Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Extinction (2018)


A family man keeps having visions and nightmares of an off-world invasion, soon the visions turn into a reality when spacecrafts appear in the sky. I enjoyed this and the twist was mind bending, some of the CGI was pretty terrible but I could look past that

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Operation Mincemeat - (2021)

Okay - historical film time, and I'm pulled in two different directions. Learning about history is fun, but I also have to add that learning about history directly from films is a no-no because they manipulate the facts to make for a better story. The movie should be an inspiration to go seek out the real true story. Operation Mincemeat has that element of fun to it. But man - there's a flatness to historical films these days as well. Something a little mundane. Anyway, this is about the operation to float a corpse off the coast of Spain during World War II with papers on it that will fool the Nazis into thinking the Allies will invade Greece instead of Sicily. There's a lot of "eww" to that. They try to take a nice pic to include in his papers, but only end up with corpse face. Eww. He goes more and more rotten as the planning proceeds. Eww. We get to see some of the autopsy by the Spanish authorities, of this green, blown-up, rotten thing. Ewwww. So much corpse in this movie. Then there's Ian Fleming...

Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn) was one of the planners of this operation, and the movie keeps making as much of that as it possibly can. For example, Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) keeps saying "Everyone is a writer these days!" while Fleming is around, and at one point accosts him directly about how he's sick of everyone writing novels. Because we, the audience, are meant to go "Ha ha! Ian Fleming will write the James Bond novels!" Yes. We get it. And it goes on and on. Hints here, there and everywhere. Then, once the operation is underway, we see Ian Fleming at a typewriter and he's asked "What are you doing??" and he answers "I'm writing a spy novel!" We're meant to be thinking "Oh my God! He's been inspired to create James Bond!" Too overt movie. Too overt. And I thought just mentioning his name was a little too much.

This was okay - a decent movie about a devious deception that saved lives during World War II. I don't think it had an effect on the course of the whole war - not as much as the movie wants you to think it did - but it saved lives and it's interesting to see how it worked in detail.

6/10

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Renfield (2023)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Dream Scenario (2023)



Like how Poltergeist was a hidden Spielberg film...this is a hidden Ari Aster film.

Bad Timing (1980, Nicolas Roeg)

In the hands of a less original, less ambitious director, this dark tale of lust and obsession would probably have ended up becoming a fairly unremarkable conventional psychological drama inhabited by nasty, flawed characters. Thankfully, Nicolas Roeg's imaginative visuals and virtuoso editing techniques coupled with his non-linear approach to storytelling elevated it into something completely different and totally engrossing. I love his ability to jump back and forth in time and memory, picking out and highlighting various minute details and nuances—disorienting at first, but gradually it all falls into place as you get used to the language (Tarkovsky's "mosaic made of time" quite literally). There is a decadent, subversive feel to the film—viscerally carnal yet powerfully cerebral at the same time—increasingly veering into disturbing territory as it nears its shocking final revelation. Loved the contrast between the two leads too, Art Garfunkel as the cold, possessive control freak and Theresa Russell (terrific performance!) as the wild, unpredictable, promiscuous Milena.
Brilliant film, very underrated!

Dumb Money (2023)

Angel Heart (1987)

Good review, it confirm my doubts really and I knew of this true story for a long time and I didn't think it merited an entire film, as soon as I heard it was being made into one I inwardly sighed tbh.

I want to see this. What a terrific film.

This was one of my favorite movies in my first year of being serious about movies at 17 and 18 and enjoyed it when I saw it a couple of years ago.

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Over The Top (1987)


Someone give me a baseball cap, I need to turn it around now. The quintessential arm wrestling pic, five stars for the soundtrack alone.

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Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte - (1964)

Well, this was certainly different. After the success director Robert Aldrich and screenwriter Lukas Heller had adapting Henry Farrell's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, they had a stab at another, this one based on "What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?" Of course the tone is similar - everyone is back and that includes Bette Davis as nutty old dame Charlotte. The only real dropout is Joan Crawford, who did start, but was replaced by Olivia de Havilland and shooting had to start from scratch. This one is a little more haunting than Baby Jane - it begins with a prologue set in 1927, with Charlotte's wealthy Southern daddy and patriarch Big Sam (Victor Buono) chewing out her already-married boyfriend (who was soon to elope with her), John Mayhew (a really young Bruce Dern.) Mayhew is forced to break it off with Charlotte, and for his trouble he's attacked with a meat cleaver, which chops off his hand and his head. Friday the 13th was a while away, but oh boy - I was surprised how gory that was. Flip over to the present day, and Charlotte (Bette Davis) is an eccentric recluse - seemingly in denial of what happened back then. Unfortunately, her house has been bought by the government for the construction of a highway bridge, but she's refusing to go.

Alright - so obviously the story is interesting if I'm basically telling it blow by blow. Olivia de Havilland is Charlotte's Cousin, Miriam Deering - she arrives to help persuade her to leave, and she's the one who, as a child, told Charlotte's father about her affair with a married man. Then there's Charlotte's doctor and Miriam's past love interest Doctor Drew Bayliss (the always enjoyable Joseph Cotten). Agnes Moorehead, Mary Astor, Cecil Kellaway and George Kennedy round out the cast. The gruesome death of Mayhew hangs over the events in this film like a ghostly fog (his hand and head were never found) - and that's the aspect of Sweet Charlotte I liked best. I also enjoyed Betty's crazy, rambunctious performance, which unfortunately has to compete with Agnes Moorehead's equally shouty, off-the-wall turn (she's Velma, the housekeeper.) The Oscar nominated song, "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" is so good I assumed it was a well known Southern song - it doesn't leave you once the film is over. It haunts you. The story twists and turns and stays interesting, and the movie is well shot - so it's a worthy addition to anyone's Bette Davis collection.

7.5/10

Bullet Train (2022)

Wish (2023)


This one started off a bit too generic (and the animation style felt dated), but it develops into a reasonably good story that my daughter loved. I'm not sure why it seems to be getting so much negative criticism, because it follows the standard plotline for fairy tales well. I laughed several times, and I thought this world setting was actually pretty fascinating. Better than Elemental in my opinion.

"Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past."

I need to collect my thoughts after this one but it's definitely in the top few films of the year. It's a calculating, cold psychological drama that creeps up on the viewer and leaves some very interesting questions in their head.

Moore, Portman and Melton are all terrific. Haynes' directing and use of mirrors / symmetry is great and he seems to channel his inner Bergman at times, specifically 'Persona'.

Lots of symbolism with graduation and the metamorphosis of butterflies. I went in to this film completely blind and was left feeling extremely rewarded.

Past Lives -

Is there a more difficult question or one more likely to make you stop in your tracks than "what if?" Whether there is or not, Celine Song's beautiful, sad and refreshingly real debut demonstrates why it's up there. As soon as academic superstars and rivals Nora (Lee) and Jung (Yoo) connect on their first date, their potential relationship ends before it starts when Nora and her family leave South Korea for North America. Many years later, they reconnect on social media, hit it off like nothing happened, pause for many years more and then connect again. They agree to meet in person, but it's more complicated than Jung would like since Nora is with someone else.

Having lived my whole life in the same country and most of it in the same state, this movie is invaluable to me when it comes to the immigration experience. I appreciate its firsthand account of the process as well as how it makes me understand how everything that happens before can seem like another life. It helps that Greta Lee is so unaffected and natural as the adult Nora (the same goes for Moon Seung-ah, who plays her young version), which are qualities that also describe her moments with Jung. Teo Yoo is just as praiseworthy for how he makes Joon seem like he might spend the rest of his new life longing for his past one. Nora's conversations with him and husband Arthur (Magaro) are like poetry, but what I'll recall most from this movie are the times when nothing is said. From a beautiful long take of Nora and Jung walking through Brooklyn Bridge Park to another where we simply see them looking at each other for a long time, Song demonstrates that looks and gestures can say just as much. As for Magaro, I like how he expresses Arthur's insecurities about feeling like he's in the way, which the movie thankfully resolves in an adult way and that is free of cheap melodrama. It results in a very assured directorial debut that is bound to make you think about all your experiences that made you ask "what if" afterwards. While they're never easy, as Nora's mom puts it before their big move, "if you leave you lose things, but you also gain things, too."

Avengers - Infinity War - (2018)

4th re-watch (I think). Still awesome

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There has been an awekening.... have you felt it?

1st Rewatch...Rewatch has not altered any previous opinions about this movie. Vastly inferior to the first film, which I really liked. Best thing about this movie is the scene-stealing performance by Chris Pine as the spoiled billionaire's son trying to steal our heroes company and get revenge on his dad (Christoph Waltz) at the same time.

1st Rewatch...Still find this rom-com works too hard at being quirky and just comes off as rambling and confusing, despite the charm of Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zoey Deschenal in the starring roles.

1st Rewatch...Julie Taymor's directorial eye is the main reason this eye-popping musical look at a star-crossed romance set to the music of the Beatles was just as dazzling as the first time I watched. Fans of films like Tommy and Hair will love this.

1st Rewatch...This movie was just as ridiculous on a second viewing. This Mickey/Judy musical set to classic rock songs is just painful to watch and most of the cast looks suitably embarrassed. What a waste of talent and money.