Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Pane e tulipani (2000) - Silvio Soldini: 3/10

Oh Susanna (1936) - I like westerns, and this was on a BFI list, but yeesh, this might be the dumbest thing I've ever seen. A criminal steals Gene Autry's identify, and, I know they didn't have the internet, and it's going for comedy, but seriously, no one recognizes Gene Autry, a star of stage and screen and recordings, they think he's some mad killer, and the real mad killer is actually Gene... who goes around shooting old friends? Somehow it manages to be lightly entertaining, and you have some good music. But how to rate such silliness? 2.5 out of 5, is my 'neither here nor their' grade, so I'll go with that.

At the least I get to mark it off the list.

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Completed Extant Filmographies: Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Satyajit Ray, Fritz Lang, Andrei Tarkovsky, Buster Keaton, Yasujirō Ozu - (for favorite directors who have passed or retired, 10 minimum)

Spaceballs - (Mel Brooks, 1987)

2nd re-watch, this time with my 16yo. I don't think he enjoyed it that much, I was laughing throughout the whole movie.

10/10

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6th Rewatch...In terms of pure entertainment, I now prefer Casino, but this is definitely Scorsese's masterpiece that was robbed of the Best Picture Oscar. Scorsese was robbed of Best Director as well for this bloody and brilliant fact-based mob drama that, unlike any other mob movie, including The Godfather, made being a mobster look undeniably glamorous. It's the true story of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) who grew up around mobsters and eventually become one of them, but eventually screwed it up and ended up in the Witness Protection program until his death in 2012. The late Ray Liotta's star-making performance is the heart of this film and Joe Pesci's Oscar-winning performance as Tommy DeVito commands the screen as well. If you want to make a gangster epic, this is the textbook.

3rd Rewatch...John Candy and John Hughes teamed up again for this slightly raunchy but very funny comedy which finds Hughes playing the title character, a lazy unemployed chronic gambler who is asked by his brother to watch his three kids while he and his wife go out of town. The surprise in this story is that despite some initial screw-ups, Buck actually steps up and takes care of these kids. Candy lights up the screen here playing one of his most likable characters and mention should be made of Laurie Metcalf as an amorous neighbor and Macauley Culkin as his young nephew.

Umpteenth Rewatch....Tim Burton knocks it out of the park here. This is the movie that made me officially fall in love with Johnny Depp. Depp plays the creation of a mad scientist (Vincent Price, in his final film role) who died before he could give Edward real hands and left his creation with large scissors for hands, who now finds himself smack in the middle of suburbia, thanks to a kindly Avon Lady (Oscar winner Dianne Wiest). The film features extraordinary production values and Depp gives the performance of his career.

Never seen this movie.

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

Umpteenth Rewatch...This feel-good sports comedy is one of my guilty pleasures that I will always watch if I run into it. When the fictional pro football team the Washington Sentinels go on strike, former pro coach Jimmy McGinty (Oscar winner Gene Hackman) is drafted to put together a scab team to finish out the season, including a washed up quarterback named Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves), who is only remembered for a disastrous Sugar Bowl many years ago. Hackman gives this film an element of class it really doesn't deserve and Reeves' sex on legs =performance is a lot of fun as are Jon Favreau, Orlando Jones, Rhys Ifans, and Jack Warden in supporting roles.

Umpteenth Rewatch....My favorite Adam Sandler movie. This remake of the Gary Cooper classic Mr. Deeds Goes to Town finds Sandler playing Longfellow Deeds, a pizza delivery man who writes greeting cards who learns he is the only living relative of a media mogul named Preston Blake and he is about to inherit $40 billion dollars from him unless Blake's acting CEO (Peter Gallagher) can wrest power from Deeds. This film is silly fun with a terrific supporting cast including Winona Ryder, Conchatta Ferrell, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, Jared Harris and a funny cameo from John McEnroe.

2nd Rewatch...Will Ferrell had one of his biggest hits with this lavish fantasy about a human being named Buddy who was raised as one of Santa's elves. As the film begins, Buddy learns from Papa Elf (the late Bob Newhart) the name of his real father, Walter Hobbs (the late James Caan) and travels from the North Pole to Manhattan to meet him. There's a lot of silly stuff going on here, but the charismatic turn by Ferrell in the starring role and the beautifully understated performance from Caan make this movie worth watching. Mention should also be made of Mary Steenburgen, Zoey Deschenal, and the brilliant Peter Dinklage who make every moment they have onscreen.

4th Rewatch...Despite his accustomed over indulgent direction from Taylor Hackford, Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning performance as legendary musician Ray Charles keep this film totally watchable. The screenplay is a little overprotective of Charles and I think that was because at the time of filming, Charles was still alive. The screenplay also spends a little too much time on Charles' childhood, where the point is driven with a sledgehammer that Charles learned how to be independent because of his mother. Foxx is extraordinary and there are two performances that should have received Best Supporting Actress nominations...Regina King as Ray's mistress, Marjorie and Sharon Warren as Ray's mother during the flashbacks.

Rome, Open City (1945)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

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Jersey Boys - (2014)

You know that director Clint Eastwood isn't going to be learning new tricks in his mid-80s, so when you take on Jersey Boys it's with the knowledge that this is going to be a mid-1990s biographical movie released in 2014 about a mid-1960s singer and band and an adaptation of a mid-2000s Broadway musical. It's the stiffness that hurts it the most - as if what we're watching isn't supposed to line up with real life exactly, but instead a kind of stylized, slick satire of Italian-Americans and more specifically Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. The songs, sung by the actors themselves, I'm sorry to say sound awful. I'm sorry but if this is how these guys would have really sounded they wouldn't have become famous and their songs wouldn't have been hits. It doesn't work at all - the extreme high and low pitch is way off. The way the band kind of bumps into what to sing about every time they write a new hit song comes straight from Walk Hard : The Dewey Cox Story. With those problems the narrative itself simply had to be fantastic to try and compensate - and while it was the movie's best feature it couldn't turn this into a repeat viewer for me - I'll only watch Jersey Boys this once unless forced to see it again.

5/10


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The Believer - (2001)

Watching this film right now, at this point in world history, and more specifically American history, is far, far more frightening than it might have been watching this movie in 2001. Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

7/10

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Can I ask, why??!!
I know this is MoFo's nr 1 noir, but I just don't get it!!

Well the story is incredibly tight and the wordplay by Billy Wilder and long time collaborator Raymond Chandler is so clever and full of innuendo and indirect implications to sneak past the censors. Some of the things implied are spot on and also Billy Wilder is perhaps with Howard Hawks, William Wyler, and John Ford, one of the greatest and most intelligent storytellers in that he respects his audiences and isn't about to bore people with needless exposition. For example though out the film Edward G. Robinson's character never carries matches or a lighter and completely depends on MacMurray's character having a match. This changes at the very end as MacMurray is dying waiting for the police and medics to arrive. Just that very last scene alone as Robinson hears MacMurray recording his confession on the audio recorder and how he reacts to the whole thing is good writing. Instead of it being written and played as a "Gotcha! You thought you were clever, but you didn't get away with it! I'm glad your shot and are going down!" type of thing, it's incredibly remorseful as his long time co-worker and friend of 11 years feels nothing but remorse and loss mixed in with a sense of pointless betrayal. That whole relationship is the stronger in the film and one of the strongest in all of cinema and Billy Wilder expands it so much beyond cliche.

And the Barbara Stanwyck character is pure evil and how the audience is put in the position of possibly pulling for both her and MacMurray to "get away with it" because her husband is such an ass, really hits home as we too realized we've been duped just like MacMurray's character. The narration and flashback frame structure is pitch perfect and while I think Billy Wilder went on to even greater heights in what I consider his "masterpiece" in Sunset Blvd, what he did with structure and how the film plays with time... real time in which you're watching the film vs how time transpires in the film, is just spectacular. The fact that the film also includes a heavy... very heavy amount of insurance domain specific dialogue or jargon and weaves it into the story and characters so that any person can understood is also groundbreaking and fairly risky too. But yeah the audience is brought along as witness and conspirator and cheerleader for MacMurray's character, and even though he's a cad and scoundrel, he does have likeable qualities unlike the complete prick with zero redeemability that he played in his next pairing with Billy Wilder, 16 years later in The Apartment. But it so much more than just a thriller or noir as it transcends the genre and unlike a lot of films where the audience is kept in waiting with a lot of close calls, whodunnits, and will he get away with its, Double Indemnity holds up so well on repeat viewings because it's not really about the plot, it's about the subtext.

It was number five on my noir ballot and only four films in order placed higher than Double Indemnity:

1. In a Lonely Place
2. A Touch of Evil
3. The Big Sleep
4. Sunset Blvd
5. Double Indemnity

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wow, great answer!!!!!

maybe I should give it another try!

Yeah, if you get time, I would. Do you have Criterion Channel? It's streaming right now both the film version and the audio commentary version.


One thing I would recommend with the first, second, and even third viewing of a film like Double Indemnity or Hawk's The Big Sleep, and this is so alien to modern films and audiences, is to not even pay attention to the plot and trying to piece together the clues in your mind as its happening. In a lot of films clues will be dropped, names of places and people, and you'll be wondering why such and such a character is at such and such location performing such and such action.

Who gives a damn. Hell in The Big Sleep, even Hawks as the director and Bogart as the lead actor didn't know what the Hell was going on half the time... it's more about being immersed in that world and universe and soaking in the brilliance of the dialogue, enjoying the banter between the characters, "living" in that tone and atmosphere of the world with its lighting and framing. It's just like a neo-noir film such as David Lynch's Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive which both owe A TON of debt to Double Indemnity and Sunset Blvd... heck, just check out Patricia Arquette's outfits and wigs in Lost Highway and see how impacted Lynch was on a film like Double Indemnity... just enjoy the ride and don't bother about trying to figure out the plot and everything else. These are pieces of art and tone poems.

A Moment of Innocence (1996) 9-9.25
-my favourite Iranian film (or maybe 2nd to The Runner, not decided yet)
-off the top of my head, probably in my top 3 comedies
-off the top of my head, probably in my top 10 independent films
-contender for top 50 overall

Very funny, with several lol moments.
Really nicely constructed, snappy comedy drama.
Superb performance from the lead actor, and all very good performances.

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Vera Drake - (2004)

You'll walk away with a heavy heart after watching Vera Drake - a great Mike Leigh film that I'd never seen before now. All this time, I always thought the Vera Drake in his film was some famous real-life figure who either performed or advocated for abortions, but it seems it's a fictional character that just wanted to help out desperate women using a method that seems unorthodox if not dangerous. These women would otherwise find someone else who would do it, and Vera does this (risking her freedom if caught) out of kindness, receiving no remuneration (instead, the woman organising the visits secretly forces the ladies to pay.) So many Mike Leigh favourites with roles in this : Imelda Staunton as Vera Drake of course, Eddie Marsan, Sally Hawkins, Ruth Sheen, Jim Broadbent and Lesley Manville - many of them playing against type and proving the great range they have. The movie doesn't take a stance on abortion, but rather looks at a place and time when discussion about these issues never even occurred, but were instead hidden away as taboo topics. Most of the journeys these characters take are heartbreaking and sad, but it's another brilliant film by a British master.

9/10


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The Eternal Daughter - (2022)

Joanna Hogg uses sound in very ingenious ways to unnerve us when we sense some kind of paranormal entity lurks the halls, and makes us search in the darkness for spectral whisps - but in the end it's a much more internal haunting that's happening in The Eternal Daughter. Full review here in my watchlist thread.

8/10

HOW MANY SEQUELS UNTIL VENOM GETS EDDIE PREGNANT???