Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Part#: Some High Number +4

[Chili]

Into the Wild-2007

Watched it years ago, was well worth another viewing. Interesting true story, great cinematography, top notch cast including small roles, especially Hal Holbrook. A journey of discovery.

btw, the Magic bus was removed a few weeks ago :

‘Into the Wild’ Bus Removed From Alaskan Wilderness – Variety

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

365 Days (Bialowas & Mandes, 2020) - If you're going to launch a petition to ban a movie, I'm sure gonna watch it before it disappears. What a lame waste of time - this isn't going nowhere, it's just an amazingly boring softy-softy skin flick (don't wait for the S&M stuff that picture would led you to expect). The only thing shocking here is the complete lack of talent of the main actress. Seriously, the way she tries to act with her bedroom eyes (be it in "sexy" mode or "just waking up" mode) is hysterical. Flaccid love story between a pretty tough guy with a penis sculpted by the devil and a superficial shoe collector who often goes on without much clothes but never without three coats of paint on her face. "Everybody needs a montage", right? Well she's got the whole thing, spa montage, relooking montage, shopping montage, even a sex on a boat montage. I admit I had to use the ffwd a little, something I never do, but come on, 2h of this? 2/10

 

[kihei]

Watched Same Old Song on YouTube. I know it is partly an homage to another artist, but that was pretty lightweight. Some movies don't travel well beyond their borders, and I think Same Old Song might well be one of them.

Also found a nest of Raul Ruiz movies last week on YouTube. Watched Genealologies d'un crime. Clever enough to keep me on my toes, but pretty negligible and sort of slapdash, I thought.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Palm Springs, the new Hulu movie starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti was good. I'd give it a solid B+. It's a rom-com by definition, but there's definitely a bit more to it than that. Though it's produced by Lonely Island, it's by no means straight goofs like their previous movies. I'd say worth checking out, even if you're usually not a fan of the genre.

 

[ORRFForever]

Relic (2020) :

I usually know if I'm going to find a movie scary about thirty minutes in. If the movie hasn't grabbed me by that point, it usually won't. And, thirty minutes into Relic, while I wasn't bored, I'd given up on the idea of being frightened.

Then there's a scene...

Spoiler

A scene where the senile grandmother is walking AWAY, talking to herself, and her daughter calls to her. The grandmother reaches up and parts the back of her hair, and you realize she is facing the daughter. That moment shook me and I (literally) said (out loud), "Cooooooool".

After that scene, Relic did NOT let up. The next hour is absolutely terrifying. Never has a feeble old woman been so scary - Robyn Anne Nevin is amazing. Relic got so scary, with about 20 minutes left, I had to take a break to collect myself.

Kudos to writer / director Natalie Erika James. She did a fantastic job. Relic is the best / scariest movie I've seen in a long while.

8.5/10

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Watched Same Old Song on YouTube. I know it is partly an homage to another artist, but that was pretty lightweight. Some movies don't travel well beyond their borders, and I think Same Old Song might well be one of them.

Also found a nest of Raul Ruiz movies last week on YouTube. Watched Genealologies d'un crime. Clever enough to keep me on my toes, but pretty negligible and sort of slapdash, I thought.

Not sure what you mean by homage to another artist. I think that as far as comedies go, it's still pretty good, but of course not a film I'd put a lot of brain juices on, and certainly not on par with Resnais' best films.

As for the Ruiz film, pretty cool that you watched it. I have it at 8.5/10, but I'd have to see it again to defend it properly. With Trois vies et une seule mort, Comédie de l'innocence and Ce jour-là, it's part of a series of more "commercial" or "accessible" films Ruiz made in France with bigger names. It might be the weaker one of the lot (not sure), but I still liked it a lot at the time. Ruiz is never exactly (or only) telling a story, he's just working with themes and ideas, so depending on what you expect, some of his films will feel incomplete or weakly tweaked (for example, Le professeur Taranne is an exercice in screen time distribution, everything else is secondary). He wrote my favorite film ever in one or two nights, there's (too) many great ideas in it, but also some weaker stuff.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

The Last Days of American Crime

with people who wish they had made better life choices.

Near future. The US is riven by crime, chaos and bad cable tv. Guns are everywhere, and the militarized police are prone to shoot you on sight or throw you in jail where they can pit you against other people in gladitorial combat for their own amusement. The grimy populace yearns to escape to the nearby utopia of Canada, where actual freedom and sane governance exist away from the simmering cauldron of hate, bullets, stupidity and Republican health care models that is the US. So it starts off as basically a documentary of 2020. But there's a rub; the US has developed API, the American Peace Initiative. It's an electronic signal (presumably spread via 5G towers and Gates Foundation vaccines) that neutralizes people's desire to commit crimes. It's kind of a Clockwork Orange effect via wifi. The US population explodes in outrage. Because life isn't worth living without the FREEDOM to blow your neighbour's head off, is it.

Brick is a gangster and bank robber in Detroit who's busy settling scores and banging chicks on the eve of the introduction of API. He holds court under a huge Irish flag in a pub...but has an accent that's neither Irish nor American. He agrees to take on a job robbing a mint of bills about to be decommissioned and burned...for reasons...by a guy who's the insane son of a massive mobster. Who hates his dad. They want to escape to Canada along the bridge between Detroit and Windsor...which can't possibly go wrong. The "love interest" is a hacker chick with no tits. Lots of shooting, lots of stupidity, lots of Netflix rage.

It has the quiet restraint of Tarantino, the deep character exploration of Guy Ritchie, the narrative economy of the Hobbit trilogy, and the soulful humanity of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. It has a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes...and it really made me reconsider my policy of trying not to look at reviews of movies before I see them. It's 2 and 1/2 hours of why the f*** am I watching this. You'd wear out the scroll button on your mouse if I tried to recount all the stupid plot holes and things that didn't make sense. Watch it with a friend or significant other so you can heckle it together. Fail. Massive, massive fail.

On Netflix.

Can you blame us?

 

[Osprey]

Archive (2020) - 8/10 (Loved it)

At a remote facility in the near future, a lone scientist (Theo James) works towards advancing artificial intelligence and creating a partner. This is a sci-fi film that's thought provoking and heartbreaking. It reminded me a lot of Moon and Ex Machina, two of my favorite sci-fis from the last decade. I also felt a little Silent Running influence, since George has the assistance and companionship of a couple of AI-driven robots whom he's managed to give basic thoughts and feelings. In fact, when he starts building a newer model, his most recent one starts to feel inadequate and jealous. It may sound silly, but it's handled quite well and is touching because it's very child-like and I felt for both "her" and him. There's a lot more to the plot, but I don't want to give too much away (play the trailer if you want to know more, but I would really recommend against it if you want to be more surprised; I went in without knowing a thing and am glad for it). It might look and feel a bit derivative (of the films that I mentioned and others), but I consider that only a minor criticism when it's done as well as this. The film is directed, shot and scored beautifully. It's also acted very well. The pacing is pretty good, except for what felt like a little bit of drag in the middle, but it was made up for by an exciting and emotional finish. There's a discussion in another thread about how one mark of good sci-fi is the ability to make you think, and this one raises questions surrounding consciousness and ethics. I'll be thinking about it for a while, if not about its themes, then at least about its gut punch of an ending. As a sci-fi fan, this was a real treat and is an easy recommendation to other fans, yet I imagine that it might still appeal to those who aren't as into sci-fi, since it has more to do with relationships than futuristic concepts or jargon. It's available to rent on Amazon Prime, Vudu and iTunes.

 

[kihei]

Not sure what you mean by homage to another artist. I think that as far as comedies go, it's still pretty good, but of course not a film I'd put a lot of brain juices on, and certainly not on par with Resnais' best films.

Right at the start of the opening credits of Same Old Song, it is stated that the movie is an homage to Dennis Potter. I had no idea who that was so I looked him up and it turns out Potter was a writer for television who incorporated the lip-syncing of popular songs into his dialogue. From The New York Times: "The idea is clever but not original, Mr. Resnais hurries to remind, because he took his inspiration from the English writer Dennis Potter, who used the same technique in ''The Singing Detective'' and ''Lipstick on Your Collar,'' both originally made for television. His challenge, Mr. Resnais said, was to borrow without copying. So, while Potter, who died in 1994, usually used entire songs, Mr. Resnais rarely does. And the mood of ''Same Old Song'' is decidedly lighter than much of Potter's work."

 

[ORRFForever]

Archive (2020) - 8/10 (Loved it)

At a remote facility in the near future, a lone scientist (Theo James) works towards advancing artificial intelligence and creating a partner. This is a sci-fi film that's thought provoking and heartbreaking. It reminded me a lot of Moon and Ex Machina, two of my favorite sci-fis from the last decade. I also felt a little Silent Running influence, since George has the assistance and companionship of a couple of AI-driven robots whom he's managed to give basic thoughts and feelings. In fact, when he starts building a newer model, his most recent one starts to feel inadequate and jealous. It may sound silly, but it's handled quite well and is touching because it's very child-like and I felt for both "her" and him. There's a lot more to the plot, but I don't want to give too much away (play the trailer if you want to know more, but I would really recommend against it if you want to be more surprised; I watched without knowing a thing and am glad for it). It might look and feel a bit derivative (of the films that I mentioned and others), but I consider that only a minor criticism when it's done as well as this. The film is directed, shot and scored beautifully. It's also acted very well. The pacing is pretty good, except for what felt like a little bit of drag in the middle, but it was made up for by an exciting and emotional finish. There's a discussion in another thread about how one mark of good sci-fi is the ability to make you think, and this one raises questions surrounding consciousness and ethics. I'll be thinking about it for a while, if not about its themes, then at least about its gut punch of an ending. As a sci-fi fan, this was a real treat and is an easy recommendation to other fans, yet I imagine that it might still appeal to those who aren't as into sci-fi, since it has more to do with relationships than futuristic concepts or jargon. It's available to rent on Amazon Prime, Vudu and iTunes.

Nice to see some NEW quality movies finally being available. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[ORRFForever]

The Last Days of American Crime

with people who wish they had made better life choices.

Near future. The US is riven by crime, chaos and bad cable tv. Guns are everywhere, and the militarized police are prone to shoot you on sight or throw you in jail where they can pit you against other people in gladitorial combat for their own amusement. The grimy populace yearns to escape to the nearby utopia of Canada, where actual freedom and sane governance exist away from the simmering cauldron of hate, bullets, stupidity and Republican health care models that is the US. So it starts off as basically a documentary of 2020. But there's a rub; the US has developed API, the American Peace Initiative. It's an electronic signal (presumably spread via 5G towers and Gates Foundation vaccines) that neutralizes people's desire to commit crimes. It's kind of a Clockwork Orange effect via wifi. The US population explodes in outrage. Because life isn't worth living without the FREEDOM to blow your neighbour's head off, is it.

Brick is a gangster and bank robber in Detroit who's busy settling scores and banging chicks on the eve of the introduction of API. He holds court under a huge Irish flag in a pub...but has an accent that's neither Irish nor American. He agrees to take on a job robbing a mint of bills about to be decommissioned and burned...for reasons...by a guy who's the insane son of a massive mobster. Who hates his dad. They want to escape to Canada along the bridge between Detroit and Windsor...which can't possibly go wrong. The "love interest" is a hacker chick with no tits. Lots of shooting, lots of stupidity, lots of Netflix rage.

It has the quiet restraint of Tarantino, the deep character exploration of Guy Ritchie, the narrative economy of the Hobbit trilogy, and the soulful humanity of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. It has a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes...and it really made me reconsider my policy of trying not to look at reviews of movies before I see them. It's 2 and 1/2 hours of why the f*** am I watching this. You'd wear out the scroll button on your mouse if I tried to recount all the stupid plot holes and things that didn't make sense. Watch it with a friend or significant other so you can heckle it together. Fail. Massive, massive fail.

On Netflix.

View attachment 353445
Can you blame us?

Irish flag, you say... Might be worth watching for that alone.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Right at the start of the opening credits of Same Old Song, it is stated that the movie is an homage to Dennis Potter. I had no idea who that was so I looked him up and it turns out Potter was a writer for television who incorporated the lip-syncing of popular songs into his dialogue. From The New York Times: "The idea is clever but not original, Mr. Resnais hurries to remind, because he took his inspiration from the English writer Dennis Potter, who used the same technique in ''The Singing Detective'' and ''Lipstick on Your Collar,'' both originally made for television. His challenge, Mr. Resnais said, was to borrow without copying. So, while Potter, who died in 1994, usually used entire songs, Mr. Resnais rarely does. And the mood of ''Same Old Song'' is decidedly lighter than much of Potter's work."

Thx, that went right over my head.

 

[kihei]

Comment ca va? (1976) Directed by Jean Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Mieville 7C

Part fictionalized film, part essay, Comme ca va? is a critical examination of how news is made and transformed into print, thus creating a bias in the process that neither reporters nor readers understand or are even aware of because of the hidden ways that they are being manipulated by the accepted process itsself. The film's structure is complex, but not crazy complex. The movie starts with a young couple in a car on a rainy night in Paris. They are headed to her flat to make love and in the small talk along the way the guy mentions a letter from his father, Michel, who tells his son primarily about a documentary film that Michel and Odile, a female colleague at their newspaper, are working on. The dad is a Communist Party union rep on the paper, but he is pretty much guilty of the traditional way of thinking about news, which is basically not to interrogate its making at all. Odile, however, is in a whole different league when it comes to analysis of the media. In terms of what shapes the news, she wants to start with the typewriter, deconstructing it in a way that utterly baffles Michel, who is slow to get her point. His slowness is a brilliant device, actually. Clearly, Michel is a stand-in for the audience. Confused by this new way of looking at things, Michel keeps asking the basic questions that I would ask, and Odile answers his questions patiently in a way that he and the audience can understand. Odile undermines everything we assume about the quasi-objectivity of the printed word, and then goes after images as well, intently examining how images do and do not communicate and how they can shape our reaction to the printed word entirely. For Odile, "language is the place where the torturer turns the victim into another torturer." She further believes that the voices that should be heard are almost never heard. It is almost more than the old Marxist can get his head around. Most of the time we are with Michel and Odille, but occasionally we see glimpses of his son's life with his girlfriend which does ground the film in a distinct commonplace reality. The final third of the movie seems to make basically the same points in more abstract ways, so a little of the initial thrust of the movie gets somewhat blunted. Though Comment ca va? serves mostly a didactic function, I found the movie quite intellectually engaging. Obviously for Godard, film is a multi-faceted instrument with countless possibilities. You can see why he loves the medium and continues stretching its boundaries to this day.

subtitles

available on MUBI

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Clearly, Michel is a stand-in for the audience.

Now we're talking!

Haven't seen this one, looks pretty cool.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Irish flag, you say... Might be worth watching for that alone.

Nope.

 

[pld459666]

Old Guard

Solid B+

 

[kihei]

Now we're talking!

Haven't seen this one, looks pretty cool.

Odile is right down your alley.

 

[kihei]

Anyone with any interest in short films should check out the beautiful work of Edmund Yeo, a Malaysian director whom I would never have heard of if it wasn't for the fact that MUBI is doing a retrospective of his work currently. His narratives, little tightly constructed vignettes that often have a melancholy dimension are mixed with moments of contemplation and the accompanying cinematography is beyond stunning. My favourites so far are Last Fragments of Winter, Love Suicides, and Kingyo.

subtitles

 

[Osprey]

Nice to see some NEW quality movies finally being available. Thanks for the recommendation.

You're welcome. I decided yesterday to take a pass on Relic, but I think that I'll give it try after your review, so thanks for that.

 

[McOilers97]

Watched Lynch’s debut Eraserhead for the first time.

The mood and pacing were totally entrancing. It’s not a “fun” movie to watch, but it’s hard to take your eyes off of it because of the intensity of the deliberate, drawn out shots, and of course how visually f***ed up it is.

Having watched Twin Peaks: The Return a few years back, I can see the same deliberate pacing and utilization of very distinct sound was present here, 40+ years ago.

 

[ORRFForever]

You're welcome. I decided yesterday to take a pass on Relic, but I think that I'll give it try after your review, so thanks for that.

Cool. You and I tend to have similar taste in movies so I'll be interested in what you think.

 

[ghostnights]

Relic (2020) :

I usually know if I'm going to find a movie scary about thirty minutes in. If the movie hasn't grabbed me by that point, it usually won't. And, thirty minutes into Relic, while I wasn't bored, I'd given up on the idea of being frightened.

Then there's a scene...

Spoiler

A scene where the senile grandmother is walking AWAY, talking to herself, and her daughter calls to her. The grandmother reaches up and parts the back of her hair, and you realize she is facing the daughter. That moment shook me and I (literally) said (out loud), "Cooooooool".

After that scene, Relic did NOT let up. The next hour is absolutely terrifying. Never has a feeble old woman been so scary - Robyn Anne Nevin is amazing. Relic got so scary, with about 20 minutes left, I had to take a break to collect myself.

Kudos to writer / director Natalie Erika James. She did a fantastic job. Relic is the best / scariest movie I've seen in a long while.

8.5/10

Where can I watch this ?

 

[ORRFForever]

Where can I watch this ?

Not sure. I heard some people google, "watch Relic 2020 on line free" and a bunch of sites come up.

 

[ORRFForever]

Where can I watch this ?

P.S.

I hope I didn't build it up too much and you're disappointed.

In my defense, it is 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

[Osprey]

Where can I watch this ?

It's available for rent on Amazon Prime and Vudu, for one. You might also find it on your cable company's On Demand.

P.S.

I hope I didn't build it up too much and you're disappointed.

In my defense, it is 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I saw that yesterday and got excited, but then I looked at the user reviews and a lot a pretty bad and question if the critics are out of touch. That's why I initially passed on it, since I usually tend to agree with regular users more than the critics. Interestingly, Archive is sort of the opposite. It has "only" a 67% from critics, but the audience reviews (though there are only half a dozen so far) are pretty much all glowing, like mine. It often feels like critics and the general public have different tastes, but then there are movies (like Greyhound) where the scores are almost identical, so who knows.