Rate The Last Movie You Saw

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Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage

Uh oh, it's a "comedy"... We'll see. I'll try to try them out
Thanks!

Cube (1997, Vincenzo Natali)


When Worlds Collide (1951, Rudolph Maté)

I mostly enjoyed this one (and Karloff's physical dedication jumps out at you), but I felt like it was missing some oomph.

I have a visceral memory of Cube. I was like 15 and dog-sitting. The dog had been sick, so I ended up staying up all night with it. Cube was on at like 2am. There was something about rooms having prime or not prime numbers, and there was a part where they came to a room and the number was even and I was like "So it's not prime," but the characters took a while to figure that out and I was disproportionately upset about that.

Whenever I see or hear someone talk about Cube I get a visceral flash of cleaning up dog vomit and being all bleary eyed like "EVEN NUMBERS AREN'T PRIME!!!! "

There's a very Canadian sequel called Hypercube that somehow makes even less sense than the original.

The Mandela Effect (2019)

Despite its low budget and use of comparatively unknown actors, this is an absorbing and clever sci-fi film that probes the parallel universe theory.

A computer game designer (Charlie) and his wife tragically lose their young daughter in a freak accident. Later the man starts noticing a series of false memories (the Mandela effect). He, his wife, and brother-in-law experience an additional series of false memories which bring up a dichotomy between their memories and facts which they know to be true.

Charlie eventually seeks out the advice of a famous scientist who has been ostracized by many of his colleagues from suggesting that life is simply a computerized simulation. This concept leads Charlie to believe that his daughter may not have died, but it simply living in a parallel universe.

After Charlie probes the potential operation of such simulation clandestinely via a university's quantum computer, he attempts to interrupt the simulation so as to bring about the reality of their lives prior to the daughter's death.

I was surprised at the quality of the production, given its micro budget. Director/writer David Guy Levy deftly pulls together all elements to fashion an interesting and suspenseful sci-fi movie. One can imagine this film as a major release if it had a bigger budget.

Available for free on Amazon, or rental from YouTube.

Doc's rating: 6/10

I've loved this movie ever since I first saw it in the theater upon its release. It's ridiculously tame today, but at the time I thought: "There's nothing that could ever stop this blob from outer space!!" That is exactly what producers are hoping for. Had the same feeling in War of the Worlds (1953).

It was Steve McQueen's first lead role in a feature film, and already he had the presence and the "cool" that would characterize him for his full (but way too short) career.

What was wonderful about all those early horror/sci-fi films is that they had a basic good-naturedness-- a certain common morality that has completely vanished in our modern times. They all had it, and one left the theater impressed, and in a good mood!

~Doc

Snooze factor = Zzz


Also watched the latest Tomb Raider this evening that had its premiere on one of the main channels here. I really like it but I couldn't enjoy it this time around because I was sat there annoyed most of the time because the stupid channel really cut it to shreds!

I don't know why they bothered.



[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

‘Accident Man’, 2018

3/5

Entertaining, fight choreography not too bad. However, predictable and something of a John Wick rip-off. A nice satirical touch about stalking a contract killer and getting him to teach the trade to the protagonist, though.

When it comes to B-movie action, Scott Adkins is one of my go-tos. Seeing Michael Jai White pop up was a bonus (and I really liked their character dynamics).

I do think that the name is a bit unfortunate--like it's a film about a guy constantly peeing in his own pants.

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Allied (2016)

I'm not sure exactly when Sophie Nelisse caught my attention, but it was before Mean Dreams came out in 2016. She hadn't done a lot yet, but I remember anticipating Mean Dreams, and it turned out to be a pretty decent film. Before that I had seen The Book Theif, which wasn't anything special, and Monsieur Lazhar which was brilliant, but Nelisse was only 10 in it. Her performance in Monsieur Lazhar, though small, was possibly the most powerful performance I've seen from someone under the age of 12. Now that a few years have passed I've noticed that she's been doing a lot of acting. It looks like she has a very promising career ahead of her. After not paying attention to her for a few years, I'm glad to see that she's been thriving. 1:54 came out in 2016, the same year as Mean Dreams. Nelisse played a supporting role, Jennifer. Antoine Pilon played the lead, Tim, a high-school student struggling with homosexuality and being bullied. He fuled his stress and anger into running, breaking a school record that earned him the admiration of Jennifer and the bane of a bully named Jeff, played by Lou-Pascal Tremblay. The movie dealt with issues of depression and suicide. There were quite a few beautiful shots that stood out to me. Overall I thought the cinematography and acting were really good, but it didn't really hit me with anything potent on the subjects of bullying and suicide.

Oblivion (2013):
A pretty good movie with some good effects, simple plot, and well told storyline, some things could’ve been better though.
8/10

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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - 1989

I've seen all the Jones movies but all when I was extremely young. I know enough to probably get by but they were having a marathon of Indiana Jones on Paramont channel Saturday. Caught half of Temple Of Doom and all of The Last Crusade. This was the only one released when I was actually alive, I was 2. I respect them all. Landmark films in cinema for sure. Inspired a lot of films to follow. I just don't think they have aged terribly well. There was a ton of cringy scenes in Temple Of Doom. Crusade was a little better aged.

I thought Connery was pretty good in the flick. Just feels like a veteran of movies and his character comes off as such. Spielberg shot the movie and made it feel like it came out in the 50s. It just has an older look to it, not that it's bad at all, just unique. I enjoyed it but the Indy franchise was just made for the generation before and doesn't resonate with me as much. I'd say I admire the films more then I enjoy them. Quintessential cinema viewing though.

Also read they were suppose to film another one this year....if the virus allows I suppose. But Harrison won't let anyone else be Indy and that when Ford dies Indy dies. That's kind of lame. I don't really have the desire to see a Ford pushing 80 running around with a whip dodging boulders. It's going look bad haha. Be nice to see him pass the torch...even since they failed with the 4th one. But I am not terribly excited anyways, like I said, it's just wasn't for my generation.

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I came here to do two things, drink some beer and kick some ass, looks like we are almost outta beer - Dazed and Confused

101 Favorite Movies (2019)

Christine (2016, first viewing)

Hat tip to @AgrippinaX for the nudge to watch this one. It's been kicking around my watchlist for a while, and when I saw that it was on Hulu it just felt fortuitous.

The film follows Christine Chubbuck, a reporter working in a local television station. Christine struggles with depression and possibly other unspecified mental health issues. As her career, romantic life, and health all take blow after blow, Christine begins to spiral.

I really liked this one. It does a great job of portraying how when someone is on their own frequency (and in Christine's case a frequency informed by depression) everything filters through a lens. At the same time, even by objective measures Christine is going through a lot. Her "stress pains" turn out to be an ovarian cyst that will diminish her chances at conceiving a child. Her sensibilities seem to push her further from her goal of working for a national news organization. And her workplace crush asks her out to dinner just so that he can take her to group therapy---a well-intentioned act that is also, understandably, kind of heart-breaking for Christine.

What's also kind of great about the film is that it makes it clear the degree to which the depression fractures Christine's perception. Christine is funny, and we see that interview subjects and children at the local hospital where she volunteers like her. Her co-workers respect her and are friendly with her. But you can see how their respect and kindness--such as the weatherman Steve's compliment of her work and asking her out to lunch--just don't register with her. All Christine can see is her own failure, and she turns her anger at that failure both outside and, eventually, back at herself.

Rebecca Hall's performance is strong, as are the supporting roles from Michael C. Hall and Maria Dizzia as Christine's co-workers. The set design and costuming evoke the 1970s, as does the interesting portrayal of how film and camera work went down on the set of the show.

The Princess Bride (1987)

Sophie Nelisse played Mia who was bullied at school. She was the stepsister to Corinne Foxx's character, Sasha. Mia's bullying was a bit cliche, and served as an obvious plot device to inspire simpathy from the audience towards her character. There was little dynamic between the characters, and the whole movie felt like an excuse for a frightening and exciting adventure plot violence. Accompanying the sisters on their trip to fear and death were their two friends. Brianne Tju played Alexa, and Sistine Stallone played Nicole. Worth noting is that Sistine Stallone is actually Sylvester Stallone's daughter, but unfortunately her acting, as well as her character, was pretty generic and forgettable. Tju's character, Alexa, had stronger dynamics to make her character interesting, and her acting was pretty solid. The story was simple enough, four friends decided to go cave diving in some ancient aztech cavern ruins, but what they didn't know was that the caves were shark infested. It was one of those movies where a bunch of people get killed off, and you spend most of the movie wondering who will survive if anyone. Basically this movie was a less scary knock-off of The Descent with a Jaws theme. Everything was realistic enough until the sharks appeared, then dramatic effect took presidence. I really don't like these type of movies, and probably would have turned it off 20 minutes in if I wasn't invested in Nelisse. I got the impression they were trying to be realistic in everything except the way that shark's behaved. I think the writer and director probably couldn't think of a realistic way to make the movie exciting without doing things for dramatic effect that made no logical sense. Just like they couldn't think of a way to make a movie scary without jump scares.


This was a sequel to the 2017 movie, 47 Meters Down, which starred Mandy Moore sinking to the bottom of shark infested waters trapped in a cage. There didn't appear to be any story related connection, and "uncaged" was presumably in the title because it didn't feature a cage like the first movie. I haven't seen the first movie, but based on the trailer and what I read there was no connection.

The Southerner (1945)