Rate The Last Movie You Saw

1. Vampires (1998/Netflix)



For the first movie in my annual October horror marathon, I decided to watch John Carpenter's Vampires. The generically-named film follows Jack Crow and his team of vampire hunters, who end up crossing paths with Valek, the first ever bloodsucker. Valek is searching for an unholy relic that will increase his power, but can Crow and company stop him before he attains it?

This had been on my watch list for years, so I decided to finally pull the trigger. I enjoyed it. It doesn't stack up to Carpenter's earlier work, but there's a lot to like about it. The fight scenes are enjoyably violent and bloody. James Woods isn't the prototypical action star, but he's fun to watch as Jack Crow. And I thought it was creative how the vampire hunters use a tow to drag the vampires into sunlight, which causes them to explode into flames.

Overall, Vampires isn't a revolutionary vampire movie, but it's worth a watch.

2. The Exorcist (1973/Theater/Rewatch)



I was terrified of The Exorcist as a kid, but have learned to really appreciate it as an adult. It manages to make each of its characters compelling and then weaves their stories together into a really satisfying conclusion. I saw it in a theater for the first time and the big screen audio really added another dimension to it, which made me give a lot more credit to the great sound design.

3. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972/Pluto TV)



This early Bob Clark film is about a theater troupe who visits a cemetery on a deserted island to hold a satanic ritual. When the group takes things too far and starts desecrating corpses, the dead rise to take revenge. The title really says it all.

Children… is a low-budget zombie picture that nevertheless shows off some of Bob Clark's directing skills. It takes over an hour for the obvious plot twist to occur, but once it happens, there are some effectively creepy moments. One of my favorite scenes is when they look out the window to see a zombie eating someone in a tree. The zombie costumes are a mixed bag as a whole, but a few of them look damn good (like the aforementioned tree one).

This is a slow movie with amateurish acting and the payoff for the villain is not all that satisfying, but there's a certain amount of charm in its execution.

4. The Boogens (1981/YouTube)



The Boogens is about young people in a mining town who encounter a slimy tentacle monster in their rental house. The monster is barely in it and the effects aren't very good, but the romance subplot manages to be kinda cute. As far as '80s creature features go, this isn't nearly as good as The Kindred, but much better than C.H.U.D.

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Madagascar - (2005)

Hard one to rate - I didn't really fall in love with any of the main four characters in Madagascar - a lion called Alex (Ben Stiller), a zebra called Marty (Chris Rock), a giraffe called Melman (David Schwimmer) and a hippo called Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith). I did, however, fall in love with all the cuter little creatures we meet in the second half of the film, and there's some decent comedy throughout. King Julien XIII, a ring-tailed lemur (voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen) lends the film some nicely timed insanity - his advisor Mort (Cedric the Entertainer) and especially the little mouse lemur (Andy Richter) also tip the cuteness scales in this movie's favour. I once knew someone who thought everyone's character-type could be loosely defined by one of the characters in this film - and I think I was judged to be the giraffe. Anyway, I couldn't dislike it if I tried - so overall the whole package has enough to merit a passing grade. A bunch of zoo animals who escape, are recaptured, and escape again to find themselves in their natural habitat - which for them is unfamiliar surroundings. I thought the writing was pretty strong - at least jokes-wise. Not in a knee-slappingly classic way - but good enough.

6/10


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Madagascar : Escape 2 Africa - (2008)

The second Madagascar film starts really strongly, with a fantastic sequence featuring an old plane which takes our characters on a perilous journey over the ocean - then, once we're done with that we run into a plot-heavy remainder of the film. The great moments seem more diluted, and there's not nearly enough time spent with cute little characters. Alex finds his parents, Marty loses his identity when he finds many zebras just like him, Gloria finds superficial love and Melman becomes a witch doctor. Props to the creators for putting story first and acknowledging that's important - but I just needed a little more random anarchy in an animated film like this. It is pretty crazy, but the laugh-a-second, breakneck speed opening wasn't maintained, and as such this wasn't quite as good as the original.

5/10


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Cruel Intentions 2 - (2000)

Originally meant to be a television series, this prequel to Cruel Intentions is horrible in every way imaginable. Not only that, but nothing that happens in it makes much sense in connection with the first film. Sebastian (now played by Robin Dunne), who fell in love for the first time in the first film, falls in love in this one - which kind of means Sebastian didn't fall in love for the first time - he's constantly falling in love. An avid photographer in the first film, he picks up a camera in the final scene of this, for no reason - lazy writing. It has a George Lucas Star Wars prequel feel of awkwardly guiding each character to the point they were in at the start of the original. The tone is much, much more comedic and light. All of the characters are horrible, and there are no redemptions. The end is bafflingly abrupt, and twists the film in an unnatural way - you can tell it was filmed after the series was shot down. Overall this was a train-wreck I couldn't look away from for a second - one car crash of a movie about kids who are either abominable or ditzy and stupid. I've rarely seen a sequel this seemingly distanced from an original - but then came Cruel Intentions 3.

3/10


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Cruel Intentions 3 - (2004)

The Cruel Intentions movies already had an uncomfortable combination of sex and malevolence throughout - but hey, why not add rape? That's the mistake Cruel Intentions 3 makes, which pretty much takes everything from discomfort to outright pain. The silliest aspect is the way it's tenuously linked to the first two films - two characters drop a comment that one of them is distantly related (a second cousin or something) to a character in the first two films. That's the last of any linkage there will be - it's obviously a teen film that was probably original at first, and at the last minute made part of the Cruel Intentions "franchise". It's no longer about ruining people's reputation - now we've moved up to destroying lives, forcing sex on girls through blackmail or straight up raping them. I've tried - and I can't comprehend what sort of person might like watching this. A monster perhaps? A masochist? A misogynistic, drunk college guy? Well, I can say one thing - the sequels to Cruel Intentions end up making the first film look like a masterpiece!

2/10

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Yeah, but that (The Dig) was right for my mood yesterday. It's definitely rather procedural, but considering the way so many movies are, quiet and methodical seemed OK for the moment. I was in the mood for tweed. About 5 different British accents among the cast helped even more.

The Phantom Menace (1999)

Too much talking, not enough action, awesome CGI, impressive indoor visuals, not enough space scenes, altogether sort of boring. The movie opens with a silver droid that looks like the gold C3P0 and this film is much the same, the silver to the gold of the original trilogy. The special effects and big screen graphics are top notch but the boring story and lack of action bring my rating down. And that comedy relief character isn't funny and actually quite annoying. You might want to watch this on mute and have your skip forward button ready.

6/10

Ten Little Indians - I've watched the 1965 version and the 1945 version titled And Then There Were None so when I ran across this one from 1989 I figured what the hell. The hell turned out to be a lower budget with lower tier actors for the most part. More of a made for television movie which it probably was. There were bright spots in the casting like Donald Pleasance, Herbert Lom and maybe Brenda Vaccaro but then you have Frank Stallone, 70's TV staple Warren Berlinger and the guy who played Bluto in that Popeye movie with Robin Williams.

The setting is an African safari this time with the main reason apparently being budget constraints. The direction is leaden and the acting wildly uneven depending on who is doing the emoting. I'm still not sure why they chose the African locations since, outside of the opening few minutes, they could have filmed the rest of the movie just about anywhere. Skip this and try the '65 or '45 versions. Maybe even something like Evil Under the Sun which to me has more of a Ten Little Indians vibe than this could ever muster.

40/100

Happy Together (1997)

Looking for Mr Goodbar (1977)

Rather self obsessed film about an annoying self-obsessed person who equates having sex as personal freedom (maybe so but she doesn't have to be so irking) . It was the 70s I guess. We get a run through her partners from 1 nighters to the gigalo (also an annoying Richard Gere) to obsessed "lover".

The final scene is great and powerfulbut this doesn't make up for a rather drab navel-gazing film.

Blue Beetle (2023)

I had 0 expectations and still got disappointed. Almost bailed out midway through

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Princess Mononoke - (1997)

Still relevant today, or perhaps even more so, Princess Mononoke contemplates the spiritual side of the trade-off we make when we destroy entire habitats for industry. It does so with one of the most delightful and fast-paced animated stories you could ever hope to watch - there's very little down time, despite the fact that this is a pretty long Studio Ghibli film at 133-minutes in length. Prince Ashitaka (voiced in the dubbed version by Billy Crudup) finds himself on a journey when a massive demon pig attacks his village and he's cursed by it's touch. What he finds is a distant war, where Lady Eboshi (Minnie Driver), ruler of Irontown, is fighting San (Claire Danes), who is struggling on behalf of the spirits of the forest. It's human vs spirit in a complex tale which involves different clans, conspiracies and characters both spirit-wise and human. The animation is quite haunting and imaginative, and the music plays into that theme of the spiritual and ghostly. The action and narrative keeps moving forward at a very brisk pace, and it's the kind of film that will really reward multiple viewings. Next time, I'll probably try it with the original Japanese voice talent on - hearing the likes of Billy Bob Thornton as a Japanese monk and mercenary, is really quite weird. My rating might go up in time, I was really quite impressed with Princess Mononoke.

8/10


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Whitney - (2018)

When you hear Whitney Houston's story directly from her family and friends, it's quite devastating. Cutting straight to the chase - her drug problem : it's hinted at late in the piece that members of Whitney's family were sexually abused by one amongst them (not shy, the film points the finger at Dee Dee Warwick.) As far as I'm concerned, I think her problem stemmed from a more straightforward cause. When you become the best in the world, and have money beyond your wildest imaginings along with happiness, an enjoyable relationship - everything, and then you add the intense high certain drugs can give you, I think you find yourself in a place that feels so elevated it becomes a climax you spend the rest of your life chasing. As her career stagnated, her relationship with husband Bobby Brown become abusive, and her happiness faded, that chase become a desperate daily battle just to not feel so miserable. The drink and drugs robbed her of her voice, and a person who seemed like one of the happiest in the world became a tragic figure. You learn the story from her family and friends, and it's a really heartbreaking (but familiar) tale of fame, fortune and the darkness those two particular items often bring with it. It's a good cautionary tale about drug abuse though.

7.5/10

LOVED this movie....I think Keaton should have won the Oscar for this instead of Annie Hall, which came out the same year.

Heimat: A Chronicle of Germany (1984) ‐

Edgar Reitz blends the scope of the political history his film spans and the sheer breadth of the characters who occupy it better than any film I've ever seen. Nothing I can think of ‐ not The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, not Little Big Man, not The Battle of Algiers, not The Travelling Players ‐ is able to match the history of a country (over 60 years worth, in this case) with an enormous, branching cast of characters quite as seamlessly as this one. As the initial family we're introduced to in the opening grows up, branches off into numerous directions, and starts their own families, the film's scope continues to increase in scale. This culminates in the final episode where we see the full outcome of how much the initial family tree in the first episode has branched out (sobering shots of gravestones and family albums in the last episode contain a strong level of emotional weight). Though billed as the main character and listed first in the credits of each episode (for the 7‐part release I watched, at least), Maria is clearly just as secondary as the next character and is often overshadowed by other characters in certain episodes. Making her a supporting character in her own film though is just a way to emphasize the film's scope by providing someone to remind you of the family's size whenever she reenters the film. Aside from the scope, the vivid personalities who occupy the film also remained fresh in my mind throughout the several days I spent with them. From the one‐eyed boy whose disability makes him a perfect sharpshooter, to the romanticized portrayal of the pedophilic relationship between Hermann and Klärchen which is born from centering that sub‐plot from both their perspectives, to the somewhat mysterious character of Paul who's unable to commit himself to Maria and spends most of his life away from her, to the elderly narrator who keeps us on top of the various stories and sub‐stories in the film, their colorful personalities contain such a wide variation of emotions which kept the film fresh, all in spite of the episodes topping 15 hours. Even the cinematography's shifts between black and white and color, though Reitz said this was done randomly to fit whichever palette would suit each scene/shot the best, add an extra layer of variation to the film (some shots also predate Sin City's visual style by several years). This isn't the easiest film to track down (it's virtually impossible to find online and some DVDs for it can be $50 or more), but if you're able to come across it, I would highly recommend giving it a go.

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IMDb
Letterboxd

Marketa Lazarová (1967)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

That’s why we have subtitles. Even I as a fellow Brit can’t understand dialect now.

It’s a classic of American cinema.



Strange movie, but I finished it. About halfway through I still hadn’t figured out how some of the characters relate to each other. Didn’t understand the final scene either.

Kidman looking tall, slender & lovely at age 27.

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

Attack of the Clones (2002)

This movie is the continuation of the same middling plodding storyline. Theres more new stuff and you get a feeling its much like watching Star Trek but with Star Wars characters and with far more advance special effects. The awesome visuals are worth the price tag alone and was meant to be seen on the big screen. The ending battles are a plus considering episode 1 didnt appear to reach that high.

7/10

I just couldn't connect with the main character at all and her incessant belittling of her "conquests".

Hellraiser (2022)

Bed and Board (1970)