Zazie dans le Métro (1960) - 8.5/10 - Zazie is a wild, foul mouthed 10 year old who spends a couple of days with her uncle in Paris when her mom visits her boyfriend. Zazie wants to spend her time on the metro, but it is closed due to a strike so she and her uncle travel around Paris in other ways. It's a crazy and entertaining film. Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner would be proud of the one chase scene. The visit to the the Eiffel Tower and the trip around Paris were lots of fun.
The Seventh Seal (1957) - 8.5/10 - A knight returning from the Crusades plays a game of chess with Death in a bid to extend his life. We see the knight and his squire go on a journey and meet various people during the game. This was a rewatch, but it had been so long since I saw it that I had forgotten much about it. It's very good.
Miracles of Thursday (1957) - 8/10 - A group of prominent citizens in a small Spanish town that has seen tourism and other visitors decline over the years come up with a scheme to fake an appearance by their patron saint, San Dimas, in order to improve business in town. Their scheme has some minor success, but really gets rolling when a stranger (Richard Basehart) who seems to know all that they have been up to arrives in town.
Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea (1977) - 8.5/10 - Jan is a fairly boring, but successful rocket designer who lives in an apartment with his twin brother Karel, a womanizer who pilots rocket ships which carry tourists on sightseeing tours to the past. When Karel died while eating breakfast, Jan impersonates him and gets caught up in a Nazi time travel conspiracy. The film is pretty funny at times and I thought it was also very entertaining.
Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Rough Cut (Don Siegel, Peter R. Hunt & Robert Ellis Miller, 1980) 6/10
Burt Reynolds does Cary Grant in this light caper film with a troubled history - directors were hired, fired and re-hired, three endings were shot and a fourth was substituted, and Larry Gelbart who wrote the screenplay had his name removed from the final project. At a posh party Reynolds tries to pick up the stunning Lesley-Anne Down by speaking like Cary Grant by way of Tony Curtis (as in "Some Like It Hot"). He follows her as she steals jewels from one of the rooms in the mansion. The premise apes any number of similarly plotted films from the 1930s when stars like William Powell and Kay Francis stole diamonds and fell in love, or when Cary Grant played a cat burglar in Hitchcock's "To Catch a Thief". While the two stars cannot compare to the ones from the past they both do have a certain charm as they play competing thieves - he is a master while she is merely a kleptomaniac - who play cat-and-mouse with a Scotland Yard detective (David Niven) who plans on using her as a bait to catch him during a heist involving $30 million in diamonds. Meanwhile the lovely pair quip and fall in love as the screenplay keeps pointing a finger at assorted Hitchcock films. There is also a brief scene set in Wimbledon during the 1979 semi-final match between Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors. Nelson Riddle orchestrates the action with Duke Ellington classics. Glossy film is more than a tad shallow which the interesting cast - also Timothy West, Patrick Magee, Joss Ackland, Isabel Dean - manage to pull off. Barely.
The Burmese Harp (Kon Ichikawa, 1956) 10/10
Stunning anti-war film was the first film to show the losses of war from the Japanese soldier's perspective. When Japan surrenders at the end of WWII a soldier goes missing in Burma and his comrades wonder if a Budhist monk who plays the harp is that man in disguise. A soldier, who plays the harp, is assigned to go and convince a group of Japanese soldiers, holed up in a mountain, to surrender as the war has ended and Japan has been defeated. However, the men refuse to give in and end up killed when the British bomb their hideout. The soldier, who had been beaten unconcious by the men, is the sole survivor. He dons the garb of a monk and begins the journey on foot to the camp where his comrades were sent. On the way he keeps stopping to bury dead soldiers and refuses to return to Japan as he has decided to study as a monk and promote peace. Highly acclaimed Japanese film was nominated for an Academy Award in the foreign language category.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Sophie Hyde, 2022) 8/10
A widow (Emma Thompson), who has never experienced an orgasm, cunnilingus or performed fellatio, hires a young sex worker (Daryl McCormack) to show her a good time. Being uptight by nature she gets cold feet at the last minute and wants no part of it but he patiently persuades her to go through with it. All the while both talk to each other revealing not only intimate details about themselves but also mundane anecdotes about their families. The screenplay, often hilarious but also very moving, goes bravely and very frankly into discussion about the complexities of sex and how it effects older women while taking a completely non judgemental attitude towards sex work. Thompson, as expected is superb, but its newcomer McCormack who is fantastic in a role that is so subtle. The film's last image, involving Thompson, is devastating yet extremely euphoric as it proudly celebrates the acceptance of female empowerment.
Where the Crawdads Sing (Olivia Newman, 2022) 7/10
Southern gothic gets reworked courtesy of the best selling novel by Delia Owens which reminds of far better films from Hollywood's distant past that involved a murder set in the South - "Intruder in the Dust" and "To Kill a Mockingbird". While not exactly like those films this one does have a pretty strong whiff about aspects of them. The film's highlight is the Louisiana marshland location stunningly photographed by Polly Morgan. A young girl (Daisy Edgar-Jones), abandoned in the wild by her parents and siblings, grows up alone in a derelict house on the marshes from the age of seven. The story covers ten years of her life as she survives by selling clams, is shunned by the townfolk, finds love with a young man (Taylor John Smith) who teaches her to read and write but who then moves away, becomes a naturalist, and befriends and is betrayed by the town jock (Harris Dickinson) who ends up mysteriously killed for which she is suspected and charged. A court room trial ensues as she is defended by a kindly lawyer (David Strathairn). The old fashioned story invokes nostalgia and is grounded by the deeply-felt central performance by Daisy Edgar-Jones.
The Old Way (Brett Donowho, 2023) 6/10
Old fashioned Western with a typical revenge narrative as old as the hills but still manages to play out with feeling. A retired gunslinger (Nicolas Cage in, believe it or not, his first film in this genre), now married with wife and daughter, faces retribution from his distant past when his wife is savagely killed by a gang of men. He is forced to go after the men but has the added responsibility of dragging his precocious young daughter along with him. Cage, who mainly appears in trashy low budget films, is quite good decked out in a stetson and holding a gun and does exactly what scores of actors before him - John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Clint Eastwood - did just that. I'm just happy this genre remains alive and kicking.
Memoirs of a Geisha (Rob Marshall, 2005) 5/10
A sumptuously faithful, evocative but rather dull film adaptation of Arthur Golden's celebrated novel tells the story of a young Japanese girl who is sold by her impoverished family to a geisha house to support them by training and eventually becoming a geisha. The film centers around the sacrifices and hardships faced by pre-World War II geisha, and the challenges posed by the war and a modernizing world to geisha society. The story is told exclusively from the point of view of the titular geisha (Ziyi Zhang). We see her life from a poverty-stricken child to her years spent in servitude, her training and emergence as a geisha, her brief reign that gets interrupted by the war, and her re-emergence as a geisha. Along the way she faces kindness from a handsome businessman (Ken Watanabe), bitter opposition from a rival (Gong Li at her cartoonishly tantrum-throwing best) at the geisha house, and strict but loving training by a veteran geisha (Michelle Yeoh). The film is a feast for the eyes with superb cinematography, costume and production design, with a score by John Williams and cello solos by the great Yo-Yo Ma. However, the film is a monumental bore, maybe because of its kitschy mish-mash of Chinese (the actresses), Japanese (the story), and Hollywood (an American male point of view) and also due to the puritanical way sex is depicted which is disastrously pure Americana. Produced by Steven Spielberg who should have known better than to venture down this territory.
Burt Reynolds does Cary Grant in this light caper film with a troubled history - directors were hired, fired and re-hired, three endings were shot and a fourth was substituted, and Larry Gelbart who wrote the screenplay had his name removed from the final project. At a posh party Reynolds tries to pick up the stunning Lesley-Anne Down by speaking like Cary Grant by way of Tony Curtis (as in "Some Like It Hot"). He follows her as she steals jewels from one of the rooms in the mansion. The premise apes any number of similarly plotted films from the 1930s when stars like William Powell and Kay Francis stole diamonds and fell in love, or when Cary Grant played a cat burglar in Hitchcock's "To Catch a Thief". While the two stars cannot compare to the ones from the past they both do have a certain charm as they play competing thieves - he is a master while she is merely a kleptomaniac - who play cat-and-mouse with a Scotland Yard detective (David Niven) who plans on using her as a bait to catch him during a heist involving $30 million in diamonds. Meanwhile the lovely pair quip and fall in love as the screenplay keeps pointing a finger at assorted Hitchcock films. There is also a brief scene set in Wimbledon during the 1979 semi-final match between Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors. Nelson Riddle orchestrates the action with Duke Ellington classics. Glossy film is more than a tad shallow which the interesting cast - also Timothy West, Patrick Magee, Joss Ackland, Isabel Dean - manage to pull off. Barely.
The Burmese Harp (Kon Ichikawa, 1956) 10/10
Stunning anti-war film was the first film to show the losses of war from the Japanese soldier's perspective. When Japan surrenders at the end of WWII a soldier goes missing in Burma and his comrades wonder if a Budhist monk who plays the harp is that man in disguise. A soldier, who plays the harp, is assigned to go and convince a group of Japanese soldiers, holed up in a mountain, to surrender as the war has ended and Japan has been defeated. However, the men refuse to give in and end up killed when the British bomb their hideout. The soldier, who had been beaten unconcious by the men, is the sole survivor. He dons the garb of a monk and begins the journey on foot to the camp where his comrades were sent. On the way he keeps stopping to bury dead soldiers and refuses to return to Japan as he has decided to study as a monk and promote peace. Highly acclaimed Japanese film was nominated for an Academy Award in the foreign language category.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Sophie Hyde, 2022) 8/10
A widow (Emma Thompson), who has never experienced an orgasm, cunnilingus or performed fellatio, hires a young sex worker (Daryl McCormack) to show her a good time. Being uptight by nature she gets cold feet at the last minute and wants no part of it but he patiently persuades her to go through with it. All the while both talk to each other revealing not only intimate details about themselves but also mundane anecdotes about their families. The screenplay, often hilarious but also very moving, goes bravely and very frankly into discussion about the complexities of sex and how it effects older women while taking a completely non judgemental attitude towards sex work. Thompson, as expected is superb, but its newcomer McCormack who is fantastic in a role that is so subtle. The film's last image, involving Thompson, is devastating yet extremely euphoric as it proudly celebrates the acceptance of female empowerment.
Where the Crawdads Sing (Olivia Newman, 2022) 7/10
Southern gothic gets reworked courtesy of the best selling novel by Delia Owens which reminds of far better films from Hollywood's distant past that involved a murder set in the South - "Intruder in the Dust" and "To Kill a Mockingbird". While not exactly like those films this one does have a pretty strong whiff about aspects of them. The film's highlight is the Louisiana marshland location stunningly photographed by Polly Morgan. A young girl (Daisy Edgar-Jones), abandoned in the wild by her parents and siblings, grows up alone in a derelict house on the marshes from the age of seven. The story covers ten years of her life as she survives by selling clams, is shunned by the townfolk, finds love with a young man (Taylor John Smith) who teaches her to read and write but who then moves away, becomes a naturalist, and befriends and is betrayed by the town jock (Harris Dickinson) who ends up mysteriously killed for which she is suspected and charged. A court room trial ensues as she is defended by a kindly lawyer (David Strathairn). The old fashioned story invokes nostalgia and is grounded by the deeply-felt central performance by Daisy Edgar-Jones.
The Old Way (Brett Donowho, 2023) 6/10
Old fashioned Western with a typical revenge narrative as old as the hills but still manages to play out with feeling. A retired gunslinger (Nicolas Cage in, believe it or not, his first film in this genre), now married with wife and daughter, faces retribution from his distant past when his wife is savagely killed by a gang of men. He is forced to go after the men but has the added responsibility of dragging his precocious young daughter along with him. Cage, who mainly appears in trashy low budget films, is quite good decked out in a stetson and holding a gun and does exactly what scores of actors before him - John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Clint Eastwood - did just that. I'm just happy this genre remains alive and kicking.
Memoirs of a Geisha (Rob Marshall, 2005) 5/10
A sumptuously faithful, evocative but rather dull film adaptation of Arthur Golden's celebrated novel tells the story of a young Japanese girl who is sold by her impoverished family to a geisha house to support them by training and eventually becoming a geisha. The film centers around the sacrifices and hardships faced by pre-World War II geisha, and the challenges posed by the war and a modernizing world to geisha society. The story is told exclusively from the point of view of the titular geisha (Ziyi Zhang). We see her life from a poverty-stricken child to her years spent in servitude, her training and emergence as a geisha, her brief reign that gets interrupted by the war, and her re-emergence as a geisha. Along the way she faces kindness from a handsome businessman (Ken Watanabe), bitter opposition from a rival (Gong Li at her cartoonishly tantrum-throwing best) at the geisha house, and strict but loving training by a veteran geisha (Michelle Yeoh). The film is a feast for the eyes with superb cinematography, costume and production design, with a score by John Williams and cello solos by the great Yo-Yo Ma. However, the film is a monumental bore, maybe because of its kitschy mish-mash of Chinese (the actresses), Japanese (the story), and Hollywood (an American male point of view) and also due to the puritanical way sex is depicted which is disastrously pure Americana. Produced by Steven Spielberg who should have known better than to venture down this territory.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
your name. (2016) - 8/10 - Taki is a high school boy in Tokyo whose mind starts randomly switching places with a high school girl named Mitsuha who lives in a rural part of Japan. They initially think that they are dreaming, but eventually realize there is much more going on than a dream and they have to adjust. The animation and story are each very good.
Summer Days with Coo (2007) - 8/10 - A young boy finds a small kappa child that has survived in hibernation inside a rock for 200 years. The boy's family befriends and adopts the kappa. They also help him search for others of his kind who may have survived, but public attention soon finds them. I thought this was pretty nice with a good story and animation.
Okja (2017) - 8/10 - Mija is a young girl who grew up on a remote mountain with a large intelligent animal called Okja. Okja is a genetically engineered super pig and, unknown to Mija, is part of a program to create a new food source. When the company reclaims Okja, Mija sets out to get her back. This is a pretty good satire with a nice lead performance from the girl who played Mija. The cgi for the super pigs is pretty good and the story moves along at a nice pace.
The Lift (1983) - 7.5/10 - The lifts in a building in Amsterdam start to act in an erratic fashion and people end up dead. The lifts seemingly have a mind of their own at times. A repairman is sent by the lift company to investigate, but can find nothing wrong and the lifts appear to be operating normally while he is there. He starts to dig deeper, even though he is taken off the case by his boss. I enjoyed this science fictio
Dreams (1990) - 8.5/10 - Akira Kurosawa wrote and directed this film based on recurring dreams that he had. There are eight vignettes covering a variety of scenarios. I enjoyed them all, though my favorites are probably the first one with the little boy and the kitsune and the one where he meets van Gogh. The funeral procession near the end was cool, too.
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) - 8/10 - A traveling tax collector/scholar runs out of money so he spends the night in an old abandoned temple that is home to ghosts who want to feed on the living. He meets a beautiful woman there as well as a Taoist swordsman. The romance, comedy, and adventure were all well balanced and fun.
Bacurau (2019) - 8/10 - Bacurau is a small and remote Brazilian town whose matriarch, Carmelita, has recently passed away at the age of 94. The town gathers to celebrate her life and to mourn. Soon after, strange things start happening such as the town disappearing from online maps and a couple of strangers on motorbikes riding through town. I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
Carnival of Sinners (1943) - 8/10 - A one handed artist arrives at a mountain inn one evening and relates his tale of a deal he made with the devil and his struggles to evade the consequences. It was a fairly familiar story, but well done.
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) - 8/10 - Baron Frankenstein has been experimenting with when the soul leads the body. However, Frankenstein really plays only a peripheral role in this story. Instead, the focus is on a young man whose father was executed for murder when he was a boy and the woman that he loves who is tormented by three young aristocratic scions due to her scarring. It was pretty entertaining.
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) - 8/10 - Peter Cushing stars as Victor Frankenstein with Christopher Lee as The Creature. It's a nice version of the Frankenstein story with plenty of gothic atmosphere.
Summer Days with Coo (2007) - 8/10 - A young boy finds a small kappa child that has survived in hibernation inside a rock for 200 years. The boy's family befriends and adopts the kappa. They also help him search for others of his kind who may have survived, but public attention soon finds them. I thought this was pretty nice with a good story and animation.
Okja (2017) - 8/10 - Mija is a young girl who grew up on a remote mountain with a large intelligent animal called Okja. Okja is a genetically engineered super pig and, unknown to Mija, is part of a program to create a new food source. When the company reclaims Okja, Mija sets out to get her back. This is a pretty good satire with a nice lead performance from the girl who played Mija. The cgi for the super pigs is pretty good and the story moves along at a nice pace.
The Lift (1983) - 7.5/10 - The lifts in a building in Amsterdam start to act in an erratic fashion and people end up dead. The lifts seemingly have a mind of their own at times. A repairman is sent by the lift company to investigate, but can find nothing wrong and the lifts appear to be operating normally while he is there. He starts to dig deeper, even though he is taken off the case by his boss. I enjoyed this science fictio
Dreams (1990) - 8.5/10 - Akira Kurosawa wrote and directed this film based on recurring dreams that he had. There are eight vignettes covering a variety of scenarios. I enjoyed them all, though my favorites are probably the first one with the little boy and the kitsune and the one where he meets van Gogh. The funeral procession near the end was cool, too.
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) - 8/10 - A traveling tax collector/scholar runs out of money so he spends the night in an old abandoned temple that is home to ghosts who want to feed on the living. He meets a beautiful woman there as well as a Taoist swordsman. The romance, comedy, and adventure were all well balanced and fun.
Bacurau (2019) - 8/10 - Bacurau is a small and remote Brazilian town whose matriarch, Carmelita, has recently passed away at the age of 94. The town gathers to celebrate her life and to mourn. Soon after, strange things start happening such as the town disappearing from online maps and a couple of strangers on motorbikes riding through town. I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
Carnival of Sinners (1943) - 8/10 - A one handed artist arrives at a mountain inn one evening and relates his tale of a deal he made with the devil and his struggles to evade the consequences. It was a fairly familiar story, but well done.
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) - 8/10 - Baron Frankenstein has been experimenting with when the soul leads the body. However, Frankenstein really plays only a peripheral role in this story. Instead, the focus is on a young man whose father was executed for murder when he was a boy and the woman that he loves who is tormented by three young aristocratic scions due to her scarring. It was pretty entertaining.
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) - 8/10 - Peter Cushing stars as Victor Frankenstein with Christopher Lee as The Creature. It's a nice version of the Frankenstein story with plenty of gothic atmosphere.
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Big Magilla
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
I think the politics of Avatar is that humans in general are bad, blue fish people are good. Pretty simple-minded. Maybe an 8 for Special Effects, but no more than a 6 overall.
6 is too high a rating for The Menu and too low a rating for Triangle of Sadness. I loved Triangle of Sadness with its fresh take on The Admirable Crichton, would rate it a 10. I hated The Menu which starts out well but soon descends into an exercise in cruelty and would rate it no higher than 4.
6 is too high a rating for The Menu and too low a rating for Triangle of Sadness. I loved Triangle of Sadness with its fresh take on The Admirable Crichton, would rate it a 10. I hated The Menu which starts out well but soon descends into an exercise in cruelty and would rate it no higher than 4.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund, 2022) 6/10
What farting was to Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles", vomiting and defecation is to this extremely Buñuel-like black comedy dissecting the despicable ultra-rich. The scene in question is set on a gravity defying yacht rolling askew during a storm at sea with passengers finding themselves not only copiously barfing but literally rolling in the aisles and tumbling down staircases. The screenplay proceeds to trip the characters off their high pedestal while the drunk captain (Woody Harrelson) harangues the passengers over the intecom about socialism and capitalism. And then pirates attack, blow up the boat and survivors find themselves on an island where the lowly toilet cleaner (Dolly De Leon) takes command of the situation as the only competent survivalist among the group. After a while this satire runs out of steam and what seemed to be an original idea merely ends up recalling that old British chestnut - J.M. Barrie's play, "The Admirable Crichton" - with the class system being put to the test. The film inexplicably won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival.
Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron, 2022) 8/10
Purely from an entertainment point of view this is a fantastic film superbly directed and choreographed by James Cameron. Like the first installment this too continues its heavy message. Frankly I'm surprised Cameron hasn't been booked for treason as the story's main theme repeats its indictment of the United States as a world aggressor along with an added dig at Israel and its repeated and uncalled aggression against Palestine which ironically makes them into the very Nazis the jews faced during WWII. The film is also a stunning travelogue and its middle section brings on a child-like delight in its under-sea images just like in an aquarium. The last third of this over 3-hour film constitutes an epic battle set-piece where the Na'vi, the indigenous species on the habitat of Pandora, repel the human invaders and hunters. There is also a "save the whales" message as action scenes recall "Moby Dick" and Cameron tops it all with yet another suspenseful set-piece that pays homage to "Titanic". Kate Winslet, under heavy VFX makeup, plays one of the reef people where the story's main characters - Sam Worthington & Zoe Saldaña (the main Na'vi characters) - take refuge. Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang (as the former dead military officer now turned into the vengeful villain), also return. Spectacular film must be seen on the largest screen possible and in 3-D.
What farting was to Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles", vomiting and defecation is to this extremely Buñuel-like black comedy dissecting the despicable ultra-rich. The scene in question is set on a gravity defying yacht rolling askew during a storm at sea with passengers finding themselves not only copiously barfing but literally rolling in the aisles and tumbling down staircases. The screenplay proceeds to trip the characters off their high pedestal while the drunk captain (Woody Harrelson) harangues the passengers over the intecom about socialism and capitalism. And then pirates attack, blow up the boat and survivors find themselves on an island where the lowly toilet cleaner (Dolly De Leon) takes command of the situation as the only competent survivalist among the group. After a while this satire runs out of steam and what seemed to be an original idea merely ends up recalling that old British chestnut - J.M. Barrie's play, "The Admirable Crichton" - with the class system being put to the test. The film inexplicably won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival.
Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron, 2022) 8/10
Purely from an entertainment point of view this is a fantastic film superbly directed and choreographed by James Cameron. Like the first installment this too continues its heavy message. Frankly I'm surprised Cameron hasn't been booked for treason as the story's main theme repeats its indictment of the United States as a world aggressor along with an added dig at Israel and its repeated and uncalled aggression against Palestine which ironically makes them into the very Nazis the jews faced during WWII. The film is also a stunning travelogue and its middle section brings on a child-like delight in its under-sea images just like in an aquarium. The last third of this over 3-hour film constitutes an epic battle set-piece where the Na'vi, the indigenous species on the habitat of Pandora, repel the human invaders and hunters. There is also a "save the whales" message as action scenes recall "Moby Dick" and Cameron tops it all with yet another suspenseful set-piece that pays homage to "Titanic". Kate Winslet, under heavy VFX makeup, plays one of the reef people where the story's main characters - Sam Worthington & Zoe Saldaña (the main Na'vi characters) - take refuge. Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang (as the former dead military officer now turned into the vengeful villain), also return. Spectacular film must be seen on the largest screen possible and in 3-D.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
The Menu (Mark Mylod, 2022) 6/10
This black comedy proceeds to f**k the mickey out of pretentious foodies, the anal creator and fawning students, but then peters out despite over-the-top dramatic flourishes. The plot gets together a select group of people - bankers, celebrities, and uptight WASPs - for a dining experience at an exclusive restaurant on a remote private island. They are presided over by a supercilious celebrity chef (Ralph Fiennes, looking pained as if he has a rod up his arse) and assisted by a Maître d'hôtel (Hong Chau) who unabashadly acts like a dominatrix. The mantra at the center of the food tasting has the chef sonorously intoning, "Do not eat. Taste. Savour. Relish". Plates of food are ravishingly photographed as the diners are forced by the chef to admit to certain indiscretions against him and in their own lives. As he prattles on with the onslaught of each food course the experience devolves into a potpourri of violence, horror and death with the fifth and final course being S'more which is served as dessert with a coat of marshmallows to be toasted, a hat made of chocolate and scattered graham crackers. Fiennes dances a fine cat-and-mouse class warfare with the only voice of reason (Anya Taylor-Joy) in the room as she wins out over the exotic menu with her order of a simple cheese burger. So are they trying to say that McDonald's wins out over fancy restaurants that serve small morsels on large white plates decorated with specs of colorful sauces? Truth be told, and going by experience, it's deliciously true.
Isle of Fury (Frank McDonald, 1936) 5/10
Bogart, in one of his first lead roles, battles a giant octopus in this B-film set on a remote Pacific island in this adaptation of a story by Somerset Maugham. The screenplay involves a love triangle between a fugitive (Humphrey Bogart) wanted for murder, his wife (Margaret Lindsay) and the mysterious man (Donald Woods) saved from a shipwreck. Minor but atmospheric action-drama.
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (Guy Ritchie, 2023) 7/10
The hypocricy in the West and in Hollywood is simply appalling. The release of Ritchie's film was pulled back last year because the villains in the film are Ukrainians. Ofcourse having Muslims, the Chinese, or the North Koreans as comic book villains is perfectly alright. As long as the colour of your skin is white its easy for the West to sympathise as it has with the Ukrainian war. The film went straight to a streaming service in the United States while getting a cinema release in the international market. Ritchie's film resembles an episode from the "Mission Impossible" franchise minus the elaborate Cruise stunt set pieces. Deadpan Jason Statham makes a marvelously grumpy British agent sent on a mission to retrieve a "device" before a billionaire arms dealer (Hugh Grant) can sell it to the highest bidder - the dastardly Ukraines. Grant, now a Ritchie regular and having a jolly good time, is hilarious as the witty crook who has a meltdown in front of his favorite movie star (Josh Hartnett hilariously aping Brad Pitt) who is used by the team to infiltrate the villain's lair. While not topnotch Ritchie this is still a fun action-adventure set in many exotic locations around the world.
This black comedy proceeds to f**k the mickey out of pretentious foodies, the anal creator and fawning students, but then peters out despite over-the-top dramatic flourishes. The plot gets together a select group of people - bankers, celebrities, and uptight WASPs - for a dining experience at an exclusive restaurant on a remote private island. They are presided over by a supercilious celebrity chef (Ralph Fiennes, looking pained as if he has a rod up his arse) and assisted by a Maître d'hôtel (Hong Chau) who unabashadly acts like a dominatrix. The mantra at the center of the food tasting has the chef sonorously intoning, "Do not eat. Taste. Savour. Relish". Plates of food are ravishingly photographed as the diners are forced by the chef to admit to certain indiscretions against him and in their own lives. As he prattles on with the onslaught of each food course the experience devolves into a potpourri of violence, horror and death with the fifth and final course being S'more which is served as dessert with a coat of marshmallows to be toasted, a hat made of chocolate and scattered graham crackers. Fiennes dances a fine cat-and-mouse class warfare with the only voice of reason (Anya Taylor-Joy) in the room as she wins out over the exotic menu with her order of a simple cheese burger. So are they trying to say that McDonald's wins out over fancy restaurants that serve small morsels on large white plates decorated with specs of colorful sauces? Truth be told, and going by experience, it's deliciously true.
Isle of Fury (Frank McDonald, 1936) 5/10
Bogart, in one of his first lead roles, battles a giant octopus in this B-film set on a remote Pacific island in this adaptation of a story by Somerset Maugham. The screenplay involves a love triangle between a fugitive (Humphrey Bogart) wanted for murder, his wife (Margaret Lindsay) and the mysterious man (Donald Woods) saved from a shipwreck. Minor but atmospheric action-drama.
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (Guy Ritchie, 2023) 7/10
The hypocricy in the West and in Hollywood is simply appalling. The release of Ritchie's film was pulled back last year because the villains in the film are Ukrainians. Ofcourse having Muslims, the Chinese, or the North Koreans as comic book villains is perfectly alright. As long as the colour of your skin is white its easy for the West to sympathise as it has with the Ukrainian war. The film went straight to a streaming service in the United States while getting a cinema release in the international market. Ritchie's film resembles an episode from the "Mission Impossible" franchise minus the elaborate Cruise stunt set pieces. Deadpan Jason Statham makes a marvelously grumpy British agent sent on a mission to retrieve a "device" before a billionaire arms dealer (Hugh Grant) can sell it to the highest bidder - the dastardly Ukraines. Grant, now a Ritchie regular and having a jolly good time, is hilarious as the witty crook who has a meltdown in front of his favorite movie star (Josh Hartnett hilariously aping Brad Pitt) who is used by the team to infiltrate the villain's lair. While not topnotch Ritchie this is still a fun action-adventure set in many exotic locations around the world.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Not sure why I watched Brad's Status on Amazon last night but I've had some passing interest in it for a while. If I don't always like Mike White, I've always admired him and he's certainly having a high-water mark in his career right now. This film vanished without a trace more than any other film he's made. I have some problems with it but I enjoyed it. It's about Ben Stiller as a middle-aged non-profit owner who is taking his far more promising son on a tour of colleges. It's a pretty well-observed mid-life crisis film. Or rather, overly-concerned. Ben Stiller's Brad Sloan is cringingly narcissistic in how he makes every single thing about him. There are two things I find very interesting about this film. One of them is that Stiller doesn't play this character for anything other than total emotional honesty in every moment. Every thought that he has is more or less relatable (even if his actions aren't) and understandable. But without betraying any of his emotional honesty, we're allowed to see the flip-side of the rational-behaving world reacting to his narcissism. I don't think the film goes deep enough into its final thesis (which probably should come a half hour earlier) that nobody thinks about anything other than themselves, but that's certainly Brad's problem. I liked how Mike White drew the balance most of the time.
The other thing I liked about the film is the terrific find in Austin Abrams as Brad's laid back, confident son.
What I liked less about the film I touched on already. It never quite figures out where to take its story and its message. Ben Stiller's late night drink session with a Harvard tour guide turns into him getting ripped apart for his privilege, which, y'know, fair enough. But shortly after he has a dinner with an old college friend (Michael Sheen) who just did a favor for his son which feels like a total backpedal. I think a stronger film would've found a way to tie its themes together: nobody thinks about anyone other than themself; keep your mid-life crisis to yourself, white man; and ultimately, we're all living things. But it's a noble enough effort from a storyteller who has had a lot on his mind for a over twenty years now.
The other thing I liked about the film is the terrific find in Austin Abrams as Brad's laid back, confident son.
What I liked less about the film I touched on already. It never quite figures out where to take its story and its message. Ben Stiller's late night drink session with a Harvard tour guide turns into him getting ripped apart for his privilege, which, y'know, fair enough. But shortly after he has a dinner with an old college friend (Michael Sheen) who just did a favor for his son which feels like a total backpedal. I think a stronger film would've found a way to tie its themes together: nobody thinks about anyone other than themself; keep your mid-life crisis to yourself, white man; and ultimately, we're all living things. But it's a noble enough effort from a storyteller who has had a lot on his mind for a over twenty years now.
"How's the despair?"
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Quartet (James Ivory, 1981) 9/10
Exquisite adaptation of British novelist Jean Rhys' semi-autobiographical roman à clef based on her extramarital affair and acrimonious break-up with her literary mentor Ford Madox Ford, the English author and editor of The Transatlantic Review literary magazine. The affair occurred in Ford's Paris home under the eye of his common-law wife, Australian artist Stella Bowen, while Rhys's husband Jean Lenglet was in jail. Ruth Prawar Jhabvala adapts the novel for Merchant-Ivory, with the story set in 1920s bohemian Paris and looking in on expatriates living in small drafty little hotels and in large flats while moving around as writers or painters in sidewalk cafes, bistros, nightclubs and low-life dives. When an art dealer (Anthony Higgins), dealing in stolen art work, goes to jail he suggests his destitute wife (Isabelle Adjani) move in with a wealthy English art dealer (Alan Bates) and his wife (Maggie Smith), a painter. He has a habit of inviting vulnerable young women to move into their spare room and then seduces them. His affairs are conducted with the silent approval of his increasingly distraught wife who tolerates his sexual peccadillos because she does not want him to leave her. Reluctant at first the young woman succumbs to the older man's lechery who, along with his wife, escorts her around their social haunts in a charade of respectability, deflecting suspicion and gossip about the ménage à trois. As with all Merchant-Ivory films this too has stunning production values capturing a time and place that no longer exists. While Adjani received an acting award at the Cannes film festival it is both Bates and Smith who walk away with the film personifying the cold spirit of pre-war England which Rhys alludes to in her novel.
Montana Moon (Malcolm St. Clair, 1930) 2/10
A wacky socialite (Joan Crawford) falls in love and gets married to a hick cowboy (Johnnie Mack Brown) but they clash over their very different friends and lifestyles. They decide to divorce when she dances an erotic tango with her sleazy former boyfriend (Ricardo Cortez) but she gets kidnapped by a masked bandit. Corny, creaky film has an animated Crawford paired opposite the unbelievably dull Brown.
The Bolshoi Ballet (Paul Czinner, 1957) 7/10
Czinner directs the dazzling prima ballerina Galina Ulanova of the Bolshoi ballet during a performance of Giselle at Covent Garden. Nominated for an Oscar for its music score.
Devil and the Deep (Marion Gering, 1932) 8/10
Pity Hollywood neglected Tallulah Bankhead who was in the same class as Garbo and Dietrich. She was a "difficult" personality but always extremely memorable in the few films she made. She spins both Cary Grant and Gary Cooper around her fingers while married to a sadistic Charles Laughton who plays a submarine commander. The ending is a doozy as the submarine sinks and Cooper leads a mutiny against a crazed Laughton. Bankhead swims out of the sunk submarine dressed in a Travis Banton evening gown. Cooper is stiff but Bankhead, Laughton and a very young Grant are superb. Great melodrama.
Children of Divorce (Frank Lloyd, 1927) 6/10
Flapper (Clara Bow) rejects her poor lover (Einar Hanson) and steals the rich boyfriend (Gary Cooper) of her best friend (Esther Ralston) causing misery for everyone which evdntuslly leads to tragedy. Both Bow and Ralston are very good with Cooper a stiff co-star. An anti-divorce melodrama.
The Trespasser (Edmund Goulding, 1929) 7/10
Gloria Swanson's first talkie and she is superb (winning an Academy Award nomination) in this predictable melodrama about a woman sacrificing her love for a life spent raising their child all by herself.
Souls For Sale (Rupert Hughes, 1923) 8/10
Fascinating silent film about Hollywood and filmmaking that manages to cover a host of genres from comedy to drama to melodrama to suspense and action. A woman (Eleanor Boardman) escapes from her husband on her honeymoon by jumping off a train and literally finds herself on a movie set where she catches the eye of the director (Richard Dix). While he goes about making her into a huge star she is suddenly confronted by her husband who is now wanted for being a serial killer. The film not only shows in great detail how films and stars were created during the silent era but is also an exposé of the film world's real and perceived transgressions. A who's who of silent cinema appear in cameos - Charles Chaplin, Erich von Stroheim (shown directing "Greed"), Mae Busch, Barbara La Marr, Lew Cody, William Haines, Fred Niblo, Jean Hersholt, Zasu Pitts, June Mathis, Aileen Pringle, Blanche Sweet, Bessie Love, Anna Q. Nilsson, Florence Vidor, King Vidor and Patsy Ruth Miller. The film's apocalyptic finale followed by Dix urging Boardman to act her heart out as everything burns around her hilariously proves the old adage that "the show must go on".
Africa sotto i mari / Woman of the Red Sea (Giovanni Roccardi, 1953) 4/10
B-film that provided Sophia Loren her first starring role. It is like a National Geographics documentary as it explores the flaura and fauna of the Red Sea. An industrialist forcibly gets his daughter (Sophia Loren) aboard his yacht in order to get her away from her suitor. The ship is on an expedition to the Red Sea to make a film about the underwater world. Loren, with huge hips and a dark tan, is the whole show as she moves around with barely anything on while swimming and exploring underwater and getting into assorted dangerous scrapes. Lovely colour cinematography.
Remember the Day (Henry King, 1941) 4/10
Elderly school teacher (Claudette Colbert), while waiting to meet a former student now a Presidential candidate, recalls her life as a teacher getting involved in the lives of the children and finding love with a fellow teacher (John Payne). The two stars make this sentimental film bearable.
The Truth About Youth (William A. Deiter, 1930) 4/10
An old bachelor (Conway Tearle) wants his irresponsible ward (David Manners) to marry their housekeeper's vivacious daughter (Loretta Young). However, the impulsive young man runs off and gets married to a cabaret dancer (Myrna Loy) who then kicks him out when she finds he has no money of his own. Meanwhile the young lady surprises the old bachelor with her decision to marry a man she loved all along. Interesting stars with Loy hilariously bitchy when she dumps Manners. Slow film.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Wallace Worsley, 1923) 10/10
Epic film version of Victor Hugo's classic novel was Universal studio's most successful silent film of 1923. The role of Quasimodo, the hunchback, has been played by many famous stars in sound films - Charles Laughton, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Hopkins - but it was Lon Chaney and his iconic performance that set the tone for the other actors to follow. Chaney was known as the man of a thousand faces due to the elaborate makeup he put on to play grotesque characters in many films. The story revolves around the deaf, half-blind hunchback bell ringer at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in 15th century Paris, his infatuation with the kind and beautiful gypsy dancer (Patsy Ruth Miller) who is the adopted daughter of the city's beggar king (Ernest Torrence). She is loved by the dashing Captain of the guards (Norman Kerry) who comes to her rescue when Quasimodo, goaded on by his evil master, kidnaps her. When the hunchback is sentenced to be lashed she comes to his help. Impressive spectacle has romance, huge sets, a cast of thousands, melodrama and a memorable finalé. Chaney, playing a truly repulsive character manages to imbue him with a great deal of sympathy and is the heart and soul of this film.
Exquisite adaptation of British novelist Jean Rhys' semi-autobiographical roman à clef based on her extramarital affair and acrimonious break-up with her literary mentor Ford Madox Ford, the English author and editor of The Transatlantic Review literary magazine. The affair occurred in Ford's Paris home under the eye of his common-law wife, Australian artist Stella Bowen, while Rhys's husband Jean Lenglet was in jail. Ruth Prawar Jhabvala adapts the novel for Merchant-Ivory, with the story set in 1920s bohemian Paris and looking in on expatriates living in small drafty little hotels and in large flats while moving around as writers or painters in sidewalk cafes, bistros, nightclubs and low-life dives. When an art dealer (Anthony Higgins), dealing in stolen art work, goes to jail he suggests his destitute wife (Isabelle Adjani) move in with a wealthy English art dealer (Alan Bates) and his wife (Maggie Smith), a painter. He has a habit of inviting vulnerable young women to move into their spare room and then seduces them. His affairs are conducted with the silent approval of his increasingly distraught wife who tolerates his sexual peccadillos because she does not want him to leave her. Reluctant at first the young woman succumbs to the older man's lechery who, along with his wife, escorts her around their social haunts in a charade of respectability, deflecting suspicion and gossip about the ménage à trois. As with all Merchant-Ivory films this too has stunning production values capturing a time and place that no longer exists. While Adjani received an acting award at the Cannes film festival it is both Bates and Smith who walk away with the film personifying the cold spirit of pre-war England which Rhys alludes to in her novel.
Montana Moon (Malcolm St. Clair, 1930) 2/10
A wacky socialite (Joan Crawford) falls in love and gets married to a hick cowboy (Johnnie Mack Brown) but they clash over their very different friends and lifestyles. They decide to divorce when she dances an erotic tango with her sleazy former boyfriend (Ricardo Cortez) but she gets kidnapped by a masked bandit. Corny, creaky film has an animated Crawford paired opposite the unbelievably dull Brown.
The Bolshoi Ballet (Paul Czinner, 1957) 7/10
Czinner directs the dazzling prima ballerina Galina Ulanova of the Bolshoi ballet during a performance of Giselle at Covent Garden. Nominated for an Oscar for its music score.
Devil and the Deep (Marion Gering, 1932) 8/10
Pity Hollywood neglected Tallulah Bankhead who was in the same class as Garbo and Dietrich. She was a "difficult" personality but always extremely memorable in the few films she made. She spins both Cary Grant and Gary Cooper around her fingers while married to a sadistic Charles Laughton who plays a submarine commander. The ending is a doozy as the submarine sinks and Cooper leads a mutiny against a crazed Laughton. Bankhead swims out of the sunk submarine dressed in a Travis Banton evening gown. Cooper is stiff but Bankhead, Laughton and a very young Grant are superb. Great melodrama.
Children of Divorce (Frank Lloyd, 1927) 6/10
Flapper (Clara Bow) rejects her poor lover (Einar Hanson) and steals the rich boyfriend (Gary Cooper) of her best friend (Esther Ralston) causing misery for everyone which evdntuslly leads to tragedy. Both Bow and Ralston are very good with Cooper a stiff co-star. An anti-divorce melodrama.
The Trespasser (Edmund Goulding, 1929) 7/10
Gloria Swanson's first talkie and she is superb (winning an Academy Award nomination) in this predictable melodrama about a woman sacrificing her love for a life spent raising their child all by herself.
Souls For Sale (Rupert Hughes, 1923) 8/10
Fascinating silent film about Hollywood and filmmaking that manages to cover a host of genres from comedy to drama to melodrama to suspense and action. A woman (Eleanor Boardman) escapes from her husband on her honeymoon by jumping off a train and literally finds herself on a movie set where she catches the eye of the director (Richard Dix). While he goes about making her into a huge star she is suddenly confronted by her husband who is now wanted for being a serial killer. The film not only shows in great detail how films and stars were created during the silent era but is also an exposé of the film world's real and perceived transgressions. A who's who of silent cinema appear in cameos - Charles Chaplin, Erich von Stroheim (shown directing "Greed"), Mae Busch, Barbara La Marr, Lew Cody, William Haines, Fred Niblo, Jean Hersholt, Zasu Pitts, June Mathis, Aileen Pringle, Blanche Sweet, Bessie Love, Anna Q. Nilsson, Florence Vidor, King Vidor and Patsy Ruth Miller. The film's apocalyptic finale followed by Dix urging Boardman to act her heart out as everything burns around her hilariously proves the old adage that "the show must go on".
Africa sotto i mari / Woman of the Red Sea (Giovanni Roccardi, 1953) 4/10
B-film that provided Sophia Loren her first starring role. It is like a National Geographics documentary as it explores the flaura and fauna of the Red Sea. An industrialist forcibly gets his daughter (Sophia Loren) aboard his yacht in order to get her away from her suitor. The ship is on an expedition to the Red Sea to make a film about the underwater world. Loren, with huge hips and a dark tan, is the whole show as she moves around with barely anything on while swimming and exploring underwater and getting into assorted dangerous scrapes. Lovely colour cinematography.
Remember the Day (Henry King, 1941) 4/10
Elderly school teacher (Claudette Colbert), while waiting to meet a former student now a Presidential candidate, recalls her life as a teacher getting involved in the lives of the children and finding love with a fellow teacher (John Payne). The two stars make this sentimental film bearable.
The Truth About Youth (William A. Deiter, 1930) 4/10
An old bachelor (Conway Tearle) wants his irresponsible ward (David Manners) to marry their housekeeper's vivacious daughter (Loretta Young). However, the impulsive young man runs off and gets married to a cabaret dancer (Myrna Loy) who then kicks him out when she finds he has no money of his own. Meanwhile the young lady surprises the old bachelor with her decision to marry a man she loved all along. Interesting stars with Loy hilariously bitchy when she dumps Manners. Slow film.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Wallace Worsley, 1923) 10/10
Epic film version of Victor Hugo's classic novel was Universal studio's most successful silent film of 1923. The role of Quasimodo, the hunchback, has been played by many famous stars in sound films - Charles Laughton, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Hopkins - but it was Lon Chaney and his iconic performance that set the tone for the other actors to follow. Chaney was known as the man of a thousand faces due to the elaborate makeup he put on to play grotesque characters in many films. The story revolves around the deaf, half-blind hunchback bell ringer at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in 15th century Paris, his infatuation with the kind and beautiful gypsy dancer (Patsy Ruth Miller) who is the adopted daughter of the city's beggar king (Ernest Torrence). She is loved by the dashing Captain of the guards (Norman Kerry) who comes to her rescue when Quasimodo, goaded on by his evil master, kidnaps her. When the hunchback is sentenced to be lashed she comes to his help. Impressive spectacle has romance, huge sets, a cast of thousands, melodrama and a memorable finalé. Chaney, playing a truly repulsive character manages to imbue him with a great deal of sympathy and is the heart and soul of this film.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
The 300 Spartans (Rudolph Maté, 1962) 4/10
Tonight or Never (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931) 4/10
King Richard and the Crusaders (David Butler, 1954) 4/10
Hats Off (Boris Petroff, 1936) 1/10
Night After Night (Archie Mayo, 1932) 7/10
The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg, 1941) 4/10
They Call It Sin (Thornton Freeland, 1932) 5/10
The Bandit of Zhobe (John Gilling, 1959) 5/10
Call Me Madam (Walter Lang, 1953) 6/10
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (Henry Hathaway, 1935) 6/10
Call Her Savage (John Francis Dillon, 1932) 8/10
The Plastic Age (Wesley Ruggles, 1925) 1/10
La ragazza di Bube / Bebo's Girl (Luigi Comencini, 1964) 4/10
No, No Nanette (Herbert Wilcox, 1940) 2/10
Crossroads (Jack Conway, 1942) 5/10
Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend (Robert Moresco, 2022) 4/10
Ineffectual if straight forward biography of Italian entrepreneur Ferruccio Lamborghini played by Romano Reggiani when young and by Frank Grillo during his later years. The screenplay follows his life from the manufacturing of tractors at the start of his career, to creating military vehicles during World War II, and then on to designing and building the Lamborghini cars. His rivalry with Enzo Ferrari (Gabriel Byrne in a silent cameo) is a constant in his life while his private life is a shambles - first wife dies in childbirth, the second (a miscast Mira Sorvino) suffers through his womanizing, and his son is ignored. More than his life the film holds more attraction for its lovely location work shot in Umbria, Italy.
The Wonder (Sebastián Lelio, 2022) 7/10
Frightening parable involving brain washed religious fanaticism in 1860s rural Ireland which sadly still holds true in many parts of the world. An English nurse (Florence Pugh) arrives in Ireland and is tasked by elders of the community to watch over an 11-year old girl who has not had any food for four months. The watch is conducted by the nurse and a nun who are then to report their findings. The deeply religious girl, robust and full of health, continues life with great energy saying she is sustained by "manna from heaven". After sometime the nurse deduces what has been taking place and becomes privy to some shocking information divulged by the girl. The elders of the village, including the local priest (Ciarán Hinds) and doctor (Toby Jones), refuse to believe the nurse when she explains what has been going on. Meanwhile deprived from the company of her mother and sister the young girl's health suddenly starts deteriorating and despite pleading with the parents to feed the child they ignore the anguished nurse who is then forced to take drastic action to save the child from death. Slow but gripping psychological drama is a subtle deportation on faith and skepticism and how religion can entail abuse. The film is grounded by the superb central performance by Florence Pugh who commands the screen from start to finish.
Vikram Vedha (Pushkar–Gayathri, 2017) 8/10
The Tamil original which was recently remade by Bollywood as a vehicle for Hrithik Roshan (Vedha) and Saif Ali Khan (Vikram). Critically acclaimed film is a cat-and-mouse game between honest cop Vikram (R. Madhavan) - who sees life strictly in black and white - and gangster Vedha (Vijay Sethupathi) - who believes in the grey. The latter walks into the police station and gives himself up and relates to the former three stories which gradually changes the cop's perception about good and evil. Tautly written thriller manages to sustain suspense right to the end as the stories being related gradually fit all the pieces of the puzzle together. Both stars won Filmfare awards.
Jerry & Marge Go Large (David Frankel, 2022) 7/10
Charming fact-based caper comedy about a retired production line manager (Bryan Cranston) who finds a flaw in a lottery and ends up betting and winning. When his wife (Annette Bening) and many in their small town join their funds the winnings increase by huge amounts. Along the way the elderly couple learn to bond again as lovers. Cranston and Bening make a cute couple making this extremely goofy premise stick.
A Woman of Paris (Charles Chaplin, 1923) 9/10
Highly unusual film for Chaplin who went out of his comfort zone as a comedian and directed (but did not act in) this drama. It was a starring vehicle for his frequent co-star (and lover) Edna Purviance which due to its boxoffice failure proved to be the beginning of the end of her career. However, it boosted the career and sophisticated image of Adolphe Menjou who is charming as her rich and elegant protector. The story begins with her eloping with her poor artist boyfriend (Carl Miller) from their small french village but circumstances make them part and she ends up alone in Paris where she attracts the attention of a rich playboy who makes her his mistress and keeps her in luxury. When after a year she runs into her old boyfriend their love is rekindled but their relationship is thwarted by his disapproving mother. Memorable film has bold themes, features depth of character rare for the period, underplayed acting and assured direction by Chaplin who many years later wrote a memorable new music score for the film.
Tonight or Never (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931) 4/10
King Richard and the Crusaders (David Butler, 1954) 4/10
Hats Off (Boris Petroff, 1936) 1/10
Night After Night (Archie Mayo, 1932) 7/10
The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg, 1941) 4/10
They Call It Sin (Thornton Freeland, 1932) 5/10
The Bandit of Zhobe (John Gilling, 1959) 5/10
Call Me Madam (Walter Lang, 1953) 6/10
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (Henry Hathaway, 1935) 6/10
Call Her Savage (John Francis Dillon, 1932) 8/10
The Plastic Age (Wesley Ruggles, 1925) 1/10
La ragazza di Bube / Bebo's Girl (Luigi Comencini, 1964) 4/10
No, No Nanette (Herbert Wilcox, 1940) 2/10
Crossroads (Jack Conway, 1942) 5/10
Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend (Robert Moresco, 2022) 4/10
Ineffectual if straight forward biography of Italian entrepreneur Ferruccio Lamborghini played by Romano Reggiani when young and by Frank Grillo during his later years. The screenplay follows his life from the manufacturing of tractors at the start of his career, to creating military vehicles during World War II, and then on to designing and building the Lamborghini cars. His rivalry with Enzo Ferrari (Gabriel Byrne in a silent cameo) is a constant in his life while his private life is a shambles - first wife dies in childbirth, the second (a miscast Mira Sorvino) suffers through his womanizing, and his son is ignored. More than his life the film holds more attraction for its lovely location work shot in Umbria, Italy.
The Wonder (Sebastián Lelio, 2022) 7/10
Frightening parable involving brain washed religious fanaticism in 1860s rural Ireland which sadly still holds true in many parts of the world. An English nurse (Florence Pugh) arrives in Ireland and is tasked by elders of the community to watch over an 11-year old girl who has not had any food for four months. The watch is conducted by the nurse and a nun who are then to report their findings. The deeply religious girl, robust and full of health, continues life with great energy saying she is sustained by "manna from heaven". After sometime the nurse deduces what has been taking place and becomes privy to some shocking information divulged by the girl. The elders of the village, including the local priest (Ciarán Hinds) and doctor (Toby Jones), refuse to believe the nurse when she explains what has been going on. Meanwhile deprived from the company of her mother and sister the young girl's health suddenly starts deteriorating and despite pleading with the parents to feed the child they ignore the anguished nurse who is then forced to take drastic action to save the child from death. Slow but gripping psychological drama is a subtle deportation on faith and skepticism and how religion can entail abuse. The film is grounded by the superb central performance by Florence Pugh who commands the screen from start to finish.
Vikram Vedha (Pushkar–Gayathri, 2017) 8/10
The Tamil original which was recently remade by Bollywood as a vehicle for Hrithik Roshan (Vedha) and Saif Ali Khan (Vikram). Critically acclaimed film is a cat-and-mouse game between honest cop Vikram (R. Madhavan) - who sees life strictly in black and white - and gangster Vedha (Vijay Sethupathi) - who believes in the grey. The latter walks into the police station and gives himself up and relates to the former three stories which gradually changes the cop's perception about good and evil. Tautly written thriller manages to sustain suspense right to the end as the stories being related gradually fit all the pieces of the puzzle together. Both stars won Filmfare awards.
Jerry & Marge Go Large (David Frankel, 2022) 7/10
Charming fact-based caper comedy about a retired production line manager (Bryan Cranston) who finds a flaw in a lottery and ends up betting and winning. When his wife (Annette Bening) and many in their small town join their funds the winnings increase by huge amounts. Along the way the elderly couple learn to bond again as lovers. Cranston and Bening make a cute couple making this extremely goofy premise stick.
A Woman of Paris (Charles Chaplin, 1923) 9/10
Highly unusual film for Chaplin who went out of his comfort zone as a comedian and directed (but did not act in) this drama. It was a starring vehicle for his frequent co-star (and lover) Edna Purviance which due to its boxoffice failure proved to be the beginning of the end of her career. However, it boosted the career and sophisticated image of Adolphe Menjou who is charming as her rich and elegant protector. The story begins with her eloping with her poor artist boyfriend (Carl Miller) from their small french village but circumstances make them part and she ends up alone in Paris where she attracts the attention of a rich playboy who makes her his mistress and keeps her in luxury. When after a year she runs into her old boyfriend their love is rekindled but their relationship is thwarted by his disapproving mother. Memorable film has bold themes, features depth of character rare for the period, underplayed acting and assured direction by Chaplin who many years later wrote a memorable new music score for the film.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) 6/10
Spielberg goes back to his childhood (played by Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord as a kid and Gabriel LaBelle as a 16-year old) in this memory piece and we get to see how he discovered movies and how the flickering medium turned into his passion. We also get to meet his parents - his engineer dad (Paul Dano) and housewife mom (Michelle Williams) trapped in an imperfect marriage, his sisters who participated in the early home movies he shot, and his assorted jewish relatives who are portrayed in a comical and grotesque manner - not unlike how Woody Allen portrayed members of his own family in Annie Hall (1977) and Radio Days (1987). While the film is worth a watch to see how it all started for Spielberg (it's autobiographical in a "loosely based" manner) it is rather shocking how pundits are predicting that this will win the director his third Oscar with the film to follow suit as the year's best. Far from it. Williams is good as the emotionally fragile mom who has a secret agenda which is discovered by her son via his movie camera. This is minor Spielberg as he takes a bit of a detour to show where the wunderkind came from.
Tár (Todd Field, 2022) 8/10
Field builds his screenplay around a highly disciplined symphony conductor (Cate Blanchett), who like a chameleon is adept at camouflaging her life, keeping the internal hidden while creating a witty (almost snarky) external persona that shifts according to the situation at hand. The film also vividly depicts how abuse of power can totally destroy careers often with the use of social media as a tool which keeps a celebrity constantly under scrutiny and in the public eye. Lydia Tár is viewed almost in a clinical way - the film almost seems like a documentary at times - as she goes about her career, teaching students in class, and interacting with her wife (Nina Hoss) and child. She refuses to let the facade crumble when a young woman, her former lover whom she blacklists, commits suicide and there are accusations of predatory behaviour and the casting couch with a slew of young potential female musicians she hires for the orchestra. A ferocious Blanchett dominates the film like a sleek panther as she goes about quietly manipulating everyone around her with power bringing on a sense of entitlement which allows her to blindly crash through people and life. The film makes marvelous use of its production design - her spacious modern apartment alone is something to see - and cinematography. Field uses numerous shots of Blanchett's car racing through a tunnel which obviously is meant to symbolize something which unfortunately I failed to get.
Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976) 10/10
Paddy Chayevsky's biting screenplay is not only laugh-out-loud hilarious but is frighteningly close to the crazy reality of today's world. This is Lumet's finest moment as he directs four of his actors to go completely over-the-top - Ned Beatty as a god-like network supremo, Robert Duvall as a tv network programming head, Peter Finch as a news anchor who receives visions and, on the verge of a complete breakdown, becomes the toast of the failing network as an angry prophet live on air who's (now) iconic catchphrase is, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore", and Faye Dunaway as the ruthlessly ambitious chief of programs who sees in the crazy Finch a means to boost ratings and is even very willing to see him kill himself on air in order to win high ratings for the network. These epic characters are superbly balanced by equally over-the-top yet moving soap opera sequences involving William Holden who plays the veteran news division President - his loveless affair with Dunaway and his later confession about it to his distraught wife (Beatrice Straight) are sequences that allow an almost washed-up Holden (by then a miserable alcoholic) to shine bright once more. The wicked and overloaded screenplay manages a lot more in its dissection of ills in the world - sexism and ageism, upper-middle-class anomy and capitalist exploitation, psychics and revolutionary ripoffs, and the failure to communicate on a human level. Highly acclaimed film famously lost the Oscar to Rocky but won richly deserved awards for Finch, Dunaway, Straight and Chayefsky while Lumet, Holden, Ned Beatty, the editing and cinematography of Owen Roizman were all nominated. A classic film not to be missed.
Uunchai (Sooraj Barjatya, 2022) 8/10
Barjatya moves out of house and hearth for the first time in a long while but retains the Rajishri production house's usual time-tested themes of family and friendship. The heartwarming screenplay takes on the form of a travelogue as three elderly friends - a famous writer (Amitabh Bachchan), a shopkeeper (Anupam Kher) and a businessman (Boman Irani) - take on the task of a trek to the Everest base camp. This was the long gestating plan of their dear friend (Danny Denzongpa) who suddenly passed away before the trek could be undertaken. With great reluctance the three friends decide to go ahead with the plan in memory of their departed friend. The film, consisting of their very funny and never ending banter, is a trip that covers Agra (we get a glimpse of the Taj), Kanpur, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Kathmandu and the trek by foot all the way to the Everest base camp. The film is overlong - encompassing sad moments involving selfish children (shades of "Make Way For Tomorrow" and "Baghban") and disappointed family members (Kher's brothers during the trio's stopover at their haveli) - but still manages to entertain. The three leads are all very good and get superb support from Neena Gupta as Irani's delightfully tart-tongued wife, Sarika as a mysterious passenger they take along on the trip and Parineeti Chopra as the chirpy trek guide. Nafisa Ali makes a cameo appearance as Bachchan's estranged wife. A film with old school values is a celebration about friendship which Barjatya superbly conveys in very simple terms. Kudos to the cinematography which captures the superb location work in Nepal.
Cobalt Blue (Sachin Kundalkar, 2022) 6/10
Picture postcard views of Kerala and its distinct colonial architecture stand out in this soap opera about a young gay literature student (Neelay Mehendale) and his non-conformist sister (Anjali Sivaraman) who both fall in love with and are jilted by their mysterious paying guest (Prateik Babbar). It is an orthodox Marathi household where the parents are hell bent on ensuring their hockey mad daughter gets married. When the younger son falls in love with the guest he is overcome with feelings long suppressed. However, he gets the shock of his life when the gyest runs off with his sister who subsequently returns home after he leaves her too. The resulting chaos in the family is offset by the feelings - each very different - which the siblings both go through. Sad but wiser both end up moving on in life. Bittersweet memory piece looks at first love and its shattering aftermath. Both leads give stiff self concious performances while Babbar, as the sexy enigma, is vivid in his small part - his character acting as a catalyst for the siblings to find what they are searching for in life. The story is based on director Sachin Kundalkar's novel which he adapted himself.
Sita Ramam (Hanu Raghavapudi, 2022) 6/10
This extremely overlong Telugu film takes it's romantic and strife-ridden cue from Mani Ratnam's Roja (1992) - an intense love story set during the Kashmir insurgency. The screenplay follows, in non-linear fashion, the story about an orphan soldier (Dulquer Salmaan) serving on the Kashmir border in 1965 who, helped by a radio newscaster, ends up getting letters from hundreds of sympathetic people. One letter catches his eye. It is from a girl called Sita (Mrunal Thakur) who professes love and so the lovestruck soldier makes it his mission to find her. This premise is counterbalanced by a character twenty years later - a rabid Pakistani (Rashmika Mandanna) who hates Indians and who is tasked by her late grandfather, a Pakistani Army officer, to deliver a letter written in the past by an Indian officer to a woman named Sita. Reluctantly she goes to India in order to find Sita and in the process learns about the orphan soldier. Long rambling film is beautifully shot but since Kashmir is the backdrop and a Pakistani character involved we get typical scenes that do the usual needful mischief - creating a feeling of hatred between both countries and a laughable justification of why Kashmiris are up in arms against the Indian army. As with most dubbed films this too loses much in nuance which the Hindi dialogue cannot convey with accuracy. The film is one of the highest grossing Indian films of last year and has received great acclaim for the lead actors.
The Dawning (Robert Knights, 1988) 6/10
A young girl (Rebecca Pidgeon) comes of age via her friendship with an IRA gunman (Anthony Hopkins) who has escaped from prison. Set during the period of the "Irish Troubles" the film focuses on an Anglo-Irish family - young school girl who lives with her aunt (Jean Simmons) and grandfather (Trevor Howard) and is infatuated with a young family friend (Hugh Grant). Exquisitely filmed on location the film has a Merchant-Ivory vibe. This was Pidgeon's film debut and Howard's final film as he died shortly after production ended. The pre-Hannibal Lecter Hopkins has great chemistry with Pidgeon.
Love Hostel (Shanker Raman, 2022) 7/10
Bollywood goes Tarantino in this blood soaked chase thriller. The "Love Hostel" is a safehouse for eloping lovers who have decided to go ahead and get married against the wishes of their "loved" ones. The court books them in for a week allowing their kin to come, forgive and give their blessings. The couple here in question - a Muslim butcher (Vikrant Massey) and his affluent, smart-mouthed Hindu wife (Sanya Malhotra) - go on the run when her MLA grandmother hires a ruthless honour-killing criminal (Bobby Deol) to get them. When advised by a cop to accept the marriage the old lady interjects that the foolish girl chose "Eid" over "Diwali" hence she deserves to be killed. Raman's screenplay makes pointed digs at the current climate in India under PM Modi's rule which is not conducive to minorities and in particular Muslims. Fast moving film retains suspense right till its chilling climax.
Spielberg goes back to his childhood (played by Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord as a kid and Gabriel LaBelle as a 16-year old) in this memory piece and we get to see how he discovered movies and how the flickering medium turned into his passion. We also get to meet his parents - his engineer dad (Paul Dano) and housewife mom (Michelle Williams) trapped in an imperfect marriage, his sisters who participated in the early home movies he shot, and his assorted jewish relatives who are portrayed in a comical and grotesque manner - not unlike how Woody Allen portrayed members of his own family in Annie Hall (1977) and Radio Days (1987). While the film is worth a watch to see how it all started for Spielberg (it's autobiographical in a "loosely based" manner) it is rather shocking how pundits are predicting that this will win the director his third Oscar with the film to follow suit as the year's best. Far from it. Williams is good as the emotionally fragile mom who has a secret agenda which is discovered by her son via his movie camera. This is minor Spielberg as he takes a bit of a detour to show where the wunderkind came from.
Tár (Todd Field, 2022) 8/10
Field builds his screenplay around a highly disciplined symphony conductor (Cate Blanchett), who like a chameleon is adept at camouflaging her life, keeping the internal hidden while creating a witty (almost snarky) external persona that shifts according to the situation at hand. The film also vividly depicts how abuse of power can totally destroy careers often with the use of social media as a tool which keeps a celebrity constantly under scrutiny and in the public eye. Lydia Tár is viewed almost in a clinical way - the film almost seems like a documentary at times - as she goes about her career, teaching students in class, and interacting with her wife (Nina Hoss) and child. She refuses to let the facade crumble when a young woman, her former lover whom she blacklists, commits suicide and there are accusations of predatory behaviour and the casting couch with a slew of young potential female musicians she hires for the orchestra. A ferocious Blanchett dominates the film like a sleek panther as she goes about quietly manipulating everyone around her with power bringing on a sense of entitlement which allows her to blindly crash through people and life. The film makes marvelous use of its production design - her spacious modern apartment alone is something to see - and cinematography. Field uses numerous shots of Blanchett's car racing through a tunnel which obviously is meant to symbolize something which unfortunately I failed to get.
Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976) 10/10
Paddy Chayevsky's biting screenplay is not only laugh-out-loud hilarious but is frighteningly close to the crazy reality of today's world. This is Lumet's finest moment as he directs four of his actors to go completely over-the-top - Ned Beatty as a god-like network supremo, Robert Duvall as a tv network programming head, Peter Finch as a news anchor who receives visions and, on the verge of a complete breakdown, becomes the toast of the failing network as an angry prophet live on air who's (now) iconic catchphrase is, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore", and Faye Dunaway as the ruthlessly ambitious chief of programs who sees in the crazy Finch a means to boost ratings and is even very willing to see him kill himself on air in order to win high ratings for the network. These epic characters are superbly balanced by equally over-the-top yet moving soap opera sequences involving William Holden who plays the veteran news division President - his loveless affair with Dunaway and his later confession about it to his distraught wife (Beatrice Straight) are sequences that allow an almost washed-up Holden (by then a miserable alcoholic) to shine bright once more. The wicked and overloaded screenplay manages a lot more in its dissection of ills in the world - sexism and ageism, upper-middle-class anomy and capitalist exploitation, psychics and revolutionary ripoffs, and the failure to communicate on a human level. Highly acclaimed film famously lost the Oscar to Rocky but won richly deserved awards for Finch, Dunaway, Straight and Chayefsky while Lumet, Holden, Ned Beatty, the editing and cinematography of Owen Roizman were all nominated. A classic film not to be missed.
Uunchai (Sooraj Barjatya, 2022) 8/10
Barjatya moves out of house and hearth for the first time in a long while but retains the Rajishri production house's usual time-tested themes of family and friendship. The heartwarming screenplay takes on the form of a travelogue as three elderly friends - a famous writer (Amitabh Bachchan), a shopkeeper (Anupam Kher) and a businessman (Boman Irani) - take on the task of a trek to the Everest base camp. This was the long gestating plan of their dear friend (Danny Denzongpa) who suddenly passed away before the trek could be undertaken. With great reluctance the three friends decide to go ahead with the plan in memory of their departed friend. The film, consisting of their very funny and never ending banter, is a trip that covers Agra (we get a glimpse of the Taj), Kanpur, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Kathmandu and the trek by foot all the way to the Everest base camp. The film is overlong - encompassing sad moments involving selfish children (shades of "Make Way For Tomorrow" and "Baghban") and disappointed family members (Kher's brothers during the trio's stopover at their haveli) - but still manages to entertain. The three leads are all very good and get superb support from Neena Gupta as Irani's delightfully tart-tongued wife, Sarika as a mysterious passenger they take along on the trip and Parineeti Chopra as the chirpy trek guide. Nafisa Ali makes a cameo appearance as Bachchan's estranged wife. A film with old school values is a celebration about friendship which Barjatya superbly conveys in very simple terms. Kudos to the cinematography which captures the superb location work in Nepal.
Cobalt Blue (Sachin Kundalkar, 2022) 6/10
Picture postcard views of Kerala and its distinct colonial architecture stand out in this soap opera about a young gay literature student (Neelay Mehendale) and his non-conformist sister (Anjali Sivaraman) who both fall in love with and are jilted by their mysterious paying guest (Prateik Babbar). It is an orthodox Marathi household where the parents are hell bent on ensuring their hockey mad daughter gets married. When the younger son falls in love with the guest he is overcome with feelings long suppressed. However, he gets the shock of his life when the gyest runs off with his sister who subsequently returns home after he leaves her too. The resulting chaos in the family is offset by the feelings - each very different - which the siblings both go through. Sad but wiser both end up moving on in life. Bittersweet memory piece looks at first love and its shattering aftermath. Both leads give stiff self concious performances while Babbar, as the sexy enigma, is vivid in his small part - his character acting as a catalyst for the siblings to find what they are searching for in life. The story is based on director Sachin Kundalkar's novel which he adapted himself.
Sita Ramam (Hanu Raghavapudi, 2022) 6/10
This extremely overlong Telugu film takes it's romantic and strife-ridden cue from Mani Ratnam's Roja (1992) - an intense love story set during the Kashmir insurgency. The screenplay follows, in non-linear fashion, the story about an orphan soldier (Dulquer Salmaan) serving on the Kashmir border in 1965 who, helped by a radio newscaster, ends up getting letters from hundreds of sympathetic people. One letter catches his eye. It is from a girl called Sita (Mrunal Thakur) who professes love and so the lovestruck soldier makes it his mission to find her. This premise is counterbalanced by a character twenty years later - a rabid Pakistani (Rashmika Mandanna) who hates Indians and who is tasked by her late grandfather, a Pakistani Army officer, to deliver a letter written in the past by an Indian officer to a woman named Sita. Reluctantly she goes to India in order to find Sita and in the process learns about the orphan soldier. Long rambling film is beautifully shot but since Kashmir is the backdrop and a Pakistani character involved we get typical scenes that do the usual needful mischief - creating a feeling of hatred between both countries and a laughable justification of why Kashmiris are up in arms against the Indian army. As with most dubbed films this too loses much in nuance which the Hindi dialogue cannot convey with accuracy. The film is one of the highest grossing Indian films of last year and has received great acclaim for the lead actors.
The Dawning (Robert Knights, 1988) 6/10
A young girl (Rebecca Pidgeon) comes of age via her friendship with an IRA gunman (Anthony Hopkins) who has escaped from prison. Set during the period of the "Irish Troubles" the film focuses on an Anglo-Irish family - young school girl who lives with her aunt (Jean Simmons) and grandfather (Trevor Howard) and is infatuated with a young family friend (Hugh Grant). Exquisitely filmed on location the film has a Merchant-Ivory vibe. This was Pidgeon's film debut and Howard's final film as he died shortly after production ended. The pre-Hannibal Lecter Hopkins has great chemistry with Pidgeon.
Love Hostel (Shanker Raman, 2022) 7/10
Bollywood goes Tarantino in this blood soaked chase thriller. The "Love Hostel" is a safehouse for eloping lovers who have decided to go ahead and get married against the wishes of their "loved" ones. The court books them in for a week allowing their kin to come, forgive and give their blessings. The couple here in question - a Muslim butcher (Vikrant Massey) and his affluent, smart-mouthed Hindu wife (Sanya Malhotra) - go on the run when her MLA grandmother hires a ruthless honour-killing criminal (Bobby Deol) to get them. When advised by a cop to accept the marriage the old lady interjects that the foolish girl chose "Eid" over "Diwali" hence she deserves to be killed. Raman's screenplay makes pointed digs at the current climate in India under PM Modi's rule which is not conducive to minorities and in particular Muslims. Fast moving film retains suspense right till its chilling climax.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Death of a Cyclist (1955) - 8/10 - Two members of Spain's upper class are having an affair. On the way home from a tryst, they hit a bicyclist and instead of helping him, flee the scene fearing discovery of their affair. Juan is deeply affected by this and gives the matter a lot of thought. Maria Jose is more interested in self preservation. It's a nice film.
A Wednesday (2008) - 8/10 - A police commissioner who is retiring remembers a case involving a man who called him to inform him of bombs planted around the city. It's pretty entertaining.
Friday Foster (1975) - 7.5/10 - Pam Grier stars as photographer Friday Foster and an assignment at the airport leads to murders and a conspiracy that puts her life in danger. It's a fun film, though I think that I still enjoyed the comic strip a bit more.
Alice in the Cities (1974) - 8/10 - A West German journalist is traveling through the U.S., taking tons of photographs and staying at cheap motels. He's running out of money and seems rather tired of the journey so he heads back home. At the airport he translates for and befriends a woman and her 9 year old daughter. When the mother takes off, he ends up on a journey to get the girl to her grandmother. Nice performances from the man and the girl in a pretty good road movie.
Causeway (2022) - 8/10 - Jennifer Lawrence stars as a soldier who is recovering from a brain injury suffered due to an IED injury in Afghanistan. She makes a friend in an auto mechanic (Brian Tyree Henry) who is still dealing with his own trauma. This is a very slow movie, but I enjoyed it and the performances from both Lawrence and Henry are very good.
Pitfall (1962) - 8/10 - A miner is traveling with his son and looking for work when he is ambushed and killed. His ghost lingers and watches further events unfold, unable to have any impact. The film is well told and effective.
A Wednesday (2008) - 8/10 - A police commissioner who is retiring remembers a case involving a man who called him to inform him of bombs planted around the city. It's pretty entertaining.
Friday Foster (1975) - 7.5/10 - Pam Grier stars as photographer Friday Foster and an assignment at the airport leads to murders and a conspiracy that puts her life in danger. It's a fun film, though I think that I still enjoyed the comic strip a bit more.
Alice in the Cities (1974) - 8/10 - A West German journalist is traveling through the U.S., taking tons of photographs and staying at cheap motels. He's running out of money and seems rather tired of the journey so he heads back home. At the airport he translates for and befriends a woman and her 9 year old daughter. When the mother takes off, he ends up on a journey to get the girl to her grandmother. Nice performances from the man and the girl in a pretty good road movie.
Causeway (2022) - 8/10 - Jennifer Lawrence stars as a soldier who is recovering from a brain injury suffered due to an IED injury in Afghanistan. She makes a friend in an auto mechanic (Brian Tyree Henry) who is still dealing with his own trauma. This is a very slow movie, but I enjoyed it and the performances from both Lawrence and Henry are very good.
Pitfall (1962) - 8/10 - A miner is traveling with his son and looking for work when he is ambushed and killed. His ghost lingers and watches further events unfold, unable to have any impact. The film is well told and effective.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
The Vagabond King (Ludwig Berger & Ernst Lubitsch, 1930) 6/10
Extremely rare American Pre-Code musical operetta film which was originally photographed entirely in two-color Technicolor although the version I saw was in black and white. The story, set in France during the middle ages, is about the real-life renegade French poet François Villon (Dennis King) who at the behest of the King (O. P. Heggie) gets to rule France for a day. The King wants the beggar-poet to enlist the help of the peasants against his upcoming battle against the Burgundians. He does that but also writes derogatory verses about the king for which he is sentenced to hang. Along the way he is loved by a tavern wench (Lillian Roth) and a high-born girl (Jeanette MacDonald) whom he pines for. Oscar nominated for Art Direction.
Friends and Lovers (Victor Schertzinger, 1931) 7/10
A love triangle between two men (Adolph Menjou & Laurence Olivier) and a woman (Lily Damita) while her wicked husband (Erich von Stroheim) seemingly lures his wife into affairs with men in order to blackmail them afterwards. Is the wife really betraying her lovers? Both men eventually discover the truth. Creaky but enjoyable melodrama with both Menjou and Olivier, as fellow army officers, discovering to their anger that they have both bern two-timed by the woman they love. Friendship, brotherhood and selflessness come into question while Lily Damita slinks about in her tight fitting, low cut pre-code outfits. Great fun.
Tovarich (Anatole Litvak, 1937) 4/10
Russian Prince (Charles Boyer) and his Grand Duchess wife (Claudette Colbert) escape the revolution and find refuge in Paris as destitute servants in the home of a wealthy man (Melville Cooper) and his addled wife (Isabel Jeans). They refuse to touch the Czar's fortune of which they are secretly caretakers until suddenly recognised by a Soviet Commissar (Basil Rathbone). The rather corny story - based on a play by Robert E. Sherwood and on a french play by Jacques Deval - has the two delightful stars straining for laughs in this comedy which came in the wake of far better "servant" oriented films like If You Could Only Cook (1935) with Herbert Marshall and Jean Arthur, and My Man Godfrey (1936) with William Powell and Carole Lombard. Both Melville Cooper and Isabel Jeans steal the film from under Colbert's left-side face profile.
Donatella (Mario Monicelli, 1956) 6/10
The delightful Elsa Martinelli won the acting prize at the Berlin Film Festival. She plays the innocent daughter of a lower class bookbinder (Aldo Fabrizi), with a gas station attendant as a boyfriend (Walter Chiari), who through chance finds herself employed at the house of a rich woman for whom she did a good deed. Through her job as secretary and caretaker of a huge house she gets to enter high society and catches the eye of a rich and sophisticated man (Gabriele Ferzetti) while hobnobbing with Xavier Cugat and his sexy wife Abbe Lane. Minor effort from Monicelli has the winning Martinelli, the superb jazzy numbers performed by Abbie Lane, and lovely Rome locations shot in colour by Tonino Delli Colli.
The Last Days of Pompeii (Ernest B. Schoedsack & Merian C. Cooper, 1935) 6/10
Vesuvius erupts but only during the last ten minutes or so. The rest of it involves a gentle blacksmith (Preston Foster) who is forced to become a ruthless gladiator in the arena and his son who dicovers the charms of Christianity. Jesus gets condemned by Pontius Pilate (Basil Rathbone) who feels guilty afterwards. Surprisingly great special effects once the volcano explodes and an earthquake destroys Pompeii.
I am a Camera (Henry Cornelius, 1955) 10/10
In pre-war Berlin writer Christopher Isherwood (Laurence Harvey) befriends Sally Bowles (the marvelous Julie Harris), a kooky British singer working in a seedy nightclub. Her madcap, forceful personality (surely an inspiration later for Truman Capote's Holly Golightly) is an antidote to the threat of the sinister rise of the Nazis. Superb adaptation of the Broadway play with Harris recreating her Tony winning performance and Harvey matching her every step of the way. The material was brilliantly reworked years later on Broadway and then adapted again on film as Cabaret. This straight version is just as great as the later musical.
Yolanda and the Thief (Vincente Minnelli, 1945) 1/10
Probably the only MGM musical that is unbearable to sit through. A vanity project by producer Arthur Freed for his mistress Lucille Bremer. The studio gives her the full MGM treatment - never ending closeups in glorious candy-coloured Technicolor, glamourous clothes, an A-list director and Fred Astaire as co-star. Pity they forgot the script - a silly story about a young naive heiress (Lucille Bremer), just out of a convent, who encounters a con man (Fred Astaire) who she thinks is her guardian angel. Extremely corny film with an endless dream ballet in the middle with the entire film shot on very fake looking sets. The scenes with Astaire dancing with Bremer are the best but there is no story at all. Frank Morgan and Mildred Natwick try to liven things up with comedy but hardly make a dent. Slow moving film is visually striking but is over produced and pretty much a disaster.
Sins of Jezebel (Reginald Le Borg, 1953) 2/10
Low budget biblical drama. The ageing King of Israel falls in love with and gets married to the scheming pagan Jezebel (Paulette Goddard). The Prophet Elijah, who had warned the king, froths at the mouth as she introduces her own pagan idol thus angering God who wreaks havoc in the form of drought in Israel. Meanwhile the sly woman keeps her old husband at bay and seduces the young Captain of the Guard (George Nader). Cheesy film is totally devoid of camp with a miscast Godard. Nader is stiff in an underwritten part.
Garden of the Moon (Busby Berkeley, 1938) 5/10
Ruthless manager (Pat O'Brien) of a nightclub is angry to settle for an unknown band to play at his venue when Rudy Vallee has an accident and cancels his musical engagement. His secretary (Margaret Lindsay) books an unknown band from New York led by a handsome orchestra leader (John Payne) who ends up clashing with the obnoxious manager. Frantic comedy-musical has Payne falling in love with Lindsay as the two men play cat-and-mouse trying to do each other in. O'Brien is very funny as he tries to pull a fast one over everyone in order to get his own way. Despite Busby Berkeley's direction this overlong film has no large scale musical numbers.
The Gay Parisian (Jean Negulesco, 1941) 10/10
Negulesco's dazzling Oscar nominated short film has the Ballet Russe company performing Léonide Massine's choreography in stunning colour led by Massine himself playing a Peruvian tourist in Paris.
Indiscreet (Leo McCarey, 1931) 2/10
Silly bedroom farce, like most early talkies, is static and dull. Sophisticated woman (Gloria Swanson) dumps her philandering boyfriend who then hooks up with her innocent younger sister. While trying to break them up she tries to keep her past indiscretion from her current boyfriend (Ben Lyon). Swanson sings three songs but its all very tedious despite her attempts at comedy as well.
Prison Ship (Arthur Dreifuss, 1945) 6/10
Allied prisoners on board a Japanese freighter is used as a decoy to get hit by American submarines in the vicinity. A revolt by the prisoners soon puts an end to the plan by the Japanese to get rid of civilians at the hands of the Americans. Extremely low budget film is tautly directed and surprisingly very effective as it depicts the horrific way the Japanese treated prisoners. Nina Foch is top billed as a feisty reporter holding key information against the Japanese.
Zarak (Terence Young, 1956) 6/10
It's fascinating, funny and annoying to see how wrong Hollywood can get when portraying a far-off ethnic character. Time and again I've noticed how incorrectly a Muslim has been portrayed especially in early Hollywood films. Here we are during the British Raj - the 1870s - in the North West Frontier Province of India set amongst the Afghans and ethnic Pathans. Anita Ekberg - a blonde european - remains just that - a blonde european. She plays a pathan woman of Afghan origin and is costumed in a see-through skirt showing her legs, a bare midriff above which her ample breasts are seen almost struggling to burst out of her bra-like top. Hello.....what happened to the veil and cloth covering the entire body which today the Western world criticises and abhors? That's how traditional Muslim women have always dressed - covered from head to foot. There was (and to a large extent still is) zero research into how a Muslim person is portrayed as Hollywood invariably gets it wrong. Victor Mature - of Samson fame - is Zarak Khan, an Aghan bandit who along with his kinsmen has the British in a spin. He is relentlessly pursued by a stiff-upper-lipped Major (Michael Wilding) and by Salma (Anita Ekberg) who is actually his father's youngest wife. Between battling with the British enemy and being lasciviously kissed by his super sexy step mother the poor man has his hands full. Deep down he is a gentleman as we see him save the Major's girlfriend (Eunice Gayson - a future Bond girl) from rape and other dastardly deeds at the hands of his fellow bandits. Pure hokum, contrived and politically incorrect the film is still great fun especially due to the voluptuous Ekberg who was at her most seductive and beautiful on and off the dance floor. And speaking of not getting it right - Hollywood always gets the portrayal of the Muslim prayer wrong with men flapping their arms above their heads, prostating and bowing in continuous motion while uttering gibberish which is passed off as Arabic verses from the Quran. It's insulting and ridiculous that something so easy to "get" through simple research is so lazily put together.
Hoopla (Frank Lloyd, 1933) 6/10
A carnival owner (Preston Foster) loses his son to the charms of a cheap but tough hooch dancer (Clara Bow). Bow is the whole show here and it's amazing that this was her last film before she retired because she had great charisma. What is shocking is that she was only 28. The dress she wears in the last scene has to be seen to be believed.
Extremely rare American Pre-Code musical operetta film which was originally photographed entirely in two-color Technicolor although the version I saw was in black and white. The story, set in France during the middle ages, is about the real-life renegade French poet François Villon (Dennis King) who at the behest of the King (O. P. Heggie) gets to rule France for a day. The King wants the beggar-poet to enlist the help of the peasants against his upcoming battle against the Burgundians. He does that but also writes derogatory verses about the king for which he is sentenced to hang. Along the way he is loved by a tavern wench (Lillian Roth) and a high-born girl (Jeanette MacDonald) whom he pines for. Oscar nominated for Art Direction.
Friends and Lovers (Victor Schertzinger, 1931) 7/10
A love triangle between two men (Adolph Menjou & Laurence Olivier) and a woman (Lily Damita) while her wicked husband (Erich von Stroheim) seemingly lures his wife into affairs with men in order to blackmail them afterwards. Is the wife really betraying her lovers? Both men eventually discover the truth. Creaky but enjoyable melodrama with both Menjou and Olivier, as fellow army officers, discovering to their anger that they have both bern two-timed by the woman they love. Friendship, brotherhood and selflessness come into question while Lily Damita slinks about in her tight fitting, low cut pre-code outfits. Great fun.
Tovarich (Anatole Litvak, 1937) 4/10
Russian Prince (Charles Boyer) and his Grand Duchess wife (Claudette Colbert) escape the revolution and find refuge in Paris as destitute servants in the home of a wealthy man (Melville Cooper) and his addled wife (Isabel Jeans). They refuse to touch the Czar's fortune of which they are secretly caretakers until suddenly recognised by a Soviet Commissar (Basil Rathbone). The rather corny story - based on a play by Robert E. Sherwood and on a french play by Jacques Deval - has the two delightful stars straining for laughs in this comedy which came in the wake of far better "servant" oriented films like If You Could Only Cook (1935) with Herbert Marshall and Jean Arthur, and My Man Godfrey (1936) with William Powell and Carole Lombard. Both Melville Cooper and Isabel Jeans steal the film from under Colbert's left-side face profile.
Donatella (Mario Monicelli, 1956) 6/10
The delightful Elsa Martinelli won the acting prize at the Berlin Film Festival. She plays the innocent daughter of a lower class bookbinder (Aldo Fabrizi), with a gas station attendant as a boyfriend (Walter Chiari), who through chance finds herself employed at the house of a rich woman for whom she did a good deed. Through her job as secretary and caretaker of a huge house she gets to enter high society and catches the eye of a rich and sophisticated man (Gabriele Ferzetti) while hobnobbing with Xavier Cugat and his sexy wife Abbe Lane. Minor effort from Monicelli has the winning Martinelli, the superb jazzy numbers performed by Abbie Lane, and lovely Rome locations shot in colour by Tonino Delli Colli.
The Last Days of Pompeii (Ernest B. Schoedsack & Merian C. Cooper, 1935) 6/10
Vesuvius erupts but only during the last ten minutes or so. The rest of it involves a gentle blacksmith (Preston Foster) who is forced to become a ruthless gladiator in the arena and his son who dicovers the charms of Christianity. Jesus gets condemned by Pontius Pilate (Basil Rathbone) who feels guilty afterwards. Surprisingly great special effects once the volcano explodes and an earthquake destroys Pompeii.
I am a Camera (Henry Cornelius, 1955) 10/10
In pre-war Berlin writer Christopher Isherwood (Laurence Harvey) befriends Sally Bowles (the marvelous Julie Harris), a kooky British singer working in a seedy nightclub. Her madcap, forceful personality (surely an inspiration later for Truman Capote's Holly Golightly) is an antidote to the threat of the sinister rise of the Nazis. Superb adaptation of the Broadway play with Harris recreating her Tony winning performance and Harvey matching her every step of the way. The material was brilliantly reworked years later on Broadway and then adapted again on film as Cabaret. This straight version is just as great as the later musical.
Yolanda and the Thief (Vincente Minnelli, 1945) 1/10
Probably the only MGM musical that is unbearable to sit through. A vanity project by producer Arthur Freed for his mistress Lucille Bremer. The studio gives her the full MGM treatment - never ending closeups in glorious candy-coloured Technicolor, glamourous clothes, an A-list director and Fred Astaire as co-star. Pity they forgot the script - a silly story about a young naive heiress (Lucille Bremer), just out of a convent, who encounters a con man (Fred Astaire) who she thinks is her guardian angel. Extremely corny film with an endless dream ballet in the middle with the entire film shot on very fake looking sets. The scenes with Astaire dancing with Bremer are the best but there is no story at all. Frank Morgan and Mildred Natwick try to liven things up with comedy but hardly make a dent. Slow moving film is visually striking but is over produced and pretty much a disaster.
Sins of Jezebel (Reginald Le Borg, 1953) 2/10
Low budget biblical drama. The ageing King of Israel falls in love with and gets married to the scheming pagan Jezebel (Paulette Goddard). The Prophet Elijah, who had warned the king, froths at the mouth as she introduces her own pagan idol thus angering God who wreaks havoc in the form of drought in Israel. Meanwhile the sly woman keeps her old husband at bay and seduces the young Captain of the Guard (George Nader). Cheesy film is totally devoid of camp with a miscast Godard. Nader is stiff in an underwritten part.
Garden of the Moon (Busby Berkeley, 1938) 5/10
Ruthless manager (Pat O'Brien) of a nightclub is angry to settle for an unknown band to play at his venue when Rudy Vallee has an accident and cancels his musical engagement. His secretary (Margaret Lindsay) books an unknown band from New York led by a handsome orchestra leader (John Payne) who ends up clashing with the obnoxious manager. Frantic comedy-musical has Payne falling in love with Lindsay as the two men play cat-and-mouse trying to do each other in. O'Brien is very funny as he tries to pull a fast one over everyone in order to get his own way. Despite Busby Berkeley's direction this overlong film has no large scale musical numbers.
The Gay Parisian (Jean Negulesco, 1941) 10/10
Negulesco's dazzling Oscar nominated short film has the Ballet Russe company performing Léonide Massine's choreography in stunning colour led by Massine himself playing a Peruvian tourist in Paris.
Indiscreet (Leo McCarey, 1931) 2/10
Silly bedroom farce, like most early talkies, is static and dull. Sophisticated woman (Gloria Swanson) dumps her philandering boyfriend who then hooks up with her innocent younger sister. While trying to break them up she tries to keep her past indiscretion from her current boyfriend (Ben Lyon). Swanson sings three songs but its all very tedious despite her attempts at comedy as well.
Prison Ship (Arthur Dreifuss, 1945) 6/10
Allied prisoners on board a Japanese freighter is used as a decoy to get hit by American submarines in the vicinity. A revolt by the prisoners soon puts an end to the plan by the Japanese to get rid of civilians at the hands of the Americans. Extremely low budget film is tautly directed and surprisingly very effective as it depicts the horrific way the Japanese treated prisoners. Nina Foch is top billed as a feisty reporter holding key information against the Japanese.
Zarak (Terence Young, 1956) 6/10
It's fascinating, funny and annoying to see how wrong Hollywood can get when portraying a far-off ethnic character. Time and again I've noticed how incorrectly a Muslim has been portrayed especially in early Hollywood films. Here we are during the British Raj - the 1870s - in the North West Frontier Province of India set amongst the Afghans and ethnic Pathans. Anita Ekberg - a blonde european - remains just that - a blonde european. She plays a pathan woman of Afghan origin and is costumed in a see-through skirt showing her legs, a bare midriff above which her ample breasts are seen almost struggling to burst out of her bra-like top. Hello.....what happened to the veil and cloth covering the entire body which today the Western world criticises and abhors? That's how traditional Muslim women have always dressed - covered from head to foot. There was (and to a large extent still is) zero research into how a Muslim person is portrayed as Hollywood invariably gets it wrong. Victor Mature - of Samson fame - is Zarak Khan, an Aghan bandit who along with his kinsmen has the British in a spin. He is relentlessly pursued by a stiff-upper-lipped Major (Michael Wilding) and by Salma (Anita Ekberg) who is actually his father's youngest wife. Between battling with the British enemy and being lasciviously kissed by his super sexy step mother the poor man has his hands full. Deep down he is a gentleman as we see him save the Major's girlfriend (Eunice Gayson - a future Bond girl) from rape and other dastardly deeds at the hands of his fellow bandits. Pure hokum, contrived and politically incorrect the film is still great fun especially due to the voluptuous Ekberg who was at her most seductive and beautiful on and off the dance floor. And speaking of not getting it right - Hollywood always gets the portrayal of the Muslim prayer wrong with men flapping their arms above their heads, prostating and bowing in continuous motion while uttering gibberish which is passed off as Arabic verses from the Quran. It's insulting and ridiculous that something so easy to "get" through simple research is so lazily put together.
Hoopla (Frank Lloyd, 1933) 6/10
A carnival owner (Preston Foster) loses his son to the charms of a cheap but tough hooch dancer (Clara Bow). Bow is the whole show here and it's amazing that this was her last film before she retired because she had great charisma. What is shocking is that she was only 28. The dress she wears in the last scene has to be seen to be believed.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) 10/10
At the end of David Lean's "Ryan's Daughter" the dull schoolmaster (Robert Mitchum) and his adulterous and disgraced wife (Sarah Miles) leave their small Irish village together for an undisclosed future in Dublin. Now suppose they did not leave and instead stayed on in the village with the wife deciding to suddenly stop speaking to her husband because she declares that he is too dull for her. This is the premise (minus the bit about adultery) in McDonagh's vivid portrait about two lifelong friends and the decision of the older one (Brendan Gleeson) to suddenly stop speaking to the younger one (Colin Farrell). The latter, at first bemused, takes the separation very badly and insists on getting to the truth of his friend's drastic action. He is finally bluntly told that he wants to concentrate on his music and no longer wishes to waste time with him. To the young man's angry sister (Kerry Condon) he confesses that he finds her brother excruciatingly dull so wants nothing more to do with him. The conflict takes on an unexpected violent turn after the older man threatens to do something drastic if he is not left alone. The deeply felt screenplay balances both laughter and pain with equal measure. The setting - a windswept, desolate, blatantly patriarchal little island with rocky cliffs off the coast of Ireland - mirrors that in the film by Lean. Whereas the Irish troubles were starting out in Lean's story here in 1923 it is in full bloom but only on the mainland where cannon and gun fire can be heard at a distance. Here too there is a village idiot (Barry Keoghan) - the local cop's much abused son - but not quite like the one (John Mills) in Lean's film. Superbly acted film - Farrell at his hangdog best, Gleeson in full-on gruff mode, the dazzling Condon who is a mini life force and Keoghan who, despite his shortcomings, is sharply perceptive and delightfully in tune with his eccentric character. Kudos also to the score by Carter Burwell and the cinematography by Ben Davis which captures the stunning imagery of the countryside in great detail.
Red Sundown (Jack Arnold, 1956) 4/10
Notorious gunslinger (Rory Calhoun) decides to go straight and takes on an offer from a sheriff (Dean Jagger) to become his deputy. He clashes with a crooked landowner and a cocky gunslinger. Martha Hyer is wasted as the prim love interest while Calhoun's wife, Lita Baron, plays his former lover who is now the mistress of the landowner. Rather dull B-western with a plot that's been done to death.
At the end of David Lean's "Ryan's Daughter" the dull schoolmaster (Robert Mitchum) and his adulterous and disgraced wife (Sarah Miles) leave their small Irish village together for an undisclosed future in Dublin. Now suppose they did not leave and instead stayed on in the village with the wife deciding to suddenly stop speaking to her husband because she declares that he is too dull for her. This is the premise (minus the bit about adultery) in McDonagh's vivid portrait about two lifelong friends and the decision of the older one (Brendan Gleeson) to suddenly stop speaking to the younger one (Colin Farrell). The latter, at first bemused, takes the separation very badly and insists on getting to the truth of his friend's drastic action. He is finally bluntly told that he wants to concentrate on his music and no longer wishes to waste time with him. To the young man's angry sister (Kerry Condon) he confesses that he finds her brother excruciatingly dull so wants nothing more to do with him. The conflict takes on an unexpected violent turn after the older man threatens to do something drastic if he is not left alone. The deeply felt screenplay balances both laughter and pain with equal measure. The setting - a windswept, desolate, blatantly patriarchal little island with rocky cliffs off the coast of Ireland - mirrors that in the film by Lean. Whereas the Irish troubles were starting out in Lean's story here in 1923 it is in full bloom but only on the mainland where cannon and gun fire can be heard at a distance. Here too there is a village idiot (Barry Keoghan) - the local cop's much abused son - but not quite like the one (John Mills) in Lean's film. Superbly acted film - Farrell at his hangdog best, Gleeson in full-on gruff mode, the dazzling Condon who is a mini life force and Keoghan who, despite his shortcomings, is sharply perceptive and delightfully in tune with his eccentric character. Kudos also to the score by Carter Burwell and the cinematography by Ben Davis which captures the stunning imagery of the countryside in great detail.
Red Sundown (Jack Arnold, 1956) 4/10
Notorious gunslinger (Rory Calhoun) decides to go straight and takes on an offer from a sheriff (Dean Jagger) to become his deputy. He clashes with a crooked landowner and a cocky gunslinger. Martha Hyer is wasted as the prim love interest while Calhoun's wife, Lita Baron, plays his former lover who is now the mistress of the landowner. Rather dull B-western with a plot that's been done to death.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
She Said (Maria Schrader, 2022) 4/10
The facts of this story are informative, disturbing and horrifying but the presentation of it all pretty much falls flat on the screen. There are far too many repetitious scenes of the two New York Times reporters (Carey Mulligan & Zoe Kazan) knocking on doors trying to get frightened women to talk. The investigation involved exposing Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's history of abuse and sexual misconduct against women which after the exposé led to the MeToo movement. It starts with a tip received that actress Rose McGowan was sexually assaulted by Weinstein and bit by bit the reporters managed to meet frightened women - actresses, secretaries, office assistants - who had come under fire courtesy of the notorious producer. Actresses Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow speak out against their encounters with Weinstein which took place under the pretext of business meetings where he outright propositioned them for sex. Jennifer Ehle, in a cameo, is very good as one of the women badly scarred after her encounter with the sexual predator. Unlike two other cinematic journalistic investigative pieces - the pulse-pounding "All the President's Men" & the Oscar-winning "Spotlight" - this one feels rote. One gets the importance of what is being exposed but its presented in a manner that is very slow and dull.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Roan Johnson, 2022) 4/10
A writer. Agatha Christie. A mystery. Murder. The detective. Hercule Poirot. Movie adaptations with an all-star cast. High audience expectations. Rian Johnson's reboot with master detective Benoit Blanc allows a now craggy Daniel Craig to segue from one movie franchise (James Bond) to another (Knives Out). I was not a fan of Knives Out and this sequel, trying hard to be clever, just sputters along. At least the first film had a comparatively better "all-star" cast keeping *that* expectation high. Here we get what is clearly a more or less (give or take a two) B-grade cast (David Bautista - really?) playing crass characters in what is a boring, if colorful, rehash of "The Last of Sheila", "Murder By Death", and ofcourse Christie mysteries - in particular "And Then There Were None", from which this film steals a major plot device. A group of friends are invited to a greek island by a billionaire (Edward Norton) who plans on hosting a murder-mystery weekend with himself as the victim and with clues scattered across the island for the guests to discover and solve. Well things don't quite go according to plan although there are a number of deaths, red herrings galore, a long mid-plot flashback, lots of scurrying about, a kick-ass explosion and Nat King Cole sings "Mona Lisa" while the lady burns. I did like Janelle Monáe's costumes but certainly didn't think she is Oscar material as being touted in some quarters. And there is going to be part 3 of this franchise coming up in 2024.
Murder She Wrote: South By Southwest (Anthony Shaw, 1997) 6/10
Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), enroute to a conference in El Paso on a train, finds that her dinner companion (Mel Harris) mysteriously disappears. An homage to Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes" & "North By Northwest", although here the plot, in addition to involving an assassination, also finds the detective playing cat and mouse with the FBI as she tries to find her friend and navigate herself carefully around various people searching for a chip holding national security information. Lansbury is delightful in the first of four tv movies that came after her iconic series came to an end. Most of the film is set on a moving train where danger and death lurks.
The facts of this story are informative, disturbing and horrifying but the presentation of it all pretty much falls flat on the screen. There are far too many repetitious scenes of the two New York Times reporters (Carey Mulligan & Zoe Kazan) knocking on doors trying to get frightened women to talk. The investigation involved exposing Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's history of abuse and sexual misconduct against women which after the exposé led to the MeToo movement. It starts with a tip received that actress Rose McGowan was sexually assaulted by Weinstein and bit by bit the reporters managed to meet frightened women - actresses, secretaries, office assistants - who had come under fire courtesy of the notorious producer. Actresses Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow speak out against their encounters with Weinstein which took place under the pretext of business meetings where he outright propositioned them for sex. Jennifer Ehle, in a cameo, is very good as one of the women badly scarred after her encounter with the sexual predator. Unlike two other cinematic journalistic investigative pieces - the pulse-pounding "All the President's Men" & the Oscar-winning "Spotlight" - this one feels rote. One gets the importance of what is being exposed but its presented in a manner that is very slow and dull.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Roan Johnson, 2022) 4/10
A writer. Agatha Christie. A mystery. Murder. The detective. Hercule Poirot. Movie adaptations with an all-star cast. High audience expectations. Rian Johnson's reboot with master detective Benoit Blanc allows a now craggy Daniel Craig to segue from one movie franchise (James Bond) to another (Knives Out). I was not a fan of Knives Out and this sequel, trying hard to be clever, just sputters along. At least the first film had a comparatively better "all-star" cast keeping *that* expectation high. Here we get what is clearly a more or less (give or take a two) B-grade cast (David Bautista - really?) playing crass characters in what is a boring, if colorful, rehash of "The Last of Sheila", "Murder By Death", and ofcourse Christie mysteries - in particular "And Then There Were None", from which this film steals a major plot device. A group of friends are invited to a greek island by a billionaire (Edward Norton) who plans on hosting a murder-mystery weekend with himself as the victim and with clues scattered across the island for the guests to discover and solve. Well things don't quite go according to plan although there are a number of deaths, red herrings galore, a long mid-plot flashback, lots of scurrying about, a kick-ass explosion and Nat King Cole sings "Mona Lisa" while the lady burns. I did like Janelle Monáe's costumes but certainly didn't think she is Oscar material as being touted in some quarters. And there is going to be part 3 of this franchise coming up in 2024.
Murder She Wrote: South By Southwest (Anthony Shaw, 1997) 6/10
Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), enroute to a conference in El Paso on a train, finds that her dinner companion (Mel Harris) mysteriously disappears. An homage to Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes" & "North By Northwest", although here the plot, in addition to involving an assassination, also finds the detective playing cat and mouse with the FBI as she tries to find her friend and navigate herself carefully around various people searching for a chip holding national security information. Lansbury is delightful in the first of four tv movies that came after her iconic series came to an end. Most of the film is set on a moving train where danger and death lurks.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Bus 174 (2002) - 8/10 - In June 2000, a young man with a gun took a number of people on a bus hostage and threatened to kill them. This led to a standoff with police that lasted for many hours. The police appeared somewhat incompetent and didn't control the crowds so the news media was very close to the action and broadcast events live. The documentary interviews some of the survivors as well as police and the aunt of the young man, giving plenty of background and depth to the story.
The Pearl Button (2015) - 8/10 - A very nice documentary with excellent visuals, often revolving around water in its various forms. It also does a good job discussing the fate of the indigenous people of Patagonia.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) - 8/10 - The sequel takes place around 15 years after the end of the first film. Humans return to Pandora and Jake Sully leads the resistance against them. I liked the film about as much as the first one and it was enjoyable. The visual effects were very good.
Sonatine (1993) - 8/10 - A veteran yakuza member who is contemplating retirement is sent to deal with a feud between rival gangs. He soon finds out that there was another reason that he was sent away on this mission. There is a lot of dark humor in the film which I enjoyed.
Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me (2022) - 9/10 - A very intimate and raw look into the world of Selena Gomez. The film starts around 2015/2016 and we get to see Selena's struggles with mental health and also physical issues dealing with lupus, having a kidney transplant, etc. Selena visits the school she attended and the home that she grew up in. She also takes a trip to Kenya to visit the school that she helped support. Endless interviews take their toll on her. It's an excellent film, even going in not having very much familiarity with Gomez other than knowing that she is a singer and actress. She seems like a very good, but vulnerable person.
The Pearl Button (2015) - 8/10 - A very nice documentary with excellent visuals, often revolving around water in its various forms. It also does a good job discussing the fate of the indigenous people of Patagonia.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) - 8/10 - The sequel takes place around 15 years after the end of the first film. Humans return to Pandora and Jake Sully leads the resistance against them. I liked the film about as much as the first one and it was enjoyable. The visual effects were very good.
Sonatine (1993) - 8/10 - A veteran yakuza member who is contemplating retirement is sent to deal with a feud between rival gangs. He soon finds out that there was another reason that he was sent away on this mission. There is a lot of dark humor in the film which I enjoyed.
Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me (2022) - 9/10 - A very intimate and raw look into the world of Selena Gomez. The film starts around 2015/2016 and we get to see Selena's struggles with mental health and also physical issues dealing with lupus, having a kidney transplant, etc. Selena visits the school she attended and the home that she grew up in. She also takes a trip to Kenya to visit the school that she helped support. Endless interviews take their toll on her. It's an excellent film, even going in not having very much familiarity with Gomez other than knowing that she is a singer and actress. She seems like a very good, but vulnerable person.