Rate The Last Movie You Saw

Bed of Roses remains surprisingly sprightly for a movie that is over 90 years old.

A terrific showcase for Constance Bennett and Joel McCrea, it features a deliciously corny meet-cute and some of the most uninhibited portrayals of gold-digging of the pre-Code days.

There's also the terrific Pert Kelton in a very memorably supporting role.

This film has been frustratingly hard to find even in the age of streaming, which is why I'm so happy I was able to catch it on the Criterion Channel before it left at the stroke of midnight.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) - Francis Ford Coppola: 7/10

Would somebody kindly explain to me how to add a GIF to a post? Thank you.

The Great Outdoors (1988)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Click on the "insert image" above your message space in the row of font options, paste the link address to your gif and then it's...

Smile 2 (2024) - The mind could be a scarier place than those occupied by zombies, serial killers and over-the-top bloodshed. Polanski understood and exercised that, while people like Parker Finn exploit it. Whenever dream scenes and reality become indistinguishable, the opportunity to practice all kinds of fcukery on the screen is possible, which is what we get here. So many shocks are thrown at us in an increasingly rapid pace that not all of them stick, with the excuse of that distortion being how our protagonist views the world… and in the end her pain remains a personal one, without commenting further on a social scale like another acclaimed horror with a star at its center did very boldly this year.

That isn’t to say Smile 2 doesn’t do much good. Far from it. It does feature solid performances and effective cinematography, benefits from singular (and often luxurious) interior production designs, well places some serious jump-scares throughout and replicates a pop star’s life with enough success that I was led to expect just a little more from it. The bar for horror cinema has been raised that high as of late....
7/10

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HEI guys.

By Paramount Pictures - The poster art can or could be obtained from w:Paramount Pictures., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde...urid=153213884

The Plainsman - (1936)

There's a very unrealistically romantic (and untrue) picture painted in The Plainsman of a Wild West where Wild Bill Hickok (Gary Cooper), Calamity Jane (Jean Arthur), Buffalo Bill Cody (James Ellison), and General George Custer (John Miljan) ran around together having adventures and bravely fighting barbaric Indians while never participating in atrocities no sir. Hell, even Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn, Sr.) gets a look in during The Plainsman, which gets some fine cinematic treatment via director Cecil B. DeMille. The shots all look pretty nice and there's an attractive sheen to everything - even the heroic posing. It's interesting to watch - and even fun at times, but as a piece of Americana it's something that I feel emotionally removed from. Oh, and by the way, Anthony Quinn appears as an Indian in one of his first ever film appearances - I wasn't expecting that!

6/10


By C@rtelesmix, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61782958

Corpus Christi - (2019)

Very good movie this - it has a lot to say and does so in a wonderfully indirect way, while telling an interesting story nonetheless (about a young man recently released from juvenile detention posing as a priest.) Full review here, in my watchlist thread.

8/10

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Back to The Future, BttF Part II and BttF Part III - (Zemmeckis, 1985, 1989, 1990)


All three movies, back to back to back, me and my son (16yo). We simply adore these movies

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There has been an awekening.... have you felt it?

1st Rewatch...This gut-wrenching melodrama from 1961 follows the star-crossed romance between a mentally fragile high school girl named Deenie Loomis and the big man on campus Bud Spencer. a trust fund baby whose father is pressuring him to go to Yale when all he wants to do is have a ranch and how Deenie's obsession with Bud and the manipulation they both experience at the hand of her mother and his father, eventually leads Deenie into a descent into insanity. Natalie Wood delivers the finest performance of her career as Deenie, earning her second Oscar nomination, this time for Outstanding Lead Actress and I think she should have won. Wood is mesmerizing here and I have to admit it's a little uncomfortable watching that bathtub scene and that scene at the falls knowing of Wood's lifelong fear of water. Warren Beatty made an impressive film debut as Bud, who cared about Deenie but not as much as she cared about him. He creeped me out in that scene when he pushed Deenie to her knees and demanded that she tell him how much she loved him. Audrey Christie and Pat Hingle are both brilliant as Deenie's mother and Bud's father, respectively. For lovers of Natalie Wood and the melodrama this is appointment viewing.

1st Rewatch...Richard Lester directed this loosely scripted look at two days in the life of the fab four as they prepare for a TV concert and their efforts to take care of Paul's grandfather. The paper thin story is just an excuse for the group to sing their greatest hits every ten minutes, basically the world's first music video, but this is what audiences wanted from the Beatles and they ate it up. The paper thin screenplay actually received an Oscar nomination, but the music is the pull here obviously, and, for what it is, it works.

I remember when BTTF 3 was about to be released, Universal organized showings of the entire trilogy in select theaters, with the 3rd installment being shown in 70mm in the top 10 markets in the country.

Needless to say, it was one of the most memorable days of my life as a film buff.

3rd Rewatch...On this fourth viewing, this intoxicating blend of rom antic comedy, soap opera, and cinematic bling remains as razor sharp and entertaining as ever. This is the story of an economics professor named Rachel Chu, who is asked by her boyfriend, Nick Young to accompany to Singapore for his college roommate's wedding, unaware that he is the heir apparent to the wealthiest family in Singapore and finds herself in an instant battle of wills with Nicky's domineering and manipulative mother. This is one of the most beautiful looking films ever, anchored by some beautiful on-location filming and some clever directorial tuches from director Jon M Chu (In the Heights)...love the tracking of those text messages all the way to Singapore when Rachel and Nick are first spotted together and there are some terrific performances too. Constance Wu is lovely as Rachel, Henry Young as sex on legs as Nick, and Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh is the perfect villainess as Nick's mother. Must also give a shout out to Awkwafina, who had her first significant film and stole every scene she was in as Rachel's BFF.

1st Rewatch...Eddie Murphy had the first serious misstep in his movie career with this vanity project that Murphy, produced, wrote, directed, and starred in. He plays a gangster who, along with his adopted father (Richard Pryor) are trying to keep rival gangs and crooked cops from bringing them down in this cliche-ridden gangster spoof. As a matter of fact, Murphy's screenplay is 3/4 gangster movie cliches and 1/4 curse words. It is nice to see Murphy and Pryor working together but even they can't keep this dumb movie watchable. The funniest scene in the movie is a back alley fist fight Eddie has with Della Reese. The only notable aspect of this move is the absolutely breathtaking costumes, which earned the film its only Oscar nomination. Unless you're hardcore Murphy fan, I'd give this one a pass.

1st Rewatch...This alleged musical biopic about composer Jerome Kern doesn't really offer the facts about Kern's life (which they sort of give away in the opening crawl of the film), it's basically an excuse for MGM to drag out their amazing rep company of stars and have them sing and dance to Jerome Kern's most famous work. Robert Walker and Van Heflin are kind of one note as Kern and his arranger, James Hassler, but the film does come alive during the musical numbers, the highlights including Angela Lansbury's "Would You Like to Spoon with Me “, Lena Horne's "Can't Help Lovin dat Man" (further documentation that Horne should have played Julie in MGM's 1951 remake of Show Boat)), Kathryn Grayson and Tony Martin's "Make Believe" and, of course, Judy Garland's two numbers as 1920's Broadway star Marilyn Miller, "Look for the Silver Lining" and "Who". Most of the film was directed by Richard Whorf but Garland's scenes were directed by her new husband at the time, Vincente Minnelli and you can see the difference.

1st Rewatch...Zac Efron works hard to make this overly complex comedy work. He plays a 37 year old divorced executive with kids who is miserable with his life because he is questioning the decision he made when he was 17 to marry the girlfriend he got pregnant. An encounter with a mysterious janitor finds the guy turned 17 again but unlike other time travel or body switch comedies, the guy remains in the present and he ends up going to school with his teenage son and daughter, which dilutes the original premise because all he does is look out for his children. The script is very protective of Efron's character, allowing him to get away with a lot more than she should have and it goes on forever.

3rd Re\watch...Audrey Hepburn earned the fourth Best Actress nomination of her career for her luminous performance in the Blake Edwards romantic comedy, based on a novel by Truman Capote. Hepburn plays Holly Golightly, the flighty party girl who is terrified of anything that smells of commitment but is not above accepting $50 from a man for the powder room, but finds herself drawn to her new upstairs neighbor (George Peppard), a writer who is being kept by a wealthy married socialite (Patricia Neal). The Holly character is watered down from the Capote novel and Peppard's character is gay in the novel, but 1961 audiences weren't having that. It's been well documented over the years that Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to play Holly, but with the shape of her life at that time, the film never would have been completed. Hepburn and the rest of the cast are perfection, with the exception of Mickey Rooney's offensive turn as Holly's Japanese landlord named Mr. Yunioshi.

The way I do it:
1. Google pictures of a movie (year);
2. I press on tools and select moderate size;
3. Press on a movie picture I want and when it opens on the right side I press right mouse button and select to open a picture on new tab;
4. Copy internet address of a picture and paste it in insert pictures image at the top of mofo functions;
5. Submit the image.

Example: Smile (2024)

As a fan of Kevin Smith since his first movie, I have been pretty dismayed at the abysmal drop in quality in some of his latest movies. It's good to know that The 4:30 Movie is definitely a bit better than all of his other recent films, but it's still an awfully slight one at that.

An obviously autobiographical film, this one marks the first time Smith has ventured back in time to before his heyday of the 1990s. There's an obvious love here for a long-gone era before the days of smartphones and internet sites that is genuine and convincing.

But Smith doesn't do himself any favor with writing that is at best bland and, at worst, sophomoric. The young actors do the best they can with the material, and for the most part they manage to sell it.

Young Sherlock Holmes -

Despite not being successful enough to kick off a franchise like Spielberg and company had hoped, Sherlock Holmes amateurs and experts will surely enjoy this mid-'80s family adventure. In case you ever wondered why Chris Columbus, the screenwriter, was likely selected to kick off what ended up being a very successful franchise - you know, that one about another British young man with special abilities - your explanation is here. The man knows how to craft a story featuring young folks, particularly ones compelled to defy authority figures, that is never not fun. I like Rowe as Holmes, especially for how he manages to balance the character's smugness about being the smartest and most observant person in any room with being someone you can believe as a devoted friend, i.e. to Watson. As for him, I was afraid his messiness and craving for sweets meant he would be reduced to a bumbling sidekick, but thankfully, Alan Cox, Columbus, et al give him more dimensions than that. Ultimately, they utilize such traits to humanize Watson rather than for mining cheap comic relief. Speaking of, I approve of how the hooded villain's weapon of choice, a blow dart tipped with a hallucinogenic poison, reveals our leads' hangups, fears, imperfections, what have you as well as how their mission to unmask the villain lets the heroes overcome them at the same time. The resulting special effects are also impressive, clever and in no way dated. I certainly will not reveal fine details of their assignment, but I'll at least say that it will surely please anyone who enjoys stories that go down the rabbit hole. I'll also add that fans of steampunk or the look and feel of Victorian England will surely get something out of it as well.

I had a fun time with this movie - the best compliment I can think to give it is I wish I had watched it in my youth - but I still consider it good, but not great. While the action to detective work ratio is more balanced here than it is in Guy Ritchie's middling 2009 movie, there is a still a bit too much of the former and not enough of the latter for my liking. Holmes' voiceover narration is also intrusive, so much so that it made me wonder if it is unnecessary. Other than that, it remains reliable and solid family entertainment, especially for the fall and winter seasons. It also works well as "spot the British character performer" entertainment since a good number of favorites show up here. Just make sure to do what every franchise and would-be franchise movie expects you to do lately: stick around after the end credits.