Rate The Last Movie You Saw

By The poster art can or could be obtained from the distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47027976

Blind Date (Un peu, beaucoup, aveuglément) - (2015)

Are French romantic comedies any better than American ones? About the same I guess, going by Blind Date, which features two socially challenged neighbours who find they share an apartment where they can hear everything the other person is doing. At first they try to drive each other out via obnoxious noise-making, then they come to an arrangement which segues into them becoming friends. Do they dare go that extra step and meet each other? Mélanie Bernier and Clovis Cornillac do their best to liven up a somewhat mediocre screenplay in a film that's over before it all starts to hurt too much.

5/10


By Elysian Pictures - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085515/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57690321

Eyes of Fire - (1983)

This is a little folk horror film that's kind of approaching cult status - one that manages to really whip itself into a frenzy, buttressed by dream-like ghostly imagery that flashes before our eyes and fades like phosphenes do. It's sometimes explosive, and always just a little weird - in just the right way. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

7/10

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This backlash is basically identical to the one last year when all the Barbie fans who didn't see any of the other movies were baffled that Barbie didn't win every award and attacked the other movies that did. You had the same lazy "Oppenheimer is male-centric" nonsense that we get every year. I don't think it's worth it to even acknowledge the opinions...in most cases, the people criticizing haven't even seen the movie. They're more arguing against the idea of the film.

The question is, are all the Anora haters suggesting alternate winners? I assume not, as every film in this race had a few flaws to them. There's no masterpiece in this group but I do feel that Anora and Conclave overall had the best approval rating out of all of them...I don't know anyone who thought they were bad movies, which cannot be said about some of other noms. So Anora winning out of a group of 8.0/8.5 movies makes sense to me.

>All of Sean Baker’s movies are real strong and he deserves the recognition.

I definitely need to check out some of his other films.

Can you say twat here? Yes, you can & I do.

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Gosh, what a strange movie this is based on a true story in Sweden. Really enjoyed it.

Streamed it on Criterion, which I hardly ever use & I see out of 112 movies in my Letterboxd watchlist only 2 are on Criterion so that explains that.

Yeah, sort of like GOAT statuses, winning big at the Oscars can sometimes do more harm than good.

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I'm not referring to your friend to be clear, but most of the time, I think the "People only loved this movie because of the following petty reason" argument is people making excuses as to why a film they disliked or were unmoved by was beloved by so many people, as opposed to them acknowledging that the film grew popular or won the awards fair and square. Or not accepting that people actually do think it's genuinely a well-made film and aren't just giving it a free pass. I find it a little annoying and easy to dismiss (again, not saying this applies to your friend). I don't care for First Reformed, but I have no reason to distrust the judgments of those who loved it. Are there people who did give it a free pass or gave it high marks simply because they didn't see much from that year? Sure, but I don't think this represents the majority.

Anyways, it is true that the voters who determine the Oscars aren't required to watch every nominee, but given it was ranked at #2 on Sight & Sounds' best of 2024 list and received stellar critical reviews long before its Oscar nominations were announced, I have no reason to doubt it earned its popularity.

That is how one character describes his situation at a certain point of this film. But it can also apply to most of the characters in it, as most of them are intoxicated with something; whether it is drugs, money, sex, power, freedom, love, or the idea of love. Anora follows the titular character (Mikey Madison), a New York stripper that meets and falls in love with Vanya (Mark Eydeshteyn), the young son of a Russian oligarch. However, this causes some tension with his parents, who are determined not to allow it.

But like most intoxications, once the "high" wears out, we have to deal with what comes after. By the halfway mark, Anora throws a wrench into the works as our lovers are somehow split, and they have to deal with the possibility that this is no fairy tale after all. The shift in the film's vibe is quite something as it becomes an incredibly tense race around the clock as Vanya's parents take extreme measures to end this relationship. I really found myself at the edge of my seat during most of this half, as we're trying to figure out what is going on and what is going to happen.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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City Island (2009)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

I like the timing of posting this directly after us discussing the film.

1st Rewatch...Bette Davis is just glorious in this entertaining melodrama in which she plays the dual role of twin sisters Kate and Pat Bosworth. Kate is instantly attracted to a handsome lighthouse inspector named Bill (Glenn Ford) who makes lunch plans with Kate but meets Pat instead of Kate not realizing what he did. It's not long before Pat makes Bill forget all about Kate and marries her. A few months after her marriage starts to fall apart, Pat shows up on her sister's doorstep and a few days later, drowns in a boating accident and Pat's wedding ring slips off her finger and Kate grabs it and Kate decides to resume Pat's life despite being unaware how miserable Bill and Pat were. Love this movie. Davis and Ford have great chemistry. This movie was even spoofed on The Carol Burnett Show decades later. Eighteen years after this film, Davis again played twin sisters in a 1964 film called Dead Ringer but this movie is so much better.

Yeah, I've been writing that review for a while now, but now that I was finally able to post it, I scrolled up and saw your posts

3rd Rewatch. This dazzling big budget bouquet to the iconic rock group Queen and their charismatic front man, Freddy Mercury which begins during Freddy's humble begins at Freddy's humble beginnings as a baggage handler at Heathrow airport and concludes with the group preparing to take the stage at Live Aid. The screenplay white washes Freddy's sexual history in an attempt to make the movie more viewer friendly I suppose, but with the incredible music of this amazing rock group and the Oscar-winning performance by Rami Malek as Freddy, this becomes a minor issue. I especially love the scenes where they create the title tune and "We Will Rock You." Also love the scene where Freddy flirts with a waiter working at his party after the party is over. In addition to Malek's Best Actor Oscar, the film also won Oscars for film editing, sound editing, and sound mixing.

Find Me in the Mirror (2023) I watched this on Youtube today. It's a really creative and beautiful short silent fantasy. I really liked the cinematography. There are some cool and striking visuals. Director and star Ashley Laurent Fletcher is quite good here and carries the film with her performance. This is definitely worth checking out.

A Lien follows a family, Oscar and Sophia (William Martinez and Victoria Ratermanis) as they attend an immigration interview for Oscar, along with their young daughter Nina. While Oscar is being interviewed, Sophia suspects that something might go wrong and derail the process, and their lives, indefinitely.

The term "lien" refers to a legal right to possess something until a debt or obligation is met. In this case, that concept is transferred to Oscar's stay in the United States, or not, being dependent on certain obligations being met. However, as we can see from his interview, things are not as black and white; especially when you're not wanted and the government is making concerted efforts to make things harder for you and entrap you.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

Shrek 2 - 8/10

Going on a 2000s nostalgia bender after playing the Prince of Persia games. This one holds up. Though I have mixed feelings about the premise and find that ''what if the bad guys were actually the good guys'' revenge of the nerds-schtick laughable, the execution is near-perfect and the final product is one of the most imaginative and fun comedies I've ever seen. The world is concieved as a parody, everything being built on some joke of ''what if the stock fairy tale kingdom was like Los Angeles? What if the fairy godmother was some girlboss celebrity with a spoiled brat son?'', and granted that one or two jokes like that would not be anything to write home about, but it takes that idea to such an extreme level that it ends up forming an entire, believable world whose facrical tone allows for any kind of gag, plot thread, or action sequence to function. There is no end to charming visual gags crammed into the background. A seedy bar with the sign of ''we do not serve anyone under XXI years old'', or cops using a pepper grinder instead of mace is not hilarious, but it is amusing because it's so much like this setting. Likewise the characters and their dialogue are well-voiced and given lots of natural charisma and chemistry, made more impressive by how many characters and plot threads the movie juggles. It feels very eventful for a 90 minute cartoon. There's an odd forced joke here and there, like Puss in Boots acting cutesy to disarm someone, but it only sticks out because the rest of the movie is so good, and it's not frequent enough to sour the enjoyment. (it's fitting that Puss in Boots has the most forced joke, because Puss in Boots 2 was 100% forced in both comedy and drama.)

The animation holds up well for a 2004 computer-animated flick. Yes the movement is robotic, but not to the point where I couldn't get used to it, and I find the textures and colour schemes very pleasant. I could take or leave the character designs, though. I always found them just a little uncanny. Again, not a big complaint, but it's something to put out there. The biggest advantage of this film over the first Shrek is that the world finally feels big and populated. Shrek 1 still felt like they were figuring out computer animation and had put together an amusing puppet-play with the 3d models they made at home. Not this. This is an all-out major Hollywood production.

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I think she meant Oscar voters, not the general public.

Yeah, to be clear my friend specifically didn't mind that it won best picture. She liked it as a movie. She just felt like it was one of those things where once people decided it was the "best" overall, it became the default for some other categories where it maybe wasn't actually the strongest.

It's interesting, because the worst things I've personally read about Anora are in the vein of "Yeah, it's okay," and the best things are glowing reviews. So I haven't felt like there are a bunch of haters out there. But like we've all acknowledged, once you put the label of "best" or "winner" on something, it becomes a target.

A Complete Unknown (2024)

Il gattopardo (1963) - Luchino Visconti: 7/10

Those are the words of encouragement that a teacher offers Ayame, a young schoolgirl at a Japanese elementary school. The thing is that Ayame is not doing her best, but rather is slacking. Instruments of a Beating Heart follows her struggles to participate in a musical performance at the school.

This one got to me in so many levels. First of all, Ayame was an adorable little girl, but on the other hand, to see her struggle was heartbreaking at the same time. Still, I really liked the way that the short shows the importance that this performance has for this little girl; and when things don't go the way she planned, how heartbreaking it is for her.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

The Jerk (1979, Carl Reiner)



Flix Brewhouse featured this classic Steve Martin vehicle, his debut film, screening for "free" after an entre and a beer last night and it had been decades since I've seen it last. Still great, still wonderful, and while a lot of folks and critics seem to find it hit or miss, I think The Jerk is a film with its own special purpose and unique brand of humor within the canon of the great comedies. The only criticism that could really be leveled toward it, is that The Jerk is very episodic in nature and some of it feels forced or a bit of a contrivance, but it's so fun and off the wall, that really, who cares?

GRADE: A-

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