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Victim of The Night
I just watched Broadcast News, which was excellent. Three real strong main characters who feel natural and whose story isn’t predictable or falling prey to typical movie tropes. I especially liked the idea of Tom: a handsome, charismatic man who feels his success is fraudulent because he knows he’s dumber than a bag of rocks.

I love trying to keep up with all the Marvel and Star Wars Disney throws at us as much as anyone but a side effect of doing so makes me crave movies for adults more often. And this one was perfect for that.
Yeah, I kinda miss when big mainstream movies were like this.




The Haunted Palace (1963, Roger Corman)

Classic gothic horror with Vincent Price, based on Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. Overall enjoyable, with beautiful sets and visual atmosphere, but it wasn't really scary (aside from a couple of mildly spooky moments / jump scares), and the story is too predictable — you know exactly where it's going from the moment Price's character steps into that palace.



You may hate the movie but that is a beautiful still.
Agree. If I remember correctly, it is the opening shot of the movie.




By Copyrighted by Paramount International. Artists(s) not known. - http://www.impawards.com/1954/rear_window_ver2_xlg.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde...curid=25318643

Rear Window - (1954)

During my childhood my father would talk about this film, describing various parts of it to the point where it became legend - it took until the advent of VCRs till I finally saw it, and yesterday as I took time out to watch it I pondered it's uniqueness and what the film was saying to me. The way we snoop in the film, which is now complicated, because we snoop in every film we watch - so what Rear Window does, it make us especially conscious of the fact that we're breaking a kind of boundary we were never meant to break - but one that seems to prompt a primal need to do just that. Cinema gives us complete freedom to watch in absolute safety, but in this we're watching with a man who is always close to being caught, and one who is watching a murder mystery which he's slowly becoming part of. Even when presented with Grace Kelly, James Stewart's character feels compelled to continue his voyeurism - it becomes an urge which trumps all others. I tell you - if someone did have the power to become invisible - the very first thing he'd do is snoop - and once started he'd probably never stop. This is a supremely interesting film.

9/10

6.5/10

LOVE this movie



PREDESTINATION
(2014, Spierigs)



"The snake that eats its own tail, forever and ever."

Predestination follows an agent (Ethan Hawke) from an advanced government agency that uses time travel to stop crimes before they occur, something that takes agents back and forth as they track potential criminals. After an incident leaves Hawke's character scarred, he is to be sent on a final mission which is crucial to the continuity of the life he knows.

From the opening shots, it is evident that the Spierig brothers have a good eye for framing and blocking. Their direction is confident and assured, allowing the script and the actors to breathe as the story flows. There is also a certain atmosphere to the story that makes it feel kinda "classy", very "old school" scifi. It is also very pleasing to see a scifi that doesn't rely on bangs and explosions to create a compelling story.

Grade:



Full review on my Movie Loot
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I forgot the opening line.

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Memphis Belle - (1990)

I appreciated a lot of the period detail in Memphis Belle, and it set up a promising opening that I thought might pay off when we go through the bombing run that is the plane's 25th and last mission before those serving on her got to go home. For me the best part was the detail - when the aerial combat starts I found myself surprised by how little excited or concerned I was. Perhaps this film just tried to do too much with far too many characters, and in the end I didn't get to spend enough time with any of them to relate or grow accustomed to their circumstances. The rest just depends a lot on cliché, and the fact that on this bombing run everything happens to the Memphis Belle, which stretched credulity way past the breaking point. No longer was this the believable war film, for we'd strayed far into fantasy. How many miraculous escapes can one crew go through in a single run? Turned out to be a very average movie after a very promising build up.

6/10


Designed by Robert McGinnis. "Copyright © 1961 by Paramount Pictures Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde...curid=85711424

Breakfast at Tiffany's - (1961)

Oh the rude shock that was Mickey Rooney's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's - it put me in the wrong headspace while watching the film. I've never fully gelled with Blake Edwards, and he uses race to elicit laughs at the expense of characters at times. I didn't like Victor/Victoria all that much, and now the classic Breakfast at Tiffany's didn't do much for me either. I'm not on the same wavelength as the characters, and the things that are meant to be funny I simply don't find funny at all - so in the end the film starts to lose me. I liked the ending, where Holly Golightly at least makes up for throwing a cat out the window of a moving cab into the pouring rain - and I love Audrey Hepburn. It's just that this film's bad points made me kind of sore at it.

6/10
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Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



EVE'S BAYOU
(1997, Lemmons)



"Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others imprinted indelibly on the brain."

This is the line with which this Southern Gothic drama opens up, because memory will play a key role in what will happen; how we remember some things while others elude us regardless of how traumatic or impactful they could've been. Set in the 1960s, Eve's Bayou follows the Batiste family as they are forced to deal with memories and secrets they've tried to hide.

This is a film I had seen back in the day. However, I barely remembered anything, so it was nice to come back to it. Director and writer Kasi Lemmons has a strong eye, but the story does get out of her hands at times. There are several references to the "gift of sight", possessed both by Eve and her aunt Mozelle (Debbi Morgan), but it isn't expanded or explained enough.

Grade:



Full review on my Movie Loot



A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
(1992, Marshall)



"Ballplayers?! I haven't got ball players! I've got girls!. Girls are what you sleep with *after* the game, not what you coach *during* the game!"

A League of Their Own focuses mostly on sisters Dottie and Kit (Geena Davis and Lori Petty), two softball players in Oregon that are recruited for this new league. Will their rivalries get in the way of their success, or will they allow to work together as a team? They are joined by an assorted cast that includes Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell.

This is a film that, for some reason, I hadn't seen before. Several people had mentioned it to me, so I was happy to finally check that box. But beyond that, the film is indeed well made and more important, a lot of fun. Although there is so much to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League that is not said, the film still succeeds in giving you an idea of what it was and what it meant.

Grade:



Full review on my Movie Loot



PENINSULA
(2020, Yeon)



"Dad told us we should help the weak before he went to heaven. You looked weak."

Set a few years after the original zombie outbreak, Peninsula follows Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won), a former captain that is haunted by the guilt of not being able to save his sister and nephew. While living as a refugee in Hong Kong, he is recruited by some mobsters to enter the quarantined South Korean peninsula, which is now overrun by zombies, to retrieve a truck full of cash.

For the most part, Peninsula is a competent enough action/horror film with some pretty solid action setpieces. What it lacks, though, is the strong emotional anchor of the first one. Gang is a solid lead, but he never manages to evoke the same attachment that the leads of the original did. In addition, the reasonings for him to go back aren't that strong, and feel like what they are: an excuse to put our lead character back in the fray.

Grade:



Full review on my Movie Loot



Thro love and Thunder! 8/10



Raven73's Avatar
Boldly going.
Virtuoso
7/10.
Well-written suspense flick. It takes its time with each scene, delivering dialogue that builds the characters and creates tension between them. Anson Mount (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) delivers stylish interior monologues throughout and exudes a cool, calculating exterior that one would expect from an assassin. The twist at the end I did not see coming.
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Que la fête commence... (1975 - France): The IMDb users say that the story here is historically correct. The Bretons (or a couple of them) versus the French. Guess who won. Lol. It was a good movie. Good directing, good acting, and an engaging storyline. Not a striking or outstandingly impressive film, though. 8/10

Ne le dis à personne (2006 - France/UK): It has a very impressive scenario, very complex. A bit convulated but it is probably because the past events were unfolded somewhat hastily at times. Truly convincing acting is seen throughout. Some cool action scenes, the most prominent one being the protagonist being chased by the police. A must-see flick for the people who are into action-packed crime/mystery/thriller stuff. 8.5/10

The Empty Man (2020 - US/South Africa):
Well, kinda generic American horror with some of its qualities, but the cultic aspect adds to it a lot of mystery and intrigue. This had been done before for sure, but this movie did it like stupendously. Some movies crossed my mind like The Candyman (a horror figure that you summon), Pickman's Muse (the cultic element) while watching it, but this movie stands on its own with many of its qualities; at least I haven't seen any movie that is too alike. I think what happens there can happen in real life (at least it is not impossible for me), which makes the movie different from many of the ridiculous supernatural horror flicks. It is a really powerful movie, so if you get scared while watching (some) horror films, you had better think twice before deciding on watching this one. 9/10



Women will be your undoing, Pépé




Laughter...
Tears...
Curtain

Topsy-Turvy (1999)
DirectorWriter Mike Leigh lays out a beguiling and appropriately constructed dedication to the genius of Gilbert & Sullivan and to the theatrical protocols of the Savoy Theatre that produced their shows.

While I have wanted to see this for quite some years now, it has been a more ardent endeavor, with it being on my second yearly Jab's Movie Challenge. The momentum to finally experience it came after watching Secrets & Lies. My third Leigh film after Naked (1999) and Mr. Turner (2014), and while I did have to break this over two and a half hour film into several viewings due to time restraints ONLY, I can easily see myself revisiting it as a whole in full enjoyment of each and every nuance of this cinematic treat.

Some twenty-five years into Gilbert (Allan Corduner )writing the words and Sullivan (Jim Broadbent) the music, they've hit a very hard rut of repetition. Until, on a forced outing with his wife, Kitty (Lesley Manville), Gilbert ventures to a Japanese festival and, soon after, is inspired to write one of their most famous works, The Mikado.

Those of you familiar with and even to many who scarcely heard of but instantly recognize the work of Gilbert & Sullivan, it can be said there is a certain hummingbird frenzy that fascinates and, should one delve, will find a definitive complexity that fascinates even further still.
Leigh does a smashing job of extending that sublime complexity (something he is quite proficient in) into - well, everything. Those minute, precise elocution of verse and song reverberated in each and every performance. While there is a certain grandness to the production, there is far more adherence to said details of the characters, and, like a Gilbert & Sullivan production, each note, each instrument, and each word is given a precise mode for it all to come together to a mercurial collaboration of mirth and pathos. Resulting in a more in-depth and complete grandness in the production itself. Mirroring the subject matter beautifully.
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Black Legion - 1937 potboiler directed by Archie Mayo and starring a still relatively unknown Humphrey Bogart. Mayo and Bogart had worked together previously on The Petrified Forest but that hadn't really found it's audience or the reputation it enjoys today. Bogart plays factory worker Frank Taylor, and he's convinced that he'll be offered the newly opened job of foreman. Taylor is incensed when it's instead awarded to hardworking Polish emigre Joe Dombrowski (Henry Brandon). Seething with resentment he takes note of a radio advertisement lauding the virtues of a pure America and blaming the loss of jobs to an unspecified "invading horde".

Meanwhile, Cliff Moore (Joseph Sawyer) another of his coworkers, approaches him and stokes Frank's ire against Dombrowski. He also informs him about a secret organization he belongs to that is working to set things right for "real Americans". After attending a clandestine meeting in the basement of a pharmacy Frank is soon formally inducted into the Black Legion. Complete with disturbingly familiar robes and hoods and a rambling, lurid and hyperbolic oath, he is threatened with death if he should ever betray his "brothers". He is quickly put to work on late night excursions where the hooded gang confronts mostly ethnic citizens, administering beatings, whippings and destroying their property and homes.

Taylor's secretive activities soon drive a wedge between him and his wife Ruth (Erin Obrien-Moore). His best friend and coworker Ed Jackson (Dick Foran) also sees the changes in Frank and suspects that it might be linked to the news reports detailing the recent spate of assaults and vandalism.

This film is based on a real event that happened in Detroit in 1935. There was an actual organization called the Black Legion which had split off from the Ku Klux Klan and operated mostly in the Midwest. After the kidnapping and murder of WPA organizer Charles Poole the group was investigated, and it's leadership arrested and prosecuted and sentenced to life in prison. This effectively ended their existence.

The film itself is compelling in it's own way. There are still the strictures inherent to the times and it is melodramatic but Mayo and the writers keep it simple without too much of the usual embellishments while Bogart shows flashes of the cinematic icon to come.

80/100



I forgot the opening line.

By https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1549572/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30806028

Another Earth - (2011)

A mirror image of Earth appears in space, and when we make contact we find ourselves living on it - in the meantime, high school graduate Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling) drives drunk, gets into an accident which kills a woman and her son, and spends 4 years in jail. I was in the right mood for this last night, and found it to be enjoyable and thought provoking - although while walking this morning I did conceive of a plot hole, which I won't share. This sci-fi film is focused squarely on this woman and the psychological problems she must overcome - especially guilt and self-hatred - so the conceit exists as something to ponder, and we don't go there or discover much about this second Earth - except for the possibilities it brings. It was something refreshing, and I loved Marling in The Sound of My Voice, which she also did around the time this was made. Good low budget movie-making.

7.5/10


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The Next Three Days - (2010)

Here's another movie I watched and enjoyed without knowing that it's a remake of a foreign language film. It's probably wrecked Pour elle for me, but regardless, I had a good time with it. The audacity, to break your wife out of jail - planning everything down to the last detail, and driven to extremes to make it work. Whenever I hear about a film being a remake I grow suspicious, and wonder what I missed out on - the last time it was After the Wedding, which I want to see (in it's original foreign language form) one day - hopefully after I've forgotten most of the remake I saw. I thought The Next Three Days was fast-paced with several interesting cameos - and a really tense last half hour. Good for a Sunday night.

7/10


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The Hundred Foot Journey - (2014)

If there's a film on my queue that I'm not too keen on, I throw it on anyway - and most times I'm pleasantly surprised by what I see. Not this time. This time I got a film that plodded along and didn't bring anything unique or noteworthy from director Lasse Hallström (usually good) or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire game show creator Steven Knight, who wrote the screenplay. It was dull, saccharine and featured a young Indian man becoming one of those chefs who create works of art in the kitchen that don't look edible. Those pretentious chefs. The main plot - two restaurants across the road from each other at war - only takes up half of the film.

5/10



Den of Thieves (2018)


A pretty formulaic heist movie, but everything was executed pretty well. The balance between the 'badass' cops and 'personable' criminals was well done, and the cast was solid. The twist at the end wasn't much of a twist which I think helps the film feel more genuine. The only flaw was Gerard Butler's family sidestory which was emotional, but so underdeveloped that it probably should have been cut altogether.



Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick, '64)



We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

WARNING: spoilers below
In the immortal words of Michael Stipe, while the "end of the world as we know it" may be the last thing you'd expect to make for good fodder for comedy, in the case of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, the unlikely combination of the subject matter and genre ends up being the perfect vehicle for satirizing the inherently absurdly nature of the Cold War, resulting in one of the legendary director's greatest efforts, and my current favorite Comedy movie of all time, in a movie that somehow feels just as fresh and timely today as it did upon its release over half a century ago.

Its plot kicks off with American Air Force General Jack D. Ripper (yes, that's the character's actual name) suddenly ordering his planes to begin bombing the Soviet Union, in retaliation to a supposed attack by the enemy. However, after it's discovered that no such Soviet aggression has taken place, it's clear that the insane, "bodily fluids"-obsessed General actually ordered a pre-emptive strike in a bout of Commie-induced paranoia, as part of a ploy to force Washington's hand in completely wiping out the bad ol' USSR, lest the same fate befall the States when the Ruskies have to counter-attack in response to Ripper's act. And thus, a mad, international dash commences across military and government bureaucracies, in order to abort this act of worldwide suicide, and that's before even factoring in the existence of a secretive "Doomsday Machine" to complicate matters, and make this incredibly dire situation somehow even worse than it already was.

And I know that all sounds like super-heavy stuff, and to a certain extent it is, with the film partially serving as a time capsule of genuine, prodding insight into the policies and mindset of such a tense era, but Kub and company were still able to find joy in the destruction of the world, or at least recognized the insanity present within the Cold War and brought it to the surface, exchanging the serious tone of the source novel Red Alert for that of a satire, starting with little touches like a bomber pilot absent-mindedly reading a Playboy magazine in mid flight, and steadily escalating things from there, until the film climaxes with the now-iconic image of a man "riding" an atomic bomb all the way to its target like it's a bucking bronco, hooting, hollering, and waving his ten gallon cowboy hat all the while.

However, Strangelove not only has the nerve to mock the Cold War around a time when tensions between the two superpowers were at their highest, but also takes its razor-sharp aim at the leaders behind such "MAD" ideas, with the sight of a feckless American President fumbling his way through a one-sided phonecall with a drunk Soviet premier serving to pierce the veil of respectability that often shrouds such officials in real life, and revealing them to be silly, petty men obsessed with the size of their arsenals and the potential prospect of a "mindshaft gap", non-chalantly dismissing the prospect of casualty figures in the millions, in-between stopping to take personal calls from their secretary/lovers waiting for them at home.

Of course, the cast does a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard as well, with George C. Scott's manic General Turgidson, Slim Pickens being, well, Slim Pickens, or Peter Seller's brilliant trifecta of performances, including the titular character's demented grin, wacky "German" accent, and struggles with his seemingly possessed right hand serving to bring every character to vivid life here, and heighten the absurdity, while still somehow keeping things grounded enough to have some sort of relation to the grim reality it's satirizing. Add on top of all of that Gilbert Taylor's cinematography, which balances striking, in your face compositions (which are often in the characters' faces as well) with jarring zoom-ins and ahead-of-its-time handheld camerawork, which gives the film an immediacy that was often lacking in Hollywood at the time, and you get a Comedy of (world-ending) errors, ensuring that if you have to watch the end of human civilization, at least you'll be laughing your head off as you do so.

Favorite Moment:


Final Score: 10