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

[Reza]

The Miracle of the Bells (Irving Pichel, 1948) 7/10

A saccharine premise surprisingly works as most of the screenplay revolves around the life of a struggling actress (Alida Valli) who gets her break in a famous director's (Lee J. Cobb) film version of "Joan of Arc". When she suddenly dies a day after the film finishes shooting the director decides to shelve it. The studio's sly press agent (Fred MacMurray), a close friend of the actress, tries to get the director to release the film. While in a small town to bury her he cooks up a ruse by getting all the churches in the region to ring their bells for her. The ensuing publicity - a result of a "miracle" inside a church - gets the money mad Hollywood executives to finally see reason. The film rests on the shoulders of its charming leading lady who is incandescent throughout. She has great chemistry with MacMurray. A miscast Frank Sinatra is the priest who refutes the "miracle". The film not only propagates hope but celebrates goodness, kindness and understanding in human beings. Forgotten little gem of a film.

[Reza]

Night Unto Night (Don Siegel, 1949) 7/10

Overwrought but very atmospheric psychological melodrama with gothic overtones. It's rather unusual to see an early film by this director who decades later gained prominence with his films for Clint Eastwood. Two people - a scientist (Ronald Reagan) who is suffering from the beginnings of epilepsy and a woman (Viveca Lindfors) haunted by the ghostly presence of her dead husband - find each other as soul mates. He has rented her gothic mansion on a beach in Florida and coming in between them is her oversexed bitchy sister (Osa Massen) and a hurricane brewing over the nearby ocean. This brooding love story is beautifully shot with the camera snaking through the eerie house along its dark corridoors, up and down the huge staircase and over glistening sea water to the music of Franz Waxman. Well acted film has Broderick Crawford in a strong supporting role just before he became a huge star. Reagan got a bum rap all his life for being a bad actor although he was not bad at all as he proves here.

[Reza]

Scandal Sheet (Phil Karlson, 1952) 8/10

Stylish noir based on a novel by Samuel Fuller and beautifully shot in black and white by Burnett Guffey. The managing editor (Broderick Crawford) of a scandal sheet newspaper commits a murder and squirms in growing horror as two of his staff reporters (John Derek & Donna Reed - both very good) get closer and closer to solving the crime. Gripping film is superbly paced and acted with Crawford a standout as the tough boss whose relentless pursuit of stories has inspired his star reporter to do just that and which could end up turning the tables on him. The tough dialogue throughout makes this film a very exciting watch.

[Reza]

The Pyx (Harvey Hart, 1973) 4/10

Low budget Canadian feature is a mash-up of Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" (and its satanic cult) and Pakulla's "Klute" and built around a police procedural. A heroin addicted hooker (Karen Black) is found dead after a fall from the roof of a building. Via flashbacks we get to see how the hooker reaches her terrible end as a detective (Christopher Plummer) investigates if it was suicide or murder. The mystery is not that compelling but Black is fascinating to watch as the tough, high-class call girl battling her addictions. The film's darkly lit cinematography and a leaden pace are also major detriments.

[Reza]

Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman, 2017) 7/10

Visually stunning animated film - with each frame painted in oils - recalls the last few days in the life of tormented Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. The screenplay presents the events in the form of a mystery with a young man who arrives to deliver a letter to Van Gogh's brother who he finds has also died a few weeks after Vincent's death. His interest is piqued when it is suggested that the gun shot that killed the painter was maybe not suicide but murder. Various people who were around Van Gogh during his last days are interviewed and come up with their own theories. The scenes set in the present are full of dramatic colour like Van Gogh's paintings while the flasback sequences depicting the artist are in black and white like charcoal sketches. It was filmed in live action with actors and then each frame was painted (like an oil painting on canvas using the same technique as Van Gogh) and then animated. The film is a visual feast for the eyes. Oscar nominated for best animated film.

[Reza]

Red Sparrow (Francis Lawrence, 2018) 2/10

Nasty spy thriller with full-throttle lashings of nudity, rape, veiled incest, beatings, torture and coldly brutal seduction. In the same vein as "Atomic Blonde" this film creates a cold-blooded killing machine enmeshed in a hairpin plot of twists. A prima ballerina (Jennifer Lawrence) with the Bolshoi ballet cracks her leg in an accident on stage and is forced to take help from her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts) who is a high ranking member of the Russian intelligence. She is inducted into "Sparrow School" ("Uncle you put me in whore school") - a training place for spies run by the cruel and emotionless matron (Charlotte Rampling) - which includes the art of becoming a perfect whore by coldly becoming adept at every form of sexual act - she also learns how to pick locks and manipulate people. Her first assignment is to get close to a CIA agent (Joel Edgerton) in order to find out the identity of the mole who is the American's contact inside Russian intelligence. It's a fantastic set up with a number of twists but unfortunately blandly directed with no energy in any of the scenes. A deadpan Lawrence, wearing a hideous blonde wig, has no chemistry with Edgerton but is surrounded by a great cast also including Joely Richardson as her ailing mother and Jeremy Irons and Ciarín Hinds as high ranking members of the Russian intelligence. Lifeless film goes on and on with no end in sight. Stick to "Atomic Blonde" with kick-ass Charlize Theron and avoid this film like the plague.

[Reza]

London After Midnight (Todd Browning, 1927) 6/10

Legendary classic lost silent film - all prints are deemed lost with the last known print destroyed by fire in an MGM vault in 1967 - is recreated via stills, intertitles, dramatic organ music and the camera moving snake-like across the film's production stills. An aristocrat is found dead of a gunshot wound along with a suicide note. The inspector (Lon Chaney) suspects murder but has no proof. Five years later the dead man's house is leased by a ghoul-like man (also played by Lon Chaney with fake teeth and death-like mask) who has the aristocrat's name and who the neighbor's think is a vampire. When the aristocrat's body goes missing from his tomb the inspector returns and questions the deceased's butler, nephew, friend and daughter and proves murder had been committed. Chaney plays two roles - the straight role of the cop and the over-the-top ghoul which allowed him his fascination for grotesque makeup.

[Reza]

Good Sam (Leo McCarey, 1948) 6/10

McCarey is here in Frank Capra mode. Cooper is the do-gooder who goes beyond the call of duty in his neighborhood much to the consternation of his hapless family. He just doesn't know when to stop with his good deeds. Brittle Ann Sheridan, as his sensible wife, is superb and the two stars play well off each other. Cooper's usual slow-burn style of acting, which is usually always pretty annoying, works well for the character here. There are vivid bits scattered throughout as he interacts with a great supporting cast of character actors.

[Reza]

Bad Words (Jason Bateman, 2013) 7/10

Jason Bateman is so much better than the material he directed in which he also plays the leading role. The thrill for him must have been to play against type - here he is an unrepentant 40-year old asshole who is angry at everyone around him, a far cry from the usual mild mannered losers he is wont to play in films. Using a loophole in the rule book he competes with kids in a National spelling bee contest where he has absolutely no qualms about berating and undermining his fellow competitors all of whom are pre-teen kids. He is similarly obnoxious towards a reporter covering his story and who also happens to be his fuck-buddy. The F-bomb is in continuous motion throughout the screenplay and eventually wears thin - there are so many laughs you can milk by using that word. This is an extremely foul-mouthed and mean-spirited comedy (with quite a few laughs along the way) with rude ethnic zingers about Indian and Chinese kids. The movie comes to life in the scenes between Bateman and a precocious but lonely and neglected 9-year old Indian-American kid who is desperate to befriend him - the montage of them going for a whirl around town in a fast car, visiting bars and hookers is quite far-fetched but is in line with most current American smut comedies so in vogue today. Their relationship holds the key to the angry man's past and the film's end, which in it's predictability, is a bit of a cop-out. The screenplay should have ended on as much of a savage note as the rest of the verbal duels. Bateman is very good and the young child actor (Rohan Chand) is very appealing. With all the misogynistic and racist jokes on display this film must have been a chore to sit through by many anal and self righteous people in the "land of plenty".

[Precious Doll]

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018) Mike Newell 5/10
Good News: Newspaper Salesman, Dead Dogs and Other People from Vienna (1990) Ulrich Seidl 5/10

Repeat viewings

The Old Maid (1939) Edmund Goulding 7/10
House Calls (1978) Howard Zieff 6/10
Carol (2015) Todd Haynes 9/10
The Night of the Following Day (1969) Hubert Cornfield & Richard Boone 6/10
One, Two, Three (1961) Billy Wilder 6/10
One From the Heart (1981) Francis Ford Coppola 4/10
Call Me By Your Name (2017) Luca Guadagnino 9/10
The Naked City (1948) Jules Dassin 6/10
Sebastiane (1976) Paul Humfress & Derek Jarman 7/10
Anatomy of a Murder (1959) Otto Preminger 9/10

[Reza]

The Great Man's Lady (William A. Wellman, 1942) 5/10

Rambling pioneer drama related to a reporter in flashback by an old lady at age 109 years. An uppercrust girl (Barbara Stanwyck) from Philadelphia gets married to an ambitious man (Joel McCrea) and they set out for California to find fame and fortune. Along the way to the top there is tragedy, floods and the death of their kids. Thinking she is dead he gets married and becomes a bigamist and rises up the political ladder while she has an affair with a gambler (Brian Donlevy). The film covers over 70 years of history in 90 minutes making the plot seem rushed and disjointed. Stanwyck has all the best scenes playing the spirited woman who sacrifices her marriage for her husband's new life with another family.

[Reza]

The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci, 2017) 7/10

Very funny black comedy that lampoons Stalinist Russia. It's almost as if the Monty Python team have been resurrected. The Russian leader dies suddenly and his Inner Circle - Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi), Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), the sadistic secret police chief (Simon Russell Beale) among others - flail about in rambunctious fashion trying to plot against each other and seize power. The entire cast is superb - trading wicked barbs - playing bumbling and weak-minded buffoons. Political satire at its slapstick best.

[Reza]

The Unfaithful (Vincent Sherman, 1947) 8/10

Gripping noir is a remake of W. Somerset Maugham's play, "The Letter", but this version goes off in other directions and has a different end to the first two versions which starred Jeanne Eagels in 1929 and Bette Davis in 1940. A socialite (Ann Sheridan) is attacked late at night in her home by an intruder and she stabs him to death in self defence. Distraught she tells the police the man was a stranger and is consoled by her husband (Zachary Scott) and close friend and lawyer (Lew Ayres). When later it emerges that she may have known the dead man she is put on trial for murder. The story is intact with ingredients of a first class noir - murder, lies, deception, blackmail and a femme fatale - only here the screenplay veers off into interesting tangents about life, love and marriage. The extremely underrated Ann Sheridan is superb as the conflicted woman who may or may not be hiding something and Eve Arden as a bitchy but concerned relative is hilarious. This version is not as great as the 1940 version by William Wyler but holds its own as a superb noir.

[Reza]

Internes Can't Take Money (Alfred Santell, 1937) 7/10

Paramount here first brought Dr. Kildare to the screen followed by a series of films by MGM (with Lew Ayres) and much later the hit tv show (with Richard Chamberlain) during the 1960s. Joel McCrea plays the doctor - here an intern - in this "B" melodrama with a plot that centers on Barbara Stanwyck as an ex-con searching for her baby. For a low budget film this is memorably shot in expressionistic style by Theodor Sparkuhl who had honed his skills making german silents for Lubitsch. Tautly directed film with memorable art deco sets - the gleaming white clinic and hospital - sets the tone for a hard hitting melodrama involving several medical procedures, a down and out dame (Barbara Stanwyck) who is willing to steal and sleep with a crook to find her baby, a tough as nails hood (Lloyd Nolan as a precursor to Bogart) and his gang operating under Runyan-esque codes, who come to the rescue. McCrea and Stanwyck's strong screen chemistry holds this little gem of a film together and was the start of several screen teamings for both.

[Reza]

Gaby (Curtis Bernhardt, 1956) 5/10

MGM dusts off it's old property (this is a remake of "Waterloo Bridge", based on the play by Robert E. Sherwood, and already filmed twice before in 1931 and 1940) for their new star - Leslie Caron. In London, during WWII, a french ballerina (Leslie Caron) meets and falls in love with an American G.I. (John Kerr). Due to red tape they cannot get married and he gets shipped off to the front and is later presumed dead. Devasted at the news she thinks her life is over and is reduced to prostitution finding solace in the arms of other soldiers. When he suddenly re-appears and discovers her past the turd hits the fan. Famous tearjerker this time comes to the screen in colour and cinemascope but doesn't hold a candle to the 1940 version. Caron is charming and her french background brings a different flavour to the part played so superbly by Vivien Leigh. John Kerr is too lightweight as a leading man unlike a star with the presence of Robert Taylor who made such a great teaming with Leigh. The material is pretty trite to begin with and save for watching the lovely Caron with her lilting voice and accent this is a pretty ordinary film which seems to have been put out to pasture as it is hardly ever revived.