Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Yeah, I've only seen it once but I felt like it might be a masterpiece.

Genius (2016)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

First I want to say, Keanu needs to stay away from Romance films!

A man falsely accused of a crime, who does time in prison for that crime, decides to commit that crime once he is released. Along the way, he falls in love with the woman who hit him with her car.

This was a silly, horrible film. You would think with James Caan and Peter Stormare, who are great actors, that they would pick up where the silliness ends.

Keanu's acting rating: 2/5.

Action only, Keanu!

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Its tougher to be vulnerable than to actually be tough.

90's Redux Seen: 15/24
My List 2/25
#12 The Crow
One Pointer: The Polar Bear King

Zeroes and Ones (2021) - I rolled with it's meshy imagery and doomed vibe for a while ngl, but then the audacity of where it's plot (LOL) goes frustrated me. Ethan Hawke is commited, and (half)ideas are raised; none of them new but all of them important (US troops involvement and torture in other countries, distrust towards goverments, the state of Christianity today and the three thousand-years war, fit Russian ladies who want to have your child)...yet none of them mount to a clear point. I respect Ferrara's autership but the more I reflect upon my experience with this, the more this means nothing... but zeroes and ones, here and there. 4/10.

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HEI guys.

>Manhattan
Agreed. I just saw it last year and thought it was fantastic. Sure, not as a hilarious as Annie Hall but a fine follow-up either way. Love Diane Keaton's neurotic character as well.

Nickel Boys is one of those films that I'm deeply conflicted about. The filmmaker made it vague so it could be about black trauma which makes sense for the narrative and time period. However watching documentaries about the Dozier School it was very much about child abuse for everyone and the filmmakers choices where very manipulative. So the issue with the film, is, is it okay to manipulate the abuse of children to send a specific message.


The gimmick was used so they didn't have to deal with the narrative problems of telling a tragic fake story, which was embellished so that it could also work with Jim Crowe south.

As is the case with a lot of Chaplin films, most of what happens with the Tramp might feel like separate skits connected by whatever the story is. City Lights is not very different, but the main story behind feels a bit more cohesive than other of his films. Even the bits with the millionaire, which some people might consider to be the more peripheral, still feels fairly well connected to the main story between the Tramp and the girl.

Also, most of the different sequences and setpieces are fun. The most notable is probably when the Tramp is lured into a boxing match to split the money. The way that Chaplin uses the score and the fight/dance choreography is quite magical AND funny. There were a couple of funny scenes where the millionaire takes the Tramp to a party that were really effective as well.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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April 1, 2025

NOVOCAINE (Dan Berk - Robert Olsen / 2025)

April 8, 2025

THE WOMAN IN THE YARD (Jaume Collet-Serra / 2025)
DEATH OF A UNICORN (Alex Scharfman / 2025)

April 15, 2025

DROP (Christopher Landon / 2025)
THE AMATEUR (James Hawes / 2025)

I've seriously got to be more diligent about posting reviews of theatrical features as soon as I possibly can after I've seen them, because after three weeks everything just piles up! Oh well, I'll try to keep things brief...

Novocaine
Not the best, not the worst. Kind of a cool idea, about an assistant bank manager (Jack Quaid) who can't feel any pain, which makes him into a kind of "superhero." The bank gets robbed, his new girlfriend (Amber Midthunder) gets taken hostage, and he goes after the bad guys himself. Kind of cool comedy gags with our hero getting repeatedly subjected to any number of physical insults which would traumatize anyone else, but which he more or less just shakes off. I like how the movie takes its time before turning into an all-out action comedy, starting out as kind of a touching rom-com. (Granted, that's not really my sort of genre, but in this case it adds a legit element of distinctiveness to something which could otherwise have been - and still kind of is - rather predictable.)

The Woman in the Yard
Kind of a cool horror movie about a mysterious woman in black who visits a family living on a farm after they've been through a recent tragedy. It actually kind of reminds me of Stephen King's The Shining in the way the supernatural threat is a kind of representation / projection / extension of the worst instincts of a parent desperately trying to keep his / her life together. In this case, it's a recently widowed mother (Danielle Deadwyler, who's very good) who is taking care of two children and a farm left behind after her husband is killed in a car accident. And the mysterious woman in black (Okwui Okpokwasili) is figuratively and literally a shadow manifestation.

Death of a Unicorn
Kind of irreverent, smart-alecky fantasy / comedy / social satire, but no less entertaining for all that. It's about a father (Paul Rudd) and daughter (Jenna Ortega) who take a car trip up to the secluded woodland estate of the father's wealthy but ailing boss (Richard E. Grant), only to collide with a mysterious creature that could only be a unicorn. They take the creature's body and put it in the backseat for the rest of the trip. Everyone eventually discovers that the unicorn's genes have the power to cure all human illnesses - including that of the boss - and everyone is frantically trying to figure out how to profit from this miracle. But one catch: There's more than one unicorn living in the area, and they've got a mean streak! Much carnage ensues, including impaling on horns...

Drop
If you've seen the trailer, you pretty much get the picture, but the actual film itself is decently executed. A recently widowed mother (and domestic abuse survivor) leaves her son with the babysitter and goes to a fancy restaurant for a blind date. The man turns out to be a nice guy, and the two personally click, but then she starts getting threatening digital drops on her phone, telling her that unless she kills her date with a vial of poison slipped into his drink, the messenger will order her son to be killed. And the person sending the messages is located somewhere in the restaurant. Interesting visual style, with the digital messages displayed directly to the audience and multiple camera perspectives projected onto the wall behind the main character. Ultimately it's very slight, but it's got a few cool twists. You know you're having a good night at the movies when you slam your fist onto the armrest five times in a row when the bad guy bites the dust. In this case, the bad guy (not saying who) goes out the window and plummets to a messy death, as does one of the culprits in the next movie...

The Amateur
Actually a remake of a 1981 thriller starring John Savage and Christopher Plummer, which I haven't seen. A computer programmer (Rami Malek) who writes code for the CIA is struck by tragedy when his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed in a terrorist attack in London. To make matters worse, the botched attack would appear to be blowback from illegal actions undertaken by his boss (Holt McCallany) which he has recently uncovered. Our hero then sets out to take revenge on the men responsible for killing his wife, but being a computer geek and not a killer, he takes his own particular route to vengeance which makes better use of his particular skill set. He can kill, but only from a distance. A thematically interesting spy / revenge thriller, dealing with the subject of grief and how to fill the silence left behind by the loss of a loved one, as well as the murky ethics involved with killing people from a distance or with the touch of a button. Ultimately I'm left with one burning question: Why is Jon Bernthal's character made up to bear a passing resemblance to a shaggier version of Keanu Reeves? (I was actually left wondering whether or not that was Keanu when I saw the trailer!)

To make a (potentially) long story short, these were all okay movies. Not great, but not terrible, either. This just seems to be the trend for me these days. I'm mildly entertained, but out-and-out classics would seem to be rather scarce these days. Oh well...

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"Well, it's what people know about themselves inside that makes 'em afraid" - Clint Eastwood as The Stranger, High Plains Drifter (1973)

"I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours" - Bob Dylan, Talkin' World War III Blues (1963)

G20 follows President Danielle Sutton (Viola Davis) as she heads out with her family to lead a G20 summit in South Africa. However, things go awry when a mercenary (Antony Starr) takes over the event in an effort to get some cryptocurrency, or something. Whatever, cause all we need is the American president blowing doors off, and she does.

Having Davis in the lead role is a definite plus, and she obviously delivers; both in the action moments and the dramatic moments. Having her character be a former soldier helps, but I also liked how she gave her some moments of vulnerability and shock before she properly "clicks" into combat mode. Obviously there are moments where you have to suspend your disbelief, but the film gives you enough to think that she could pull this off.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

A few viewings from the past few days:

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) - C+
Poor Things (2023) - B
Raise the Red Lantern (1991) - A+

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"A candy colored clown!"
Member since Fall 2002
Top 100 Films, clicky below

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Bandits (2001)

Mulan (1998)





"A"

By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58261392

Arizona - (2018)

Pretty strange this one - it has all the feel of what started out as your run of the mill thriller which was then hijacked by stars Danny McBride (who features prominently as lead antagonist Sonny) and Seth Rogen (who features in a smaller role, uncredited, as Real Estate boss Gary - the first person Sonny murders in a rage prompted by the financial position he's been put in during the 2008/9 economic crisis.) What might have been an ordinary hostage drama becomes one of those black comedies which features McBride going off on tangents during impromptu improvisation. You know the type of humour if you're well versed in the universe those actors inhabit. I don't know if it's a good enough black comedy to call this really funny, and the funny stuff does rob proceedings of a lot what might have been tension. Rosemarie DeWitt, Luke Wilson and Elizabeth Gillies round out a game cast. It was unusual enough to at least be entertaining, and it's at least amusing enough for me to not hate it.

6/10


By Copied from MGM web site, and intellectual property owned by MGM., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11792185

Deranged - (1974)

A real-life accounting of the ghoulish crimes of Ed Gein. It's cartoonishly bizarre, and if it weren't so overwhelmingly horrific and sad it'd be a morbid comedy. Something you'd expect from a Lloyd Kaufman. Alfred Hitchcock and Tobe Hooper produced tragic figures and monsters by distilling the essence of darkness from the story, but in Deranged it's put before us naked and in it's raw form. As such it ironically feels less real and strangely silly, but not less worth seeing for a peek behind the curtain into this rare representation of America's first real-life famous ogre, who became a byword for grisly shock and insanity. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

7/10

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Excellent strange dystopian movie. Three leads all very good. Always love to see Alicia.

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

Excellent movie.

A crime thriller about an agency framing a young machinist at a college for a death of a scientist, and hes the only one who knows the frequency to convert water into free energy.


A touching story about a compulsive gambler, whose buddy pays off his debt, who agrees to coach an intercity baseball team. Along the way, he learns about himself and how to care about others.

These are two of the 80 something films starring Keanu Reeves. I figured since Im a John Wick die hard fan, I would watch his filmography, including past films I have seen. Everyone has mixed feelings if he’s a great actor or not.

Both of these films I really enjoyed.

I think he's pretty damn good at certain genres. I think that some of the films he selects are bad scripts and/or bad directors. Hes an entertaining actor and thats his job, to entertain.

I loved the original The Amateur, I watched it at least a dozen times.
I can't stand Rami Malek so I will probably avoid the remake but you have inspired me to see if I can go find the original somewhere.

"La Strada"

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https://www.youtube.com/c/LoyalOpposition

The Naked Island (1960) - And here we were, losing our minds when PTA kept it all dialogue-free for 20 minutes in 2007; when Kaneto Shindō did it for a whole film - which happens to be a more universal statement on working man's condition btw - like fifty years prior. mad proprs.

The first half-hour is great, the middle part is lesser... but once a certain death hits the family, it hits hard, and the way the film handles the aftermath is unforgettable.
An essential cinematic poem. 9/10.

Just got home from the 20th anniversary showing. I so love the novel and this movie, and while it's become very familiar to me, there are still things I noticed for the first time (at the ball, the brief shot of Carolyn sizing up Mr. Collins - there's so much you can infer in that look she gives him... like, she knows darn well Lizzie will have nothing to do with this fool, but this fool could be what she needs for a safe and secure life).

And I admire how it moves - from the very first shot, the way the camera follows Elizabeth, then allows her to go on her on way while it enters the house to introduce us to the rest of the family. The 2nd Ball is amazing, where the all-seeing eye glides from room to room, touching briefly on each person’s little dramas - it leaves them, connects with another, only to return to catch up later on. It’s a sharply choreographed dance on its own and illustrates how people can be isolated in their own little worlds, even when surrounded by a crowd.

The edits and scene transitions, the incredible dialogue, the acting (my favorite performance from Knightly and Macfadyen's a delight as Darcy). It's a movie I enjoy as art, and as entertainment - it's a special one - a perfectly lovely, romantic (and humorous) story. I'm so happy I was afforded the opportunity to revisit it on the big screen.

I'm in a very good mood right now.