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

nameless1

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Apr 29, 2009
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Peppermint gets one star from me. It’s like Death Wish and #metoo had a stillborn child. I was hoping for The Brave One but got Alias for Idiots.

It is one of those that you just turn your brain off. You have to, because that is the only way to keep your IQ in tact.

Once you do that, it is not a bad time waster. The action sequences are done well, it is fast paced and not boring, and Garner puts in a decent performance. That is all you can hope for from a Hollywood action flick these days.
 
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nameless1

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Happy As Lazzaro
(2018) Directed by Alice Rohrwacher 3A (bad movie; accessible)

The first half of this movie is a rather standard issue examination of how a rich family in Italy exploits the peasants who toil on their land. The uncaring Marquise who owns the land has never bothered to inform these peasants that according to law they are no longer sharecroppers but employees who deserve to be paid for their labour. The rich son of the estate sort of makes friends with Lazzaro who is as sweet-natured as he is dull-witted. Then the rich kid dreams up a kidnapping scheme, designed to get money from his mother, and he talks the ever helpful Lazzaro into conspiring with him. What could go wrong? Well, not what you would think, as Mother is having none of this ruse. However, Lazzaro seems to come to a bad end anyway, but then, presto chango, he's up and running good as new though an awful lot of time has inexplicably passed by (his name is a not-too-subtle hint). At this point, the last half of the film becomes incoherent as the not very inspired but serviceable story suddenly zigzags several years into the future by which time the rich are now experiencing hard times, not that it changes their attitudes much. A totally unchanged Lazzaro, wearing the same peasant garb he wore at the beginning of the movie, is still wandering around, confusing the hell out of everybody except for those who believe he's a ghost. Who knows what he is? Certainly the movie doesn't offer an opinion. Because the whole second half of the film needs a serious rethink, what marginal promise the film had to begin with dissipates into a black hole of wtf-ness.

subtitles

Available on Netflix

This movie made no sense to me either. It held my attention, but that is only because I want to figure the increasingly incomprehensible plot, and I feel really cheated at the end when the eruka moment that I hope will tie and explain everything never comes. It won a Best Screenplay award too at Cannes, and that really makes me question the judges' thought process. Who in the right mind would make anyone think this mess is "well-written"?
 
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nameless1

Registered User
Apr 29, 2009
18,202
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Kihei hasn't posted his top ten list in awhile. I don't know if that had something to do with the elbow injury he suffered earlier (hope you are doing better) or the rash of bad films he ran into that didn't necessitate more updates. Last call he had:

Roma, Cuaron, Mexico
Ash Is the Purest White, Jia, China
The Image Book, Godard, France
On the Beach at Night Alone, Hong, South Korea
The Cakemaker, Grazier, Israel
Burning, Hank, South Korea
Cold War, Pawlikowski, Poland
Donbass, Loznitsa, Ukraine
November, Sarnet, Estonia
1945, Toroc, Hungary

Of those I'd be interested in (from his reviews) Roma, The Cakemaker, Cold War for sure. Roma will be accessible soon. I saw Burning in that list. If others don't appear soon at a theatre near me or DVD, I'm gonna have to go pirate I think. The film Western is not on that list but Kihei's review piqued my interest too for some reason.

I saw BlackKklansman, Upgrade and Annhilation that used to be in that top ten but it dropped below over time. I liked all three except Annhilation a bit less. I still see it on top 20 lists everywhere, so I understand people loved it (more than me. I just thought it was ok).

The other one I don't understand is Mandy with Nicholas Cage. I haven't seen it but don't really want to, but there it is, in many magazine top ten lists.

I'd have to add Searching in my top ten this year and I don't see it on most lists. That would be my off the radar pick for the year, personally.

Please, please explain The Image Book to me. I struggled to stay awake for that one, and it just reaffirms my love-hate relationship with Godard.
 
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kihei

McEnroe: The older I get, the better I used to be.
Jun 14, 2006
42,530
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Toronto
Please, please explain The Image Book to me. I struggled to stay awake for that one, and it just reconfirms my love-hate relationship with Godard.
Try the article below. It is one of only several possible takes, but it is the one that most closely aligns with what feels right about The Image Book to me:

Film Review: Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘The Image Book’

In general with Godard's later, more abstract works, I think viewers have to look at them differently than they do normal movies. If most normal movies are more akin in narrative form to literature or theatre, Godard's most recent work (Film Socialisme; Goodbye to Language; The Image Book--all three which have made my list of top ten movies for their respective years) is more akin to abstract poetry or abstract painting, which depends on associations and juxtapositions to create meaning. However I don't think there is anything random about Godard's art. The series of images and their fragmented presentation is meant to convey something, not something concrete necessarily, but something akin to how Godard connects things in his mind; in short, how a leading French intellectual, who just happens to be an iconic film director, sees the world. With his fecund imagination, his post-modern sensibility and his masterful control of the medium, he creates works akin to personal essays. While his films are unique, he is not completely alone in his experiments with cinema. Other directors--Margarethe von Trotta, Agnes Varda, and Terrence Malick, for instance--seem to be exploring hybrid forms of expression as well, just not as abstractly as Godard does.

I've seen, at a guess, 80% of Godard's work which may not sound impressive until one realizes the sheer number of films that he has made. I feel I know him and the way his mind works pretty well, which undoubtedly helps me to make a few more connections than most other people in terms getting a sense of what he is saying. The message, though that is too strong a word, that he is presenting in his recent works is both personal and historical--how the horrors of the past century continue to poison events in the present, for instance. In The Image Book, he uses images from old movies, his love of words displayed visually, as well as archival footage to do most of the heavy lifting. Is that fair to the audience? Sure, why not? There are difficult artists and accessible artists--Godard is in the former group where he has been throughout most of his career. Personally I really like being involved with art that asks something of me, works that demand my aesthetic and/or intellectual engagement, so his idiosyncrasies don't bother me. And then there are the images--he has such a stunning eye for images that it is little wonder that still photographs from his films get displayed in major museums. Then there is also his great visual punning sense of humour, which can appear out of the blue sometimes. In short, I just love the way the guy has always gone about making films and expanding the art form--I literally look forward with great anticipation to a new Godard movie the way that some other people might look forward to a new Spielberg or Coen brothers movie. With Godard I know I am going to be challenged; I know he is a serious intellect who is not just messing around; I know I am going to be immersed in beautiful images; and I know that I am going to make connections between and among these images concerning my world that I can't begin to find in any other way. Second only to India's Satyajit Ray, Godard is my "desert island" director. But all that being said, I certainly realize his appeal will be limited among the majority of film goers.
 
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Spawn

Something in the water
Feb 20, 2006
43,587
14,944
Edmonton
I appreciate how it doesn't exactly explain things, but it also does. If that makes sense.

Also, a classic example of a movie with a script that could have been handled a number of ways. But only Phoenix and Ramsey would make it this way. And it's better for it.

This is a really great point. For a movie that has a tonne of gruesomely violent acts happen to various characters, there is basically no violence actually witnessed in frame. It all happens just out of frame or if you do see it it's distorted in some way. Through a mirror or security footage.

You could take the same premise of this script, give it to a different director/actor and end up with an entirely uninteresting revenge film. But damn, you put those two being the wheel and all of a sudden you go from generic revenge film to a damn interesting counter to those generic revenge films (not that there is anything inherently wrong with a more traditional revenge film if its well made).
 

Puck

Ninja
Jun 10, 2003
10,770
415
Ottawa
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Upgrade and Venom seem to have very similar storylines. In Upgrade, a human acquires super skills after a computer chip is inserted in his neck (spine); it speaks to him, needs the human host to survive, it appears to have ethical issues. In Venom, a human acquires super skills as an extraterrestrial life form absorbs itself inside him; it speaks to him, needs the human host to survive and appears to have ethical issues. Both human hosts had their life turned upset down (before the encounter), require an adjustment period after symbiosis and the relationship enhances their natural abilities to succeed. Both hint at a sequel. I liked both films. I think the better quality and more serious movie was Upgrade, but Venom was a bit more entertaining once it really got going. Venom has the Marvel one-liners that are always fun (but I'd still have to give Upgrade an extra half point overall for the attempt at being a bit more serious and less comic book).

Upgrade (2018) - IMDb
Venom (2018) - IMDb
 

Supermassive

HISS, HISS
Feb 19, 2007
14,612
1,090
Sherwood Park
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Upgrade and Venom seem to have very similar storylines. In Upgrade, a human acquires super skills after a computer chip is inserted in his neck (spine); it speaks to him, needs the human host to survive, it appears to have ethical issues. In Venom, a human acquires super skills as an extraterrestrial life form absorbs itself inside him; it speaks to him, needs the human host to survive and appears to have ethical issues. Both human hosts had their life turned upset down (before the encounter), require an adjustment period after symbiosis and the relationship enhances their natural abilities to succeed. Both hint at a sequel. I liked both films. I think the better quality and more serious movie was Upgrade, but Venom was a bit more entertaining once it really got going. Venom has the Marvel one-liners that are always fun (but I'd still have to give Upgrade an extra half point overall for the attempt at being a bit more serious and less comic book).

Upgrade (2018) - IMDb
Venom (2018) - IMDb

I absolutely loved Upgrade. Definitely will watch it again on download. Didn't see Venom yet (which is sad since I was a huge fan back in the 90s), probably because of poor word of mouth. That, and trying to stick with the recent Venom comic saga has been a slog. Looking forward to it though.
 
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ORRFForever

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Oct 29, 2018
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Colette [2018] :

As per Rotten Tomatoes :

"After marrying a successful Parisian writer known commonly as "Willy" (Dominic West), Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (Keira Knightley) is transplanted from her childhood home in rural France to the intellectual and artistic splendor of Paris. Soon after, Willy convinces Colette to ghostwrite for him. She pens a semi-autobiographical novel about a witty and brazen country girl named Claudine, sparking a bestseller and a cultural sensation. After its success, Colette and Willy become the talk of Paris and their adventures inspire additional Claudine novels. Colette's fight over creative ownership and gender roles drives her to overcome societal constraints, revolutionizing literature, fashion and sexual expression."

Colette is a self important period piece, with a too strong for the times feminist voice. Only Knightley's performance makes Colette watchable.

5.5/10

Movie Trailer :
 
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ORRFForever

Registered User
Oct 29, 2018
17,677
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Search for 'Boening' on your favorite websites, the original title before it was changed.
Thanks!

Unfortunately, no success. Lots of readily available "junk" but quality movies fall thru the cracks. Shame.
 
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Nalens Oga

Registered User
Jan 5, 2010
16,780
1,053
Canada
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) - 6/10

Not a huge fan of these sort of films but it's worse here because I have to watch the sick minds of the Cohen brothers at work over and over again in multiple stories. I can enjoy one of their feature films like Fargo because their sick twisted minds are less noticeable since it's spread out over the length of a full movie with a lot of whimsy sprinkled in. In this film however, you get really no relieve from that, every story starts, has a f***ed up ending, then you move on to another one. It isn't enjoyable to me to know how long this will take before things go bad on every story, it has little of the same quirkiness their other movies have to help balance it either. I can understand why others fawn over it because it's filmed with crispness and each story sets up to be interesting but at the end of the day, it's the same repetition happening over and over again.
 

kihei

McEnroe: The older I get, the better I used to be.
Jun 14, 2006
42,530
10,127
Toronto
3828.jpg


Shoplifters
(2018) Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda 8A (among the best of the year; accessible)

A dirt poor family of five, managing to stay alive through a combination of shoplifting, Granny's meager pension, and menial labour here and there when they can find jobs, reluctantly accept an abandoned four-year-old girl into their ramshackle household. Though there is just barely enough resources to go around, the family muddles through somehow, better than one might expect even After an hour of this, I was thinking that Kore-eda was going all Frank Capra on me. Yes, the first half was a pleasant enough experience, but, with the family just bopping along nicely, it also seemed fairly inconsequential, not the sort of thing one expects from this director. Then, the second hour arrives and Kore-eda begins to take all of the audience's comfortable assumptions and pulls the rug out from under all of them one by one, leaving a host of questions for us to puzzle over in the process. Although this transition occurs very gracefully, there is no denying the movie has transformed itself into something with much deeper implications than it appeared initially. Kore-eda targets a lot of different issues, such as having a child is not enough to make one a real parent, the need to take a closer look at what we consider family and even the social conventions that we have come to accept and, even, institutionalize with no thought of re-examining. Along with Roma, Shoplifters is the second great humanist work of 2018, and it is as faultlessly directed as it is clear-eyed and compassionate. Kore-eda seems incapable of making anything but excellent movies.

subtitles
 
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kihei

McEnroe: The older I get, the better I used to be.
Jun 14, 2006
42,530
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Toronto
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The Favourite
(2018) Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos 8B (very good movie; mildly challenging)

In the court of Queen Ann (Olivia Colman), two powerful women, Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail Masham (Emma Stone) fight to gain the upper-hand as their social standing and sense of self depend on their ability to defeat and humiliate their rival. The winner also gets to control the country as Queen Anne is a bit gaga at the best of times. First one gets the upper hand in the power struggle and then the other with both long past the point of willingly coming to a compromise. Now Magazine calls this movie "a magnificently pissy comedy of manners" and I can't do better than that. At first, a royal period piece would seem unlikely territory for director Yorgos Lanthimos, but there is plenty of room here for his highly acidic sense of humour and his unforgiving attitude toward the venality of humans. There isn't much going on here beside the rivalry among the women, meaning the film lacks the sense of purpose that Lanthimos' best works possess (Dogtooth and The Killing of a Sacred Deer). But if venomous humour among spiteful, nasty people is your idea of fun, The Favourite delivers very nicely. The direction is splendid, with the cinematography and mise en scene probably the best that I have seen all year. The highly polished visual technique provides a perfect setting for the brilliant script and for three fine performances. As good as Weisz and Stone are, Olivia Colman's Queen Anne steals the show. Colman is a staple on British TV, most recently seen in Broadchurch opposite David Tennant. Though she has never had this kind of major role before in movies, she makes the most out of Queen Anne's physical and emotional infirmities. If the audience ever feels any sympathy for anyone in the movie, it is Queen Anne, though of course that sympathy is short-lived as in addition to all her various ailments, she seems fiercely bi-polar. Still, Colman's performance is never less than a complete delight to watch unfold. The Favourite, always a joy to look at, is fun in a bitchy, deliciously mean-spirited way.
 
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KallioWeHardlyKnewYe

Hey! We won!
May 30, 2003
15,504
3,323
The Outlaw King. A fine, if a bit by the numbers, historical slash-and-bash. Chris Pine (who I normally like) is a cardboard cutout here. Billy Howie leaves an impression as the sniveling villain. More like Prince of WAIIIILS AMIRITE????? Aaron Taylor-Johnson gets to be a bug-eyed wild man. It's appropriately muddy and bloody, but didn't leave much of a lasting impression on me.
 

Tasty Biscuits

with fancy sauce
Aug 8, 2011
12,157
3,414
Pittsburgh
Just yesterday I put Annihilation down as the best movie of 2018

Well, guess I gotta see it now.

Mandy has a similar appeal to that of Cold Fish and I Saw the Devil and Enter the Void.

Yeesh. If I never have to even THINK about Enter The Void again, that would just be a-ok with me. Please, nobody like or quote this post for that very reason.
 

kihei

McEnroe: The older I get, the better I used to be.
Jun 14, 2006
42,530
10,127
Toronto
The Outlaw King. A fine, if a bit by the numbers, historical slash-and-bash. Chris Pine (who I normally like) is a cardboard cutout here. Billy Howie leaves an impression as the sniveling villain. More like Prince of WAIIIILS AMIRITE????? Aaron Taylor-Johnson gets to be a bug-eyed wild man. It's appropriately muddy and bloody, but didn't leave much of a lasting impression on me.
That performance was borderline unprofessional. Talk about mailing it in....
 

KallioWeHardlyKnewYe

Hey! We won!
May 30, 2003
15,504
3,323
That performance was borderline unprofessional. Talk about mailing it in....

The whole thing was pretty generic. It's perhaps cruel to reduce it to just a Braveheart B-side, but it lacks the aspirations to be epic while also not having the focus to be interesting in any other way. It's karaoke. So much attention paid to Chris Pine going full frontal, when the real issue is the movie's half-assed.

Edit: But the sweeping panoramas of Scotland were nice.
 

mouser

Business of Hockey
Jul 13, 2006
29,284
12,583
South Mountain
Fantastic Beasts II: 4/10

I think the director/producers greatly overestimated how familiar the audience would be with fringe elements of the Harry Potter canon. The first Fantastic Beasts featured likeable characters, fun moments, and a closed single movie plotline.

This sequel pretty much abandoned all of that formula. The characters we want to like make it hard to like them. The fun moments feel forced against a central darker plot. And we get no closure in the movie. There's no way to walk out of this movie feeling good about watching it, or excited to see #3.
 
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ORRFForever

Registered User
Oct 29, 2018
17,677
9,219
Aquaman [2018] :

While watching Aquaman...

I'm too old for this stuff. If you're over the age of 12, you are too.

3/10

Currently 75% on Rotten Tomatoes - which is higher than I gave it but at least the reviews are recognizing what an empty experience it is...

* "Take away Momoa's steady presence, and you're looking at an overstuffed mess that provides entertainment purely in an OMG-this-is-a-disaster kind of way."

* "It's just H2-OK."

* "It's 20,0000 leagues over the top!"

It's time to end comic book movies.
 

Shareefruck

Registered User
Apr 2, 2005
28,875
3,570
Vancouver, BC
Currently 75% on Rotten Tomatoes - which is higher than I gave it but at least the reviews are recognizing what an empty experience it is...

* "Take away Momoa's steady presence, and you're looking at an overstuffed mess that provides entertainment purely in an OMG-this-is-a-disaster kind of way."

* "It's just H2-OK."

* "It's 20,0000 leagues over the top!"

It's time to end comic book movies.
I sympathize with wanting comic book movies to die down in general, but a DC Universe movie being bad isn't a very good reason to think that this is suddenly apparent. They're always bad.
 
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kihei

McEnroe: The older I get, the better I used to be.
Jun 14, 2006
42,530
10,127
Toronto
ingmar-bergman.jpg


Searching for Ingmar Bergman
(2018) Directed by Margarethe von Trotta 7C (very good documentary; helps greatly to be familiar with Bergman's works)

Well, the search for Bergman is more like a leisurely stroll, but that's all right. A fine director, one whose work has been influenced by Bergman, Margarethe von Trotta presents a largely affectionate, somewhat forgiving look at one of the most renowned directors in film history. To other filmmakers he still stands as a Colossus. Rather than just dwelling on the past, von Trotta wisely interviews contemporary European directors such as Olivier Assayas, Mia Hansen-Love and Ruben Ostlund, to get their perspective on Bergman's work, and they are as in awe of his films as are their older counterparts. Bergman's searing psychological studies, often of women, had an intensity that could melt steel. To some contemporary critics, his films now seem overwrought and way too comfortably Freudian, but I can tell you from personal experience most of his greatest films were overwhelming experiences when they first were released; movies like Hour of the Wolf, The Passion of Anna, Persona, Cries and Whispers, Scenes from a Marriage, Shame and others would stay with me, not always comfortably, for weeks on end. Von Trotta provides a portrait of a man who was far more comfortable making films, often related to his past experiences, than he was about actually living in the present. He fathered many children from many different blonde, Nordic-looking partners, but he never stayed around long enough to raise any of these kids. His largely absent approach to fatherhood obviously left a clear mark on one of his younger sons, who nevertheless, went on to collaborate with his father on at least one film. I suspect that if von Trotta had emphasized Bergman's personal relations, this documentary might well have provided a harsher portrait of Bergman than the one that emerges. But being an artist, von Trotta largely examines Bergman as an artist--there is a certain indulgence here, a kind of professional courtesy perhaps. Still no director other than Bergman has ever been any better at getting into the head of his characters and poking around in there until he finds the pain that they are trying to hide. Though the documentary left me wanting something a little more rigorous and systematic, Searching for Ingmar Bergman is not a bad introduction to one of the most respected and influential artists ever to make movies.

mix of English and subtitles
 
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Arizonan God

Registered User
Jan 30, 2010
2,360
477
Toronto
Blindspotting (2018)

Didn’t do much for me. I think it nails it’s themes, but the execution ranges from messy at some points to downright silly at other points. It’s also tonally all over the place (perhaps intentionally, but still disorienting). Wish I liked this one more, because it’s got some important things to say.

5/10
 

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