Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Siegel, Long, Downey, Pal, Long, Martinez, Cheel, 2024





I considered ranking this a at first, and I kind of still want to give it that mark, but a hokey monster in the first segment and a weak frame narrative keep me from pushing it up to that level. Otherwise, this is easily one of the best films in the series, with a couple of absolute banger segments that quickly jumped up to some of my favorites in the entire catalog. The skydiving segment, Live and Let Dive, was pulse pounding and had my wife chewing on her hands by the end. Stowaway was spooky and atmospheric, and then went full on surreal as it progressed along - I absolutely adored this one.

The rest were not bad at all, but as I mentioned, the first one had sort of a silly monster reveal, but was otherwise strong. Fur Babies was twisted af; I enjoyed it's razor wit and kooky take on body horror. Dream Girl was good, but not great, and was sort of a derivative blend of the far superior Safe Haven from V/H/S/2 and poorly conceived and executed TEKNOGD from V/H/S/85.

Speaking of V/H/S/85... that film has one of the strongest and perhaps my favorite frame narratives of the entire series, and it would have been a way better fit for V/H/S/ Beyond, which is heavily focused on sci-fi horror and aliens in particular. I would love to see an edit of V/H/S/ Beyond with that frame narrative inserted in place of the clearly weaker Abduction/Adduction.

Anyway - this kicked ass! I had a lot of fun with this one.

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The Killing Kind (1973)

Genuinely creepy film about Terry (John Savage) who's just released after 2 years in prison after a gang rape offence. He get's home on release to continue his rather strange relationship with his mother that even the residents in their boarding house find strange. Terry is on the revenge trail though and clearly traumatised by his crime and his period inside. Then he goes beyond revenge and just goes tonto on various occasions resulting in the death of blameless residents. As I said, creepy and very interesting.

I think the book is one of King's weaker ones, and all the adaptations have failed to elevate themselves from the flawed source material. Still, the new version may be the weakest of them all.

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There's an intriguing premise at the heart of Pascal Plante's latest, Les Chambres Rouges, even if the execution ultimately falls short.

Without giving too much away, the movie is centered around the trial of a man accused with being a dangerous serial killer, praying on young blonde, blue-eyed girls, whom he kills on live broadcasts.

Don't worry - none of that is really a spoiler! It is in fact just some background information that doesn't even touch on the movie's central characters.

The movie's protagonist is a young tech-savvy woman called Kelly-Anne, and played in a most compelling performance by Québécois actor Juliette Gariépy. She's terrific in the movie and I would love to watch whatever she's in next.

Exactly where Kelly-Anne figures in all of this is best left unsaid, the less you know about it, the more you're likely to enjoy the movie.

While I enjoyed the premise and the suspense that builds around the movie's events, I think it is ultimately undone by some flawed characterizations and at least one serious plot hole.

But if you don't think about it too much, the movie is an enjoyable, albeit unusual, psychological thriller.

Crimson Peak (2015)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Harlin, 1988





Oh, Tuesday Knight...why did I watch you on a Thursday? Quite possibly one of the best so-bad-it's-good performances to ever grace the silver screen. Not quite on par with Lar, she of the Friday the 13th Part VII magnificence, but she definitely gets close. This girl would have gotten kicked out of drama club during sophomore year, but somehow managed to score the gig to replace Patty Arquette after she was a big "NOPE" to return for the continuation of the story started in Dream Warriors. Her every line delivery is laugh out loud funny, making this a fun watch every time.

The film is decent, but hasn't aged as well as some of the others. The scene with Alice in the cinema is pretty creative and it's executed fairly well, and the Debbie turns into a cockroach after a workout scene is memorable. Freddy is fine, but is maybe getting a bit long in the tooth at this point. No Dokken here either, so a point gets deducted for the change to Sinead instead of butt rock.

Probably the last of the series worth watching, although I haven't seen The Dream Child in ages, and really don't recall much about it.

Mr. Crocket (2024) This was just released on Hulu (Disney+ in Canada). It's a horror film about an evil children's show host who kills parents and abducts children. This was fun. Elvis Nolasco is delightfully maniacal as the title character, a cross between Mr Rogers and Freddy Krueger. An enetertaining and satsifying horror film.

Fright Night (1985)

1st Rewatch...A boring and offensive comedy that I'm sure everyone involved has removed from their respective resumes. The film stars Paul Rudd as Tim, an investment broker who is up for a big promotion if he agrees to attend a monthly dinner thrown by his boss where all the employees bring an idiot that they can make fun of. Tim literally runs into a nerd named Barry (Steve Carell) who is into mouse taxidermy and decides to bring him to the dinner. Barry shows up a day early for the dinner and, in that time, pretty much destroys Tim's life. I don't what else to say here, a complete waste of time for all involved, I expected more from director Jay Roach. I barely kept my eyes open for this rewatch.

2nd Rewatch...A lesser Jim Carrey comedy that ranks with stuff like Bruce Almighty. Carrey plays a bank loan officer who since being dumped by his wife, has become a social expert, making up excuses to get out of any form of socialization. A friend convinces him to attend a seminar conducted by a New Age Guru (Terrence Stamp) who makes Carrey commit to saying "yes" to any opportunity that may arise. The complications that would develop from such a premise are predictable , resulting in a pretty labored comedy that seems a lot longer than it is. Zoey Deschanel makes an unconventional leading though and the two actors playing Carrey's best friends, one has won an Oscar since appearing in this and the other is in jail.

1st Rewatch...Though I personally prefer his Scream franchise, Wes Craven did score a bullseye with this minor horror classic about a killer who keeps entering the dreams of a group of pretty high school students and actually murders a couple of them. Not sure why it happened while watching this, but I came to the realization that I have been way too hard on this genre. For some reason, when I watch horror films, I put expectations of logic and realism on them that I don't demand from any other genre. I love musicals, but there's no logic involved in the way people randomly start singing and dancing on the street, so why shouldn't I accept some of things in horror films that I accept in other genres? Craven's direction is meticulous and there are some terrific special effects. I love when that sheet wraps itself around Nick Corri's neck like a snake when he's in the jail cell.. And Robert England is terrific as Freddy. This film also marked the film debut of a delicious young actor named Johnny Depp. This film was so successful that it has spawned seven sequels so far.

The Pit and the Pendulum is one of several collaborations between Price and director Roger Corman, adapting the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I'm not familiar with the story, but the film does a pretty good job of laying it all in a fairly simple way. The magic of the film is in the atmosphere of dread it builds around the mystery, but also in Price's screen presence and performance.

As usual, Price makes the most of the material with a performance that covers a lot of bases. His Nicholas is deeply troubled, but there seem to be some small hints of empathy in him. You usually know Price's characters are out for no good, but he still manages to instill a certain charm and charisma that's just magnetic. You can't help but feel drawn to his characters.

Grade:


Full review on my Movie Loot

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I generally agree with your thoughts. Up until last year, I hadn't seen this, or most of the sequels, for decades. For some reason, I tended to get it mixed up with The Dream Child, but upon a recent rewatch, I was surprised by how different they are in terms of tone. Granted, they're not "great", but this one is too jokey while the next one is a bit darker, and I preferred that.

Yea, I caught your write-up on letterboxd and saw you rated it around the same. With that you are saying here, I guess I will give The Dream Child another go, as well. Might as well!

While I am definitely a fan of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, this one sort of ranks near the bottom for me, although not quite as low as Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare from '91. Yeah, the cockroach scene was memorable, but it was kind of ruined by that silly "déjà vu time loop" device which was apparently the only way that the writers could find to obstruct Alice and Dan. I also kind of like the scene of Alice getting sucked into the movie theater screen. But on the other hand, there's that silly "pizza / 'soul food'" visual gag...

The thing I resent most about The Dream Master is that it completely overturns all the hard work and suffering that the characters of Dream Warriors (my personal fave of the series) went through, and thoughtlessly kills off the survivors of that film. (I will say that I really like those songs by Sinéad O'Connor and Dramarama, though!)

Having said all that, I would recommend watching the fifth film, The Dream Child. While it's not necessarily great, it's kind of the most underrated film of the franchise. While not particularly gory or even scary (and the body count is really low this time), it's actually got a very compelling premise, the idea of Freddy Krueger infiltrating and corrupting the soul of an unborn child. The film also revisits the character of Sister Amanda Krueger from Dream Warriors, tapping into the Freddy creation myth again, drawing parallels between Amanda and Alice. I also like how Alice's alcoholic father has cleaned up his act and is really trying to be there for his daughter. It's a nice change of pace for the series, after the glut of unsympathetic, obstinate and/or clueless grownups that have populated the series in the past.

However... Again we have that tired tradition of knocking off the survivors of the last chapter, with poor Dan getting taken for a fatal nightmare joyride (also having to suffer a gratuitous Top Gun quote from Mr. K).

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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)

October 8, 2024

JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX (Todd Phillips / 2024)

I think this might just be the most misunderstood film of 2024 so far. And frankly, I can't see what all the negativity is about. For the most part, this works as pretty much an effectively straightforward sequel to director Todd Phillips' first Joker from 2019. Yeah, I know that all the fuss this time around centers on the film's "musical numbers." But Joker: Folie à Deux is only a "musical" in the same sense that Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (2000), starring Björk, is a "musical." By which I mean, the musical sequences with Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga represent a form of escape or fantasy in the minds of their characters, while their own life circumstances remain very sadly and sordidly earthbound. And when the film pulls back from the fantasy and shows their circumstances from an objective standpoint, we can see exactly how swamped in delusion the characters are. And I truly believe this is very much in keeping with both films' Scorsese / De Niro influence, in this case tapping into 1983's The King of Comedy to an even greater extent than its predecessor did (although that wasn't a musical).

The story this time around? Very simple: Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is incarcerated in Arkham State Hospital while awaiting trial for the murders he committed in the first film, and he meets a fellow prisoner named Harleen Quinzel - a.k.a. Harley Quinn (Gaga), a pyromaniac nihilist who's very much a fan of Joker. They fall in love, and Quinn makes an escape attempt by trying to burn the hospital down - which proves unsuccessful. At the trial, lawyer Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) attempts to make a case for Arthur by arguing that her client suffers from dissociative identity disorder, and that Joker was an "alternate" personality.

I won't go any further in attempting to describe the film. But I will say that I'm a very big fan of both of Todd Phillips' Joker films. One aspect of these films which I think is quite disturbing is how they remind us that sometimes, the way we as individual persons see and perceive ourselves is often quite different from how other people see and perceive us. All of us, to one extent or another, have a sort of idealized vision of ourselves which sometimes syncs up with our actions and deeds, but which is merely a form of escape or delusion for more damaged souls. And quite often, the self-image of lost souls is informed by images from popular culture, be they characters from movies or popular songs. Sometimes that's also true of those of us who are relatively sane and well-adjusted. And the brilliance of Todd Phillips' Joker diptych is the way it conveys how shaky and blurred the distinction is between what is considered sane and insane. Sometimes the difference is ultimately a matter of degrees...

Yea, they certainly did the dream warriors dirty. I like Dream Warriors almost as much as the first film, but nothing tops that for me, as it is the OG.

Always two there are, a master and an apprentice....

Wow, having seen the two latest performances by Sebastian Stan, I have to confess, it's hard to know which one might get more love from the Academy and the other organizations giving out awards to the best movies of 2024.

Stan, who until recently was best known to most moviegoers as the inimitable Bucky Barnes aka Winter Soldier of the MCU, so fully inhabits the different characters he plays in A Different Man and The Apprentice that he truly deserves to be called chameleon-like.

The degree to which Stan fully captures all the mannerisms of the public figure being portrayed here is truly uncanny, down to the enunciation and speech patterns. It is an amazing portrayal that will no doubt be talked about for decades to come.

Still, The Apprentice offers not just one, but two masterful performances: equal credit must be given to Jeremy Strong, playing the infamous New York fixer Roy Cohn, a master of the dark arts that included, but was not limited, to illegal wiretapping and blackmailing public officials.

Maria Bakalova gives yet another wonderful performance, effective yet more low-key, as Ivana Zelníčková, the Czech immigrant who realizes all too well that a marriage like the one she enters into in the movie must be negotiated down to the last cent.

Made on a reported budget of just $16 million, the movie does a tremendous job with period detail, using what appears a combination of archive footage and some VFX to recreate the NYC of the 70s and 80s.

One small trigger warning: the movie depicts an act of sexual abuse, as well as short glimpses of a series of vanity-related cosmetic procedures related to obesity and baldness.

With this movie, Ali Abbasi continues to impress as a filmmaker, and I am already looking forward to his next movie.

In what is sure to be a bit of a milestone in the history of cinema, the new Caligula - The Ultimate Cut assures viewers that "it does not contain a single frame of footage seen in the original version."

That assertion might very well be true; I have never watched the original version, nor do I intend to.

This version has gotten rid of all the pornographic footage that made the original version so infamous, and is said to be much closer to the original intent of the filmmakers who shot this in the 1970s.

And, you know, it's a hard proposition to resist, given that the cast includes Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud.

Having said that, O'Toole and Gielgud's presence in the movie is all too short; and one could argue that the movie still doesn't come anywhere close to being among McDowell's or Mirren's best work.

The biggest problem with the new version of the movie is that it is still a dramatically unfocused mess, which reportedly was a result of the infighting between the two main creative forces involved - Gore Vidal and Tinto Brass - so that it's hard to truly ascertain what the movie is trying to say about the infamous Roman emperor.

It is also a bit jarring, in this day and age, to see Roman characters being portrayed as speaking with immaculate British accents!

And, at 3 hours long, the small pleasures the movie provides are simply too small to make it feel like a worthwhile effort.

As it is, the new version of Caligula remains something for the most enthusiastic of film scholars and movie buffs - one of those things you want to be able to cross off the list of movies you haven't seen at all.

I didn't know anything about it but I couldn't resist the film's juicy title.

The characters are nondescript and it looks as if they had the checklist of obligatory plot twists ready and then build a story around it, kinda like putting the cart before the horse.
I'm not saying that a story can't be written that way, but the trick is to make it look like natural developments.
There's one particular scene that makes no sense at all but it justifies the explanation in the final twist.

With its underlying themes of internet/porn addiction and our modern version of anonymity I think there was a better and much more uncomfortable story to tell.
On the other hand, it certainly isn't a boring film and the performances are enthusiastic enough.

5/10