Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Movie-mber Edition

[Pink Mist]

The Wife (2017) directed by Björn Runge

Joe (Jonathon Pryce), a novelist, has been married to his wife, Joan (Glenn Close), since the 1950s. He is to be honoured in 1992 with the noble peace prize for literature. However, his work and his relationship with Joan could unravel due to a long-harboured secret the two have been keeping. While largely conventionally directed, the film is well written and is lifted from its conventionality and cliches by a phenomenal performance by Glenn Close.

7/10

 

[Pink Mist]

The Celebration [Festen] (1998) directed by Thomas Vinterberg

At the 60th birthday party of the patriarch of a Danish family, a dark and horrendous secret is revealed by his eldest son. Filmed as the first film in the Dogme 95 film movement, a movement which strips filmmaking to its barebones, it effectively uses its technical and budgetary restrictions to tell a tragic and darkly comic story of a dinner party in which with each new toast more and more shocking transgressions are revealed to guests unflappably in denial. Filmed with handheld cameras, it feels like a home video, which adds to its feeling of authenticity. I watched it on YouTube in a 420p version which only enhanced that aspect. Highly recommended.

 

[kmart]

melancholia 4/5 could have been easy 5/5 if the start of the movie wouldn't bore that much. sitting there at the end with the main characters at that table and staring at the sky gave me a really uneasy feeling.

 

[kihei]

The Life Ahead (2020) Directed by Edoardo Ponti 4A

The Life Ahead is a heart tugger of a movie about an old Holocaust survivor (Sophia Loren) and a young boy who is hard as nails. Being a sort of day care person for the children of hookers, Madame Rosa does a special favour for a Muslim friend who is in charge of the kid. She agrees to look after the boy for a few weeks. Of course, it changes both their lives. The bad guys in this movie aren't totally despicable, and the good guys...well, they are quite the bunch. A Jew, a Muslim, a transvestite, and a Somali street kid, thus touching a lot of feel-good bases in the process. The Life Ahead is Loren's first major film role in nearly twenty years, in other words, a big event in some circles, and it is directed by her younger son, Edoardo. I wish the role could have been more challenging and the script a better one. However, I am not going to come down too hard on this movie whose heart at least is in the right place. Doing this film was probably Loren's way to make her son happy and to pledge her allegiance one last time on the side of acceptance and humanity. Grandparents might want to watch The Life Ahead with you at Christmas. Remember the spirit of the season and don't grit your teeth too loudly.

subtitles

Netflix

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Was re-watching half of High & Low (1961) again, damn that's such a good film. Perfect police procedural/high drama.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

The Life Ahead (2020) Directed by Edoardo Ponti 4A

The Life Ahead is a heart tugger of a movie about an old Holocaust survivor (Sophia Loren) and a young boy who is hard as nails. Being a sort of day care person for the children of hookers, Madame Rosa does a special favour for a Muslim friend who is in charge of the kid. She agrees to look after the boy for a few weeks. Of course, it changes both their lives. The bad guys in this movie aren't totally despicable, and the good guys...well, they are quite the bunch. A Jew, a Muslim, a transvestite, and a Somali street kid, thus touching a lot of feel-good bases in the process. The Life Ahead is Loren's first major film role in nearly twenty years, in other words, a big event in some circles, and it is directed by her younger son, Edoardo. I wish the role could have been more challenging and the script a better one. However, I am not going to come down too hard on this movie whose heart at least is in the right place. Doing this film was probably Loren's way to make her son happy and to pledge her allegiance one last time on the side of acceptance and humanity. Grandparents might want to watch The Life Ahead with you at Christmas. Remember the spirit of the season and don't grit your teeth too loudly.

subtitles

Netflix

I didn't know they adapted the novel in 2020. That's funny. The novel is a superb and touching masterpiece. Did the movie retain some of Momo's oblivious humor? You should read Romain Gary's book if you never have. Although I wonder how some of the expressions and dialogue would translate to English. But just by reading your review, it seems that a lot of what made the book's construct effective looks to have been dismissed in the movie. In the film, Madame Rosa essentially takes care of multiple kids for life which heightens the dynamics.

 

[kihei]

I didn't know they adapted the novel in 2020. That's funny. The novel is a superb and touching masterpiece. Did the movie retain some of Momo's oblivious humor? You should read Romain Gary's book if you never have. Although I wonder how some of the expressions and dialogue would translate to English. But just by reading your review, it seems that a lot of what made the book's construct effective looks to have been dismissed in the movie. In the film, Madame Rosa essentially takes care of multiple kids for life which heightens the dynamics.

I haven't read Gary's novel, but I have seen an earlier film adaptation of his novel, called Madame Rosa, and it is a clearly superior movie in comparison with the present version.

Madame Rosa (1977) - IMDb

 

[kihei]

Queen of Hearts (2019) Directed by May el-Toukhy 7B

Anne (Trine Dyrholm) is a Danish social worker helping to prosecute a rape case. She and her husband Peter are in their mid-40s and have 11-year-old twin girls. When Gustaf. Peter’s 17-year-old son (Gustav Lindh) by a former marriage, comes to live with them, Anne finds herself becoming more and more attracted to him. Though she works with abused girls and women, that does little to temper her growing passion. Eventually things spiral out of control. I'm beginning to find slow burn suspense movies annoying. Wwith major exceptions like Revanche and Take Shelter, such films seem a lazy, less skilled way to create suspense than the work of genuine masters like Hitchcock or Chabrol. However, I would make an exception for Queen of Hearts. Director May el-Toukhy has created a villain of some originality, a strong, intelligent woman who should know better but who is a little too sure of her own rectitude and thus allows herself to indulge in harmfully transgressive behaviour. With el-Toukhy getting superb work from Lindh and, especially, Dyrholm, Queen of Hearts is not your usual suspense movie by any means.

subtitles

Netflix

 

[Chili]

The Ghost Breakers-1940

Nice blend of comedy & mystery. Gags, ghosts, ghouls, haunted house, secret passages, creaky doors and Bob Hope one liners. With the lovely Paulette Goddard (the former Mrs. Chaplin) and a strong cast. Good film.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

The Assistant (2019) - 7/10

Bwoah this was stressful to watch in a weird way, it doesn't help that they used a very sympathetic character as the assistant.

I Used To Go Here (2020) - 5/10

Coincidentally, I used to go to school for a bit in the town this was filmed in. I gave it a chance because 2020 has pretty slim pickings and Gillian Jacobs was in it but it was pretty bad, the director tried to mix the serious with the funny and did an awful job.

 

[OzzyFan]

Freaky (2020)
2.70 out of 4stars

A fun funny horror/comedy about a serial killer of teens (Vince Vaughn) switching bodies with an outcast high school teen girl (Kathryn Newton). The whole cast did well and had fun it seemed with the premise and events. It's weird, it's kind of forgettable popcorn fare, but I liked it enough when it got going that I wish the premise and hijinks and side themes went deeper and longer. Wished it was a 2 hour movie.

 

[nameless1]

Queen of Hearts (2019) Directed by May el-Toukhy 7B

Anne (Trine Dyrholm) is a Danish social worker helping to prosecute a rape case. She and her husband Peter are in their mid-40s and have 11-year-old twin girls. When Gustaf. Peter’s 17-year-old son (Gustav Lindh) by a former marriage, comes to live with them, Anne finds herself becoming more and more attracted to him. Though she works with abused girls and women, that does little to temper her growing passion. Eventually things spiral out of control. I'm beginning to find slow burn suspense movies annoying. Wwith major exceptions like Revanche and Take Shelter, such films seem a lazy, less skilled way to create suspense than the work of genuine masters like Hitchcock or Chabrol. However, I would make an exception for Queen of Hearts. Director May el-Toukhy has created a villain of some originality, a strong, intelligent woman who should know better but who is a little too sure of her own rectitude and thus allows herself to indulge in harmfully transgressive behaviour. With el-Toukhy getting superb work from Lindh and, especially, Dyrholm, Queen of Hearts is not your usual suspense movie by any means.

subtitles

Netflix

This had one of my favourite female performance of that year. Dyrholm is so damn good, that she is basically the whole movie. Right now, I can still remember that turn she did at the climax. That is rather unexpected, and just so brilliant. She is like a fantastic wrestling heel, because even though her actions are despicable, I actually want to cheer for her. She is in so much control, that the audience eats out of her hands.

I had hoped that you will see it, because I wanted to see whose performance you liked better, this one, or Andrea Bræin Hovig in Hope, since I remember that you singled her out for praise. I recently saw Hope, and I have to say, even though I really, really liked Dyrholm's performance, Hovig is more consistent with her performance. Throughout the movie, the audience can feel her roller-coaster of emotions, while Dyrholm's performance is, frankly, only memorable for that last 20 to 30 minutes. That said, it is a really impressive last quarter, and I also cannot fault her for it, because that is what the script required. She had to go with the motions for the first three quarters of the movie, just to maximize the impact of the last quarter. That is why even though I will give the edge to Hovig for Best Actress of 2019, Dyrholm probably lost by just a nose.

 

[nameless1]

The Assistant (2019) - 7/10

Bwoah this was stressful to watch in a weird way, it doesn't help that they used a very sympathetic character as the assistant.

Yeah, I feel the same way. There are a lot of emotions with this one, and I really like the complex way the movie looks at sexual harassment in the workplace. Even though it is not my cup of tea, I would still highly recommend it.

 

[kihei]

This had one of my favourite female performance of that year. Dyrholm is so damn good, that she is basically the whole movie. Right now, I can still remember that turn she did at the climax. That is rather unexpected, and just so brilliant. She is like a fantastic wrestling heel, because even though her actions are despicable, I actually want to cheer for her. She is in so much control, that the audience eats out of her hands.

I had hoped that you will see it, because I wanted to see whose performance you liked better, this one, or Andrea Bræin Hovig in Hope, since I remember that you singled her out for praise. I recently saw Hope, and I have to say, even though I really, really liked Dyrholm's performance, Hovig is more consistent with her performance. Throughout the movie, the audience can feel her roller-coaster of emotions, while Dyrholm's performance is, frankly, only memorable for that last 20 to 30 minutes. That said, it is a really impressive last quarter, and I also cannot fault her for it, because that is what the script required. She had to go with the motions for the first three quarters of the movie, just to maximize the impact of the last quarter. That is why even though I will give the edge to Hovig for Best Actress of 2019, Dyrholm probably lost by just a nose.

I thought Dyrholm was excellent, a totally committed performance, but Hovig gave one of the best performances that I have ever seen. If I could have given an award for acting last year, she would have been the one who got it.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

La présence réelle (The Real Presence, Ruiz, 1984) - Not a lot of Ruiz films I haven't seen from this period, but this was a first viewing. Typical Ruiz project, where he was hired to document a theater festival in Avignon, but ending up with actors and material, decided to turn it into a very ruizianly ambitious film (he did similar diversions a few times). Using as a starting point an unemployed actor seeking to get paid for work he did on a narrative laserdisc, Ruiz tries to apply the christian concept of the "real presence" (the understanding that Jesus' body and blood are really present in the sacramental bread and wine) to a reflection on the various levels of presence of the actor in different mediums: is the actor equally "there" in a theater play, a film, or as a digitally reproduced image of himself? It's a relatively short film, interspersed with short sequences from different plays presented at the Avignon festival that year (small traces of the original project). It makes very strange usage of Racine's Iphigenia, adapting some scenes in their entirety with no clear intention. Everything, from ponctual visual experimentations to the whole medium musings, is very hit and miss. The film was going straight to a perfect score from me, but the last 15 minutes or so had a lot more miss than hit and the lack of real closure to the original quest from the actor (not getting paid because the image of him on the laserdisc was reproduced by a computer) was kind of a let down. Still, a film that deserves to be known a lot more than it is (my vote was only the 10th on IMDB). 8.5/10

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Demolition Man (1993) - 7/10

My favourite part of this 80s movie that got released in the 90s was surprisingly ditzy Sandra Bullock. Also I was going through her filmography and for a famous actress, holy hell does this woman have a poor list of films. Every actor at least has some great films they've been in, her best work is Speed or Ocean's 8 and neither are exactly great.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Demolition Man (1993) - 7/10

My favourite part of this 80s movie that got released in the 90s was surprisingly ditzy Sandra Bullock. Also I was going through her filmography and for a famous actress, holy hell does this woman have a poor list of films. Every actor at least has some great films they've been in, her best work is Speed or Ocean's 8 and neither are exactly great.

My favorite thing from this film is the joke about President Schwarzenneger. So close.

 

[Langdon Alger]

Black Swan -2010

Very impressive film. Lots of credit goes to Director Darren Aronofsky for pulling this off so well. Natalie Portman’s performance is quite impressive. Not an easy performance to pull off, but she did it remarkably well. An odd film at times, but certainly enjoyable.

8/10

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Coherence

with people

8 upper-middle class white people have an upper-middle class white people dinner party when all their phones mysteriously break. Undeterred, they carry on with upper-middle class white people conversations and beefs, when suddenly the power goes out. All the way up and down the block is dark...except for that one house just a couple of blocks over. Turns out there's a comet in the sky that night, and their conversation turns to old stories about things falling out of the sky, messing things up or apparently knocking out electronics with near passes like the comet. The biggest guy decides to go over to the other house to call his brother, who had told him to get in touch if anything "weird" started happening when the comet was overhead. He returns carrying a mysterious lockbox and a brow furrowed with intense concentration. Weird things do start happening, and the crew tries to remain calm in the face of strange memory lapses, personal revelations and things that don't belong.

Meh. Talky and plodding with an interesting concept but no payoff. Vaguely prods at multiple universe theories but really goes nowhere with it. I think I can remember, like, one character's name, and this is about an hour after it ended.

On Prime

So...this is really the movie we're in then...?

 

[peate]

Greenland (2020)

I was looking for cheap, mindless, distracting entertainment. This fit the bill.
Your typical disaster flick with last second heroics. 5.0

 

[kihei]

On the Beach (1956) Directed by Otto Preminger 6A

A diverse collection of people—a submarine commander (Gregory Peck), an alcoholic woman (Ava Gardner), a physicist (Fred Astaire), a young Australian naval officer (Tony Perkins)—wait for the world to end which it will do soon. An atomic bomb exchange between the US and the Soviet Union has rendered the atmosphere highly radioactive and the cloud is circling the planet, coming to the last outpost of humanity, Australia. Hope fades as the inevitable comes ever closer to reality. On the Beach is a kind of clunky companion piece to my favourite end-of-the-world movie, Canada’s Last Night. In both, humanity’s fate is inescapable, and people go about coping with that fact as best they can. However, On the Beach is far more of a message movie than Last Night. After all the movie ends with the shot of a banner proclaiming “There is still time, brother.” But ham-fisted proselytizing and the sentimental schmaltz that director Otto Preminger adds to Nevil Shute’s best-selling novel doesn’t detract much from the pervasive gloom of On the Beach. That’s a complement by the way. The film’s shortcomings are par for the course with Preminger, a talented hack. Let’s start with bad accents from too many American actors trying to sound like Aussies (Tony Perkins and Ava Gardner, I’m looking at you). As for the ensemble acting in general, only Peck and Astaire in a rare serious role fare well. Finally, the movie is virtually all talk and no action. Despite the abundant flaws, though, On the Beach still presents a plausible Cold War portrait of how the world might end.

 

[deadinthewater]

The Witches (2020). Not good. Such bad pacing, little to no buildup, weak plot. Just a mess. 4/10.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

History Is Made At Night (1937) - 7/10

Still a better love story than Titanic. Probably could've been half an hour shorter, it was missing that tighter pacing of better 30s love stories like Trouble In Paradise nor was the comedy as good. One of the more diabolical (albeit 2D) villains I've seen in an old film.

Watched it on Kanopy in mediocre quality, it's fully uploaded on Youtube in even worst quality.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Beyond the Black Rainbow

with...people.

Okay. So, imagine early 70's Kubrick set designs with 1980's Canmore cable access production budgets with...I don't even know. There was this line of horror/splatter FPS games called F.E.A.R. a while ago; the premise was a mad scientist had a daughter who had crazy destructive telepathic powers and kept her in a basement lab her entire life to try and militarize her powers to create a telepathic unit of super-soldiers which you were the last one of to explain some weird game mechanic. This is kind of a cinematic prequel set in some weird version of what people thought the future was in 1974. It was filmed...here. It's not often I feel bad on a civic level for media and movies, but this is one.

I did experimental "films" in recording school thirty years ago that were better than this. It was totally a bunch of film school kids doing drugs and mucking around with cameras and stuff. It has no idea what it's about or trying to say, and just hoping its audience crowd-sources a meaning. It's the Trump election sabotage theory of movies. A guy is in your face ALL THE TIME but he's horrible. Mrs. PC and I had a number of possible things he looked like; Voldemort in a wig, Christian Bale from American Psycho combined with the dude from The Strain...lots of things.

^^^This guy. Like, 50% of the movie is ultra-closeups of this face. I was screaming at my tv WHY AM I SEEING YOU at one point. It's just always there. It's terrifying.

 

[kihei]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I think somewhere back there I gave this a "2" so I am in complete agreement. Amateur hour, and dumb amateurs at that.