Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Squibb was her usual amusing self in Palmer above.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Yes, I liked Palmer too and rated it a 7/10.

Nothing major, but a solid movie.

I decided to ignore BARBIE while it was still in the midst of its hype, so last night I watched it for the first time.

After the introduction or BarbieLand (I'm a sucker for life-size toy/cartoon worlds but the pink overload made me feel a little nauseous) the story starts with the impending crisis courtesy of the person playing with Barbie. This part reminded me of the perfect sitcom world of Pleasantville gettin upset by the real world teenagers.
Once Barbie and Ken arrive in the real world it becomes a mix of parody and homage, and the trick is to find the right balance so that nothing has to be sacrificed.
It's not as good as Galaxy Quest but I thought it was getting pretty close.

Then at some point the real world mother starts a passionate speech about the hardship of being a woman (as if being man doesn't come with any expectations at all) and this really took me out of the fantasy. It felt like a bad moment of telling rather than showing.
But then suddenly it struck me that everything she said doesn't make sense in the context of role reversed BarbieLand.
In fact it is Ken (the film's temporary antagonist) whose story arc is told from a female oppressed point of view, and this should immediately take the sting out of any alleged wokeness.

And while it may be dressed up as a liberation of women from the real world's point of view, BarbieLand itself strongly advocates and even battles for the idea that is "in fact" perfectly alright to aim for pretty airheadedness and fantasies about super careers don't really mean a thing. But from a child's point of view it doesn't have to mean anything and it's really only about acting out fantasies.
I think this is why both the film and Mattel are massively getting away with it. The critique simply makes way for the reinforcement of Barbie.

It's got tons of gags and even if I didn't laugh at everything then at least there wasn't anything in it that annoyed me.
"Just pick a direction and run!"
The gates with the magnetic card keys "oh we didn't need them" - no you didn't because you could simply have stepped over the gates. And this kind of hilarity goes and on and on.
There's also no holding back when it comes to the Ken jokes, and I just loved all of it. And he also got the songs.

So when all that great stuff has happened I guess they didn't want to compromise its ending by giving Barbie and Ken a happily ever after.
Barbie going into the real world "Little Mermaid" style could also be interpreted as Barbie leaving the film and return to the shelves of the toy stores where all toys belong until they're being chosen by someone who wants to play with them.

9/10

Not a Pretty Picture (1976) Watched on Criterion Channel. A powerful, haunting, disturbing, harrowing, uncomfortable, and honest experience. Directed by Martha Coolidge, this film is a blend of documentary and narrative and is based on the director's own experience of being sexually assaulted as a teenager. Michele Manenti, as young Martha, is excellent and Coolidge is really brave and vulnerable making this. The lead male actor, Jim Carrington, is frightening in his performance as the rapist but also makes some revealing and disturbing comments as himself. Not an easy watch, but an excellent and unusual documentary that is both ahead of its time and sadly still timely.

It's unfortunate that this is somewhat of a lost film in that there's about 20 minutes missing and there's no great copy. I found one that was watchable on YouTube. It's a melodramatic musical that's on the current top 100 passions list. Controversial in its time, not just because it features murder, rape, and drug addiction, but because it's essentially an all black cast being directed by a white man (Otto Preminger). There are some songs done in opera style that I didn't care for, but the rest of the music was great. Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, and Sammy Davis Jr are all terrific.

Park Lanes (2015) -

I remember when my brother worked in a factory. Though the overnight hours were tolerable (for him, at least), the work itself wasn't. Having to do the same task over and over again had an incredibly short shelf life and, by the time he got out for the day, he was too worn out to do anything else in his spare time. He only lasted three weeks in that industry. While I can't say I understand what it's like to do that kind of work, Everson's film acts as an accurate simulation of such. Factory work is notoriously tedious and, by stretching the film out to eight hours and showing the workday in real time, Everson not only highlights the mundanity of the industry but also puts us in the worker's shoes. And that he's able to accomplish this via a fly-on-the-wall camera which simply documents a standard workday highlights how effortlessly he makes this point. Regardless of how intricate or involved the work is, the reality of the situation is that the contraptions produced aren't unique and are just numbers. Those who find this overlong or repetitive are feeling the full force of its slow-burning tragedy. The noticeable ratio of African American/Vietnamese workers to white employees also calls attention to the racial disparities which are engendered by capitalism/hierarchy without directly mentioning either subject.

At a couple points, the camera moves away from the machines and into the break room. Given the monotony of what we saw beforehand, their laughter and friendly relations here act as a relief. One worker even breaks character by jokingly acknowledging the camera's existence. These are the only moments where some semblances of joy disrupt the visual drone of their work. As brief as these moments are, they're about as much as one can hope for.

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3trd Rewatch...Billy Wilder might have created his masterpiece with this dark and noir-ish drama about a struggling screenwriter named Joe Gillis (William Holden) who accidentally stumbles into the decaying orbit of a silent screen legend named Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). This instant classic grows richer with each viewing and stays with the viewer long after the credits roll. Swanson is mesmerizing, I love the scene where she imitates Charlie Chaplin and the scene where she reunites with Cecil B DeMille at the studio because she thinks he wants to make the movie she wrote. The film was nominated for 11 Oscars including Best Picture, Director for Wilder, Lead Actress for Swanson, Lead Actor for Holden, Supporting actor for Erich Von Stroheim, Supporting Actress for Nancy Olson. It won Oscars for Wilder and Charles Brackett's screenplay, film editing, and art design/set design. In every sense of the word, a classic.

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5th Rewatch...The late Rodney Dangerfield had one of his biggest hits with this amusing comedy about a millionaire whose son is flunking out of college and he decides to encourage him by going to school with him. The story is a little on the predictable side, but Dangerfield keeps the laughs coming with a solid supporting cast including Sally Kellerman, Ned Beatty, Burt Young, Paxton Whitehead, and Robert Downey Jr. There's even a hysterical cameo by the late great Sam Kinison. This one is still so much fun.

THE MEXICO TRILOGY:

El Mariachi (Robert Rodriguez / 1992)
Desperado (Robert Rodriguez / 1995)
Once Upon a Time in Mexico (Robert Rodriguez / 2003)

Just released from Arrow Video last Tuesday (and on sale for 50% off at Barnes & Noble). Once again, here's a film franchise that I had never delved into before now. I mean, yeah, I had been a long-time fan of Rodriguez's collaborations with Quentin Tarantino (Four Rooms, From Dusk Till Dawn, Kill Bill: Volume 2, Sin City, Grindhouse), but my familiarity with those was largely due to the fact that I was mainly a Tarantino fan. But for some reason, I had never really gotten around to seeing the so-called "Mexico Trilogy".

Well, this is an extremely handsome package - as usual - from the good folks at Arrow Video. This has actually got four discs: All three movies on remastered Blu-rays, and a special 4K UHD transfer of Desperado. When I first became aware of the fact that only the second movie was being made available in a 4K transfer, I was admittedly a bit perplexed. That is, until I actually saw the movies. While Desperado was the only film in the trilogy to be actually shot on proper film, the low-budget El Mariachi was originally shot on video, while the climactic Once Upon a Time in Mexico was Rodriguez's first film to be shot digitally. So in the case of the first and third films, anything more advanced than a Blu-ray version would presumably be either inapplicable or redundant. At least that's my educated guess as to why Desperado is the only film in this set with a 4K version.

As far as the movies themselves, I found them to be a great deal of fun. The $7,000-budgeted El Mariachi - the one with Carlos Gallardo in the title role of the guitar-playing pistolero - is really quite amazing given the scant resources Rodriguez had at his disposal. But then again, this man is quite adept at finding the creative inspiration to make do and work with whatever resources he's got at hand! Desperado gives us Antonio Banderas in the lead role and the lovely Salma Hayek in the role of Carolina. Much more polished and professional than the debut, but just as wild and inventive in its action sequences and even more over-the-top. It's got amusing if brief performances from Steve Buscemi and Quentin Tarantino as well. My personal favorite, however, is the concluding chapter, Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Liberated by advances in digital technology, Rodriguez pulls out all the stops and delivers a complex epic action tale with even more outrageous action set pieces and a larger cast of characters, including Johnny Depp's rogue psycho CIA agent, Willem Dafoe's drug kingpin, and a snazzy-suited Mickey Rourke with his pet chihuahua.

While one of Rodriguez's most obvious inspirations for this trilogy is Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" (1964-1966) with Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), you could also draw a parallel between this and Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead trilogy (1981-1993), in that we start with a primitive but inventive, practically zero-budget debut and gradually work our way up to large-scale Hollywood epic. (Although I think 1992's Army of Darkness is the weakest of Raimi's trilogy, while Once Upon a Time in Mexico more closely follows the Leone template in being the culminating grand finale of the series.)

I haven't heard Robert Rodriguez actually make any references to Sergio Corbucci in interviews or commentary, I can't imagine there isn't just a little bit of Django (1966) in the mix as well. After all, Franco Nero's Django may be named after a famous guitar player (Reinhardt), but El Mariachi can actually play the guitar. (To quote Jason Robards as Cheyenne in Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West from 1968: "He not only plays, he can shoot too!") And of course, I can detect more than just a little of Corbucci's so-called "Zapata Westerns," The Mercenary (1968) and Compañeros (1970). Not to mention that at the end of El Mariachi, the hero's hand is injured (and of course that's a trope with a long history in American and Italian Westerns, also being the fate of the real-life guitarist Django Reinhardt). Rodriguez also shares Corbucci's cruel streak with regard to certain characters. Just as in Django when the Gino Pernice character's ear is severed by the Mexicans as punishment for spying, Johnny Depp's rogue operative Sands in Once Upon a Time in Mexico has his eyes gouged by the villains for his machinations!

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"Well, it's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid" - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)

"I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours" - Bob Dylan, Talkin' World War III Blues (1963)

Twisters - (2024)

6/10. Predictable

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Meanwhile, last Tuesday at the local theater...



August 27, 2024

STRANGE DARLING (JT Mollner / 2024)

Believe me, the less I actually say about this movie, the better. But suffice it to say that Strange Darling was one the most fun and rewarding - and exhilaratingly f***ed up - experiences I've had at my local theater in quite some time! While I did manage to successfully guess one or two of the story's twists, I would have to chalk that up to being just a lucky shot on my part rather than being due to any inherent predictability on the part of the film itself, because the story's events could just as easily gone one way as the other. Or at least that's the way it felt to me...

To sum things up as unrevealingly simple as possible: This is a serial-killer thriller with a difference. First off, we've got a non-linear storytelling style quite similar to that of Quentin Tarantino's best work, or of Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000). The events are subdivided into six "chapters" told completely out of order. The two unnamed leads of the story (identified only as the Lady and the Demon) are played by Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner. When the two characters first meet, they seem like two total strangers who are attracted to each other but one of whom has a kinky side and initiates a BDSM session at a local motel. As one can probably safely predict, things go rather haywire from there. But exactly how they go is something I will not reveal. Suffice to say, a number of innocent bystanders get killed along the way.

You may already have seen Strange Darling, and you might know the story's main twist. I will say this much: I personally didn't particularly perceive anything trendily political in it. (If anything, a later scene in the movie involving two quarreling cops openly invites us to side with a "non-PC" character.) But then again, that's just me...

Highly recommended for those not averse to a little blood!

Three Colours: Red (1994)

Just an incredible depiction of love, regret and hope. For me the strongest of the Krzysztof Kieślowsk trilogy. A film I don't want to break down into it's components as it wouldn't even make sense. It's essence is how you see human interaction and that is portrayed beautifully. Good or bad. Stunning film making.

I haven't seen this yet, but I am a fan of actor Jean-Louis Trintignant, being a fan of his performances in Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence (1968) and Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist (1970).

Who knows? Maybe one of these days...

Considering when I started watching movies it's a little strange that this was my first time watching this. It's on our top 100 cheers list, but I watched it for it's reputation as a musical. I don't feel like I watched a musical, although the few musical numbers are great, and I didn't find it very cheery. It's good and it suits my taste pretty good, but I thought it ended up a bit uneven.

Where did you get that crazy idea? Rodriguez most definitely didn't shoot his first movie on video, it would have looked really awful! El Mariachi was actually filmed in 16mm; when Columbia acquired the rights to the movie, they did a 35mm blowup and that's the version that played in theaters.

Come True (2020)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Fly(2024)


Three couples of base jumpers take you on a journey into this gyspy style lifestyle. This was good, romantic, stunning and life affirming. It's not the masterpiece that Free Solo was but it's pretty close. If you have the chance to see it today I would recomend it because the story of the couples will draw you in and the visuals are incredible.

By Miramax - IMDb, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77256678

Strange Darling - (2024)

My habit of going to movies knowing as little about them as possible really payed off in the case of Strange Darling, although knowing it's a film full of surprise shouldn't have one overthinking the movie they're about to watch. Just accept what you're given when it's up there, and go with the flow as it's non-linear, chapter-based, cat-and-mouse hunt unfolds like a flower. Blood is a given, because this is a film based around a serial killer - and you'll leave the theater with bright red imprinted on your brain - but it's not Giovanni Ribisi's visuals that make the biggest impression. What does is the narrative scream which makes a point of being unrelenting in it's overdrive forward propulsion - like a rock star who knows he/she's giving the performance of their lifetime. Even a simple breakfast-making while we catch our breath goes for broke - itself an ode to excess of a good kind. I'd like to talk about some of the deeper central issues - but I must wait for everybody who is going to see this to see this. You might guess what's coming, but still be surprised by the way it explodes forth. Like a one-night stand that holds the promise of lifelong love - a love that, like the song says, hurts. Really, really hurts.

Any uneasy feelings though? Only once. No, not when the film announces that it was filmed in 35mm - surely there was enough awareness going around to make this overly self-aware pronouncement some kind of thing that was above my head and not dumb. It was a moment of good intention from a female police officer that goes awry - and it felt so wrong as far as the film's general outlook goes. It felt too pointed - and pointed the wrong way at that. But before I go off and get too reactionary regarding such an enjoyably twisted slant on serial killers and their fictional exploits, it shouldn't wreck Strange Darling for you. Especially if you walk away thinking of this as a love story. A sick, depraved, violent and blood-soaked love story where many people get killed granted, but when you add the right songs, then an insane mindset, you have to concede that love is something different to all of us - even the monsters. Strange Darling is an electrifying thriller with fantastic performances (Willa Fitzgerald!), a daring screenplay, startling visuals (I think it was filmed in 35mm...) great music and a lot of daring. Destined to be argued about in the future I think.

8/10

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