Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Varsity Blues (1999)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Moon - (Duncan Jones, 2009)

Quite excellent, actually. I think Sam Rockwell should be talked about more, he is an amazing actor. 9/10

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

The Front Room definitely isn't for everyone - but if you're into outrageous dark humor, you might just find yourself really digging it.

This is the kind of movie that should probably come with a trigger warning. While most horror movies are happy to let the blood gush freely once the action begins, this one revels in, let's just say, other kinds of bodily excretions, and it really isn't a pretty sight (it's a horror movie, so it's supposed to have something horrible in it, right?)

If that doesn't faze you, then this movie might just be your cup of tea.

Excellent movie.

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

LOVED this movie and yes, Sam Rockwell is amazing.

2nd Rewatch...Peter Jackson is to be applauded for the attention to detail he put into this remake. He goes back to the 1933 original in setting up this story of a maniacal movie director named Carl Denham who gets a young actress named Ann Darrow to accompany him willingly, while he pretty much kidnaps a screenwriter named Jack Driscoll and an arrogant matinee idol named Bruce Baxter on a boat to Singapore to make a movie, but they actually end up on Skull Island, where the title character is encountered and falls in love with Miss Darrow. Yes, it's your typical ape loves girl love story, but the problem here is that Kong doesn't appear until halfway through the movie and that's a long wait when you're watching a three hour movie. The movie begins to pick up upon arrival at Skull Island with the encounters with restless natives and wild dinosaurs, but the movie doesn't really kick into gear until Denham, Kong, and his people return to New York. The love between Beauty and the Beast is lovely to watch, but it takes forever to get there. Jack Black turns in one of his best performances as Carl Denham and Naomi Watts is lovely as Ann, but this is a long journey for a story that everyone knows.

The Shooting (Monte Hellman / 1966)
Ride in the Whirlwind (Monte Hellman / 1966)

A pair of low-budget Westerns, made back-to-back in 1966, presented in a very nice single-disc Blu-ray package from the good folks at Criterion! Both of them were directed by Monte Hellman and financed and co-produced (uncredited) by Roger Corman. The first film, The Shooting, stars the late, great Warren Oates, while the second one, Ride in the Whirlwind, stars Cameron Mitchell. Jack Nicholson (pre-stardom) and Millie Perkins (post-Anne Frank) co-star in both of them, and Nicholson even wrote the screenplay for the second one. Both of them are gritty, minimalist chase films across unforgivingly desolate desert landscapes (shot in Kanab, Utah), and both have a bit of an existentialist streak. Categorically speaking, these two films often get fixed with the "psychedelic Western" or "acid Western" tag, but I don't think there's anything overtly trippy or weird or surreal about them. I would consider them more to be slightly more experimental, somewhat more "Europeanized" descendants of the '50s Westerns of, say, Anthony Mann or Budd Boetticher. (Hellman and Nicholson were both very much into the work of Michelangelo Antonioni at the time.) As Westerns, they definitely stand out from the more mainstream Hollywood Westerns of the '60s and from the post-Sergio Leone Italian "spaghetti Westerns" whose production was seriously ramping up at the same time. I suppose the presence of Warren Oates in the lead role of The Shooting makes them a bit more contemporaneous with (or a precursor of) the work of Sam Peckinpah. Definitely recommended for fans of the more "left-field" end of the Western spectrum.

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"Well, it's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid" - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)

"I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours" - Bob Dylan, Talkin' World War III Blues (1963)

Umpteenth Rewatch...This 1983 Best Picture nominee is still as fresh, funny, and heartbreaking as it was 40 years ago. A man named Alex Marshall commits suicide and seven of his friends from college are reunited for his funeral: Harold (Kevin Kline), the owner of a shoe company, Harold's wife, Sarah (Glenn Close), a doctor, Sam Weber (Tom Berenger) an actor with his own TV show, Meg (Mary Kay Place), a workaholic attorney who wants to have a baby, Michael (Jeff Goldblum), a writer for PEOPLE magazine, Karen (JoBeth Williams), a very unhappy housewife, and Nick (William Hurt), a drug dealer. Throw into the mix Chloe (Meg Tilly), Alex's girlfriend of four months, who found his body and you have the ingredients for one of the richest film experiences ever, where primary credit has to go to director and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. I love that he threw Chloe in there, to give us a glimpse of Alex's life at the end. Love that dinner table scene where Nick makes a joke about how Alex would reply to the subject and Chloe is the only one who laughs, one of my favorite moments in the film. But the real stroke of genius was that Kasdan originally cast Kevin Costner as Alex and included flashback scenes in the story, but at the last minute, decided to delete all the Alex scenes, giving the character an air of mystery that is so effective. Kasdan crafted one of cinema's most quotable screenplays ever, carefully guarded over by his direction. Close received the second of three consecutive Best Supporting Actress nominations for her performance, but the entire cast works at the same level. The film also sports one of the greatest song scores in cinema.

1st Rewatch...This often deeply moving family drama and 2020 Best Picture nominee probably didn't get the attention it deserved due to its release so closely following 2019 Best Picture winner Parasite. This is the story of a Korean American family, led by the passionate patriarch Jacob, who has moved his family from California to Arkansas after purchasing a small parcel of land upon which he plans to build his own farm. Instead of the fish out of water kind of story we expect with a Korean family starting a new life in Arkansas, we learn the family is already being pulled apart because it appears that Jacob's wife, Rachel, didn't want to make this move. We don't know if Jacob did this despite his wife's objections or her unhappiness developed after their arrival in Arkansas, but that question, among others, keeps this drama on boil, not to mention the concern focused on Rachel's often insensitive mother who moves in with them and their young son, David, who has a heart condition. Lee Isaac Chung received double Oscar nominations for his direction and screenplay, Steven Yeun was nominated for Best Actor for his extraordinary work as Jacob and Youn Yuh-jung won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her sassy Grandma. A moving family drama that rarely goes where we think it's going to go.

1st Rewatch...This raunchy and overlong comedy is definitely the kind of movie that Adam Sandler haters point to to document why they hate him. Sandler plays Donnie Berger who, when he was in the 8th grade, had an affair with a teacher and got her pregnant, sending her to jail for 30 years and making him a media sensation. Now as an adult, Donnie is broke and owes the IRS $43,000. and decides to seek out his now grown son, Todd (Andy Samberg) for help, right before Todd's wedding. Sandler and Samberg are both funny, but the laughs aren't as consistent as they should be and the movie feels like it's five hours long.

Stalker (1979, Tarkovsky) - A+

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I honestly didn't like that movie as much as I liked 1972's Solaris.

To be perfectly, brutally honest, I find Tarkovsky a bit of a chore to sit through. His sense of pacing makes people like Kubrick and Visconti seem like Michael Bay in comparison. No mean feat there...

Seen it many times. A classic of American cinema.

September 3, 2024

AFRAID (Chris Weitz / 2024)
BLINK TWICE (Zoë Kravitz / 2024)

Quite an interesting double-bill, this one!

First off, Afraid is the latest in a long line of thrillers about the dangers posed by computer technology, robots and/or artificial intelligence. This one is a weird mixture of the obvious and the subtle. First off, the dialogue is very on-the-nose and really overdoes the thematic signposting. But it's also got its share of subtle and intelligent pleasures. The idea of an AI entity as a kind of overprotective surrogate "helicopter" parent is certainly an amusing one, but one that turns deadly serious when the teenage daughter is slut-shamed online by her jerky ex-boyfriend. The slo-mo execution of the scene where the daughter has to face her peers at school after AIA (the entity's name) sets her record straight online is really quite deftly handled, the daughter slowly walking towards the other kids, worrying about their ambivalent and possibly judgmental faces, then being warmly and sympathetically embraced while the other kids are finding about the actions of the ex-boyfriend from AIA on their phones, including the ex who's got this expression on his face like "Oh my God, I am so f****ed!" (And if you're guessing that this guy will be made to check out of the story early by AIA, you're not wrong.) And I must say, the movie makes rather astute points about human behavior and how so much of what motivates our actions involves some form of blackmail or coercion, which creepy, meddlesome little AIA manages to tap into with frightening ease. Sooooooo... overall, I'd have to say it's not the greatest thriller about the dangers of AI, but certainly not the worst. (I have to say that it kind of reminds me of The Matrix Revolutions in that it ends not with the AI's destruction but in a kind of détente or rapprochement, since technological evolution and growth is inevitable and omnipresent anyway.)

Now, Blink Twice was a whole 'nother kettle of fish entirely. I really dug this one. The directorial debut of actress Zoë Kravitz (daughter of rock singer Lenny), this is one of those movies that actually really makes a person grateful for: A) not being rich, or B) not having any rich friends. A very potent mixture of social satire, comedy of manners, and out-and-out revenge horror thriller, I felt a great deal of pleasure in not having any idea what was coming next and getting a great deal of bloody satisfaction out of what did come. A total, full-on, brutally savage takedown of modern-day Cinderella romantic fantasies about being swept off one's feet by a handsome stranger and spirited off to some private getaway, Blink Twice actually has a great deal to say about gender relations, male entitlement, rape culture, forgiveness, forgetting, and the extent to which people are willing to both put themselves in dangerous situations and tolerate so many things which they may in theory find completely unacceptable. (It's rather fortuitous that I saw this in a theater on the same day as the admittedly lesser Afraid, since both films are very much concerned - albeit in different ways - with the more coercive factors which tend to govern human behavior.) Our story deals with a young working woman named Frida (Naomi Ackie), who along with her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) get invited to the private island of a handsome young billionaire tech mogul named Slater King (Channing Tatum), who's recently resigned from the position of company CEO under a cloud and after making a profuse public apology for unspecified offenses. Once they arrive at the island resort, they're met by King's friends (including a guy with a missing finger played by Christian Slater) and by several other female guests, among them King's assistant Stacy (Geena Davis) who confiscates everybody's phones and a reality TV star named Sarah (Adria Arjona). For several days, a great deal of carefree partying, swimming, gourmet eating, drinking, drugging and playfully inane conversation takes place. But not all is well. First of all, Frida is confronted by a mysterious maid (María Elena Olivares) who seems to know her. Secondly, during one night of partying, Jess is bitten by a snake. Its venom is non-lethal, but then Jess starts experiencing misgivings and fear about the whole experience and expresses a strong desire to go home. As events play out over the course of this island visit, the movie's editing gradually becomes more and more fragmented and seemingly random, suggestive of incomplete memory or possible blackout states. But Frida's memories become jarred and jostled after the maid gives her a drink which turns out to be...

To tell more would be unfair, and I think at this point an educated, intelligent person could probably give a reasonably good guess as to what's really going on and what the true purpose of the island is. We do live in the age of Jeffrey Epstein and of seemingly compulsorily bad behavior on the part of society's well-to-do. If I have one reservation about Blink Twice, it's regarding the movie's final scene, which sort of takes us out of the realm of the realistic thriller and into the realm of satirical sex-war parable. It feels perhaps unduly, inappropriately comedic after everything we've seen happen in the rest of the movie. This humorous ending - albeit blackly so - feels almost too lightweight for a movie concerned with such real-world stakes. But I must admit that this is my only reservation. I wouldn't even call it overly negative so much as reflecting a minor inconsistency in tone.

I remember waaaaaaayyy back in the early '90s, I once read a book about the band Nirvana and the alternative-rock scene, and its author made a rather bold claim. For her, the runaway success of Nirvana's Nevermind album was evidence that Republican candidate George Bush (Sr.) would not win the 1992 presidential election and would ultimately lose to Bill Clinton. (Supremely ironic given Clinton's own bad behavior and alleged improprieties.) OK, you might find a statement like that to be a spurious correlation at best. But I think there's a grain of truth to the idea that our tastes in music and movies, at any one given time, are sort of a barometer the helps assess where the public's attitudes and mindset are at. As the credits rolled on Blink Twice and the lights went up, I had this really strange - albeit pleasant - feeling in my gut, which told me that if Blink Twice proved to be a big enough hit at the box office, that would be proof that Donald Trump would ultimately lose the 2024 election and that Kamala Harris would win! Yeah, sure, call BS on that one if you wish - and I don't wish to outright offend anybody else whose politcal beliefs happen to differ from mine - and it's perfectly possible that I could be dead wrong. Like I said, it's just a weird feeling...

Fear of a Black Hat (1993) A comedy/musical mockumentary similar to A Mighty Wind or This is Spinal Tap, except focused on 90s hip hip. The film focuses on N.W.H. (N****z With Hats), a controversial hip hop group consisting of Ice Cold, Tone-Def & Tasty Taste . Songs include F**k the Security Guards, Booty Juice, and Come Pet The P.U.S.S.Y. This was hilarious. The performances are entertaining and the songs are actually good. Watched on Tubi.

I do agree his films tend to be too fast-paced.

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San Franciscan lesbian dwarves and their tomato orgies.

Chariots Of Fire (1981)



This being a sports period drama made in the early 1980s makes it look like a classic within a classic.
It's a situational story and rather restraint in the personal motives of the main characters.
Personally I think it managed to make the sport look wholesome and handsome, and I cheered for the strength of the runners regardless of whose victory it was going to be.
I like the famous Vangelis tune (like everybody else does) but I was afraid they would play it at every opportunity - thankfully that doesn't happen.
Somehow I thought there was going to be a scene with the men running on the beach in the nude but I guess that was another film about The Olympics.

8/10

The Holdovers 4 out of 5.

Gabi, Between Ages 8 and 13 (2021) Directed by Engeli Broberg, this interesting and beautiful documentary focuses on Gabi between the ages of 8-13. Gabi doesn't completely identify with traditional ideas of being a girl or a boy. The film explores questions of Gender from Gabi's perspective and avoids giving easy answers and never comes across as preachy or manipulative. Highly recommended for anyone interested in gender and identity. Watched on Tubi.

Had a few sharp moments and it's nice to see Leslie Nielsen as a Texas politician, but it'll disappoint if you were expecting Dr. Strangelove or Network.