Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom - (2023)

Not terrible, but not good either. Kinda whatever to be honest.

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The Beast With a Million Eyes - This is a laughably bad movie but it is actually worth watching if only to play "spot the anomaly". According to IMDb trivia, American International Pictures bankrolled producer Roger Corman with a budget for four films at $100,000 each. There was only $29,000 to $30,000 left when it was time for "TBWaME" to start filming, so AIP head Samuel Arkoff signed off on shooting the picture non-union. Which ultimately led to this viable candidate for "so bad it's good".

Paul Birch, the other-worldly visitor from Not of This Earth, plays Allan Kelley and he runs an isolated date farm near Palm Springs. His wife Carol (Lorna Thayer) is dissatisfied and whiny and his daughter Sandy is celebrating a birthday and plans to leave for college. She bears the brunt of her mother's peevishness but the script is so slapdash that their relationship runs hot and cold from scene to scene. There's also a mentally challenged man who helps Allan around the farm but mostly lies on the bunk in his shack surrounded by pictures of pin-up models. Since this is from 1955 any unwelcome thoughts of him playing pocket pool are strictly the viewers responsibility. He spies on Sandy as she takes a dip in a pond but despite the implied ickiness nothing comes of that plotline. He does however give her boyfriend Larry (a very young, Bill Hader looking, Dick Sargent) the old stinkeye while holding an axe.

Anyway, a ship of some kind flies overhead emitting a high pitched hum that wreaks havoc on Carol's china and glassware. This is mentioned several times and there are also lingering shots of nothing in particular that go on for so long that you're left wondering, "Am I missing something here? What am I supposed to be looking at?" The ship turns out to be a visitor from the stars which we all know because the movie starts out with a speech by the alien clearly stating his intentions in a rich plummy voice. He's going to take over the minds of animals which will allow to see things through their eyes, hence the title. He takes control of all manner of fauna including the Kelley's German Shepherd Duke. And there's a side story involving the Kelley's neighbor, Ben Webber. He's played by Chester Conklin who got his start as a Keystone Kop . Somebody must have forgotten to tell him it's a talkie because he's hamming it up like he was back working for Mack Sennett.

There are special effects guaranteed to put a smile on your face like a bird attack with one stuffed sparrow gently tossed at a cars windshield and several shots of Duke supposedly barking without once opening his muzzle. The time of day seemingly changes from shot to shot and the last 20 or so minutes appear to have been filmed at a much later time. Actress Lorna Thayer appears to have gained noticeable weight and also lightened her hair considerably. So much so that the last few scenes take place in dim lighting. The family of three spend an unbelievably lengthy amount time discussing how they're going to ultimately defeat the alien. There's such a thing as padding a scene but this went on and on and on.

This is a lot of words devoted to what was basically a really subpar effort but sometimes janky movies are the ones that are the most fun to talk about. I think this went all in and should be judged accordingly. Neither fish nor fowl.

50/100

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It Follows - (2014)

Rewatch. Excellent creepy movie about a mysterious force which follows the person who is basically "it" in different guises - if whatever form it's in catches up with you, then it's your funeral. It can be in the form of someone you know, or some spooky freakishly tall dude with black eyes maybe - he's the worst. There's one way to get distance from it without literally getting distance from it - whomever you have sex with, they're "it", unless they're caught and killed whereupon it'll come after you again. Great score - a tremendous benefit for the film, reminding me somewhat of Carpenter's Halloween score - simple and very effective. Great scary atmosphere. What's it all about? Sexually transmitted diseases? Guilt? Maybe nothing - but making this monster sexually passed on sure opens the movie up to all kinds of translation. Great all round then! Feels like this tugs on a subconscious fear we all have of being watched and followed - and that's what makes it all the more effective.

8/10


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Conspiracy - (2001)

Sickening, and horrifying film about the Wannsee Conference, where Reinhard Heydrich (Kenneth Branagh) and Adolf Eichmann (Stanley Tucci) gathered the various Nazis in charge of different government departments and instructed them on the implementation of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem" - all people considered to be Jews by the Nazis were to be gassed, and their remains burned in crematoria. Considered by many to be the greatest crime in human history - this is where the Holocaust officially started, and seeing various Nazi officials snicker, chuckle, chortle and stuff themselves with food makes for sick viewing. A whole bevy of great performances (includes Colin Firth as State Secretary Dr Wilhelm Stuckart) makes this essential viewing. My full review is here, on my watchlist thread.

8/10

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Get on the Bus (1996)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Winter Light (1963, Ingmar Bergman)

Powerful film about a crisis of faith. The black-and-white cinematography by Sven Nykvist is stunning...those closeups alone are the price of admission. I'm not even talking about the acting and the direction. Perfect.

Come and See (1985)



5/5

Raw, unrelenting, visceral: the terrors of war from the Soviet's perspective. An extraordinary experience.

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Albert Pyun Roulette, Part 1:
Alien from L.A. -

Plot: Wanda (Kathy Ireland), an oddly squeaky-voiced waitress, receives a letter that her archaeologist father is missing. Her search leads her to a secret and xenophobic underground world that's part Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, part Blade Runner and part Patrick Nagel painting.

The premise may sound interesting, but there's sadly not a whole lot to recommend in this one. The most glaring issue is that seemingly 99% of the movie consists of Wanda running away from the underground world's authorities. It tries to have a message about taking chances and expanding your horizons - Wanda's very smug and unlikeable boyfriend in fact dumps her for how unwilling she is to do these things - but the attempt falls flat because Wanda likely would not have signed up for her adventure if she knew what she was in for.

If you still want to watch this, I recommend watching the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, but if there are other episodes of that series you are interested in, you should probably watch them first. Even Mike and the Bots strain to spin gold from this pile of straw. As you may have assumed, a lot of their riffs are about Wanda's odd voice, which I didn't mind because it's one of the few attempts by anyone in the movie to do something that leaves an impression.

Both good.

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Umpteenth Rewatch....the movie that put Mel Brooks on the map and many believe is still his funniest movie. Personally, I think Young Frankenstein is better, but this one still makes me laugh out loud from start to finish. I read awhile ago that Mel originally wanted Richard Pryor to play Sheriff Bart, but the studio wouldn't allow it because of Pryor's lifestyle offscreen, though Pryor did work on the film as a screen writer. I'm kind of glad it worked out the way it did because I can't picture anyone but the late Cleavon Little in the role, he is absolute perfection, as are Harvey Korman as Hedley Lamarr and Madeline Kahn's Oscar-nominated turn as Lilly Von Schtupp. Her rendition of "I'm Tired" never fails to entertain and neither does this movie. This movies does also make me a little sad now, because almost the entire cast is no longer with us, except for Brooks himself.

1st Rewatch...Director and screenwriter Jason Reitman knocked it out of the park with this loopy dramedy that stars George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a man content with his life living out of a suitcase. He works for a company that sends him to other companies to fire people. We learn near the beginning of the film that he was only home 43 days out of the previous year and that suits him just fine. The arrival of a young woman (Anna Kendrick) at his company who has developed a method of terminating employees via videoconference, which could render Clooney jobless conflicts with his meeting a woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga) who is pretty much a female version of Ryan. Reitman's screenplay displays flashes of brilliance as it not only lets us into selected parts of who these three central characters are but the writing and staging of the firing sequences which are all completely different from each other. I had never thought of employee termination as an industry before seeing this and if it was created for this movie, they nailed it in terms of logic and realism. The film received six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Director, and nominations for Clooney, Farmiga, and Kendrick. Appointment viewing for Clooney fans.

1st Rewatch...In the tradition of great movie romances like Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Love Story, and The Way We Were comes this exquisite film version of the runaway best seller by Nicholas Sparks. Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams play young lovers during the 1940's who find themselves separated from various circumstances, but one primarily. Gosling's Noah is a factory working struggling to support himself and his dying father and McAdam's Allie is the trust fund baby from a wealthy family getting ready to go to college on the other side of the country. James Garner and Gena Rowlands shine in supporting roles, and Joan Allen offers one of her most chilling performances as Allie's mother. But mostly, it is the white hot chemistry between Gosling and McAdams that makes this movie worth watching over and over again.

I was beginning to think I was the only person on the planet who had seen this movie, I love this movie.

1st Rewatch...One of the most unnecessary movies ever made. Apparently Darren Star and Michael Patrick King felt for some reason that their HBO hit series needed more closure than they provided when the series ended, which couldn't be further from the truth. The series wrapped quite nicely and should have been left to languish in our HBO memory chests but for some reason, these guys decided to pull it out and just deconstruct all the closure they provided with the end of the series. First of all, if you were not a fan of the series, stop reading right now because this film will be of no interest to you because without the show as a complete backstory, there's so much going on here you just won't get. I liked where Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Big (Chris Noth) were when the show ended, why did Starr and King feel the need to pick that scab open again? What happens with the rest of the characters is just filler. Thankless glorified cameos by Jennifer Hudson and Gilles Marino add nothing to the proceedings. Oscar-worthy costumes though. And the other thing I didn't remember from the first time I watched this was the ungodly length. This film is almost two and a half hours long but felt like seven.

Loved the series, but not this movie.

Sex(ed): The Movie 2014. Watched on Tubi. A documentary about sex education. This was funny, entertaining, and thought provoking. Well worth a watch.

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The Best of Enemies - (2019)

I know The Best of Enemies isn't the best film about race - mirroring Green Book in it's simplicity and the fact that these films depend on what a white character does to save the day. I really like it because I have a specific weakness for films which feature implacable enemies (full of venom and hatred) who end up becoming friends. Seeing real-life character C. P. Ellis (Sam Rockwell) - a local leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Durham, North Carolina - have his eyes opened by co-operating in a local charrette, and ripping up his Klan card in public, while forming a deep and abiding friendship with black community organizer Taraji P. Henson - well, that makes me feel so good I don't care too much about the bland, careful path this film treads. Sam Rockwell makes the whole process his character goes through completely believable. Anyway, hateful enemies becoming best friends is like my movie heroin - can't get enough of it.

7/10


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The Happiness of the Katakuris - (2001)

Through no fault of their own, a family that runs a bed and breakfast near Mt. Fuji called ‘White Lover's Inn' find their guests have the unhappy habit of dying - and to save the place's reputation they decide to quietly bury the bodies. Weird and extremely fun musical from Takashi Miike (who else?) Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

8/10

Notorious (1946)

American Fiction (2023) is a really well written, funny, smart, surprising film with a career best performance by Jeffrey Wright. I would rank it 2nd out of the best picture nominees.

1st Rewatch...this emotionally charged docudrama was even more riveting upon rewatch. It is emotionally charged and the prime emotion it charged in this reviewer is anger. Michael B Jordan gives a solid performance as a young lawyer defending a death row inmate (Jamie Foxx). Excellent film based on a true story.