Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Personally, I LOVED Romancing the Stone...perfect blend of action and romance featuring my favorite Kathleen Turner performance. I love the transition that the Joan Wilder character goes through in this movie...from prudish, uptight writer to passionate woman ready to live the lives of the heroines she writes about. I think Turner's performance in this film deserved an Oscar nomination more than Peggy Sue Got Married, which did earn Turner her only nomination. Didn't really care for Jewel of the Nile though.

Big fan of the Prowler. In an odd way, it philosophically reminds of Kitano's work in how it takes a genre and strips it of all its fat until there's only something raw, serious and mean left.

I think Zito's deft hand behind the camera and Savini's impeccable gore elevate it to among my favorite slasher films, even if the plot and characters are boilerplate. They're allowed to be because the film has no delusion of being elevated (the Burning for instance, which slogs through weak attempts at character and mystery building) and it unpretentiously shows it's titular slasher getting ready at the beginning. It knows why you're watching this and it will deliver on that level.

Big fan.

Cropsy has the kind of mythological sheen that comes from childhood campfire tales, so all of that character building in The Burning is essential to it being easily one of the best traditional slashers of the 80s. There is a lighthearted and goofy camraderie between the kids in that film, which elevates it above how obvious its character flexes actually are. As a result, Cropsy becomes the kind of ghoul we can expect to defy the laws of mortality and almost emerge at the camp straight from their nightmares.


I agree the Prowler is purely utilitarian in its construction, and that is fine, but most of the actual film is fairly unremarkable. I do think it is a quality midtier slasher, but not worth much excitement (or derision)

Big fan, here.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller is a downright great film.

For what it's worth, I may like it more if I rewatch it.

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Double feature: Private Investigators



The Kid Detective - This seems like something you'd find running on the CW but since it's a Canadian production it doesn't labor to be overly edgy. It stars Adam Brody as Abe Applebaum, a former child detective in the small town of Willowbrook. He's grown up and is frankly having trouble moving on from both his childhood success and from the one case he couldn't solve, the disappearance of 14 year old Gracie Gulliver. He's approached by high school girl Caroline who eventually hires Abe to investigate the murder of her boyfriend, Patrick Chang.

This put me in mind of Brick, another noirish detective film involving a young protagonist investigating a missing girl. But this is anchored by an unassumingly humane performance from Brody. He succeeds in making you care so that when he finally comes to grips with the unvarnished truth about what he thought he was you're right there with him. You understand his pain. It's a largely sedate and good-natured film until it isn't. But even that tonal shift works itself out quite effectively.


The Long Goodbye - This is a 1973 Robert Altman noir starring Elliot Gould as Los Angeles PI Phillip Marlowe. He's visited by his longtime friend Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton) in the middle of the night. Lennox is in trouble and asks Marlowe to drive him to Tijuana. It's only when Marlowe gets back and is arrested by the cops that he finds out Terry's wife is dead. After Terry himself is found dead down in Mexico Marlowe is released and is hired by Eileen Wade (Nina van Pallandt) to track down her missing husband Roger (Sterling Hayden). It's only after finding him at a rehab clinic that Marlowe discovers that the Wades and the Lennoxes knew each other socially and he starts having doubts about Terry's supposed suicide and his wifes murder.

Counting this one I've seen a total of eight Altman films and even though this doesn't have the usual huge cast of talent it's still a pretty decent representation of his work. Gould does a fine job as the iconic gumshoe and van Pallandt and Hayden are perfectly adequate. There are small cameos by David Carradine and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Henry Gibson and director Mark Rydell pop up as memorable villains. But what truly brings it all together is the way that Altman captures the grubby and duplicitous nature of 70's era Los Angeles.

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Oh sure, I love it too - to this day! Think it’s genuinely funny and actually quite realistic in terms of human behaviour, apart from the crocs and all. Haven’t really thought of it until now in such detail, it was such a constant in my childhood. Agree with most of what you say. The two of them had a good chemistry at the time - The War of the Roses was a bit more over-the-top but also great, I thought.

Loved War of the Roses too...it's so dark but it works...didn't really care for Jewel of the Nile

"Nobody" - (7/10)

"Paris, Texas" - (9/10)

First time?

I'm not a huge Deodato fan, but I do feel like his sadism gave this movie a pretty nice edge. Or at least it was nice to get that edge in a movie that didn't have real animal killings and execution footage.


Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man is easily his best movie, though.

Double feature - Mentally unstable loners



Unhinged - Russell Crowe elevates this 2020 road rage gone nuclear thriller. Crowe simply and adroitly embodies the title. That of Tom Cooper, a completely unhinged psychopath who so happens to be triggered by the persistent car horn of largely clueless and overwhelmed single mom Rachel Flynn (Caren Pistorious). She's trying to get her teenage son Kyle to school before he gets yet another tardy notice. When she pulls up behind Cooper's truck at a stoplight little does she know that he's already crossed a line that morning. A line that cannot be uncrossed. And that her laying on the horn after he sits through a green light will be further exacerbated by both her inability to read the bad vibes coming off the guy and her subsequent refusal to return his apology. Thus the wheels are set in motion for a rapidly escalating game of cat and mouse in which Cooper is ostensibly three or four steps ahead of her. The seemingly omnipotent antagonist is the usual MO for these kinds of thrillers. But in this case the script takes care not to set him up as implausibly all-seeing. There are moments of course where coincidences are used to ill effect and to cover a variety of plot holes. And Rachel's character is also guilty of those, "Why didn't she simply...?" moments that strain credulity. But Crowe's masterful ability to project menace and a suitably brisk and concise script power through these hiccups. It's not a perfect movie but it'll do till a better one comes along.





Wander - Aaron Eckhart, Tommy Lee Jones and Heather Graham star in this 2020 conspiracy drama. Eckhart plays Arthur Bretnik, a psychologically erratic former detective and present day private investigator. His life and mental faculties have fallen apart as the result of his wife and daughter dying in a car accident. He now lives out in the middle of nowhere and hosts a conspiracy theory podcast with his equally paranoid friend Jimmy Cleats (Jones). Bretnik is hired by one of his podcast listeners, Elena Guzman (Deborah Chavez), to look into the death of her daughter in the small town of Wander, New Mexico. It was ruled a car accident but Elena suspects a coverup and a murder. While poking around the accident scene and the nearby town Bretnik runs across several anomalies that leads him to believe that the girl's accident is somehow tied to his own daughter's death. Director April Mullen goes to great pains to portray the inner workings of Arthur's damaged psyche, using washed out color palettes, disorienting camera angles and a muffled, disjointed soundtrack. So much so that the viewer is never completely sure that what they're seeing and hearing onscreen is actually transpiring. Eckhart gives it his all but the script is such a hot, soupy mess that you might find yourself tuning out instead of hunkering down and investing yourself.

I am firmly in the Endearing camp. I love those ants.

Double feature: British gangsters

I watched this night before last under some duress. I don't know why but I just couldn't get my chakras aligned to watch this movie. I like Pixar, I like Existentialism, I like Jazz. This should be a slam-dunk. But I just couldn't get myself to watch it.
So... forced to Monday night I submitted to the will of the group... and got some real rewards.
There is a lot to like and even love about the film. Not everything necessarily worked for me but it's lows (to me) weren't terrible and its highs were legit (like the performances from Tina Fey, Rachel House, and in smaller roles, Angela Bassett and Phylicia Rashad, and, obviously, The Music). In fact, let me remove the The Music from the parentheses and just say that it is such an integral part of the whole production interwoven into not only the narrative but the heart of the picture, and Batiste deserves some recognition for it.
Good movie.

That's interesting, I knew him as Jack first. So it totally works for me. I find him a lot more fun in Jack Mode.

Agreed.

I used to love this movie, too long since I seen it.