Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Part#: Some High Number +3

[Osprey]

I'm not sure how Oz Perkins gets work - there are better directors out there. G&H had a budget of only $5M, so maybe he works cheap?

He's the son of Anthony Perkins... y'know, of Psycho fame. I'm sure that that helps, especially when it comes to horror films like Gretel & Hansel. Many horror films have gotten the green light on the basis of less connection (ex. "From the co-assistant special effects supervisor of Alien comes...). I haven't seen any of his other films to know if he's any good or not, but I probably wouldn't pin Gretel & Hansel's failures on him. They seemed more like problems with the script to me. For example, as I pointed out in my review, all of the "scary" scenes are in Gretel's dreams, so they lack tension for that reason, and that's definitely on the lazy script for relying on them. I liked the look and the acting, so Perkins might've done a few things right and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he might've delivered a better movie if he'd been given a better script.

 

[ORRFForever]

He's the son of Anthony Perkins... y'know, of Psycho fame. I'm sure that that helps, especially when it comes to horror films like Gretel & Hansel. Many horror films have gotten the green light on the basis of less connection (ex. "From the co-assistant special effects supervisor of Alien comes...). I haven't seen any of his other films to know if he's any good or not, but I probably wouldn't pin Gretel & Hansel's failures on him. They seemed more like problems with the script to me. For example, as I pointed out in my review, all of the "scary" scenes are in Gretel's dreams, so they lack tension for that reason, and that's definitely on the lazy script for relying on them. I liked the look and the acting, so Perkins might've done a few things right and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he might've delivered a better movie if he'd been given a better script.

Re : "He's the son of Anthony Perkins... y'know, of Psycho fame."

I did not know that.

***

As for the rest of what you wrote, I think you are being too kind.

Even with the worst horror films, I usually get some scares....

"Here comes Jason with an axe on Friday The 13th... OMG! Now he's over there and he's running after the blond chick in the tight shorts!!!!"

...and my heart races, even if it is only for a milli-second.

With G&H, I didn't even get that.

 

[nameless1]

Police Story (1985) Directed by Jackie Chan 6A

Criterion Channel is starting a retrospective of early Jackie Chan films. I have seen plenty of Jackie Chan stunts over the years, but relatively few of his movies. So I watched this one because it seems to be well-thought of among his early work. The story could not be more boilerplate if it tried. It involves Chan as a cop, a drug lord, a vulnerable witness who disappears, and all sorts of predictable shenanigans before justice is served. The script is bad. How bad? The only thing that came to mind to compare it with while I was watching it was old Elvis Presley movies, though that may be overstating the case a tad. However, the stunts are great fun and sometimes scary dangerous. It is rumoured that Chan almost killed himself falling through one glass canopy in this film. I wouldn't doubt that. Some of his work is both clever and insane simultaneously. Chan possesses both great athletic skills and also superb comic timing, like some strange hybrid of Bruce Lee and Buster Keaton. Then, as per usual, after the movie ends, the audience gets to laugh at a bunch of fun outtakes. I'd certainly watch more early Jackie Chan movies, but I might fast forward through the perfunctory bits.

subtitles

This is my favourite Jackie Chan movie of all-time. It is his slapstick action comedy style at its best, and he is also able to show that he can convey more than one emotion, unlike other action heroes. I have seen a lot of Jackie Chan movies, and while Drunken Master II is praised as the best choreographed movie of all-time, Police Story is still the one that impresses me the most. I have never seen such fluid action sequences and fight scenes before, and I can never forget my awe.

The script is actually rather strong, compared to his other movies. In fact, it may be the strongest one during his post-The Big Brawl and pre-Rush Hour years, outside of Crime Story.

Luckily for Chan, nobody watches his movies for plot anyways. The audience only wants the Jackie Chan brand of fast paced action and creative set pieces that is made to look improvised.

For this movie, these are the injuries he suffered:

1. Broken Vertebrae: Jackie fell from the 2nd floor through a decorate garden structure without any padding. The impact broke his 7th and 8th vertebrae
2. Laceration: A flying chair hit him directly in the back of his head causing a major laceration.
3. Finally, Second-Degree Burns, Spinal Damage, Dislocated Pelvis: In the final scene of Police Story, Jackie slid down a pole covered with electrical lights. The stunt severely burned his hands causing him to lose control on his slide to the ground below. The impact from his uncontrolled fall seriously injured his back (again) and dislocated his pelvis. The injuries almost caused partial paralysis. An investigation later found that a crew member plugged the lights into the building’s main power source instead of a low-wattage car battery.

The link will also provide the full list of injuries Chan suffered for his career. I am not a fan of Chan as a person, but nobody can deny that he is a true artist who will die for his work. He has to be the top three action choreographer in history.

 

[ORRFForever]

The Vast Of Night (2019) :

Jake Horowitz plays a smooth talking disc jockey wannabe and Sierra McCormick plays his too curious for her own good high school crush. While everyone else is at the local basketball game, the two find themselves in a 1950's UFO mystery.

The Vast Of Night (intentionally) feels like a 90 minute Twilight Zone episode and that's not a bad thing. It's well made, well directed, well acted and suspenseful. My only reservation was the nagging feeling I had in my gut that, when the ending came, I'd be disappointed.

Well, you know what they say about always going with your gut...
6/10

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Rupture

with Noomi Rapace, Peter Stormare...the guy from The Shield...and that's all I got.

Rapace (Hollywood's go-to anguished damsel in body horror distress) is Renee, divorced single mom in Kansas City with a jerk ex-husband, a tween son with anger management issues, a fear of spiders and a suspiciously high number of hidden cameras in her house. One day after dropping her son off at jerk's place, her car has an engineered blowout and she's kidnapped by a very well-organized and strangely gentle group of kidnappers. A long cube van ride later, she's restrained to a gurney and rolled into an abandoned hospital? warehouse? somewhere with no decor but cells with very efficient steel doors. Terror creeps around every corner...weird people put Renee through various medical tests, huge syringes full of unknown orange sludge are brandished, screams echo through the ventilation system...but nobody wants to tell her who they are or what they want. It's some murky stuff about evolution...scare people enough and their genetic code "ruptures" and they...

...I still don't know. You wait through the buildup, but the payoff is non-existent. Peter Stormare does his thing as the evil boss, Shield guy has a stupid handlebar mustache, and everyone loves Noomi Rapace's skin. They like to rub their faces on her cheeks. FYI: if you've kidnapped me and strapped me to a gurney, you'd be very wise to keep your jugular vein out of my biting range.

On Netflix. With lots of other crappy films I've watched lately.

Okayyy...so it says on your application here you have experience being impregnated by aliens. How's your MS excel?

 

[Osprey]

Watching and loving The Night of the Hunter encouraged me to re-watch the film that it reminded me of (and its remake).

Cape Fear (1962) - 8/10 (Loved it)

An ex-con (Robert Mitchum) terrorizes the family of the lawyer (Gregory Peck) who put him in jail. Mitchum is fantastically smarmy and threatening and steals the film. Peck is his wooden self, but it fits his rich, boring character and makes for a greater contrast with his terrorist. It's very much like a bully making life miserable for a reserved kid, except that both are all grown up. Something that stood out is how controversial it must've been for a film in 1962 to be about a rapist trying to rape a 14-year-old girl. The film never actually mentions "rape" (because the censors wouldn't have allowed it), but that's what the source novel was about and the script does everything that it can to insinuate it without actually saying it. That just adds to what's already a creepy premise, making the film pretty suspenseful, especially at the end, which is notable for taking place in and around a houseboat. The soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann (who also scored Psycho) adds to that and is really terrific, especially the main theme. Anyways, it's an excellent suspense thriller that feels a lot like a Hitchcock film without actually being a Hitchcock film.

Cape Fear (1991) - 7/10 (Really liked it)

Martin Scorsese's remake casts a ripped Robert De Niro as the ex-con, Nick Nolte as the lawyer, Jessica Lange as the wife and Juliette Lewis as the daughter. De Niro isn't as quite as menacing as Mitchum was, but he's crazier and little more entertaining. He gets the job done and was nominated for Best Actor. Nolte and Lange are just OK, but Lewis shines at conveying teenage insecurity and terror and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck and Martin Balsam all have cameos, obviously playing different characters than they did in the original, which was fun to see. The story is mostly the same, but there are some differences that actually feel like improvements (like a better explanation for the ex-con's bitterness and an expanded relationship between him and the daughter) without changing anything essential. It's a little over the top and even somewhat corny at times, especially near the end, and the suspensefulness suffered because I watched the original just the night before, but that's my fault. I'm sure that it's suspenseful under most circumstances (particularly because I remember it being so when I watched it previously, including in the theater). Like with the original, the soundtrack is a strong point... because it's the same soundtrack. Scorsese was smart enough to have Elmer Bernstein simply re-work it and re-use the main theme, rather than replace it all. Anyways, the film isn't quite as good as the original, but it's pretty good as remakes of classics go.

 

[Shareefruck]

The link will also provide the full list of injuries Chan suffered for his career. I am not a fan of Chan as a person, but nobody can deny that he is a true artist who will die for his work. He has to be the top three action choreographer in history.

Too curious to ignore-- What is this referring to and who are the other two?

 

[heatnikki]

Watched Knives Out last night and quite enjoyed it!
If you get past Daniel Craig's accent early-doors it turns into an enjoyable, if not entirely original, whodunnit!

 

[kihei]

The Vast Of Night (2019) :

Jake Horowitz plays a smooth talking disc jockey wannabe and Sierra McCormick plays his too curious for her own good high school crush. While everyone else is at the local basketball game, the two find themselves in a 1950's UFO mystery.

The Vast Of Night (intentionally) feels like a 90 minute Twilight Zone episode and that's not a bad thing. It's well made, well directed, well acted and suspenseful. My only reservation was the nagging feeling I had throughout that, when the ending came, I'd be disappointed.

Well, you know what they say about always going with your gut.

6/10

Obviously a labour of love for somebody, but I have no idea why this film is getting the buzz that it is. A way, way better Midnight Madness movie from TIFF-19 is Saint Maud, which had the misfortune of getting an April 10 release date. Doubt it is buried forever, though, as it is too good. Hopefully it will pop up on Netflix or some other streaming service soon.

For what it's worth, here's my review of The Vast of Night from last September:

The Vast of Night (2019) Directed by Andrew Patterson 5A

Set in mid-50s New Mexico, while the rest of the town attends a high school basketball game, the local switchboard operator and the late-nite DJ try to track down the source of a mysterious frequency that is bedeviling radio broadcasts and telephone connections. Though they don't know what they are facing they are committed to finding out, The Vast of Night is a loving recreation of the type of low budget sci-fi movies that had their heyday in the '50s. Basically a Twilight Zone story played straight, no tongue-in-cheek stuff is evident whatsoever. While the movie is neither scary nor very creepy, the story is like a sinister retelling of Close Encounters of the Third Kind with a budget probably 1/5000th of the Spielberg film. In truth, it is not much of a movie, easily the tamest Midnight Madness movie that I have ever seen. But there is no denying that The Vast of Night is a work of real craftsmanship , an homage to a genre whose golden age was in the distant past but still fondly remembered.

 

[Trap Jesus]

He's the son of Anthony Perkins... y'know, of Psycho fame. I'm sure that that helps, especially when it comes to horror films like Gretel & Hansel. Many horror films have gotten the green light on the basis of less connection (ex. "From the co-assistant special effects supervisor of Alien comes...). I haven't seen any of his other films to know if he's any good or not, but I probably wouldn't pin Gretel & Hansel's failures on him. They seemed more like problems with the script to me. For example, as I pointed out in my review, all of the "scary" scenes are in Gretel's dreams, so they lack tension for that reason, and that's definitely on the lazy script for relying on them. I liked the look and the acting, so Perkins might've done a few things right and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he might've delivered a better movie if he'd been given a better script.

Yeah, I think you can definitely have solid/strong direction for a movie while the movie as a whole falters because of the script. The movie The Ritual comes to mind for me. Such a generic horror script but it was elevated a bit because the director found interesting ways of doing things with that bare-bones script.

The Blackcoat's Daughter by Perkins is a solid horror movie. I don't think it's amazing, but definitely good. I definitely think the direction in it was better than the writing (he did both though), there's some really creepy sequences in it.

 

[OzzyFan]

Obviously a labour of love for somebody, but I have no idea why this film is getting the buzz that it is. A way, way better Midnight Madness movie from TIFF-19 is Saint Maud, which had the misfortune of getting an April 10 release date. Doubt it is buried forever, though, as it is too good. Hopefully it will pop up on Netflix or some other streaming service soon.

For what it's worth, here's my review of The Vast of Night from last September:

Have you seen and/or reviewed Saint Maud?(I don't recall seeing a review from you for it) That was a highly anticipated movie for me to see for a few reasons.

 

[ORRFForever]

Obviously a labour of love for somebody, but I have no idea why this film is getting the buzz that it is. A way, way better Midnight Madness movie from TIFF-19 is Saint Maud, which had the misfortune of getting an April 10 release date. Doubt it is buried forever, though, as it is too good. Hopefully it will pop up on Netflix or some other streaming service soon.

For what it's worth, here's my review of The Vast of Night from last September:

There is one scene that must have been filmed with a drone, where the camera travels across the town and thru the gym and back again. It was really well done. Not sure how they pulled it off - or edited it so convincingly.

To their credit, like you said, they made a homage to the Twilight Zone and didn't try to hide it.

It's fine but not my kind of thing - again, I knew the ending would disappoint because, as you have written before (paraphrasing), "When story telling, it's easy to come up with a beginning and a middle, but an ending is hard."

 

[kihei]

Here's last year's TIFF review. Currently the film is at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes:

Saint Maud (2019) Directed by Rose Glass 7A

Maud is a young nurse who become fixated on saving the soul of a worldly patient for whom she comes to take unwanted responsibility. When her good intentions veer into religious fanaticism, she is fired and, from that point on, spirals downward in increasingly dramatic fashion. Saint Maud is an early Roman Polanski-type horror movie (Repulsion is its inspiration) that focuses on a young woman getting crazier and more cut off from reason by the minute. Director Rose Glass has a much different perspective than Polanski, though, something especially evident in the climax. However, the director poses the right questions: does religious zealotry drive people crazy or are crazy people attracted to religious zealotry? The movie has two stars: the lighting, which places just about everything in dark, gloomy shadows, and Morfydd Clark, a young Irish actress whom I have not seen previously, who provides the second best performance of the year (see Andrea Braen Hovig in Hope) as a well-intentioned soul who quickly drifts into madness and beyond. Saint Maud is a work that is so effective it transcends its genre, easily the best and most impactful horror film of the year so far.

 

[nameless1]

Too curious to ignore-- What is this referring to and who are the other two?

Chan left a lot of broken hearts in his wake.


Yuen Woo-ping and Sammo Hung are the other two. Jeff Imada is a recent name that should be more well-known, as he has quite the resume, with the most notable being the last two movies in the Bourne Trilogy.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Blue Jasmine (2013)
Dir. Woody Allen

Funny thing happened last night: my internet stopped working, forcing me to check what I had in my digital library. Randomly picked Blue Jasmine, a film I missed on release (which is strange considering I like Woody Allen films).

Anyway, it was pretty darn good. Jasmine Francis is one of the great trainwrecks of the 2010s, a spoiled, narcissistic, broken down widow whose life of luxury and comfort shatters, only to reveal her for the shallow person she is. Did I find it funny? Not so much, though Allen's style continues to draw me into his works. Blanchett won best actress for her performance as Jasmine, and she definitely earned it for her portrayal of this terrible person who still garners some sympathy from the audience. Sally Hawkins and Bobby Cannavale are also great in their roles as Jasmine's sister Ginger and fiancee Chili. A great ensemble of highly flawed characters and an awful dentist.

Score: 7/10

 

[Trap Jesus]

Blue Jasmine (2013)
Dir. Woody Allen

Funny thing happened last night: my internet stopped working, forcing me to check what I had in my digital library. Randomly picked Blue Jasmine, a film I missed on release (which is strange considering I like Woody Allen films).

Anyway, it was pretty darn good. Jasmine Francis is one of the great trainwrecks of the 2010s, a spoiled, narcissistic, broken down widow whose life of luxury and comfort shatters, only to reveal her for the shallow person she is. Did I find it funny? Not so much, though Allen's style continues to draw me into his works. Blanchett won best actress for her performance as Jasmine, and she definitely earned it for her portrayal of this terrible person who still garners some sympathy from the audience. Sally Hawkins and Bobby Cannavale are also great in their roles as Jasmine's sister Ginger and fiancee Chili. A great ensemble of highly flawed characters and an awful dentist.

Score: 7/10

I think this was maybe the most well-acted movie I saw last decade. All-time great performance by Blanchett and I thought Cannavale was exceptional too.

 

[ORRFForever]

I think this was maybe the most well-acted movie I saw last decade. All-time great performance by Blanchett and I thought Cannavale was exceptional too.

I found Blue Jasmine more depressing than anything else.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

I think this was maybe the most well-acted movie I saw last decade. All-time great performance by Blanchett and I thought Cannavale was exceptional too.

Agreed, and Allen is very good at getting top notch performances from his actors. He made Owen Wilson, an actor I've always been meh on, look top notch with Midnight in Paris.

I found Blue Jasmine more depressing than anything else.

Twas indeed quite depressing. The ending is somewhat of a sympathetic condemnation of the central characters, especially our protagonist. Didn't enjoy it, but it was probably the only way it could go.

 

[ORRFForever]

Twas indeed quite depressing. The ending is somewhat of a sympathetic condemnation of the central characters, especially our protagonist. Didn't enjoy it, but it was probably the only way it could go.

Mental illness is sad. Seeing someone talking to themselves is not entertaining to me. I wish I had those 2 hours back.

 

[Osprey]

Fantasy Island (2020) - 3/10 (Really disliked it)

You guys weren't kidding. This is hilariously bad. If I were a 20-something again, I'd feel insulted that this is what Hollywood thinks that I'd like. Ok, seriously, it has a neat premise and it's sort of clever how all of the fantasies come together (like a Saw movie, when you learn what all of the victims had in common), but, other than that, there isn't much that's good here. Lucy Hale is remarkably bad, Maggie Q gives the only decent performance and everyone else is just mediocre. I guess that you would categorize it as a horror movie, but it never even approaches being scary. If you just want a "dumb fun" movie, you're easily entertained and you like movies with a lot of surprises and twists (even if many of them are eye rolling or laughable), it might fit the bill, but don't take that as a recommendation. Oh, wait... you're going to watch it now just to see if it's really that bad, aren't you? I guess that I can't stop you (as I couldn't be stopped).

 

[ORRFForever]

Citizen K (2019) :

"Give me back my pen."

Few countries have as fascinating a past as Russia.

A small part of that history is Mikhail Khodorkovsky. A charming man with a dark past and a captivating smile. At one time, he was worth $14,000,000,000 and was the richest man in Russia. Today, after spending a decade in a Siberian prison, Khodorkovsky is worth a fraction of that, and it's all because he pissed off Vladimir Putin, who is currently the richest man in Russia... and maybe the world!

Albeit too long, Citizen K is an interesting documentary.

7.5/10

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019) - There's everything I should love in this film. It's beautiful, it's well-acted, it's over-the-top without being stupid, there's a sexual complexity that begs for interpretation, and enough intertextual material to keep the mind busy. Maybe I was just too tired, but it kind of felt like it didn't gel all that well and was loosely thrown together. 6/10

Blockers (Cannon, 2018) - Now, there's a great film! Wow, I guess I needed a breeze of smelly air to go through my neurons after the previous film, because there's no justification for sitting through this garbage (I admit I played some Scrabble on my phone throughout, I just couldn't keep interested). It's no-fun-dumb, it fails at everything (and mostly at being either funny or provocative), and I just couldn't understand how/why it was greenlighted, but then I saw Rogen's name in the credits and it all made sense. 2/10 (which is, I repeat, the worst rating to me, pure crap)

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

Blockers (Cannon, 2018) - Now, there's a great film! Wow, I guess I needed a breeze of smelly air to go through my neurons after the previous film, because there's no justification for sitting through this garbage (I admit I played some Scrabble on my phone throughout, I just couldn't keep interested). It's no-fun-dumb, it fails at everything (and mostly at being either funny or provocative), and I just couldn't understand how/why it was greenlighted, but then I saw Rogen's name in the credits and it all made sense. 2/10 (which is, I repeat, the worst rating to me, pure crap)

I have to assume this doesn't count as so bad it's funny?

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I have to assume this doesn't count as so bad it's funny?

Nope. That's my 1/10. A very special breed of films. This is just painful.

 

[ORRFForever]

I have to assume this doesn't count as so bad it's funny?

I was shocked how bad Blockers was.

John Cena, who was so good in Trainwreck (albeit in a very limited role), overacts to the point where he is difficult to watch.