Rate The Last Movie You Saw

FWIW, I used to keep a list of what I felt were the 31 essential October/Halloween films and I updated it every year on the forum I was on back then (starting 15 years ago). Obviously if I added a movie, something else had to go.
But Bride Of Frankenstein was on every list.
And you're right, it's as much because of Lanchester as Karloff or Clive or anything else, if not more so.

Oklahoma, 1955

In this classic musical, Laurey (Shirley Jones) is wooed by the all-American Curly (Gordon MacRae) and by the creepy farmhand Jud (Rod Steiger). As the men compete for her affection and attention, other locals go through romantic quibbles, including the outgoing Ado Annie (Gloria Grahame).

This was a film that really exemplified the way that a movie can wow you on one front and totally underwhelm you on another.

On the positive side, the musical elements of the film are almost all spot on. The choreography is really fun and transitions between more "stage" numbers and pieces that incorporate more of the "real" surroundings. There is an extended sequence in the film that is a dream that Laurey has about the feud between Curly and Jud that really stunned me. The lighting, the dancing, and the other-worldliness of it was just super cool. I found the songs to be perfectly serviceable (no new favorites, but nothing that felt like a slog, either).

For the most part, I enjoyed the performances. Steiger's performance in particular is interesting for the genuine note of menace and danger that he injects into the proceedings. Most of the film feels like it follows "stage rules"--where punches and even guns don't mean all that much. But Steiger's Jud is like a dark cloud floating in the musical's otherwise blue sky. Increasingly, things that "don't" happen in this kind of musical--assault, sexual assault, murder--start to seem more possible than they have any right to. It's a weird dynamic, having a character who feels like he teleported in from some alternate universe, but I liked it.

On the downside, um, these people all were the worst and it was hard spending time with them when they weren't singing or dancing. Obviously I'm not saying that characters shouldn't have flaws, but yeesh. Everyone was dumb, manipulative, annoying, or some other trait that made it hard to want to root for them. My dislike for the characters was largely tempered by the actors' skills as singers and dancers and the excellent staging of many sequences, but it was challenging to go through so many minutes of a film in which I wasn't cheering anyone on.

I'd like to say that my favorite character was the unabashedly promiscuous Ado Annie, but despite enjoying the writing of the character the most, Grahame's performance was the only one I had really mixed feelings about. There was something . . . . uncomfortable about her portrayal of the character. As if she'd crossed a line between portraying someone who is ditzy and portraying someone who has active brain damage. I just could not handle some of the facial expressions, especially during her first number. I've never felt so uneasy watching a musical performance.

I'm really on the fence about how to rate this one, and I think I'm going with my lower inclination. While I appreciated the technical aspects of the film, the story itself and most of the characters really didn't do much for me. I will say that I think it's super cool that the cast and crew filmed this whole movie TWICE, because they were filming it in two different formats. It's a film that I can respect for many reasons, but you'd have to pay me to watch it again.

It's funny, I grew up, because of my mother, watching all the classic musicals as if they were just a thing that everybody saw and knew, and so I came to love musicals and still do to this day... but the one I could never really gel with, despite its reputation, was Oklahoma.

I thought that the dream sequence was pretty great and everything else was pretty blah (albeit technically proficient blah). It just has no fizz, apart from the threatening suspense of its wannabe rapist/murderer.

Yeah, that sounds pretty much exactly how I remember it.

By The poster art can or could be obtained from the distributor., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1586157

Dear Frankie - (2004)

Lizzie (Emily Mortimer) is on the move again, with her 9 year-old son Frankie and her elderly mother - escaping Frankie's exceptionally abusive father. Despite this, Lizzie pretends that Frankie's father is off working on a ship, sailing around the world, and she writes to him pretending to be his hero-worshipped Dad. When Frankie discovers his father's supposed ship is coming in to port in a weeks time, she has to hire someone (Gerard Butler - who is quite good in this) to pretend to be his dad to save the poor boy's feelings. Is she doing the right thing? Something about this film - the performances, script, rhythm all swept up together - really works perfectly, and even if you've got a cold, dead heart you'll warm up to it. It doesn't needlessly toy with your emotions or try to wring the pathos out of every situation. It's a much more balanced, and sincere, film than most others of its kind. Easy to watch and get involved in.

8/10


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Promising Young Woman - (2020)

I was perpetually unsure where this was going to go, - a revenge flick being nominated for a Best Picture Oscar is such an unusual thing, and I can admit that this one went in a few surprising directions. Carey Mulligan oozes threat throughout it's entire running time, and you just know from her body language and facial expressions that she's capable of anything. That's what keeps us on the edge of our seat during most of the film. Having seen Nomadland and Minari I'm thinking that the nominations in 2021 were the most eclectic in the Academy's history. Bright and bold - Promising Young Woman has the feel of a low-budget film at times, and also holds out the possibility of turning into an outright horror film at certain moments. It's ending was certainly imaginative and satisfying, while at the same time being bold. Something a studio would never accept.

Oh, and Alfred Molina showed up again. That's the third time in a Best Picture-nominated film for me in around a week or so. Just one of those things that happens when I watch a lot of films - certain actors or combinations of actors just show up coincidentally again and again and then disappear. This time it was Molina in Best Picture-nominated films. If Vice was in my line-up I'd have a four-for.

8/10


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The Bourne Ultimatum - (2007)

Hey, the Bourne films were really great right up to the third installment. In fact, they seem to get better as they go along. If I were to nitpick at the story and characters, I'd just say that our villains are getting a little too outrageous in their methods. David Strathairn's Noah Vosen has a solution to every problem - and it always involves assassinating somebody. This includes his colleagues. But what the hell - it helped me hate him, and this is a movie, so I can easily let it go. The action and editing is once again top-notch, and fits in perfectly with the previous two installments. I'm certainly interested in their performance in the upcoming 2000s countdown.

8/10

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I really liked this movie. It's heartwarming without being cloying. Probably my favorite Butler performance.

Free Guy 8/10

The Girl Next Door (2004)

The Deep House (2021)

A mediocre horror mixing normal movie and found footage (sort of, but I use that for lack of a better term). It's quite a standard haunted house film, but the underwater environment makes it stand out a little. Not very innovative, but it does an OK job with the cliches.

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I watched a version on youtube so I don't know if it had the original score or not but holy cow the score for this version was really good. Some good camera work too. Very stylish and the music combined with the cinematography created a very eerie mood. I liked it

What year is this one?
Could you link to the one you watched, I wanna hear this score now.

This is the one I watched, 1928 version

Promising Young Woman (2020)



Thought this was good with a few tenuous linky points. Also, we don't really see what Cassie get's up to with her "captures"....shame them? Humiliate them? Even kill them? Bar it moving into exploitation territory I thought that could have been cleared up as it diluted what the audience thought she was really capable of and therefore the outcome.

I'd go along with that and the review, a film with real heart.

Kinda meh. Sickening to see a real circus elephant. Baby elephants are brutalized to get them to the point where their spirit has been beaten out of them.

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I had a similar experience when I saw this for a Personal Rec HoF. The actors, premise were things completely up my alley, but there were some aspects of the storyline that seemed like lazy writing that just bugged the crap outta me and ruined what should have been a very enjoyable film to not too much.

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Starship Troopers - 6/10

Watched it immediately after reading the novel. Bad idea, since the two have nothing to do with each other. The book is pretty serious while this is a camp action flick with an anti-war stance. The characters aren't interesting at all, the acting was all wooden, and while the satire was alright, it wasn't drilled into enough to become a real selling point. While I don't like using the word ''butchering'', I feel it's appropriate here since the sensible and practical worldbuilding of the book was dumped completely, and that was one of its best assets.

On the other side, the art style is fun and energetic, the special effects are good for 1997, a lot of the action scenes are well made and have at least one memorable vignette, and I was very glad to see Clancy Brown, the voice of Mr. Krabs, as drill instructor Zim. His voice is just delightful.

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