Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Tools    








The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent - Nicolas Cage stars as himself, or rather a hyper-realised version of himself. He's in debt and finds himself out of the running for film roles he once had no trouble attracting. His agent Richard Fink (Neil Patrick Harris) comes to him with a one million dollar offer from an affluent fan to appear at his birthday party. He dismisses it out of hand but, after being passed over for a role he was desperately counting on, decides to take the payday.

It turns out to be an eccentric billionaire in Majorca, Spain named Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal). He's a rabid fan of the star and Cage finds himself falling in like with the amiable Javi. But when he's unexpectedly abducted by people who turn out to be CIA agents Cage must make a hard choice. Whether or not to spy on someone he already considers a friend. The agents reveal that Javi is the ruthless head of international gunrunning cartel. He has also had the daughter of a Presidential candidate kidnapped in order to force him to drop out of the race. Cage's own troubled relationship with his (fictional) daughter ultimately convinces him to work for the agents.

I suppose this counts as meta, but since it's a buzzword I've studiously avoided using I'm not 100% sure how it's applied. Let's just go with self-referential. So while the screenplay unfolds in a prescribed manner it's also made reference to it unfolding in just such a manner. So should people be disappointed that it turns into the exact type of shoot-em-up actioner that was alluded to earlier in the film? Or just shut up and appreciate the irony? I can honestly see both sides. But what I did have a genuine problem with was a twist that they worked in that came off as a bit of copout to me. Which was
WARNING: spoilers below
Javi being the harmless front for the cartel with his smarmy cousin Lucas (Paco León) being the actual leader. I think they maybe took the easy way out instead of Cage having to find a way to reconcile his friendship with Javi. There's been several movies where this plot device was used (Point Break and Donnie Brasco right off the top of my head). Maybe that, in and of itself, has been overused. I don't know.
This was a noteworthy concept with two winning lead performances. A weak third act may somewhat diminish expectations but Cage and Pascal are so good together that they power through whatever plot deficiencies may pop up.

85/100





The Menu, 2022

Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) agrees to accompany the wealthy Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) to a very expensive, very exclusive dining experience at a restaurant called Hawthorne that is located on an island. The head chef of Hawthorne is a finicky man named Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), whose dishes are highly conceptual mixes of foams, gels, actual rocks, and portion sizes that could fit in a thimble. But pretentious platings are the least of Margot's worries as the meal slowly devolves into psychological games with incredibly high stakes.

I saw this film in the theater expecting something enjoyably stupid, and I would say that the movie more than delivers on that front with fun performances, cheeky formatting, and an essential willingness to poke fun at both the victims and the monsters.

Taylor-Joy makes for a great lead, even if the character she's playing is pretty deep into stereotype territory. We've seen it in Ready or Not, we've seen it in countless films: the one plainspoken "common person" in among absurdly wealthy people. But Taylor-Joy is such a welcome presence and her frustrations so palpable that it doesn't matter so much that her character is overly familiar.

The rest of the cast is also on point. Hoult's wealthy, self-centered Tyler is a bit different than other evil-rich-guy characters, in ways I won't get into for fear of spoiling the plot. Tyler is obsessed with Slowik to an extreme, and that comes out in ways that are both surprising and absurd. The other patrons are played by a mix of familiar faces, including John Leguizamo as an actor whose career is on a downward trajectory, Judith Light as a woman whose husband seems to recognize Margot, Janet McTeer as a food critic with something to say about every dish and Paul Adelstein as her overly-deferential editor(?).

On the kitchen side of things, Ralph Fiennes does pretty good work with a character who, if we're honest, is maybe a bit underdeveloped. But you get the sense of someone battling with both a need for control and a need for authenticity, and the way those things intersect is interesting. A real standout for me was Hong Chau as Slowik's right-hand woman, Elsa, Elsa is a character who is hard and soft all at the same time, and I enjoyed every moment that she was on screen. Likewise, Christina Brucato has a memorable handful of minutes of screentime as a chef with some very interesting ideas about how to serve a meal.

Like I wrote earlier, the thing that I enjoyed the most was the willingness to make fun of everyone a bit. Slowik plays as a parody of the modern high-class chef, turning real vegetables into dots of gel and surrounding them with milk that has been turned into snow. But his anguish at having turned into an exclusive experience for terrible people grounds the character. At the same time, the customers in the restaurant are also kind of terrible, but not in ways that you usually get in films like this. Sure, one of them has a pretty icky secret. A few of them have done unethical things. But I'm not sure any of them (with one exception) has done something deserving of torture and death, not even by horror movie standards.

The one group that does feel a little underdeveloped is the staff. We get some sense of the cult-like conditions that exist on the island, but with a handful of exceptions, the staff are these nameless characters who do some pretty out there things with no sense of remorse. For a film with so many overt themes about social class consciousness, pushing all of the workers out of the narrative progression in favor of the wealthy customers and the famous chef seems kind of ironic.

My score might be generous, but I was entertained the entire time.




Non-Stop - (2014)

I was tired last night, and this looked like a film I wouldn't have to invest much mental energy in - so with low expectations I went in. I didn't really look at it with a critical eye, and just enjoyed the wildly over-the-top action. This is the kind of movie where the villains have God-like powers, Napoleon-level planning and chess-match-winning plays in their pockets, and manage to hijack a plane while making it look like air marshal Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) has gone crazy and is doing the deeds he's being set up for. They want $150 million, and have planned a murder every 20 minutes down to the last gasp - setting Marks up to do the killing in devilishly clever ways. Meanwhile, Marks is romancing a lady that could be one of the hijackers, looking out for a cute little girl who is alone, dealing with his alcoholism and battling all of the passengers who think he's gone barking mad. I love films that feature peril in the air, and ones where the plane in question hits the tarmac with smoking holes in it and absolute chaos erupting in the passenger cabin - I was entertained, because as dumb as this movie is, it's well shot, and never boring. They could have called it Airport '14.
7/10
Interesting about Neeson. I've seen just about all of his movies, and just watched Memory (2022) the other night. He's an actor that doesn't get enough credit for his acting abilities, which I think are very good. But he's picked a lot of clunkers. I suppose he's just going for the big paydays, and although I can't blame him for that, it would be nice to see him in a non action film where his acting skills could really shine.



Son of Saul (2015)




Oscar winner for best foreign language film. Saul is a prisoner at a concentration camp. He's also a worker there which gets him slightly better treatment and delays the inevitable for a while. He encounters a dead boy who is supposed to have an autopsy done on him, but Saul wants to get the body and a Rabbi, and bury the boy. Of course this movie is harrowing and has power. It's intense with a lot of up close and personal shots. Nothing to complain about except I wasn't as riveted as I wish I was. That could be on me.



I forgot the opening line.

By http://www.movieposterdb.com/poster/003e4e42, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26024159

Easter Parade - (1948)

The technicolor filming process makes Easter Parade look extremely beautiful - every frame seems to please the eye like nothing else in cinematic history - and the music and songs are catchy and fine. Of course, like in Funny Face 9 years later Fred Astaire's love interest in Judy Garland is over two decades his junior and he's twice her age. Gene Kelly was originally cast, but he broke his ankle and had to be substituted. Judy Garland looks good in this, and she doesn't seem as ravaged by booze, drugs and hard work as she does in later years. By 1948 however, she'd already had a slew of abortions, a nervous breakdown, a suicide attempt, a failed marriage (she was already into a second, troubled marriage to Vincente Minnelli), and had been a star for a decade. It was around this time the drug taking started, and over the next couple of decades (leading to her untimely death) she'd age at double the rate. You wouldn't know it by watching her in this - and the film's two stars sing and dance in style. I love those long shots, where in my head (and as Astaire dances a complicated routine) I watch and think, "It's still going....it's still going..." until eventually there's a cut.

7.5/10
__________________
Remember - everything has an ending except hope, and sausages - they have two.
We miss you Takoma

Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)





Bones and All (2022)

Bones and All is a film that if I saw on Netflix or Hulu that this was a really good start of a filmmakers career. But this is a Luca Guadagnino film and the mistakes in this film are unforgivable. Guadagnino has switched cinematographers and it is noticeable. This film is like the YA version of Bigelow's Near Dark(1987) but it's missing the artistry that a story like this needs. Taylor Russell (Waves) plays a woman turning 18 who finds out she's a mysterious cannibal. Her father abandons her and she goes on the road where she meets up with others like her.

Timothee Chalomet plays the pretty cannibal boy she runs across. He has a strong performance though this film takes place in the late 80's but both actors dress and act like they come from the early 90's. Which is a strange twist because Trent Reznor does an excellent job scoring the film giving it an 80's music feel without going Stranger Things by picking pop songs.

I would recommend the film based solely on the strength of Mark Rylance's three scenes in the film. He's not used much but his character and performance is something to be seen. He walks a line of creepiness and pathetic that you aren't really sure what to make of him until the end. Luca's biggest failure in the film is that it's a great road movie but the suspense aren't really well handled and that takes away from this being a classic.






Clean, 2021

A garbage man known only as Clean (Adrien Brody) has a shady, violent past. He has paternal feelings toward a teenage girl in his neighborhood named Dianda (Chandler DuPont), eventually leading to Clean attacking several young men who are attempting to rape Dianda. But one of the assailants is a teenage boy named Mikey (Richie Merritt) who also just happens to be the son of a violent local mob boss (Glenn Fleshler).

I'm sure it's not fair to blame Taken for what has been an absolute glut of films where gravel-voiced "everymen" reveal their violent pasts in the defense of a young woman's honor or safety. Add this one to the pile of decent-ish films where a guy brushes off that special set of skills to save a loved one.

What gives this film a bit of a boost above its many brethren is a little something called character development. Is it super strong character development? No, not necessarily. But the movie takes the time to lay groundwork for the dynamics between Clean and Dianda and between Mikey and his father that results in some actual emotional heft in the last act.

That said, the characters aren't super deep. The most development is probably given to the character of Mikey and his volatile relationship with his father. In comparison, Dianda's character is a bit weak, despite a perfectly good performance from DuPont. Dianda is mainly used as a catalyst---the kind of characters who makes whichever good or bad decisions the plot requires to move players into position for maximum bloodletting.

The film does get some lift from its supporting performers, including the RZA as a pawnshop owner who has a friendship and understanding with Clean, who fixes up appliances he finds on his garbage route. Mykelti Williamson is also a warm and welcome presence as a friend and support group pal to Clean.

Again, this is a perfectly serviceable variation on the dude trying to live a normal life who ends up having to mow down a few dozen baddies.




I logged into mark f's computer and found he had a list of reviews he hadn't posted yet before he died, so I thought I'd post it for him. He hadn't found all the images or written the captions that he normally did yet, so it'll be without those. He did tell me how much he liked Tár, and it is his highest rating here. And his next highest rating in this bunch is a rewatch, Tucker and Dale vs Evil. He watched it recently with my mom. I remember he quite liked it when it first came out, and apparently still did recently.

Originally Posted by mark f

Post Mortem (Pablo Larraín, 2010)
6/10
All the Brothers Were Valiant (Richard Thorpe, 1953)
5.5/10
Next Exit (Mali Elfman, 2022)
- 6.5/10
Tár (Todd Field, 2022)
+ 7.5/10


Somewhere I'll Find You (Wesley Ruggles, 1942)
5.5/10
In Love and War (Philip Dunne, 1958)
6/10
Holes in the Sky: The Sean Miller Story (Ash Hamilton, 2021)
6/10
Tucker and Dale vs Evil (Eli Craig, 2010)
7/10


The Wayward Bus (Victor Vicas, 1957)
6/10
Black Adam (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2022)
+ 6/10
A Christmas Story Christmas (Clay Kaytis, 2022)
+ 6/10
Hello from Nowhere (Anthony V. Orkin, 2021)
6/10


Bridge of the Doomed (Michael Su, 2022)
5/10
The Family (Dan Slaterl, 2021)
6/10
Poker Face (Russell Crowe, 2022)
6/10
Lost Illusions (Xavier Giannoli, 2021)
6.5/10


The Lion (Jack Cardiff, 1962)
6/10
Deborah (Noga Pnueli, 2022)
5/10
The Peterville Diamond (Walter Forde, 1943)
6/10
It Happened Tomorrow (René Clair, 1944)
6.5/10


__________________
I always wanted to be an f.



In honor of mark f, I thought I'd post my recent movie watchings in the format he used to make.

You'll be missed here, mark.




The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008)
9/10
Orphan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009)
8/10
Orphan: First Kill (William Brent Bell, 2022)
3/10
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (Akiva Schaffer, 2022)
5/10

Thirty years after their popular television show ended, chipmunks Chip and Dale live very different lives. When a cast member from the original series mysteriously disappears, the pair must reunite to save their friend.
The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, 2016)
+ 5/10
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
9/10
Speak No Evil (Christian Tafdrup, 2022)
8/10
When Harry Met Sally... (Rob Reiner, 1989)
8/10

Harry and Sally have known each other for years, and are very good friends, but they fear sex would ruin the friendship.
Only the Brave (Joseph Kosinski, 2017)
3.5/10
Beast (Baltasar Kormákur, 2022)
5/10
Hocus Pocus (Kenny Ortega, 1993)
6/10
Hocus Pocus 2 (Anne Fletcher, 2022)
3/10

Two young women accidentally bring back the Sanderson Sisters to modern day Salem and must figure out how to stop the child-hungry witches from wreaking havoc on the world.
Nope (Jordan Peele, 2022)
8/10
The Investigation (Tobias Lindholm, 2020)
7/10
Jackass Forever (Jeff Tremaine, 2022)
3.5/10
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Mike Newell, 2005)
9/10

Harry Potter finds himself competing in a hazardous tournament between rival schools of magic, but he is distracted by recurring nightmares.
Halloween Ends (David Gordon Green, 2022)
1/10
Corpse Bride (Tim Burton, 2005)
9/10
V/H/S/99 (various, 2022)
6/10
Terrifier (Damien Leone, 2016)
2/10

On Halloween night, Tara Heyes finds herself as the obsession of a sadistic murderer known as Art the Clown.



R.I.P.



Event Horizon


Couldn't help but laugh when after watching the first event Horizon transmission video, Laurence Fishburne says "we need to get out of here"


Oh... ya think 🤣


Good stuff


Few Note - The original 130 minute cut was heavily edited to paramount studios demands and Anderson's dismay, filming and editing was "rushed" when it became clear "Titanic" would not meet its projected release 🙄


On release the film was a massive flop however it began to sell well on home video and paramount asked Anderson to begin work on restoration of the deleted footage, alas it had all been lost or destroyed 🙄



I.D (1995)

Good little film covering undecover police trying and infiltrating a soccer hooligan "firm"....I'm actually not sure why though. The performances are good and earthy, Reese Dinsdale in particular. Smart thinking having this set at a (fictitious) lower league football club as the friendships, links and sacrifices are more tangible. As I say though, it's a stretch of the imagination that 4 cops are assigned to infiltrate some pavement dancers who shout "Who are ya" endlessly. Great pay-off scene.






The Nightingale, 2018

Clare (Aisling Franciosi) is an Irish convict serving out time under the British army in Australia. Clare has a husband, Aidan (Michael Sheasby), and a baby, and hopes to soon be set free. But the army lieutenant in charge of her case, Hawkins (Sam Claflin) is a sadist, who rapes Clare and doesn't plan to set her free any time soon. After a nasty confrontation, Hawkins and two of his men attack Clare's family. With the aid of an aboriginal man named Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), Clare sets out to hunt down the men who hurt her loved ones.

I really enjoyed The Babadook, but had shied away from this film because every description of it included words like "harrowing" and "brutal". It's been on my watchlist for a while, and renting it from the library gave me the boost to watch it.

This movie is indeed harrowing and brutal, and it is those things on both the small scale of the characters in the film and in the sense of what it shows happening on a systemic level. Clare's pursuit of Hawkins doubles as a road trip that exposes all of the ways that violent domination and colonialism fractures individuals, communities, and cultures.

While the overarching plot is one of revenge, the real heft of the film is the relationship that develops between Clare and Billy, two people who have been abused and disenfranchised by the British and by the immoral, power-hungry men in their employ. The parallels between the two characters continue to be revealed through the film, particularly in the way that Clare is nicknamed "the Nightingale" and Billy's real name is Mangana, or "blackbird". In one sequence they alternate speaking to each other in their native languages, though English has become a common language through oppression. While they come from different parts of the world, both of them have lost their entire families and face a future of isolation.

When it comes to the bad guys, Claflin is chilling as the kind of self-centered sadist who sees any opposition to his demented violence as some sort of terrible burden. He feels that he deserves to have whatever he wants, and anything that stands in his way can't be his own fault. We see this in the violence he employs against Clare and her family, but it's also evident in his lack of leadership of the soldiers under him. He expects results without really putting in the work. But beyond Hawkins, the film makes a point about how such extreme violence and abuse is allowed to thrive. Not all of the British in the film are sadistic rapists. But innumerable men witness or know of Hawkins' behavior and don't lift a finger to stop it. Worse, within the small band that he takes with him on the road, Hawkins frames rape and violence as a kind of manly virtue, so that those under him follow either out of fear (a soldier named Jago (Harry Greenwood)) or a kind of awe (a child named Eddie (Charlie Shotwell) who accompanies the men). Violence against "lesser" people is disapproved of, but only to the extent that it condemns the perpetrator, not out of empathy for the victims.

The Tasmanian landscape in the film is beautiful and wild, a dangerous place to be alone. And unfortunately, most of the men making their way through the wild are far more dangerous than any wildlife.

Franciosi and Ganambarr are really excellent as the lead characters and in the development of their friendship that begins with mutual distrust and ire. I thought that the film struck just the right balance between taking an unflinching look at violence and showing the way that people who endure such violence survive (or don't). It can be hard for movies to walk the right line between being explicit and being exploitative. I thought Kent really walked the line well so that there was always respect and empathy for the victims without rubbernecking.




Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
In honor of mark f, I thought I'd post my recent movie watchings in the format he used to make.
Not enough
.
__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



On release the film was a massive flop however it began to sell well on home video and paramount asked Anderson to begin work on restoration of the deleted footage, alas it had all been lost or destroyed 🙄

Director's Cuts - especially the allegedly renegade and suppressed cuts are rarely much of a revelation, even when they're released. Blade Runner is one of the rare films that benefited from an old workprint rediscovering the light of day. Unfortunately, this created a cottage industry that resulted in consumers being asked to by the same film, again and again. Even if the footage were recovered I doubt the film would be much better. Rather, I'd rather have a time machine and just give Anderson enough time to make the film.



I would, however, be interested in Event Horizon being tried again. Flying Dutchman stories are great.



Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)




#60 on the documentary list, Werner Herzog directs, stars, and narrates. I like caves. I've always liked caves. I really liked exploring caves as a kid. It would appear though that I don't like them as much as I thought anymore because this never got my interest. The very old paintings didn't do anything for me. I'm sure I'd think it was cool if I saw this stuff in person. Nothing wrong with it.