Rate The Last Movie You Saw

7.5/10.
I've watched this movie many times. I like the premise of the movie and the characters and their interactions. The movie suffers a great deal from an over-abundance of poor-quality CGI. Only the lighting seemed really good (a glowing effect on faces and hair). The movie might have been better either as an animated film, or if it had been done later with better CGI. I really enjoyed it's era, with the art deco and pulp feel of it.

The Man Who Laughs (Paul Leni, 1928) +
The real Joker origins movie

Ahh, one of my favorite silent films.

Would have rated another half popcorn higher had the run toward the climax been a little better presented.

Rocketman (2019)

Musical biopics are basically sports movies with more glitter.

Harakiri (1962)

9/10

A truly stunning, heartbreaking picture. A terrific script, great performances, barbed satire, twists and turns, and fights staged with real blades. Wow.

Crooked House (2017)

Aniara (2018)

Where can I watch this? Is it on blu ray release?

This is being reviewed better than Bohemian Rhapsody. Taron Egerton is apparently better than Malek in his role. Yet, traditional award movies don't usually get released in this window.



I wonder if this is more counter-programming to all of the summer fluff.

There are certainly fewer lame moments than in Bohemian Rhapsody, the film embracing a sort of musical/fantasy approach for some of the time helps. But it is very similar in a lot of ways. Taron Egerton is fine, but his performance didn't really stand out as award-worthy.

Green Book
9/10
Must Watch Movie

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)


I'm surprised by the amount of praise this has been getting. I found it totally predictable and cliché, the dialogue was at times awful and the worst was watching Vince Vaughan try and fight like an ex boxer! Honestly, they might as well have used footage of Frankenstein fighting. His punches were so slow he was almost going backwards!


So much of it didn't really make that much sense to me but it had enough violence (which at times was poorly done) to keep me from turning it off.


I do feel sorry for Vaughan after that, massively miscast.

__________________
Too weird to live, and too rare to die.

Fonda is a lot of fun in the showier role, but I think Redford's underplaying steals the movie from her.

Key Largo 8/10

Upgrade (2018)

__________________

[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

You enjoyed The Physician more than did I, SL. The picture is definitely a throw back to the epics that were made in the '50s and early '60s. And had I seen it then I'd probably have liked it more.

I've always believed that the best length for a commercial motion picture is 2 to 2-/12 hours. If there's not enough meat in the story to fill up that amount of time, then why bother? So in that regard "TP" was good. And the technical stuff was all first rate: costuming, photography, and props/settings. But the film was not weighty enough to warrant its run time.

To be sure, S. Skaarsgard as The Barber, and B. Kingsley as the famous physician, Ibn Sina were commendable, especially Skaarsgard. But even the great Kingsley could not save this lightweight script.

Tom Payne as the lead, and Emma Rigby as the love interest were not effective in their roles. Whether it was their lack of depth, or whether it was the writing, it's hard to say. However it's doubtful that these roles are going to cause people to flock to their follow-up films, although there may be some appeal for the puberty/adolescent audience. Even the film score was not memorable, although it might have been dragged down by the ineffectual writing.

As a period piece it was interesting, as was the historic references to the development of medical practitioners, but The Physician was all smoke and no fire.

Doc's rating: 5/10