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SF = Zzz


[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it



I forgot the opening line.

By Joseph Losey/ Norman Priggen/ BHE Films - This image was retrieved from the internet. - http://www.moviepostermem.com/images...6c328ee47a.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47717277

King and Country - (1964)

Interesting one this - although I can pretty much sum the whole film up as Paths of Glory except with the British army and only one soldier. Yep, this one soldier, Arthur Hamp (Tom Courtenay) has been fighting for 3 years during the First World War and after nearly drowning in an impact crater simply walks off - "away from the guns firing", and is captured 3 days later - and tried for desertion. Captain Hargreaves (Dirk Bogarde) defends him at his court-martial, and indeed Bogarde is the highlight of the film, giving us a sense of restrained passion in the face of army bureaucracy. Hamp is the nicest fellow you could ever meet, has fought hard and well after volunteering and appears to be shell-shocked, but the prosecution paints an unfair image of "cowardice" and has no sense of what psychological damage he's been done by the conflict. Throughout the film we're shown stills of real corpses from the front line of that conflict. Paths of Glory, released 7 years earlier, does it better though. Based on a play and novel.

7.5/10


By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67637882

Stillwater - (2021)

I really enjoyed Stillwater, it defied my expectations throughout, thereby proving to me that it was a fresh look at cultural differences between the United States and the rest of the world (specifically, in the film's case, France.) Bill Baker (Matt Damon, who I thought was very good in this) has a daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin - forging a career beyond Little Miss Sunshine and Zombieland) who is in a French jail due to a murder she's been convicted of. She enlists her father's help in clearing her name, and he is not the kind of guy to adjust easily to these circumstances - but despite his difficulties he meets a French lady and her daughter and becomes close to them. From the crime solving mystery and the fish out of water tale of Bill himself comes an interesting combination which doesn't just zero in on some Scooby Doo solving - instead the focus shifts and the film takes more of a real-life approach - where the characters themselves are more important. Bill is a simplistic "I own two guns" blue-collar worker whose life is taking a detour nobody would ever have predicted. He's given a new perspective, but it might be too late to change him in any fundamental way.

7/10
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Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



I too am a Dassin fan, at least as far as his films.. Widmark does some enjoyable intense scenery chewing in this one. Here's some commentary from me awhile back:


Night and the City (1950)

Produced at the peak of the classic film noir era, this picture is a lollapalooza of a noir, ticking so many boxes of classic noir's characteristics, that it risked coming close to being a send up.

It stars Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, and Brit star Googie Withers, with nice turns by Francis L. Sullivan, Herbert Lom, and Hugh Marlowe. Shot on location in London, it's wonderfully directed by Jules Dassin (Brute Force), with immensely impressive noir cinematography by Max Greene (So Evil My Love). The locations and studio sets are perfect.

Widmark moved away from being typecast as another psychopathic killer like Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947), but he gave 110% as a sleazeball get-rich-quick dreamer Harry Fabian, who would stop at nothing to try to scam his way into prominence and to claw away at elusive respect. It's almost exhausting watching his schemes, antics and emotional outbursts.

Tierney plays Fabian's sweet, honest but enabling girlfriend. Fabian continually lies to her and asks for money for his big final attempt to be a big shot by rising to prominence as London's biggest wrestling promoters. But Fabian goes too far and has burned too many bridges. The underworld kings eventually have enough of Fabian's scheming and lying.

Of particular interest is a long and authentic private grudge wrestling match between Mike Mazurki (Murder, My Sweet), "The Strangler", and Stanislaus Sbyszko (Madison Square Garden), "Gregorius the Great". Both men had been former championship wrestlers, and the realism in their contest makes it one of the best on film.

Dassin reported that Fox studio head Darryl Zanuck had requested that Tierney be cast in the film. She was having psychological problems at the time, and he felt that the work would help pull her out of them. She rose to the occasion in this memorable picture.

But it's the keen photography by Max Greene that sets this film apart. His set ups, locations, lighting and camera angles rival those of the great John Alton, and continue to the movie's uniqueness.

Available on YouTube.

Doc's rating: 7/10
Good write-up Doc. I agree about Fabian being such a manic character. So far all the Dassin flicks I've watched I've really liked so now I need to keep an eye out for Rififi.



Uncharted (2022) - frankly speaking, not the most interesting film in this genre. Somehow everything is monotonous, and very predictable. Somehow there is a certainty that in half a year I won't remember what exactly this movie is about. As for me, even Tomb Raider (2018) is a head higher. Maybe I'm wrong.
the movie uncharted is based on the video game uncharted series ,



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

The Turning Point (Riccardo Antonaroli, 2021)
5.5/10
Mad Max (George Miller, 1979)
6.5/10
Man to Man (Allan Dwan, 1930)
5.5/10
Silver Streak (Arthur Hiller, 1976)
7+/10

To escape from the police and solve a murder mystery, Gene Wilder poses as a black, but thief Richard Pryor worries they'll get in trouble, especially if they meet up with some Muslims.
The Window (Ted Tetzlaff, 1949)
6.5/10
The Nameless Days (Andrew Mecham & Matthew Whedon, 2022)
5/10
Always in My Heart (Jo Graham, 1942)
5.5/10
A Letter to Three Wives (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1949)
+ 7.5/10

Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern and Jeanne Crain receive a letter that says one of their husbands ran off with another woman and we see what happened that brought them there.
The Great O'Malley (William Dieterle, 1937)
6/10
The Merchant of Four Seasons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972)
6.5/10
Enviar Y Recibir (Cosmo Collins Salovaara, 2021)
5.5/10
Chinese Roulette (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1976)
6.5/10

Anna Karina is one of the family members who are at their estate who play Chinese Roulette, a vicious game which is meant to rip apart the vicious participants.
Death of Nintendo (Raya Martin, 2020)
5.5/10
His Greatest Gamble (John S. Robertson, 1934)
5/10
House of Women (Walter Doniger, 1962)
6/10
Why Would I Lie? (Larry Peerce, 1980)
6.5/10

Compulsive liar Treat Williams gets away with lots of things, but when he becomes a social worker, he tries to reconnect foster child Gabriel Macht with his birth mother and thinks he finds guidance counselor Lisa Eichhorn a likely candidate.
We're All Going to the World's Fair (Jane Schoenbrun, 2021)
5.5/10
Luzifer (Peter Brunner, 2021)
5/10
Going Home (Herbert B. Leonard, 1971)
6/10
Ambulance (Michael Bay, 2022)
6.5/10

When a bank heist in L.A. goes FUBAR, the leader (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his brother (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) steal an ambulance to try to escape but the chief paramedic (Eiza González) seems to be still in charge.
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the movie uncharted is based on the video game uncharted series ,
I understand, but I give an assessment as a movie) again, Lara Croft is also a well-known series of games from the late 20th century.



The Girl Can't Help It (1956) I enjoyed the music and the performances were good. The film looks great. An entertaining musical comedy.



Society ennobler, last seen in Medici's Florence
After Love (2020)

Strong feeling.
Superb clean performance by Joanna Scanlan.


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Tom Jones, 1963

Tom Jones (Albert Finney) is a foundling who is raised by a wealthy landowner. Tom is in love with Sophie (Susannah York), a young woman who returns his affections. But Tom's social status means that they cannot marry. The film follows Tom's many misadventures as he pursues Sophie and must endure the deliberate sabotages of the jealous Blifil (David Warner).

Have you ever been at a party/gathering and met a new person and gone "Wow! This person is fun and full of energy, yay!" only to 15 minutes later think "Dear lord this person is exhausting!"?

That was pretty much my experience with Tom Jones, whose frantic, mocking, absurd comic stylings were charming for the first half hour or so, and then slowly lost their charms as time went on.

Finney is charming in the lead role, which is tricky because Tom's constant drunken shenanigans can skew more obnoxious than endearing. But Finney gives him enough himbo naivete that you end up rooting for the big lunk.

The supporting performances are all in line with each other, the problem being that the film's over-the-top comedy tone is a lot to handle. At one point Sophie's father is rolling around in a pile of hay, yelling and farting and I was just like "Eh . . . ". Reading a little about the filming, it sounds like the director and Finney were not overall very happy and that there were some unfortunate tensions on set.

There are some stand-alone sequences that are fun. There's a ridiculously long flirty meal between two characters and some decent physical comedy. But overall it just doesn't come together in a satisfying way. With about 30 minutes left in the movie, I realized that I just didn't care what happened to anyone.

There's also an unfortunate amount of unkind animal handling, which never scores points with me.

Just kind of blah.








SF = Z


[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it



Good write-up Doc. I agree about Fabian being such a manic character. So far all the Dassin flicks I've watched I've really liked so now I need to keep an eye out for Rififi.
One of my favorite Dassin's is The Naked City (1948). If you haven't seen it, it's a good story with dynamite photography of NYC. But I really liked Barry Fitzgerald as Det. Lt. Dan Muldoon.

I saw Rififi only within the last year. It's good, but I think overrated. Perhaps being French gave it a little extra buzz. It does feature a memorable and lenthy jewelry burglary shot entirely in silence. It's been imitated many times. When you see it, I'd like to get your impression.



One of my favorite Dassin's is The Naked City (1948). If you haven't seen it, it's a good story with dynamite photography of NYC. But I really liked Barry Fitzgerald as Det. Lt. Dan Muldoon.
Oh yeah. I caught it a few months back. I like how Dassin can take on different genres like breezy caper flicks (Topkapi) or noirish police procedurals (The Naked City) or tightly wound prison thrillers (Brute Force) with equal aplomb. Now that I'm familiar with his work I'll have to check out films that I've overlooked in the past like The Canterville Ghost and Thieve's Highway. And of course Rififi.

I saw Rififi only within the last year. It's good, but I think overrated. Perhaps being French gave it a little extra buzz. It does feature a memorable and lenthy jewelry burglary shot entirely in silence. It's been imitated many times. When you see it, I'd like to get your impression.
Will do.






The Prince of Jutland
(1994)
Directed by Gabriel Axel
3.25/5

With all the hype about Robert Eggers' The Northman, I thought I would visit a film from long ago. I watched The Prince of Jutland back in the early 2000's when I was on a Christain Bale filmography kick. I enjoyed the film as it was a tale from the old chronicles of Denmark. A more accurate telling of Shakespeare's "Hamlet". The film has a huge cast of now-famous actors, including Gabriel Byrne, Helen Mirren, Kate Beckinsale, Christian Bale, Brian Cox, Tom Wilkinson, Andy Serkis, Steve Waddington, and Freddie Jones to name a few.

In no way is this film, as violent as perhaps The Northman can be but it is a similar story to be told. I haven't had a chance to watch The Northman so I can't compare the two. I do plan on viewing it as soon as I can.



I forgot the opening line.

By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60781426

A Rainy Day in New York - (2019)

Going on most other Woody Allen films from this century I thought I'd probably enjoy A Rainy Day in New York, but I really didn't like it very much. Timothée Chalamet and Elle Fanning play a couple in their very early 20s, but the lines they've been given and the way they're being directed makes them sound and look like a couple in their early 40s or even 50s. Now, I know they're meant to be two very upper-class snobs, but no kid (and they're basically kids) I know has such a deep general knowledge, serious tone and wisdom, and the way they speak you'd think they belong in the British Royal Family - with mannerisms to match. They're in New York for the weekend and get involved in madcap capers, meeting people (Fanning's Ashleigh gets to interview a film director, producer and has a sexy actor hit on her.) It's like Woody Allen is making this film from inside a bubble, and has absolutely no idea how real people in the outside world behave. There's so much snootiness, posh sensibilities and, as one critic noted, "painfully pretentious and on-the-nose" dialogue it made me nauseous. I'd normally leave out what someone else has said about the film - but that said it just perfectly. I normally like Woody Allen's films, but this is one I intensely disliked. It's a film that's a long long way up it's own rear end.

3/10


By Studio and or Graphic Artist - Can be obtained from film's distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63153424

Dream Horse - (2020)

Okay, I said I was going to stop watching these kind of films. Obviously I didn't have a great movie night last night. Like Fisherman's Friends, this is a true story that's treated in a light manner, with risk-free conventional plotting and cinematography. The first 10 minutes or so are interesting, as we're introduced to Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) and Brian Vokes (Owen Teale) - a couple of down to earth middle aged people who have a love of animals. When they decide to breed a horse for racing the entire plot ran through my mind, and the movie followed that plot to the very letter. It follows the formula everyone is taught the very first morning at film school. It's not a kids movie - but it could serve as one, being as family-friendly as it is, and might be better enjoyed by 10 year-olds with an interest in horses. Sadly predictable and derivative, but if you like those kind of conventional easy-going feel-good flicks then you'll probably rate it higher than I have.

5/10



Red Rocket - 2021

Sheesh. Dude from the Scary Movies, Simon Rex, has some chops. Saw him on Normand and Morrill's podcast and they peaked my interest in this flick (great interview/pod). What a star making performance. He charms the hell out of you with a character that has next to no redeeming qualities. I have no clue how he wasn't nominated for an Oscar. The cast were really a bunch of nobodies and some street casting but man were they all great. I think they mixed people from the Texas town with legit actors and the product feels genuine. I need to see Sean Baker's other movie The Florida Project now. This was truly an independent flick, you can feel it. Not in a bad way there are some great shots. It's a great snap shot of small town Texas. Not sure if this movie will be for everyone but I really dug it. It shouldn't be engrossing but it was. It didn't quite reach stellar status but it was a very solid entertaining flick I'd watch again.



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101 Favorite Movies (2019)



STAR WARS
(1977, Lucas)



"If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from."

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... we met this young man who hadn't really seen the world beyond his home planet of Tatooine. Star Wars follows the adventures of this young man, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), as destiny finds its way into this faraway planet to set him on the heroic path that was expected of him. After tragedy hits, Luke joins a mysterious hermit, a rouge pilot and his Wookie sidekick to rescue Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher).

Obviously, this wasn't my first watch, but as I was preparing for an upcoming podcast episode, I decided to give it a go, along with my kids. And even though they drifted off a bit in the second act, they really dug the last act as our heroes try to take down the Death Star. As someone who grew up watching this since I was a kid (the film was released literally the same year I was born), it was certainly a moving experience to try to pass that down to them.

Grade:



Full review on my Movie Loot
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By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60781426

A Rainy Day in New York - (2019)

Going on most other Woody Allen films from this century I thought I'd probably enjoy A Rainy Day in New York, but I really didn't like it very much. Timothée Chalamet and Elle Fanning play a couple in their very early 20s, but the lines they've been given and the way they're being directed makes them sound and look like a couple in their early 40s or even 50s. Now, I know they're meant to be two very upper-class snobs, but no kid (and they're basically kids) I know has such a deep general knowledge, serious tone and wisdom, and the way they speak you'd think they belong in the British Royal Family - with mannerisms to match. They're in New York for the weekend and get involved in madcap capers, meeting people (Fanning's Ashleigh gets to interview a film director, producer and has a sexy actor hit on her.) It's like Woody Allen is making this film from inside a bubble, and has absolutely no idea how real people in the outside world behave. There's so much snootiness, posh sensibilities and, as one critic noted, "painfully pretentious and on-the-nose" dialogue it made me nauseous. I'd normally leave out what someone else has said about the film - but that said it just perfectly. I normally like Woody Allen's films, but this is one I intensely disliked. It's a film that's a long long way up it's own rear end.

3/10


By Studio and or Graphic Artist - Can be obtained from film's distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63153424

Dream Horse - (2020)

Okay, I said I was going to stop watching these kind of films. Obviously I didn't have a great movie night last night. Like Fisherman's Friends, this is a true story that's treated in a light manner, with risk-free conventional plotting and cinematography. The first 10 minutes or so are interesting, as we're introduced to Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) and Brian Vokes (Owen Teale) - a couple of down to earth middle aged people who have a love of animals. When they decide to breed a horse for racing the entire plot ran through my mind, and the movie followed that plot to the very letter. It follows the formula everyone is taught the very first morning at film school. It's not a kids movie - but it could serve as one, being as family-friendly as it is, and might be better enjoyed by 10 year-olds with an interest in horses. Sadly predictable and derivative, but if you like those kind of conventional easy-going feel-good flicks then you'll probably rate it higher than I have.

5/10
Very good reviews. I own Dream Horse, but haven’t gotten to it yet. I don’t expect much from it.

I seem to have avoided seeing the Woody Allen movie for some reason. I must have read bad reviews. What a cast though!
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GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM
(2018, Bum-shik)



"Ghosts live here, everyone. And we are at the place where ghosts live."

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum feeds off of that curiosity. The film follows the crew of a YouTube channel called "Horror Times" that decides to explore the building and transmit it live. The focus of their exploration seems to be the enigmatic Room 402, which has remained closed since the hospital closed. The film opens with two teenage boys trying to break the door open, only to disappear, which sparks the Horror Times crew to investigate.

On all my years on the Internet, I've seen several different viral videos that are frequently shared via social media of certain security cameras where everything goes calm for a while only to have a horrifying image suddenly jump in front of the camera to scare you. A fair share of them have made me jump, others not so much. Is it gimmicky? Yes, but I guess they achieve what they set out to do.

Grade:



Full review on my Movie Loot