Rate The Last Movie You Saw

What We Do In the Shadows (Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, 2014)

After seeing the trailer for this, I had my reservations but I really like Jojo Rabbit and since this made the Comedy Countdown I thought I'd give it a shot. I think the concept is good - and certainly mockumentaries can work very well for me - but it relied a little too heavily on silliness and there just wasn't enough substance here for my tastes. I did chuckle a few times, but I mostly felt detached from the whole thing and were it any longer than its 86 minute runtime I don't know that I would've finished it.

Not a bad movie and amusing enough for one watch, but not something I'm likely to revisit and I definitely won't be voting for it in the 2010s countdown.

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The Talented Mr. Ripley - (1999)

I've seen The Talented Mr. Ripley before, but this is the first time I've really watched it, if you get my meaning. It makes a lot of difference, and it was a tense and enjoyable experience. I've never seen any of the other Patricia Highsmith adaptations, but that's going to change. Luckily, the fact that I'd seen most of it didn't mean I knew where it was heading or what was going to happen, and that was a great benefit, because the twists and turns in this story are crucial to what makes it so compelling. I miss Philip Seymour Hoffman. I'm enjoying Jude Law performances more and more at the moment. Every actor happened to be really in the moment for this film - and no matter what horrible thing Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) does, we're kind of sympathetic with him. To hell with the rich elite!

8/10


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Adoration (Adore) - 2013

Oh dear. This Australian tale can fairly easily be described as two middle-aged ladies, best friends since their school days, both having sons that are in their early 20s and best friends, and when one son is seduced by his friend's mother, the other one decides (out of revenge, or something) to seduce the other. It feels particularly icky, especially when both ladies, after initially admitting to the wrongness of the situation, decide to just go with it. Wrong or right, the film explores the issue in an uncomfortable way, and I can't say that I ever fully got on board with it. Melodramatic, and not really thoughtful enough for me.

4/10

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The good news is: there's another really good adaptation of this same story! Purple Noon!

If you've never read any of Highsmith's books, I would recommend them. She's an iffy person in terms of some of her views, but her novels are pretty aces.

The list of good or even great Highsmith adaptations that I'd recommend is pretty impressive:
Strangers on a Train
Purple Noon
The American Friend
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Ripley's Game
Carol

I've read Ripley Under Ground, but have yet to see the film version.

I found the premise of this film so icky that I never really wanted to check it out. The tepid responses from people who have seen it have only reinforced that choice.

The only one of those I've seen is Carol, but that's a film I rate very highly and sought out on DVD. I'll definitely check out the other ones.

Strangers on a Train is one of my favorite Hitchcock films.

I watched The American Friend semi-recently, and it's a really interesting take on the Ripley character and the overall story. It's also got style to spare.

Carol is a slight aberration in the list because, despite having some light thriller elements, it's mostly a drama. All of the other films are much more crime-thriller.

Ugh.
Looks like Amazon Prime has done a significant overhaul of their format.
I just went through my queue and I would say more than 50% of the films were either Free With Ads (which I will not do), required a second add-on subscription in addition to Prime, or were no longer available, period. Literally 50%, maybe more. If I had included all the films that had been converted to rental instead of Free With Prime, I would say 70-80% of my queue is effected.
While this isn't a huge deal, because I have numerous other streaming services, there were a TON of films that I haven't seen available anywhere else that I was looking forward to watching.
Bummer.

Nice, the story has a few twists that make it stand out and the action scenes are brutal and gruesome.

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There has been an awekening.... have you felt it?

Re: Tim's Vermeer.

Factors heavily in an essay I wrote a few years back, which you may find interesting:

Boyhood, Bears, and Roger Bannister

I vaguely remember watching this & found it fascinating. IIRC, weren’t there several instances where there were lots of tedious repetitions? Wish I remembered this better.

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

Weird indie movie I almost bailed out of, but slogged through to the end.



Excellent movie. Really enjoyed it & highly recommend it.

Once Tim decides that he needs to replicate any detail that he can see through the camera obscura, he ends up doing a lot of tedious detail work.

There are a handful of films that are invaluable documents in regards to the discussion about what art is and what it does. What the purpose of creation is. What is 'good' and what is 'bad' and if that distinction even matters. And Tim's Vermeer is definitely one of them.



The rest?



The Mystery of Picasso
F Is For Fake
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Crumb


These are not films that necessarily deify the process of making art, and are deeply critical about how art is perceived by the masses and critics. But they all seem to offer different ideas into what art offers us beyond the simple 'I like this' or 'I don't like this', which is the polarity which drives most of these conversations right into the dirt.

He had a lot of patience.

I might even add to that My Kid Could Paint That, where the value of the art is almost entirely hinged on who created it.

I really love Purple Noon, seconding that recommendation.

I haven't seen that one, but if I can glean what its about from the title, this would definitely be the sort of thing that needs more thoughtful talk. A dis like this (repeated by so many people) is considered such a slam dunk of criticism against modern art, and yet, is both frequently wrong and misses the point.


First of all, maybe your kid could technically paint some of these things. But the point is in the choice to paint in such a way. A huge amount of weight has to be given to the choice to lose traditional technique.



Second of all, they actually probably can't paint most of these things, because there is is usually a subtle mastery of line and composition in these kinds of paintings that kids absolutely do not have a handle on at that age.


And thirdly, and most importantly, why is your kid being able to paint it make this a bad thing? I've always been struck by a thought uttered by Donald Sutherland's character in Six Degrees of Separation, how many children can almost exclusively paint masterpieces. And then something gets lost as soon as they start trying to live up to specific expectations. There is a freedom in the art of children that is almost unreplicatable. A purity many great artists spend their entire careers trying to get back to. A kid being able to paint these things is actually a part of the point.







And, yes, the modern art world has absolutely corrupted the notion of the name being more important than the actual art. No art form has been so corrupted by the influx of money than painting. It's like boxing (the sweet science), in that who can ever possibly trust the results of it anymore. It's a fix. It's value deserves to be questioned.

I found the same thing recently. I signed up to Prime because it looked like it had a lot of films, but once I was actually signed up, it became apparent that most of those films were on a different subscription service that you also had to pay for - and not even the same one, at least 3 different extra subscriptions.

I do watch the free with ads for TV shows because it's actually fewer ads than some free channels.

Well, in the film it's about whether or not certain paintings were actually done by a child, or whether it was a hoax by her parents.

Why I find it interesting is that it's a case where the story around the art becomes part of the appeal of the art. It's why, in part, I think that Manos: Hands of Fate is so high profile. Not because it's actually the worst movie or whatever, but because of the story around it and how it intersects with what is on screen.

In Tim's Vermeer, an implicit question (or maybe not so implicit) is whether Vermeer's works lose "value" if it turns out he created them methodically with technology instead of just freehand.

And part of me can actually see why the answer might be "yes". Because for some viewers, the story around a work of art becomes part of the power of the art. And to change that story is to change the impact of the artwork, even if the literal piece itself is exactly the same.

Totally agree with everything you said except "Avoid at all costs"
On top of what you said I also despise super hero movies but I kind of enjoyed that one, only because I'm a big Stallone fan


So, I'd say if you are a Sly fan, this is watchable, otherwise I'm with you don't bother

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"Beliefs don't change facts. Facts, if you're rational, should change your beliefs" Ricky Gervais

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El Mariachi - (1992)

I had one of those funny moments when I started watching El Mariachi - I thought I'd seen all three films in the series (the next two are Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico) but I hadn't. I still hadn't seen the first one - and boy, it surprised me. First of all, it had only cost a 24-year-old Robert Rodriguez a little over $7,000 to make, so I found myself watching a microbudget film when I was expecting something a little more. Secondly, Antonio Banderas was nowhere to be seen. Desperado was packed with stars, like Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi and Quentin Tarantino - but obviously, in El Mariachi we get mostly amateur actors in all of the roles. Saying all of that, it was surprisingly good. It held up as an entertaining film, and never dipped into the territory most microbudget films end up in - instead, Rodriguez let his love for cinematic craft lift this into action territory much the same way Sam Raimi lifted The Evil Dead into horror. It's fun, exciting and surprisingly well performed. Incredible for the budget. It serves now as an origin story for the El Mariachi character Antonio Banderas takes on in the next two films.

6/10


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Desperado - (1995)

I had seen Desperado before, and after being surprised by the low budget El Mariachi, I felt a little let down by this much larger budget follow-up. I can explain it like this - if El Mariachi is a nice, normal old photograph of a very pretty girl at home, then Desperado is the glossy, airbrushed print of a model who has had enhancements done on her. Stylized violence is the order of the day, and everything is posed to look "cool" - the best example of which is when Banderas and Salma Hayek stroll away from a huge explosion like fashion models on a catwalk. The first time I saw Desperado I really liked it, but after being charmed by the down-to-earth El Mariachi this came off as a little ugly and extravagant to me. I'm not sure where it stands now, so I'll just say that this has some great music in it, and perhaps is deserving of another viewing when I'm more in the mood for this kind of movie.

6/10


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Life is Beautiful - (1997)

Here is what I said in my Letterboxd review yesterday : "This is a difficult one. I really don't think Life is Beautiful qualifies as a "great" cinematic work of art, and I also don't find that Roberto Benigni has a really profound grasp of comedy. It's solid, and it's heart is most definitely in the right place - but to be so light-hearted around the subject of concentration camps also veers towards indecency a little. The consensus votes this as one of the best - but to me this is middling fare." I wrote it during one of those moments when I captured my feelings about it concisely. At times Benigni seems to me a desperate comedian who throws every idea he has at an audience with such vigor that his desperation is what elicits the laughter, instead of the cleverness of the joke. I love his pure passion, and passion for filmmaking, but I think the sad reflection of a father saving his son from the Holocaust is what won Life is Beautiful so many plaudits, and that the movie itself is good to average, but not great.

6/10


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Quartet - (2012)

Strange that Dustin Hoffman could go so long being an actor and then be inspired to make a film at such a late age. Although I'm getting there, I think Quartet is more suited to people who can relate more to old age, and I found it extraordinarily dull. That said, I should mention that the performances in it are fantastic, especially from Tom Courtenay and Maggie Smith. It's very contemplative, and asks a question about whether you're still really you when you reach the latter stages of your life, and encourages people to still be themselves despite the large hurdles that come your way. I never found my way into this film, and since I couldn't connect I just found myself counting the minutes until it ended.

5/10