Rate The Last Movie You Saw

1st Rewatch...For this reviewer's money, the best movie of 1957. Fans of the 1976 Best Picture nominee Network will have a head start with this blistering drama about an alcoholic drifter named Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) who is discovered by a radio show hostess (Patricia Neal) while he is in jail on a drunk and disorderly. He sings one song on the radio and before you can say "celebrity", Lonesome has his own radio show, which eventually turns him into a media celebrity and possibility political power play who steps on the people who helped him get to the top and eventually forgets about to them until he begins his inevitable tumble back down. Budd Schulberg was robbed of the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for this take-no-prisoners screenplay, respectfully brought to the screen by Elia Kazan, following their triumph with On the Waterfront. Andy Griffith was also robbed of a Best Actor nomination for his powerhouse Lonesome Larry, a performance that for viewers who only know the actor as Sheriff Andy Taylor will be shocked. There's also solid support from Walter Matthau as a cynical writer, Tony Franciosa as a slick press agent and, in her film debut, Lee Remick as a 17 year old baton twirler who Lonesome marries. A haunting motion picture experience.

1st Rewatch...In the tradition of his Man of the Year, director Barry Levinson comes up with another winning black comedy that provides some internal chills because it's kind of frightening how easily something like this could happen. It is 11 days before the presidential election and it is reported that the POTUS has been accused of sexual misconduct with a teenage girl. In order to save the president the election, a white house staffer (the late Anne Heche), hires a DC fixer named Conrad Breen (Robert De Niro) to distract the voters from this scandal. Breen decides the way to do this is to mount a fictional war between the US and Albania, with the aid of a Hollywood producer named Stanley Motts (Dustin Hoffman) to mount the optics of a war for the country that will distract the voters from the sex scandal. This movie somehow manages to be genuinely funny and genuinely frightening as we watch Hollywood technology put stars in the eyes of the American people, with POTUS being completely being down with it, evidenced by the fact that he never appears in the movie. Especially love when they hire an actress (Kirsten Dunst) to run in front of a blue screen and make it look like she is escaping from her worn torn country. Hoffman earned his 7th Oscar nomination for Best Actor playing the producer who thinks this scam will finally bring him the respect he's always wanted as a producer. Woody Harrelson, William H Macy, Willie Nelson, and Denis Leary also make the most of supporting roles, but this film is really a testament to the genius that is Barry Levinson.

Such an unsung film. It's great.

__________________

2nd Rewatch...Star power makes this romantic comedy seem a lot better than it really is. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon play a couple in a committed relationship, who have no interest in marriage and children. They lie to their parents every Christmas so they can go on a private vacation together, but this year they are caught on television as their flight to Fiji is cancelled. Because both of their parents are divorced, this means the couple is forced to go to four different Christmas gatherings. Secrets revealed about each at these family reunions bring tension to the relationship as do these reunions with their families. Vaughn and Witherspoon generate chemistry here (and I would like to add that Witherspoon has never been more beautiful onscreen) and the real treat is having their parents being portrayed by four Oscar winners (Robert Duval, Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen, Jon Voight). There's some silly stuff here, like the scene in the bouncy house, but there is entertainment value here.

3rd Rewatch...Director Rob Reiner knocks it of the park with his expert, if difficult to watch mounting of Stephen King's novel. A writer named Paul Sheldon (James Caan) gets into a car accident during a snowstorm and is rescued by a spinsterish basket case named Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) who takes him to her isolated mountain cabin to nurse him back to health, where it is revealed that she is Paul's # 1 fan, of his novels about a heroine named Misery and when she learns Paul has killed Misery in his latest book, won't allow Paul to leave the house until he re-writes the book, resurrecting Misery. This claustrophobic chiller is not an easy watch, but is so worth it. Kathy Bates won a Best Actress Oscar for her frightening, funny, and slightly pathetic Annie Wilkes but the performance doesn't work without James Caan's often helpless victim. Caan's work in this film is so easy to overlook, but Bates' Annie wouldn't work without it.

#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead (2024) Watched on Tubi. I enjoyed this. It has some effective and fun kills and some good twists and turns. Jade Pettyjohn is the MVP of the film.

2nd Rewatch...Priscilla Presley was the executive producer and co-screenwriter on this sometimes dreary look at the relationship between Presley and a 14 year old Priscilla when they were both living in Germany. Sofia Coppola's direction is kind of static. I wish she had paid more attention to basic production values. There are scenes where the audio makes it almost impossible to hear what the actors are saying. Cailee Spaeny is lifeless in the title role. The only thing that keeps this movie watchable is the charismatic and sexy performance from Jacob Elordi as Elvis.

2nd Rewatch...From the creative force behind It's Complicated, is another romantic comedy where the protagonists are over the age of 25. Jack Nicholson plays Harry Sanborn, a wealthy businessman and confirmed bachelor who only dates woman 30 years old or younger, who is currently involved with Marin (Amanda Peet). A health crisis finds Harry bedridden at the beach house of Marin's mother, playwright Erica Barry (Diane Keaton), a tightly wound romantically challenged woman who is still stinging from her divorce from Marin's dad (Paul Michael Glaser), but she finds herself drawn to Harry and without even realizing it, she is not only falling for Harry, she is turning their relationship into her next hit play on Broadway. Of course, we have the wrinkle of Harry's sexy young doctor (Keanu Reeves) falling for Erica as well. The plot is slightly more complex than need be, but the cast is spectacular. The 2003 comedy provided us with one of the last great Nicholson performances, a delicious performance by Keaton that earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination and a sex on legs performance from Reeves.

I liked it. Warts & all.

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

"Dead Ringer" (1963)

Directed by Paul Henreid

Good late-period noir starring Bette Davis as twins, also featuring Karl Malden and Peter Lawford.

Bad things happen.

Black-and-white grim realism, lots of scenes filmed on location in early-1960s Los Angeles.

The story in this May-December romance may be strictly by-the-numbers, but with charismatic leads like Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth, and plenty of exciting Moroccan locations, it's still a fun, enjoyable romp.

Dern plays Katherine Loewe, a super-successful writer stuck with (wouldn't you guess?) writer's block, which prompts her to take a flight to Morocco.

Hemsworth is Owen Brophy, the husband of first-time novelist Lily Kemp (Diana Silvers), who just happen to be in the same hotel as Loewe, attending a writers' retreat. He's a private equity guy, the kind of bro who wouldn't know that "Pip" is a character from one of Charles Dickens' most famous novels.

You can see where this is going, right?

Opposites attract, yadda, yadda, yadda...

There's nothing particularly great about this, but taken on its own terms, it is reasonably entertaining, particularly if you're a fan of Dern or Hemsworth (Silvers is also good, in a terribly underwritten role).

Love this movie

If movies were judged solely on the basis of being slow-burning, dark, moody, and deliberately oblique, then Earwig would have to be considered an absolute masterpiece.

The central premise has to do with a girl whose teeth are made of ice, initially; later on, she gets glass teeth. That would certainly seem to be an improvement, but then again, maybe not so much.

As much as the movie has going for it in terms of bizarro, moody atmosphere and minimalistic music, it just doesn't really add up to a hill of beans, and ultimately falls short simply due to narrative laziness.

Trigger warning: the movie includes simulated violence towards a cat.

Gloria (1980)

__________________

[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

By IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77844139

The Apprentice - (2024)

A horror movie! Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) - famous for prosecuting the Rosenbergs and for being an unorthodox, no-holds-barred attorney meets a young, kind of raw and innocent Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) and adopts him as a man only Cohn himself could love - not only willing to play along with immoral, illegal tactics when it comes to winning cases for him, but excitedly reveling in the great outcomes they produce. So, Cohn decides to mentor the real estate mogul and creates a monster the likes of which the world will one day basically see as Godzilla - destroying everything in his path. I was wondering when this precise story would be told on the big screen - and boy oh boy, Ali Abbasi and screenwriter Gabriel Sherman don't put a foot wrong. Biopics rarely come as cinematically satisfying, with each new scene peeling back the onion as our subject gains personality traits, tactics and pounds. What's most amazing is the heart the film has, with the horrifying friendship that is central to it being almost touching and tragic. The way it recaptures the 70s and 80s is really something as well, and I'm betting on the fact that New Yorkers themselves would be wowed at how it takes us back. It's hard to see the Trump of yesteryear after what we've been through, but this movie helps - and it's one of the best offerings from 2024 I've seen so far.

8/10


By http://www.impawards.com/2024/oddity_xxlg.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77103548

Oddity - (2024)

There was one thing very unique and odd about Oddity, and that's what sits in the background for so long, tantalizing the viewer and playing on our imaginations. There's an element of mystery to the film's central story, and that thing that's just sitting there. Waiting. Overall, the narrative reminded me a little of what you'd get from a story in an anthology horror film - only extended to feature length. A twin investigating her sister's death - blind but clairvoyant. A murder plot. A haunted house with the addition of haunted and cursed objects. I liked the feeling of dread that just built and built as this went along - it's all about that feeling of dread.

7/10


By Movie Poster Shop, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56569951

Heathers - (1988)

I was in high school when this film hit and all of my friends had a special kind of reverence for it - but for some reason I was late in getting around to seeing it. When I finally did I didn't like it all that much - but watching it again last night, I felt like tipping my hat to the sheer charisma and immersion in the film's weird tone Winona Ryder and Christian Slater had. Shake up the status quo, but don't destroy yourself in the process and become something worse. This is the kind of movie you need to see multiple times, because it's always a bit of a shock how whimsical, strange, bright and breezy this is, considering it's about a murderous rampage in a high school. There's nothing quite like Heathers out there, and it continues to challenge my notions of how teenage rebellion (against one's peers) can be expressed.

8/10


By Naver, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54954033

Memoir of a Murderer - (2017)

The silent bamboo groves and misty plains speak of the dead, and as such they drip with malevolent ambience. Memoir of a Murderer is a really good thriller/murder mystery, and although it's not as good as Memories of Murder or Memento, it's worth having a look at if you like this kind of thing. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

7/10

__________________

Solace (2015)


My string of just okay movies continues with this crime thriller with a good cast including Anthony Hopkins and Colin Farrell. The acting and script seemed a bit robotic though, with basic and predictable dialogue. The last third of the movie was a bit reckless and haphazard, but it was fine overall I suppose.

Just curious,...why only three stars? A link to my review:

https://www.movieforums.com/reviews/2297016-gloria.html

5th Rewatch...From the Joe Pasternak unit at MGM, this is one of my favorite Jane Powell musicals. her seventh film appearance found Powell playing the daughter of a Broadway star (Ann Southern) who finds herself not only competing for the lead in a new musical with mom, but for a man (Barry Sullivan) as well. Southern and Powell make a lovely mother/daughter and Carmen Miranda, in her second to final film film appearance, has a couple of fun musical numbers. Louis Calhern offers another of his dirty old man turns, but Barry Sullivan just seems out of place here, but nothing else matters when Powell opens her mouth to sing. Her rendition of "Musetta's Waltz" from La Boheme is breathtaking.

hi everyone, its been awhile

guess i'll rate a few things i've seen recently to get back into posting

Axegrinder (David Palmieri, 2006)
mostly just another kids in the woods slasher but there's a strong low-budget charm and a few really out-there decisions


The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024)
Didn't fully win me over until it goes banana sandwich at the end but the rest of it is still solid


Red Rooms (Pascal Plante, 2023)
One of those movies would be pretty mid if it didn't happen to strike a chord, really got under my skin by the end


Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010)
I get that its kind of stupid on purpose for most of it, and it does some stuff i like towards the end but its just a long time before any of that good stuff happens, also just really don't like it from a visual standpoint


Joker: Folie à Deux (Todd Phillips, 2024)
not nearly as interesting as the positive or negative reviews suggest but at least this one's trying to be fun?


Club Lingerie (Jared Masters, 2014)
Masters is one of the few guys who can crank out low effort tubi trash, that has no interest in hiding that fact, and have it usually work out and also not feel cynical at all. This one is really just baffling at every turn but its honestly a blast. Only held back a couple moments of cringe.


Trap (M. Night Shyamalan, 2024)
Much like Joker this also isn't nearly as interesting as the reviews led me to believe, its fine.


The Nightgown (Jared Masters, 2023)
Probably the least outright strange film i've seen from Masters so far, which should be a big let-down but its pretty cute and its a vibe idk

Hi, welcome back!