Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Tenet. (2020)






It almost seems unfair trying to review this film after just one viewing. It demands and will no doubt reward repeat viewings. An enjoyable yet challenging, often confusing film to watch, made with Christopher Nolan's usual high quality. It's reassuring and a little surprising that movie studies are still willing to invest $200 million in a film as original, intelligent and ambitious as this. I think it will definitely be a love it or hate film for the general audience. I know several people walked out when I saw it at the cinema.


The strength of this film is definitely the high concept ideas and the mind-bending plot. Trying to wrap my head around what the hell was going on made for a refreshingly challenging experience that you rarely get from blockbusters. It's weakness was the characters, most of which were dull, one dimensional and underdeveloped. It seemed their main purpose was just to be cogs moving Nolan's complex plot machine along. Pattinson added some charm and charisma but the rest of them left me completely indifferent to their fate. The action scenes were also underwhelming for the most part.


A flawed and frustrating Nolan film still makes for a memorable and rewarding watch.


3.5/5 Stars.

System Crasher (2019)

__________________
“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!” ~ Rocky Balboa

It's certainly a series with some ups and downs!

I really liked the first film

Really disliked the second film, mostly because I feel like Woo's style didn't gel as well with the world/characters. I saw it in the theater and was super disappointed.

The third film was pretty strong, and gets a lift from a pretty fantastic supporting cast. I remember seeing the trailer for the third film in the theater and being awed by the bridge sequence.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth films sort of blend together for me. The fourth movie has that infamous sequence where he climbs the tall building with the special gloves--I remember seeing that in the theater and feeling a little woozy!

It'll be interesting to hear what you think of the series!

Dead by Dawn, 2019

This movie has a 3.2 rating on the IMDb. I knew what I was getting into.

LuLu is a young woman with a real creep of a boyfriend. Leaving the house to go to her uncle's party, she ends up in an Uber-type car with a driver who is . . . also a creep. The film then jumps to a man, Dylan, who is contemplating suicide in a secluded cabin. A bloodied LuLu stumbles into his home and he agrees to help protect her from the trio of sadists (including the creepy cabbie) who are after her.

On the bright side, the actor who plays Dylan is pretty good, and all of the actors are at least clearly trying to bring energy to the film. Ironically, the most naturalistic actors (the women who play Dylan's wife and daughter--only seen in flashbacks) get the least amount of screen time. I will also give the film credit for keeping LuLu's rape/torture off-screen. She arrives at Dylan's cabin needing help (and eventually ready for revenge). Many low-budget films overindulge in scenes of violence and I appreciated that this film went the other direction.

On the down side, the film has an overall kind of stilted feel to it. The relationships between the three killers is really weird. One of them is the creepy cabbie. The other is his . . . lover? And the third is . . . LuLu's uncle?(!?!?!?!?). I'll admit that I wasn't 100% paying attention, but I didn't understand how the three of them connected, and what their original plan was.

There's some edgy/crude humor that I felt failed to land and took away from the more serious plotline of the film. It was hard at times to tell whether I was meant to be taking the story seriously or treating it like a comedy. It's not funny enough to be a dark comedy, and it has too much "comedy" to play as a straight thriller.

Still, it has some lizard-brain pleasures, like watching the bad guys take an arrow to the shoulder or a board full of nails to the face. Like I said, I knew what I was getting into.

The Major and the Minor (1942)

The eyes scene was a bit ridiculous. Aside from that it's brilliant.

Woman in the Dunes 1964

Stunning film. Scratchy eerie score. So atmospheric. The sexual tension is palpable. The images are jaw dropping. Extreme close ups, imaginative wide angles. The changing state of Japanese society as it arrives into the modern world is melded with personal existentialism and relationship trauma.

Simply one of the greatest films I have ever seen.

Ah-ga-ssi [The Handmaiden] (Chan-wook Park, 2016) +
At least I managed to finish it with my 'tackle' intact

p.s. Quite looking forward to the potential sequels Sahm-per-as and Mah-ken-ro

M:I-2 is my favorite in the series.
I heard this film was dumb down by the studio. John Woo shot this with a lot of blood and even more action scenes. It's a shame we'll never see his cut.

I don't think the US studios have ever let him make his own film have they? At least, when it comes to the action stuff? I remember interviews when he first went over where he's incredulous that they're arguing over how many gunshots/people being shot and how, etc they could show per scene/minute/whatever.

__________________
5-time MoFo Award winner.

Loft (2008) - 6.6/10. It's a good film. The twist is nice. Worth a watch. And j have to say the Hollywood version absolutely butchered the film.

__________________
My Favorite Films

Funny Games (1997)

Yes, in one of my Van Damme blu-rays (I think it's in the Universal Soldier 2 extras) he says that most Chinese directors couldn't have full control of the project, he asked John Woo to direct Hard Target, and they were unable to make the film they wanted - so did Ringo Lam (Maximum Risk, Replicant and In Hell) and Hark Tsui (Double Team, Knock Off) . There is another interview on one of my John Woo DVDs, in which Woo himself says that he was so frustrated with the studios controlling his projects, that after Paycheck (2003) he decided to live Hollywood forever. I believe that Face/Off was as close as he got to controlling one film in Hollywood.

I felt that it was just more of the film's universe and Woo's style not being as natural of a mix.

When I think Mission Impossible, yes, there are explosions and shootouts. But the most memorable sequences tend to be things that are all about stealth or delicacy or deception.

Woo's strength, to me, is taking explosive and violent action and elevating it to something that could be over the top but instead feels very controlled and deliberate.

The leap from the fiddly "lowered into a room on a cable to hack a computer" vibe of the first film to MOTORCYCLE DUELS!!!!! in the second didn't work for me. The low point for me was when he lands on top of the female lead in the bathtub and (wait for it) it looks like they are having sex, LOL. The whole tone of the film was something I found actively off-putting. It ranks as one of my worst theater experiences.

I'm glad, in the spirit of the universe, that someone out there likes it. But it really wasn't my cup of tea.

The series really starts to hit it's stride after MI:2. It's the rare case of the films actually getting better the more they make, rather than worse. Enjoy!

Spider-Man: Far From Home. (2019)






Enjoyable but unremarkable entry in the MCU.


3/5 Stars.