Rate The Last Movie You Saw

My 2nd time watching, and I picked it out because my wife and a woman in our building wanted to watch something. I see it as practically flawless, and the chicks loved it too.

Been meaning to watch this for ages! I only seen it once like 20 years ago and don't remember the story but I do remember being impressed. I wonder how I would feel a second time around viewing?

It’s excellent.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

even though this is clearly a better film i think i still prefer Nowhere. both are absolutely dynamite though.

The Necessities of Life (2008)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Kill your Darlings (2013)

Biographical drama about the beat poets Ginsberg, Carr, Burroughs and Kerouac. All finding themselves in what seemed to me to be a rather privileged manner (maybe less so Kerouac). The performances are just fine and I enjoyed the interaction between the mains. Ben Foster was pretty spot on as Burroughs The whole film does revolve around an action that Carr served a couple of years for but it it is all very sketchy. Speaking outside the movie, Naked Lunch was much better. And retrospectively, the actions of Burroughs and Ginsberg were deplorable in their real lives so it's hard to really connect with the depictions.
Just as a movie:

I finished Michael Mohan's Voyeurs. It's a really good film with a satisfying ending. I won't go into detail. That wouldn't be fair. Some of the second act was a mite convoluted and took some grains of salt. Overall though I did like it. IMDb bills it as an "erotic thriller" and I believe this film fulfills that monicker just fine. It also has "suspense mystery" although it isn't quite as big there, accepting the higher amount of suspense to mystery. It is good stuff though.

And it's off to the next film.

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I destroyed the dastardly dairy dame! I made mad milk maid mulch!

I hate insomnia. Oh yeah. Last year I had four cases of it, and each time it lasted three months.

Code 8 (2019)

LOVE this movie...Shirley MacLaine was robbed of the Best Actress Oscar

1st Rewatch....Another nearly forgotten gem from the Doris Day library. Day plays Kate McKay, the wife of a former college professor turned theater critic (David Niven) and mother of four boys, who has to deal with moving their family from a cramped New York apartment to a huge house in the country, the problems with her kids adjusting to a new school and a sexy actress (Janis Paige) going after her husband after he writes a scathing review about her performance. Even though Kate is a housewife and mother, she is the family anchor and the smartest character in the movie and it goes without saying that Paige steals every scene she's in. One of Day's sons is played by Stanley Livingston, who you might remember as Chip Douglas on My Three Sons and you might also catch Len Lesser in a bit part as a waiter. Younger viewers might remember Lesser as Uncle Leo on Seinfeld.
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I watched The Apartment oh several years ago now and I was thoroughly engrossed. I really enjoyed Jack Lemmon as Baxter. It's such a great film.

John Wick: Chapter 4
9/10

Mark C

I can barely read that. Need I bust out a magnifying glass?

I decided to give Rules another try tonight, and my reaction was largely unchanged. I seem to struggle with much of Renoir's work, despite my efforts to overcome this. I concentrated on the cinematic aspects, which are indeed impressive: the way he composes his scenes, positions his characters, and the use of mirrors to sometimes create a greater depth of field. Marvelous, but...

I attempted to concentrate on its themes, the biting social critique, how the characters are consumed by their own small dramas at the expense of everything else, which is clever, but...

There's a tedium in the telling, a lot of talk that l wasn't interested in (blah, blah, blah) - I couldn't engage, I didn't care—whether that's a fault of the film or a deficiency in me, I'm not sure, but this is a recurring issue I encounter with the director's work. There are exceptions; for instance, I enjoyed The River (1951), but often I'm unable to establish an emotional or intellectual connection, although there's plenty there to enable it. In addition, the element of farce does the film no favors, people running about, shouting and fighting and waving their arms, all that noise throws me out of the game, obscures the message.

In terms of film craft, it probably deserves high marks, but as a viewing experience, all I have is apathy.

I feel like a failure as a film nut, lol - split the difference, give it points for the technical aspects

I have exactly the same trouble as you described with The Rules of the Game. Also the same feeling that somehow my film-loving credentials have been muddied and spoiled because I have those problems that stop me from loving it.

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Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1078925

Taking Lives - (2004)

We all know there's a twist coming, and we all know Taking Lives isn't finished after it's very straightforward fake climax at the 65 minute mark of the movie - and most of us know what the twist is going to be. Still, there's a neat encore twist that got me - an awesome little turnaround. This is assuredly not Se7en. For our troubles we get a cutesy Angelina Jolie, a suspicious Ethan Hawke and a barely there Kiefer Sutherland, with a sprinkling of Gena Rowlands and Paul Dano for good measure. Also, for L'Amour braque fans and international cinema devotees there's Tchéky Karyo. You need to appreciate the stars, because this isn't the best psychological thriller going around, despite some promise. The snappy ending (and, I'll grant it, snappy start) belong as first-rate book-ends on a better film. An identity thief who murders every few years and takes on a new persona is close to being caught - which is why FBI profiler Illeana Scott (Jolie) has been brought to Montreal to help. The first big break comes in the form of art dealer James Costa (Hawke) - was he trying to save that last victim, or was he the murderer? When Christopher Hart (Kiefer Sutherland) appears from the shadows, trying to threaten Costa in a way that embodies the killer's M.O., the cops set up a trap, hoping to snare him. In the meantime Illeana and James start to fall in love. It has it's moments, I'll grant Taking Lives that, but it feels a little rough around the edges and doesn't do enough to distract us from what it intends to do, making the movie's big reveal somewhat hollow.

6/10

Slow burner filmed in Scotland. Ronan very good.



Good movie. NOT based on a true story. Jim Broadbent made this movie.

Ariel -

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, but evenly? Not hardly. For some, it's a whole lot more of the latter. That's the case for Taisto (Pajala) in another funny and hard-hitting Kaurismaki tale about his downtrodden fellow citizens trying to hang on to something worthwhile. Like Yvon in L'Argent and Stroszek in the movie of the same name - I'll be another person to mention Pajala resembles Bruno S. - Taisto is another memorably unfortunate laborer whose downward spiral is a consequence of simply being one. From losing his mining job to his savings to...well, I don't want to say much more other than the writer/director will surprise you with how much someone can lose without being directly at fault, Taisto somehow keeps the nobility of poverty trope alive. It helps that one of his bouts of bad luck come with a good one: he not only falls in love with a single mother, but also one whose lone son has already seen enough in his short life to be okay with this relative stranger becoming his new dad. What follows is a Rube Goldberg-like series of encounters, dilemmas, genre shifts, what have you as Taisto tries to stop this opportunity from leaving his grasp. Again, he does his best to hold his head up, but it's not always easy. Every time he slips - especially during a moment with a prison guard - it's a punch to a gut and a surge of empathy for those like Taisto who somehow have even more indignities. In the midst of his difficult journey, Kaurismaki still manages to add his signature deadpan comedy where he can. If it's not his adorably loyal and none-too bright cellmate, it's their attempt at coming across like they belong in a Tarantino movie.

Kaurismaki's stories about there being a light at the end of the tunnel for people like Taisto are as reliably optimistic as movies get, with this entry being no exception. I struggled with rating this one a bit, settling on a judgement that it's great overall, but just a good one for Kaurismaki. Compared to the best ones I've seen by him so far, this seems more like a lateral than an upward move, if you will. Pajala is fine as our hero, but he makes Taisto more impenetrable and gives him fewer dimensions than I have seen in the filmmaker's best heroes. The same could be said about the rest of the characters, which could be due to the plot being more involved here than it is in his typical movie. I still feel he could have fleshed everyone out a bit more and without slowing things down. The important thing, though, is that I remain eager to conclude the Proletariat trilogy. Oh, and if you're wondering what "Ariel" means, I'll just say that if you're a movie lover and your first thought is what I assume it is, you are in the ballpark.

Ray Figueroa's epic Puerto Rican film takes a look at these centuries-long "relationships" through a story of love, want, and revenge. Once Upon a Time in the Caribbean follows Juan Encarnación (Héctor Aníbal), a former sugarcane foreman, as he tries to find and rescue his wife Pura (Essined Aponte) who was kidnapped by some "old foes" on orders of American landowner Mr. Walker (Robert García Cooper), who wants to take her as wife.

Second, Figueroa feeds this Puerto Rican story with tons of influence from westerns, samurai films, and many others. There is a lot of Kurosawa, Eastwood, Tarantino, and others running through this film's DNA, with katanas and revolvers being replaced by machetes. Like Eastwood's Man with No Name, Juan is a man of few words, but one that everybody knows about and everybody fears. Even though Aníbal's performance never excels, most of what works about him and the film is in screen presence, vibe, and atmosphere.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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