s place in the world; specifically, in relation to its neighbor to the south. Would BlackBerry still be a force in mobile communications if they started in or relocated to Silicon Valley? As Paul Stanos (Sommer), a Google engineer who Balsilie headhunts puts it, “I’m not moving to Canada.” What will I remember the most, though, is summed up by the advice Balsillie swears by: "you want to be great, you need to sacrifice. The more painful the sacrifice, the greater you'll be." Sacrifice is all around here: besides Stanos and his home country, Ballsillie, a die-hard Maple Leafs fan, sacrifices his dignity by claiming to hate hockey and letting others mispronounce his last name while making deals, RIM's surviving original employees sacrifice their favorite things about working there if they want to remain, etc. As for Lazaridis, it starts with his friends and ends with something he's spent his whole career trying to avoid. The whole time, there is a lingering question: is it worth it? Regardless of what resonates with you the most, you're bound to be surprised by how much a movie about the development of a mobile phone can make you laugh or even cry. Also, unless you love quoting Wall Street as much as Mike and Doug apparently do, you'll learn that "business movie" is not synonymous with "dull." Oh, and as a bonus, you may even be tempted to scrounge for your Wolfenstein or Doom discs when it's over.

Canada comes through with one of the best movies of the year!

The Magdalene laundry movie is fantastic. Seen it several times. More powerful than Philomena.

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Good movie with an interesting story line. Two leads very good.

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

This documentary was great/tragic really hit me. It was just on TCM.

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[quote=Torgo;2427703]BlackBerry -



I really liked this movie...was hoping Baruchel might get a Globe nomination, but I guess not.+

4th Rewatch....An explosive performance by Angelina Jolie, which, IMO, she has never topped that won her Golden Globe, is reason enough to watch this HBO biopic about the self-destructive supermodel who died at the tender age of 26.

Munich: The Edge Of War (2021)


A mash up of of historical fact and fiction set against the 1938 Munich agreement where British PM Neville Chamberlain and french PM Daladier give in to Hitler's demands to annex the Sudetenland to the Reich. George Mackay play Chamberlain's secretary who's old Oxford friend, a staunch German anti-nazi, acts as an interpreter on the Nazi side but with a secret mission to provide the Brits with proof of Hitler's ultimate goals. This was pretty tense and I enjoyed it, the guy who plays Hitler was the guy who played Goebbels in "Downfall" and gives a haunting portrayal. Chamberlain is shown in an unusually sympathetic light here and the casting of Jeremy Irons is spot on. I like MacKay too.

Having a crime film with no dialogue puts me in mind of The Thief (1952). Ray Milland never spoke a word.

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Ray - (2004)

I knew virtually nothing about Ray Charles before watching this film. I didn't even know which songs were his - and I'm assuming the film got at least that right. So I definitely learned something. I never knew he used heroin during such an extended part of his life - but then again, that fits in with the general stereotype of jazz musicians on the road. He used it to battle the same things most do - crippling anxiety, depression etc. When he was a child he witnessed his brother drown, and gradually lost his eyesight before adulthood. Ray paints him as a hopeless philanderer who tried his best to hide his drug addiction and affairs from his wife. He's kind of leading a double life in that sense - one at home and one on the road. Early in his career his blindness led to him being cheated, and people would take advantage of his reliance on some kind of help - but he was pretty self-sufficient, and became even more so as he became more experienced with the industry as a whole. His songs : "Hit the Road Jack", “Georgia On My Mind”, "Unchain My Heart", "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "Mess Around" - I should have really known they were all Ray Charles songs, but they're a little before my time and outside of my taste. I know now. As a biopic for a musical great it's pretty good. I like it more than Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody, and just a little less than Walk the Line as far as 21st Century films of this ilk go. It's increased my affection for Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which parodies these films so well. I don't know about the Best Actor Oscar so often being awarded to the leads in these films - it's more of an impression than a performance, and I wish it wasn't such an advantage come Academy Award time. It is a good performance from Jamie Foxx though.

7/10

It wasn't my idea, but Wonka. Having not seen any of its predecessors, I went in as a virgin. Yeah, there's lots of chocolate, in fact, so much chocolate and so much mystique about chocolate that I, a chocolate lover, left the movie wanting some french fries. I was lost on this movie, which made about as much sense as nothing. Timothee Chalamet doesn't do much to rescue it. He has little charm. Hugh Grant is some sort of glowing dwarf and Rowan Atkinson brings a Mr Bean-like character to a small role.

Everybody in this movie does their lines right, but the plot doesn't register for me. FX are good, images are good, but nothing about it connected with me. Oh well, that happens some times.