Rate The Last Movie You Saw

That silken voice must have run in the family because there was also his brother, actor Tom Conway, who starred in a host of well known movies like Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. He had the pencil thin mustache going too.

Like buttah.

The Rhythm Section, 2020

Stephanie (Blake Lively) is addicted to drugs and working as a prostitute years after her entire family was killed when their plane crashed. One day Stephanie is approached by a journalist named Proctor (Raza Jaffrey) who tells her that the crash was no accident. With information from Proctor, Stephanie soon connects with a former MI6 agent (Jude Law) who agrees to train her in the art of spycraft and assassination so that she can take revenge on the people who killed her family.

This is a pretty run-of-the-mill action/revenge thriller, buoyed by the performances of its leads and weighed down by the aggressive mediocrity of the script.

The positive is certainly the performances. Lively is solid as the damaged but determined Stephanie. While the whole trope of "useless person becomes skilled killer with a few months of training" is just as silly here as in any other film (maybe more so because of Stehanie's serious drug problem), Lively imbues her character with a believable level of grit and determination. Jude Law (as the man who trains Stephanie and serves as a central exposition machine) and Sterling Brown (as a man Stephanie meets later in her mission) do their best and they do add more legitimacy to the film than it deserves. But their presence and creative line reads can only do so much.

And the writing. Woof. I don't mind action movie tropes when they are done well. But in this film there is a sense of neglect in the script. Basic elements of the plot come off as so incredibly improbable--like Law's character deciding that a woman so riddled with drug addiction that she can barely stand would make a tip-top operative. The direction and staging also feel incredibly old-hat. Because Stephanie is a lady, there are numerous sequences of male characters pushing her up against walls in a vaguely sexual way. The film constantly tries to exploit Stephanie's vulnerability, such as in a sequence where Law's character suddenly tells her to take off her clothes. The script loves walking us up to unpleasant moments, only to pull back from them, seemingly pleased to have just been provocative. And because there isn't much character development to be found, the numerous tropes just grate instead of flowing.

Once the training montage portion of the film is over (expect lots of running and a bonkers "training" exercise where Law's character lets Stephanie try and stab him with a knife, a sequence saved somewhat by the physical commitment of the actors) and Stephanie is actually out in the field, it all becomes even more disjoint. The solid cast manages to get a few moments of emotional heft out of their different scenes, but overall the film has a lurching, clunky feeling. It seems to want to be a serious film, and one that takes the consequences of its action seriously, but this is undercut with just how improbable and rote so much of its structure is.

This is a below-average revenge thriller that is given a lift by its cast. I can't say I would recommend it, but it wasn't the worst thing to watch. At the very least, if you go in with really tempered expectations you might be able to enjoy what does work in the film.

Cinema Paradiso



Oh.... my...... god.....

Such an amazing film!!!! I can’t stop smiling and crying!!! Such a great film!!!

Bravo!!!! Bravo!!! Magnifico!!!!


Edit:

Cinema Paradiso is film that personifies our love of film, through the eyes of a young Italian boy, Salvatore. Taking us on a heartfelt journey that nostalgically reminds us why we love film and why it’s an essential part of our everyday lives.

Salvatore lives in a small village with a theatre in the center of town. There, the theater brings joy and a way to escape the everyday hardships of life, by providing the town with a low cost source of entertainment for everyone to enjoy.

Directed by a fellow film enthusiast, who used some of his own past experiences to the story, brought to life a magnificent film, with an extraordinary cast, beautiful cinematography and a phenomenal score.

Cinema Paradiso is sure to be a favorite among cinephiles and casual movie goers alike.

Steven Universe The Movie, 2019

Steven Universe (Zach Callison) has finally managed to broken peace with the Diamonds. Along with Garnet (Estelle), Amethyst (Michaela Dietz), and Pearl (DeeDee Magno), he settles in to enjoy a respite from their ongoing struggles. But when an old acquaintance of Steven's mother, an embittered gem named Spinel (Sarah Stiles), appears on Earth, it seems that their peace has been short-lived.

If you are a fan of the Steven Universe TV show, this movie plays like a pretty good, long-form episode of that show. In fact, considering that each episode is often only 12-20 minutes long, the fact that the writers were able to craft a 90-minute film that doesn't lose its momentum is admirable.

All of the usual themes are here: betrayal, love, trust, loyalty, and atonement for past actions. Something admirable about the TV show, especially when I think about children watching it, is its interest in why people behave the way that they do and how to go about making amends for hurtful actions. In particular, I like the the film allows Steven and his father to miss his mother, Rose, but also acknowledges the way in which her actions hurt others.

As with the TV show, there are songs aplenty, and I enjoyed most of them. They move with a nice energy, and I thought that Spinel's more dramatic, sad song about her abandonment was really moving.

When it comes to the animation, I am a fan of the color scheme of the show and also the overall style of it. I have always appreciated the unforced way that a wide diversity of characters and character types are woven into the main and background casts.

I would say that if you are not familiar with the TV show, many of the characters and character dynamics might seem a bit unclear to you. But for a fan of the TV show this one is an easy recommendation. It was the perfect film on which to end my weekend.

While it's been a while since I've seen TTM, I can't really feel that Anna was portrayed as much of a "femme fatale", seeing as how naive and trusting she was portrayed in general, pretty much the complete opposite of what a true fatale would've been (like Harry Lime himself said, she "loved too much"). Besides that though, I agree with everything you wrote, since it's currently my favorite Noir of the classical era, so to everything else.

Paranoiac (1963, Freddie Francis)


Solidly enjoyable, compact mystery thriller with Oliver Reed and a beautiful Janette Scott - a typical Hammer production with its special charm and aesthetic. Directed by renowned cinematographer Freddie Francis (the man who lensed the Innocents), it expectedly delivers in spades in terms of camerawork, boasting gorgeous black-and-white visuals coming through crisp and clear in hi-def.
Thumbs up.

A Good Woman (2004)

Masterpiece!

I rewatched this recently and I agree, it's not perfect (I think I gave it a 4.5/5), but, as you say, it's just such a masterfully shot, acted and directed film it overshadows whatever minor flaws there may be. It's not a short film but it's paced so beautifully there's barely a minute wasted in the entire thing. Really a masterclass on how to tell a story.

I don't think there will ever be a group quite like The Bee Gees. It's amazing how they started off sounding like The Beatles, faded away shortly afterwards, and then reinvented themselves with the falsetto sound, revolutionized the "disco" movement, faded away again with the public turning on disco, reinvented themselves yet again as prolific songwriters, and then reemerged as a veteran pop/rock group once again. It's quite sad how older brother Barry is the last man standing. The interview where he remembers Maurice, Robin, and Andy was heartbreaking.
I know there's going to be a movie about them, and I can't wait to see it now.

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“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!” ~ Rocky Balboa

Arrival (2016)


First rewatch, and it's still a brilliant film. I was able to pick up some plot pieces that I might have missed the first time, and I think I enjoyed it a little more because I could relax my mind along the way a bit knowing how the movie was going to end. The only thing keeping it from a 5/5 might be the simple fact that one could argue that not a lot really happens over the course of the film in terms of actions/events.

I forgot that Conway was George Sanders' brother. Geez, both men had pretty sad endings; Conway's maybe worse.

What platform is this on please Mark, been looking for it for a while.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)


Ive been watching so many mainstream movies recently, mostly due to having little spare time, so it was nice to get watching something a bit different. Beautiful visuals with amazing colours and the camera work is quite masterful at times. Not ashamed to admit that parts of the story went right over my head but I got the basic plot. Its by Sergei Parajanov, who directed The Colour of Pomegranates and in my opinion this is the more superior film.

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Too weird to live, and too rare to die.

Tonight, it's on the Noir theme, but a 1998 sci-fi-fantasy version of film noir, Dark City. In this strange twisted, complicated and genuinely bizarre story, a man wakes up in a vile bathtub and finds out that he's a murderer, pursued by a detective named Bumstead.

But (a big but), this is all a delusion. A race of strange extraterrestrials wants to understand human emotions, has created this dark city on a spacecraft, where it's always night, and sets up situations to see how humans react. Nobody knows that they are specimens in a study, nor that the scenes are re-run because the ET's just don't get us. They especially don't realize that, when everybody is asleep, the city is remade in a different form.

It really is a completely cool movie, amazingly creative, and right up there with non-sci-fi noir movies like The Stranger, Whirlpool or DOA, but infinitely stranger. It stars Rufus Sewell, William Hurt Keifer Sutherland and Jennifer Connelly and a cast of mind-controlling, pale, head bursting aliens whose bodies are inhabited by transparent spiders. How's that for strange.

If you have the Blue Ray version, there's a theatrical cut and a director's cut. They mainly differ with some additional plot elements that fill in a few gaps, but either one is terrific. I might have a slight preference for the theatrical cut, which has a pace that is nearly musical in nature with a visual rhythm, but either cut is terrific.

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That's one of my favorites. It's one of the few films I've seen, along with The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, where the music feels like an actual character in the film. Not just background noise I half-acknowledge as I watch the film. I also love the sensual power of the visuals and camerawork which makes the film feel like folklore.

As for The Color of Pomegranates, I'll have to revisit it some time soon. I admired the music, dancing, and the gorgeous visuals of the film, but I felt the story mostly flew over my head.

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By any chance did you watch the recent She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power series?

Yikes. Some pretty serious spoilers there.
Good movie, though.

MUBI.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

A big to all of this. Anyone with even a passing interest in them should watch the documentary. It shows just how important they were to music. And for actual fans it's a major treat.