Rate The Last Movie You Saw

My wife wanted to watch this and it sounded decent enough for me with what little I knew. First impression was that it seemed a little odd the way some of the filming was done, but that wasn't a big concern for me here. I liked the small cast. I was most skeptical about Julia Roberts, but she was solid playing a character that was often not very likable. I'm a sucker for disaster films and I also enjoy films about current topics/social commentary. I didn't think it went far enough in either regard, so while I completely enjoyed the movie, it left me feeling a bit unfulfilled.

1st Rewatch...Another explosive and gut wrenching performance by Olivia Colman anchors this somewhat effective blend of character study and romance. Colman plays Hillary, the spinsterish assistant manager of a movie theater in a British seaside community who thinks she may have found romance with a new black employee (Michael Ward) until it is revealed that Hillary is too broken to sustain an actual relationship. Oscar winner Sam Mendes (American Beauty) offers sensitive direction and the way he peals away the layers of Hillary is effective, but the rest of the story is kind of all over the place, especially a surprising racially-inspired act of violence in the final act that comes out of nowhere. Colman is luminous as always and works well with Ward, whose young Poitier vibe lights up the screen and mention should also be made of a lovely performance from Toby Jones as the projectionist. Cinematography and set direction are also first rate, but the story has a few too many holes in it for a truly compelling film experience.

Rumble Fish (1983)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Last Looks - (2021)

Inverstigation movie, with a sprinkle of humor here and there. 7/10

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

Half Nelson (2006)

Intriguing story of a history teacher (Ryan Gosling) who's addicted to snorting and free-basing coke. He has a singular method of teaching his mostly black pupils. A bit of a knock to him (his ex getting engaged to a fella she met in rehab) causes him to go into a bit of a tailspin. He's helped by Drey whos brother is inside for selling for the local kingpin (a menacing Anthony Mackie). It's one of his underlings that deals to the teacher so she is keen to continue their friendship whereas he's keen for her not to go down the route of her brother.
A simple tale but incredibly well acted.

#Blackmendream (2014) An experimental documentary focusing on black men's thoughts, fears, hopes, and experiences. I thought this was interesting and effective. Watched on Criterion Channel. It's only 46 minutes and worth checking out.

Summer with Monika (1953)

By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74914566

May December - (2023)

This had me fascinated from the very get-go. There's so much electricity, tension, hostility and unspoken fear in nearly every scene. Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman go head to head as the woman famous for seducing a 7th grade child and having his baby in prison, and the woman who is studying her so she can portray her in an upcoming movie. There's so much you want to know about Gracie (Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton), who she ended up marrying and is still with. Both seem to have deep-seated infantile issues, but has Joe's mental difficulties been caused by a predatory Gracie? Elizabeth's (Portman) very presence demands answers to those questions, which makes her an unwelcome, potentially poisonous threat. Seeing the actresses go head to head, and everyone in this rise up to the challenge, was thrilling. Also interesting was the effect Gracie's actions have had on her family as a whole, and how lasting these effects are.

8/10


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Leave the World Behind - (2023)

I've heard mixed things about this generally, but I found it really made the most of not letting us know exactly what's going on, which helps keep the movie alive and full of possibility right to the very end. A disaster movie for the 21st Century - that's for sure. I won't say to much about it, other than it successfully brings our imagination into the fray when it comes to building tension and posing suppositions. Happy to see Mahershala Ali keeping on, and Ethan Hawke I like in everything. The oil tanker scene is too brief, but oh so much terrifying fun.

7/10


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Ferrari - (2023)

I'm not all that interested in Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), his extramarital affair or his general story. Penélope Cruz does inject a lot of life into the film as his long-suffering wife though. The most thrilling aspect is definitely the cars themselves, and the climactic race scene is fantastic.

6/10


By cinemagia - http://www.cinemagia.ro/filme/aferim-578782/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45382890

Aferim! - (2015)

Wallachia, Romania, the early 19th Century. Policeman/bounty hunter Costandin (Teodor Corban) and his son are tasked with hunting down escaped slave Carfin (Toma Cuzin) and bringing him back to his Boyar master - whereupon he'll most likely be killed. The moral complexity of the matter is at conflict with the standards of the day in this fascinating and extremely well made film from the talented Radu Jude. Reviewed here, in my watchlist thread.

8/10


By http://www.impawards.com/2021/novice.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69514819

The Novice - (2021)

The obsessively competitive Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman) finds herself at odds with her teammates, her own body, and the world as she pushes herself beyond the brink trying to become a successful rower on a varsity team as a novice. This is basically Whiplash with rowing oars as opposed to drum sticks, with the blood sweat and tears a result of a pathological compulsion rather than healthy living. Great movie though. Reviewed here, in my watchlist thread.

8/10

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1st Rewatch...From the creative genius behind Shawn of the Dead comes this state of the art cinematic acid trip, adapted from a graphic novel that takes an 80's teen comedy and places it inside a video game centered on the title character, a 22 year old guitarist in a garage band (Michael Cera) who has just begun a relationship with a 17 year old girl named Knives finds himself drawn to another girl named Regina Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) but in order to win Regina's hand, must do battle with her seven exes, like levels in a video game. Director Edgar Wright applies lightening fast pacing, dazzling visual effects, and editing in bringing this fantasy way. The film is exhausting but in a good way. Michael Cera's deadpan delivery perfectly compliments the cinematic fireworks surrounding him and gets solid support from Keiran Culkin, Jason Schwartzman, and Allison Pill.

1st Rewatch....Alfred Hitchcock's instant classic which features equal doses of suspense, laughs, and genuine terror and hasn't aged a bit since it s1959 release. Cary Grant has one of his best roles as a New York ad executive who gets mistaken for a government agent, plunging him into all kinds of trouble, including being framed for a murder. Hitchcock really knocks it out of the park here...Grant's drunken driving incident on the highway, that crop duster sequence, and that spine tingling finale on Mount Rushmore never get old.

Young Winston (1972)

I have to say I like the monster. It does look cool in "Cinemagic."

I like The Angry Red Planet. The giant rat spider is one of the creepiest B-movie monsters, especially with the horrifying roar it makes.

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It was the highlight of the movie. There was little else before old rat-bat-spider-crab showed up and not much of anything else after it left. The "Cinemagic" hid a lot of budgetary shortcomings. But they did bring in Master Marionette artist Bob Baker to work the puppet. They should have put him to work on the two leads.

The Last Repair Shop follows the work at the LAUSD instrument repair workshop. The shop provides a free service to musical students from public schools, most of which don't have the resources to buy an instrument, let alone maintain it. The documentary focuses on four of the craftspeople at the shop as they draw parallels between their life stories and how they approach their work.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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War-Gods of the Deep (City in the Sea) - This was loosely based on the Edgar Allan Poe poem The City in the Sea and was an attempt to cash in on the spate of film adaptations based on Poe's works. The story itself has a jumbled sort of feel to it, starting out promisingly enough but losing it's way about halfway through. Mining engineer Ben Harris (Tab Hunter) is working near Cornwall on the Cornish coast when he finds a body on the beach. He asks around at a local hotel, meeting Jill Tregellis (Susan Hart) and artist Harold Tufnell-Jones (David Tomlinson). She's soon abducted by a shadowy fish/man with Harris and Tufnell-Jones hot on their trail. They find a secret passageway beneath the hotel leading to a network of caves where they fall into a whirlpool and wake in an underwater complex.

It's hard to keep track of how many movies and authors this cribbed from. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth (complete with a chicken substituting for a duck). At first I wasn't sure if I was seeing another Captain Nemo characterization I'd never heard of, this time with Vincent Price. But no, all these references and messy callbacks were simply the result of a major script rewrite. One that caused a producer to walk away from the project. The script doctoring didn't help and it shows up onscreen especially in the third act where there's a prolonged underwater chase in deep sea diving gear. It also doesn't help when the people are clearly only two or three feet underwater.

It starts out so well though. Decent enough cinematography. No skimping on sets. Price seems a little lost but he reportedly didn't see a working script until six days before shooting began. But the most disheartening thing I learned once the end credits rolled was that not only was this directed by the legendary Jacques Tourneur, it was also the last movie he ever did.

50/100

Albert Pyun Roulette, Part 8
Arcade -

Plot: Alex Manning and her friends decide to visit the local video arcade known as "Dante's Inferno" where a new virtual reality arcade game called "Arcade" is being test marketed by a computer company CEO. However, it soon becomes clear that the teenagers who lose are being imprisoned inside the virtual reality world by the central villain "Arcade" and takes over their minds.

This movie resembles a feature-length episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, providing just as many cheesy thrills and chills that the series does. The early '90s was one of the most exciting eras for video games from the console wars to arcades still being popular to the early stages of virtual reality. Despite coming across like someone who has never played video games wrote it at times, it does a nice attempt at a Cronenberg-like tech-sploitation. For such an old and obviously low-budgeted movie, the graphics in the Arcade world are clever and not half bad looking. The first level in particular with its boobytrapped walls made me want to pick up a controller. As for the hero, I like that Alex not only has legitimate trauma for the Arcade's master to exploit and for her to overcome, but also that she's a non-gamer, which makes her skepticism about the benefits of all that then-new technology and the questionable motives of the corporations that push it match our own. On top of that, her friends are played by welcome sights like Seth Green and Peter Billingsley.

Again, some of the moments involving gameplay come across like they were written by someone whose experience with video games amounts to watching their kids play them occasionally. Also, I don't expect originality from B-pictures like these, but it does not do many novel things with what it cribs from A Nightmare on Elm Street or The Lawnmower Man. Other than that, it's a legitimately fun, creepy and silly dose of '90s nostalgia. Speaking of insidious corporations, let's be thankful that Disney, which detected questionable similarities to Tron, did not take it away from us.