Rate The Last Movie You Saw

ARQ (2016)

He Who Gets Slapped -- 4/5 -- a definitive sad clown pic
Diary of a Lost Girl - 5/5 -- this has been on my to watch list like forever, boarding school never looked so bleak, part of me wants to watch the killer santa movie, but will probably just get cheered up by Ren & Stimpy.

Barney's Great Adventure (1998) I probably shouldn't admit to watching this, but I actually kind of liked it. Barney is a fun character and I thought this movie had some charm to it. The acting works for what it is and the story is sufficiently silly to keep viewers engaged.

6th Rewatch...One of my guilty pleasures is this breezy actioner about a group of tornado chasers led by a now divorced couple. The special effects are decent and the supporting cast is pretty likable but what keeps bringing me back to this film is the undeniable chemistry between the late Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt as Bill and Jo. RIP, Mr. Paxton.

1st Rewatch...This movie is the primary reason Hollywood needs to stop trying to bring jukebox Broadway musicals to the screen. This is the story of Donna (Meryl Streep), the fun-loving proprietress of a run down hotel in the Greek Islands who is preparing for the wedding of her daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried). We learn that Sophie that Sophie has located her mother's diary and gleaned from it that there are three possible men from Donna's past that could be her father, so she invites all three men (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgaard) to her wedding without telling her mother. The stage musical (which I've never seen) is a salute to 80's music group ABBA, but trying to make the music fit this story isn't always successful. With such thin material to work with, director Phyllidia Lloyd should have come out with a more efficient musical arsenal...first of all, why hire three actors to play the fathers who can't sing? Brosnan is an especially hideous vocalist. SOme of the choreography is strong, but the songs just don't fit the story. Seyfried is a little sugary for my tastes, but you know what? Streep is SO wonderful as Donna, the movie is still worth a look if you're a Streep fan and love musicals. Her rendition of "The Winner Takes it All" is a bullseye. This movie must have made some money, because they actually made a sequel, a rarity for musicals, that only features Streep in a cameo. Personally, th only film version of a jukebox musical that worked for me was Jersey Boys.

Very amusing entertaining movie. Adèle Exarchopoulos really made this movie.

Movie ran out of steam towards the end, but the rest of it was great.

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

I should rewatch this. It’s been a while.

Coup de Grace - 7/10

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

Stroszek (1977)

A weird counter-clockwise watch for me as I had watched "Control" following the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis and this was the last film he watched. I've seen lots of Herzog with varying degrees of enjoyment. This story about a hopeless alcoholic Bruno who moves from the hassles of Berlin to the promised land of the good ole USA. Predictably things don't go too well with his prostitute girlfriend and rather whacky neighbour (studying human magnetism) when they arrive. This is a strange film in that it melds comedy, farce and deeply touching moments as we see our hero continually disgraced and have to ask, it is his fault or those around him? The ending is finger-lickin' chickin.

The Luzhin Defence (2000)

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By http://www.impawards.com/1993/remains_of_the_day.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6745078

The Remains of the Day - (1993)

I've been meaning to watch this movie for well over a decade methinks, so it's good to finally sit down (or recline so far back it's more accurate to say "lay down") and take it in. Wistfully sad, it mainly focuses on butler James Stevens (Anthony Hopkins), who is so dedicated to his profession that he loses all sense of the world around him, including a possible love affair with housekeeper Sarah Kenton (Emma Thompson). Talking about the world around him, his boss, the Earl of Darlington (James Fox) ends up something of a Nazi sympathiser before the start of the Second World War, not due to any preconceived notions of right-wing politics, but simply because he's so easily taken in by German diplomats. In the film it's he who advises appeasement with the Germans over their territorial demands, and ends up a villain to his fellow countrymen. Congressman Jack Lewis (Christopher Reeve) stands in for the more pragmatic Americans, who have their finger on the pulse concerning the sea change in 20th Century political reality - realpolitik. Today it would be a three-hour plus movie, but The Remains of the Day runs a stately 134 minutes, making it a long, but not overlong, movie. I thought it's emphasis on Stevens' lost possibilities, and aimless life, gives it an emotional core that I wasn't expecting. I really liked it.

8/10

Loved The Remains of the Day....A link to my review:

https://www.movieforums.com/reviews/...f_the_day.html

1st Rewatch...This overblown and confusing sequel to the surprise 1996 hit starring Michael Jordan stars Lebron James as another basketball player who has to play a basketball game with the Looney Tunes, this time in order to save his son. The technical wizardry involved in mounting this film is impressive, but the story is confusing and Lebron is a little abrasive and doesn't have presence that Michael Jordan did in the first film. Don Cheadle's performance as Al G Rhythm is also worth a look, but this film is the ultimate example of "Sequel-itis" and feels about seven hours long.

1st Rewatch...Disney scored a bullseye with this live action prequel centered on one of their most memorable animated movie villains. This lavishly produced look at Cruella Deville's rise from petty thief to the top of the design world, where she becomes engaged with an evil fashion empress takes a minute to get going, but once it does, this one fires on all cylinders. It's a visual feast (robbed of a Best Costumes Oscar) and anchored by charismatic, scenery chewing performances from two time Oscar winners Emma Stone in the title role and Emma Thompson as the Baroness.

Umpteenth Rewatch...For my money, Blake Edwards' masterpiece and his most underrated film. Edwards wrote and directed this scorching cinematic middle finger to the way the Hollywood studios treated him and wife Julie Andrews after their big bomb Darling Lili. The film stars the late Richard Mulligan, as a fictionalized Edwards named Felix Farmer, whose latest film with wife, Sally Miles (Andrews) bombs at the box office. After nearly losing his mind and attempting suicide, Felix comes up with a plan to save the film by re-shooting as sexual extravaganza, climaxing with Sally baring her breasts onscreen for the first time. Edwards' take no prisoners screenplay fills the screen with a bunch of manipulative and duplicitous Hollywood movers and shakers who all have their own agendas and don't care who they have to run over to achieve them. Mulligan and Andrews are backed by a spectacular cast (a lot of whom are no longer with us) includes Robert Webber, Robert Preston, William Holden (his last film), Shelley Winters. Robert Vaughn, Marisa Berensen, Loretta Swit, Roseanna Arquette, Craig Stevens, Larry Hagman, and Stuart Margolin. This film just gets better with age and Andrews has never looked more beautiful onscreen.

The Lost Honor of Katharine Blum - 6/10
Like the movie's theme of media noise, this movie was a lot of noise. A lot of redundancy and no real time to develop characters or relationships. Even tying a loose end felt forced.

A very good movie.

June 11, 2024

THE WATCHERS (Ishana Night Shyamalan / 2024)

I must say that I was impressed! The daughter of M. Night Shyamalan does a very good job with this horror thriller. For better or for worse, she's a chip off the ol' block, because while she shares many of her father's stylistic traits and genre sensibilities, she also shares with him a slightly off-kilter eccentricity that I could never ever really nail down, but which makes her father's cinematic body of work something of a mixed bag. I wish I could be more specific than that, but the Shyamalan sensibility is something that I've never really gotten a grip on, even though I've admired many of M. Night's films in the past. (In particular, I always thought 2004's The Village was very underrated, and found 2016's Split to be very thought-provoking. I never really could figure out what he was up to with 2006's Lady in the Water or 2008's The Happening, though...)

The Watchers is primarily a horror film about supernatural folklore, specifically of the Celtic variety. Dakota Fanning plays an American girl named Mina, who lives and works in a pet store in Ireland. It's hinted early on that she's estranged from her family and has a tragic history. When her car breaks down in a forest while en route to deliver a parrot (a very charismatic little bird, BTW ), she finds herself lost and trapped. She follows a mysterious woman named Madeline (Olwen Fouéré) to a bunker-like building in which Madeline, Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan) reside. It turns out they are trapped by a dangerous race of metamorphic creatures referred to as Watchers, who observe the group's activities through the one-way mirror window of the building. We later find out that these creatures are a debased version of a type of mythical fairy creature that once co-existed side by side with humans and even mated with them.

One of the things that I always have trouble getting a foothold on with Shyamalan films (father's or daughter's) is just precisely what the movie is all about... or rather what the theme is. And in many cases, I feel like the film is deliberately toying with me and misdirecting me down a blind alley. In the case of this film, we're given a rather blatant hint at allegory when we're shown the characters watching DVD's of some reality TV show in the bunker. Yes, we're invited to draw a comparison between the voyeurism of our popular culture and the voyeurism of the creatures. But to what end, ultimately? This particular thematic thread is dropped almost as soon as it's raised. Like I said, a bit of a misdirect. This proves, however, to be merely a minor distraction. Ishana's The Watchers is, for the most part, relatively straightforward and, unlike M. Night's work, there's no real serious hint of anything deep or probing. (Like I said before, sometimes the elder Shyamalan achieves that greater depth, sometimes not.) However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Ishana's not bad for a first-timer, and she's got a real flair for the genre.

Not to indulge in too many spoilers, but if you're asking whether or not our characters manage to escape the forest and the clutches of the Watchers... well, I won't say either way, but the story continues for a while beyond the point at which we find out. Also, due to the fact that the story deals with beings who are shapeshifters, the whole issue dealt with in John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) once again comes up here. Namely, how good are they at changing their shape and appearance? Also, to paraphrase Courtney Love, if they can "fake it so real that they're beyond fake," then that raises the issue of infiltration - and ultimately, of trust. As I've stated, the movie goes on for quite some time after audiences might think it's over, and there is a bit of a drag towards the end. The ending is effective, though, and we get a hint of the possibility of rapprochement.

Granted, it's not a great movie, but The Watchers is distinctive and different enough - and (always attractive to me) intelligent enough - to stand out from the rest of the horror pack. I eagerly look forward to what young Ishana comes up with next!

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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)

My Darling Clementine (John Ford / 1946)
Red River (Howard Hawks / 1948)

I went and got myself two classics here!

The first one, John Ford's My Darling Clementine stars Henry Fonda in the role of legendary lawman Wyatt Earp and Victor Mature in the role of John "Doc" Holliday. While it's not my particular favorite among the many film versions of the Earp / Holliday / Tombstone / O.K. Corral legend (that would be a tie between the two rivalling 1993-1994 films with Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner), it's a movie I've got a lot of admiration and respect for. It has a wistful and melancholic air about it, and its pacing is extremely unhurried. If Quentin Tarantino is right and 1959's Rio Bravo is Howard Hawks' "hangout movie," then I would submit that My Darling Clementine is Ford's. As the movie starts off, the Earp brothers are portrayed this time as cattlemen driving their herd along to the little town of Tombstone, Arizona. After their cattle are stolen and youngest brother James is killed in cold blood by the rustlers, Wyatt takes on the job of town marshal and vows to bring the culprits to justice. And it looks like the culprits are Pa Clanton and his son, Pa being brilliantly played by Walter Brennan at his most venomously sinister. (Apparently Brennan didn't get along with John Ford, and channeled that hostility toward his director into the role of Pa Clanton.) However... Having established the key players and their situation, a confident Ford is in no hurry to advance the confrontation. He knows the drama will come to a head eventually. Victor Mature portrays Doc Holliday in this film, and while at first this might come across as strange counter-typecasting, Mature is quite convincing in the role. I particularly love the scene in the saloon where he's reciting the famous soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet, taking over from Shakespearian actor Granville Thorndyke (Alan Mowbray) after the drunken thespian forgets his lines.

Also featuring the talents of Walter Brennan - and also dealing with cattle - is Howard Hawks' Red River, the director's very first Western and his first collaboration with leading man John Wayne. The Duke portrays cattleman Thomas Dunson, who with his older sidekick (Brennan, playing O.G. - the Original Groot! ) and his adopted son Matthew Garth (Montgomery Clift), undertakes the ambitious project of driving a herd of ten thousand cattle over a distance of almost a thousand miles from Texas to Missouri, with many obstacles and difficulties en route. The role of Tom Dunson is one of Wayne's greatest performances - possibly the greatest alongside Ethan Edwards in John Ford's The Searchers (1956). What both of these Wayne performances share is a sense of danger, of volatility, the sense of someone not to be crossed or trifled with. In both films, Wayne channels a more monstrous and darker energy, a real Captain Ahab / Captain Bligh sort of obsession that the younger characters (Clift as Matthew in the first film, Jeffrey Hunter as Martin Pawley in the later film) must eventually deal with and confront. Personally, I find that the more monstrous Wayne's character, the more sympathetic I ultimately find him. That's definitely paradoxical, I know, but I find Wayne's screen persona more involving and affecting the more extreme his character and his circumstances. Remember that famous scene from The Searchers after Ethan finds the body of Lucy? "What do you want me to do, spell it out? Draw you a picture?! Don't ever ask me! As long as you live, don't ever ask me again!" You know it's all Ethan can do at that moment to just hold it together and not burst out screaming, and you're very moved by that. Wayne absolutely excels in these sorts of moments. Getting back to the Hawks film... While I don't love this quite as much as Hawks' other classic Western, Rio Bravo, I definitely find a lot to love with Red River.

BTW, Red River is based on a story by the writer Borden Chase, who also worked on the screenplay. Chase also did the screenplays for the first three Anthony Mann / James Stewart Westerns, including 1952's Bend of the River. I swear to God, no one can write a threat like Borden Chase. Here's John Wayne to Montgomery Clift in the Hawks film: "Cherry was right. You're soft, you should have let 'em kill me, 'cause I'm gonna kill you. I'll catch up with ya. I don't know when, but I'll catch up. Every time you turn around, expect to see me, 'cause one time you'll turn around and I'll be there. I'm gonna kill ya, Matt." And here's James Stewart to Arthur Kennedy in Mann's film: "You'll be seeing me. You'll be seeing me. Every time you bed down for the night, you'll look back to the darkness and wonder if I'm there. And some night, I will be. You'll be seeing me!" Gives you goosebumps, right?



In addition to those two, I bought myself some upgrades to a few films I had already (a triple double-dip!). I got the 4K versions of Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) and Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992), as well as the recent Kino Lorber edition of Don Siegel's The Beguiled.