Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Watched "The Woman in the Window," (2021) with Amy Adams as a child psychologist who's confined inside her Manhattan home due to her extreme agoraphobia. So she spends her days, while undergoing therapy, watching several families across the street. It is a very conscious nod to Rear Window. Amy Adams does a fine job as the woman who thinks she's witnessed a crime, right up through a fairly nicely framed and acted "moment of recognition."

Then they lost their minds and and tried to do the master "one better" by abandoning the psychological thriller they'd done passably well and bolting on a slasher-type twist and chase at the end. Note to filmmakers. If you're going to borrow from Hitchcock, less is more.

2/5

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Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain ... only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.

Conclave (2024) This is juicer than expected. It has scheming, secrets and scandals. Ralph Fiennes is excellent and Stanley Tucci is fantastic too. The score is great and the cinematography and production design are very good too. Conclave has a sharp, well written screenplay with some wonderful dialogue. One of the best films of the year.

On the Bowery (1956, Lionel Rogosin) - A

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I think of it as a "Dressed To Kill" for grown-ups.

Satranic Panic (Alice Maio Mackay, 2023)

I've only seen one of Alice Maio Mackay's other films (of the six she's somehow cranked out by age 21) which I 100% loved the concept and the sentiment of but didn't actually find all that entertaining and I can just copy/paste that for this film too unfortunately, though at least this one actually has some momentum to it. Still gonna check out her new christmas slasher tho because in this house we support trans rights and trans wrongs.

I could be wrong, but isn't Dressed to Kill for grown-ups too?

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I destroyed the dastardly dairy dame! I made mad milk maid mulch!

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The Guard - (2011)

The dialogue in hit Irish film The Guard is really funny, but it's also really sharp and clever as well. It features an unorthodox Sergeant in the Garda Síochána (the Irish police, commonly referred to as "The Guards") - Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson), who isn't crooked, but at the same time takes the drugs he confiscates off crooks and corpses, frequently uses call girls and makes the most of his position. Okay, perhaps he's a little crooked - as all of the Guards in this seem to be - but when his partner is offed by cocaine smugglers he teams up with an American FBI agent, Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to help bring them down. It's an odd couple buddy cop comedy that provides frequent laughs - and is the most successful independent Irish film in history. I've seen it a couple of times now. Brendan Gleeson's constant wry remarks and abundant charisma make The Guard a pleasure to watch.

7/10


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My House in Umbria - (2003)

Okay, I picked an absolute horror of a movie to commemorate the passing of Maggie Smith last night - it was not on my wavelength at all, and there would have been no saving it because it was the story itself I had huge problems with. Author Emily Delahunty (Smith) is on a train, homewards bound in France when a hidden bomb explodes, killing around half of the people in her compartment. The survivors (all of whom have lost a loved one) decide to have a delightful holiday at her house when they all leave hospital - and that looks as weird as it sounds. There's no trauma (apart from a young girl, Aimee (Emmy Clarke) being mute for a few days), and everyone seems to be having a delightful time. Delahunty narrates her thoughts as if she's writing one of her novels. When Aimee's uncle (her parents were killed in the explosion), Thomas Riversmith (Chris Cooper) arrives to collect his niece, the movie treats him like he's a party pooper, despite the fact that he's the only sane person in the movie. Nothing feels right - not Delahunty's psychic dreams, old Quinty's (Timothy Spall) love affair with a young maid or the cheerful General (a very old Ronnie Barker) - these people have just lost their nearest and dearest ones for goodness sakes. The whole "let's make a garden!" side plot, Delahunty's alcoholism, Delahunty's flashbacks to being sexually abused by her adoptive father or her real parent's riding off a circus daredevil barrel on a motorbike up, up, up into heaven - these are all cobbled together in a clumsy fashion and I couldn't find my footing at all. I thought My House in Umbria lacked cohesiveness, and I couldn't wrap my head around the happy tranquility these people had found after the horror they'd experienced. I had so many more issues with this movie, but I've said enough.

4/10


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O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization - (1985)

I'm hopelessly curious when it comes to seeing what apocalyptic visions look like, but invariably I walk away pained that such a dead end for humanity is even possible. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

8/10

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Loved this movie. It might be in my Top 10 all time. Or at least Top 20.

On the Town (1949, Gene Kelly) - A-

I just watched Nocturne. It's not really scary but it is incredibly tense with good drama and suspense. I thought the two leading ladies were great, especially Sydney Sweeney. Her character is mentally unstable as she tries to find her way into art school for music. I found it highly captivating. Oh I forgot; it reminded of something of a version of Black Swan except with pianists instead of ballerinas, and everyone is real. Dang it, I forgot something else; I'm going to rewatch Black Swan now. Not really for comparison but because it seems like a good idea.

This may seem like faint praise, but Venom: The Last Dance is easily the best of the Venom trilogy, and the best of all the Sonyverse movies (all the Marvel-related Sony movies that didn't have Spider-Man in them).

There are some bewildering artistic choices that have been made here - why, for instance, are all of the main parts played by British actors? - and the pacing is haphazard at best.

Given that the previous Venom movie was positively painful to even look at, one has to be truly grateful that Sony appears to have made at least a minimal effort to course-correct.

Despite the overall lack of quality in this trilogy, I'll be darned if Tom Hardy hasn't grown on me thanks to these movies in a way that he never really did with all of his previous work - and this, in turn, has made me more appreciative of his work in "serious" films like The Bikeriders.

This movie also provides a nice sense of closure to the series, while at the same time, possibly, leaving the tiniest door open for, like, something or other or maybe nothing at all.

But, with any luck, Sony will not be allowed to make any more solo Venom movies.

As the first American film to win a Palm D'or since 2011, expectations are understandably high for Sean Baker's Anora.

Anora more than delivers, achieving the trickiest of cinematic achievements: here is a movie that plays out like a twisted fairy tale that, somehow, rings true.

Mikey Madison delivers one of the absolute greatest performances in any recent Oscar-contender in the title role, and it will definitely be a darn shame if she doesn't get the prize, because she absolutely deserves it.

The character Madison creates here absolutely bursts with vitality, seeming at total ease in scenes that involve both pole-dancing and a much more complicated dance - the dance of romantic entanglements. She has also mastered the art of sounding like a Brooklyn girl who can barely get by with her broken Russian, in a way that gives you hope she could be the next Meryl Streep.

She is surrounded by a magnificent supporting cast of Russian actors, all of whom I would love to see in more movies, should they be able to continue working for American directors.

Contemporary American cinema just doesn't get much better than Anora.

Demon Seed (1977)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Quick update: I did go ahead and ordered the Australian blu-ray, just to get the extras. Well, it also would be nice to have a physical copy of the movie, in case it ever gets removed from Hulu or whatever.

The blu-ray should be here by the weekend, so I'll let y'all know how that pans out.

Huge fan of Sweeney. Never even heard of this movie, but it’s letterboxed now.

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

Not bad. I did finish it after bailing out, but forcing myself to watch the 2nd half.

The Runner from Ravenshead (2010) Watched on Tubi. An adventure film about an escaped prisoner on the run. What sets this film apart is that all the actors are children. Joel Steege directs his kids Amelia, Harrison, Addison, Brendan, and Tate. He also wrote and produced the film with his wife, Lisa. The five siblings have good chemistry together and all do a wonderful job. The film is well shot and has an effective score. If you are looking for a fun adventure with a cute cast, then you will likely enjoy this.

Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza, 2009





REC 2 covers the same events of the first film, but from a different angle, as we follow a SWAT team into the quarantined building. This film maintains the quality of the first film, while ramping up the zombie action and expanding the religious implications of the first film. Overall, another strong entry in the series.

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Ooh cool. I hope you like it. I thought it was awesome. I hope I haven't set your expectations too high.

I don’t expect anything. I bail out of movies all the time.