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I forgot the opening line.


Andrei Rublev - (1966) - U.S.S.R.

At around the half-way mark of Andrei Rublev (an hour and a half in) I was ready to declare it unfathomable - an almost random assortment of scenes where characters would appear without introduction and disappear without reason. But (and this is the first time I've ever said this) it really gets going after the 2 hour mark. Actually, I think it makes a lot of sense in reverse - as if the final segment of the film (the building of a gigantic bell) drew on all of the prior incidents and vice versa. By this moment, Rublev has sworn to never paint another icon, and taken a vow of silence - he'd been forced to kill someone and seen all of his work burned to the ground during a 15th Century war. It's the gargantuan effort of building the bell - and the effect this has on the master bell-maker - that changes something within him. All of the sudden I felt everything that had gone before had merit.

I'm looking forward to watching this film again - perhaps this time I'll go with Andrei Tarkovsky's less-preferred 205 minute version. But not immediately, because this film is so large and dense it really takes a lot of free time and an uncluttered mind to take everything in. During the film I was rating it at an angry and confused 5/10 - but after it finished, I was pretty enthusiastic about it.

8.5/10

Foreign Language Countdown films seen : 42/101


By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51585394

Coco Avant Chanel - (2009) - France

An examination of who Coco Chanel was before she rose to prominence in the fashion world (and how she became what she was to become) isn't a subject I'd come running to ordinarily. This was typical bio stuff - but some of the cinematography is quite beautiful, so at least the film looks incredibly good. It's an average 6/10 film lifted somewhat by this aspect and of course the costume designs. Benoît Poelvoorde is particularly fun to watch as the cheeky, almost manic, Baron Étienne Balsan.
7/10
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Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



Yes, and I'm not a huge fan of it. That for me was a film that dragged.
OK, that's why I asked. I find Dracula and The Mummy to be equally sleepy affairs, so I wondered how you felt about the former.

For me Drac has the advantage of the awesome pre-England scenes. The Mummy's opening scene is terrific but (too) brief.

But again, the last thing I want is to discourage someone's enjoyment of a Universal Horror classic, so please carry on.
Curiously enough, I loved Dracula and would put it on a fight at the top of the Universal Monsters classics. I found everything about it magnetic and alluring.
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Victim of The Night
Curiously enough, I loved Dracula and would put it on a fight at the top of the Universal Monsters classics. I found everything about it magnetic and alluring.
I am somewhere between these two schools of thought but closer to yours.
I find the humor in the second and third act, with both Van Helsing and Renfield fun hammy characters, to be most welcome but I still find Mina's descent chilling as well.
I like the movie quite a bit though I was underwhelmed by it the first time I revisited it as an adult and warmed to it again upon re-watches.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.

The Starling (Theodore Melfi, 2021)
5/10
Having a Wild Weekend (John Boorman, 1965)
5.5/10
Golden Needles (Robert Clouse, 1974)
+ 5/10
Free Guy (Shawn Levy, 2021)
7/10

Blue Shirt Guy (Ryan Reynolds) is everybody's fave non-player character in a popular computer game, and he keeps evolving.
No Blade of Grass (Cornel Wilde, 1970)
6/10
Buster Keaton Rides Again (John Spotton, 1965)
6.5/10
Holiday from Rules? (William H. Murray, 1958)
4/10
A Woman Like Eve (Nouchka van Brakel, 1979)
6.5/10

Serious film about feminism, lesbianism and child custody explores the relationship between free-spirited Maria Schneider and married mother Monique van de Ven.
What's Cookin' (Edward F. Cline, 1942)
+ 6/10
A Virgin in Hollywood (Klaytan W. Kirby, 1953)
4-/10
Birds of Paradise (Sarah Adina Smith, 2021)
5.5/10
A Hard Day's Night (Richard Lester, 1964)
+ 7.5/10

... And Paul's very clean grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell) should know.
Cellar Dweller (John Carl Buechler, 1987)
5/10
Ahir Shah: Dots (Peter Orton, 2021)
6.5/10
Blood of Dracula (Herbert L. Strock, 1957)
5/10
Fifi Howls from Happiness (Mitra Farahani, 2013)
6.5/10

Bahman Mohassess, the most famous Persian painter of the 20th century, shares thoughts about his life and art at his impending death.
The Proud Valley (Pen Tennyson, 1940)
6/10
GangLand (Jean-Claude La Marre, 2018)
5/10
The Tallest Tree in Our Forest (Gil Noble, 1977)
6.5/10
The Strangeness (David Michael Hillman AKA Melanie Anne Phillips, 1985)
5/10

Semi-stylish thing about a weird monster that kills a bunch of idiots in a cave.
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Elizabeth Olsen is only a white woman. How are men supposed to understand the plight of native people if they don't see a man on the screen? (I wrote that sarcastically, but maybe there's a grain of truth to it? Just googling "Do men relate to female protagonists?" turned up some grim results.)
That sounds like a problem with the people watching the movies, rather than the movie itself; I mean, I'm not a poor, gay African-American kid growing up in Miami, but that didn't stop me at all from empathizing with Chiron in Moonlight, after all.
This is hardly the focus of the movie and outside of that scene, it makes little to no impact on the plot or themes.

What the film is about is exposing national indifference to the treatment of Natives and disproportionate disappearances of Native women in this country (something of particular importance given hot topic political theater right now). The conflict is distinctly one of Native Americans and the film sidelined them entirely to victims or scenery. Given the nature of the films plot, setting and theme, this is a pretty damning oversight as they aren’t allowed to be anything more than a plot device in a story designed to expose their strife.

A great deal of what you’re putting onto this film is only textual given that exchange. Changing his race simply allows the people it claims to represent to be autonomous and have a horse in the race. It doesn’t change the dynamic of his job (protector from wildlife and outsiders), the plot, and only enhances virtually every other bit of subtext by making Natives both relevant but also emphasizing Olsen’s outsider-ness within this world.

Your argument about his being white being important is tantamount to “cuz if he weren’t white, they wouldn’t treat him as white” and… well, yeah. That’s what Olsen’s character is there for already.

Creating this film with a white savior and sidelining all natives isn’t demanding a different film be made. It would be the deletion of one conversation and changing “white” in the character description to “Native American.” Virtually nothing else in the film would change and it would make a substantial gain in representation and articulating the point it’s trying to make.

[edit] This isn’t even touching on how the film is built on the long tradition of having white leads in westerns that focus on Native Americans and waving it off as “he was raised by them since he was a young boy” or “he’s a half-breed”

And here’s an interview where Sheridan specifically outlines his purposes and goals for the film (which align with my claims):
https://www.interviewmagazine.com/fi...dan-wind-river

I’m just saying how he could have accomplished those goals more effectively and avoided classic racial pitfalls of genre filmmaking. Not make a completely different movie.
Late chime-in here, but I generally agree with your points against the unnecessary undertones of white savior-ism in Wind River, and, while I get Wooley's point that Renner's character was meant to feel like an permanent outsider because of his race, they could've done the same basic thing better if they'd just written/cast a half-Native actor in that part (since that way he'd always be an outsider, whether he lived on a reservation or in a "whiter" area). And, I'll also add that Taylor Sheridan has this Whedon-esque tendency of building up "strong" female characters, only to physically/emotionally break them down later on, while the men in his stories tend to just stay strong most of the time, which feels like he's indulging in some regressive gender roles to me (though it speaks to the quality of the film on the whole that it still manages to be as good as it is, despite these issues).



Anyway, regarding the Frontier Trilogy in general, I'd still rank River over the other two despite its issues, since I felt it was the most stylishly, evocatively directed of the three; Villeneuve's a really good director in general, but the particular detachment of his style is much better suited for heady Sci-Fi than (what should've been) a more visceral Thriller like Sicario, while Hell Or High Water was well-written, but the actual aesthetic of it was a bit too flat, making it lack tension as a result (and that's before I even compare it to certain spiritual predecessors that came before it, like No Country).



Anyway, regarding the Frontier Trilogy in general, I'd still rank River over the other two despite its issues, since I felt it was the most stylishly, evocatively directed of the three; Villeneuve's a really good director in general, but the particular detachment of his style is much better suited for heady Sci-Fi than (what should've been) a more visceral Thriller like Sicario, while Hell Or High Water was well-written, but the actual aesthetic of it was a bit too flat, making it lack tension as a result (and that's before I even compare it to certain spiritual predecessors that came before it, like No Country).
Didn't know they were calling them "Frontier Trilogy" Anyway, I would give the upper hand to Hell or High Water and then Sicario, with Wind River at the bottom. All very good films, though.



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Traffic

2001, Soderbergh




Continuing along with my aughts film watch, yesterday was Soderbergh's Traffic. I am trying to focus on films that I haven't seen, or films I haven't seen in a very long time. Traffic falls into the latter category, as I did see Traffic in theaters when it was released. I had recalled several very striking images, as well as a fairly heavy-handed directorial style, and things were as I remembered them, for the most part.

Since I had seen it before, it didn't have the same impact as the first time I saw it, but I still consider it to be a damn fine film. At least somewhat guilty of the style-over-substance tag I have seen stamped on this film in the past, it still has enough to chew on, and plenty to unpack as a snapshot of the state of the war on drugs during the era in which the film takes place.

Not sure this will make it on to my ballot, but I am glad I revisited it as I prepare for the countdown.
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Traffic

2001, Soderbergh




Continuing along with my aughts film watch, yesterday was Soderbergh's Traffic. I am trying to focus on films that I haven't seen, or films I haven't seen in a very long time. Traffic falls into the latter category, as I did see Traffic in theaters when it was released. I had recalled several very striking images, as well as a fairly heavy-handed directorial style, and things were as I remembered them, for the most part.

Since I had seen it before, it didn't have the same impact as the first time I saw it, but I still consider it to be a damn fine film. At least somewhat guilty of the style-over-substance tag I have seen stamped on this film in the past, it still has enough to chew on, and plenty to unpack as a snapshot of the state of the war on drugs during the era in which the film takes place.

Not sure this will make it on to my ballot, but I am glad I revisited it as I prepare for the countdown.
I'm in sorta the same boat as you, as in I haven't seen this since theaters, but still hold it in very high regard. I should consider revisiting it as well.



Anyway, regarding the Frontier Trilogy in general, I'd still rank River over the other two despite its issues, since I felt it was the most stylishly, evocatively directed of the three; Villeneuve's a really good director in general, but the particular detachment of his style is much better suited for heady Sci-Fi than (what should've been) a more visceral Thriller like Sicario, while Hell Or High Water was well-written, but the actual aesthetic of it was a bit too flat, making it lack tension as a result (and that's before I even compare it to certain spiritual predecessors that came before it, like No Country).
I’d rank Sicario at #1, followed by Wind River then Hell or High Water. Interestingly enough, I think HOHW has the strongest script and perhaps the best performances but the craft in Sicario and the stellar sequences in WR elevate them. I’m a fan of all. None come close to No Country.

Those Who Wish Me Dead would rank at the bottom, if added to the mix, but I too like it a great deal.

I’m a fan of Sheridan (I don’t dislike Sicario 2 or even Without Remorse) but I just think he usually stumbles in areas that stop from hitting proper greatness.



Traffic

2001, Soderbergh




Continuing along with my aughts film watch, yesterday was Soderbergh's Traffic. I am trying to focus on films that I haven't seen, or films I haven't seen in a very long time. Traffic falls into the latter category, as I did see Traffic in theaters when it was released. I had recalled several very striking images, as well as a fairly heavy-handed directorial style, and things were as I remembered them, for the most part.

Since I had seen it before, it didn't have the same impact as the first time I saw it, but I still consider it to be a damn fine film. At least somewhat guilty of the style-over-substance tag I have seen stamped on this film in the past, it still has enough to chew on, and plenty to unpack as a snapshot of the state of the war on drugs during the era in which the film takes place.

Not sure this will make it on to my ballot, but I am glad I revisited it as I prepare for the countdown.
Terrific movie. Hugely entertaining.
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Re-watch. Terrific movie. PSH was so amazing in this. He gave it 500%.



Zero interest in baseball & had never seen this movie before. Not bad at all. Very endearing & sweet. Costner was majorly hot. Did you know he had a part in The Big Chill that was subsequently deleted?



I’d rank Sicario at #1, followed by Wind River then Hell or High Water. Interestingly enough, I think HOHW has the strongest script and perhaps the best performances but the craft in Sicario and the stellar sequences in WR elevate them. I’m a fan of all. None come close to No Country.

Those Who Wish Me Dead would rank at the bottom, if added to the mix, but I too like it a great deal.

I’m a fan of Sheridan (I don’t dislike Sicario 2 or even Without Remorse) but I just think he usually stumbles in areas that stop from hitting proper greatness.
I guess I'll add Those Who Wish Me Dead to my watchlist.



I guess I'll add Those Who Wish Me Dead to my watchlist.
I think it got a good deal of undue vituperation. As others have criticized, the plot is a little slapdash Jolie is too pretty to buy as a rough and tumble firefighter. However, the plot also has a great deal of fun and subversive elements that are derived from solid characterization and Jolie gives a very good performance.

It all gives the film this veneer to a plot lifted straight from a 90s R-Rated action thriller, a genre and style I’m more than keen to see return. It’s just good meat and potatoes genre work.



I loved Dracula and would put it on a fight at the top of the Universal Monsters classics.
Oh yeah, no question about that. I've probably just watched it too many times so I've got less patience than a first-timer. I don't remember having a problem with the pacing back when I first started watching it.
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Anyway, regarding the Frontier Trilogy in general, I'd still rank River over the other two despite its issues, since I felt it was the most stylishly, evocatively directed of the three; Villeneuve's a really good director in general, but the particular detachment of his style is much better suited for heady Sci-Fi than (what should've been) a more visceral Thriller like Sicario, while Hell Or High Water was well-written, but the actual aesthetic of it was a bit too flat, making it lack tension as a result (and that's before I even compare it to certain spiritual predecessors that came before it, like No Country).
I won't stand for this Sicario 2 erasure.*