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

[Reza]

Saddle the Wind (Robert Parrish & John Sturges, 1958) 8/10

Lovely Julie London sings the title tune and comes between two brothers - a retired outlaw turned rancher (Robert Taylor) and his younger trigger happy punk brother (John Cassavetes). Superbly photographed in colour on location in Colorado, the film has the interesting but clashing acting styles of both leads - Taylor's simplistic and Cassavetes' over-the-top method. Things turn grim when the younger brother shoots a hired killer (Charles McGraw), goads and kills a squatter (Royal Dano) and wounds a land baron (Donald Crisp) who is his brother's kindly mentor and business partner. Intelligent little western is marred somewhat by its inserted process shots and an underwritten role for London. However, both leads, the superb supporting cast and a taut screenplay with greek tragedy undertones make this well worth a view.

[Reza]

The Dark Tower (Nikolaj Arcel, 2017) 2/10

Not everything translates well from book to screen and certainly not when a 90 minute movie is adapted from a series of eight books by Stephen King. Also this is such a tacky looking film with lousy special effects with action scenes that hold no sense of awe - just a lot of chases with people shooting at each other as cars crash and buildings burn. A young boy (Tom Taylor) has visions of a Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey with his annoyingly patented Texan drawl - I'm quite sure I heard him say "awlright" which became his silly catch phrase on Oscar night) who seeks to destroy a Tower to bring ruin to the world (King thinks big; nothing less than an apocalypse) and of a gunslinger (Idris Elba) who opposes him. The kid bands with the "cowboy" to bring down the nasty man. The film crams in a lot - at least it moves at a quick pace - the kid travels through a portal to a post-apocalyptic place called Mid-World where the gunslinger seeks revenge from the Man in Black for killing his father (Dennis Haysbert - if you blink or look down at your popcorn you'll miss seeing him). The characters move between this world and NYC where the final confrontation takes place. Jack Earle Hayley appears as one of the villain's minions. McConaughey looks bored striding around killing people and droning his dialogue in a monotonous tone. Elba seems to have wandered off some different project but his character is striking and in command. He gives the film's best performance and it's about time Hollywood gave him something worthwhile to do. Apart from Denzel Washington he's the only gritty black leading man in Hollywood who not only has style but a whole lot of charisma. The kid is a non-entity in a sea of similar white kids populating films of this ilk. Skip this crappy film and hope that Elba gets his hands on some good scripts.

[Precious Doll]

Battle of the Sexes (2017) Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris 6/10
Final Portrait (2017) Stanley Tucci 3/10
Film Without a Name (1948) Rudolf Jugert 6/10
The Love Game (1960) Philippe de Broca 6/10
The Joker (1960) Philippe de Broca 6/10
Honeycomb (1969) Carlos Saura 5/10
The Young Rebel (1963) Seijun Suzuki 6/10
Carmen from Kawachi (1966) Seijun Suzuki 6/10
Seopyeonjie (1993) Kwon-Taek Kim 6/10
Amerika Square (2017) Yannis Sakaridis 5/10
Detective Bureau 23: Down with the Wicked (1963) Seijun Suzuki 7/10
I Am Not Madame Bovary (2016) Xiaogang Feng 4/10

Repeat viewing

Sense and Sensibility (1995) Ang Lee 8/10

[Reza]

Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017) 9/10

This dazzling sequel to Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" is set 30 years after the events in the original. Los Angeles is still a cramped neon lit metropolis being continuously washed down with rain that looks like sludge. Villeneuve takes Scott's original and creates an expansive but deliberately paced film (at two and a half hours it IS long but essentially so) while maintaining the original's stylish but downbeat mood. We are back in 40s noir territory with a trenchcoat wearing replicant / blade runner / detective (Ryan Gosling) on the trail of a mysteriously missing child. Urged on by his boss (a very chic Robin Wright) he follows the trail to the god-like head (Jared Leto) of a Corporation, is chased by the man's evil replicant henchwoman, dallies sexually with a hologram (the future of masturbation for lonely old souls?) and meets up with Deckard (Harrison Ford), living in a massive penthouse above a Las Vegas style amphitheater - Elvis, Marilyn and Sinatra appear in cameos - who holds the key to the puzzle which could have serious repercussions for the future. The action in this film is very minimal - a brief scene of a "retirement", a few killings here and there, a shootout and a struggle to the death between two replicants with the ocean as a backdrop. What this film has instead is atmosphere. Loads of it. Kudos to the team of production and sound designers, the spectacular camerawork of Roger Deakins (after 13 nominations if the Academy does not finally give him an Oscar it will be a huge crime) and a hypnotic score by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch which eerily channels the iconic Vangelis score from the original film. Gosling, as the dead-pan sad sack hero, carries the film with a very physical performance and his scenes with Harrison Ford (superbly gruff) are beautifully played out. The detective's surreal journey is a work of art which bears the mark of Villeneuve's superb direction and his huge team of collaborators. A must-see and a worthy followup to the classic original.

[Reza]

Break of Hearts (Phillip Moeller, 1935) 5/10

Katharine Hepburn is badly miscast - all a quiver and love struck delivering her lines like an amateur - in this soap opera playing an insipid classical music student who falls in love with a famous womanizing orchestra conductor (Charles Boyer). Their marriage falls apart when he dallies with a society dame and she tries to make him jealous by showing an interest in another musician (John Beal). It's all quite ridiculous yet there's a certain fascination in seeing these two great stars paired opposite each other which was pretty unusual to say the least - she requested him after original lead, Francis Lederer, was fired for acting like a diva on set. The music is also a major plus courtesy of Max Steiner. Chick flick 1930s style.

[Reza]

Once is Not Enough (Guy Green, 1975) 2/10

Jacqueline Susann's trashy bestseller about the sex lives of the rich and famous comes to the screen with nary a juicy sex scene and blandly filmed to boot with an ugly and very tacky look to it. As with all such books the story revolves around eccentric and colorful characters who use sex as a means to escape their basically empty and sad lives and this one does not stint on that. There's the washed up film producer (Kirk Douglas) who gets married to a rich heiress (Alexis Smith) who happens to be involved in a lesbian affair with an exotic actress (Melina Mercouri who typically overacts) - the scene where both actresses grope each other seems forced and hence comes off looking hilariously grotesque. The film's main character is the producer's teenage daughter who has a father fixation, loses her virginity to a tanned playboy (who else by George Hamilton) in his bedroom which looks like a bordello and later falls in love with an alcoholic and impotent pulitzer prize winning writer (David Janssen who is the only one who gets to do a nude scene showing his hairy arse) who promptly regains his lost libido. Hovering around this boring lot is a sex maniac magazine editor (Brenda Vaccaro who was inexplicably nominated for an Oscar) who enjoys talking with a blue streak. In fact everyone just talks about sex but for some strange reason the film barely shows any action making this probably the most boring film about sex ever. Trashy novel makes for a bland film. Skip this one.

[Reza]

Gerald's Game (Mike Flanagan, 2017) 8/10

The "game" here is a means by which a husband (Bruce Greenwood) hopes to liven up his flagging marriage and sex life with his wife (Carla Gugino who is superb) by going to their isolated house in the country for the weekend where kinky sex involves handcuffing his wife to the bed. Just when things are about to get rough the man has a coronary attack and drops over dead leaving his wife chained and trapped in bed. Since this is based on Stephen King's novel the plot then becomes a psychological thriller about trauma and survival segueing into horror mode while channeling "The Shining", "Cujo" and "Misery" - a starving stray dog wanders into the bedroom and feasts on the man's dead body while also snapping at her feet, the isolation and dehydration causes the woman to hallucinate whereby the husband's ghostly doppleganger returns to taunt her about her upcoming death while her own doppelganger retaliates in a cool and confident manner as both have long winded discussions about the state of their marriage, flashes of her own childhood bring forth her own self as a child revealing suppressed trauma from the past and also making an appearance is a tall gangly ghoul-like being who seems to have wandered out of "The Silence of the Lambs". Superbly acted by both actors this terrifying film has intense gore with scenes of hacked body parts and a lot of blood in between bouts of non-stop verbal sparring. The film has strong comments to make about the shackles of most marriages and the means to derive enough strength to break free the chains and come up for air to survive.

[Reza]

A Dog's Purpose (Lasse Hallström, 2017) 8/10

This harks back to Lassie and the old Disney films about dogs, is incredibly sentimental and if you are a dog lover then its essential viewing. A dog's purpose in the world is viewed through the life of a Golden Retriever who ends up in the home of Ethan, a young boy, who cares for him until his death. The dog is reincarnated four times living with different owners - as a German Shepherd belonging to a cop, as a Corgi belonging to a lonely female student and finally as an Australian Shepherd / Saint Bernard mix who is mistreated and abandoned by his owners. He manages to not only find his way back to the adult Ethan (Dennis Quaid) but also manages to reunite his master with the girl friend (Peggy Lipton) he broke off with during his college years. Heartwarming film is devastatingly sad each time the dog dies but the story is irresistable in its depiction of the warm and loving bond between a human and a canine. While all the human actors are good the best "acting" in the film is by all the dogs. A must-see for doggy lovers.

[Precious Doll]

The Dancer (2016) Stephanie Di Giusto 2/10
The Hippopotamus (2017) John Hencks 6/10
LA 92 (2017) Daniel Lindsay & T. J. Martin 7/10
Song to Song (2017) Terrence Malick 1/10
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) Denis Villeneuve 8/10

Repeat viewings

Blade Runner (1982) Ridley Scott 10/10 (Director's 2007 Final cut)
Go Tell the Spartans (1978) Ted Post 6/10
Hard Promises (1992) Martin Davidson 4/10
Maurice (1987) James Ivory 10/10
Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970) Jerry Schatzberg 7/10
The Barefoot Contessa (1954) Joseph L. Mankiewicz 7/10

[Reza]

A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies, 2017) 9/10

What on paper sounds dull is actually a heartfelt look at the life of the reclusive U.S. poet Emily Dickinson played with razor sharp wit by the brilliant Cynthia Nixon. The film details the harsh reality for a woman writer living in a patriarchal society where she is not taken seriously because of her sex and which threatens to stifle her voice, creativity and especially her individuality. The remarkable screenplay sounds almost musical as the poet banters with her adored family members and in whom she has taken refuge away from the world due to deep insecurity about her plain looks - her sister (the equally wonderful Jennifer Ehle), her brother (Duncan Duff), her often depressed mother (Joanna Bacon), her stern but accomodating father (Keith Carradine) and her outspoken best friend and confidant (Catherine Bailey who gets the film's best one liners). Lovingly filmed by Terence Davies with great attention to period detail - kudos to the cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister, production designer Merijn Sep and costume designer Catherine Marchand who take great care in creating a world these characters exist in. The film rests on the astounding central performance of Cynthia Nixon - so far removed from "Sex in the City" - as she moves from a young, bright hopeful girl with a sly, cutting wit to sad womanhood with violent rages of anger and despair as she howls at the world around. It easily ranks as one of the great screen performances and deserves to win awards. Througout the film we get to hear snatches of this woman's poetry which speaks her inner most thoughts. A must-see.

[Reza]

When Eight Bells Toll (Etienne Périer, 1971) 6/10

Almost a parody of the Bond films with British agent (Anthony Hopkins), code name "Caroline", and friend and fellow agent (Corin Redgrave) sent by their boss, "Annabelle" (a supercilious Robert Morley in his element, all dripping sarcasm and raised eyebrows), to investigate the disappearance of a ship carrying gold bullion off the coast of Scotland. Soon he is upto his neck in danger as the locals don't take too kindly to his presence, including a rich shipping magnate (Jack Hawkins) embroiled in a bitter marriage to his second and much younger wife (Nathalie Delon) who insists on being called "Charlotte". Based on Alistair MacLean's bestselling novel (and adapted by him) compares unfavorably to the Bond films in being less glamorous. What it has going for it is an intense and very raw Hopkins who plays his part like a street thug - it was one of his first lead roles. The film's bleak but unusual Scottish locations are stunning to look at and it moves at a brisk pace. Morley is very amusing if seeming out of place in the whole enterprise. Good old fashioned film.

[Reza]

A Dog's Purpose (Lasse Hallström, 2017) 8/10

This harks back to Lassie and the old Disney films about dogs, is incredibly sentimental and if you are a dog lover then its essential viewing. A dog's purpose in the world is viewed through the life of a Golden Retriever who ends up in the home of Ethan, a young boy, who cares for him until his death. The dog is reincarnated four times living with different owners - as a German Shepherd belonging to a cop, as a Corgi belonging to a lonely female student and finally as an Australian Shepherd / Saint Bernard mix who is mistreated and abandoned by his owners. He manages to not only find his way back to the adult Ethan (Dennis Quaid) but also manages to reunite his master with the girl friend (Peggy Lipton) he broke off with during his college years. Heartwarming film is devastatingly sad each time the dog dies but the story is irresistable in its depiction of the warm and loving bond between a human and a canine. While all the human actors are good the best "acting" in the film is by all the dogs. A must-see for doggy lovers.

[Reza]

The Man From Yesterday (Berthold Viertel, 1932) 6/10

A young nurse (Claudette Colbert) marries a soldier (Clive Brook) who goes off to the front. When word comes that he is dead she hooks up with a doctor (Charles Boyer) who comforts her and the baby she has had by her husband. And then the husband returns. Soapy plot that became a staple in Bollywood melodramas works due to the intense romantic scenes between Boyer and Colbert. The film is sumptuously produced, beautifully photographed (by Karl Struss) with a chic Colbert looking sensational dressed by Travis Banton in slinky gowns and she has great chemistry with Boyer while Brook is as stiff as ever.

[Reza]

Bridal Suite (Wilhelm Thiele, 1939) 1/10

MGM's pathetic attempt at screwball places Robert Young in a "B" production playing a drunk swinging bachelor who jilts his fiancé on his wedding day for a woman (Annabella) from the Alps. Unfunny situations - with Billie Burke particularly annoying doing her dithering, fluttery act - and the french leading lady who was never very comfortable in Hollywood productions. Young is charming but cannot rise above the trite material. A rare turkey from the studio.

[Reza]

Bedtime Story (Alexander Hall, 1941) 8/10

Fast paced screwball comedy deftly directed by Hall. A successful playwright (Fredric March) tries to prevent his leading lady and wife (Loretta Young) from retiring from the stage. The hilarious plot has her divorcing him, marrying another man and discovering the divorce was illegal and her new marriage may label her as a bigamist. The two stars play well off each other with the manic March creating sparks with lady-like Young who is just as wily as him. The superb supporting cast - Robert Benchley, Helen Westley, Eve Arden, Joyce Compton - help and abet both leads. Sparkling film which easily ranks amongst the top screwball comedies.