Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Child Star (2024) Watched on Disney+ (in Canada). Directed by Demi Lovato and Nicola Marsh, this documentary explores the ups and downs of being a child star in a powerful,honest and insightful way. Features interviews with Drew Barrymore, Christina Ricci, Alyson Stoner, Raven-Symoné, Kenan Thompson, JoJo Siwa, and others. I really liked this. Very well directed and it was interesting to hear the perspectives of different former child stars.

1st Rewatch...I found the 2022 Oscar winner for Best Picture just as much of a letdown as I did the first time and just don't understand what all the fuss was about. The Story, at its core, about the owner of a laundromat on the verge of losing her business who is offered a portal into alternate universes if she had chosen to take a different life path is a good one, but the story is so dressed up with so much cinematic pyrotechnics that the story gets lost, at least for this reviewer. As a textbook on film technique, this film is unprecedented, but I lose the story about an hour into it. The film won six other Oscars, including becoming the third film in Oscar history to win three of the four acting awards" Michelle Yeoh won best Actress (though I still think this award should have gone to Cate Blanchett for Tar), Best Supporting Actor for Que He Quon, and a long overdue Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Jamie Lee Curtis as an IRS agent named Deidre Beaubeidre, but on this second watch, I actually found myself on the verge of nodding off.

2nd Rewatch...A luminous coming of age story that gets most of its strength from the Oscar nominated performances of Saoirse Ronan as the title character and Laurie Metcalf as her mother. This movie gets a little better with each re-watch. Ronan is an incredible talent.

2nd Rewatch...With a grand assist from Oscar winning makeup genius Rick Baker, Eddie Murphy scores a bullseye with this hilarious re-imagining of the Jerry Lewis comedy playing a grossly overweight college professor intent on getting the attention of pretty graduate student (Jada Pinkett Smith) by inventing a potion that will make him thin and desirable to her; unfortunately, the effects of the potion that turn Sherman Klump into Buddy Love are temporary, which complicates Sherman's life to no end. Murphy is nothing short of astonishing in this film as he not only plays Sherman and Buddy, but Sherman's mother, father, uncle, and grandmother. he also appears as Richard Simmons. His strongest work in the film though is the slightly pathetic Sherman, who you can't help but fall in love with.

Last Seen Alive, 2022

Will (Gerard Butler) is on the brink of a split from his wife, Lisa (Jaimie Alexander). When Lisa disappears at a stop at a gas station, Will must fight to convince the police that she’s been abducted, much less to help him in getting her back. While the officer assigned to the case, Paterson (Russell Hornsby) remains skeptical, Will goes on a one-man mission to rescue Lisa.

Silly and sluggish, this is weak action fare.



FULL REVIEW

The Quiet Girl - I was finally able to watch this winsome and somewhat reticent Irish movie from 2022. It's set in 1981 and nine year old Cait (Catherine Clinch) comes from a large, dysfunctional family with her ne'er-do-well father a drinker and philanderer and her mother overwhelmed and neglectful. With 4 children and another on the way the parents decide to send Cait to some distant relatives for the summer. She is the quiet girl of the title with a gentle disposition and, with no real place in the world she inhabits, has withdrawn into herself.

Her mother's cousin Eibhlín Kinsella (Carrie Crowley) and gruff husband Sean (Andrew Bennett) welcome her into their home. Director Colm Bairéad relates a story that has been told often enough. A lonely soul who blooms in new surroundings and under the careful ministrations of someone who sees them for what they truly are. It's his unadorned, modest take that makes it all seem fresh and immediate but also very cannily mirrors the character. Someone (and something) that is easy to overlook who holds a wealth of riches if you take the time to pay attention.

That ending though. It makes me wish that there could be a follow-up or an update. I've since perused several discussions that theorize on a hidden subtext of abuse. I can't even begin to entertain that possibility which would make it impossible to enjoy the movie if it were the case. I watched this with other people so I had to keep telling myself to man up. This is a beautiful and understated movie.

90/100

Surprisingly Minio's list looked solid to me as well. As much as I like to mock his hipster elitism, out of the films I've seen from his list only two I wouldn't consider recommendation-worthy (Mandy and Cemetery Man).

From the ones you haven't seen, I'd say top-5 is something like this (in the order Minio listed them):

Bliss (2019)
La casa dalle finestre che ridono [The House With Laughing Windows] (1976)
The Devils (1971)
Tras el cristal [In a Glass Cage] (1986)
Il profumo della signora in nero [The Perfume of the Lady in Black] (1974)

As a bonus, I'd throw in the better film directed by Richard Stanley (Minio recommended Hardware by him), Dust Devil (1992).

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For a movie that putatively is a criticism on the shallowness of superficial attractiveness, Uglies is a surprisingly shallow movie that pays lip service to an idea it can't commit to.

Mind you, the cast - particularly Joey King and Laverne Cox - are just fine, it's the ideas of this youth dystopian flick that really haven't been given enough thought.

There's some interesting concepts here, but they aren't fully realized, and ultimately it feels way too derivative of other, better movies about dystopian futures and societies obsessed with superficial beauty - and if you've seen any of those, you don't particularly need to watch this one.

Noted and thank you!

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The Silent Partner, 1978

Miles (Elliott Gould) is a teller in a bank in a mall who realizes that a man named Reikle (Christopher Plummer) is planning to rob the bank. In a daring move, Miles pockets a ton of money for himself while the authorities assume that Reikle made off with it. But when the sadistic Reikle realizes the deception, he comes after Miles who must find a way to stay one step ahead and keep his colleagues from learning the truth.

Suspenseful and centered on an ever-shifting game of cat-and-mouse, this is a compelling thriller.



FULL REVIEW

Gotta pull this out now and again....Gladiator. It's one of the better depictions of ancient Rome at it's peak, the reign of Marcus Aurelius, one of the more capable, decent and less demented of emperors. Poor me, I had 5 years of Latin in school and, now and again, I need to go back there to remind myself that I appreciate my century more than the reign of Marcus, as good as he was. Most of what happens in the movie is at least somewhat plausible, even including things like lions emerging from hidden trap doors. One thing the movie did not show that actually happened was flooding the arena so they could have mock naval battles.

The movie gets a lot right and Crowe's character Maximus is fairly believable. The opening battle scene is really vivid, as are the weapons that were in use. The main thing they got wrong is that Commodus was really a LOT worse than in the movie, being a brutal embarrassment to the empire. He was actually strangled in his bathtub by a wrestler named Narcissus. Nevertheless, it's one of my favorite Roman Empire movies, right up there with Ben Hur.

That was so obviously Cate's Oscar, but I guess one great thing about the Academy Awards is how often they get it wrong, and how often we get to complain about them getting it wrong.

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Leave Her to Heaven (1945) - A - I liked everything but the ending.

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"A candy colored clown!"
Member since Fall 2002
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Wild Rose - (2018)

Rose-Lynn Harlan (Jessie Buckley) is a character that will drive you mad, but hopefully most won't find her completely irredeemable at some point in Wild Rose. A mother twice over in her mid-teens, we catch up with her here as she's being released from prison after a one year stint (smuggling heroin), and immediately finding it hard to balance chasing her dream of becoming a Country music star, and forging a relationship with her two little ones. Her mother, Marion (the ever-dependable Julie Waters, who in her youth would have been a candidate to play Rose) thinks the music stuff is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy, and wants her daughter to stop neglecting the kids. When Rose's employer, Susannah (Sophie Okonedo), backs the talented young lady, it's without knowing that she's an ex-con or has children. In the meantime Rose parties, and causes disasters everywhere she goes due to her immature negligence, drinking and cavalier attitude. Jessie Buckley has to really charm the pants off of us, the audience, and mostly succeeds at that, even though there are many moments where we'll hate her for being a terrible mother (and while we're at that, where's the father?) If you like Country music (don't you dare call it Country & Western!) then there are plenty of musical moments that tip this ever so slightly into a possible "musical" category. Nice songs, all of them. Buckley is great, and was nominated for a BAFTA.

7/10


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Two Men in Town - (1973)

This '73 José Giovanni team-up of two all time greats - Jean Gabin & Alain Delon in their third film together - is a savage critique of the French justice system and capital punishment. In the end, the story completely took over and had me staring at the screen - agog. I think that's probably the best thing a film can do - give us a lot to admire visually and sound-wise, along with interesting performances, and then have the narrative completely captivate us once we're completely immersed into the world the movie has built for us. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

8/10

Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

He's Just Not That Into You (2009)


I've always had a soft spot for this cheesy romance drama, and the cast is certainly formidable. Every relationship path here has pieces most can probably relate to.

Glad someone agrees with me. I mean I understand Yeoh’s win and Blanchett already has two Oscars, but still…

I liked this movie but five stars?

Trap (2024)

Rebel Ridge (2024)

The Princess Bride (1987)

Come True (2020)

Albert Pyun Roulette, Part 9

The Sword and the Sorcerer -

Plot: A mercenary with a three-bladed sword rediscovers his royal heritage when he is recruited to help a princess foil a brutal tyrant and a powerful sorcerer's plans to conquer the land.

Albert Pyun's debut feature is a reliably entertaining entry in one of the most reliably entertaining genres: sword and sorcery (well, obviously) fantasy. Movies like this one pass or fail on what could be called their central gimmick - see the awesome Glaive in Krull - and this one does the former with its sword that is not only three swords in one, but also fires its blades as if it were a Nerf toy for adults. A villain you love to hate is another necessity, which it also nails thanks to Richard Lynch's megalomaniacal King Cromwell, who earns even more cool/evil/what have you points for slightly resembling Rutger Hauer. It is also vital to have an underdog hero worth rooting for and a damsel in distress, which it has in Lee Horsley's mercenary Talon and Kathleen Beller's very charming Alana. The movie stumbles a bit here - more on that later - but salvages it with Richard Moll's gruesome and betrayed demon for hire Xusia. Pyun's skill at doing less with more also helps, especially when it comes to the sets - he makes southern California a worthy stand-in for fantasy medieval England - as does how well he adds quality comic relief at just the right times, mostly thanks to Talon's less than scrupulous cohorts. David Whitaker's rollicking score is also a banger.

As I have detailed, all the ingredients for a sword and sorcery movie are represented here, but the secret sauce is lacking, leaving us with a mostly satisfying yet unremarkable entry in this genre when compared to your Neverending Stories and Dragonslayers. Beyond combat, Horsely does not do much here even though he's technically the lead, and a lot of what he gets to do is either uninspiring or left me with bad vibes. I expect grit and grime in this genre, but it is not always in the right places here. I'll just say that if the strong women in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Witcher made you a fan of this genre, this may not become a new favorite. It still remains a solid debut and maintains my interest in the genre. It's just too bad Pyun did not return to it that often, especially since it teases a sequel.