Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Scum (1979)

Following on from my review (or just view) on Bad Boys I had a look at this again. It's such a powerful, visceral film that really excels. There's an inherent tragedy about these boys lives whether they are aggressive or passive...or even just daft. Ray Winstone is excellent as the main protagonist Carlin and the ensemble cast were outstanding. It's a real piece of powerhouse film-making from Alan Clarke with a strong social theme. Even though we know Carlin is a "Backstreet Badboy" we still root for him. Such a powerful and well realiised film.

By the way, effusive praise for a film called Aftersun has basically been flooding my feed for the last month. Effusive praise from pretty reputable sources.
Has anyone seen it? Anybody excited for it or anything? Anybody know if it's even out yet?

Almost Famous, 2000

William (Patrick Fugit) is an aspiring music critic who manages to find his way in to the inner circle of an up-and-coming rock band called Stillwater. His mother (Frances McDormand) agrees to let him follow the band on tour, and William is soon hired by Rolling Stone to do a cover story, not realizing they've hired a teenager. William's relationship with the band, and specifically its magnetic guitarist Russell (Billy Crudup), goes through many ups and downs, especially as William develops feelings for a "Band aid" named Penny (Kate Hudson) who also follows the band.

Overall this was a very charming, well-paced film that balances multiple character dynamics with grace and humor.

Fugit is really excellent in the lead role, exuding just the right mix of youthful enthusiasm with savvy observation. William writes down and remembers everything that he sees. As the film goes on, William begins to develop more of a discerning eye for the behaviors around him. The arc that he goes on is not one up straight-up disillusionment, but rather someone realizing that people are complex and that sometimes you need to decide where your loyalties lie.

This is also definitely a star-making role for Hudson. There's an inherent power imbalance between a band and a groupie, and her Penny Lane is just keen and placid enough that it does feel like she has some autonomy. There's no question that the band takes advantage of her and takes her for granted, but Penny is a forceful enough character that her character isn't tragic. You fully understand why William would fall in love with her, and you also fully understand that Russell and the band don't realize the value of her company.

Crudup strikes the right notes as Russell, who is generally an okay guy, but whose ego at times leads him to act in hurtful ways. Russell is exactly the kind of character you need at the center of a story like this---charismatic enough that you understand why William and Penny would be enchanted by him, but selfish in exactly the kind of ways you expect from someone who is fed a constant diet of adoration.

Of course, Frances McDormand is awesome as William's mother. Fretting from afar as her teenage child crosses the country with a rock band, she must settle for delivering a mix of threats and Goethe quotes to the people who she has entrusted with her child. In another supporting role, Philip Seymour Hoffman is great as the magazine editor who gives William his start and who gives him key advice as William tries to wrangle his Rolling Stone piece into something real.

I think that a lot of the success of the film comes from the way that it treats its characters with respect, and that's especially true in the case of the female groupies. It would be easy to make the characters the constant butt of jokes as basically dumb sluts, but instead the movie lets them have personalities and comedic moments of their own. Their evolving relationship with William---which straddles an uncomfortable but not unfunny line between pesky little brother and boyfriend--provides a series of funny moments without dehumanizing the characters. Part of the central premise of the film is the way that Penny is devalued by Russell, and it would have been gross hypocrisy for the movie to take a contemptuous approach to their characters.

Overall this was a fun, character-driven film. I think that it comes off well because it really nails the final act in a way that leaves every character changed and evolved from when we first met them.

All This And Heaven Too (1940)



The first half of this movie almost feels like shades of a precursor to The Sound of Music (1965), but in this story's case, the man of the house, a Duke (Charles Boyer) is neither widowed or engaged, but is married to the mother of his children (Barbara O'Neil) whose own insecurities have damaged her relationship with both her husband & children. The wife develops an irrational jealously & hatred for the new governess (Bette Davis) which only drives the Duke and the children further toward the kind, honest and upstanding governess.

This is also a period piece set in the 1840's and the family in the story is one of French aristocracy (which has a lot to do with the situations that develop).

The story turns quite tragic in the most classic sense with violence, passion, intrigue, court-room drama, etc. It was based on a true story.

One of the reasons I enjoyed the movie was the unexpected turn it takes; from almost feeling like a family film (like The Sound of Music) to something much darker.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Ryan Coogler, 2022)

The first Black Panther was one of the worst films I've ever seen but I got taken to see this on a date and turns out its actually pretty alright. There's lots of lovely scenery and settings, the emotional elements hit, there's a lot of good music too. The action is hit or miss, especially in regards to the editing (or there was a lack of shots to work with idk) and its probably a bit too long as in it could have been trimmed in parts but its definitely too long in relation to the amount I was enjoying it if that makes sense.

The Tall Target - This 1951 historical conspiracy thriller turned out to be an absorbing watch. Based on it's description I expected something a little dry and somewhat predictable but it kept surprising me. But then I learned it was directed by Anthony Mann and that partly explained it. The screenplay however was co-written by George Worthington Yates and Daniel Mainwaring. Between them the two men were responsible for scripts from Them!, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Out of the Past and The Phenix City Story among others. And that explains Tall Target's sharp moments of wit and it's refusal to bend to the usual crime thriller formula. There was an actual "Baltimore Plot" to assassinate President-elect Lincoln on the way to his inauguration. It has since been discredited by some historians but it's still a plausible launching point for a cinematic thriller.

The screenplay does use it as a framework for this story of NYC police detective John Kennedy (Dick Powell). After going undercover and infiltrating a shadowy cabal of plotters, Kennedy tries to warn his boss, Superintendent Simon G. Stroud (Tom Powers), and is quickly rebuffed. He resigns in protest and chooses to board the train to Baltimore. The rest of the movie takes place on the train as it makes it's way from New York City to it's intended destination. To say that Kennedy has an eventful marathon of a trip ahead of him is putting it mildly. So many things transpire that if it wasn't for Yates and Mainwaring's unwavering screenplay you could easily lose your way. But the script also manages to throw in a healthy amount of social commentary and does a fine job of conveying just how splintered the country was in the days leading up to the start of the Civil War.

The cast is excellent with Powell leading the way as the indefatigable Kennedy. Adolphe Menjou also does a fine job as Colonel Caleb Jeffers along with Marshall Thompson and Paula Raymond as Southern sympathizing siblings Lance and Ginny Beaufort. Ruby Dee as their "servant" Rachel is given some trenchant and compelling dialogue and manages to convey volumes with a smaller role. Will Geer is also a crucial part of the story as conductor Homer Crowley. He is duty bound to get the train to it's intended destination in the face of unending delays, truculent customers and way too many weapons discharged on a passenger train.

This surprised me. I thought it was way too good a movie for it to be flying so low on everyone's radar. It did end up losing money for the studio but it might well be one of those arcane sort of thrillers that isn't meant for widespread appeal. I went in expecting one thing and got something else entirely.

85/100

Bad Guys
6.5/10.
This is a cartoon akin to Looney Tunes: talking animals, fish that are not in fish in any way (they walk, they breathe air instead of water, etc.). I liked the protagonists well enough, but I found the main villain (the actual villain) boring.

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Boldly going.

Great write-up.
I agree with everything you've said, especially about the groupies and how deftly the film really portrays and treats all of its characters.
And, as always, Frances McDormand shows, in an unlikely role for it, why she is one of the best int he business.

Blackmail (1929)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

SF = Zzz


[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it

Silence, 2016

Jesuit fathers Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver) set off on a mission to Japan when they receive word that their former mentor Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson) has renounced his faith. The men are taken in and hidden by a small village with several Christian converts, but soon come to the attention of a local Inquisitor (Issei Ogata) who puts them through various physical and psychological tortures in an effort to get them to apostatize.

This is an emotionally intense film that, despite being grounded in the Jesuit faith, could apply broadly to anyone: namely, at what point does hewing to your beliefs intersect with the pragmatics of keeping yourself and others healthy and alive?

This is another movie for me that solidified Andrew Garfield as a force to be reckoned with. He made a big impression on me with tick tick BOOM, and once again he throws himself into a role with just the right moments of passion and reserve.

True to what would torment someone who is empathetic and cares about others, the torments inflicted on Father Rodrigues have very little to do with him directly. He is fed well and clothed well. But at random intervals he is pulled from his prison cell to watch one of his followers get beheaded or drowned or put under extreme torture. Even if his followers renounce their belief, the Inquisitor will not let them go until Rodrigues himself denies his faith.

We see over and over the way that the fathers, inspired directly by Christ, are, if not enchanted by, at least theoretically at peace with the idea of self-sacrifice and martyrdom. For them to die would be an inspiration to others and a symbol of their own faith. But it's quite another question when other people are losing their lives. Are you really doing the Lord's work if your silence leads to the deaths of dozens of people?

The theme of silence, and what it means at different points in the film, is really powerful. The first mention of it is the silence of a group of villagers who watch in silence as three men are executed by a combination of crucifixion and drowning. As the film goes on, it is the silence of Rodrigues as he watches the people who are being tortured and killed on his behalf. When the character of Ferreira reenters the film, it's the question of what it means to be faithful but silent. Can someone be religious only in their own heart and mind? Can someone act on the outside as a nonbeliever but still be a Christian (or whatever their faith might be)?

Most of the film is Rodrigues grappling with this question. And even from the sidelines we can see that it is a sliding slope. Early in the film, Rodrigues tells some villagers that if they must step on an image of Christ to prove their non-Christian status, they should do so. But this begs the question: how far can you go from the actions and words of your faith before you cannot be said to practice that faith? In your conception of your religion, how much will your god forgive? Is it enough to just believe in your heart?

The Japan in this film is a beautiful and brutal place. At the same time, there is a coldness to the look of it all that mirrors the anxiety and doom that hangs over the characters. There is no winning here for the Fathers. Or, rather, winning may be just as painful as losing.

This is a beautiful, sweeping film. It is certainly very emotional, and even in its happier moments it rests heavy on your heart. Certainly recommended.

Body of Lies, 2008

Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) works in the middle east as an operative for the American government, taking part in different counter-terrorism efforts. He works for boss Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) who runs things via phone from back in the states. When Roger tries to coordinate with a local Joranian official named Hani (Mark Strong) to bring in a major Al Queda leader, things get complicated. Adding to the stress is the fact that Roger has taken a romantic interest in a doctor called Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani).

It's hard to say much about this kind of movie, because for the most part it was, like, fine.

I suppose the thing I would most commend it for is a handful of action sequences that are decently thrilling and tense. It's a movie full of crosses and double-crosses, and you never quite know who will turn out to be an enemy or an ally.

But fundamentally, this movie did very little for me. I thought that Farahani was very charming as Aisha. Oscar Isaac also makes a good impression as Roger's co-worker.

I think the real problem I had was that so many of the character choices irked me. There's a running joke whereby Roger will call Ed so that they can have a tense conversation while Roger runs through a market or something and then we cut to Ed dropping off his kids at school or doing other mundane parenting tasks. The joke wears thin very quickly, and the result is that the conversations between the two lack dynamism, even when DiCaprio is swearing a blue streak up and down.

Roger himself constantly puts other people in danger, despite spending a lot of time yelling about how he doesn't want to put people in danger. His courtship of Aisha might be the most engaging part of the film, if only because DiCaprio and Farahani have decent chemistry and Farahani provides some much needed feisty energy, but also he is putting her life in danger in multiple ways by wooing her so openly.

Finally, I had some really mixed (but mainly negative) feelings about Strong's portrayal of Hani. Even setting aside the fact that you have a white actor playing a middle eastern person (why?), Hani is queer-coded in a way that I did not care for. He constantly calls Roger "my dear" and it feels like an acting job and character type straight out of the 1940s.

The parts here are for the most part weak, and the sum of those parts is certainly not worth 120 minutes of screentime.

A pretty charming little adventure from 1970s Disney.
I liked this one a lot when I was young. It took place largely in the swamp, called "Devil's Bayou" no less, resembling my home of New Orleans (though I think it's actually in Florida). It has two alligators as evil henchmen. It has dead-pirate treasure. A diamond called "The Devil's Eye". There's a lot to like.
Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor are perfect for their roles and Penny just breaks your heart, but it's actually Geraldine Paige as the utterly psychotic Madame Medusa who steals the show - as she is meant to.
A couple of things I wanted to mention from my notes.
I really liked the way the "swamp people" (actually animals) may be total stereotypes but they are portrayed as admittedly simple but genuinely good people (even the one wearing the Confederate soldier hat). I'm so used to everyone in the South being treated like garbage by mainstream media that this was nice to see.
Madame Medusa shoots a gun at Penny, a six year-old child, several times. Like with the intention of actually hitting her. It's pretty jarring in light of all the school shootings we've had to suffer through in the United States.
The Rescue Aid Society, from which Bernard (Bob Newhart) and Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor) are sent to rescue Penny, is an international organization of mice dedicated to helping those in trouble, located inside the United Nations building. It's a pretty neat idea.
In our time when it seems many feel that only someone who IS whatever the character on screen is is supposed to play that character, I enjoyed it that Miss Bianca, the Hungarian delegate to The Rescue Aid Society, is voiced by Hungarian actress Eva Gabor.
Anyway, the movie is quite short at just 77 minutes and hums right along so anyone curious should feel undaunted. It's a cute film.

Whoo. Man.
It's been a long time since I've seen this movie. I guess when I was younger, even though I sensed that the movie was pretty dumb, I thought the cartoonishness of this thing was tolerable. But man, it is a challenging watch in some ways. You have to keep resetting your tolerance for ridiculousness. I mean it's just so impossibly silly, it's like Italian Spider-man or something. Like I seriously couldn't believe how ridiculous this was for almost every ridiculous minute of its ridiculous run-time.

It's been a few weeks now and my opinion hasn't really changed, this is a movie that can really only be watched as a sort of joke. Which is fine, I have no issue with that. But I don't think I'll likely watch it again. I actually thought I remembered reading some ret-con where they claimed that they made it so absurd on purpose as some kind of statement, a satire that maybe I could laugh along with, but after doing some more reading apparently that is not the case, apparently this is just the movie they were trying to make. So I was really just laughing at it.
Anyway, if you want to watch something that is just absolutely laughable and perhaps the ultimate example of 80s excess, look no further, this is your film.

By Bemis Balkind - Impawards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11807247

Office Space - (1999)

There were a few recognizable faces in Office Space - Jennifer Aniston of course, John C. McGinley and a few others. I'm surprised though, that the film's main comedic sources never went on to bigger and better things. I know Ron Livingston is still around - but he's never hit really big. Office Space is exceedingly funny - nearly all of the comedy hits, and as such writer/director Mike Judge was in rare form here. If you need to have worked in an office to appreciate it, I once did - but I reckon on it's funny parts translating to most people who watch it, whether they've been in an office environment or not. God bless Stephen Root for that bizarre performance as the quiet nerd who gets pushed too far.

7.5/10


By The poster art can or could be obtained from Buena Vista Pictures., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12855092

Pirates of the Caribbean : At World's End - (2007)

I may have watched this a little too soon after Dead Man's Chest - but no matter what, it's 169-minute runtime would have impacted my comfort, enduring near non-stop sword fights and pirate talk ("arrr!!") This entry into the series doesn't descend into turkey territory however, and does just enough to clear the bar with it's eye-watering production values and ear-ringing sound and score. $300 million is hardly chump change, and since most of the Pirates films rake in around $1 billion producers can well and truly afford to make stunning epics. Worrying moments of silliness crop up now and then, but by and by this film seems a decent final entry of a trilogy - and had a satisfying ending. I still prefer the first and second films over this though - more evenly paced, crisp and sure-footed movies. I don't know if I should continue on to the 4th and 5th films.

6/10


By The Little Mermaid, a production of Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Feature Animation and Silver Screen Partners IV. Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62485775

The Little Mermaid - (1989)

Great music, and perfect for little boys and girls everywhere. Zips along with a nice and short run-time with memorable songs and adorable animation that doesn't overwhelm the senses. Remember when a film could be less complex?

8/10


Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1785819

Anastasia - (1997)

I wasn't so sure about Anastasia - it seemed like it wanted to be an old Disney film, and was a little stuck in the past. Bartok the bat however completely changed my feeling about what I was watching every time he opened his mouth. The comedy relief was fantastic - and indeed provided relief for me. I felt all the songs sounded the same and lacked originality - none of them being particularly memorable. If I were a different person at a different age I might feel really different about it - so don't take my rating as anything other than the film's worth to me.

5/10

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Remember, Wooley, when I promised to kill you last?

I lied.

*drops Wooley off a cliff*

That is still my favorite line of the movie (as it has been the most memorable moment of it for me since I last saw it back in the 80s).
I just saw that you just watched it too and I read your write-up. I can see where you're coming from, I guess. I don't really have the same feeling about it but I can see it.

I made the switch over the years, from viewing Commando as a simple action film as a kid to growing up, realizing how silly it is, and then enjoying it as absurd, camp fun. In that regard, I'm thankful that the film they made is that crazy - if it wasn't then I'd have forgotten about Commando long ago. Films like this and Action Jackson I'm pretty fond of.

I think this dynamic is actually pretty key to the movie's view of the War on Terror. Crowe is making decisions at such a remove that it totally abstracts the stakes for him. From his perspective, he might as well be shopping for groceries or dropping his kids off at their game, while these things have a life or death impact for Leo and his contacts.

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