Rate The Last Movie You Saw

A Room with a View (1985)

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[ J ] - [ S ] - [ F ]

Jardin, 2024





It's What's Inside is tagged as horror comedy, but there is really very little that is horrific about it, so i am unsure it really qualifies. Regardless, I had a blast watching this twisty little thriller. In some ways similar to 2022's Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, not the least of which is its ultra-annoying cast, we have a similar set-up of a bunch of well-off partiers and trust funders hanging out in a massive mansion.

Pay close attention to who people are, their names, and what little background you get for each character, as it all comes into play later; this film requires your full attention or things will get confusing fast. I was able to keep track of all the twists and turns, but I see multiple reviewers complaining they got lost, or were tipsy when they watched so they ended up checking out halfway through because they couldn't keep everything straight.

Anyway, I woke up thinking about this one, so there is plenty to chew on, and I had a ton of fun watching. Recommended!

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I think this is one of the best new movies of 2024. Been meaning to watch it a 2nd time but haven't had time yet.

I will watch it again, for sure. I do want to have a couple of friends over who haven't seen it, though. Would be fun to see their reactions.

I don't rate 10/10 too much, but this was one. I read an interview where Robert Altman said he thought about quitting after seeing this movie.

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Woman of the Hour (2023/2024) Watched on Netflix. Anna Kendrick does a good job directing and starring in this film. Daniel Zovatto is effective as a serial killer who can turn on the charm when needed. The way the story is structured doesn't always work and relying on text on screen at the end isn't completely satisfying. This is a fine directorial debut by Kendrick and there is both potential and room for growth as a director in the future.

Megalopolis aside, Guy Maddin's Rumours is the most bonkers movie to have played in theaters this year. If you like bonkers movies, you can't possibly miss this one.

Here's a movie that deftly plays its cards as both a political black comedy and some kind of bizarro world apocalypse the-end-is-near scenario.

Cate Blanchett leads the superb cast as Hilda Ortmann, the German Chancellor who is hosting a G7 summit in what might otherwise be an idyllic rural location. That is before the you-know-what hits the fan.

Charles Dance - still sounding very much like Charles Dance, thank you very much - plays American president Edison Wolcott; the cast also includes Alicia Vikander as the Swedish-speaking Secretary-General of the European Commission.

As for the movie itself - well, as you can see in the poster, it has been described as "Night of the Living Dead meets Dr. Strangelove". That's not a bad way to put it.

I won't give away anything regarding the actual storyline, since the movie is best enjoyed the less you know about what happens.

1st Rewatch...This sequel is just as silly and pointless as the first film. In this film, Elle Woods (Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon) learns that Bruiser's mom is being held captive in an animal testing laboratory and she wants Bruiser's mom to be present at her wedding to Emmett (Luke Wilson), so to get the animal out of the lab, she gets herself a job at the office of a congresswoman (Oscar winner Sally Field) where she initiates a bill to stop animal testing of cosmetics so that Bruiser's mom and all the other animals can be released. Witherspoon is as bouncy and annoying as she was in the first film and Wilson's role has been reduced to a glorified cameo. Oscar winners Field and Regina King are wasted in thankless roles, but the late Bob Newhart's role as a doorman almost makes this worth the time. There is entertainment value here, as long as you remember that, like in the Michael J Fox Film The Secret of My Success, NOTHING that happens in this film would EVER happen IRL.

I did a Joaquin double feature last night...




4th Rewatch...This movie just gets richer and richer with each rewatch. Joaquin Phoenix was robbed of an Oscar nomination for his performance as a techo-geek named Theodore Twombley who falls in love with the operating system installed into his computer, beautifully voiced by Scarlett Johanssen. A futuristic love story with some 1950's romance sensibilities at its core. This is becoming one of those films I never tire of rewatching. Spike Jonz' screenplay won an Oscar. Phoenix has never been sexier onscreen.

the other half of my Joaquin double bill...




4th rewatch...I had to watch this again before I watch the sequel, which I'm pretty sure is going to ruin it for me. Nothing has changed here. Phoenix is extraordinary.

1st Rewatch...Silly comedy about three moms (Mila Kunis, Katheryn Hahn, Kristen Bell), who all feel they are failing as mothers but after an accidental meeting where they end up getting drunk together in a bar, instead of wallowing in what they're feeling, they decide to embrace it. The film features a lot of silly physical comedy and Hahn steals every scene she's in as does Christina Applegate as the bitchy PTA president mom. To be honest, the best part of the movie is the closing credits which feartures interviews with the stars and their real-life moms. There was a sequel called Bad Moms Christmas, but this movie wasn't good enough to pique my curiosity about the second one.

Love this movie. If you recall Samantha Morton was supposed to have this rôle. She & the director both agreed she wasn’t quite right for the rôle & they amicably parted ways after shooting every one of the director’s scenes.

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

Dream scenario
7/10
Interesting.

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Boldly going.

October 15, 2024

THE APPRENTICE (Ali Abbasi / 2024)

(NOTE: I will be making some political observations here, as well as voicing my own opinions. Trust me when I say that the object is not to offend anyone else in any way whatsoever.)

First of all, let me just say that I really liked this movie a lot. I would also add that my reaction to it is somewhat paradoxical:

On one hand, I feel like I can't really hate Donald Trump in quite the same way I have for the past eight-plus years. Mind you, I think my reasons for doing so are been absolutely justified, and I feel like I am positively oozing schadenfreude from my very pores every time he gets in trouble or says or does something idiotic at one of his rallies or whenever Stephen Colbert roasts him every night on The Late Show. But The Apprentice provides a timely reminder for us that Donald Trump is, after all, a human being like anybody else, with his own unique set of flaws and foibles. Let he is without sin... etc., etc., etc.

But the other side of my reaction is that I feel more convinced than ever of the danger that Trump poses to our nation, and it's very much related to those particular flaws and foibles. Let me put it this way: By his own admission, his specialty is "the art of the deal." His forte is in making big promises, playing up to people's wishful thinking, setting up impossible expectations and - as often as not - somehow encouraging the creation of conditions out of which, by hook or by crook, they are actually fulfilled. But that which is appreciated and encouraged as gutsy or daring in the cutthroat worlds of business and high-finance - albeit still high-risk and ethically dubious - is an absolute non-starter in the world of global politics, in which the stakes are very much connected with real life and the ways in which millions of people's lives are affected. Everything about the way in which Trump operates - or rather shall we say the way he desires to operate - is absolutely anathema to the ideals of a democratic society.

People who support Trump or advocate his presidency naively believe that his longevity and the particular skill set which served him well in the past will somehow translate into a more proactive form of governance that can more conveniently cut through everything else and magically cure inflation and sticker shock or whatever else it is that ails our country. (And I don't scoff at their frustrations at all: I feel the pinch at the grocery store just like everybody else.) The problem is, democracy isn't supposed to be about instant gratification or an instant cure-all for whatever our frustrations at the moment happen to be. The fact is - and I know this is a horrible cliche, and I've always hated whenever conservatives have thrown this word around in the past - democratic ideals are rooted in values, our notions of what is considered right or wrong. And I wish those people who are presently snake-fascinated with Trump would just ask themselves exactly how it can be considered morally acceptable for one man to try and obstruct the rightful transfer or power and encourage a violent insurrection after a democratic election in which he's lost, as had happened on January 6, 2021. Or to repeatedly tell lie after lie in the belief that truth is relative and doesn't matter... or that Truth with a capital "T" doesn't even exist. Or to prize winning and success above everything else, no matter how such a victory is achieved or how counterfeit the success. Or even to repeatedly deny that one has even lost. Or to even deny anything that proves to be personally inconvenient, however true.

Wow... I guess I got a little sidetracked there. Given the subject matter, I guess that was bound to happen. But I suppose I should get back to the film now...

Anyway, The Apprentice starts in 1973, and mainly deals with the young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan)'s early career and friendship with the notorious attorney Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), who had been counsel for Joseph McCarthy during his investigations of suspected Communists and had famously prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spying and got them the death penalty. (Besides Strong, other people who have portrayed Roy Cohn in the past include Al Pacino in the 2003 Mike Nichols-directed mini-series of Tony Kushner's 1993 play Angels in America - which I highly recommend - as well as James Woods in the 1992 TV movie Citizen Cohn. BTW, Woods made a far better Roy Cohn than he did Rudy Giuliani in a 2003 TV movie. Nowadays, he'd probably regard that as a very back-handed compliment, but it's not meant as such...) Sebastian Stan actually does a very good job in the role of Trump, playing him as a human being instead of a caricature. And everyone else in the cast is good, as well. Jeremy Strong makes for a wonderfully slimy and abrasive Roy Cohn, but just as with Stan's Trump, Strong makes him human and roots his aggression and hostility in personal vulnerability. What comes across most forcefully in the film's portrayal of Trump is his sense of need, of wanting validation, as well as the hole or vacancy within which makes him fail to recognize what is truly of importance or value. But I guess when your father is a real-estate mogul who discriminated against his African-American tenants, and who berated and ridiculed your brother for being a mere airline pilot, you're not going to have much of a solid grounding in common humanity.

At the end of the day, what The Apprentice produces within me more than anything else is a sense of pity. Not only pity for Trump - which he would probably contemptuously dismiss in any case - but pity for how American society has even gotten to this point in the first place, that we could even consider a man like Donald Trump a viable candidate for the highest office in the land.

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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)

This was a weird little movie but Cage was Oscar worthy

There is only good reason to watch Smile 2 - and her name is Naomi Scott.

She's best known to most moviegoers as the live-action Jasmine in the recent Disney remake of Aladdin. And, as an actor/singer, she definitely brings some high notes to what would otherwise be a tremendously tedious sequel.

Running well over 2 hours, the sequel to Parker Finn's 2022 directorial debut pretty much hits almost all of the same beats, having replaced the protagonist of the original film with, surprise, surprise, yet another damsel in distress.

And despite the fact that it doesn't do much that's new, the sequel does benefit tremendously from Scott's extremely committed performance - it is hard not to be rooting for her, even if you know (from watching the 1st movie) more or less exactly what to expect here.

There are a few other cast members that do the best they can with the trite material, starting with Rosemarie DeWitt as Scott's mom. Then there's Jack Nicholson's son, Ray, in what amounts to little more than a cameo; and Miles Gutierrez-Riley who is having a bit of a hot streak between this and Marvel's Agatha All Along.

In the end, the movie offers few real surprises and the "scares" are both lacking in novelty and not particularly scary. The movie also suffers from being the 2nd one this year that prominently features a fictional female pop star; Scott is easily a cut above Saleka Night Shyamalan in Trap, but still.

Maybe it's time we declare a national moratorium on fictional female pop stars becoming a prominent part of horror movies and thrillers. It is starting to become a bit of a cliché.

Almost Invisible (David Allingham, 2010)

Things if it had access to iMovie built-in effects and half-naked women. Incomprehensible, essential.

Ten out of ten? Wow. It was a decent film but indulgent. Also the sex angle (maybe intentionally) was stilted I thought.

This was recommended to me by an IRL friend, who said "Go into it knowing nothing about it" and I was glad that I watched the film and glad that I heeded the advice to just dive in.

In many ways, it is a very stupid movie. But it's also a very fun movie that lands in just the right place of being darkly funny without being too mean-spirited. I think it's definitely a people-pleaser type film and an easy recommendation to most people.

EDIT: I think Bodies Bodies Bodies is a great comparison tone-wise, though I'd give Bodies Bodies Bodies the edge in terms of both writing and acting ("He's a VET!").

By the third viewing, yes. I didn't love it at first, but every time I watched, I liked it more.