Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Wicked Woman (1953)

This is a trashy "B" noir that is absolutely delightful! It stars the lovely, rangy, statuesque bombshell, Beverly Michaels, along with Richard Egan in his first lead role, and featuring the inimitable Percy Helton, who usually plays a weasel, worm or weirdo. Egan's alcoholic wife is played by Evelyn Scott, who starred in all of the Peyton Place series iterations on TV.

The noir is unusual because Michael's floozy is both the protagonist AND the femme fatale. It's a The Postman Always Rings Twice type story, although no one's death is plotted, and it has a happy ending.

Directed by the veteran noir director Russel Rouse (D.O.A, The Well, Pillow Talk), it's an in-your-face, seamy, tawdry story that somehow turns out to be rather innocent. At 5'9" plus heels, platinum blonde Michaels sashays around as gracefully and as slowly as a giraffe, and one can't take your eyes off of her. In real life she later married Rouse, and retired after making only 6 major films to rear a family with him.

This is a great "B" noir, and remains as a chief example of the idiom.

Doc's rating: 7/10

Man with the Gun, 1955

This film is featured in a Criterion set of "Western Noir". Robert Mitchum plays Clint Tollinger, a man who works as a "town tamer"--someone who comes into towns and takes out any outlaws who have overstepped their bounds, unencumbered by the procedures of a traditional sheriff. It just so happens that Clint's estranged wife, Nelly, lives in the town, and as he plots against the local gang, he also tries to understand the rift between himself and Nelly, part of which centers on their absent daughter.

The film is a bit brief in the way that it addresses its themes, but it does raise some interesting questions about pacifism, violence, manliness, and forgiveness. We learn that Tollinger began his work because his own father, a pacifist, was murdered--but as Nelly points out, Tollinger has set himself on a path toward a violent death.

I wish that the film had gone deeper in its exploration of Tollinger's inner workings, and specifically how it affects his work.

The absolute best sequence in the whole film comes when Tollinger has an explosive, emotional fight with Nelly. Leaving her home, he makes his way to a local bar whose owner is in cahoots with the outlaw. The man, who has never been much of a threat, refuses to rise to Tollinger's desire for a confrontation. But Tollinger is relentless--shooting bottles behind him, trashing the building, and finally throwing a knife at him until the man gives in an attempts to retaliate--giving Tollinger the excuse he needs for deadly violence.

The outlaw is, of course, the main bad guy. But interestingly he gets almost zero screen time. The film is more interested in how Tollinger deals with the people who are sort of connected to the outlaw; the people who slightly resent Tollinger's presence; and those who might get caught in the crossfire. They are the ones who reveal important aspects of Tollinger's character and struggle.

My main complaint about the film is that it resolves absurdly quickly, and sort of hand-waves away the issues in the film. With no exaggeration, everything is concluded in about a minute and a half. I didn't mind that there wasn't a dynamite shootout--it's not that kind of western. But everything felt a little too neat. I wish that the film had embraced the dark complexity of its middle third and really taken those themes to the end.

Mitchum brings his usual thoughtful danger vibe. Jan Sterling really holds her own as Nelly. Tollinger is the protagonist and the film is almost unwaveringly on his side, but Sterling's performance really helps you understand the frustration and anxiety of being the spouse of someone who leaves for extended periods of time to do potentially deadly work. Barbara Lawrence deserves a mention for her comic portrayal of the classic "dumb blonde" character--she adds enough sparkle to the character's borderline sociopathic bimbo that I ended up really enjoying the character.

It doesn't entirely live up to the dark, introspective western that it could have been, but it's still a solid effort and well worth checking out.

The Willoughbys, 2020

After a few heavy-hitting films, I was in the mood for something light. This was maybe . . . too light.

The film is an adaptation of a Lois Lowry novel (something I discovered at the closing credits). Being familiar with some of Lowry's work--though not this particular novel--I feel like something went askew in the process of adaptation.

Two absolutely horrible sociopaths have four children and treat them with utter disdain and neglect. The eldest son, Tim, is obsessed with the family's legacy of greatness and exploration, but his parents shut him (and his siblings) down at every turn. They are neglected and starved, and eventually they decide to get rid of their parents and live as orphans.

It's actually hard to sum up the plot because it is so scattershot. There's a (real) orphan baby that they find on the doorstep. There's a gregarious man who runs a huge candy factory. There's a lovable nanny who swoops in to take care of the children and fight to earn Tim's trust. There's an orphan-stealing, evil service/corporation. There's a talking cat narrating the whole thing.

While I did appreciate some of the visuals and some of the snappy dialogue and clever references, the film is very dark and almost too adult at times. It takes things like sexual references or breaking the fourth wall (stuff "for the adults" in a kids' movie) and amps them up too much. The movie feels like it's desperately catering to "hip parents" instead of creating an engaging and funny movie for kids. The resulting film is neither subversive enough to aim at adults, nor good enough to aim at kids.

The voice performances are very strong (though the narrating cat's time could have--and should have!--been cut in half), with Maya Rudolph as the nanny being a particular stand-out. The performances of the parents are good, but the content itself is kind of disturbing. For example, the decision to have the mom sound turned on (or explicitly show the father being turned on) when they punish or abuse the kids was just gross.

The animation is pretty good, but it's in service of a story that's a scattered mess. I liked it well enough as a palette cleanser, but several times found myself asking "What were they thinking?!".

Can’t see the image, is it just me?

I seriously doubt the image would be a picture of just you. It might be though, I guess, as I can't see it either

That's weird. It showed up in the preview and I can see it in the post. I'll swap it out for something else. (Though, honestly, the film's not really worth that much fuss.)

Well, sorry. Now I feel bad

Read the first cpl of sentences of your review and thought ..... that sounds like something I ought to watch. Read the next one and thought ..... actually that sounds like something I did watch as part of my prep for the recent Westerns countdown.

Penny only finally dropped when I looked it up on IMDb, I did indeed watch it but recorded it under its alternative title The Trouble Shooter - pretty much agree with what you wrote, an enjoyable enough watch overall that got a from me.

Oh to be young again with a decent memory, I only watched it in February

Let's Make Love (1960)

I'm not sure why it didn't show up for you. Maybe a regional thing? Who knows. Hopefully it's visible now. It only took 10 seconds to swap out the image, but it's the last 10 seconds of mine that I'm giving to The Willoughbys!

I have once or twice gotten a good chunk into a film before realizing I've watched it before. And sometimes I look back at the list of movies I watched during the year so far and I have no clue what a third of them are until I look up a summary.

The Fugitive Kind (1960)

Damsel, 2018

What a mixed bag.

A wealthy young man named Samuel arrives in a strange town, guitar slung over his back and miniature pony in tow. He hires a drunken preacher to accompany him, and together they set off to help Samuel find his fiance, Penelope. Only once they've gone a long way does Samuel reveal that Penelope has actually been abducted and this is a rescue mission. When the pair arrives to rescue Penelope, things turn out to be more complicated than might be expected.

I read a review of this film that was absolutely scathing, and it said that the acting was flat and boring. I couldn't disagree more. The first half of the film belongs to Robert Pattinson as Samuel. Pattinson kind of reminds me of Nicholas Cage, in that what he does doesn't always work, but it's always interesting to see how he interprets his characters. Pattinson does a good job with his character's physicality, adding depth to a slightly-underwritten role (more about that later). The second half of the film is absolutely dominated by Mia Wasikowska as the pursued Penelope. I absolutely love her as an actress, and she is heads and shoulders over everyone else in the film.

The cinematography is also a strong point, and the style of the film is almost a character in and of itself. The film also manages some good visual gags, and the image of Butterscotch, the miniature horse, against a classic Western background never gets old.

The problem in the film is its overall vibe and the style of the writing. This is one of those "self-aware" Westerns. The language gestures in the direction of Deadwood-like crude Victorian speech, but rarely finds a natural-feeling rhythm. The film is already quite quirky in terms of its visual style and acting, and the writing pushes it in a direction that's sort of disengaging. The characters read as rather flat--despite the oomph and effort by the actors--because everything feels so staged and self-aware that no one feels actually real.

And there lies the real problem with the film. The old saying goes "show, don't tell," but this movie is coy on both fronts. Many things happen and many conversations are held, but very few of them actually deepen our understanding of the characters or illuminate their relationships and emotions. Wasikowska does more with her pained looks and frowns than any single line of dialogue. I talk a lot about stakes in a film--I have to care about someone or something. And in this film I reacted to several major character deaths or misfortunes with detachment.

I would say that this one is worth watching for the performances alone (especially Wasikowska), but go in with tempered expectations. If watching Robert Pattinson brush the hair of a miniature horse is your thing, this one is highly recommended.

Honestly, the only reason that this gets a 3.5 and not a 3 is that (MILD, NON-SUPER PLOT RELATED SPOILERS)

Watched The World's End. It had few funny moments, but overall it was disappointing for me. And I am a huge fan of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.


It kinda felt that they didn't really worked on the story. Felt like a poor mashup of the two early movies (robot/alien for zombies) and the suspicious activity in town.

I had this on my list because it was number 1 on SilentVamp's 50's ballot. Two very wealthy college student pals also happen to be murderous sociopaths. The police are finally on to them and it's up to their famous defense attorney (Orson Welles) to keep them from getting the death penalty. Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman were terrific as the two menaces and I enjoyed the movie more when they were the focal point. Welles shows up 2/3s through and he's great, but he completely takes the movie over. It then becomes more about how righteous the death penalty is, which is something I've never been able to make up my mind about. I'm more interested in the thought that's brought up as to if their should be any compassion for bad people based on what happened to them to make them that way. It seems that it's based upon a real life case and it made for a very good film. There's a perfect copy on YouTube.

Athlete A (2020)


Credit to @Takoma11 for introducing me to this documentary's existence, and it is certainly a worthwhile one. Even if you followed the story of Larry Nassar's conviction pretty closely as it broke years ago, there is a lot here that is unsettling. It's troubling to think of how much corruption there might actually be in this entire world revolving around this type of misconduct.

I am also a little surprised MSU doesn't seem to have carried a burden from this as heavily as PSU has carried theirs due to Sandusky though. Recommended watch, and now it's time for me to watch something a little bit lighter (especially after listening to the most recent podcast episode by Sam Harris which touches on this same child abuse subject).

I totally agree with you. I have a friend who likes it the best out of the three, for the way that it captures a protagonist who desperately wants to go back to younger days. But I felt like the script never totally clicked with me. I love Wright and I love the cast of the film, but overall it was a slight miss for me.

My favorite is far and away is Hot Fuzz.

Have you seen Rope? It's Hitchcock's take on the Leopold and Loeb case. It's more interested in the young men and their point of view about "superior" people having the right to kill those who are "lesser". It's very "stage play" feelings, and takes place all in one location. Jimmy Stewart plays their professor who begins to suspect they've committed a murder.

My impression (though I admittedly don't know a ton about the case outside of this doc) is that there was less "covering up" that happened at MSU--that most of the failure to report happened through USAG. At PSU, you had the intern reporting to the head coach. They knew about allegations and continued to let Sandusky host kids AT HIS HOME. With Nassar, his abuse all happened during "official business" and his work was to actually be in contact with these girls. Sandusky's reasons for being around little boys ("mentoring") was more sketchy and not part of his official job description. I think that it's also partly due to how horrible USAG handled the whole thing. They were explicitly covering things up, moving abusive coaches around, dragging their feet on investigating.

I seen that a few years ago, I remember liking it and now that you mention it I remember Vamp really liking it. I seem to recall that it's based on the same real life murder case that Hitch's Rope was based on. So with those two movies you get two different views of the same story. (Unless I'm wrong about the Rope tie in)

I liked Rope the first time I saw it but not so much the last time.

I'm not the biggest fan of Rope either, but it's watchable for me. I believe I originally watched Compulsion thanks to Vamp recommending it to me.