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.
Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
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.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Till (Chinonye Chukwu, 2022) 7/10
Autobiographical story about an incident that helped to spawn the civil rights movement. In 1955 the 14-year old son of Mamie Till-Bradley (Danielle Deadwyler) was murdered in Mississippi during the Jim Crow era. Sent down South from Chicago to spend his holidays with his cousins the boy made the innocent but fatal error of whistling at a white woman cashier in her family's grocery store. The boy was picked up at night by the woman's husband and his half brother, abducted, lynched, shot in the head and dumped in a river. When the body was returned to Chicago his mother insisted the funeral be with an open casket so that the world could see how her son was killed due to racial hatred. This focused attention not only on racism but also on the vulnerability of American democracy. The two men were acquitted by an all-white jury and, protected by double jeopardy, admitted to a magazine for a fee that they had tortured and murdered the boy. His bereaved mother spent her remainder life as an activist to gain support for the cause of racial justice. Moving film rests on the shoulders of Deadwyler who gives a heartwrenching performance. Whoopi Goldberg, in addition to producing the film, also plays the victim's grandmother. Still hard to believe that only a few decades ago citizens of the United States were subjected to such violence and hatred based on the colour of one's skin.
Black Adam (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2022) 2/10
Good Lord not another one who can fly. They are like cockroaches. Lift a rock and a new one comes out. Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson), like "The Mummy", is awakened by a group of archaeologists from a 5,000 year-old slumber to come free the nation of Kahndaq from the crime syndicate Intergang. Don't ask. It's the usual superhero saga - this one is from the DC universe and a spin-off to "Shazam". Here an ancient crown is the object which everyone is after as it allows the owner to be a supreme power which is confiscated by an annoying kid with an accent who whizzes around on a skateboard. The Rock....err, Black Adam flies, stops bullets with his body, walks through concrete walls and wrestles with flying airplanes. Other superheros and characters from the DC universe appear - Hawkman, Viola Davis, Superman (Henry Cavill), Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan). Lots of noise and CGI effects in this very boring entry.
Emancipation (Antoine Fuqua, 2022) 6/10
Fuqua presents black slave genocide in the form of an action-thriller with the main character - based on an actual slave from the 1860s - acting almost like a superhero as he escapes from a plantation in Louisiana and runs through swamps in the direction of President Lincoln's army. Fed up with being constantly beaten and degraded, and hearing that Lincoln has declared all slaves to be freed, makes a run for it when he sees his chance. In pursuit is the Nazi-like white overseer (Ben Foster) who is relentless in his attempt to capture the slave. The journey is fraught with danger - at one point he is attacked by and wrestles with an alligator under water - and has numerous open wounds on his body. The film segues from an escape saga into a war film showing a ferocious battle between the North and South. A number of critics have derided the film saying it manipulates emotions by getting too graphic. Well if the Holocaust can be shown on film time and again in graphic detail this genocide deserves to be also shown with every bit of brutality intact. We need to see this so we never forget what man was (and still is) capable of doing to his own specie. Having said that there is really nothing new here in that we have seen all of this before. Many times. Robert Richardson shoots the film in bleached-out monochrome with flashes of flames shot in colour not unlike how Spielberg presented colour in "Schindler's List". Smith, returning to the screen after his slapping skirmish at the Oscars earlier this year, underplays throughout while speaking almost in hushed tones - probably to disguise the Creole accent which comes and goes.
Four Guns to the Border (Richard Carlson, 1954) 7/10
This B western gets a high doze of sexuality courtesy of Colleen Miller playing the nubile young daughter of old cowpoke Walter Brennan. There are a surprising number of sexually charged moments between the wide-eyed ingenue, dripping wet in a skimpy nightgown, and the perpetually scowling and surly Rory Calhoun. A gang of four (Calhoun, George Nader, John McIntyre, Jay Silverheels), aimlessly committing petty crimes, run across an old gunfighter (Walter Brennan) and his daughter (Colleen Miller) who are on their way to their homestead in Indian territory. There is a bank robbery which leads to a showdown where Indians are involved and which in turn brings out the humanity in all the main characters changing their perspective about life. Tautly directed film gets a boost from Russell Metty's cinematography who uses light in inventive ways especially during a storm sequence. Miller, who made very few films, has remarkable screen presence and has great chemistry with Calhoun. Interesting little film.
Dead For a Dollar (Walter Hill, 2022) 7/10
Good to see Hill back in the saddle. He dedicates the film to the great Budd Boetticher who helmed many great B westerns during the 1950s. This too is a B with a plot as old as the hills - man hires a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) to bring back his abducted wife (Rachel Brosnahan). This plot regurgitation was played out years ago so brilliantly in Richard Brooks' classic "The Professionals". However, one is so starved for films in this genre that it becomes a cause for celebration when one halfway decent film turns up. It is but a given that the wife was never abducted. She left on her own accord with a black army deserter to escape her crooked husband who finds his honour and pride wounded. There are also other characters saddling the screenplay - Willem Dafoe as a gambler and horse thief just out of prison who has a bone to pick with the bounty hunter who put him in prison and Benjamin Bratt as a rich landowner who moonlights as a vicious bandit. Both characters will end up coming against the bounty hunter. Hill does not move away from tradition and familiar tropes of the genre and shoots in an almost languid manner which adds layers to the familiar screenplay. The widescreen cinematography across the Santa Fe desert locations in Mexico along with an unintrusive music score add gravitas to the film and to the inevitable showdown at the end which 80-year old Hill superbly orchestrates.
Thick as Thieves (Scott Sanders, 1998) 5/10
After a heist a professional Chicago thief (Alec Baldwin) gets double crossed by a rising Detroit kingpin (Michael Jai White) but turns the tables on the two crooked cops sent to get him. A vendetta ensues between the two while a cop (Rebecca De Mornay), investigating the murder of the two cops, closes in during her investigation. The film played at Sundance but went straight to cable and video. The film is not a write-off by any means. White is great fun as the pretentious hood who likes talking about the finer things in life - dijon mustard for one - while Andre Braugher is equally great as the tart-tongued sidekick of the hood. Baldwin looks thoroughly bored and coked up as a connoisseur of Brazilian jazz - we get to see his huge record collection and his spinning turntable which in itself seems to be a relic from the past bringing back extremely fond memories to some of us who *are* also now relics.
Doctor G (Anubhuti Kashyap, 2022) 7/10
Chaos, embarrassment and confusion reigns supreme in a hospital when a medical student (Ayushmann Khurrana), desperate to pursue his post-graduation in orthopaedics, finds that the only space available for him is in the gynaecology department. He gets off to a bad start by getting ticked off by the stern head of the department (Shefali Shah) and bullied by his female colleagues. He pursues one colleague (Rakul Preet Singh) who only wants to be his friend, gets angry at his mother (Sheeba Chhadha) who he discovers in the company of her Tinder date, finds his inner female, helps a minor who has had an illegal abortion and realizes the importance of the department he had reluctantly joined. Khurrana creates yet another middle-class character who finds himself trapped in an extraordinary situation which he manages to conquer in a film that strongly resonates with its underlying social message.
Stowaway (Joe Penna, 2021) 7/10
A two-year mission to Mars is jeopardized when the three crew members on board discover an unintentional stowaway on board. The Commander (Toni Colette) and her crew - a doctor (Anna Kendrick) and a biologist (Daniel Dae Kim) - save the injured man (Shamier Anderson) only to discover that damage caused by his presence reduces oxygen which cannot sustain four lives before they dock in at Mars. So Mission Control on earth advises the Commander to sacrifice the stowaway in order for them to survive. The dilemma of "killing" a man who also happens to be black raises questions on racism which are quickly put aside when the crew try and use the biologist's algae specimens to raise oxygen. When that fails they try to retreive liquid oxygen from the spent upper stage rocket located at a perilous distance but are forced to return to the main dock as a deadly solar storm suddenly rages. Will the crew manage to retrieve the oxygen or will a sacrifice have to be made in order for the rest to survive. Suspenseful, well acted film, not unlike "Gravity", moves at a fast pace with a story centering on a difficult moral dilemma.
Les soeurs Brontë / The Brontë Sisters (André Téchiné, 1979) 7/10
The film recreates mid-19th Century Yorkshire via production and costume design along with Bruno Nuytten's starkly beautiful cinematography which captures in astonishing detail the bleak moors with its strong winds, snow, grey sky and dirt. The screenplay presents the three sisters to seemingly have the characteristics of the literary heroines they wrote about in their novels. Charlotte Brontë (Marie-France Pisier) is strong, mature and responsible like "Jane Eyre". Emily Brontë is wild and brave with an identity that is seemingly a mixture of both masculine and feminine - like Catherine Earnshaw in "Wuthering Heights". Anne Brontë (Isabelle Huppert) is sweet, naive and sincere just like "Agnes Grey". All three sisters adore their brother Branwell (Pascale Greggory) who paints, drinks and has a tragic affair with an older woman. The sisters' difficulty in achieving their literary goals is continuously thwarted by publishers who refused to accept women as writers. This battle along with the effect of their brother's death on them forms the crux of the screenplay. The film's heavy, repressive mood evokes the harshness and injustice of the life the sisters endured. All three actresses give moving performances and despite a somewhat contentious offscreen relationship between two of them - Adjani was in a relationship with Nuytten while Pisier was close friends with Téchiné - their onscreen relationship as sisters is very believable.
Footsteps in the Dark (Lloyd Bacon, 1941) 5/10
An investment advisor (Errol Flynn) is suspected by his wife (Brenda Marshall) of being involved with another woman. However, unbeknownst to everyone he is secretly a writer of detective novels written under a pseudonym while he attempts to solve a murder on the side as well. Breezy comedy has Flynn away from swashbuckling as he knocks heads with Lucille Watson as his tart-tongued mother-in-law, Alan Hale as a police detective, Lee Patrick as a burlesque star and Ralph Bellamy as a dentist who could be the murderer. The screenplay tries to put Flynn in the shoes of Nick Charles (of "Thin Man" fame) but doesn't quite get there as his Nora Charles in the form of his wife merely frets about her husband's mysterious absences and late comings. Flynn, though, is quite comfortable in the comedy genre.
La città si difende / The City Defends Itself / Four Ways Out (Pietro Germi, 1951) 6/10
Four amateur criminals rob the cash till at a soccer stadium and go their separate ways. Each man is viewed as he interacts with family and tries to elude the law. Gina Lollobrigida appears briefly as the high class girlfriend of one of the robbers who rats on him to the police. Amongst the writers who assisted Germi on the screenplay were Luigi Comencini, Tullio Pinelli and Federico Fellini. Entertaining minor Euro crime drama which mixes elements of American film noir and Italian neorealism.
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (Edgar Selwyn, 1931) 5/10
The script throws everything but the kitchen sink at Helen Hayes in her first film. Country bumpkin Madelon Claudet (Helen Hayes) has an illegitimate son - her lover Neil Hamilton abandons her - and she becomes the mistress of a distinguished gentleman (Lewis Stone) who keeps her in jewels and ermine only to end up in prison after he is exposed as a crook and she is accused of being his accomplice. Out of prison she becomes a prostitute to survive and looks from afar at her grown son (Robert Young) who has become a promising young doctor. Sentimental film allows the first lady of the theater to run the gamut of every emotion known to mankind for which she won an Oscar. Hayes hated the film and herself in it and wanted to buy the film from MGM so she could destroy it. Her husband Charles MacArthur helped on the hoary script which was based on the play, "The Lullaby", by Edward Knoblock.
Westward Passage (Robert Milton, 1931) 2/10
For some strange reason Laurence Olivier, during his very early Hollywood phase, kept getting paired opposite leading ladies much older than him. Here Ann Harding plays his unsatisfied wife who divorces him. Years later they meet on a ship and he wants to rekindle their relationship even though she is married to a kindly man. Silly film is all the more hilarious to see Olivier sporting more makeup than his leading lady. He is a sight to behold with his heavily kohled eyes. A very calm Ann Harding is the model of prim propriety opposite the young and brash Olivier.
Autobiographical story about an incident that helped to spawn the civil rights movement. In 1955 the 14-year old son of Mamie Till-Bradley (Danielle Deadwyler) was murdered in Mississippi during the Jim Crow era. Sent down South from Chicago to spend his holidays with his cousins the boy made the innocent but fatal error of whistling at a white woman cashier in her family's grocery store. The boy was picked up at night by the woman's husband and his half brother, abducted, lynched, shot in the head and dumped in a river. When the body was returned to Chicago his mother insisted the funeral be with an open casket so that the world could see how her son was killed due to racial hatred. This focused attention not only on racism but also on the vulnerability of American democracy. The two men were acquitted by an all-white jury and, protected by double jeopardy, admitted to a magazine for a fee that they had tortured and murdered the boy. His bereaved mother spent her remainder life as an activist to gain support for the cause of racial justice. Moving film rests on the shoulders of Deadwyler who gives a heartwrenching performance. Whoopi Goldberg, in addition to producing the film, also plays the victim's grandmother. Still hard to believe that only a few decades ago citizens of the United States were subjected to such violence and hatred based on the colour of one's skin.
Black Adam (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2022) 2/10
Good Lord not another one who can fly. They are like cockroaches. Lift a rock and a new one comes out. Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson), like "The Mummy", is awakened by a group of archaeologists from a 5,000 year-old slumber to come free the nation of Kahndaq from the crime syndicate Intergang. Don't ask. It's the usual superhero saga - this one is from the DC universe and a spin-off to "Shazam". Here an ancient crown is the object which everyone is after as it allows the owner to be a supreme power which is confiscated by an annoying kid with an accent who whizzes around on a skateboard. The Rock....err, Black Adam flies, stops bullets with his body, walks through concrete walls and wrestles with flying airplanes. Other superheros and characters from the DC universe appear - Hawkman, Viola Davis, Superman (Henry Cavill), Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan). Lots of noise and CGI effects in this very boring entry.
Emancipation (Antoine Fuqua, 2022) 6/10
Fuqua presents black slave genocide in the form of an action-thriller with the main character - based on an actual slave from the 1860s - acting almost like a superhero as he escapes from a plantation in Louisiana and runs through swamps in the direction of President Lincoln's army. Fed up with being constantly beaten and degraded, and hearing that Lincoln has declared all slaves to be freed, makes a run for it when he sees his chance. In pursuit is the Nazi-like white overseer (Ben Foster) who is relentless in his attempt to capture the slave. The journey is fraught with danger - at one point he is attacked by and wrestles with an alligator under water - and has numerous open wounds on his body. The film segues from an escape saga into a war film showing a ferocious battle between the North and South. A number of critics have derided the film saying it manipulates emotions by getting too graphic. Well if the Holocaust can be shown on film time and again in graphic detail this genocide deserves to be also shown with every bit of brutality intact. We need to see this so we never forget what man was (and still is) capable of doing to his own specie. Having said that there is really nothing new here in that we have seen all of this before. Many times. Robert Richardson shoots the film in bleached-out monochrome with flashes of flames shot in colour not unlike how Spielberg presented colour in "Schindler's List". Smith, returning to the screen after his slapping skirmish at the Oscars earlier this year, underplays throughout while speaking almost in hushed tones - probably to disguise the Creole accent which comes and goes.
Four Guns to the Border (Richard Carlson, 1954) 7/10
This B western gets a high doze of sexuality courtesy of Colleen Miller playing the nubile young daughter of old cowpoke Walter Brennan. There are a surprising number of sexually charged moments between the wide-eyed ingenue, dripping wet in a skimpy nightgown, and the perpetually scowling and surly Rory Calhoun. A gang of four (Calhoun, George Nader, John McIntyre, Jay Silverheels), aimlessly committing petty crimes, run across an old gunfighter (Walter Brennan) and his daughter (Colleen Miller) who are on their way to their homestead in Indian territory. There is a bank robbery which leads to a showdown where Indians are involved and which in turn brings out the humanity in all the main characters changing their perspective about life. Tautly directed film gets a boost from Russell Metty's cinematography who uses light in inventive ways especially during a storm sequence. Miller, who made very few films, has remarkable screen presence and has great chemistry with Calhoun. Interesting little film.
Dead For a Dollar (Walter Hill, 2022) 7/10
Good to see Hill back in the saddle. He dedicates the film to the great Budd Boetticher who helmed many great B westerns during the 1950s. This too is a B with a plot as old as the hills - man hires a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) to bring back his abducted wife (Rachel Brosnahan). This plot regurgitation was played out years ago so brilliantly in Richard Brooks' classic "The Professionals". However, one is so starved for films in this genre that it becomes a cause for celebration when one halfway decent film turns up. It is but a given that the wife was never abducted. She left on her own accord with a black army deserter to escape her crooked husband who finds his honour and pride wounded. There are also other characters saddling the screenplay - Willem Dafoe as a gambler and horse thief just out of prison who has a bone to pick with the bounty hunter who put him in prison and Benjamin Bratt as a rich landowner who moonlights as a vicious bandit. Both characters will end up coming against the bounty hunter. Hill does not move away from tradition and familiar tropes of the genre and shoots in an almost languid manner which adds layers to the familiar screenplay. The widescreen cinematography across the Santa Fe desert locations in Mexico along with an unintrusive music score add gravitas to the film and to the inevitable showdown at the end which 80-year old Hill superbly orchestrates.
Thick as Thieves (Scott Sanders, 1998) 5/10
After a heist a professional Chicago thief (Alec Baldwin) gets double crossed by a rising Detroit kingpin (Michael Jai White) but turns the tables on the two crooked cops sent to get him. A vendetta ensues between the two while a cop (Rebecca De Mornay), investigating the murder of the two cops, closes in during her investigation. The film played at Sundance but went straight to cable and video. The film is not a write-off by any means. White is great fun as the pretentious hood who likes talking about the finer things in life - dijon mustard for one - while Andre Braugher is equally great as the tart-tongued sidekick of the hood. Baldwin looks thoroughly bored and coked up as a connoisseur of Brazilian jazz - we get to see his huge record collection and his spinning turntable which in itself seems to be a relic from the past bringing back extremely fond memories to some of us who *are* also now relics.
Doctor G (Anubhuti Kashyap, 2022) 7/10
Chaos, embarrassment and confusion reigns supreme in a hospital when a medical student (Ayushmann Khurrana), desperate to pursue his post-graduation in orthopaedics, finds that the only space available for him is in the gynaecology department. He gets off to a bad start by getting ticked off by the stern head of the department (Shefali Shah) and bullied by his female colleagues. He pursues one colleague (Rakul Preet Singh) who only wants to be his friend, gets angry at his mother (Sheeba Chhadha) who he discovers in the company of her Tinder date, finds his inner female, helps a minor who has had an illegal abortion and realizes the importance of the department he had reluctantly joined. Khurrana creates yet another middle-class character who finds himself trapped in an extraordinary situation which he manages to conquer in a film that strongly resonates with its underlying social message.
Stowaway (Joe Penna, 2021) 7/10
A two-year mission to Mars is jeopardized when the three crew members on board discover an unintentional stowaway on board. The Commander (Toni Colette) and her crew - a doctor (Anna Kendrick) and a biologist (Daniel Dae Kim) - save the injured man (Shamier Anderson) only to discover that damage caused by his presence reduces oxygen which cannot sustain four lives before they dock in at Mars. So Mission Control on earth advises the Commander to sacrifice the stowaway in order for them to survive. The dilemma of "killing" a man who also happens to be black raises questions on racism which are quickly put aside when the crew try and use the biologist's algae specimens to raise oxygen. When that fails they try to retreive liquid oxygen from the spent upper stage rocket located at a perilous distance but are forced to return to the main dock as a deadly solar storm suddenly rages. Will the crew manage to retrieve the oxygen or will a sacrifice have to be made in order for the rest to survive. Suspenseful, well acted film, not unlike "Gravity", moves at a fast pace with a story centering on a difficult moral dilemma.
Les soeurs Brontë / The Brontë Sisters (André Téchiné, 1979) 7/10
The film recreates mid-19th Century Yorkshire via production and costume design along with Bruno Nuytten's starkly beautiful cinematography which captures in astonishing detail the bleak moors with its strong winds, snow, grey sky and dirt. The screenplay presents the three sisters to seemingly have the characteristics of the literary heroines they wrote about in their novels. Charlotte Brontë (Marie-France Pisier) is strong, mature and responsible like "Jane Eyre". Emily Brontë is wild and brave with an identity that is seemingly a mixture of both masculine and feminine - like Catherine Earnshaw in "Wuthering Heights". Anne Brontë (Isabelle Huppert) is sweet, naive and sincere just like "Agnes Grey". All three sisters adore their brother Branwell (Pascale Greggory) who paints, drinks and has a tragic affair with an older woman. The sisters' difficulty in achieving their literary goals is continuously thwarted by publishers who refused to accept women as writers. This battle along with the effect of their brother's death on them forms the crux of the screenplay. The film's heavy, repressive mood evokes the harshness and injustice of the life the sisters endured. All three actresses give moving performances and despite a somewhat contentious offscreen relationship between two of them - Adjani was in a relationship with Nuytten while Pisier was close friends with Téchiné - their onscreen relationship as sisters is very believable.
Footsteps in the Dark (Lloyd Bacon, 1941) 5/10
An investment advisor (Errol Flynn) is suspected by his wife (Brenda Marshall) of being involved with another woman. However, unbeknownst to everyone he is secretly a writer of detective novels written under a pseudonym while he attempts to solve a murder on the side as well. Breezy comedy has Flynn away from swashbuckling as he knocks heads with Lucille Watson as his tart-tongued mother-in-law, Alan Hale as a police detective, Lee Patrick as a burlesque star and Ralph Bellamy as a dentist who could be the murderer. The screenplay tries to put Flynn in the shoes of Nick Charles (of "Thin Man" fame) but doesn't quite get there as his Nora Charles in the form of his wife merely frets about her husband's mysterious absences and late comings. Flynn, though, is quite comfortable in the comedy genre.
La città si difende / The City Defends Itself / Four Ways Out (Pietro Germi, 1951) 6/10
Four amateur criminals rob the cash till at a soccer stadium and go their separate ways. Each man is viewed as he interacts with family and tries to elude the law. Gina Lollobrigida appears briefly as the high class girlfriend of one of the robbers who rats on him to the police. Amongst the writers who assisted Germi on the screenplay were Luigi Comencini, Tullio Pinelli and Federico Fellini. Entertaining minor Euro crime drama which mixes elements of American film noir and Italian neorealism.
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (Edgar Selwyn, 1931) 5/10
The script throws everything but the kitchen sink at Helen Hayes in her first film. Country bumpkin Madelon Claudet (Helen Hayes) has an illegitimate son - her lover Neil Hamilton abandons her - and she becomes the mistress of a distinguished gentleman (Lewis Stone) who keeps her in jewels and ermine only to end up in prison after he is exposed as a crook and she is accused of being his accomplice. Out of prison she becomes a prostitute to survive and looks from afar at her grown son (Robert Young) who has become a promising young doctor. Sentimental film allows the first lady of the theater to run the gamut of every emotion known to mankind for which she won an Oscar. Hayes hated the film and herself in it and wanted to buy the film from MGM so she could destroy it. Her husband Charles MacArthur helped on the hoary script which was based on the play, "The Lullaby", by Edward Knoblock.
Westward Passage (Robert Milton, 1931) 2/10
For some strange reason Laurence Olivier, during his very early Hollywood phase, kept getting paired opposite leading ladies much older than him. Here Ann Harding plays his unsatisfied wife who divorces him. Years later they meet on a ship and he wants to rekindle their relationship even though she is married to a kindly man. Silly film is all the more hilarious to see Olivier sporting more makeup than his leading lady. He is a sight to behold with his heavily kohled eyes. A very calm Ann Harding is the model of prim propriety opposite the young and brash Olivier.
Last edited by Reza on Tue Dec 27, 2022 2:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
31st October (Shivaji Lotan Patli, 2015) 1/10
The film depicts the horrific after effects of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India by her Sikh guards. Sikhs in Delhi were targeted with the implied collusion of the police at the instigation of the Congress party. The plot revolves around a Sikh family who try to stay one step ahead of the brutal violence on the streets and in their neighborhood. Unfortunately an amateur cast give wooden performances, the direction is almost non-existent and the music score emphasises every brutal act with reckless abandon. Poor Soha Ali Khan, seemingly the only professional actor amongst the cast, tries to give some semblance of a performance in this shockingly tacky film. This important subject needs to be brought to the screen in a manner that is not shoddy like this film.
36 Quai des Orfèvres / 36th Precinct (Olivier Marchal, 2004) 8/10
Slick, hard-boiled police procedural that pits two senior cops (Daniel Auteuil & Gérard Depardieu) against each other as they vie to take the place of their boss (André Dussollier) who is being promoted. Each tries to bring in a gang of vicious crooks, involved in a spate of armoured truck robberies, in order to win the coveted position of the Chief of Police. The film is beautifully shot in hues of blue which make Paris look sinister and the film has a remarkable similarity to Michael Mann's "Heat", although this being a french film the characters internalize their emoting. The story's central set-piece involves a spectacular shootout that sets off a chain of events that are catastrophic for both the cops and the hoods. The screenplay, reeking of assorted potholes, neatly wraps up all loose ends yet remains gripping. Auteuil, playing against type, is superbly matched by Depardieu who underplays for once. Their prickly relationship, once bound by close friendship, involves Valeria Golino playing the wife of one and the former lover of the other. Mylène Demongeot is superb in a small part as an ageing prostitute informant. The film, Auteuil, Dussollier, Demongeot, Marchal, the screenplay, editing and sound were nominated for César awards.
Huo zhe / To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994) 10/10
Spirited and melodramatic epic covers three decades of Chinese history beginning during the early 1940s. The film is seen through the eyes of an average couple who undergo tremendous personal changes in their life because of the changing political situation in their country. During the 1940s the wastrel son (You Ge) of a rich merchant gambles away the family fortune and loses the valued family mansion. His father dies of grief and his wife (Gong Li) becomes a beggar with her adolescent daughter and baby son. The family is reunited when he swears off gambling but he gets caught up in the civil war between Chiang Kai-Shek's nationalists and the winning Mao Zedong's communists. He survives the horrors of the battlefield and upon returning home learns that his impoverished daughter has lost her voice and the family has to learn to survive anew amongst the harshness of the new Communist regime. The family remains hopeful despite bizarre twists and tragic losses as they simply want to live and don't really care about the politics they are surrounded by. You Ge, who won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes film festival, and Gong Li are both outstanding. Extremely moving film is a must-see.
The Yellow Ticket (Raoul Walsh, 1931) 7/10
Melodrama set during the time of Czarist Russia. During martial law jews are prohibited from traveling so when it becomes imperative for a young girl (Elissa Landi) to go to St. Petersberg to inquire about her incarcerated old father she is forced to get a "yellow ticket" which is issued only to prostitutes for easy travel. At her destination she comes up against the lecherous and corrupt police official (Lionel Barrymore) and finds a sympathetic friend in a British journalist (Laurence Olivier) to whom she provides information about the crimes being committed by the State. Atmospheric film has a flamboyant Barrymore, an enticing Landi and Olivier in one of his first film roles. Sharply directed (and acted) pre-code film has many moments (including very brief nudity) that would soon come under the scissors of the censors in Hollywood. The film, unlike most early talkies, is far from static (especially considering it is based on a play) with the camera moving continuously across many locations.
Moscow Nights / I Stand Condemned (Anthony Asquith, 1935) 5/10
WWI shenanigans in Russia involving delicate matters of the heart and dangerous matters relating to the State. A nurse (Penelope Dudley Ward), by way of family convenience, is engaged to a wealthy, much older peasant (Harry Bauer) but is secretly in love with a wounded soldier (Laurence Olivier). Jealous of her friendship with the young man - even though she is faithful to her fiancé - he entraps the soldier in debt in order to humiliate him. Coming to his help is a worldly old lady (Athene Seyler) who has ulterior motives of her own. Bauer, who played the same part in the french version of the film, is very good (he is dubbed here) but Dudley Ward is very stiff and totally miscast. Thin plot is interesting to see for Olivier in one of his early film roles and for the great Harry Bauer who here plays the unsympathetic hero. Athene Seyler's role seems to be a precursor to the role of Miss Froy in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes". Vincent Korda did the sets.
Perfect Understanding (Cyril Gardner, 1933) 4/10
Gloria Swanson, then married to an Englishman, found herself in England trying to revive her once great silent career with this rather weak early sound film. Noël Coward suggested as her co-star his current amour - the young Laurence Olivier. Silly film involves a couple getting married with "perfect understanding" of allowing each other space without any jealousy. Naturally things don't go according to plan - he has a one-night stand with a former lover (Nora Swinburne) while she is suspected of an affair with an old friend (John Halliday). The film ends in a courtroom confrontation. The sophisticated Swanson is far too old to look convincing with a very young Olivier although she shines throughout with her strong voice and clothes-horse demeanor - ever the star.
The film depicts the horrific after effects of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India by her Sikh guards. Sikhs in Delhi were targeted with the implied collusion of the police at the instigation of the Congress party. The plot revolves around a Sikh family who try to stay one step ahead of the brutal violence on the streets and in their neighborhood. Unfortunately an amateur cast give wooden performances, the direction is almost non-existent and the music score emphasises every brutal act with reckless abandon. Poor Soha Ali Khan, seemingly the only professional actor amongst the cast, tries to give some semblance of a performance in this shockingly tacky film. This important subject needs to be brought to the screen in a manner that is not shoddy like this film.
36 Quai des Orfèvres / 36th Precinct (Olivier Marchal, 2004) 8/10
Slick, hard-boiled police procedural that pits two senior cops (Daniel Auteuil & Gérard Depardieu) against each other as they vie to take the place of their boss (André Dussollier) who is being promoted. Each tries to bring in a gang of vicious crooks, involved in a spate of armoured truck robberies, in order to win the coveted position of the Chief of Police. The film is beautifully shot in hues of blue which make Paris look sinister and the film has a remarkable similarity to Michael Mann's "Heat", although this being a french film the characters internalize their emoting. The story's central set-piece involves a spectacular shootout that sets off a chain of events that are catastrophic for both the cops and the hoods. The screenplay, reeking of assorted potholes, neatly wraps up all loose ends yet remains gripping. Auteuil, playing against type, is superbly matched by Depardieu who underplays for once. Their prickly relationship, once bound by close friendship, involves Valeria Golino playing the wife of one and the former lover of the other. Mylène Demongeot is superb in a small part as an ageing prostitute informant. The film, Auteuil, Dussollier, Demongeot, Marchal, the screenplay, editing and sound were nominated for César awards.
Huo zhe / To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994) 10/10
Spirited and melodramatic epic covers three decades of Chinese history beginning during the early 1940s. The film is seen through the eyes of an average couple who undergo tremendous personal changes in their life because of the changing political situation in their country. During the 1940s the wastrel son (You Ge) of a rich merchant gambles away the family fortune and loses the valued family mansion. His father dies of grief and his wife (Gong Li) becomes a beggar with her adolescent daughter and baby son. The family is reunited when he swears off gambling but he gets caught up in the civil war between Chiang Kai-Shek's nationalists and the winning Mao Zedong's communists. He survives the horrors of the battlefield and upon returning home learns that his impoverished daughter has lost her voice and the family has to learn to survive anew amongst the harshness of the new Communist regime. The family remains hopeful despite bizarre twists and tragic losses as they simply want to live and don't really care about the politics they are surrounded by. You Ge, who won the Best Actor prize at the Cannes film festival, and Gong Li are both outstanding. Extremely moving film is a must-see.
The Yellow Ticket (Raoul Walsh, 1931) 7/10
Melodrama set during the time of Czarist Russia. During martial law jews are prohibited from traveling so when it becomes imperative for a young girl (Elissa Landi) to go to St. Petersberg to inquire about her incarcerated old father she is forced to get a "yellow ticket" which is issued only to prostitutes for easy travel. At her destination she comes up against the lecherous and corrupt police official (Lionel Barrymore) and finds a sympathetic friend in a British journalist (Laurence Olivier) to whom she provides information about the crimes being committed by the State. Atmospheric film has a flamboyant Barrymore, an enticing Landi and Olivier in one of his first film roles. Sharply directed (and acted) pre-code film has many moments (including very brief nudity) that would soon come under the scissors of the censors in Hollywood. The film, unlike most early talkies, is far from static (especially considering it is based on a play) with the camera moving continuously across many locations.
Moscow Nights / I Stand Condemned (Anthony Asquith, 1935) 5/10
WWI shenanigans in Russia involving delicate matters of the heart and dangerous matters relating to the State. A nurse (Penelope Dudley Ward), by way of family convenience, is engaged to a wealthy, much older peasant (Harry Bauer) but is secretly in love with a wounded soldier (Laurence Olivier). Jealous of her friendship with the young man - even though she is faithful to her fiancé - he entraps the soldier in debt in order to humiliate him. Coming to his help is a worldly old lady (Athene Seyler) who has ulterior motives of her own. Bauer, who played the same part in the french version of the film, is very good (he is dubbed here) but Dudley Ward is very stiff and totally miscast. Thin plot is interesting to see for Olivier in one of his early film roles and for the great Harry Bauer who here plays the unsympathetic hero. Athene Seyler's role seems to be a precursor to the role of Miss Froy in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes". Vincent Korda did the sets.
Perfect Understanding (Cyril Gardner, 1933) 4/10
Gloria Swanson, then married to an Englishman, found herself in England trying to revive her once great silent career with this rather weak early sound film. Noël Coward suggested as her co-star his current amour - the young Laurence Olivier. Silly film involves a couple getting married with "perfect understanding" of allowing each other space without any jealousy. Naturally things don't go according to plan - he has a one-night stand with a former lover (Nora Swinburne) while she is suspected of an affair with an old friend (John Halliday). The film ends in a courtroom confrontation. The sophisticated Swanson is far too old to look convincing with a very young Olivier although she shines throughout with her strong voice and clothes-horse demeanor - ever the star.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Hausu (House) (1977) - 8/10 - This Japanese comedy horror film is pretty crazy and fun. Seven high school girls (Gorgeous, Fantasy, Melody, Kung Fu, Mac, Sweet, and Prof) go to visit Gorgeous's aunt. It's been 10 years since Gorgeous last saw her and she lives in a large, but strange house. It isn't long before the girls discover that some strange things take place there.
Rolling Thunder (1977) - 8/10 - Two Vietnam POWs (William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones) return home to a hero's welcome. Charles Rane (DeVane) finds himself emotionally detached from his wife and son. His son was just a baby when he was captured and doesn't even really know him. He tries to build a relationship, but four bandits who invade his home looking for money that he was gifted have other ideas. I thought this one was pretty good.
The Last Waltz (1978) - 8.5/10 - This concert film was directed by Martin Scorsese and centers around the last concert of The Band which also featured a number of other artists who were friends of the group. The music and performances were a lot of fun and the interviews were somewhat interesting as well.
Edifício Master (2002) - 8/10 - A film crew rented an apartment for a month in Copacabana. The building has hundreds of apartments and used to be rather seedy, but was now much more respectable. They interviewed numerous residents and got their stories. It was pretty interesting.
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987) - 8/10 - Kenzo Okuzaki is a 62 year old WWII veteran who suffered some traumatic things while stationed in New Guinea at the end of the war where food was in short supply. He blames Emperor Hirohito and calls him the worst war criminal. He even served time for using a sling to shoot pellets at the Emperor. Kenzo is determined to get to the truth as to who murdered two men in his unit shortly after the war ended. He is willing to use violence to force answers from the former soldiers who were involved. He seems a bit unhinged at times, but that could also be a result of what he experienced during the war.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003) - 8/10 - A documentary crew was in Venezuela gathering footage on President Hugo Chavez when a coup was attempted. They were inside the palace during much of the action while also capturing event in the streets during protests and counterprotests. It is pretty interesting.
Hope / Umut (1970) - 8/10 - Cabbar drives an old dilapidated horse cart and is deep in debt, barely able to support his family. When one of his horses dies in an accident, things get worse and he becomes desperate. I thought this one was pretty good.
9/11 (2002) - 9/10 - Filmmakers set out to make a documentary on a probationary firefighter in NYC and happen to capture events from 9/11, including the first plane hitting, the scene inside the towers, and the aftermath of the tower collapses. I remember that day very well and it is an interesting perspective.
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) - 8/10 - Gordon Liu stars as San Te becomes a Shaolin monk after witnessing government oppression. While there, he becomes a master martial artist. Very entertaining training and fight sequences.
Rolling Thunder (1977) - 8/10 - Two Vietnam POWs (William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones) return home to a hero's welcome. Charles Rane (DeVane) finds himself emotionally detached from his wife and son. His son was just a baby when he was captured and doesn't even really know him. He tries to build a relationship, but four bandits who invade his home looking for money that he was gifted have other ideas. I thought this one was pretty good.
The Last Waltz (1978) - 8.5/10 - This concert film was directed by Martin Scorsese and centers around the last concert of The Band which also featured a number of other artists who were friends of the group. The music and performances were a lot of fun and the interviews were somewhat interesting as well.
Edifício Master (2002) - 8/10 - A film crew rented an apartment for a month in Copacabana. The building has hundreds of apartments and used to be rather seedy, but was now much more respectable. They interviewed numerous residents and got their stories. It was pretty interesting.
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987) - 8/10 - Kenzo Okuzaki is a 62 year old WWII veteran who suffered some traumatic things while stationed in New Guinea at the end of the war where food was in short supply. He blames Emperor Hirohito and calls him the worst war criminal. He even served time for using a sling to shoot pellets at the Emperor. Kenzo is determined to get to the truth as to who murdered two men in his unit shortly after the war ended. He is willing to use violence to force answers from the former soldiers who were involved. He seems a bit unhinged at times, but that could also be a result of what he experienced during the war.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003) - 8/10 - A documentary crew was in Venezuela gathering footage on President Hugo Chavez when a coup was attempted. They were inside the palace during much of the action while also capturing event in the streets during protests and counterprotests. It is pretty interesting.
Hope / Umut (1970) - 8/10 - Cabbar drives an old dilapidated horse cart and is deep in debt, barely able to support his family. When one of his horses dies in an accident, things get worse and he becomes desperate. I thought this one was pretty good.
9/11 (2002) - 9/10 - Filmmakers set out to make a documentary on a probationary firefighter in NYC and happen to capture events from 9/11, including the first plane hitting, the scene inside the towers, and the aftermath of the tower collapses. I remember that day very well and it is an interesting perspective.
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) - 8/10 - Gordon Liu stars as San Te becomes a Shaolin monk after witnessing government oppression. While there, he becomes a master martial artist. Very entertaining training and fight sequences.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Delhi Crime (Tanuj Chopra, 2022) - Season 2 8/10
Delhi is rocked by a spate of serial killings where the crime resembles murders commited by the "Kaccha-Baniyan" gang of the 1990s. Affluent senior citizens are being systematically targeted, bludgeoned to death and their money and jewellery stolen. The murders are horrific in nature as the victims are killed by sharp and blunt instruments like hammers which are used to pummel the old men and women on their heads and faces. DCP Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah) and her team of cops come under intense fire as the case drags on and intimate details of the crime, including camera footage of the intruders killing their victims, are leaked to the press who play it on television creating panic in the city. Intense, riveting police procedural not only shows Delhi's crime underbelly but the screenplay also focuses on how the tension-laden job impacts the private lives of the police officers. Shefali Shah is the series' backbone and comes through with an intense performance. Tillotama Shome excels as one of the suspects. A worthy followup to Season 1 despite a rather hurried conclusion to the story here.
Mission Over Korea (Fred F. Sears, 1953) 3/10
Inferior war film has an American Army pilot (John Hodiak) taking under his wings a rookie pilot (John Derek). Their adventures in the air - dogfights - and on the ground - the veteran with his wife (Maureen O'Sullivan) and the rookie with an experienced nurse (Audrey Totter) - form the basis of the plot. Boring film comes to life briefly during a couple of dogfights with the North Koreans and a couple of crash landings during the obligatory heroics.
Delhi is rocked by a spate of serial killings where the crime resembles murders commited by the "Kaccha-Baniyan" gang of the 1990s. Affluent senior citizens are being systematically targeted, bludgeoned to death and their money and jewellery stolen. The murders are horrific in nature as the victims are killed by sharp and blunt instruments like hammers which are used to pummel the old men and women on their heads and faces. DCP Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah) and her team of cops come under intense fire as the case drags on and intimate details of the crime, including camera footage of the intruders killing their victims, are leaked to the press who play it on television creating panic in the city. Intense, riveting police procedural not only shows Delhi's crime underbelly but the screenplay also focuses on how the tension-laden job impacts the private lives of the police officers. Shefali Shah is the series' backbone and comes through with an intense performance. Tillotama Shome excels as one of the suspects. A worthy followup to Season 1 despite a rather hurried conclusion to the story here.
Mission Over Korea (Fred F. Sears, 1953) 3/10
Inferior war film has an American Army pilot (John Hodiak) taking under his wings a rookie pilot (John Derek). Their adventures in the air - dogfights - and on the ground - the veteran with his wife (Maureen O'Sullivan) and the rookie with an experienced nurse (Audrey Totter) - form the basis of the plot. Boring film comes to life briefly during a couple of dogfights with the North Koreans and a couple of crash landings during the obligatory heroics.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
The Atomic Cafe (1982) - 8/10 - A collection of government propaganda and newsreels from the 1940s and 1950s related to atomic weapons, including their use in Japan, testing, the Cold War, and so on. It definitely paints a picture of a different time.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) - 9/10 - Great footage from around the U.S. with an excellent soundtrack. I loved it and some of the shots certainly brought back memories, such as the ones in the arcade like the one I frequented when the film was made.
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (1988) - 8/10 - Cane toads were brought to Australia in an attempt to control the cane beetle, but it turned out that cane toads came with their own set of problems. They multiplied quickly, were poisonous and potentially deadly to native wildlife, and were pretty much impossible to contain. Some people love the cane toad and some hate them. The film shows the humorous side as well as showing how dangerous they can be.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Runnin’ Down a Dream (2007) - 9/10 - I've been a Tom Petty fan since the early 1980s and loved this four hour look into his career. I thought it was pretty comprehensive and I loved all of the interviews and performances.
Pearl Jam Twenty (2011) - 8/10 - A look back at the origins of Pearl Jam and how it evolved over time. I liked Pearl Jam (and Temple of the Dog and Soundgarden and even Mother Love Bone, etc.), but I was never a really big fan. This was a nice behind the scenes look.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) - 9/10 - Great footage from around the U.S. with an excellent soundtrack. I loved it and some of the shots certainly brought back memories, such as the ones in the arcade like the one I frequented when the film was made.
Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (1988) - 8/10 - Cane toads were brought to Australia in an attempt to control the cane beetle, but it turned out that cane toads came with their own set of problems. They multiplied quickly, were poisonous and potentially deadly to native wildlife, and were pretty much impossible to contain. Some people love the cane toad and some hate them. The film shows the humorous side as well as showing how dangerous they can be.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Runnin’ Down a Dream (2007) - 9/10 - I've been a Tom Petty fan since the early 1980s and loved this four hour look into his career. I thought it was pretty comprehensive and I loved all of the interviews and performances.
Pearl Jam Twenty (2011) - 8/10 - A look back at the origins of Pearl Jam and how it evolved over time. I liked Pearl Jam (and Temple of the Dog and Soundgarden and even Mother Love Bone, etc.), but I was never a really big fan. This was a nice behind the scenes look.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
The films that I enjoyed the most over the last couple of weeks:
A Letter to Momo (2011) - 8.5/10 - An 11 year old girl moves to a small island with her mother after the death of her father. She's rather reserved, but starts to come out of her shell when she befriends three goblins who are also inhabiting her home. I thought this one was very nicely done.
Cry of the City (1948) - 8/10 - Richard Conte stars as Marty, a criminal who is in a secure hospital room after killing a cop. He escapes after a crooked lawyer threatens his girlfriend and he sets out to protect his girl and get out of town. Pursuing him is a police detective (Victor Mature) who was also a childhood friend. Conte did a very nice job and the film moved at a nice pace.
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) - 8/10 - A cyborg detective and his new partner investigate a case where doll-like robots malfunction and kill before destroying themselves. The film has good visuals and a nice soundtrack. I liked it more than the first film.
Giovanni’s Island (2014) - 8/10 - At the end of WWII, Soviet soldiers land on a small Japanese island and disrupt life there where most of the residents are involved with fishing. A Russian girl and two Japanese brothers form a friendship that crosses various barriers, including language and culture.
Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984) - 8/10 - The film does a very nice job capturing the zaniness of the manga. I first started reading the series back in 1989 and have been reading the recent omnibus collections. I'll admit that the series is tough for me to binge read, but this film was a good length, though the first half was more fun than the second half.
Redline (2009) - 8/10 - In the distant future, the Redline is a top of the line and dangerous auto race that takes place in various places around the galaxy every 5 years. The vehicles have been souped up and even have weapons installed in some of them. This year it is going to be on Roboworld, whether the residents there want it or not. The animation and music were great and I enjoyed the story as well. It was a lot of fun.
Sword of the Stranger (2007) - 8.5/10 - A boy and his dog are on the run from a group of warriors who want the boy for an arcane ritual. The boy encounters a nameless ronin and the two eventually become friends. There is a good story here with nice animation, including decent sword (and other) fights.
The Boy and the Beast (2015) - 8/10 - A runaway human boy follows two people from the beast world through a passage to their home and becomes the apprentice of a powerful, but ill-tempered warrior. The story isn't necessarily all that original, but I thought the movie was fun and I enjoyed it.
Crayon Shin-chan: The Adult Empire Strikes Back (2001) - 8/10 - Shin-chan and his family visit the Museum of the 20th Century which brings back feelings of nostalgia in his parents. Soon afterward, the director of the museum unleashes a plot to force adults to abandon their responsibilities and regress to how they were as kids in the 20th Century. The movie was a lot funnier than I was expecting.
Millennium Actress (2001) - 8/10 - A director tracks down a famous actress in order to interview her for a documentary about her life. He gives her a key that he found in the studio which used to belong to her and it sparks many memories which are shown interspersed with the present day. It's a very solid film.
Perfect Blue (1997) - 8/10 - A pop idol gives up her singing career to try and become an actress. She starts getting mixed up with her sense of reality when the roles she gets are demanding and an obsessed stalker starts killing people close to her.
Okko's Inn (2018) - 8/10 - A 12 year old girl survives a car accident that kills her parents. She moves in with her grandmother at her hot springs inn. The girl soon discovers that she is able to see the ghosts who inhabit the area. She also ends up training to be the junior innkeeper in order to help her grandmother out. The film has a lot of charm and has nice animation. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Barefoot Gen 2 (1986) - 8/10 - This takes place several years after the first film. Gen is living with his mother and adopted little brother, but his mother is sick. Gen becomes friends with a group of homeless kids and does his best to provide for his mother. This is more upbeat than the first film, though it still touches on a number of serious topics. The first film is better, but this was almost as good.
In This Corner of the World (2016) - 8/10 - Suzu is an 18 year old girl who liked to draw. She lives near Hiroshima in 1943 and leaves home to get married. The film follows her life over the next couple of years with various trials and tribulations. It's a nice film.
A White, White Day (2019) - 8/10 - The police chief in a small town in Iceland is on leave after his wife dies in a car accident. He spends his days remodeling a home for his daughter and her family while frequently taking care of his pre-teen granddaughter. There is grief and anger inside of him at the death of his wife and the turmoil increases as he finds signs of infidelity. The style here is pretty slow in parts, especially with the opening time lapse scene, but it worked for me and I enjoyed the film. I liked the dynamic between the chief and his granddaughter.
The Long Walk (2019) - 8/10 - A time travel ghost story with an old man who can see spirits. One of the spirits allows him to travel back in time 50 years to when he was a boy. I loved the atmosphere of the film, though the story could be a bit confusing. Around halfway through, I went back to watch the first part of the film again and it made a lot more sense the second time around.
A Letter to Momo (2011) - 8.5/10 - An 11 year old girl moves to a small island with her mother after the death of her father. She's rather reserved, but starts to come out of her shell when she befriends three goblins who are also inhabiting her home. I thought this one was very nicely done.
Cry of the City (1948) - 8/10 - Richard Conte stars as Marty, a criminal who is in a secure hospital room after killing a cop. He escapes after a crooked lawyer threatens his girlfriend and he sets out to protect his girl and get out of town. Pursuing him is a police detective (Victor Mature) who was also a childhood friend. Conte did a very nice job and the film moved at a nice pace.
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004) - 8/10 - A cyborg detective and his new partner investigate a case where doll-like robots malfunction and kill before destroying themselves. The film has good visuals and a nice soundtrack. I liked it more than the first film.
Giovanni’s Island (2014) - 8/10 - At the end of WWII, Soviet soldiers land on a small Japanese island and disrupt life there where most of the residents are involved with fishing. A Russian girl and two Japanese brothers form a friendship that crosses various barriers, including language and culture.
Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984) - 8/10 - The film does a very nice job capturing the zaniness of the manga. I first started reading the series back in 1989 and have been reading the recent omnibus collections. I'll admit that the series is tough for me to binge read, but this film was a good length, though the first half was more fun than the second half.
Redline (2009) - 8/10 - In the distant future, the Redline is a top of the line and dangerous auto race that takes place in various places around the galaxy every 5 years. The vehicles have been souped up and even have weapons installed in some of them. This year it is going to be on Roboworld, whether the residents there want it or not. The animation and music were great and I enjoyed the story as well. It was a lot of fun.
Sword of the Stranger (2007) - 8.5/10 - A boy and his dog are on the run from a group of warriors who want the boy for an arcane ritual. The boy encounters a nameless ronin and the two eventually become friends. There is a good story here with nice animation, including decent sword (and other) fights.
The Boy and the Beast (2015) - 8/10 - A runaway human boy follows two people from the beast world through a passage to their home and becomes the apprentice of a powerful, but ill-tempered warrior. The story isn't necessarily all that original, but I thought the movie was fun and I enjoyed it.
Crayon Shin-chan: The Adult Empire Strikes Back (2001) - 8/10 - Shin-chan and his family visit the Museum of the 20th Century which brings back feelings of nostalgia in his parents. Soon afterward, the director of the museum unleashes a plot to force adults to abandon their responsibilities and regress to how they were as kids in the 20th Century. The movie was a lot funnier than I was expecting.
Millennium Actress (2001) - 8/10 - A director tracks down a famous actress in order to interview her for a documentary about her life. He gives her a key that he found in the studio which used to belong to her and it sparks many memories which are shown interspersed with the present day. It's a very solid film.
Perfect Blue (1997) - 8/10 - A pop idol gives up her singing career to try and become an actress. She starts getting mixed up with her sense of reality when the roles she gets are demanding and an obsessed stalker starts killing people close to her.
Okko's Inn (2018) - 8/10 - A 12 year old girl survives a car accident that kills her parents. She moves in with her grandmother at her hot springs inn. The girl soon discovers that she is able to see the ghosts who inhabit the area. She also ends up training to be the junior innkeeper in order to help her grandmother out. The film has a lot of charm and has nice animation. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Barefoot Gen 2 (1986) - 8/10 - This takes place several years after the first film. Gen is living with his mother and adopted little brother, but his mother is sick. Gen becomes friends with a group of homeless kids and does his best to provide for his mother. This is more upbeat than the first film, though it still touches on a number of serious topics. The first film is better, but this was almost as good.
In This Corner of the World (2016) - 8/10 - Suzu is an 18 year old girl who liked to draw. She lives near Hiroshima in 1943 and leaves home to get married. The film follows her life over the next couple of years with various trials and tribulations. It's a nice film.
A White, White Day (2019) - 8/10 - The police chief in a small town in Iceland is on leave after his wife dies in a car accident. He spends his days remodeling a home for his daughter and her family while frequently taking care of his pre-teen granddaughter. There is grief and anger inside of him at the death of his wife and the turmoil increases as he finds signs of infidelity. The style here is pretty slow in parts, especially with the opening time lapse scene, but it worked for me and I enjoyed the film. I liked the dynamic between the chief and his granddaughter.
The Long Walk (2019) - 8/10 - A time travel ghost story with an old man who can see spirits. One of the spirits allows him to travel back in time 50 years to when he was a boy. I loved the atmosphere of the film, though the story could be a bit confusing. Around halfway through, I went back to watch the first part of the film again and it made a lot more sense the second time around.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Joyland (Saim Sadiq, 2022) 10/10
Heartbreaking look at a lower middle class family enslaved by old-fashioned notions of gender and duty and living within an atmosphere of toxic patriarchy. The family, living jointly together in a tenement inside the walled city of Lahore, consists of an old wheel-chair bound widower (Salmaan Peerzada), his elder son (Sohail Sameer) who is desperate for a son after three daughters, and younger son (Ali Junejo) who is a stay-at-home husband whose wife (Rasti Farooq) works as a beautician in a parlor. When the young man finally finds a job at a third-rate erotic theater as a background dancer to a transgender (Alina Khan) his wife is forced to give up her job and take her place as a homemaker and a hopeful mother. The perceptive screenplay paints each character with exceptional sensitivity - nobody is a villain and in fact they are all at heart good people but with shades of grey with normal desires and disappointments. The relationship between the childless younger couple is full of affection and respect yet both seem stuck in a marriage neither wants. When he finds companionship and love with the transgender - both are in a way outcasts who naturally gravitate towards each other - it has severe repercussion on his wife who was already distraught at having to give up her job and then finding herself pregnant while having no desire to have a child. The film is replete with many lyrical moments scattered throughout - the two young wives enjoying a brief joyous moment together on a fairground ride at Joyland the amusement park; the younger son on a scooter at night carrying a huge cardboard standee of the transgender; a quiet moment of wordless passion between the two lovers sitting across from each other in the dark as the perforations on a light shade casts dancing flashes on their faces and around the room. In fact the most telling aspect of the film are the many moments of reflective silence between characters which gives pause and allows the audience to put their thinking caps on to analyze these flawed and complex yet very relatable characters and their motivations. Superbly acted by the ensemble cast with special kudos to Ali Junejo, Rasti Farooq and especially Alina Khan who is alternately ferocious and vulnerable - often at the same time. Also a loud shout-out to Sania Saeed as the lonely widow who has quiet designs on the equally lonely invalid patriarch. Human sexuality is such a huge part of this story just as it is in life for all of us. However, the ridiculous outrage over this film by a section of ill-informed anal religious fanatics in Pakistan is totally uncalled for. Run and watch this very mature film which shows a slice of life steeped in humanity, respect, love, longing and heartbreak.
Green Zone (Paul Greengrass, 2010) 8/10
"Does it make sense to you that we are coming up empty", is a repeated lament voiced by numerous confused characters throughout this riveting film. Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? That's the daring political question raised by Greengrass' film - which incidently flopped; wonder why? - and was a question raised by many around the world asking why the United States attacked Iraq. Based on a 2006 non-fiction book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City", by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, which documented life within the Green Zone in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The screenplay follows a US Army Chief Warrant Officer (Matt Damon) who has been assigned to search for Saddam Hussain's hidden weapons but is confused that the majority of intelligence assessment given to him is inaccurate. The CIA (Brendan Gleeson) also suspects the US government (Greg Kinnear) is blocking the true story about the weapons which leads to suspicion that the invasion took place due to ulterior motives. The film is replete with the usual Greengrass style - staccato editing, hurtling hand-held camerawork, which causes equal doses of dizziness and nausea, but seems right for the story at hand as it accurately shows the chaos not only on the streets of Iraq but also within the ranks of the US servicemen who flit about like headless chickens. Facts, as we now know to be true, turns to fiction here as Damon evolves into "Bourne" while being hunted not only by the Iraqis but more shockingly by his own countrymen willing to withold the truth that has been discovered. It's a local Iraqi who tells Damon that "it is not for you to decide what happens here" - words that so many countries America has wrongly interfered with would for certain echo. Excellent conspiracy movie with Damon a supeb action hero (already proved via "Bourne" - the American version of James Bond). Gleeson, Kinnear and Amy Ryan (as a journalist) are all very good in important supporting roles.
The Woman King (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2022) 7/10
Historical action-adventure film is set in 1823 and based on true events about the Agojie who were the all-female military regiment of the West African kingdom of Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin). A fierce General (Viola Davis) trains the next generation of warriors to fight their enemies - the slave traders from the Oyo Empire and the Portugese - and has a strained relationship with an arrogant young recruit (Thuso Mbedu) about whom she harbors a secret related to her violent past. Epic film has superbly choreographed battle scenes with Davis giving a fierce performance ably supported by Mbedu and Lashana Lynch as another unflinching warrior. Colorful costumes and exceptional production design are also highlights.
Battle: Los Angeles (Jonathan Liebesman, 2011) 3/10
Meteors shoot down on earth and an alien invasion begins. The film focuses on marines, led by Aaron Eckhart, retaliating in Santa Monica. Predictable noisy war film is like a video game as all the action blurs in between a lot of shouting, explosions and the expected mayhem. America wins of course.
Amsterdam (David O. Russell, 2022) 7/10
A David O. Russell film with shades of Wes Anderson has quirk and cult written all over it. A terribly busy hyperactive plot that goes from the battlefields of WWI to Amsterdam and onto New York with the tone shifting suddenly from screwball comedy to a crime thriller as we view murder, race relationships, suspense and a heinous plot to put a fascist government in the United States during the 1930s. A doctor (Christian Bale), a lawyer (John David Washington) and a nurse (Margot Robbie) form a strong bond of friendship as their lives converge during the horrors of WWI and later in Amsterdam. Years later the two men start their careers in New York where an autopsy on a senator reveals he was poisoned. His daughter (Taylor Swift), who suspects foul play, is killed in front of the boys and both are framed for her murder. Reunited with the nurse they learn her brother (Rami Malek) and his wife (Anya Taylor-Joy) are upto something nefarious wherein a General (Robert De Niro) is offered a large sum of money to make a speech advocating removal of President Roosevelt and taking over the country as a puppet head. The screenplay tries to cram in far too much and the film's tone vascilates between farce and drama which after a while becomes exhausting to watch. The incredible cast of stars is game but all their posturings as they try to keep up with the desperate shifts in plot instead end up making them flail about. What shines through it all is the film's outstanding production design by Judy Becker, the lovely costumes by Albert Wolsky and the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki. Confused effort by O. Russell that has a number of magical moments scattered throughout.
Murder at Yellowstone City (Richard Gray, 2022) 6/10
Solidly crafted mystery Western starts off very slow although covers most of the genre's tropes finally picking up pace mid-point onwards. When a gold prospector is shot dead the sheriff (Gabriel Byrne) of a small mining town in Montana automatically accuses and imprisons a stranger (Isaiah Mustafa) who has just come into town. He is a former slave and Shakespeare buff, innocent of the crime, who soon finds a saviour in the town's idealistic clergyman (Thomas Jane) who turns detective trying to prove the man's innocence. Like an Agatha Christie novel there are several more murders and a town full of eclectic characters - two aging gay saloonkeepers (Richard Dreyfuss & John Ales) who pretend they are just good friends, a young Lakota Sioux woman who tends the stables, a Mexican woman who overseers the town prostitutes and the sheriff's surly son. Like all good Westerns the last third of the film has a series of exciting shootouts with the preacher and his equally able wife front and center of all the action.
Heartbreaking look at a lower middle class family enslaved by old-fashioned notions of gender and duty and living within an atmosphere of toxic patriarchy. The family, living jointly together in a tenement inside the walled city of Lahore, consists of an old wheel-chair bound widower (Salmaan Peerzada), his elder son (Sohail Sameer) who is desperate for a son after three daughters, and younger son (Ali Junejo) who is a stay-at-home husband whose wife (Rasti Farooq) works as a beautician in a parlor. When the young man finally finds a job at a third-rate erotic theater as a background dancer to a transgender (Alina Khan) his wife is forced to give up her job and take her place as a homemaker and a hopeful mother. The perceptive screenplay paints each character with exceptional sensitivity - nobody is a villain and in fact they are all at heart good people but with shades of grey with normal desires and disappointments. The relationship between the childless younger couple is full of affection and respect yet both seem stuck in a marriage neither wants. When he finds companionship and love with the transgender - both are in a way outcasts who naturally gravitate towards each other - it has severe repercussion on his wife who was already distraught at having to give up her job and then finding herself pregnant while having no desire to have a child. The film is replete with many lyrical moments scattered throughout - the two young wives enjoying a brief joyous moment together on a fairground ride at Joyland the amusement park; the younger son on a scooter at night carrying a huge cardboard standee of the transgender; a quiet moment of wordless passion between the two lovers sitting across from each other in the dark as the perforations on a light shade casts dancing flashes on their faces and around the room. In fact the most telling aspect of the film are the many moments of reflective silence between characters which gives pause and allows the audience to put their thinking caps on to analyze these flawed and complex yet very relatable characters and their motivations. Superbly acted by the ensemble cast with special kudos to Ali Junejo, Rasti Farooq and especially Alina Khan who is alternately ferocious and vulnerable - often at the same time. Also a loud shout-out to Sania Saeed as the lonely widow who has quiet designs on the equally lonely invalid patriarch. Human sexuality is such a huge part of this story just as it is in life for all of us. However, the ridiculous outrage over this film by a section of ill-informed anal religious fanatics in Pakistan is totally uncalled for. Run and watch this very mature film which shows a slice of life steeped in humanity, respect, love, longing and heartbreak.
Green Zone (Paul Greengrass, 2010) 8/10
"Does it make sense to you that we are coming up empty", is a repeated lament voiced by numerous confused characters throughout this riveting film. Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? That's the daring political question raised by Greengrass' film - which incidently flopped; wonder why? - and was a question raised by many around the world asking why the United States attacked Iraq. Based on a 2006 non-fiction book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City", by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, which documented life within the Green Zone in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The screenplay follows a US Army Chief Warrant Officer (Matt Damon) who has been assigned to search for Saddam Hussain's hidden weapons but is confused that the majority of intelligence assessment given to him is inaccurate. The CIA (Brendan Gleeson) also suspects the US government (Greg Kinnear) is blocking the true story about the weapons which leads to suspicion that the invasion took place due to ulterior motives. The film is replete with the usual Greengrass style - staccato editing, hurtling hand-held camerawork, which causes equal doses of dizziness and nausea, but seems right for the story at hand as it accurately shows the chaos not only on the streets of Iraq but also within the ranks of the US servicemen who flit about like headless chickens. Facts, as we now know to be true, turns to fiction here as Damon evolves into "Bourne" while being hunted not only by the Iraqis but more shockingly by his own countrymen willing to withold the truth that has been discovered. It's a local Iraqi who tells Damon that "it is not for you to decide what happens here" - words that so many countries America has wrongly interfered with would for certain echo. Excellent conspiracy movie with Damon a supeb action hero (already proved via "Bourne" - the American version of James Bond). Gleeson, Kinnear and Amy Ryan (as a journalist) are all very good in important supporting roles.
The Woman King (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2022) 7/10
Historical action-adventure film is set in 1823 and based on true events about the Agojie who were the all-female military regiment of the West African kingdom of Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin). A fierce General (Viola Davis) trains the next generation of warriors to fight their enemies - the slave traders from the Oyo Empire and the Portugese - and has a strained relationship with an arrogant young recruit (Thuso Mbedu) about whom she harbors a secret related to her violent past. Epic film has superbly choreographed battle scenes with Davis giving a fierce performance ably supported by Mbedu and Lashana Lynch as another unflinching warrior. Colorful costumes and exceptional production design are also highlights.
Battle: Los Angeles (Jonathan Liebesman, 2011) 3/10
Meteors shoot down on earth and an alien invasion begins. The film focuses on marines, led by Aaron Eckhart, retaliating in Santa Monica. Predictable noisy war film is like a video game as all the action blurs in between a lot of shouting, explosions and the expected mayhem. America wins of course.
Amsterdam (David O. Russell, 2022) 7/10
A David O. Russell film with shades of Wes Anderson has quirk and cult written all over it. A terribly busy hyperactive plot that goes from the battlefields of WWI to Amsterdam and onto New York with the tone shifting suddenly from screwball comedy to a crime thriller as we view murder, race relationships, suspense and a heinous plot to put a fascist government in the United States during the 1930s. A doctor (Christian Bale), a lawyer (John David Washington) and a nurse (Margot Robbie) form a strong bond of friendship as their lives converge during the horrors of WWI and later in Amsterdam. Years later the two men start their careers in New York where an autopsy on a senator reveals he was poisoned. His daughter (Taylor Swift), who suspects foul play, is killed in front of the boys and both are framed for her murder. Reunited with the nurse they learn her brother (Rami Malek) and his wife (Anya Taylor-Joy) are upto something nefarious wherein a General (Robert De Niro) is offered a large sum of money to make a speech advocating removal of President Roosevelt and taking over the country as a puppet head. The screenplay tries to cram in far too much and the film's tone vascilates between farce and drama which after a while becomes exhausting to watch. The incredible cast of stars is game but all their posturings as they try to keep up with the desperate shifts in plot instead end up making them flail about. What shines through it all is the film's outstanding production design by Judy Becker, the lovely costumes by Albert Wolsky and the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki. Confused effort by O. Russell that has a number of magical moments scattered throughout.
Murder at Yellowstone City (Richard Gray, 2022) 6/10
Solidly crafted mystery Western starts off very slow although covers most of the genre's tropes finally picking up pace mid-point onwards. When a gold prospector is shot dead the sheriff (Gabriel Byrne) of a small mining town in Montana automatically accuses and imprisons a stranger (Isaiah Mustafa) who has just come into town. He is a former slave and Shakespeare buff, innocent of the crime, who soon finds a saviour in the town's idealistic clergyman (Thomas Jane) who turns detective trying to prove the man's innocence. Like an Agatha Christie novel there are several more murders and a town full of eclectic characters - two aging gay saloonkeepers (Richard Dreyfuss & John Ales) who pretend they are just good friends, a young Lakota Sioux woman who tends the stables, a Mexican woman who overseers the town prostitutes and the sheriff's surly son. Like all good Westerns the last third of the film has a series of exciting shootouts with the preacher and his equally able wife front and center of all the action.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
I'm not cluttering up the Official Review thread with this one.
I watched The People You Hate at a Wedding, an Amazon Original rom-com/family comedy, and that's the problem. It can't really decide what it is. Or rather, it refuses to be a romantic comedy at every turn in favor of grabbing its "most dysfunctional family ever" brass ring and it's far less successful in that mold. The film has a horribly miscalculated prologue setting up screw-up Mom and two grown kids plus the perfect sibling that Mom had with another guy before they came along, which makes it feel like a fairy tale. Afterwards, the three of them come together to be a part of successful sister's perfect wedding and shenanigans ensue. The film sets itself up like a triptych of romantic comedy stories as Kristen Bell (Sister) is strung along by her married-boss lover about whether or not he will join her at the wedding and proceeds to string along the sweet Midwesterner she's hooking up with about whether or not he can be her plus one. Ben Platt (Brother) is unsure about an open relationship but his boyfriend is interested and without his consent gets them a place with a rich older man who expects a threesome out of it. And Allison Janney (Mom) is high on weed gummies all the time and hooks back up with her ex who ran out on her years ago but eventually stands up for her own worth. And all of this coincides in London over the course of perfect sister/daughter's wedding as they make one lousy impression after another, secrets are revealed, etc.
On paper, the film deserves a fair amount of credit for trying to do something different. To freshen up the romantic comedy genre, it gives us three stories, and they're three varied stories. On paper, there is something for everybody who is a fan of this genre. It goes for a bitter tone and even though it comes off as sitcom-ish that's not a bad idea for this genre or this story. But it really doesn't work right out of the gate. The dysfunctional family stuff and the romantic comedy stuff just don't really go well together. It's a tricky balancing act and they don't pull it off. It needed to be more one or the other. Whatever worked about the book doesn't translate at all. Blame the writers, who are graduates from Bob's Burgers (you can actually really see the animated sitcom tendencies) or blame Claire Scanlon, the director, who helmed the delightful Set It Up but has similar sitcom habits. That material either worked well with or survived them. This material does not. It's a shame. There is something within this film that could've worked but it's something of an endurance test. That said, I'd almost always rather watch a romantic comedy or family story that doesn't work vs. any other genre because they always end up fascinating case studies in what went wrong.
I watched The People You Hate at a Wedding, an Amazon Original rom-com/family comedy, and that's the problem. It can't really decide what it is. Or rather, it refuses to be a romantic comedy at every turn in favor of grabbing its "most dysfunctional family ever" brass ring and it's far less successful in that mold. The film has a horribly miscalculated prologue setting up screw-up Mom and two grown kids plus the perfect sibling that Mom had with another guy before they came along, which makes it feel like a fairy tale. Afterwards, the three of them come together to be a part of successful sister's perfect wedding and shenanigans ensue. The film sets itself up like a triptych of romantic comedy stories as Kristen Bell (Sister) is strung along by her married-boss lover about whether or not he will join her at the wedding and proceeds to string along the sweet Midwesterner she's hooking up with about whether or not he can be her plus one. Ben Platt (Brother) is unsure about an open relationship but his boyfriend is interested and without his consent gets them a place with a rich older man who expects a threesome out of it. And Allison Janney (Mom) is high on weed gummies all the time and hooks back up with her ex who ran out on her years ago but eventually stands up for her own worth. And all of this coincides in London over the course of perfect sister/daughter's wedding as they make one lousy impression after another, secrets are revealed, etc.
On paper, the film deserves a fair amount of credit for trying to do something different. To freshen up the romantic comedy genre, it gives us three stories, and they're three varied stories. On paper, there is something for everybody who is a fan of this genre. It goes for a bitter tone and even though it comes off as sitcom-ish that's not a bad idea for this genre or this story. But it really doesn't work right out of the gate. The dysfunctional family stuff and the romantic comedy stuff just don't really go well together. It's a tricky balancing act and they don't pull it off. It needed to be more one or the other. Whatever worked about the book doesn't translate at all. Blame the writers, who are graduates from Bob's Burgers (you can actually really see the animated sitcom tendencies) or blame Claire Scanlon, the director, who helmed the delightful Set It Up but has similar sitcom habits. That material either worked well with or survived them. This material does not. It's a shame. There is something within this film that could've worked but it's something of an endurance test. That said, I'd almost always rather watch a romantic comedy or family story that doesn't work vs. any other genre because they always end up fascinating case studies in what went wrong.
"How's the despair?"