Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Saint Maud (2019)

This pleases me.
I almost went yesterday but it turned out the theater by me is closed still for hurricane repair/renovation.

SF = Z


[Snooze Factor Ratings]:
Z = didn't nod off at all
Zz = nearly nodded off but managed to stay alert
Zzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed
Zzzz = nodded off and missed some of the film but went back to watch what I missed but nodded off again at the same point and therefore needed to go back a number of times before I got through it...
Zzzzz = nodded off and missed some or the rest of the film but was not interested enough to go back over it

AND



Fun time with the family, we pulled a double feature. My 3yo daughter loved Cloudy 2,

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There has been an awekening.... have you felt it?

Classe tous risque (1960) A taut, intelligently written gangster film with a heart where old loyalties crumble and one man on the run with his family is quickly running out of options as the police swoop in to nab him.

Lino Ventura plays Abel Davos, a ruthless gangster attempting to sneak out of Italy back into France with his wife, two sons, and a fellow gangster (Stan Kohl). Casualties/fatalities begin to pile up, and the Police's heightened search is, literally, on his heels.
When he calls his counterparts in France, they reluctantly send out an outsider (Jean-Paul Belmondo) to help, wanting no part of the catastrophe or an old friend.

Director Claude Sautet takes the time to delve into the emotional side of things, showcasing quiet moments in the storm between Ventura and his sons, and later on including Belmondo, as he does his best to hide them from the extreme danger, they are caught up in.
What some would use as a device or hook, Sautet is more than apt to ply these aspects with significance and heart, creating a broader, fuller, noir-influenced Chase Film.

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What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

The topic of someone passing for white is extremely interesting & is very personal to Rebecca Hall, the director.

But does this make a good movie? I did finish the movie, but, overall, I thought it rather boring.

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

Harvey, 1950

Elwood (James Stewart) is a middle-aged man who lives with his sister, Veta (Josephine Hull) and niece, Myrtle Mae (Victoria Horne). Elwood frequently converses with a giant, invisible rabbit named Harvey that only he can see. As Veta becomes more and more concerned about finding a good marriage for Myrtle Mae, she explores having Elwood committed to the local asylum, managed by Doctor Sanderson (Charles Drake). But this foray into the world of mental health leads to many unexpected consequences for all involved.

This was an incredibly disrupted, wild week, from the international to the personal and everything in between. Much of what was challenging about this week were things entirely our of my control, and by Wednesday night I felt like I was up to my eyeballs in stress. I needed something gentle and new to watch.

I really enjoyed Harvey, and for the most part it did exactly what I hoped it would do, which was to provide a gentle and engaging 90 minutes of entertainment.

The winning heart of the film is Stewart's performance as Elwood, the kind of person who assumes every new person is just a friend he hasn't met yet. Elwood's easy manner and genial optimism make him very likable, but his sister and niece understandably tense up every time he goes to introduce someone to his giant invisible friend.

The film also does some very fun things with the character of Harvey, playing with the idea that the large rabbit may or may not actually exist. The film is littered with little moments that might seem to confirm Harvey's existence, but Harvey himself is never used as a direct plot device. Instead, it is Elwood's kindness that is the motivating driver behind the character growth of the entire cast.

Stewart is a reliable, affable anchor, but he is well-supported by the rest of the cast, especially Hull's fretful Veta. Her role is a tricky one, because she's about the closest thing that the film has to a villain. But Hull is also very funny, especially in a sequence where she tries to get Elwood committed as her feathered hat bobs hilariously on her head. Drake is good as an overly confident doctor--who diagnoses Veta as a psychopath and Elwood as perfectly sane---and Peggy Dow is also fun as a nurse working at the asylum.

There was one major strike against this film for me, and that was the character of the asylum's orderly, Martin (Jesse White) and a sequence in which he helps to force Veta into the asylum at the direction of the doctor. This entire subplot---in which he physically grabs Veta and carries her into the asylum, later taking all of her clothes off--was incredibly unfunny and uncomfortable for me. Is it kind of funny that Veta is taken to be the crazy one? Sure. But I really found nothing humorous at all about the idea of a woman being forcibly stripped by a strange man. Maybe it's because of an article I read a few years ago about a woman who was marked as a suicide risk when she was arrested and forcibly stripped by a male police officer who then lingered in her cell after she was nude and her fear that she was about to be sexually assaulted. But in any case, this whole sequence really put me off the film. If the character of the orderly had been played as more of a non-sexual buffoon, they might have just pulled it off. But Martin leers at the women in the film. When he first goes to Veta's house, he physically sort of pins Myrtle Mae against a wall. He just seemed like such a creep, and he stays in the story for the whole fiml. And of course Myrtle Mae ends up liking him---her mother's fear of the man every time she sees him is treated as a joke---and Elwood benevolently endorses the pairing and the whole thing is gross.

Overall, though, I found the film charming and fun.

The Batman - ★★☆☆☆
-- Matt Reeves, 2022 --
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I thought it was mediocre af. I wasn't really interested in seeing it to begin with, but got a chance to see it for cheapers with friends. The biggest problem is that the core story and direction just aren't very good, which leads to the movie really feeling as long as it is. The plot twists and turns (whenever it decides to move at all), but only ends up in places that made me go "wait, can't we just go back to the previous status quo?". Meanwhile, director Reeves does a VERY poor job of stringing the 11.000 underwritten plot threads together, resulting in a consistently road-blocked slog of a movie. The blissfully few action scenes are sometimes on point, sometimes underwhelming, but fail to truly standout. This part is forgivable, however, because the movie is really desperate to treat the character work as its main course. In that light, the film can bow on a couple decent central performances to underscore this importance, although I'd still say the scripting and staging come up short.

I guess if you're a hardcore fan of Batman/Bruce Wayne, you'll be satisfied with seeing so much of him and you'll be able to take the film's attempt at emo-darkness seriously. But if you're anything like me, you'll probably have a hard time containing your laughter. That said, there is one thing I liked about it, which also happens to be the one aspect of the Batman mythos in general that I appreciate: Gotham City. I may not be a Batman fan, but I LOVE a good shadowy, crime-ridden crap hole full of moody architecture, scheming politicians and fearful peasants. The Batman more or less delivers on this, with appropriately creepy cinematography, a solid score and above average art direction, which already makes it a marked improvement on the city's bland depiction in the TDK trilogy, although still not nearly as good as that in the old 90s cartoon. Still, I'm curious to see where they're going to take this with the sequels.






Project Gemini - ★★☆☆☆
-- Vyacheslav Lisnevsky, 2021 --
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Yet another low-budget Russian sci/fi-horror flick. Of course, the movie is in English, spoken/mouthed by non-native speakers made out to sound native. The result is extremely bad acting across the board, some of which makes those recent Bruce Willis sci/fi miscreants look Shakespearean by comparison.

It has to be said, some fo the space scenes are quite nice to look at and the plot twist, while not earth-shattering, is always an intriguing one. Unfortunately, there's not much else there.

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How am I supposed to find someone willing to go into that musty old claptrap?

Oof, giving a negative review for the most anticipated movie of the weekend on a Friday afternoon. Bad vibes, indeed!

Free Guy - Directed by Shawn Levy and starring Ryan Reynolds as (blue shirt) Guy, an NPC in a Grand Theft Auto type of MMORPG called Free City. He's a bank teller and he and his BFF, bank security guard Buddy (Lil Rel Howery) exist as background characters for never-ending robberies and shootings. But he dreams of more. That is eventually explained of course but it takes a glimpse of mystery woman Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer) to actually prod Guy into action. The real life gamer behind her is Millie, a former employee of Soonami Studio (the creators of Free City) and it's megalomaniacal CEO Antwan (Taika Waititi). Millie has stayed in contact with her former partner Keys (Joe Keery) who still works for Soonami. There's corporate machinations and an enigma to be worked out and injustice to be addressed.

It's a perfectly adequate popcorn flick and as long as you remember that and don't go looking for something more you won't be disappointed.

80/100

The Bank Dick, 1940

Egbert Souse (WC Fields) gets very little respect from his wife or daughter. In an adventure-filled day, Egbert ends up substituting as a film's director, then unintentionally foils a bank robbery. Hired by the bank whose money he saved, Egbert runs into trouble again when he convinces his daughter's suitor, Og (Grady Sutton) to invest some of the bank's money in a scam company.

This film has a tremendous reputation that precedes it, and it's always interesting trying to set expectations for such a movie. In the end I would say that it's one of those films that I appreciated more than I liked.

WC Fields in the lead role is basically a cartoon made corporeal. With his overly-emphasized expressions and startled reactions, talking out of the side of his mouth, and even the way he moves his body---it's more like something animated than a real human being. While there were many moments where this dynamic absolutely sang, I have to admit that it's the kind of character that I enjoy best in small doses. Even at a paltry run-time of 72 minutes, I found myself tiring of Egbert.

Some of the gags a really work, from the larger physical comedy to the smaller moments. I loved a joke where the bank president offers Egbert a "hearty handshake", only to barely graze his palm with a few fingers.

Some of the humor, though, was a real miss for me. Egbert's spoiled daughter being a brat who constantly demanded a role in the movie. A gag where Egbert is alarmed by the appearance of a Black man behind him in the bank is already a bit meh, but then the Black character is a very caricatured bug-eyed, ungrammatical bit and it just feels incredibly dated and lazily racist. I also didn't care for the character "whiplash" jokes---where a character would be sobbing and then incredibly happy in the next beat.

I certainly see why this film has the reputation it does. For me, however, the ratio of the comedy that landed was just a bit below my preferred threshold. Glad I watched it, but not a new favorite, unfortunately.

The guy actually admitted he didn't even want to see it. So I'm gonna take that review with a grain of salt. But we all have to live up to our usernames. I have to measure up to the man and the myth that was WHIT BISSELL! You yourself have to deal with those problematic legs.

Don’t worry. Its great.

really? I dunno

I plan to watch the new Batman anyways. Looking forward to it.

”Reign Over Me”(2007)

The only film I’ve seen where Adam Sandler shows some acting chops.

7/10

Me too. I'm going Monday afternoon.

Have you seen Punch Drunk Love and Uncut Gems? He is great in both of those as well.

Have you seen Uncut Gems or Punch Drunk Love?

LOL. At the last two posts.

Seen “PDL” upon its release. To be honest, don’t remember a thing about it.

Perhaps, a re-watch is in order. Though Anderson is pretty much hit and miss for me.