Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Triangle (2009, Christopher Smith)

Wow, this was excellent. First of all, the plot is incredibly well done, so cleverly constructed and yet pretty easy to follow - it just made sense to me (btw, the use of masks instantly reminded me of Timecrimes). Secondly, the underlying metaphorical subtext (Sisyphean punishment) is perfectly placed and realized within the context of the story. Thirdly, it just works - simple as that.
Was it perfect? Not at all. But it's definitely one of the better time loop movies I've seen (thanks @Wooley for the recommendation).

Mank (2020)


I was curious after watching Mank as to why this is the lowest rated of the presumed BP noms. Turns out people wanted a documentary and not a memory. 30's Hollywood was filled with colorful characters and a system of making films that was incredibly complicated. Mank attempts to explain and deliver a fictional story of the creation of Citizen Kane.


Fincher never condescends to his audience the points will often be missed on first viewing I recommend two of them. It's an important film and a distinctive one moments in the film are genuinely powerful as Fincher has a habit of hitting you with a stunning or provocative image while telling a rambling story.


I loved every minute of it..but it's not for everyone.

Nomadland (2020)


This is going to be the Oscar winner for BP and I can understand why. Nomadland feels important it's beautifully shot and Frances McDormand gives an egoless performance. Pity about Frances not getting a third Oscar here...she goes from crapping in a bucket to giving full frontal nudity at 60+. In some ways you could even consider this a great American western the story of people who go off into the desert to live and die because they can't afford to live in civilized America.


I don't think this is a film for everyone, we don't really ever feel the stakes of the story. The high's and low's didn't really hit for me which can be considered a good thing. Watching all of these Oscar films the melodrama is exhaustible, yet now that the film has ended and I've taken a few days to digest what I saw I liked it but I didn't love it. Often times during the film I felt like I was watching tourism former big actors pretending next to real stunt nomad's. It was frustrating because much like Judas and the Black Messiah a couple tweaks and this could have been a classic.

Another Round (2020)


What does it take to get through the days. Another Round is the story of a history teacher in the middle of his crisis with his collection of buddies. All four of his friends decide that the best way to live their lives at this point is to maintain a buzz throughout the day. Another Round is a masterpiece a film worth talking about as the characters don't judge the choices but rather focuses on the spectrum of drinking to live. It's a remarkable film and Mads Mikkelsen proves that the man can lead and carry any story.


Unfortunately a film this daring and politically incorrect won't get a BP nomination but it will likely win best foreign film, I believe this will be better than the Best Picture.

Minari (2020)


Ah the American Dream, an Korean family moves from Korea to California to settle in Arkansas and raise a family and a farm in the 80's. Lee Isaac Chung decided to make what I assume is a semi-autobiographical film about his childhood and you can tell that this is a film of authenticity. The family goes through trials and tribulations and while the stakes are high they are never treated with a sense of melodrama. The goal of the story is to keep the farm working and the family together.


Each one of the leads gets a nice little story arc and it should be said that the interplay between the grandmother and grandson who are both dealing with something shared is really powerful. Yeri Han has sort of been pushed out of the Oscar race as the wife in the story which is a shame because for me she gave the best performance, it wasn't showy but it was strong.


My only criticism is that you feel the budget, a lot of corners were cut to make the film feel like the 80's but also not really be of the 80's. Certain ideas aren't really explored and you never get the scope and beauty of the fam because you can afterall see the cut corners. But it's still a powerful and quality film.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)


Netflix always has a way of giving you something you didn't know you missed but now that you get it you have to love it. This is an ensemble courtroom period piece that is breezy, fun, humorous and also tragic. The film never really hits the big high art points, it's the quiet smaller moments that leave you reflective of the story. This is palatable revolution and while I won't say it's the best picture it is one of the more enjoyable ones.


The movie does have flaws...Eddie Redmayne has an Oscar and the man gives off one of the worst American accents I've seen in a while. It's only exasperated by the fine work from Cohen and Rylance. While the anchor of the film is weak (and JGL really should have been given more) Sorkin's brilliance is how he manages to give a massive field of actors a big moment...and many deliver.

Pieces of a Woman (2020)


Pieces of a Woman is that strange film that peaks in the first act and then spends the rest of the film dealing with the consequences. A number of critics and viewers are going to hate the structure of the film but for me I loved it. See this is a horror film that covers the time after the horror. A couple have a tragedy and now they have to live with the consequences and the results are brutally human and realistic. Times during this film you will feel genuinely sick to your stomach at the emotional wreckage these characters put themselves and their loved ones through.


Pretty good chance this is going to be a snub but it might not be and it's worth your time.

Time (2020)


The presumptive best documentary winner is Time which takes the remarkable position of not showing us an innocent person who is in jail but a guilty one. The focus of the film is on the prison industrial complex but also the failings of our family and economic structure as we see a mother of six raise her children while trying to get her husband released from prison.


A film like this lives and dies based on the subject and Fox Rich is truly the Tiger Queen america needs. Often times you sit back and wonder what her role in the crime really was where she was able to get out in 3 years while her husband was given 60. Also it's important to note...60 years. It's crazy to watch this film and then American Animals see inequity in our criminal justice system.



While the film isn't earth shattering it is compelling and worth a watch.

Sound of Metal (2020)


Every year a film comes along that everyone loves and I just can't stand it. For me this Sound of Metal the story of a Punk drummer who loses his hearing...moves into a community and decides to make the next steps of his life. I hated this film, a number of people are going to love it but here is a piece of art that ignores it's dramatic points to pander to political ideology.


I don't want to get into spoilers and Riz Ahmed is very good in this but if the central drama of the story is his loss of hearing well we don't get any suspense...it just happens. I felt ripped off because to me watching the fear and confusion gives us the viewer a sense of pathos for the lead and that's just taken away from us. Then you ask yourself is this a love story...Olivia Cooke is great in this...until she leaves the film for 80% of the runtime.


The great technical work and phenomenal performance from Riz left me leaving the film feeling like I watched a great vanity project and an empty film.

I have no idea what you mean by this.

The central drama/character arc is how a person deals with a life-altering event, and specifically one that directly damages your sense of identity (in his case, being a musician). It isn't supposed to be a question of if he will lose his hearing. The question is how he will handle it.

Never heard of it before but I now view it as a must see.

Yeah, I loved that film. It's a must-see for all horror fans. So glad I went into it blind.

Well, I agree and I think that's why the unintentional anti-hero bit kinda comes in.
I watched The Passion Of Joan Of Arc the other night and it really caused me such incredible outrage (and a number of other better emotions) and the beginning of BS obviously comes from that place.

I'm glad you liked it.

I don't see that as being the moral of the film at all.

In fact, I don't think that the film has a moral, aside from maybe the idea that somethings are out of our control and finding a way to deal with that is more productive than fighting to regain a "normal" that is unattainable.

We see in the film several times that his loss of hearing is a disability, especially in the scene where he is listening to the song on the piano.

I'm also not seeing the connection between treatment and drug addiction.

The film does explore that people who have a disability can have radically different approaches to the way they handle that disability. We see one community in which the belief is that it is better to embrace being deaf and let that be seen more as a culture than an impairment. But there are also people who use treatment/technology to try to keep as much normalcy as they can. The problem with treatment isn't that it's "wrong"---it's that you can't expect treatment for a serious issue to magically make everything the way it was before.

There is a lot more nuance to ableism than just "being disabled isn't real!".

EDIT: Specific to the deaf community, you might check out the documentary Sound and Fury from 2000.

Everybody Rides the Carousel, 1976

This is a full-length, educational film about the eight stages of life as defined by Erik Erikson. Different animated sequences, often centered on the same characters, illustrate the psychological factors of the different stages of life.

This film uses a mix of real audio (especially in the sequences involving younger children) and acted out sequences. The most famous voice here is Meryl Streep in one of the later sequences. The writing/acting is incredibly naturalistic, and many of the conversations range from the small to the large, such as a conversation between a couple trying to decide whether or not to have a second child, or two parents agonizing over letting their teenage daughter move out of state.

I liked many of the animated flourishes used to illustrate what is happening in the characters' minds--the impulses or insecurities that plague them, but also the joys and pleasures they get out of different experiences.

While I appreciated that there is some diversity to the characters displayed, you can feel the age of the film quite a bit. The characters on-screen are almost all white. Everyone is straight. Everyone is middle class or slightly above. It might be a decent representation of the "average American" of the time, but it also feels a bit narrow in the scope of who is included.

An interesting look at an aspect of psychological history.

I showed my sister and brother-in-law THE BLUES BROTHERS for their first time seeing it. It was my first time in 4K.

It’s odd how seeing something you’re intimately familiar with through a new format and with people wholly unfamiliar with it can dramatically transform the experience. I’d become numb to the eccentricities, quirks and indulgence of the film but man, it is one eccentric, quirky and indulgent film, in all the best ways.

I always considered it among the most technically well crafted comedies but seeing it in UHD really hammered home what a great craftsman Landis could be when he wasn’t heinously destroying lives.

I’ve previously said that Blues Brothers is like Ackroyd and Landis decided to make the most movie a movie could be. I stand by it. It’s got better musical numbers than most musicals, better car chases than most action films, is funnier than most comedies and even includes perfectly executed prison drama and horror movie mini-sequences within it all.

It also has that prescience of a couple white guys, deferential to black art, trying to save the underprivileged by having to fight against the police, neo-Nazis and rednecks. Timeless Americana.

It was already a favorite. But it cemented itself in my top 5 favorite comedies (if I even actually have such a thing).

Viy, 1967

A young seminary student named Khoma (Leonid Kuravlyov) has a strange encounter with a witch--an old woman who enchants him and drags him across the countryside before he is able to get the upper hand. But when he beats her, she transforms into a young woman. Khoma is soon told that a dying woman has requested that he pray for her soul. The dying woman--the daughter of a wealthy man--turns out to be the witch, and Khoma is in for some rough nights as he alone stays in the chapel with her (supposedly dead) body.

This is one of those horror titles that is infamous for its imagery, and I bet most horror fans know the image of the woman in the white dress with the floral headdress.

The film itself very much follows the pace and plot of a folk tale. There might not be a ton of character development, but at its core the film is following Khoma's trials over the three nights. The suspense derives from what each night will hold.

I felt that the imagery really lived up to the hype. The whole film is wonderfully colorful and kinetic. As each night goes by, the images/visuals become more complex. The final night in particular has some really excellent creature design.

I can see how someone might be a little underwhelmed by this one, especially if they were expecting more of a story and especially if they had different expectations for the visuals/effects, but I was pretty charmed by it. It is also only like 75 minutes long, so it doesn't overstay its welcome.

I really enjoyed Viy and I'm glad I finally checked it out.

I aim to watch this soon, since it’s available on shudder.