Rate The Last Movie You Saw

I put this on a while back expecting some forgettable trash to use as background noise and was shocked at how good it was.

Oh yeah, and unsettling too.

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Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena) - This 1973 Spanish parable is a simple and quiet movie where nothing of great consequence happens. It takes place in a small village in 1940 Spain and the Civil War has just ended with Francoist forces victorious. One day a traveling cinema comes into town and most of the village, including six year old Ana (Ana Torrent) and her older sister Isabel (Isabel Telleria), attends a showing of James Whale's Frankenstein. The film is exploited as government propaganda and meant as a warning against socialism. The monster inadvertently causing the death of a little girl and his subsequent burning leaves Ana distressed and full of questions. Isabel explains that it's all fake but plays on her little sister's gullibility by telling her that the monster is like a spirit and that Ana can talk to him by calling to him. Later on she takes her to an abandoned livestock shed and says that is where the monster lives.

The girls live with their older father Fernando (Fernando Fernán Gómez) and their much younger mother Teresa (Teresa Gimpera). Their father busies himself with his bees and writes in his journal of his loathing for the "mindless activity of the beehive". The mother has grown distant from her family and spends her time writing and posting letters to an old lover. The two little girls can also be seen as symbols for the country's innocence before the war and it's cynicism and materialism after Franco's victory but Erice never lays out the rationales behind his metaphors. He instead lets the performances speak for themselves and counts on the audience to follow along. His message is helped along by the charming little Torrent in her screen debut. She basically holds the whole thing together with her big, dark eyes and solemn comportment.

As I said before it's a small, quiet and slow moving film but it works if you allow yourself to be carried along by it's dreamlike pull. And you can definitely see the influence it had on Guillermo Del Toro's work.

80/100

I don't disagree.

If you look at the whole paragraph, my point was that the preponderance of such violence weakens the last act because the total lack of, well, hope means that there just isn't the suspense that the film needs. If the film were just a drama, it wouldn't be such a problem. But the whole movie builds to the showdown between Liz and the preacher and I felt like the air had gone out of the tires by the time we got there.

Also, I thought that the epilogue/very ending was just straight up annoying. On paper

I don't mind that a movie about the oppression of women contained violence against women. I thought that overall the film did a good job of walking the line between what we saw on screen and what we didn't. It didn't feel exploitative. But by the end it was starting to feel like parody and not like the epic pursuit/struggle that I think was intended.

Starting immediately after its predecessor, Terrifier 2 follows the Art the Clown again as he is mysteriously resurrected. A year later, he sets out on another killing spree, this time mostly focused on Sienna (Lauren LaVera) and her brother, Jonathan (Elliot Fullam). But can Sienna stop him once and for all? I don't know, she doesn't know, and neither does the film; or at least they don't want to tell us yet.

For the most part, Terrifier 2 delivers and/or improves in all the areas that the original excelled in. The production values are significantly higher, the special effects and the gore is wickedly good, and the cast is likable even if the performances aren't top-notch. One performance that does stand out, though, is Thornton who is amazing. The way he uses his body language and face expressions to instill that sense of dread and terror mixed with dark humor is amazing. He is easily the film's biggest asset.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

Intrigued by Damien Leone's work, I went out and checked his first short film, which is also the first media to feature Art the Clown (this time played by Mike Giannelli). This one follows a young woman (Kayla Lian) abducted from a deserted train station and subjected to a series of horrors.

The 9th Circle is pretty much what you would expect from a rookie horror director. It's a mish-mash of every common trope found on films about the occult and the likes. From the dangerous evil clown handing out flowers with insects and the mysterious wart-skinned creature living underground to the mysterious group with hoods and masks pulling out babies and pouring blood on chalices.

It's not only that we've seen it before, but also that it doesn't seem to make much sense other than to be there because, well, it's *occult*. Still, Leone's direction is solid, and at less than 10 minutes, it's not much of a chore to get through. So there has to be no rush to get out of there.

Grade:

Banshees of Inisherin

https://boxd.it/3ouX4L

5/5

Movie of the Year

Oh yeah. I also upgraded Tar to a 5/5. Because I can’t stop thinking of it. Great run at the theater. Here’s hoping Triangle of Sadness doesn’t drop the ball.

Ratatouille (2007) -

Been rewatching several Disney / Pixar movies and this happened to be the first of many

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I do blogging (especially reviews) on my Movie and Anime Blog

Can't wait to see Banshees of Inisherin. I loved Three Billboards. I thought for sure it would have won the Oscar that year.

Age of Adaline, 2015

Born in the early 1900s, Adaline (Blake Lively) lives a relatively normal life until a freak accident halts her aging. Forced to live a life of deception, moving every so often to avoid suspicion, Adaline's world is shaken up when she begins a romance with Ellis (Michiel Huisman). Things are further complicated when it turns out that Adaline and Ellis's father (Harrison Ford) have a history together.

This was overall a sweet and engaging fantasy romance, though its mix of genres didn't always work for me.

On the positive side, the lead performance from Lively is very engaging. She plays a great mix of someone who is vibrant and yet forced into a life of caution and even paranoia. Huisman is also good as Ellis, to the extent that the writing allows (though more about this later). The film's real ace in the hole is Ellen Burstyn, who plays Adaline's daughter Flemming, very much grown up and forced to pretend that she is her own mother's grandmother.

I also enjoyed the look of the film, which is polished and dreamy and makes the most of warm tones and fun costumes.

At its best, I thought that the film did a great job of showing how such an immortal life would lead to moments both wonderful and painful. A sequence in which Adaline looks back at a scrapbook of all the pets she has lost really pulled at my heartstrings. As she looks at it, she laughs and cries. Preparing to leave for a new state, she adds herself (under a fake name) to her bank account, remembering decades old conversations from the same office. Playing a game of Trivial Pursuit, she feigns not knowing an answer, but when goaded proves she has a fabulous memory.

Where the film didn't entirely sell me was in the romance. For starters, Ellis was way too aggressive and intrusive at the beginning. He follows her into an elevator in a move that is straight out of a horror movie. When she later very clearly is like "I'm done for the evening" he continues to persist. He finds out where she works and then (sort of joking but also . . . not joking?) threatens to withdraw a $50,000 donation unless she goes on a date with him. He gets her home address from her workplace(?!?!?!?!?!?!) where he has sway because of his wealth, and then shows up at her home unannounced. Huisman does a good job of selling charisma and also some raw sex appeal, but Ellis as a character was a bit of a flop for me. As written he's kind of smarmy and arrogant, and Huisman's charm just barely rises above this. Like after decades and decades this is the guy making her have second thoughts about her life?

I also thought that the resolution was kind of cheesy and I cringed as they tried to make it "science-y". It was all too parallel and convenient and just felt contrived.

I feel like I'm giving slightly lower scores than usual, but is it too much to ask that a film have a good premise and stick the landing?

It takes a lot of the themes and concepts that McDonagh was attempting in Three Billboards and delivers them in a classier, more stripped down fashion. As if he watched a lot of Bergman and Coen Bros, without losing his own distinct voice.

A little too "on the nose" for me as an allegory for class and resource distribution.



It's a little overly-negative in it's predictions. We're built for cooperation and competition. People in Nazi death camps, and natural disasters, and so on, have managed some amazing acts of self-sacrifice and cooperation.



The "veneer theory" that our humanity is a thin-coating barely covering up our naked, brutal, self-interest appeals to misanthropic fears and authoritarian philosophers like Hobbes, and hating ourselves is now our favorite past times here in the anthropocene, but the truth is more complicated than people simply being "evil-on-a-leash."

I thought you liked Billboards?

By Impawards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16189473

Lethal Weapon - (1987)

Buddy cop action movies were a big feature of 1980s cinema, and when we didn't have buddies fighting crime, the protagonist would usually be a cop anyway. Lethal Weapon managed to shoehorn in another 80s obsession - the Vietnam war - by way of Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) being ex U.S. Army Special Forces and the crime he investigates with Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) a drug running operation that was initially an offshoot from the war. This movie was popular because of the chemistry Gibson and Glover have and the believable way they develop a growing friendship between Riggs and Murtaugh - something that every sequel and reboot plays up the angle on. Lethal Weapon's action actually leaves me a little flat, but whenever we get a scene that features Glover and Gibson's growing bromance I love this to death. I watched the 'director's cut' for the first time last night, which includes a few extraneous scenes (including one huge one where Riggs takes down a sniper who is firing on school kids, but not before daring him to shoot the suicidal character.) All Murtaugh wants to do is get through one single day where Riggs doesn't kill someone. Richard Donner was nearing the end of a great run (aside from The Toy) and this was certainly one of his best - he knew to include much more of the friendship building and stay light on the action.

8/10


Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15652034

Babe - (1995)

If I had to compile a list of kid's films that I don't mind watching, Babe would be on it - it's ultra cute. I find all the talking animals in it adorable. I like how it's not afraid to be honest much of the time - it shows us the cramped, sunless pens pigs are kept in and admits that their off to be butchered. I imagine this has led many a kid to instantly convert to vegetarianism.

7/10


Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7556692

The Crow - (1994)

I don't know if The Crow would have been more or less successful if it weren't for Brandon Lee's senseless death - it was certainly publicity. Watching it all these years later, I have to admit that despite a shaky beginning The Crow is rather good in an action sense and acting-wise. You can sense the meaningful imitation of the comic style-wise, if not narratively and it has a soundtrack that further enhances the grim gothic cyberpunk world it's set in. It's a completely enjoyable experience if you're into painful catharsis, and features a series of villains each more over-the-top and flamboyant than the last.

7.5/10

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Indeed. I’m a huge McDonagh fan. I loved his ambitious swings with SP and 3B but I think they were shakier than In Bruges.

TBOI is simply him landing those ambitious swings with confidence and maturity. It reminds me of his brother’s film Calvary a lot.

This is the first segment of Leone's first feature film All Hallow's Eve. Leone added some additional footage for the feature but otherwise it is the short film exactly. As a known hater of Terrifier (the feature not Leone's other short film), it's funny that I actually liked this supernatural-adjacent version of the Art The Clown character. One of my (many) beefs with Terrifier was that the supernatural/omnipotent element was scrapped and he was reduced to a woman-hating and intermittently inept serial-killer. But I really liked the idea of this silent clown who was somehow just down with the Underworld unless of course you pissed him off and then he would hack you to pieces himself.

No.
This is a criticism I get a lot of grief about, that the more you promise, the more important it is that you, ya know, deliver.

I have higher praise for it, considering it to be a movie about adorable talking animals that is simply a good movie, kids be damned. I doubt I could go lower than an 8 on it given that if I gave ratings they would be largely based on how well a film delivers on its intention. I can't imagine how this could be a better warm-hearted, talking-animals movie.
It's certainly a better movie than The Crow.

I think that "scraping the supernatural" angle was somewhat intentional on Terrifier, as it sorta serves as an origin of sorts. The Art on that film seems to be a psychopatic misanthrope at first, rather than an otherworld entity. However, that supernatural angle would be picked up right at the end and continued in the sequel.

I know I gave The Crow 7.5/10 and Babe 7/10 but I'd find it really hard to judge a really cute and adorable talking animals film against a dark, grim and violent gothic graphic comic book adaptation. If I had to hand out a trophy to the best made, it would go to Babe without hesitation (and Babe might get a better rating if I knuckled down to do a proper review) - but I have to admit I enjoyed both films about the same when I watched them yesterday. I detect from your tone that you're not a fan of The Crow - but I'm willing to stick my neck out and say that after a terribly worrying first 10 minutes which looks like it's setting out to be a turkey, it really rocks and delivers on it's premise - even if it leans a little too far towards taking inspiration from Batman.

Loving Babe however, can't help but get my tick of approval.