Rate The Last Movie You Saw

The Great Ziegfeld follows the life of theatrical producer Florenz Ziegfeld (William Powell) from his humble beginnings as a "carny" and his subsequent succesful rise in Broadway, anchored by the notable Ziegfeld Follies, to his fall from grace due to financial problems and The Great Depression. It also chronicles his personal life, including his relationship with various women.

If you think that's a lot to cover on a film, it is. The 3-hour runtime is one of the main issues I have with the film; not because a film can't last 3 hours, but because this one feels massively bloated and all over the place. By trying to cover too much, it can't really focus on anything, so it basically feels like speeding through someone's highlights of life.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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Fifth Re-watch...one of my favorite Woody Allen films, a delicious comic fantasy with endless re-watch appeal. For the uninitiated, this is the story of a lonely, depression era housewife named Cecelia (Mia Farrow) who finds release from her hum drum existence by going to the movies. After several viewings of one movie, a character in the movie named Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) walks off the screen and declares his love for her. They try to run off together, but the movie can't continue without him, so the actor who played Tom, Gil Shepherd (also Daniels), arrives in town to try and get his character to return to the movie. If you like your movies steeped realism, find another movie, but if you want to see movie magic at its zenith, this is the place. I think Mia Farrow was robbed of an Oscar nomination for her completely enchanting performance and Jeff Daniels creates two very distinct characters in Tom and Gil. The scenes of the actors stuck in the movie without Tom put me on the floor every time and just when my sides have just stopped splitting with laughter, Woody provides us with one of the most heartbreaking endings to a movie ever. Woody's movies always have spectacular endings and this is one of his best.

I Live in Fear (1955)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

The Amazing Maurice (2022)


This was a fresh take on an animated tale, though I'm not familiar with traditional British stories or the book this is based on. It wasn't that funny, but it was cunning and entertaining with intelligent characters and plot elements. My daughter made it through the whole thing, though I dont think she will ever ask to watch this again haha

SF = Z


[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it

I also really liked Lewton's first, Cat People (1942) which had probably the first jump scares in the movies. "The Lewton Bus":

M3GAN.
I give it an 8 outta 10.
The first few minutes a little slow with obvious dialog to help a wider age of audience get with the characters and premise. Understandable.

Very hard to get the casting right with a movie like this and they aced it.
Really enjoyed it.

Saw it at the multiplex theater.
Noticed today it's available on DIRECTV already.

Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania
6/10.
This was more like Antman's nightmare: it's weird, nothing makes sense, nothing seems real, and nothing really changes when he comes out of it.

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Boldly going.

New Antman is just not worth it at all, and I’m a fan of Marvel stuff.

Continuing on to the fifth and sixth Hellraiser films. It's fun despite the cheapness and lack of quality...


Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8794613

Hellraiser : Inferno - (2000)

The series hits the straight-to-video/DVD domain with the fifth film, Inferno, and it's quite a departure from the other Hellraiser films. This one was directed by Scott Derrickson, long before his Doctor Strange and Black Phone days - in fact it was his directorial debut. Pinhead (Doug Bradley), once central to everything that goes on in the films now only has around 2 minutes screen-time, and the film instead pays more attention to the protagonist, police detective Joseph Thorne (Craig Sheffer) - he's corrupt, a drug addict and finds the Lemarchand puzzle box at a crime scene. The film goes through a lot of trouble telling us how much he loves puzzles, just to explain why he opens the box, but he does and from that moment on his world morphs into one in which Cenobites keep him busy chasing a murderer known as "The Engineer", who leaves severed fingers at crime scenes. Trying to solve the case leads him deeper and deeper into a strange world, unlocking the secrets to his tarnished soul. Thinking back to it, at no time was I thinking "this is a terrible film" but I was often thinking about how this didn't fit into the Hellraiser franchise at all, and seemed to be it's own separate thing. At least it did the unexpected. It's one of those movies where the plot really depends on the main character being pretty stupid and making silly decisions. Some people like it - I thought it was your typical straight-to-video production. Fun fact, Joseph's partner, Detective Tony Nenonen, is played by Nicholas Turturro - John Turturro's brother.

5/10


Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8794652

Hellraiser : Hellseeker - (2002)

As soon as the car hit the water, I thought "Carnival of Souls", and I wasn't wrong. This is basically Carnival of Souls, with Kirsty from the first three films (played by a returning Ashley Laurence) and Trevor Gooden (Dean Winters) driving their car into a lake, after which Trevor has what amounts to an 80 minute dream where his memory slowly returns to him, revealing something about the Lemarchand puzzle box and a deal Kirsty has made with Pinhead. Of course, I don't even think it's a spoiler to reveal that Trevor is drowning/has drowned in the car, and not escaped as he thought he had. At one point he coughs up an eel. Once again, Doug Bradley only shows up for mere minutes as the celebrated (and always pictured on the posters) Pinhead - he must have got really sick of sitting in a makeup chair every day, and from the 5th film on stipulated that he only be needed for 1 or 2 days shooting - preferably 1. The acting, derivative screenplay and overall design of the film is second-rate bargain basement stuff, and Cenobites are rarely sighted. We're getting further and further from what these films were all about, and stuck in a Jacob's Ladder/Carnival of Souls rut.

4/10

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I saw Everything Everywhere All at Once, I had like. I like the side comedy. What have you in think ? 8/10

Harold and Maude - 1971

Free on Youtube with ads so I gave it a gander. Heard it mentioned somewhere I can't remember where though. Quite the dark comedy indeed. Pessimism vs Optimism. It definitely makes you feel something by the end of it. I can see this one being polarizing for people. Might be too dark for some too quirky for others. I think the actors did really well it's just hard for me to buy into this flick fully. A 20 year old becoming romantically involved with and 80 year old? I just can't get there. I know it's suppose to be an extreme juxtaposition to prove a point it's just too extreme for my brain to wrap around. I found Maude a bit too eccentric for my taste as well. The movie felt aged as well. Music was good.I can definitely see why if you like it you really really like it. Glad I watched it but I probably won't rush to see it again.

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I came here to do two things, drink some beer and kick some ass, looks like we are almost outta beer - Dazed and Confused

101 Favorite Movies (2019)

A Soldier's Story (1984)

Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantummania (2023)

The negative reviews for this film are weird. I'm almost suspicious that the film doesn't follow the identity politics of the last few Marvel films so this film randomly get's piled on for all of Marvel's short comings. I don't get the bad reviews is it because the film doesn't have a message and it's just an adventure story? This is what a comic book is supposed to be a colorful story that leads into other stories that's based on established characters and ideas.

Visually the film has taken a step up from several previous ones (Black Widow, Eternals), every creature feels and looks real well with exception that should have been a rubber mask not a CGI actors face. Jonathan Majors plays Kang who in the comics is a major bad guy but this is more of an introduction to the character and personality. He has his moments early on with Janet Van Dyne where you hope the film is going in one direction but it doesn't really deliver that sort of Kang.

Bill Murray has a cameo it's a cute a scene and nice to get him as a smug weirdo. If the film has an issue it's that you have six leads and you are telling five stories so the plot kinda falls on it's own weight. It's not as bad as the DC films because the stories are woven together fairly well. But still it might have been better if we saw the personalities of the characters less the plot. These are people not widgets that need to be moved and replaced because the scene needs to happen.

The first was a very good horror film in large part due to a great twist. I was thinking this prequel had no chance of being as good because the twist is already known, and it isn't, but it was still a good watch. Again it is a prequel, and the actress who plays little Esther is like 13 years older so I went in a little suspicious. There are more twists, but this movie is a little more campy than the first. I didn't take it seriously, and I watched it with my wife who has a good sense of humor. The result was a decent bit of fun.

Matthias and Maxime (2019)


I had not watched a Xavier Dolan film before and this was on mubi so I thought I'd give it a try.


It's a film about childhood friends, one of whom is soon going to move to Australia, who kiss for a film and then find their friendship group fracturing with the pressures of work, family issues, identity, the imminent departure and unresolved feelings.


I really liked the way this was filmed, it was simple but not obvious. It was frustrating at times but intentionally so.


Also, the music was great.


Since this is one of Dolan's lowest rated films, I look forward to seeing his others.

Wendy and Lucy (2008, Kelly Reichardt)

Wow...this film destroyed me in ways I wasn't prepared for (and to make things worse, a dog is involved...oh god).
Just the simplicity and realness of it, the believability of the characters, the quietly observant eye of the camera following Wendy's mounting misfortunes with an unflinching but affectionate gaze... brilliant.
This is the fourth film I've seen from Reichardt, and she hasn't put a foot wrong yet.

Oh yeah, I've seen that too. Great noir.

YES. A resounding YES to all of this.

Tomie

I recently bought the manga collection Shiver by Junji Ito, and have been hoping to dig deeper into everything of his and segue that into digging deeper into Japanese horror movies.