Rate The Last Movie You Saw

I was surprised by the good reviews of Greenland, and so decided to give it watch. It's one of the better disaster movies, up until the third act. It gets awfully predictable then.




Also, I stumbled onto Samurai Cop, and do not regret spending my time on it. It easily walks into my all time favourite good bad movies list.

Justice League: The New Frontier - This is from 2008 and hadn't aired on cable since it's release in that year. CN reran it in conjunction with the release of Wonder Woman 1984. This is part of the Bruce Timm/DCAU verse so it's a quality project. It takes place a short time after the Korean War and involves a mysterious entity called The Centre which is, of course, bent on humanity's destruction. It's actual identity is eventually revealed but I won't give it away. The movie is packed with comic characters including most of the Justice League (No Hawkgirl though) and the final showdown features quite a few additional characters. Some of which rang very faint bells. I did have flashbacks of sorts with the Blackhawk Squadron and Adam Strange but I had to dig around to actually nail down their names. This may not be as good as some of the more recent entries in the DCAU but it's still a fun and nostalgic ride. 80/100

Yes I need to watch samurai cop for the very same reason, flat liners, and invasion USA are also on that list.

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"If you're good at something never do it for free".

While New Frontier is a solid DC animated film, it’s not a part of the DCAU.

My left foot (1989) 7.9/10

Thought provoking in the extreme, with a fine actor like Daniel Day-Lewis at his usual best, he really is the best method actor around. I’m sad he retired he certainly has another good movie or two left in him, ‘phantom thread’ his final film was such a phenomenal piece.

This movie has made me certain to go through his entire filmography. A biographical drama that isn’t just enhanced by the performances but all about the performances. I’ve got to mention ‘home alone 2’ pigeon lady Brenda Fricker, she was top drawer as the mother.

Happiest Season (2020)

I guess it's DCAMU. Hard to keep track.

Reality Bites - 5.5/10
Reminded me of the teens I avoided.. I didn't turn it off despite the bad acting and unworthy script.

Kalifornia -

This scary and insightful serial killer and road movie from the early '90s stars two of that decade's biggest stars before they became household names. David Duchovny is Brian, a student of serial killers who plans a cross-country road trip with stops at sites of grisly murders and Brad Pitt is Early, who's in tow and who's a poster child for background checks since he happens to be a killer himself. Joining them are Brian's photographer girlfriend Carrie (Michelle Forbes), who specializes in sexual imagery, and Early's sweet, naive and much too subservient partner Adele (Juliette Lewis). I like how much of an American story this is; after all, the passenger makeup is sort of a microcosm of the country considering the couples' privilege and wealth divide. During the trip, we observe other forms of division such as dilettante and practitioner and of course good and evil. In the couples' less than successful attempts at getting along, we not only witness each side's inability to understand the other but also their dependence. All the while, the movie gradually and expertly raises the stakes as Early's animalistic urges rub off on everyone and his true identity become clear, the climax of which hits hard in a brutal home invasion scene. The movie is far from perfect: while Pitt is terrifying as Early, there are times when his exaggerated accent and mannerisms border on caricature. Also, I liked Duchovny's voiceover narration, but it concludes in a way that is too pat for my liking. I still rank the movie as one of the '90s best serial killer movies alongside Se7en. Not to mention, neither Duchovny nor Pitt had the star power in 1993 that they had at the end of that decade, but I still say that this movie is criminally underseen (no pun intended).

Life (2015)

The 1950s in the U.S. was a magical decade, comparable only to the 1920s in its prosperity, innovation, and a national sense of well-being. At the same time there was a growing mutation away from the WWII era, and the youth were looking to depart from their parents’ mores, and to forge new territory in the arts, politics and fashion.

There was no one who personified that shift, that modernity, than did James Dean. In the space of 17 months he captured the mood and affection of a generation in 3 films: East of Eden, Rebel Without A Cause, and Giant-- the last two released after Dean’s early tragic death in a horrific auto accident at aged 24.

Dean had done quite a bit of TV from 1951 to 1955, and had some minor uncredited roles in a few films. But getting the role of the tortured brother in a story set in Salinas, California in 1917 really got the attention of Jack Warner at Warner Brothers, who wanted him for the lead in the upcoming Rebel Without A Cause.

This is the setting for the story of this picture. Dean had met an up-and-coming photographer, Dennis Stock, who worked for a prominent photography agency in New York City, and was looking for a way to get attention and build his portfolio. Stock had the idea of doing a feature photo essay on Dean, who was capturing the contemporary youth by his emotional performance in the just released East of Eden. Dean wasn’t that interested at first, but a friendship developed, and each man saw in the other a mutual method of advancing their careers. It took awhile for both Stock’s manager and Dean to get behind the project.

The movie is about that brief time period as Dean and Stock traveled from NYC to Los Angeles to Indiana, where Dean had been reared.Their friendship is explored, but the chief object of the film seemed to be the circumstances that set up and performed each of Stock’s iconic photos of Dean, including the most famous of all, showing Dean walking toward the camera with an overcoat and turned up collar with a cigarette resting in his mouth, set in Times Square during a cold winter’s drizzle.

The film is absorbing right from the beginning, especially if one is familiar with Dean’s life and career. Robert Pattinson as Stock turns in a nuanced performance which revealed Stock’s burning desire to succeed in contrast to his inability to be a family man and nurture his son. Dane DeHaan as Dean had the task of impersonating the iconic Dean while representing to the audience the star’s idiosyncratic personality. His very vague resemblance to Dean helped, although he was slightly baby faced, but his portrayal seemed more of a respectful caricature. DeHaan’s Dean focused mostly on Dean’s unconventional and sometimes incoherent manner, and never really showed more sides to the character.

A bio-drama which purports to dramatize a relatively brief period in two famous character’s lives is not an easy task, and screen writer Luke Davies came close, but in the end it was a little too jumbled, and the different strains of story lines veered off from each other, leaving the viewer with a feeling of incompleteness in its finality.

Dean was a fascinating character in his short burning hot life; and Stock went on to be one of the most famous photographers in the U.S., living to the age of 81. To re-visit Dean’s career and to be impressed by some of Stock’s famous photos of Dean made the movie worth watching. Had the writing been a little more tucked in, and with a slightly more accurate Dean, this could have been a notable picture.

Doc’s rating: 6/10

I've always liked this, but have refrained from revisiting it since I wondered how it held up. I'm pretty sure it was/is my favorite performance from Pitt, who I mostly have a love hate thing with.

Alien: Covenant (2017) Ridley Scott

I quite enjoy this movie. As a follow up movie to Prometheus, i feel they make a good film duo. Both movie are well made, with good cinematography.
Alien (1979) and Prometheus are still my favourite movies in the franchise, and i dont really have a feeling of them being closely connected. With the movies being made over the span of almoust 35 years ( Alien and Prometheus) the premisses on which they were made, i feel it was natural for them to be pretty different movies.

Many of the reviews on IMDB have people giving Alien: Covenant ratings between 1-3 out of 10. And they are of course free to do so, without me bothering to much about it.

My rating of Alien: Covenant - 7,5.

My 2 yearly Christmas traditions
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989):
Every year, I watch this the 1st and the 24th with my dad, did the same thing this year. Love the film, absolutely hilarious at times. Sincere as well.
10/10
Trailer Park Boys Christmas Special (2004):
Our other tradition, the most Canadian Christmas movie on earth. Funny as heck and a sad ending.
10/10

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“I really have to feel that I could make a difference in the movie, or I shouldn't be doing it.“
Joe Dante

The soundtrack and "grunge music video" aesthetic date it, but not in a bad way, so I'd say it holds up considering it's 27 years old (damn, that doesn't seem like that long ago). It's too bad Pitt hasn't played more villains because he's terrifying. His southern accent is as cartoonish as it is in Inglourious Basterds, however. But really, does anyone do a good southern accent unless they're from there?

Daniel Day-Lewis is an amazing actor. I have seen his filmography from Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) to The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005). I need to watch the rest of his films.

I have done that with several actors, like Christian Bale and Brad Pitt. Watch all most all their films but stop short at a point.

Les Creatures, 1966

A writer, Edgar, and his wife, Myrlene, are in a horrible car accident, leaving him with a dramatic scar and leaving her mute. Moving into a new home in a village, Edgar begins writing a story based on the people he meets. As the film goes on, reality and Edgar's book begin to blend and overlap. Edgar becomes intrigued by a reclusive man in the village and suspects that people in the village are somehow being controlled/manipulated.

The strength of this film, as has been the case with Varda thus far, is the imagery and also the specific details of the main romantic relationship. Visuals like the jagged scar that cuts down the center of Edgar's face, or Myrlene's little white board that she uses to communicate, always hanging from a rope around her waist pop. Once again Varda plays with color in a film that is mostly black and white. There's also a fun specificity to the relationship between the two, such as the fact that Myrlene and Edgar play a sort of hide-and-seek when he leaves the house and comes back in.

Unfortunately, the last act of this one gets really weird, and not necessarily in a good way. The film presents us with a fantastical/sci-fi premise and at first I was excited about it. This sequence includes some really neat visual elements in the form of holograms and I was very taken by it. But then it just sort of goes flat. The focus shifts away from the main characters and I felt a bit lost as I watched the different scenes play out.

It's not that the weirdness of Varda's story is just there for the sake of being weird. There actually is a main idea that threads through it all. But the way that the story is told--jumping from one set of characters to the other--the film loses its emotional center.

Not bad, by any means, but not as powerful as Cleo or Le Bonheur.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, 1974

Sometimes I really don't know how to feel about a film, and it often comes down to not totally knowing how to take in or interpret a certain element of it.

This movie is based on a true story of a young man who one day appeared on the streets of Neuremberg, bearing a strange letter and speaking one a handful of sentences. He later told a story of having been raised in a cellar all alone except for a mysterious man who brought him food and water. Kaspar is passed from one home/patron to another--spending time in a circus, with a composer, and so on.

My issue with the film mostly came down to my difficulty reading the lead performance by Bruno S. As I watched I asked myself: "Am I looking at someone with developmental delays?"; "Am I looking at someone who is trying to act like someone with developmental delays?"; "Am I looking at an actor who is doing a good job of looking like someone who is pretending to have developmental delays?"; and so on.

In reading about the real case on Wikipedia, it seems as if there was a lot of evidence that Kaspar was, to some extent, a fake. That he was frequently caught in lies and that there were parts of his story that just didn't add up (for example, letters supposedly written by someone else but in Kaspar's hand, or his physical wellbeing not matching a story of having been confined to a cellar for two decades). But the film seems to take Kaspar's story at face value. It was hard to watch the film, because I kept waiting for characters to question his version of events, or for the film to show some of those inconsistencies.

The part of the film that I did strongly connect with was the implicit critique of the way that people who are disabled or have other developmental/physical differences can become this weird mix of charity cases and "freak shows". There's an unabashedness to the way that people want to gawp at Kaspar and put him on display. The lack of genuine care for his wellbeing is a pointed critique--he is clearly someone who needs a lot of help.

Because I struggled so much with the lead performance, I had a hard time connecting to this film. I often felt indifferent to what was happening on screen. I've had this one on my watchlist for a long, long time, and I was a bit underwhelmed with it. I'd be interested if other people had a more positive reaction to it.

I had a strongly positive reaction to EOKH. The context of this watch is likely important as I was working my way through an Herzog collection (stalled out at Cobra Verde. Hope to finish it this year) and found it work within the body of work Herzog was building of eccentric films that operated on the faultlines between realism, impressionism and surrealism. The main draw was the performance of Bruno S, who remains as enigmatic and peculiar a figure in real life as any he portrayed on screen. I paired it with Stroszek and it felt like a one two punch of Herzog's oddball humanism.

It's hard to speak in specifics as both it's been a few years and that Herzog's cinema in general appeals to me because it has the intangible quality of a dream in that it usually leave more an emotional impression than an analysis of specifics.

See, I felt strangely unemotional watching it. Instead of that direct-emotion impressionist hit, I just felt detached. I wanted to appreciate the abrupt editing and the POV elements, but it didn't cohere for me. It's like I needed the film to either be weirder or more grounded, and the place it landed between those two poles didn't work for me.