Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

[Reza]

The Blue Max (John Guillermin, 1966) 8/10

A visually stunning film with fantastic flying sequences before CGI made it easy. A story about class, honour and betrayal as it traces the rise of a lower class German foot soldier (George Peppard) during WWI who moves from the Army into the Air Corps. Ruthlessly ambitious and with a massive chip on his shoulder he is transferred to a unit where all the pilots come from the upper class. He is reckless in his pursuit of "The Blue Max", Germany's highest medal given to pilots who have shot down at least 20 enemy planes. He attracts the attention of not only a General (James Mason), who uses him as a poster boy to boost morale in the country, but also his wife (the stunning Ursula Andress) who two times her husband with the young officer and her husband's nephew (Jeremy Kemp) - both pilots are intense rivals in the air. The soap opera plot on the ground is needless to say fun to watch - after all Ursula Andress gets to do a nude scene - but the film's main raison d'être are the exceptional flying sequences shot by the great Douglas Slocombe. The star trio play well together - Peppard, while not a great actor, has enormous star presence with his good looks and piercing blue eyes while Mason is very imposing in uniform. The film's best performance comes from Jeremy Kemp whose slyly comic cynicism neatly balances out the overall blandness of Peppard. This is a spectacular war film with wonderful production values, an outstanding score by Jerry Goldsmith and a devastating and memorable finale. Worth watching.

[Precious Doll]

Early Man (2018) Nick Park 4/10
Walking Out (2017) Alex Smith & Andrew J. Smith 2/10
The Arch (1968) Shu Sheng Tong 6/10
Abracadabra (2017) Pablo Berger 3/10

Repeat viewings

The Age of Innocence (1993) Martin Scorsese 7/10
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) Dorothy Arzner 8/10
The Set-Up (1949) Robert Wise 6/10
Crimes of Passion (1984) Ken Russell 10/10
La Chinoise (1967) Jean-Luc Godard 7/10
Went the Day Well? (1942) Alberto Cavalcanti 6/10
Rocco and His Brothers (1960) Luchino Visconti 8/10

[Precious Doll]

The Bookshop (2017) Isabel Coxiet 4/10
1945 (2017) Ferenc Torok 4/10
Last Flag Flying (2017) Richard Linklater 4/10
Isle of Dogs (2017) Wes Anderson 6/10
Permanent (2017) Colette Burson 5/10
Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (2017) Frederick Wiseman 5/10

Repeat viewings

Caravaggio (1986) Derek Jarman 9/10
Stay Hungary (1976) Bob Rafelson 5/10

[Precious Doll]

Love, Simon (2018) Greg Berlanti 4/10
LBJ (2017) Rob Reiner 6/10
Reconstruction (1968) Lucian Pintille 4/10
Chappaquiddick (2018) John Curran 5/10
On Chesil Beach (2018) Dominic Clarke 4/10
The Hussy (1979) Jacques Doillon 5/10
Legend of the Mountain (1979) King Hu 7/10

Repeat viewings

North Sea Hijack (1980) Andrew V. McLaglen 6/10
Accident (1967) Joseph Losey 6/10
The Last Detail (1973) Hal Ashby 7/10
The Challenge (1982) John Frankenheimer 6/10
North Dallas Forty (1979) Ted Kotcheff 6/10

[Precious Doll]

Benilde or the Virgin Mother (1975) Manoel de Oliveira 4/10
Peter Rabbit (2018) Will Gluck 4/10
Animal (1977) Claude Zidi 4/10
The Divine Order (2017) Peta Biondina Volpe 7/10
The Butterfly Tree (2017) Priscilla Cameron 1/10
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017) Angela Robinson 8/10
Ready Player One (2018) Steven Spielberg 4/10

Repeat viewings

Cool Hand Luke (1967) Stuart Rosenberg 4/10
Society (1989) Brian Yuzna 6/10
Doc (1971) Frank Perry 6/10
Guys and Dolls (1955) Joseph L. Mankiewicz 5/10

[Sabin]

/Carol/ (Todd Haynes) - 8.5/10

Sad day. I rewatched Carol at Cuties in East Hollywood, and I found myself terribly conflicted about a film that I had very recently considered a work of art. And now? I think it's a gorgeous piece of filmmaking and a great script, and occasionally the two of these things are not in sync. Phylis Nagy's screenplay was deservedly nominated for an Oscar (and should have won) but while Haynes' film cineaste approach is more successful here than Far From Heaven (I think...it's been fifteen years) some of his choices aren't dramatically satisfying. I'll risk heresy: I think these two leads were perhaps miscast or misdirected. Both Carol and Therese represent cinematic callbacks to yesteryear, the clash of old Hollywood and new Hollywood. But I never sense attraction between them, let alone love. They both exist too much in their own worlds to be interested in people besides themselves. Haynes is more interested in the swoony quality that they evoke...and it is a beautifully swoony experience. Watching the film, one gets the sense that to Carol, Therese is an indulgence, but nowhere near as important as her home-life drama. That can be effectively dramatized, but it requires a meaner plot...or a meaner Carol. I certainly don't buy Carol's admission of love at the end, nor do I remotely want Therese to return to her over Carrie Brownstein (who must have been edited).

It's a strong mood piece assisted by a strong plot and beautiful dialogue. And truly, the film's MVP is Carter Burwell. Although at times I noticed that the film tends to autopilot over his beautiful score, that might just be due to how often I listen to the soundtrack.

Not the film of 2015. Just a very, very good one.

[Precious Doll]

Bloody Milk (2017) Hubert Charuel 6/10
See You Up There (2017) Albert Dupontel 9/10
The Breadwinner (2017) Nora Twomey 6/10
Mary Magdalene (2018) Garth Davis 2/10
My Dearest Señorita (1972) Jaime de Arminan 6/10
End of Innocence (1957) Leopoldo Torre Nilssonn 7/10
Novitiate (2017) Maggie Betts 4/10
Justice is Done (1950) Andre Cayatte 6/10

Repeat viewings

Executive Suite (1954) Robert Wise 6/10
Golden Boy (1939) Rouben Mamoulian 6/10
Shark (1969) Samuel Fuller 6/10
Holiday (1938) George Cukor 6/10
Henri-Georges Cluzot's Inferno (2009) Serge Bramberg & Ruxanra Medrea 7/10
Murder, My Sweet (1944) Edward Dmytryk 6/10

[Precious Doll]

Giant (2017) Aitor Arregi & Jon Garano 5/10
The Mercy (2018) James Marsh 2/10
Ismael's Ghosts (2017) Arnaud Desplechin 1/10
The Death of Stalin (2017) Armando Iannucci 6/10
Normandy Nude (2018) Philippe LeGuay 4/10
Montparnasse Bienvenue (2017) Leonor Serraille 6/10
The Workshop (2017) Laurent Cantet 4/10
Thelma (2017) Joachim Trier 4/10
Losses to Be Expected (1992) Ulrich Seidl 7/10
La Prisonnière (1968) Henri-Georges Clouzot 6/10

Repeat viewings

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) Monte Hellman 6/10
Vanishing Point (1971) Richard C. Sarafian 4/10
I Never Sang For My Father (1970) Gilbert Cates 6/10
Georgy Girl (1966) Silvio Narizzano 6/10
None But the Lonely Heart (1944) Clifford Odets 6/10

[Precious Doll]

Rodin (2017) Jacques Doillon 2/10
Barbara (2017) Mathieu Amalric 4/10
Tomorrow and Hereafter (2017) Noemie Lvovsky 1/10
Redoubtable (2017) Michel Hazanavicius 7/10
Number One (2017) Tonie Marshall 3/10
Maryline (2017) Guillaume Gallienne 4/10
Jungle (2017) Craig Mclean 3/10
Reinventing Marvin (2017) Anne Fontaine 6/10
Safari (2016) Ulrich Seidl 6/10
Casting JonBenet (2017) Kitty Green 7/10
State of the Nation: Austria in Six Chapters (2002) Barbara Albert, Michael Glawogger, Ulrich Seidl & Michael Sturminger 7/10
War in Vienna (1989) Michael Glawogger & Ulrich Seidl 6/10
Golden Years (2017) Andre Techine 3/10

Repeat viewings

The Ritz (1976) Richard Lester 7/10
Interlude (1957) Douglas Sirk 4/10
Electra Glide in Blue (1973) James William Guercio 6/10

[Precious Doll]

Black Panther (2018) Ryan Coogler 4/10
Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017) Dan Gilroy 7/10
Double Lover (2017) Francois Ozon 7/10
Madame Hyde (2018) Serge Bozon 4/10
Custody (2017) Xavier Legrand 8/10
Catch the Wind (2017) Gael Morel 4/10
The Guardians (2017) Xavier Beauvois 7/10

Repeat viewings

Home From the Hill (1960) Vincente Minnelli 4/10
Remember the Night (1940) Mitchell Leisen 6/10
David and Lisa (1962) Frank Perry 6/10
Johnny Belinda (1948) Jean Negulesco 9/10

[Precious Doll]

The 15:17 to Paris (2018) Clint Eastwood 2/10
The Human Surge (2016) Eduardo Williams 4/10
Finding Your Feet (2018) Richard Loncraine 6/10

Repeat viewings

Caged (1950) John Cromwell 8/10
Keep It Quiet (1999) Benoit Jacquot 7/10
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) Steven Spielberg 6/10
The Pom Pom Girls (1976) Joseph Ruben 6/10
The Awful Truth (1937) Leo McCarey 7/10
Baby Doll (1956) Elia Kazan 8/10
The Wanderers (1979) Philip Kaufman 4/10
My Life As a Dog (1985) Lasse Hallstrom 7/10
Born Innocent (1974) Donald Wrye 6/10
Cabin in the Sky (1943) Vincente Minnelli 7/10
Tempest (1982) Paul Mazursky 5/10
The Window (1949) Ted Tetzlaff 6/10

[mlrg]

The Post - 4/10
All the Money in the World - 3/10
Roman J. Israel, Esq. - 5/10
Mudbound - 6/10

[Precious Doll]

Flavia, the Heretic (1974) Gianfranco Mingozzi 4/10
Molly's Game (2017) Aaron Sorkin 4/10
Marshall (2017) Reginald Hudlin 5/10
Lady Bird (2017) Greta Gerwig 6/10
Fun Mom Dinner (2017) Alethea Jones 4/10

Repeat viewings

The Sundowners (1960) Fred Zinnemann 7/10
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958) Douglas Sirk 9/10
He Ran All the Way (1951) John Berry 6/10
Sammy Going South (1963) Alexander Mackendrick 5/10
The Garden of Allah (1936) Richard Boleslawski 4/10
Stage Door (1937) Gregory La Cava 7/10
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) Robert Ellis Miller 8/10

[Reza]

Hell's Half Acre (John H. Auer, 1954) 8/10

Interesting and very offbeat little noir set in Hawaii and filmed totally on location. A retired ex-syndicate partner (Wendell Corey) takes on a murder rap and goes to prison when his girlfriend (Nancy Gates) shoots a blackmailer - the murder sequence is quite memorable. Later when she too is murdered he goes on the lam looking for the killer in a seedy part of Honolulu known as "Hell's Half Acre", a very crowded tenement area housing gamblers and prostitutes. Meanwhile arriving from the mainland is the man's wife (Evelyn Keyes) in search of him having thought he had died a hero at Pearl Harbor. The action all convenes in the seedy section of town as more murders take place, the wife is drugged, menaced and almost raped, a couple of eccentric characters add colour - a female taxi driver (Elsa Lanchester) and a drunk floozie (Marie Windsor) - and the story ends on a very bleak but memorable note. The ending is not quite "Chinatown" but brings back strong memories of the classic Polanski film. This film needs to be re-discovered as it is one of the gems of the noir genre.

[Reza]

The Long Night (Anatole Litvak, 1947) 6/10

Hollywood liked remaking french classics and here they tried hard with this one - it took the European emigrée director, Anatole Litvak, to attempt a remake of Marcel Carné's "Le Jour Se Lève". RKO bought the rights of the original and then had the audacity to try and destroy all the prints of the original film. Luckily during the 1950s copies of the 1939 classic re-appeared and it's status was restored while this version not only flopped but virtually disappeared. It is an interesting attempt but censorship destroys the gritty quality of the original story and of course nobody in Hollywood could come upto par with the classic version's cast in particular the great Jean Gabin and Arletty. A man is shot on the stairs of a tenement building and the killer (Henry Fonda) holes up in an apartment as the police close in on him and start shooting at the room from all sides. A flashback reveals how he came to this predicament having become involved in a love triangle with an innocent young girl (Barbara Bel Geddes) who in turn is the mistress of a seedy magician (Vincent Price). Also involved is the magician's assistant (Ann Dvorak) who falls in love with the man with whom she has an affair. Although Fonda is good he cannot match Gabin's magnificent tough performance as the world weary man caught between the love of two women. Price is amusing as a bitchy snob while Bel Geddes (in her film debut) and particularly Dvorak (whose character in the original was a hardened prostitute but here watered down due to censorship) are excellent. The hard hitting original was banned a year after it's release by the Vichy government as it considered the story too demoralizing. After the war's end it was re-released to even greater acclaim. This noir remake, which has a different ending, is an interesting companion piece to the very bleak original.