Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Yes, the key to enjoying a Lewis film is to pretend that Lewis the actual person doesn't exist. I've never heard of him doing anything on a Cosby level, he just strikes me as a sleaze. As much as I like (some of) his films, he's not someone I spend a lot of time reading about, let's put it that way.

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Captain's Log
My Collection

I haven't seen The Nutty Professor in ages (although it looks like it's on Prime, so might revisit it soon), but from my experience, the less Lewis talks, the better his movies are. I find him to be a really strong comedian and director of comedy, but anytime he opens his mouth...yeesh, like nails on a chalkboard.



I will gently recommend The Bellboy and The Ladies Man, directed by himself, and The Disorderly Orderly, directed by Frank Tashlin. They show off his strengths in those departments pretty impressively and put him in much more endearing (or at least less off-putting) roles than The Nutty Professor.

Also on the topic of Lewis, I'm tempted to half-heartedly recommend Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, which stars Duke Mitchell of Massacre Mafia Style and Gone with the Pope (the Grindhouse Releasing blu-rays of which include this as a special feature), a Jerry Lewis impersonator whom Lewis sued for stealing his act, and the Lord God of Cinema Bela Lugosi putting in a committed performance like the ********* professional he was. Not a "good" movie, but an interesting curio and not without its charms.

Pretty much the same ones I'd recommend. I'd add The Patsy to that list too.

I will add that The Ladies Man has one sequence so disarmingly beautiful that it feels like an outtake from The Red Shoes. But because it features Lewis doing his (silent) shtick, I also chuckled all the way through.

Damn good movie. I don't know if you've seen it yet but you should try out Ride the Pink Horse with Robert Montgomery, Wanda Hendrix and Thomas Gomez. Another first rate noir.

*adds to watchlist*

Captain Marvel - Finally watched this. Now all I need to do is rewatch Dr. Strange, Black Panther and Avengers: Endgame and my Marvel debt is paid up.This isn't upper tier Marvel though. Too many callbacks, too many unintended (intended?) homages to other movies. Not to mention an alien villain with an inexplicable Australian accent. British accents I can handle but Ben Mendelsohn's, "What is it that I'm going for here?" bad guy was kind of hard to buy into.


Anyway, it might not be prime Marvel but it's okay. 80/100

Moonraker (Lewis Gilbert, 1979)
This clearly only exists because Jaws turned out to be such a massively popular character and thus this film is structured to squeeze him into as many scenes as possible. This is (of course) a wonderful thing and the scattershot nature of the plot leads to an abundance of cool set pieces and Lewis Gilbert really knows how to shoot these kind of films. It is a bit of a double-edged sword as the plot is impossible to follow and any scene that's pushing the story forward in any way feels like its getting in the way of something fun happening just around the corner. That being said though, the fun is there far, far more often than not but there's always that mild sting of cynicism that comes with a film made to specifically capitalize on a previous success.


For Your Eyes Only (John Glen, 1981)
A refreshingly (as I've been watching two of these a day) small-scale Bond adventure that's far from perfect but I enjoyed the vibe of it and despite the lack of spectacle has some really impressive stunt work and some decently suspenseful moments. A likeable, though perhaps not must-see entry to the franchise that I'm probably overrating a tad. Great theme song though.


Current Bond rankings:
01. From Russia with Love
02. Thunderball
03. The Spy Who Loved Me
04. Diamonds are Forever
05. Moonraker
06. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
07. Dr. No
08. The Man with the Golden Gun
09. For Your Eyes Only
10. Live and Let Die
11. You Only Live Twice
12. Goldfinger

A fun film. Wasn't sure about the ending but Carrie Mulligan was absolutely excellent. Very promising for a debut feature from Emerald Fennell.

6.8/10

Just finished watching Nameless Gangster. It didn't work for me. It didn't have any structure. The plotlines were bizzare at times (specifically how the hero manages to come out of every tricky situation is a little unbelievable).

Still surprised to see Goldfinger at the bottom after all those films

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Wait, who the hell said that?!!!

Also, I wonder if there was a more misogynistic time in American History than the 1950s and 1960s. As thoughtful people so often say, when people in this country pine for "The Good Old Days", they're really talking about that brief period between WWII and Civil Rights when the White Male was at his absolute worst in this country and everyone else was at their most oppressed (since Slavery).

I agree. I also grew up on Jerry Lewis films (we were probably watching the same channels at the same time from what our history talking sounds like) and despite the appeal to a young person of his comedy, Lewis really strikes me as kind of a piece of ****.

I have not but I will definitely add it to the queue.

If any beverage can really amp a movie up to 11...

This was probably the most disappointing film in the MCU (thus far) for me.
I mean, when Thor: The Dark World came out, expectations for Marvel movies weren't that high yet and Iron Man 2 had already checked my expectations (another big disappointment, but hey, it confirmed The Avengers was coming!) so, as (rightly) maligned as it is, I wasn't that disappointed. Doctor Strange was too paint-by-numbers for me and that disappointed me to.
But none of them as much as this one.
When I heard they were making this, I was giddy. I grew up a huge Captain Marvel fan, he was one of the shortest list of the Marvel heroes I wanted to be.
When I heard they were going with the female version, I was totally on board as this is a character that was primed for that, and I had actually grown up a Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel fan from the comics as well (I was a comic-book kid in the late 70s and early 80s). I bought all the recent Captain Marvel collections to get caught up on what the Carol Danvers version of this character was about.
When I heard they had gotten some indie directors to do it, I was hopeful they would understand how to handle a cosmic property and that Feige would hold their hands through it. Hell, Taika rocked it.
When I heard they cast Brie Larson I was... ehhhh... I was thrilled they landed an Oscar-winning actress for the role, I really wasn't sure Brie was the right person for it.
The movie comes out and, let's face it, Brie is not the right person for this. Maybe it'll get better but she was miscast. The script is... really not great. Really. And I just don't think the directors were comfortable in this film. A lot of stuff doesn't really work and the movie almost comes off feeling more like it should have been a Disney+ release than a theatrical one.
It has some wonderful moments and some really great call-backs to the comics, including my favorite Nova moment, stolen for this character and film, but hey I was happy to see it on-screen and I like this character too, so, fine, but overall the movie has some really stupid **** in it, some of which irreparably damages the MCU (like Fury's eye).
Hopefully, they'll do better going forward, I hope they get someone else to direct CM2, for sure, though I know we'll see Carol in other Marvel crossovers before then.

I'm surprised at it's relative obscurity. It certainly has all the ingredients of a good noir. The taciturn loner antihero, double and triple crosses, a femme fatale and a Maguffin that sets the whole thing in motion.

Maybe it was the movie's choice of settings that put people off. A small village in New Mexico as opposed to crowded big city streets. Either way I highly recommend it.

Clean (2004)