Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Poison (1991)

A creepy, funny, poignant and semi-erotic triple vignette, and it's mostly the distinctive style that makes it so fascinating and entertaining.
8.5/10

The Friends Of Eddie Coyle (1973)
Completely different to the other movies I've been watching. Not one that cares much about artistic quality.
It grew on me though. Some of it was a bit like an episode of Quincy or Colombo, but it was more than that. An interesting take on US small time gangster life, and had some characters you became a little bit involved with. It engaged me. Some slightly ropey acting from the drug runner just takes it down .25.
Worth an 8.5.

Stream (2024)


After the surprise success of Terrifier 2 the producers are now launching a half dozen new films. Stream is basically The Purge in a hotel...four masked killers hunt/track/murder a collective group of people. The cast is a who's who of horror vets from Danielle Harris to Dee Wallace to Jeffery Combs.


The film is a mixed bag...the narative/rules/exposition gets pretty clunky in the third act. The movie doesn't make sense however the film has an artisan charm to it. It's a proper slasher film with sex/nudity(could have used more), proper FX and makeup(should get Oscar consideration), and enough pulpy twists to make the 2 hours fly by.



I'm not going to oversell it because it did have some flaws in it

Goodbye, Dragon Inn -

When something ends with a whimper instead of a bang, we tend to accept that it happens and move on with our lives. While some endings like this are par for the course, others are tragic because they should have been the other way around. This movie provides a proper burial for two such endings, those being a grandiose movie theater in Taipei, which also signifies the end of Taiwanese cinema's heyday. It successfully conveys the sadness of these endings - a teary-eyed actor from the final movie screened at the theater, Dragon Inn, and the use of Yao Lee's song "Can't Let Go" are highlights - but it would not be wrong to label this movie as a comedy. Despite how annoying they can be in real life, theater patrons who are there for reasons besides watching the movie are a bigger source of laughs than you would realize. If it's not a Japanese tourist who tries and fails to have a gay sexual encounter, it's a woman who may be into the movie, but she seems much more interested in finishing her very noisy bag of candy. If her loud manner of eating doesn't make you laugh, you'll at least enjoy the ASMR from the repetition. Credit also goes to the fading spirit of the theater in the disabled cashier (Shiang-chyi, who was justly rewarded) and the moments where we glimpse scenes from Dragon Inn, especially for how well they contrast with all the decay and indifference.

You may have read that this is an example of slow cinema, which fits because of its many qualities, the deliberate pace stands out the most. Besides the obvious in making you pay attention and letting the movie linger in your thoughts, the slowness also adds emphasis. No greater moment makes the tragedy more apparent than an extended one where we see how many (empty) seats the theater has. On the other hand, it is not always to the movie's benefit: as amusing as the tourist's failed attempts at trysts may be, the pace makes his and the other patrons' behavior seem less natural. This flaw still does not prevent the movie from succeeding as a feature-length elegy to an era of cinema. I would describe it as a quieter, slower and much slyer alternative to Cinema Paradiso.

Taipei Story (1985)
WOW
9.75

This movie's pretty darn near a modern masterpiece, and if you really want to enjoy it, you should go and watch it ASAP and try not to read anything about it beforehand.

Knowing as little as possible about the film is probably the best way to get the most out of it - frankly the narrative structure kinda threw me for a loop at the beginning (in the best way possible) and it kept me trying to figure stuff out... that alone easily made it a top-notch experience.

Trying to be as vague as possible, I'll just say that this is one of those movies where things may not be what they first appear to be. Also, Willa Fitzgerald is absolutely riveting in one of the lead roles. How and what exactly she is will be revealed to you by the end of the movie, and it's absolutely delicious.

Kyle Gallner, in the other lead roles, is also pretty darn fine, although his is easily the least showy role.

There is one glaring plot hole in the narrative - one which happens so fast, you may not even notice it - that almost completely undermines everything else that this movie does so well. It's a fairly minor quibble, but if you're paying attention it will probably stick out like a sore thumb.

Nevertheless, the movie is pretty gripping and pulls you along relentlessly. The supporting cast includes Ed Begley Jr and Barbara Hershey playing (what else?) a couple of older hippies.




As a huge fan of John Woo's early HK movies, his reworking of The Killer comes as one of the biggest disappointments of the year.

I was relatively lucky to be able to watch Woo's HK films at a time when the only way you could watch them in America was with imported copies. Practically no one in the US knew who he was or the kind of movies he was making.

And even today, the original version of The Killer is frustratingly unavailable in streaming and OOP in disc format.

That's a big shame, because this movie tries hard, but just can't deliver a fraction of what Woo's early films accomplished with such amazing ease. The cast is very appealing, though Nathalie Emmanuel is arguably badly miscast here, with her talent being much more in line with fluffy, nonsensical films like the F&F series.

And why did they have to make Sam Worthington even try an Irish accent? It's not very convincing, they might as well have made his character an Australian.

Compared to Woo's earlier films made in HK, this one is fairly stultifying, with only one or two action sequences even coming close to capturing the magic of those early movies. It's a sad sign of the times that a lot of people will probably consider this to be perfectly OK entertainment.

It's just a sad reminder of how good Woo used to be before coming to work in Hollywood.

What are you talking about?

Conan The Barbarian - (1982)

First time watching my son. I'm pretty sure he liked it.

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

The Runner (1984), Iran, 9.25
My new favourite Iranian film, beating Taste of Cherry fairly comfortably.

Snow Cake (2006)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10955898

Day Watch - (2006)

Never has the term "all over the place" been as confidently used by me to describe films as it is in regard to Timur Bekmambetov's trilogy in two parts Night Watch and Day Watch. I remember there being quite a lot of expectant noise when the first came out, but I couldn't get into the film itself and gave up on it - only picking it up again recently in the hopes I could stomach the whole saga and give it a fairer go. Unfortunately, I didn't quite grasp everything in it, and I watched it in February, which means I'm a little hazy on the rules of Sergei Lukyanenko's "light and dark" universe. Day Watch was funny in parts, and pretty crazy - but damned if I could tell you exactly what was going on. Watching this took me back to a time when I was a kid watching a movie that was a little above my intellectual range, but having a basic feel for what was what. Body swapping, the supernatural police, good vs evil, a son turned to the dark side, a love story - and a climactic showdown. A piece of chalk with which you can erase past mistakes. It's one of those movies where everything makes sense, but it feels like you're missing something - some kind of ultimate explanation as to why characters are behaving the way they do. It feels like Russia's attempt at an American tentpole blockbuster, but in all actuality it's a little bit of a chaotic mess. It has it's moments, for sure, but failed to win me over completely.

5/10

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It's certainly possible New Yorkers might have a head start with this one, a pretty off-kilter dramedy starring Jason Schwartzman as a moody cantor searching for some normalcy in his life.

Carol Kane is in top form as the unlikely would-be student who somehow manages to change the cantor's life, in unexpected and surprising ways.

The movie is somehow reminiscent of both The Graduate and Harold and Maude, yet it would be a disservice to call it derivative in any way. It is extremely original in what it does.

The movie was shot in 16mm and looks gorgeous!

Incendies (2010) - Denis Villeneuve: 5/10

Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

Your marks are super harsh!

The Match Factory Girl (1990, Finland) 9/9.25.

The Gauntlet (1977)

One of Clint's lesser appreciated films, this is a tight thriller with great action sequences. The story itself isn't brain surgery but both Clint (as the disenchanted, alcoholic cop) and Sondra Locke (as the mob involved call girl) acquit themselves well. I saw this years ago and thought "meh" but on rewatch found it to be very entertaining. Inevitably Bill McKinney is in it too

Phantom Lady (1944)

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“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Gandhi​

The Double Life of Veronique 8.5

This is such a strange film, which for me is ultimately disappointing.

It's visually beautiful. It's engaging an at one point it was becoming intriguing, but I feel that it ended as what would be at best akin to an episode of Tales of the Unexpected and at worse unintentional farce.

Let me recap the plot as I understand it:

1. We are following the life of a young woman Polish woman called Weronika
2. One day, she sees her double on a passing bus. The double is taking photographs.
3. Weronika is performing as a classical singer one day, when she has a heart attack and dies.
4. We are now following the life of her double, a young French woman called Veronique
5. Veronique feels like she has just lost someone in her life but can't explain it.
6. One day, Veronique sees a puppet show, and is attracted to the puppeteer.
7. She received a cassette tape in the post. She plays the tape and can hear announcements being made in a train station.
8. She works out which station it is and travels there. She finds the puppeteer in a cafe and joins him.
9. They go to a hotel where they make love. He says he wants to know everything about her, so she empties her handbag.
10. One of the things that falls out is the negatives of the photos she took when Weronika saw her on the bus. She sees Weronika and starts crying.
11. The puppeteer shows her his puppets, and they are her and Weronika. He explains something about their childhoods and how they were connected to each other.
END

1st Rewatch...Economic and exciting thriller that finds Liam Neesom playing a retired FBI agent who uses his very special skillset to find his daughter when she is kidnapped in Paris. I love the scene when he is on the phone with her just before she is snatched and tells her exactly what to do before they capture her and he hears her being abducted over the phone. The skills he utilizes to find his daughter are extraordinary and makes the viewer so curious as to what this guy did when he still worked for the feds. Neesom's stone-face works perfect for this role. The film is action packed and features first rate photography and editing. The film is so good it inspired two sequels that are just as good.