All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh, 2023) 9/10
Stunning memory piece - a man's journey of self discovery about life and sexuality through relationships with a lover (Paul Mescal), his father (Jamie Bell) and mother (Claire Foy). Nothing is as what is shown yet every moment rings true for him. Words which remain unsaid between family members and between partners gradually fall into place. In life often one is at a loss about speaking openly to loved ones but here we see a man (Andrew Scott) get a second chance which ends up being a cathartic moment for him. Heartfelt, eerie film about loneliness, loss and love, and how redemption and peace is achieved while wafting through what seems like a world where fantasy and reality merge. The film is an adaptation of the Japanese novel "Strangers" by Taichi Yamada. All four actors give exquisite performances.
The Great Escaper (Oliver Parker, 2023) 7/10
An 89-year-old Royal Navy veteran (Michael Caine) sneaks off from his nursing home to attend the 70th anniversary of D-day commemorations in France in June 2014. Caine and Glenda Jackson reunite on the big screen after almost 50 years in this heartwarming little fluff as a devoted old couple living out their last years together. Nothing much happens - he makes it across the Channel with help from another veteran (John Standing) as they both share their inner demons while she holds fort back home cleverly hiding his "escape" from the staff at the nursing home. Despite her advanced age the actress is in sharp command as her tart-tongued responses bring forth happy memories of all her past performances. This was Jackson's last film - she died after completing her part - and soon after Caine announced his retirement so their reunion here becomes a poignant farewell to both stars.
The Last Rifleman (Terry Loane, 2023) 5/10
Seems like a remake of the recent Michael Caine-Glenda Jackson film "The Great Escaper" coming just a month after the first. Based loosely on the same true events the story revolves around the stubborn efforts of a Northern Irish World War II veteran (Pierce Brosnan in heavy old-age makeup) who, after his wife passes on, sneaks off from his care home in Ireland to make the difficult journey - with an expired passport - to France in order to participate during the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. He is helped along the way by a french tourist (Clémence Poésy), an American veteran (John Amos), a German veteran (Jürgen Prochnow) and an Irish journalist (Desmond Eastwood) as he comes to terms with the losses he suffered during the War. Brosnan is moving as he struggles through this road adventure while battling ghosts from the very distant past.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (James Wan, 2023) 6/10
First sequel to the 2018 film although I could swear there was another one in between as well....maybe the Hawaiian hulk appeared in one of the other DC films. The sequel takes on climate change as part of its "serious" subject and becomes an action packed buddy comedy with Aquaman (Jason Momoa) teaming up with half brother, Orb (Patrick Wilson), to take down Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) who has become possessed by a black trident - which threatens to overheat the world - during his quest to discover and rule the lost seventh kingdom of the seas. Also wants to kill Aqua and family - kidnaps baby Aqua. More colorful nonsense with Momoa the only one around with a relaxed sense of humour. Everyone around him is so tight-assed - even the exotic fishes and monsters. Nicole Kidman makes a brief appearance as his mother most probably pocketing big bucks for her few minutes on screen - but Wtf has this stupid, stupid woman done to her face with all those cheek & lip fillers making her look so fugly. Must have woken up off the right side of my bed as I kinda enjoyed this nonsense which positively strains at the seams with all the CGI. Most disgusting moment - Patrick Wilson munching a live cockroach. Ugh!!
Les bonnes causes / Don't Tempt the Devil (Christian-Jaque, 1963) 8/10
A nurse (Virna Lisi) administers an injection to her patient and he dies. His wife (Marina Vlady) accuses her of murder and later it is revealed that the deceased gifted his nurse an expensive bracelet and has left all his money to her in his will. The woman continues to deny being his mistress as the case goes to trial and she is defended by a lawyer (Umberto Orsini) and a judge (Bourvil) who is not quite convinced that the woman is guilty. The mood of the plot somewhat resembles Billy Wilder and Agatha Christie's "Witness For the Prosecution" although here the murderer is revealed very early on - the bitchy wife who plots against the innocent nurse with help from the cynical prosecuter (Pierre Brasseur) who is also her lover. Superbly played drama - lovely Lisi is more than just a pretty face, Vlady plays her part as completely virtuous while the audience is aware of the raging demon beneath her facade, Bourvil is brilliantly cast against type and is subtle and understated in comparison to the deliciously over-the-top Brasseur who plays to the gallery. And like the classic Wilder film there is a twist ending here as well.
Fool Me Once (David Moore & Nimer Rashed, 2024) 7/10
A British combat pilot (Michelle Keegan), released from service after a traumatic wartime incident, finds herself in the midst of two murders - her sister who is shot dead at her home during a robbery and a month later her beloved husband (Richard Armitage) who is shot dead in front of her by two men in a park. The plot takes on a double twist when it is discovered that both murders were committed by the same gun and a recent video recording that reveals her husband could be still alive. The plot involves a number of eccentric characters - a quirky detective (Adeel Akhtar) who suffers mysterious blackouts, his gay talkative cop partner, an imperious upper class mother-in-law (Joanna Lumley) who may or may not be hiding behind some evil plan, two kids who decide to investigate their mother's murder, and several more deaths from the very distant past that could be related to present events. This 8-part series has one twist after another and the rather ridiculous, but gripping, premise where the pilot starts to investigate the murders like an older version of Nancy Drew. Based on one of many books by Harlan Coben commissioned as movies by Netflix.
Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Indochine (Régis Wargnier, 1992) 8/10
Interesting to re-watch this film in the very country it is set in. Epic film recreates a time and era long gone and set against the backdrop of the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement. An imperious French rubber plantation owner (Catherine Deneuve) gets caught up in dramatic events when her adopted Vietnamese daughter (Linh Dan Pham) falls head over heels in love with her own intense lover, a French Naval officer (Vincent Perez). The story covers a period of twenty years from the 1930s to the 1950s when the country finally won its much sought-after independence. Very long, sometimes rambling, but exquisitely produced film - shot by François Catonné - perfectly captures the French colonial era in all its outward elegant beauty and its internal truth steeped in human savagery. The drama covers intense sex, opium addiction, murder, life in the wilderness as part of a theatrical troupe, imprisonment, child birth, and a suspected suicide. At the center of it all stands the stunning Catherine Deneuve - tall, slim, impecably attired - a vision of beauty as tough boss-lady, friend, doting mother, torrid lover, and finally a strong grandmother who survives despite all the odds. Dreamlike film keeps the characters at a remote distance and the screenplay more or less jettisons the actual horrors the local people were subjected to by their French rulers and merely scratches the surface of the horrors inflicted. Deneuve won her second César award and was nominated for an Academy Award. The film won in the Foreign Film category.
The Statement (Norman Jewison, 2003)
Interesting subject - the Catholic Church protecting Nazi collaborators who helped round up and executed jews during the Vichy government in France during WWII - gets a rather bland treatment. One such man (Michael Caine), who betrayed seven jews during the War and escaped capture, is on the run now in present day France with an army cop (Jeremy Northam) and a judge (Tilda Swinton) in close pursuit of not only him but also trying to discover the person high up in government who has allowed him to be provided asylum away from justice. The old man being chased is a guilt-ridden repentant Catholic, who is sick, bitter and hiding in monastries and abbeys while being provided protection by priests. Caine gives a one-note performance as he snivels, grovels and tries to stay alive while being confronted by assassins and cops. He is surrounded by a superb British/Irish supporting cast (all playing french characters but speaking with British accents) - Frank Finlay, Alan Bates, John Neville, Ciarán Hinds. The film's best moment is a brief vignette where he arrives to hide out at the doorstep of his estranged wife (Charlotte Rampling) and the two go at each other with bitter hatred, goading and accusing each other which reveals the true character of the old man as a sadistic bigot. Jewison's last film is adapted by Ronald Harwood from Brian Moore's novel.
Dhak Dhak (Tarun Dudeja, 2023) 6/10
Four disparate women - a young YouTuber (Fatima Sana Shaikh), a spirited Punjabi grandma (Ratna Pathak Shah), a skilled entrepreneur with stifled dreams (Diya Mirza), and an underconfident young woman trying to escape her overbearing mother (Sanjana Sanghi) - join together and embark on a road trip on bikes to Khardung La in the Leh district of the Indian union territory of Ladakh. The women come with predictable baggage but the screenplay allows them to banter in a playful manner as they in turns abet and support each other through the exhilarating journey. Female empowerment is the underlying theme of the plot as each woman comes into her own as they navigate through the spectacular terrain. Dudeja won the debut director Filmfare award and the film's story, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Ratna Pathak Shah were nominated for their performances.
Three of Us (Avinash Arun, 2023) 9/10
If Ingmar Bergman had been Indian this would have been one of the films he would have come up with. This is not to say that director Arun is copying Bergman. He has created here a drama about life, its regrets, memories - both happy and bittersweet - as characters delve into their long suppressed past. A woman in the early stages of dementia (Shefali Shah) suddenly expresses a desire to visit a town where she spent her childhood. She is accompanied by her willing and supportive husband (Swanand Kirkire) and she reconnects with a childhood friend (Kadambari Kadam) who is now married to another friend (Jaideep Ahlawat) on whom she had a crush all those years ago. With her fractured memory she visits places from her past reminiscing about the good and bitter times, reflecting on how much has changed since then. Her gradual proximity towards her crush results in deep conversations where he too expresses life's regrets - the trauma of an abusive father who suddenly walked out on his family never to be seen again. This growing closeness begins to cause a strain with her husband. The reflective screenplay does not wallow in misery but takes the unexpected path of showing the strength of the human spirit as each character discovers the beauty in their everyday life, valuing memories and accepting the often painful roadblocks life often throws. The film ends with the two friends seated on a ferris wheel, symbolizing the circle of life, as they contemplate a future they know cannot be what they desire. As with most choices in life one ends up taking the pragmatic route even if it is not the one that is desired. Both Ahlavat and Shah are quietly devastating. The film, Ahlavat, the screenplay, dialogue, score and sound design received nominations for the Filmfare award. Director Avinash Arun won for his cinematography as did Shefali Shah for her sharply nuanced, yet understated, performance. A must-see.
Animal (Sandeep Reddy Vanga, 2023) 7/10
Toxic Masculinity screws Misogyny and an Animal is born. The subject is nothing new as Vanga displayed it in spades during his previous films - the Telegu "Arjun Reddy" and its Hindi remake "Kabir Singh". Daddy love, or rather lack of it from a busy industrialist (Anil Kapoor), results in posturing progeny (Ranbir Kapoor) behaving like the entitled brat he is while continuing on his quest of hero worshipping his often absent but ever glowering dad. Boy likes to wave and shoot an AK-47 in class when his sister is ragged in school, later gets into a vicious argument with her husband, usurps his childhood sweetheart (Rashmika Mandanna) just as she is getting engaged to a person of her family's choice, gets married to her, and then turning backs on their families they both move to the USA. When his father is threatened he returns to avenge the perpetrators, one of whom is his sister's husband whom he kills. However, the assassin (Bobby Deol) he seeks turns out to be his own distant cousin as the convoluted plot uncovers assorted family intrigues that have been simmering for decades. Over-the-top characters and situations, once the bane of Bollywood during the 1980's, appear to be still in vogue as this incredibly overlong film has not only become one of the year's most successful films in Bollywood but has also won 5 Filmfare awards including one for Ranbir Kapoor's testosterone induced performance - the film, director Vanga, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol and Tripti Dimri were also nominated. With everyone playing to the gallery it is surprising to see Bollywood veterans Shakti Kapoor and Prem Chopra in very understated roles as the voices of calm. Ranbir totally outdoes Al Pacino in his scenery chewing "Scarface" role as he brandishes the biggest fucking gun that looks like a canon slaying a never-ending army of goons. The screenplay comes up with corny jokes about underwear, cocks of the black variety, several ingenious methods of killing human beings, and last but certainly not least creates a bizarre but memorable cameo role for Bobby Deol who, in a comeback of hysterical proportion, plays a vicious mute killer. He is first seen dancing to the iconic Iranian wedding song "Jamaal Jamaaloo" - but here given the title "Jamal Kudu" - who during his own wedding kills a man and then calmly goes to his bride and proceeds to consummate the marriage in front of all the guests while covered in blood. The film's bloodbath quotient has to be seen to be believed with the final shirtless confrontation taking place between the two protagonists on an airfield which is then followed by yet more brutal violence presented during the end credits which blatantly hint at a sequel.
Interesting to re-watch this film in the very country it is set in. Epic film recreates a time and era long gone and set against the backdrop of the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement. An imperious French rubber plantation owner (Catherine Deneuve) gets caught up in dramatic events when her adopted Vietnamese daughter (Linh Dan Pham) falls head over heels in love with her own intense lover, a French Naval officer (Vincent Perez). The story covers a period of twenty years from the 1930s to the 1950s when the country finally won its much sought-after independence. Very long, sometimes rambling, but exquisitely produced film - shot by François Catonné - perfectly captures the French colonial era in all its outward elegant beauty and its internal truth steeped in human savagery. The drama covers intense sex, opium addiction, murder, life in the wilderness as part of a theatrical troupe, imprisonment, child birth, and a suspected suicide. At the center of it all stands the stunning Catherine Deneuve - tall, slim, impecably attired - a vision of beauty as tough boss-lady, friend, doting mother, torrid lover, and finally a strong grandmother who survives despite all the odds. Dreamlike film keeps the characters at a remote distance and the screenplay more or less jettisons the actual horrors the local people were subjected to by their French rulers and merely scratches the surface of the horrors inflicted. Deneuve won her second César award and was nominated for an Academy Award. The film won in the Foreign Film category.
The Statement (Norman Jewison, 2003)
Interesting subject - the Catholic Church protecting Nazi collaborators who helped round up and executed jews during the Vichy government in France during WWII - gets a rather bland treatment. One such man (Michael Caine), who betrayed seven jews during the War and escaped capture, is on the run now in present day France with an army cop (Jeremy Northam) and a judge (Tilda Swinton) in close pursuit of not only him but also trying to discover the person high up in government who has allowed him to be provided asylum away from justice. The old man being chased is a guilt-ridden repentant Catholic, who is sick, bitter and hiding in monastries and abbeys while being provided protection by priests. Caine gives a one-note performance as he snivels, grovels and tries to stay alive while being confronted by assassins and cops. He is surrounded by a superb British/Irish supporting cast (all playing french characters but speaking with British accents) - Frank Finlay, Alan Bates, John Neville, Ciarán Hinds. The film's best moment is a brief vignette where he arrives to hide out at the doorstep of his estranged wife (Charlotte Rampling) and the two go at each other with bitter hatred, goading and accusing each other which reveals the true character of the old man as a sadistic bigot. Jewison's last film is adapted by Ronald Harwood from Brian Moore's novel.
Dhak Dhak (Tarun Dudeja, 2023) 6/10
Four disparate women - a young YouTuber (Fatima Sana Shaikh), a spirited Punjabi grandma (Ratna Pathak Shah), a skilled entrepreneur with stifled dreams (Diya Mirza), and an underconfident young woman trying to escape her overbearing mother (Sanjana Sanghi) - join together and embark on a road trip on bikes to Khardung La in the Leh district of the Indian union territory of Ladakh. The women come with predictable baggage but the screenplay allows them to banter in a playful manner as they in turns abet and support each other through the exhilarating journey. Female empowerment is the underlying theme of the plot as each woman comes into her own as they navigate through the spectacular terrain. Dudeja won the debut director Filmfare award and the film's story, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Ratna Pathak Shah were nominated for their performances.
Three of Us (Avinash Arun, 2023) 9/10
If Ingmar Bergman had been Indian this would have been one of the films he would have come up with. This is not to say that director Arun is copying Bergman. He has created here a drama about life, its regrets, memories - both happy and bittersweet - as characters delve into their long suppressed past. A woman in the early stages of dementia (Shefali Shah) suddenly expresses a desire to visit a town where she spent her childhood. She is accompanied by her willing and supportive husband (Swanand Kirkire) and she reconnects with a childhood friend (Kadambari Kadam) who is now married to another friend (Jaideep Ahlawat) on whom she had a crush all those years ago. With her fractured memory she visits places from her past reminiscing about the good and bitter times, reflecting on how much has changed since then. Her gradual proximity towards her crush results in deep conversations where he too expresses life's regrets - the trauma of an abusive father who suddenly walked out on his family never to be seen again. This growing closeness begins to cause a strain with her husband. The reflective screenplay does not wallow in misery but takes the unexpected path of showing the strength of the human spirit as each character discovers the beauty in their everyday life, valuing memories and accepting the often painful roadblocks life often throws. The film ends with the two friends seated on a ferris wheel, symbolizing the circle of life, as they contemplate a future they know cannot be what they desire. As with most choices in life one ends up taking the pragmatic route even if it is not the one that is desired. Both Ahlavat and Shah are quietly devastating. The film, Ahlavat, the screenplay, dialogue, score and sound design received nominations for the Filmfare award. Director Avinash Arun won for his cinematography as did Shefali Shah for her sharply nuanced, yet understated, performance. A must-see.
Animal (Sandeep Reddy Vanga, 2023) 7/10
Toxic Masculinity screws Misogyny and an Animal is born. The subject is nothing new as Vanga displayed it in spades during his previous films - the Telegu "Arjun Reddy" and its Hindi remake "Kabir Singh". Daddy love, or rather lack of it from a busy industrialist (Anil Kapoor), results in posturing progeny (Ranbir Kapoor) behaving like the entitled brat he is while continuing on his quest of hero worshipping his often absent but ever glowering dad. Boy likes to wave and shoot an AK-47 in class when his sister is ragged in school, later gets into a vicious argument with her husband, usurps his childhood sweetheart (Rashmika Mandanna) just as she is getting engaged to a person of her family's choice, gets married to her, and then turning backs on their families they both move to the USA. When his father is threatened he returns to avenge the perpetrators, one of whom is his sister's husband whom he kills. However, the assassin (Bobby Deol) he seeks turns out to be his own distant cousin as the convoluted plot uncovers assorted family intrigues that have been simmering for decades. Over-the-top characters and situations, once the bane of Bollywood during the 1980's, appear to be still in vogue as this incredibly overlong film has not only become one of the year's most successful films in Bollywood but has also won 5 Filmfare awards including one for Ranbir Kapoor's testosterone induced performance - the film, director Vanga, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol and Tripti Dimri were also nominated. With everyone playing to the gallery it is surprising to see Bollywood veterans Shakti Kapoor and Prem Chopra in very understated roles as the voices of calm. Ranbir totally outdoes Al Pacino in his scenery chewing "Scarface" role as he brandishes the biggest fucking gun that looks like a canon slaying a never-ending army of goons. The screenplay comes up with corny jokes about underwear, cocks of the black variety, several ingenious methods of killing human beings, and last but certainly not least creates a bizarre but memorable cameo role for Bobby Deol who, in a comeback of hysterical proportion, plays a vicious mute killer. He is first seen dancing to the iconic Iranian wedding song "Jamaal Jamaaloo" - but here given the title "Jamal Kudu" - who during his own wedding kills a man and then calmly goes to his bride and proceeds to consummate the marriage in front of all the guests while covered in blood. The film's bloodbath quotient has to be seen to be believed with the final shirtless confrontation taking place between the two protagonists on an airfield which is then followed by yet more brutal violence presented during the end credits which blatantly hint at a sequel.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Scarecrow / Chuchelo (1984) - 9/10 - Lena is a 12 year old girl who is being bullied by her classmates at school. She moved to a msall town to live with her grandfather and tells much of the story in flashback. The bullying started on the first day of school, but got worse when she covered for a boy she liked. The students in her class can be very cruel. It's very well acted, especially by the girl who plays Lena.
We'll Live Till Monday (1968) - 8.5/10 - Ilya is a middle aged high school history teacher who is well respected by students and coworkers, but appears to be suffering a bit of a personal crisis in terms of his profession. He may be disturbed, in part, by the rumors floating around about the young new English teacher, Natalya, who was once one of his students at the school and is thought to be in love with him. I enjoyed this one quite a bit and the performances by the students and the teachers were each pretty good.
Werewolf by Night (2022) - 8/10 - Ulysses Bloodstone is dead and a group of monster hunters have come to compete for the Bloodstone itself. This is a fun, short film, done mostly in black and white.
The Green Knight (2021) - 7.5/10 - It took me a while to warm to this one. It was certainly atmospheric, but it wasn't until almost halfway through that I actually became interested in the story.
Blue Beetle (2023) - 7.5/10 - That was a lot of fun and better than I expected. Jaime, his family, and Jenny were all great. The villains were a bit cardboard and there probably should have been a bit more explanation about One Man Army Corps for those who don't read the comics, but the action and humor were good and I enjoyed it. It would be nice to get a sequel, but that seems pretty unlikely.
Fate of a Man (1959) - 7.5/10 - A Russian father of three has a happy life before WWII. He goes off to fight after the war starts and ends up spending a couple of years as a prisoner of war before escaping. His life back home is forever changed due to the events of the war.
Five Evenings (1979) - 7.5/10 - It's the late 1950s and Sasha is back in his old hometown on business when he recognizes the apartment building where a woman he once loved lived before they got separated by the war. On a whim, he goes to the building to see if she still lives there and the two slowly rekindle their relationship.
Jules (2023) - 7.5/10 - Ben Kingsley stars as Milton, a 78 year old widower who lives alone, frequently attends and speaks at city council meetings, and whose daughter is worried that he may be showing early signs of senility. A spaceship crash lands in his back yard and a friendly, but mute alien starts living with Milton. When Milton tries to tell people about it, his daughter and others see it as a sign of his diminished mental capacity. It's up to Milton and two friends (Harriet Sansom Harris and Jane Curtin) to help their new alien friend. This is a pretty laid back comedy and I enjoyed it.
July Rain (1967) - 7.5/10 - Lena is a twenty-something who hangs out with her boyfriend and other friends when she's not at work or home. A man loans her his coat during a rainstorm one day and the two start talking regularly on the phone. It's a good film and the influence of the French New Wave on it is pretty evident.
Nine Days of One Year (1962) - 7.5/10 - Two nuclear physicists are friends, but each loves the same woman. One of the men is close to reaching his goal in experiments involving neutrons, but he has already received large doses of radiation in the past and his health could be further threatened if he does succeed. I enjoyed the scientific background to the film, the characters, and the occasional humor that is mixed in.
The Lady with the Dog (1960) - 7/10 - A banker on holiday in Yalta meets a woman who walks her dog every day. Each is married, but they begin a brief affair before heading to their respective hometowns. The banker can't get her out of his mind, though.
Little Vera (1988) - 7/10 - Vera is a young woman who lives in a small apartment with her parents. Her parents want her to go to university, but she's more interested in hanging out with friends and partying right now. Her life gets more complicated when she gets a new boyfriend who soon moves in with her and her parents, but there is a lot of tension.
Cloud-Paradise (1990) - 6.5/10 - Kolya lives in a small Soviet town. He struggles to make small talk and finds most people to be fairly indifferent about whatever he tries to discuss. He suddenly bursts out to a friend that he plans to move to the far East thaht day and finds himself the center of attention with a lot of people supporting his 'plan' to move. It's an odd film. I liked it more as it went along.
The Red Snowball Tree (1974) - 6/10 - A thief needs to hide out for a while so he heads to the country where a woman lives that he exchanged letters with while he was in prison. He is tired of the criminal life and enjoys life out in the country, but his past life might not be done with him. Unfortunately, I couldn't get into this one very much.
Trial on the Road (1971) - 6/10 - In 1942, a former Red Army soldier who went over to fight for the Germans now wants to come back and fight with the partisans against the Germans. I found it difficult to remain engaged with the characters and story at times.
Twenty Days Without War (1977) - 6/10 - A Soviet Major/war correspondent is given a 20 day leave after the Battle of Stalingrad and he uses the opportunity to return to visit Tashkent where a film is being made based on his stories.
Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) - 6/10 - This film jumps ahead a few years to a world where dinosaurs are living in the world around us. A genetically altered plague of locusts threatens crops (and people). The film is pretty boring during the first half hour and gets a little better after that when the action starts. It's another step down for the franchise.
My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1984) - 5.5/10 - Ivan Lapshin is the head of police in a 1930s Russian town around the time of 'The Great Purge". He is friends with a journalist named Khanin, and even takes him along on a raid in search of the leader of a gang of criminals. Pretty bleak looking at times and only occasionally interesting.
Moonshot (2022) - 5/10 - Walt is a college student who is hung up on Mars and wants adventure. Mars has been terraformed and colonized, but his applications to go there have been rejected. He sneaks on board a flight to Mars and gets some help from a girl who he convinced to follow her boyfriend to Mars. It's a dumb film, but does get a bit better toward the end.
Family Relations / Rodnya (1982) - 4/10 - A mother comes from the country to visit her daughter in Moscow and to try and help mend her marriage. I suppose the mother is meant to be endearing and funny, but I found her loud and annoying much of the time.
We'll Live Till Monday (1968) - 8.5/10 - Ilya is a middle aged high school history teacher who is well respected by students and coworkers, but appears to be suffering a bit of a personal crisis in terms of his profession. He may be disturbed, in part, by the rumors floating around about the young new English teacher, Natalya, who was once one of his students at the school and is thought to be in love with him. I enjoyed this one quite a bit and the performances by the students and the teachers were each pretty good.
Werewolf by Night (2022) - 8/10 - Ulysses Bloodstone is dead and a group of monster hunters have come to compete for the Bloodstone itself. This is a fun, short film, done mostly in black and white.
The Green Knight (2021) - 7.5/10 - It took me a while to warm to this one. It was certainly atmospheric, but it wasn't until almost halfway through that I actually became interested in the story.
Blue Beetle (2023) - 7.5/10 - That was a lot of fun and better than I expected. Jaime, his family, and Jenny were all great. The villains were a bit cardboard and there probably should have been a bit more explanation about One Man Army Corps for those who don't read the comics, but the action and humor were good and I enjoyed it. It would be nice to get a sequel, but that seems pretty unlikely.
Fate of a Man (1959) - 7.5/10 - A Russian father of three has a happy life before WWII. He goes off to fight after the war starts and ends up spending a couple of years as a prisoner of war before escaping. His life back home is forever changed due to the events of the war.
Five Evenings (1979) - 7.5/10 - It's the late 1950s and Sasha is back in his old hometown on business when he recognizes the apartment building where a woman he once loved lived before they got separated by the war. On a whim, he goes to the building to see if she still lives there and the two slowly rekindle their relationship.
Jules (2023) - 7.5/10 - Ben Kingsley stars as Milton, a 78 year old widower who lives alone, frequently attends and speaks at city council meetings, and whose daughter is worried that he may be showing early signs of senility. A spaceship crash lands in his back yard and a friendly, but mute alien starts living with Milton. When Milton tries to tell people about it, his daughter and others see it as a sign of his diminished mental capacity. It's up to Milton and two friends (Harriet Sansom Harris and Jane Curtin) to help their new alien friend. This is a pretty laid back comedy and I enjoyed it.
July Rain (1967) - 7.5/10 - Lena is a twenty-something who hangs out with her boyfriend and other friends when she's not at work or home. A man loans her his coat during a rainstorm one day and the two start talking regularly on the phone. It's a good film and the influence of the French New Wave on it is pretty evident.
Nine Days of One Year (1962) - 7.5/10 - Two nuclear physicists are friends, but each loves the same woman. One of the men is close to reaching his goal in experiments involving neutrons, but he has already received large doses of radiation in the past and his health could be further threatened if he does succeed. I enjoyed the scientific background to the film, the characters, and the occasional humor that is mixed in.
The Lady with the Dog (1960) - 7/10 - A banker on holiday in Yalta meets a woman who walks her dog every day. Each is married, but they begin a brief affair before heading to their respective hometowns. The banker can't get her out of his mind, though.
Little Vera (1988) - 7/10 - Vera is a young woman who lives in a small apartment with her parents. Her parents want her to go to university, but she's more interested in hanging out with friends and partying right now. Her life gets more complicated when she gets a new boyfriend who soon moves in with her and her parents, but there is a lot of tension.
Cloud-Paradise (1990) - 6.5/10 - Kolya lives in a small Soviet town. He struggles to make small talk and finds most people to be fairly indifferent about whatever he tries to discuss. He suddenly bursts out to a friend that he plans to move to the far East thaht day and finds himself the center of attention with a lot of people supporting his 'plan' to move. It's an odd film. I liked it more as it went along.
The Red Snowball Tree (1974) - 6/10 - A thief needs to hide out for a while so he heads to the country where a woman lives that he exchanged letters with while he was in prison. He is tired of the criminal life and enjoys life out in the country, but his past life might not be done with him. Unfortunately, I couldn't get into this one very much.
Trial on the Road (1971) - 6/10 - In 1942, a former Red Army soldier who went over to fight for the Germans now wants to come back and fight with the partisans against the Germans. I found it difficult to remain engaged with the characters and story at times.
Twenty Days Without War (1977) - 6/10 - A Soviet Major/war correspondent is given a 20 day leave after the Battle of Stalingrad and he uses the opportunity to return to visit Tashkent where a film is being made based on his stories.
Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) - 6/10 - This film jumps ahead a few years to a world where dinosaurs are living in the world around us. A genetically altered plague of locusts threatens crops (and people). The film is pretty boring during the first half hour and gets a little better after that when the action starts. It's another step down for the franchise.
My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1984) - 5.5/10 - Ivan Lapshin is the head of police in a 1930s Russian town around the time of 'The Great Purge". He is friends with a journalist named Khanin, and even takes him along on a raid in search of the leader of a gang of criminals. Pretty bleak looking at times and only occasionally interesting.
Moonshot (2022) - 5/10 - Walt is a college student who is hung up on Mars and wants adventure. Mars has been terraformed and colonized, but his applications to go there have been rejected. He sneaks on board a flight to Mars and gets some help from a girl who he convinced to follow her boyfriend to Mars. It's a dumb film, but does get a bit better toward the end.
Family Relations / Rodnya (1982) - 4/10 - A mother comes from the country to visit her daughter in Moscow and to try and help mend her marriage. I suppose the mother is meant to be endearing and funny, but I found her loud and annoying much of the time.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
China Moon (John Bailey, 1994) 6/10
Woman (Madeleine Stowe) married to an abusive husband (Charles Dance) meets a cop (Ed Harris) who falls head over heels in love with her and they begin an affair. During an altercation with her husband she shoots him dead in self defence and the cop helps her dump the body and she uses an alibi to clear herself of the homicide. Matters come to a head when the cop's young partner (Benicio del Toro) becomes suspicious during the investigation which leads to a twist ending. Sultry but routine neo-noir has lovely Stowe going the femme fatale route â la Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner and Kathleen Turner although she kinda fails to generate much heat as she seems to be sleep walking through most of the film. Steamy Florida is once again the setting and the mood is set by the blues songs sung live by Sam Myers during a sequence in the bar where the two lovers first meet. Harris is superb as the sap who finds himself twisted around the little finger of Stowe.
The Man Who Cheated Himself (Felix E. Feist, 1950) 6/10
Bitchy socialite (Jane Wyatt) kills her fortune-hunter husband and urges her cop lover (Lee J. Cobb) to help her. They dump the body, hide all clues but are pursued by his younger brother (John Dall) who also happens to be a rookie cop and his partner on the murder case. Formulaic B-noir is fairly gripping with a rare romantic lead role for character actor Cobb. Jane Wyatt, one of Hollywood's most wholesome actresses, is here cast totally against type as the femme fatale. The film was later the inspiration for the neo-noir China Moon (1994).
The Pilot's Wife (Robert Markowitz, 2002) 6/10
A woman (Christine Lahti) is informed by an airline employee (Campbell Scott) that the plane her pilot-husband (John Heard) was flying from London to Boston has exploded over the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Ireland. The plane's black box reveals there might have been a bomb in the cockpit. When the FBI arrives and starts asking awkward questions she makes a trip to London where she is shocked to discover another nasty secret he had been hiding from her for over five years. Her marriage appears to have been a sham which she tries to process by making a trip to the site of the crash. Based on a romance novel the film overcomes its soap opera origin and works for the most part due to the understated performance by Lahti and the lovely location filming which is apparently Nova Scotia doubling for both Boston and Northern Ireland.
Nothing But the Truth (Rod Lurie, 2008) 6/10
A government agent (a fiery Vera Farmiga) discovers that the United States wrongfully bombed Venezuela after an assassination attempt on the President. A reporter (Kate Beckinsale) outs the agent and writes the sensational story for her newspaper leaving the government exposed and in an awkward position. She is brought to trial and asked by a special Federal prosecutor (Matt Dillon) to reveal her source as under law if a government employee rats on a covert agent it is treason. When she refuses to divulge the name of her source she is jailed for a year and eventually sentenced to prison for two years. Her action results in the covert agent's divorce and later assassination, followed by her own marriage breaking down and. The film comes to life in all the scenes the two women confront each other but their individual home-life moments border on soap opera and keep bringing the film to a hault. While Angela Bassett is underused as the editor of the paper, the film perks up each time the forceful and relentless Matt Dillon appears, and Alan Alda turns in a great performance as the vain but sensitive attorney for the defence. The film reveals the journalist's source right at the end which is a complete surprise although makes complete sense why she was willing to risk prison and also sacrifice her personal life to hide the name of the person.
Erste Liebe / First Love (Maximillian Schell, 1970) 4/10
The star of this film is the cinematographer Sven Nykvist who creates gorgeous images of not only the actors but of birds, clouds, vast rolling fields, blades of grass and every object that comes in the way of his camera. The plot is strictly out of a Mills & Boon romance novel although it is based on the classic 1860 novella by Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. A 16-year old boy (John Moulder-Brown) gets infatuated with a 21-year old woman (Dominique Sanda) who has moved into the farm next door to the country estate belonging to his family. He lives with his father (Maximillian Schell), whom he looks up to, and a disdainful, irritable mother (Valentina Cortese). While the boy is serious in his love for her she merely flirts with him and enjoys his company as she does with a stream of other men around her. As is often the case, most first loves are doomed, but here there is a tragic whammy for the young, gooey-eyed teenager, something he does not see coming. Lovely Sanda was on a roll then playing the object of desire in back to back films - Robert Bresson's "Une femme douce", Bernardo Bertolucci's "Il conformista", Vittorio De Sica's "Il giardino dei Finzi Contini" - in all of which her character is like that of a will-o'-the-wisp. An object of yearning who is difficult to completely grasp. Schell tries a bit too hard to stretch the thin plot creating mood with repetitous scenes of the boy oogling the woman while she annoyingly plays hot and cold with him. There are other characters that float in and out of the main plot - British playwright John Osborne plays a poet who recites to a bunch of pigs and sheep on the estate, Dandy Nichols plays the young woman's eccentric mother, off-screen couple Marius Goring and Lucie Mannheim also make appearances. Schell's debut as a director inexplicably managed to get an Academy Award nomination in the foreign film category. Sitting through this was quite a tedious experience.
Woman (Madeleine Stowe) married to an abusive husband (Charles Dance) meets a cop (Ed Harris) who falls head over heels in love with her and they begin an affair. During an altercation with her husband she shoots him dead in self defence and the cop helps her dump the body and she uses an alibi to clear herself of the homicide. Matters come to a head when the cop's young partner (Benicio del Toro) becomes suspicious during the investigation which leads to a twist ending. Sultry but routine neo-noir has lovely Stowe going the femme fatale route â la Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner and Kathleen Turner although she kinda fails to generate much heat as she seems to be sleep walking through most of the film. Steamy Florida is once again the setting and the mood is set by the blues songs sung live by Sam Myers during a sequence in the bar where the two lovers first meet. Harris is superb as the sap who finds himself twisted around the little finger of Stowe.
The Man Who Cheated Himself (Felix E. Feist, 1950) 6/10
Bitchy socialite (Jane Wyatt) kills her fortune-hunter husband and urges her cop lover (Lee J. Cobb) to help her. They dump the body, hide all clues but are pursued by his younger brother (John Dall) who also happens to be a rookie cop and his partner on the murder case. Formulaic B-noir is fairly gripping with a rare romantic lead role for character actor Cobb. Jane Wyatt, one of Hollywood's most wholesome actresses, is here cast totally against type as the femme fatale. The film was later the inspiration for the neo-noir China Moon (1994).
The Pilot's Wife (Robert Markowitz, 2002) 6/10
A woman (Christine Lahti) is informed by an airline employee (Campbell Scott) that the plane her pilot-husband (John Heard) was flying from London to Boston has exploded over the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Ireland. The plane's black box reveals there might have been a bomb in the cockpit. When the FBI arrives and starts asking awkward questions she makes a trip to London where she is shocked to discover another nasty secret he had been hiding from her for over five years. Her marriage appears to have been a sham which she tries to process by making a trip to the site of the crash. Based on a romance novel the film overcomes its soap opera origin and works for the most part due to the understated performance by Lahti and the lovely location filming which is apparently Nova Scotia doubling for both Boston and Northern Ireland.
Nothing But the Truth (Rod Lurie, 2008) 6/10
A government agent (a fiery Vera Farmiga) discovers that the United States wrongfully bombed Venezuela after an assassination attempt on the President. A reporter (Kate Beckinsale) outs the agent and writes the sensational story for her newspaper leaving the government exposed and in an awkward position. She is brought to trial and asked by a special Federal prosecutor (Matt Dillon) to reveal her source as under law if a government employee rats on a covert agent it is treason. When she refuses to divulge the name of her source she is jailed for a year and eventually sentenced to prison for two years. Her action results in the covert agent's divorce and later assassination, followed by her own marriage breaking down and. The film comes to life in all the scenes the two women confront each other but their individual home-life moments border on soap opera and keep bringing the film to a hault. While Angela Bassett is underused as the editor of the paper, the film perks up each time the forceful and relentless Matt Dillon appears, and Alan Alda turns in a great performance as the vain but sensitive attorney for the defence. The film reveals the journalist's source right at the end which is a complete surprise although makes complete sense why she was willing to risk prison and also sacrifice her personal life to hide the name of the person.
Erste Liebe / First Love (Maximillian Schell, 1970) 4/10
The star of this film is the cinematographer Sven Nykvist who creates gorgeous images of not only the actors but of birds, clouds, vast rolling fields, blades of grass and every object that comes in the way of his camera. The plot is strictly out of a Mills & Boon romance novel although it is based on the classic 1860 novella by Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. A 16-year old boy (John Moulder-Brown) gets infatuated with a 21-year old woman (Dominique Sanda) who has moved into the farm next door to the country estate belonging to his family. He lives with his father (Maximillian Schell), whom he looks up to, and a disdainful, irritable mother (Valentina Cortese). While the boy is serious in his love for her she merely flirts with him and enjoys his company as she does with a stream of other men around her. As is often the case, most first loves are doomed, but here there is a tragic whammy for the young, gooey-eyed teenager, something he does not see coming. Lovely Sanda was on a roll then playing the object of desire in back to back films - Robert Bresson's "Une femme douce", Bernardo Bertolucci's "Il conformista", Vittorio De Sica's "Il giardino dei Finzi Contini" - in all of which her character is like that of a will-o'-the-wisp. An object of yearning who is difficult to completely grasp. Schell tries a bit too hard to stretch the thin plot creating mood with repetitous scenes of the boy oogling the woman while she annoyingly plays hot and cold with him. There are other characters that float in and out of the main plot - British playwright John Osborne plays a poet who recites to a bunch of pigs and sheep on the estate, Dandy Nichols plays the young woman's eccentric mother, off-screen couple Marius Goring and Lucie Mannheim also make appearances. Schell's debut as a director inexplicably managed to get an Academy Award nomination in the foreign film category. Sitting through this was quite a tedious experience.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Maestro (Bradley Cooper, 2023) 8/10
Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper), one of the most important conductors of his time, often comes off here like a wilful child - wants to have his cake and eat it too. Both male and female - but with a special preference for the male sex. This gorgeous looking film - shot both in black & white and in colour by Matthew Libatique - is not really a straightforward biography of this genius who became the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. It is an intimate (and at times very flamboyant) look at his relationship with people close to him - very briefly with friends, colleagues, lovers (the more the merrier) - but in depth with his very complex and tempestuous marriage to Costa Rican actress, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), with whom he had three children. Cooper directs this tormented love story and makes it seem like we are watching a ballet on stage with the two main characters swaying and twirling to soaring music as they come together in a duet of clashing cymbals. A complex relationship that is driven to despair, hurt and anger, yet remains unbreakable despite the gross excesses - both sexual and cerebral - that one member indulges himself in while the other bears it with bitter and loving forebearance. Great art doesn't come easily and often a great emotional price has to be paid to achieve it which Cooper presents in vivid strokes through the lives of these two souls - one who is at turns childish and volatile but also extremely magnetic who is provided emotional balance by the other. A love story for the ages brought to the screen painted with bright urgent strokes. Cooper is both jarring and real under the prosthetic makeup - the notorious fake nose caused a lot of silly controversy but it is the body part that actually vividly transforms him into Bernstein. Mulligan, at first appears miscast and seems to initially tread softly around Cooper's edgy performance, but she quickly grows into her character and stands tall creating a strong woman who manages to hold her own next to the genius. She gets a stunning scene where she unleashes years of suppressed anger and verbally goes at him hammer and tongs while he tries to arrogantly defend himself. Despite all his selfish antics Bernstein maintains a deep love for his wife which he tenderly displays when she is gravely ill with cancer. Cooper has dressed his film in topnotch fashion - the outstanding costume and production design, the editing, makeup and hairstyle, the constantly moving camera, and ofcourse the stunning Bernstein music interludes that provide the dramatic backbone to the story. Thankfully the screenplay does not go the route of a standard biopic connecting each dot and moment in his life although it could have maybe spent a wee bit more time on some of the important supporting characters - his lovers and sister, and their children who we get to see so fleetingly. The film is a stunning ode to a narcissist, albeit one who has loads of charm.
The Blacklist (2013-2014) Season One 8/10
Mysterious criminal - Raymond Reddington (James Spader) - gives himself up to the FBI, demands immunity and in return promises to provide information on wanted criminals just as long he has direct access to rookie FBI agent - Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone). The series uses the tone of "The Silence of the Lambs" in its interactions between the two leads. Spader takes the role and runs with it creating a hugely compelling character who drips sarcasm and vicious bon mots who is not afraid to kill with steel-eyed precision if the occasion calls for it.
High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973) 6/10
Eastwood directs his first Western and brings to the genre his apprentice training from his Spaghetti days as he channels Sergio Leone. The silent man with no name, cheroot stuck in his clenched teeth, rides into town, shoots dead three men, gets accosted by the town trollop, who he then rapes after dragging her to a barn and pushing her down onto a haystack. And this is only during the first ten minutes. So politically not correct? Or is it? Well she does start by struggling which quickly turns into a passionate embrace as she pulls him to herself while in the throes of what seem like multiple orgasms. Whatever the case may be this scene would never pass muster in today's over-sensitive woke climate in Hollywood. The stranger is hired by the bickering townfolk to protect them from a bunch of critters who were jailed and are now being released. It also appears the town is guarding a dark secret from the past. Eastwood looks very cool squinting his eyes and makes his gunslinger a mythical combination of Dirty Harry and Jesus Christ.
Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper), one of the most important conductors of his time, often comes off here like a wilful child - wants to have his cake and eat it too. Both male and female - but with a special preference for the male sex. This gorgeous looking film - shot both in black & white and in colour by Matthew Libatique - is not really a straightforward biography of this genius who became the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. It is an intimate (and at times very flamboyant) look at his relationship with people close to him - very briefly with friends, colleagues, lovers (the more the merrier) - but in depth with his very complex and tempestuous marriage to Costa Rican actress, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), with whom he had three children. Cooper directs this tormented love story and makes it seem like we are watching a ballet on stage with the two main characters swaying and twirling to soaring music as they come together in a duet of clashing cymbals. A complex relationship that is driven to despair, hurt and anger, yet remains unbreakable despite the gross excesses - both sexual and cerebral - that one member indulges himself in while the other bears it with bitter and loving forebearance. Great art doesn't come easily and often a great emotional price has to be paid to achieve it which Cooper presents in vivid strokes through the lives of these two souls - one who is at turns childish and volatile but also extremely magnetic who is provided emotional balance by the other. A love story for the ages brought to the screen painted with bright urgent strokes. Cooper is both jarring and real under the prosthetic makeup - the notorious fake nose caused a lot of silly controversy but it is the body part that actually vividly transforms him into Bernstein. Mulligan, at first appears miscast and seems to initially tread softly around Cooper's edgy performance, but she quickly grows into her character and stands tall creating a strong woman who manages to hold her own next to the genius. She gets a stunning scene where she unleashes years of suppressed anger and verbally goes at him hammer and tongs while he tries to arrogantly defend himself. Despite all his selfish antics Bernstein maintains a deep love for his wife which he tenderly displays when she is gravely ill with cancer. Cooper has dressed his film in topnotch fashion - the outstanding costume and production design, the editing, makeup and hairstyle, the constantly moving camera, and ofcourse the stunning Bernstein music interludes that provide the dramatic backbone to the story. Thankfully the screenplay does not go the route of a standard biopic connecting each dot and moment in his life although it could have maybe spent a wee bit more time on some of the important supporting characters - his lovers and sister, and their children who we get to see so fleetingly. The film is a stunning ode to a narcissist, albeit one who has loads of charm.
The Blacklist (2013-2014) Season One 8/10
Mysterious criminal - Raymond Reddington (James Spader) - gives himself up to the FBI, demands immunity and in return promises to provide information on wanted criminals just as long he has direct access to rookie FBI agent - Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone). The series uses the tone of "The Silence of the Lambs" in its interactions between the two leads. Spader takes the role and runs with it creating a hugely compelling character who drips sarcasm and vicious bon mots who is not afraid to kill with steel-eyed precision if the occasion calls for it.
High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973) 6/10
Eastwood directs his first Western and brings to the genre his apprentice training from his Spaghetti days as he channels Sergio Leone. The silent man with no name, cheroot stuck in his clenched teeth, rides into town, shoots dead three men, gets accosted by the town trollop, who he then rapes after dragging her to a barn and pushing her down onto a haystack. And this is only during the first ten minutes. So politically not correct? Or is it? Well she does start by struggling which quickly turns into a passionate embrace as she pulls him to herself while in the throes of what seem like multiple orgasms. Whatever the case may be this scene would never pass muster in today's over-sensitive woke climate in Hollywood. The stranger is hired by the bickering townfolk to protect them from a bunch of critters who were jailed and are now being released. It also appears the town is guarding a dark secret from the past. Eastwood looks very cool squinting his eyes and makes his gunslinger a mythical combination of Dirty Harry and Jesus Christ.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
I recently revisited I Heart Huckabees, a film I hadn't seen in a long time, and shared the experience with my girlfriend, who was watching it for the first time. My initial positive feelings about the movie had evolved into a more favorable memory, particularly in light of director David O. Russell's later works.
EDIT: 01.17.24
On this viewing, what held me at bay was how over-plotted it is. It wants to set everything up within the first act and I don't think it really benefits from that. For example: Jason Schwartzman is an environmental activist-poet leading the Open Spaces coalition to protect a marsh from being destroyed to make room for a new Huckabee's Superstore. He finds a rival in Brad Stand (Jude Law), a PR executive with a wife (Naomi Watts) that Schwartzman becomes obsessed with. But what Schwartzman really thinks is going on is that Stand wants to undermine him and dismantle the coalition. This all happens BEFORE the movie begins. But that's not why Schwartzman goes to see the Existential Detectives. He goes to see them because of a coincidence involving an African man showing up repeatedly in his life.
By any metric, that's a lot. My problem isn't that there's too much going on. My problem is that there's so much going on that I never quite bond emotionally with the characters. And I want to. Ultimately that's what bothers me about the film. It has a very high bar to clear. This is a lark about all the big thoughts in the world but it's also about nothing. That's a high bar to clear and it only does it half of the time. The other times, it's abrasive and annoying.
But honestly, maybe that's okay. It's I Heart Huckabees after all. It doesn't all have to come together. Anyway, I didn't have the transcendent experience I did earlier in my life but it's still a fascinating and unique film within David O. Russell's quixotic oeuvre. It's unlike anything else.
EDIT: 01.17.24
On this viewing, what held me at bay was how over-plotted it is. It wants to set everything up within the first act and I don't think it really benefits from that. For example: Jason Schwartzman is an environmental activist-poet leading the Open Spaces coalition to protect a marsh from being destroyed to make room for a new Huckabee's Superstore. He finds a rival in Brad Stand (Jude Law), a PR executive with a wife (Naomi Watts) that Schwartzman becomes obsessed with. But what Schwartzman really thinks is going on is that Stand wants to undermine him and dismantle the coalition. This all happens BEFORE the movie begins. But that's not why Schwartzman goes to see the Existential Detectives. He goes to see them because of a coincidence involving an African man showing up repeatedly in his life.
By any metric, that's a lot. My problem isn't that there's too much going on. My problem is that there's so much going on that I never quite bond emotionally with the characters. And I want to. Ultimately that's what bothers me about the film. It has a very high bar to clear. This is a lark about all the big thoughts in the world but it's also about nothing. That's a high bar to clear and it only does it half of the time. The other times, it's abrasive and annoying.
But honestly, maybe that's okay. It's I Heart Huckabees after all. It doesn't all have to come together. Anyway, I didn't have the transcendent experience I did earlier in my life but it's still a fascinating and unique film within David O. Russell's quixotic oeuvre. It's unlike anything else.
Last edited by Sabin on Wed Jan 17, 2024 12:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"How's the despair?"
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
May December (Todd Haynes, 2023) 7/10
An actress (Natalie Portman) comes to observe in close detail the life of a woman (Julianne Moore) who was once involved in a scandal. She has been offered a script to portray the 37-year old married woman who had an affair with a boy in seventh grade. There was a jail sentence but now years later the two are married and have grown up kids and living happily together. The actress is amazed to see that the woman has no guilt but realizes that there is a lot of tension surrounding her when she speaks to other members of her extended family - first husband, kids by him, present husband's father. The film is loosely based on the true story, during the 1990s, of a schoolteacher who had an affair with a sixth grader. The film moves like a delicate memory piece with the actress intruding into the private life of a woman, who although outwardly seems upbeat about the idea, gives off an underlying signal of annoyance. Mid-point Haynes stages a scene between the two women - the actress wants to know what makeup the housewife applies which the latter then proceeds to apply to the face of the actress - which has a startling resemblance to a moment in Ingmar Bergman's 1966 classic "Persona" where the two personalities for an instant merge as one. Charles Melton is quietly devastating as the young husband who while seemingly faithful to his older wife has sound rumblings of doubt years into their relationship. Julianne Moore manages to provide sympathy to her southern belle character who is not quite the monster as portrayed by the tabloids and she brings a touch of gentle naïveté to the part along with a dash of fire simmering beneath the facade. Haynes continues in his streak of melodramas in line with the great Douglas Sirk.
Cadaveri eccellenti / Illustrious Corpses (Francesco Rosi, 1976) 7/10
Political thriller that more or less mirrors what was happening in Italy at the time. A series of high ranking judges are being assassinated and Inspector Rogas (Lino Ventura) is assigned to the case. Slow moving, but thoughtful and intriguing, police procedural with an outstanding supporting cast in bit roles - Marcel Bozzuffi, Paolo Bonacelli, Alain Cuny, Tina Aumont, Renato Salvatori, Fernando Rey, Charles Vanel, Max von Sydow - with a shock ending that is in keeping with the corrupt politics in play back then in the country.
The English (Hugo Blick, 2022) 8/10
Revisionist Western swings like a pendulum between Sergio Leone and Quentin Tarantino. It balances the silences and intense closeups of Leone with a whole lotta talkin' â la Tarantino. Plus we get epic shots of the vast Wild West in all its brutal fury. An Englishwoman (Emily Blunt) travels to the American West in 1890 to take revenge on the man who killed her son. The story turns into a violent road trip when she saves the life of an ex-cavalry scout who is a member of the Pawnee Nation (Chaske Spencer). He is on his way to Nebraska to claim land the army owes him. Both join together on their quest for salvation. Along the way secrets are revealed as they encounter assorted colorful characters - Stephen Rea, Toby Jones, Rafe Spall, Ciarán Hinds - under a vast umbrella of violence. For a British production this is a superb effort.
Anima persa / The Forbidden Room (Dino Risi, 1977) 8/10
Young art student arrives at a dilapidated mansion belonging to his aunt (Catherine Deneuve) who is married to a stern controlling man (Vittorio Gassman). He notices that his aunt is totally submissive to her husband who treats her with no respect. Things get sinister when he hears noises in the attic and is forbidden to go into a room upstairs. He is informed by his aunt and the maid that the uncle's twin brother resides in the attic who went mad after the death of the aunt's daughter from a previous marriage. Though the plot appears to be veering towards grand guignol this is not what we discover. Also intriguing to the young student is the weekly arrival of a prostitute who is taken upstairs to the mad man for his pleasure. This is another film that would horrify today's American audiences - a subject so matter of factly put across here - a man's facination and love for a child which he takes to a sinister extent. And it doesn't end there as the man has so much more up his sleeve. The film resembles a giallo but comes off more as a gothic horror mystery with Tonino Delli Colli's camera weaving through the musty rooms. Poor Venice again comes off as very sinister helped in great part by the faded baroque mansion in which the action plays out in an extremely perverse psycho-sexual way. The final twist ending does not come as a total surprise but is highly effective. The film is an adaptation of a novel by Giovanni Arpino, who also wrote "Il buio e il miele", which Dino Risi in 1974 turned into the classic film "Profumo di donna", which has one of Vittorio Gassman's most memorable performances. And he is equally mesmerizing here as well. Truly a great actor. And a star.
An actress (Natalie Portman) comes to observe in close detail the life of a woman (Julianne Moore) who was once involved in a scandal. She has been offered a script to portray the 37-year old married woman who had an affair with a boy in seventh grade. There was a jail sentence but now years later the two are married and have grown up kids and living happily together. The actress is amazed to see that the woman has no guilt but realizes that there is a lot of tension surrounding her when she speaks to other members of her extended family - first husband, kids by him, present husband's father. The film is loosely based on the true story, during the 1990s, of a schoolteacher who had an affair with a sixth grader. The film moves like a delicate memory piece with the actress intruding into the private life of a woman, who although outwardly seems upbeat about the idea, gives off an underlying signal of annoyance. Mid-point Haynes stages a scene between the two women - the actress wants to know what makeup the housewife applies which the latter then proceeds to apply to the face of the actress - which has a startling resemblance to a moment in Ingmar Bergman's 1966 classic "Persona" where the two personalities for an instant merge as one. Charles Melton is quietly devastating as the young husband who while seemingly faithful to his older wife has sound rumblings of doubt years into their relationship. Julianne Moore manages to provide sympathy to her southern belle character who is not quite the monster as portrayed by the tabloids and she brings a touch of gentle naïveté to the part along with a dash of fire simmering beneath the facade. Haynes continues in his streak of melodramas in line with the great Douglas Sirk.
Cadaveri eccellenti / Illustrious Corpses (Francesco Rosi, 1976) 7/10
Political thriller that more or less mirrors what was happening in Italy at the time. A series of high ranking judges are being assassinated and Inspector Rogas (Lino Ventura) is assigned to the case. Slow moving, but thoughtful and intriguing, police procedural with an outstanding supporting cast in bit roles - Marcel Bozzuffi, Paolo Bonacelli, Alain Cuny, Tina Aumont, Renato Salvatori, Fernando Rey, Charles Vanel, Max von Sydow - with a shock ending that is in keeping with the corrupt politics in play back then in the country.
The English (Hugo Blick, 2022) 8/10
Revisionist Western swings like a pendulum between Sergio Leone and Quentin Tarantino. It balances the silences and intense closeups of Leone with a whole lotta talkin' â la Tarantino. Plus we get epic shots of the vast Wild West in all its brutal fury. An Englishwoman (Emily Blunt) travels to the American West in 1890 to take revenge on the man who killed her son. The story turns into a violent road trip when she saves the life of an ex-cavalry scout who is a member of the Pawnee Nation (Chaske Spencer). He is on his way to Nebraska to claim land the army owes him. Both join together on their quest for salvation. Along the way secrets are revealed as they encounter assorted colorful characters - Stephen Rea, Toby Jones, Rafe Spall, Ciarán Hinds - under a vast umbrella of violence. For a British production this is a superb effort.
Anima persa / The Forbidden Room (Dino Risi, 1977) 8/10
Young art student arrives at a dilapidated mansion belonging to his aunt (Catherine Deneuve) who is married to a stern controlling man (Vittorio Gassman). He notices that his aunt is totally submissive to her husband who treats her with no respect. Things get sinister when he hears noises in the attic and is forbidden to go into a room upstairs. He is informed by his aunt and the maid that the uncle's twin brother resides in the attic who went mad after the death of the aunt's daughter from a previous marriage. Though the plot appears to be veering towards grand guignol this is not what we discover. Also intriguing to the young student is the weekly arrival of a prostitute who is taken upstairs to the mad man for his pleasure. This is another film that would horrify today's American audiences - a subject so matter of factly put across here - a man's facination and love for a child which he takes to a sinister extent. And it doesn't end there as the man has so much more up his sleeve. The film resembles a giallo but comes off more as a gothic horror mystery with Tonino Delli Colli's camera weaving through the musty rooms. Poor Venice again comes off as very sinister helped in great part by the faded baroque mansion in which the action plays out in an extremely perverse psycho-sexual way. The final twist ending does not come as a total surprise but is highly effective. The film is an adaptation of a novel by Giovanni Arpino, who also wrote "Il buio e il miele", which Dino Risi in 1974 turned into the classic film "Profumo di donna", which has one of Vittorio Gassman's most memorable performances. And he is equally mesmerizing here as well. Truly a great actor. And a star.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Strange Days (1995) - 8/10 - New Year's Eve 1999 is here and Los Angeles is a crime ridden battleground in many areas. Lenny (Ralph Fiennes) is a former cop who now deals in a fairly new type of illegal item which allows people to record memories, feelings, etc. to disc so that others can experience them. When a disc is given to him that contains the murder of someone he knows, his life and the lives of his friends are in danger. His main help comes from his limo driver friend, Mac (Angela Bassett). It took me a bit to get into this, but I liked it more and more as it went along.
Last Night (1998) - 8/10 - The people in Toronto are going about their lives on the last day before some unnamed catastrophe will end the world at midnight. The rioting is in the past and people are dealing with it in a variety of ways. Some are meeting in prayer groups, another is pursuing his sexual goals, and one man just wants to spend the evening alone in his apartment. It's a pretty good film.
Le pays des sourds / In the Land of the Deaf (1992) - 8/10 - This is a very nice documentary about a variety of deaf children and adults. The children are part of a class for the deaf who go on occasional field trips in addition to their classroom work. The adults talk about their experiences with family and growing up deaf and we also get to see them in parts of their regular lives.
King Carnival (1973) - 8/10 - A look at the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, delving into its history as well as showing plenty of action from the 1973 Carnival. The costumes and music are pretty cool and I enjoyed this informative and entertaining doc.
The Circle / Dayereh (2000) - 8/10 - The film follows a number of intersecting stories of women who suffer repression in a number of ways in Iranian society. The birth of a daughter may lead to divorce, a woman just out of prison is ostracized by her family and threatened by her brothers, women can't do a number of things without a man. Bleak, but good.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) - 7.5/10 - This was pretty entertaining with plenty of humor. Nothing really exceptional, but generally fun.
Silicon Cowboys (2016) - 7.5/10 - The film follows the rise of Compaq in the 1980s into a power in the computing industry as they took on IBM. The film uses a mix of interviews and archival footage. The company had a lot of success, though ran into a number of problems at different points and eventually started to decline with the 1990s being tough on the company. I remember this era fairly well and used a variety of different computers while in school. We had an Commodore 64s and Vic-20s in Junior High (1982-1984). We had TRS-80s, an IBM-PC, and Tandy-1000s (an IBM clone) in high school plus a Honeywell Level-62 which was used for our punchcard programs. We later got a Unix system and I used Compaqs at one of the other buildings in the district.
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song (2021) - 7.5/10 - I first became aware of Leonard Cohen's music back in the late 1980s and I liked what I heard. I was more of a casual fan than a dedicated one, but I did enjoy his music. This film takes a look at his career from when he first started singing on stage in the 1960s through his death in 2016. The heavy emphasis is on his best known song, Hallelujah. I've always preferred Cohen's version to the various cover versions which sold better, but my favorite Cohen song is actually Everybody Knows from his 1988 album (and later, the soundtrack to Pump Up the Volume).
The Big One (1997) - 7.5/10 - Michael Moore travels around the US on a book tour in support of his book, Downsize This. Along the way, he talks to workers who have lost their jobs due to profitable corporations that have moved operations to other countries to save money. Moore also pays visits to these companies and tries to see politicians. We also get excerpts from Moore speaking to a large audience, apparently doing a mix of stand up and talking about his book tour. It's fairly entertaining.
Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002) - 7.5/10 - This is really three parallel films that take place in a once prosperous industrial area. In the first part, the factories are closing down and the workers who haven't been laid off yet often have a lot of idle time. The second part deals with families that live in a rundown neighborhood that is scheduled for demolition. The families are supposed to be relocated to public housing and have been given a date where they have to be out of their old homes. A lot of time is spent with the teenagers who live there and face an uncertain future. The last part deals with a father and son who live illegally in the railroad yard and eke out a living collecting and selling scrap. The first section was okay, but I think it could have been shortened by about an hour without sacrificing anything important. It seemed kind of repetitive at times. The second section was easily my favorite of the three.
Fires on the Plain (1959) - 7.5/10 - A Japanese soldier with TB is abandoned by his company and left to wander alone in the Philippines near the end of WWII. The film is pretty bleak and meanders at times, but overall is pretty good.
Bitter Berry / Gorkaya yagoda (1975) - 7.5/10 - A nice tale of adolescent relationships one summer in Uzbekistan. I think that I might have liked it even more with proper English subtitles. Hopefully those show up some day.
Davandeh (1984) - 7.5/10 - An orphan boy survives on the streets by collecting bottles from the sea, shining shoes, and other jobs. He sometimes hangs out with a group of boys and occasionally finds time for fun. The boy is also enthralled with planes. I thought it was pretty good.
Mars Attacks! (1996) - 7.5/10 - Sure, it's kind of dumb and way over the top, but it is also fun. I hadn't realized how many big names had roles in the film.
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) - 7.5/10 - This is a nice cold war thriller where control of the nuclear arsenal of the U.S. is given over to a supercomputer named Colossus designed by Charles Forbin. It soon becomes apparent that not everything has gone as planned when Colossus and its counterpart in the Soviet Union use their respective nuclear weapons as the stick to have their demands met.
Mashenka (1942) - 7.5/10 - A nursing student falls in love with a taxi driver, but he isn't sure if he feels exactly the same way for her. Then war breaks out. I liked Valentina Karavayeva as Masha and the movie was pretty entertaining.
The Lion Hunters (1966) - 7/10 - A tribe prepares itself for a traditional bow and arrow hunt for a lion that is a danger to the tribe. The creation of the arrows and arrowheads is shown which is pretty interesting. We also get to see many other traditional parts leading up to the hunt and then the hunt itself.
The Damned (1962) - 7/10 - A young woman expresses some interest in an older American tourist, but her violent brother jealously guards her from the attention of others. The story shifts midway through as they end up on a remote island where a group of children are being held by the government.
Cinderella (1947) - 7/10 - The Soviet version of the classic fairytale is pretty good.
The Road (2009) - 7/10 - A father and his young son travel across the countryside in a post-apocalyptic world where most plants and animals are dead and there are gangs of cannibals among the surviving humans. It's a decent film, but pretty bleak.
Train of Life (1998) - 7/10 - The residents of a Jewish village in Eastern Europe create their own deportation train as a way to escape from the advancing Nazis and escape to the Soviet Union and Palestine. Kind of silly at times, but not bad.
Primary (1960) - 7/10 - The film follows JFK and Hubert Humphrey as they try to gain the Democratic nomination for President in 1960. It's an interesting look at the time.
The Madoff Affair (2009) - 6.5/10 - This documentary looks into Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of billions of dollars. I remember when this was big news back in the day, though it didn't affect me directly.
A Married Couple (1969) - 6.5/10 - Their marriage was failing so of course Billy and Antoinette Edwards agreed to have cameras set up in their home for 10 weeks to capture their daily lives. There is a lot of bickering and arguing without much in the way of love. The film is okay, but kind of unpleasant to watch at times. I think Billy came off looking worse here, especially from a modern perspective.
Asteroid City (2023) - 6.5/10 - The setting is a televised broadcast of a stage play. I generally liked the full color sections in Asteroid City. The 'behind the scenes' scenes in black and white were not as interesting.
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) - 6.5/10 - This is a pretty good adaptation of the book from what I can recall. However, I wasn't a big fan of the book and am also not a big fan of this film, though it was okay.
Urgences (1988) - 6.5/10 - A look at some of the patients in the psychiatric ward of a large French hospital. The film reminded me some of Wiseman, thought the fly on the wall aspect was occasionally broken as the people interacted briefly with the people behind the camera.
From the Other Side / De l'autre côté (2002) - 6/10 - This takes a look at the fate of some Mexicans who crossed the border to go to the United States. Relatives of people who crossed are interviewed along with people who crossed and returned. People on the American side are also interviewed. Crossing over to the U.S. often seems not to have a happy outcome. There is a lot of time where no talking is going on and the camera just rolls on whatever is going on in that area.
Transatlantic Tunnel (1935) - 5.5/10 - A melodrama about the building of a tunnel connecting the United States to the United Kingdom. It is fraught with danger for the people building the tunnel. There are also delays and cost overruns. The engineer who conceived of the plan and oversees the projects makes a number of personal sacrifices as well. This seems like a film that I would enjoy quite a bit, but it came across as fairly dull, though there were a few interesting things here and there, though generally not connected directly with the plot.
The Overcoat (1926) - 5/10 - The film adapts two stories by Gogol. The visuals were decent, but the stories didn't really appeal to me.
Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) - 5/10 - An engineer whose dream has been to travel to Mars has to deal with marital issues and also a mysterious message that may have originated from Mars. It's pretty dull for the most part.
Mediterranee (1963) - 4.5/10 - An experimental documentary that is kind of odd and only occasionally interesting.
Liquid Sky (1982) - 4/10 - The visuals were kind of interesting to look at, but the story and characters didn't do much for me.
Last Night (1998) - 8/10 - The people in Toronto are going about their lives on the last day before some unnamed catastrophe will end the world at midnight. The rioting is in the past and people are dealing with it in a variety of ways. Some are meeting in prayer groups, another is pursuing his sexual goals, and one man just wants to spend the evening alone in his apartment. It's a pretty good film.
Le pays des sourds / In the Land of the Deaf (1992) - 8/10 - This is a very nice documentary about a variety of deaf children and adults. The children are part of a class for the deaf who go on occasional field trips in addition to their classroom work. The adults talk about their experiences with family and growing up deaf and we also get to see them in parts of their regular lives.
King Carnival (1973) - 8/10 - A look at the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, delving into its history as well as showing plenty of action from the 1973 Carnival. The costumes and music are pretty cool and I enjoyed this informative and entertaining doc.
The Circle / Dayereh (2000) - 8/10 - The film follows a number of intersecting stories of women who suffer repression in a number of ways in Iranian society. The birth of a daughter may lead to divorce, a woman just out of prison is ostracized by her family and threatened by her brothers, women can't do a number of things without a man. Bleak, but good.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) - 7.5/10 - This was pretty entertaining with plenty of humor. Nothing really exceptional, but generally fun.
Silicon Cowboys (2016) - 7.5/10 - The film follows the rise of Compaq in the 1980s into a power in the computing industry as they took on IBM. The film uses a mix of interviews and archival footage. The company had a lot of success, though ran into a number of problems at different points and eventually started to decline with the 1990s being tough on the company. I remember this era fairly well and used a variety of different computers while in school. We had an Commodore 64s and Vic-20s in Junior High (1982-1984). We had TRS-80s, an IBM-PC, and Tandy-1000s (an IBM clone) in high school plus a Honeywell Level-62 which was used for our punchcard programs. We later got a Unix system and I used Compaqs at one of the other buildings in the district.
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song (2021) - 7.5/10 - I first became aware of Leonard Cohen's music back in the late 1980s and I liked what I heard. I was more of a casual fan than a dedicated one, but I did enjoy his music. This film takes a look at his career from when he first started singing on stage in the 1960s through his death in 2016. The heavy emphasis is on his best known song, Hallelujah. I've always preferred Cohen's version to the various cover versions which sold better, but my favorite Cohen song is actually Everybody Knows from his 1988 album (and later, the soundtrack to Pump Up the Volume).
The Big One (1997) - 7.5/10 - Michael Moore travels around the US on a book tour in support of his book, Downsize This. Along the way, he talks to workers who have lost their jobs due to profitable corporations that have moved operations to other countries to save money. Moore also pays visits to these companies and tries to see politicians. We also get excerpts from Moore speaking to a large audience, apparently doing a mix of stand up and talking about his book tour. It's fairly entertaining.
Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002) - 7.5/10 - This is really three parallel films that take place in a once prosperous industrial area. In the first part, the factories are closing down and the workers who haven't been laid off yet often have a lot of idle time. The second part deals with families that live in a rundown neighborhood that is scheduled for demolition. The families are supposed to be relocated to public housing and have been given a date where they have to be out of their old homes. A lot of time is spent with the teenagers who live there and face an uncertain future. The last part deals with a father and son who live illegally in the railroad yard and eke out a living collecting and selling scrap. The first section was okay, but I think it could have been shortened by about an hour without sacrificing anything important. It seemed kind of repetitive at times. The second section was easily my favorite of the three.
Fires on the Plain (1959) - 7.5/10 - A Japanese soldier with TB is abandoned by his company and left to wander alone in the Philippines near the end of WWII. The film is pretty bleak and meanders at times, but overall is pretty good.
Bitter Berry / Gorkaya yagoda (1975) - 7.5/10 - A nice tale of adolescent relationships one summer in Uzbekistan. I think that I might have liked it even more with proper English subtitles. Hopefully those show up some day.
Davandeh (1984) - 7.5/10 - An orphan boy survives on the streets by collecting bottles from the sea, shining shoes, and other jobs. He sometimes hangs out with a group of boys and occasionally finds time for fun. The boy is also enthralled with planes. I thought it was pretty good.
Mars Attacks! (1996) - 7.5/10 - Sure, it's kind of dumb and way over the top, but it is also fun. I hadn't realized how many big names had roles in the film.
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) - 7.5/10 - This is a nice cold war thriller where control of the nuclear arsenal of the U.S. is given over to a supercomputer named Colossus designed by Charles Forbin. It soon becomes apparent that not everything has gone as planned when Colossus and its counterpart in the Soviet Union use their respective nuclear weapons as the stick to have their demands met.
Mashenka (1942) - 7.5/10 - A nursing student falls in love with a taxi driver, but he isn't sure if he feels exactly the same way for her. Then war breaks out. I liked Valentina Karavayeva as Masha and the movie was pretty entertaining.
The Lion Hunters (1966) - 7/10 - A tribe prepares itself for a traditional bow and arrow hunt for a lion that is a danger to the tribe. The creation of the arrows and arrowheads is shown which is pretty interesting. We also get to see many other traditional parts leading up to the hunt and then the hunt itself.
The Damned (1962) - 7/10 - A young woman expresses some interest in an older American tourist, but her violent brother jealously guards her from the attention of others. The story shifts midway through as they end up on a remote island where a group of children are being held by the government.
Cinderella (1947) - 7/10 - The Soviet version of the classic fairytale is pretty good.
The Road (2009) - 7/10 - A father and his young son travel across the countryside in a post-apocalyptic world where most plants and animals are dead and there are gangs of cannibals among the surviving humans. It's a decent film, but pretty bleak.
Train of Life (1998) - 7/10 - The residents of a Jewish village in Eastern Europe create their own deportation train as a way to escape from the advancing Nazis and escape to the Soviet Union and Palestine. Kind of silly at times, but not bad.
Primary (1960) - 7/10 - The film follows JFK and Hubert Humphrey as they try to gain the Democratic nomination for President in 1960. It's an interesting look at the time.
The Madoff Affair (2009) - 6.5/10 - This documentary looks into Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of billions of dollars. I remember when this was big news back in the day, though it didn't affect me directly.
A Married Couple (1969) - 6.5/10 - Their marriage was failing so of course Billy and Antoinette Edwards agreed to have cameras set up in their home for 10 weeks to capture their daily lives. There is a lot of bickering and arguing without much in the way of love. The film is okay, but kind of unpleasant to watch at times. I think Billy came off looking worse here, especially from a modern perspective.
Asteroid City (2023) - 6.5/10 - The setting is a televised broadcast of a stage play. I generally liked the full color sections in Asteroid City. The 'behind the scenes' scenes in black and white were not as interesting.
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) - 6.5/10 - This is a pretty good adaptation of the book from what I can recall. However, I wasn't a big fan of the book and am also not a big fan of this film, though it was okay.
Urgences (1988) - 6.5/10 - A look at some of the patients in the psychiatric ward of a large French hospital. The film reminded me some of Wiseman, thought the fly on the wall aspect was occasionally broken as the people interacted briefly with the people behind the camera.
From the Other Side / De l'autre côté (2002) - 6/10 - This takes a look at the fate of some Mexicans who crossed the border to go to the United States. Relatives of people who crossed are interviewed along with people who crossed and returned. People on the American side are also interviewed. Crossing over to the U.S. often seems not to have a happy outcome. There is a lot of time where no talking is going on and the camera just rolls on whatever is going on in that area.
Transatlantic Tunnel (1935) - 5.5/10 - A melodrama about the building of a tunnel connecting the United States to the United Kingdom. It is fraught with danger for the people building the tunnel. There are also delays and cost overruns. The engineer who conceived of the plan and oversees the projects makes a number of personal sacrifices as well. This seems like a film that I would enjoy quite a bit, but it came across as fairly dull, though there were a few interesting things here and there, though generally not connected directly with the plot.
The Overcoat (1926) - 5/10 - The film adapts two stories by Gogol. The visuals were decent, but the stories didn't really appeal to me.
Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) - 5/10 - An engineer whose dream has been to travel to Mars has to deal with marital issues and also a mysterious message that may have originated from Mars. It's pretty dull for the most part.
Mediterranee (1963) - 4.5/10 - An experimental documentary that is kind of odd and only occasionally interesting.
Liquid Sky (1982) - 4/10 - The visuals were kind of interesting to look at, but the story and characters didn't do much for me.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
The Next Three Days (Paul Haggis, 2010) 5/10
As a thriller this has its moments although the premise is totally unbelievable - especially the latter part. When a woman (Elizabeth Banks) is accused of murder and she gets a life sentence her husband (Russell Crowe) plans to get her out of jail. However, he has to go through hell to achieve it - contemplate a bank robbery, get into assorted skirmishes where he gets beaten up, robs a local drug dealer where he gets into a deadly shootout, and it doesn't end there. Crowe goes through the motions totally deadpan looking very bored.
Thanksgiving (Eli Roth, 2023) 6/10
This harks back to all the slasher films of the 1970s & 1980s, helped in great part by the recent Jamie Lee Curtis Halloween trilogy, so it is most welcome. A small Massachusetts town is terrorized by a killer in a John Carver mask around the Thanksgiving holiday. The killing spree is directly related to a Thanksgiving sale a year before at a superstore where a riot broke out and a number of people were killed. Gruesome methods are applied by the killer who uses an axe, a knife, sleep-inducing darts, and the oven where one victim is literally cooked like a turkey with all trimmings intact. The cast of youngsters are all new while two familiar faces from the past appear as well - Gina Gershon as a housewife and Patrick Dempsey as the local cop trying to save the townfolk. Predictable but very watchable for the obvious thrill involved in seeing people getting massacred. Its like the West enjoying the massacre of innocent Palestinians.
Passages (Ira Sachs, 2023) 8/10
The marriage of a gay couple runs into problems when he dumps his husband, takes off with a woman, impregnates her and then wants to return to his old life. Intense portrait of a highly improbable love triangle between a narcissistic German film director (Franz Rogowski), his British husband (Ben Whishaw) and the French school teacher (Adèle Exarchopoulos) who inadvertently comes between them. Their lives become a cycle of fighting, reconciling and making love - the film has a number of very explicit sex scenes - until the two well-meaning souls both decide to opt out of their toxic relationship with the immature flamboyant fuckboy. The screenplay shows how couples often use sex as a tool to deflect problems in their relationship prefering to be in a toxic cycle of intense fighting followed by guilt and then reconciling through sex. Rogowski creates a character who is a grade-A asshole but manages to imbue him with charm in a pathetic sort of way where you end up feeling sorry for him.
Boy on a Dolphin (Jean Negulesco, 1957) 6/10
The film that brought Sophia Loren to the attention of the world courtesy of a clingy wet dress she is seen wearing as she comes out of the Aegean Sea. The film's highlight is the camera focusing on her ample bosom in glorious technicolor. Apart from being a travelogue across Greece - we get to see the Acropolis, the Meteora monastry, the ancient theatre in Delphi and various islands (Poros, Mykonos, Santorini, Hydra, Rhodes) - the film is rather slow with the main plot involving a statue of a boy on a dolphin discovered by a poor woman (Sophia Loren) on one of her dives to collect sponges. She is torn between two men - a greedy collector (Clifton Webb doing his patented supercilious turn) who plans to steal the statue and an American archaeologist (a wooden Alan Ladd) who wants the statue to be given to the Greek government, with whom she falls in love. In addition to the charms of Sophia Loren two other positive aspects of the film are Milton Krasner's lush colour cinematography and an Oscar-nominated score by Hugo Friedhofer. Ladd famously shot all his scenes next to the statuesque Loren while standing on a box due to his short stature.
Undercover Girl (Joseph Pevney, 1950) 8/10
Riveting B-noir - rookie cop (Alexis Smith) infiltrates a gang of crooks running a narcotics ring by going undercover in order to find the man who shot her father in cold blood. Smith, as the determined cop, creates sparks with Scott Brady who is the L.A. cop who recruits her. Also memorable in small roles are Royal Dano as a low-life underworld type, Connie Gilchrist as a senior policewoman, and Gladys George as an ageing moll who inadvertently helps the cops. Gunplay, blackmail, extortion and murder are all perfectly packed into this forgotten noir gem.
Undertow (William Castle, 1949) 7/10
This excellent little B-noir has all the trappings of the genre - hapless man - a former crook (Scott Brady) - framed for the murder of a Chicago mob boss, gambling, murder, betrayal, a sense of paranoia, a femme fatale, the good girl waiting in the wings (Peggy Dow), and the buddy cop (Bruce Bennett). Brady is very good in the lead and there is an early bit appearance by a future star actor billed simply as Roc Hudson - minus the "k".
Un homme de trop (Costa-Gavras, 1967) 6/10
The film's opening attack on a German prison - somewhere in the Cévennes mountains - to free 12 french prisoners by the resistance is shot in semi-darkness. One can hardly see what is happening as the men swiftly move in, kill the german soldiers and free the prisoners. However, a 13th prisoner (Michel Piccoli) is discovered who is unknown to them and he is suspected to be a spy and informant. Despite his attempts to explain that he is not on the German side the men decide that he must be executed. The film's amazing cast, a who's who of french cinema - Charles Vanel, Jean-Claude Brialy, Bruno Cremer, Gérard Blain, Claude Brasseur, Jacques Perrin, Pierre Clémenti, François Périer - all give vivid performances. Costa-Gavras keeps his cast and the camera in constant motion as the rebels move through villages and towns, into the hills, and culminating with a final battle with the Nazis on a bridge. Sadly the film grinds to a hault during the mid-section as the men, holed up in a hut, bicker, banter, and size up each other. The final deadly assault on the Nazis and their equally swift response is superbly played out on a hillside and on a bridge that leads to the inevitable conclusion.
I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes (William Nigh, 1948) 6/10
B-noir, once thought lost, was rediscovered in 2000. Based on the novella by Cornel Woolrich the screenplay dispenses with the book's dark ending and comes up with a different conclusion here. A hapless couple living hand-to-mouth find a wallet full of money which they decide to keep. However, the man's shoe print outside a murdered victim's house leads the police to him and he gets convicted for theft and murder, and sentenced to be executed. Meanwhile his wife seeks help for her husband from a cop who has been stalking her and has professed his love for her. A poverty row quickie crime drama is briskly paced and competently directed.
Lassiter (Roger Young, 1984) 7/10
American cat burglar (Tom Selleck) is given a choice by Scotland Yard police inspector (Bob Hoskins) - either he goes to prison or he helps them steal a shipment of emeralds from within the German embassy in London. It's pre-war 1939 and the Swastika is proudly flying inside the embassy. The film harks back to the days when William Powell and Cary Grant played elegant jewel thieves only here there is danger of the Nazi kind. Selleck, who has incredible screen charisma, is here at the start of his rather wan film career which sadly always remained on the sidelines of his tv show "Magnum, PI". The screenplay adds on moments of nudity - lovely Jane Seymour is his girlfriend, while Lauren Hutton is the deliciously evil German countess who gets sexually turned on by violence and in bed likes to take charge by grappling her man while on top and has a nasty habit of sometimes impaling a thin steel rod into the neck of disapproved lovers while in the throes of an orgasm. Selleck looks very dapper in and out of his 1930s threads - tuxedo as well as the all-black outfit during his robbing sprees. Sadly this breezy film is let down at the conclusion by a rather pat ending. I expected at the very least a nasty showdown with the femme fatale.
Nyad ( Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin, 2023) 7/10
Sports drama about Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) and her five attempts to swim across the Florida Straits from Cuba to Key West - that's 110 miles of unpredictable open ocean - without a shark cage. As with most films about sports it can get a tad repetitious and here there is not much you can do to keep up the interest in the plot - she made a number of attempts before she succeeded and the film throws in one dramatic shark encounter which actually never took place. Most of the running time is of her swimming, taking short stops for food and liquid, and the reactions and constant encouragement of the team accompanying her - coach Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster), all-but-mute captain Dee Brady (Karly Rothenberg), self-sacrificing navigator John Bartlett (Rhys Ifans) and box jellyfish expert Angel Yanagihara (Jeena Yi). Annette Bening gives a ferociously committed performance as the athlete. You can actually feel the great effort she makes during the swim. And she isn't afraid to play the character as abrasive and unlikeable - a woman absolutely driven to achieve her goal. Foster, is quietly superb, as the faithful friend and coach who has her back at all times gently nudging Diana to go on even when she is all but dead in the water from exhaustion. There is a ridiculous CGI moment in the film when Diana hallucinates that she is swimming over the Taj Mahal which should have been omitted. In the end the film is not only a moving tribute to a marathon swimmer but also an ode to female friendship.
Arthur's Whiskey (Stephen Cookson, 2024) 3/10
What quirky casting - Diane Keaton joins Patricia Hodge and the singer Lulu in this tiny little British film. When a small-time inventor is hit by lightning and dies, his widow (Patricia Hodge) and her two buddies (Keaton & Lulu) discover his invention in the garden shed - bottles of home made whiskey which when consumed transforms them into young girls for a period of six hours. Silly beyond belief as the film flits between the older women - moaning and groaning about their aches and pains - and the youthful girls who go in search for some sex and love but have a hard time mixing in with the youth of today. Also popping up are Hayley Mills in an old people's home and the singer Boy George as himself. Cloying, boring film.
Hijack (Jim Field Smith & Mo Ali, 2023) 9/10
A business negotiator (Idris Elba) suddenly finds himself in over his head when he has to try and negotiate with hijackers on a flight from Dubai to London. Riveting 7-part limited series puts the viewer right inside the plane surrounded by frightened passengers and five hijackers brandishing pistols. The running time of the series mirrors the almost 7 hour flight with the story alternating between the tension filled events inside the claustrophobic plane and the air traffic control and anti-terrorism offices on the ground. While the negotiator attempts to parry with the hijackers the city officials try to avert the plane from crashing down over London. Gripping story from beginning to end.
The Vanishing Prairie (James Algar, 1954) 7/10
Before there was the National Geographics channel to show us the wonders of our world we got to see bits of it via this Oscar-winning docementary feature by Walt Disney. A sprawling look at the area east of the Continental divide in the United States - an area of rolling grasslands once solely the haunt of the Native Americans (then referred to as Red (why red?) Indians who roamed, lived and hunted throughout this vast area. Later it was the route used by covered wagons as people migrated West towards Oregon. The camera captures the birds and animals as they migrate, hunt, mate (a sexual dance by cranes) and frolic - assorted birds, deer, jack rabbits, a mountain lion on the hunt, gophers, scuttling prairie dogs, swooping falcons, shuffling bison (also a quick shot of one giving birth - which was a first in a Disney movie). There is facinating use of music which accompanies the wild life as they swim, fly and interact with each other often in balletic mode. The film culminates with a brutal lightning storm which results in a fire and a flood on the prairie - nature at its best & worst, yet truly beautiful.
Good Grief (Dan Levy, 2023) 6/10
This earnest little film sadly comes off like one of those derivative Hallmark tv films - good looking people in lovely settings doing what friends do while one suffers stoically through not one but two traumas. A book illustrator (Dan Levy), married to a very successful author (Luke Evans) of romantic novels, suddenly finds his life collapsing around him due to a tragic event. His two bosom pals - an art dealer and former lover (Himesh Patel) and a boozy neurotic (Ruth Negga) - give him full support until suddenly he discovers his tragedy turning into betrayal. The trio turn up in Paris where the three try to find some meaning in life while trying to navigate fresh relationships. Levy, who starred in and created "Schitt's Creek" on tv, tries his hand on the big screen. While he has good screen presence the film misses several beats when the screenplay tries to push broad comedy into what is basically a bittersweet story about love and loss. The attempt to channel Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyers, and Richard Curtis does not quite work. And why is everything so perfect? - the snazzy clothes they wear, the parties they attend, the gorgeous apartments they live in, the romantic music accompanying every beat of the story, and topping it all there is Paris. In reality life is often too chaotic, messy and downbeat (with happy bubbles punctuating periodically) for all on view here to really seem authentic. The three leads work well together and are very convincing as long-term friends with their comfort level between each other vividly shining through.
The Terminal List (Antoine Fuqua, Ellen Kuras, M.J. Bassett, Frederick E.O. Toye, Tucker Gates & Sylvain White, 2022)
Compelling limited series based on former Navy SEAL officer Jack Carr's thriller novel. When a platoon is ambushed during a covert mission in Syria only two survive - their Commander (Chris Pratt) and his close friend who soon after commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. When the lone survivor's wife and daughter are murdered in cold blood he goes on the run. It appears a pharmaceutical company, his seniors at the Navy, and even the Pentagon may be involved. Helping him on his mission are a journalist (Constance Wu), who is looking for a story, and another close buddy and former teammate (Taylor Kitsch) who is a CIA operative. As he investigates the mystery he makes a list of ten names whom he, one by one, starts to eliminate in true vigilante fashion. Action packed conspiracy thriller is entertaining with enough twists to keep you bingeing through the eight episodes.
Three Pines (Sam Donovan, Tracey Deer & Daniel Grou, 2022) 9/10
Murder mysteries based on the series of novels by Canadian writer Louise Penny. Remarkable how the Agatha Christie formula continues to inspire modern writers - a murder followed by a bunch of suspects whom the detective - here he is Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (Alfred Molina) of the Sûreté du Québec police force - who doggedly solves the crime. Not quite Poirot, but pretty close in tone. The stories are all set in an idyllic fictional village - Three Pines - in Quebec, Canada. The series consists of four murder mysteries (two episodes each) along with a secondary storyline about a missing North American Indigenous girl which is spread out throughout the eight episodes. Quirky, atmospheric, often quite macabre and melancholic plotlines, with the detective suffering through his own neurosis which harks back to a childhood trauma. Molina is superb. Sadly the series was cancelled after just one season although there are several more award-winning books by the author which could have been adapted.
As a thriller this has its moments although the premise is totally unbelievable - especially the latter part. When a woman (Elizabeth Banks) is accused of murder and she gets a life sentence her husband (Russell Crowe) plans to get her out of jail. However, he has to go through hell to achieve it - contemplate a bank robbery, get into assorted skirmishes where he gets beaten up, robs a local drug dealer where he gets into a deadly shootout, and it doesn't end there. Crowe goes through the motions totally deadpan looking very bored.
Thanksgiving (Eli Roth, 2023) 6/10
This harks back to all the slasher films of the 1970s & 1980s, helped in great part by the recent Jamie Lee Curtis Halloween trilogy, so it is most welcome. A small Massachusetts town is terrorized by a killer in a John Carver mask around the Thanksgiving holiday. The killing spree is directly related to a Thanksgiving sale a year before at a superstore where a riot broke out and a number of people were killed. Gruesome methods are applied by the killer who uses an axe, a knife, sleep-inducing darts, and the oven where one victim is literally cooked like a turkey with all trimmings intact. The cast of youngsters are all new while two familiar faces from the past appear as well - Gina Gershon as a housewife and Patrick Dempsey as the local cop trying to save the townfolk. Predictable but very watchable for the obvious thrill involved in seeing people getting massacred. Its like the West enjoying the massacre of innocent Palestinians.
Passages (Ira Sachs, 2023) 8/10
The marriage of a gay couple runs into problems when he dumps his husband, takes off with a woman, impregnates her and then wants to return to his old life. Intense portrait of a highly improbable love triangle between a narcissistic German film director (Franz Rogowski), his British husband (Ben Whishaw) and the French school teacher (Adèle Exarchopoulos) who inadvertently comes between them. Their lives become a cycle of fighting, reconciling and making love - the film has a number of very explicit sex scenes - until the two well-meaning souls both decide to opt out of their toxic relationship with the immature flamboyant fuckboy. The screenplay shows how couples often use sex as a tool to deflect problems in their relationship prefering to be in a toxic cycle of intense fighting followed by guilt and then reconciling through sex. Rogowski creates a character who is a grade-A asshole but manages to imbue him with charm in a pathetic sort of way where you end up feeling sorry for him.
Boy on a Dolphin (Jean Negulesco, 1957) 6/10
The film that brought Sophia Loren to the attention of the world courtesy of a clingy wet dress she is seen wearing as she comes out of the Aegean Sea. The film's highlight is the camera focusing on her ample bosom in glorious technicolor. Apart from being a travelogue across Greece - we get to see the Acropolis, the Meteora monastry, the ancient theatre in Delphi and various islands (Poros, Mykonos, Santorini, Hydra, Rhodes) - the film is rather slow with the main plot involving a statue of a boy on a dolphin discovered by a poor woman (Sophia Loren) on one of her dives to collect sponges. She is torn between two men - a greedy collector (Clifton Webb doing his patented supercilious turn) who plans to steal the statue and an American archaeologist (a wooden Alan Ladd) who wants the statue to be given to the Greek government, with whom she falls in love. In addition to the charms of Sophia Loren two other positive aspects of the film are Milton Krasner's lush colour cinematography and an Oscar-nominated score by Hugo Friedhofer. Ladd famously shot all his scenes next to the statuesque Loren while standing on a box due to his short stature.
Undercover Girl (Joseph Pevney, 1950) 8/10
Riveting B-noir - rookie cop (Alexis Smith) infiltrates a gang of crooks running a narcotics ring by going undercover in order to find the man who shot her father in cold blood. Smith, as the determined cop, creates sparks with Scott Brady who is the L.A. cop who recruits her. Also memorable in small roles are Royal Dano as a low-life underworld type, Connie Gilchrist as a senior policewoman, and Gladys George as an ageing moll who inadvertently helps the cops. Gunplay, blackmail, extortion and murder are all perfectly packed into this forgotten noir gem.
Undertow (William Castle, 1949) 7/10
This excellent little B-noir has all the trappings of the genre - hapless man - a former crook (Scott Brady) - framed for the murder of a Chicago mob boss, gambling, murder, betrayal, a sense of paranoia, a femme fatale, the good girl waiting in the wings (Peggy Dow), and the buddy cop (Bruce Bennett). Brady is very good in the lead and there is an early bit appearance by a future star actor billed simply as Roc Hudson - minus the "k".
Un homme de trop (Costa-Gavras, 1967) 6/10
The film's opening attack on a German prison - somewhere in the Cévennes mountains - to free 12 french prisoners by the resistance is shot in semi-darkness. One can hardly see what is happening as the men swiftly move in, kill the german soldiers and free the prisoners. However, a 13th prisoner (Michel Piccoli) is discovered who is unknown to them and he is suspected to be a spy and informant. Despite his attempts to explain that he is not on the German side the men decide that he must be executed. The film's amazing cast, a who's who of french cinema - Charles Vanel, Jean-Claude Brialy, Bruno Cremer, Gérard Blain, Claude Brasseur, Jacques Perrin, Pierre Clémenti, François Périer - all give vivid performances. Costa-Gavras keeps his cast and the camera in constant motion as the rebels move through villages and towns, into the hills, and culminating with a final battle with the Nazis on a bridge. Sadly the film grinds to a hault during the mid-section as the men, holed up in a hut, bicker, banter, and size up each other. The final deadly assault on the Nazis and their equally swift response is superbly played out on a hillside and on a bridge that leads to the inevitable conclusion.
I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes (William Nigh, 1948) 6/10
B-noir, once thought lost, was rediscovered in 2000. Based on the novella by Cornel Woolrich the screenplay dispenses with the book's dark ending and comes up with a different conclusion here. A hapless couple living hand-to-mouth find a wallet full of money which they decide to keep. However, the man's shoe print outside a murdered victim's house leads the police to him and he gets convicted for theft and murder, and sentenced to be executed. Meanwhile his wife seeks help for her husband from a cop who has been stalking her and has professed his love for her. A poverty row quickie crime drama is briskly paced and competently directed.
Lassiter (Roger Young, 1984) 7/10
American cat burglar (Tom Selleck) is given a choice by Scotland Yard police inspector (Bob Hoskins) - either he goes to prison or he helps them steal a shipment of emeralds from within the German embassy in London. It's pre-war 1939 and the Swastika is proudly flying inside the embassy. The film harks back to the days when William Powell and Cary Grant played elegant jewel thieves only here there is danger of the Nazi kind. Selleck, who has incredible screen charisma, is here at the start of his rather wan film career which sadly always remained on the sidelines of his tv show "Magnum, PI". The screenplay adds on moments of nudity - lovely Jane Seymour is his girlfriend, while Lauren Hutton is the deliciously evil German countess who gets sexually turned on by violence and in bed likes to take charge by grappling her man while on top and has a nasty habit of sometimes impaling a thin steel rod into the neck of disapproved lovers while in the throes of an orgasm. Selleck looks very dapper in and out of his 1930s threads - tuxedo as well as the all-black outfit during his robbing sprees. Sadly this breezy film is let down at the conclusion by a rather pat ending. I expected at the very least a nasty showdown with the femme fatale.
Nyad ( Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin, 2023) 7/10
Sports drama about Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) and her five attempts to swim across the Florida Straits from Cuba to Key West - that's 110 miles of unpredictable open ocean - without a shark cage. As with most films about sports it can get a tad repetitious and here there is not much you can do to keep up the interest in the plot - she made a number of attempts before she succeeded and the film throws in one dramatic shark encounter which actually never took place. Most of the running time is of her swimming, taking short stops for food and liquid, and the reactions and constant encouragement of the team accompanying her - coach Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster), all-but-mute captain Dee Brady (Karly Rothenberg), self-sacrificing navigator John Bartlett (Rhys Ifans) and box jellyfish expert Angel Yanagihara (Jeena Yi). Annette Bening gives a ferociously committed performance as the athlete. You can actually feel the great effort she makes during the swim. And she isn't afraid to play the character as abrasive and unlikeable - a woman absolutely driven to achieve her goal. Foster, is quietly superb, as the faithful friend and coach who has her back at all times gently nudging Diana to go on even when she is all but dead in the water from exhaustion. There is a ridiculous CGI moment in the film when Diana hallucinates that she is swimming over the Taj Mahal which should have been omitted. In the end the film is not only a moving tribute to a marathon swimmer but also an ode to female friendship.
Arthur's Whiskey (Stephen Cookson, 2024) 3/10
What quirky casting - Diane Keaton joins Patricia Hodge and the singer Lulu in this tiny little British film. When a small-time inventor is hit by lightning and dies, his widow (Patricia Hodge) and her two buddies (Keaton & Lulu) discover his invention in the garden shed - bottles of home made whiskey which when consumed transforms them into young girls for a period of six hours. Silly beyond belief as the film flits between the older women - moaning and groaning about their aches and pains - and the youthful girls who go in search for some sex and love but have a hard time mixing in with the youth of today. Also popping up are Hayley Mills in an old people's home and the singer Boy George as himself. Cloying, boring film.
Hijack (Jim Field Smith & Mo Ali, 2023) 9/10
A business negotiator (Idris Elba) suddenly finds himself in over his head when he has to try and negotiate with hijackers on a flight from Dubai to London. Riveting 7-part limited series puts the viewer right inside the plane surrounded by frightened passengers and five hijackers brandishing pistols. The running time of the series mirrors the almost 7 hour flight with the story alternating between the tension filled events inside the claustrophobic plane and the air traffic control and anti-terrorism offices on the ground. While the negotiator attempts to parry with the hijackers the city officials try to avert the plane from crashing down over London. Gripping story from beginning to end.
The Vanishing Prairie (James Algar, 1954) 7/10
Before there was the National Geographics channel to show us the wonders of our world we got to see bits of it via this Oscar-winning docementary feature by Walt Disney. A sprawling look at the area east of the Continental divide in the United States - an area of rolling grasslands once solely the haunt of the Native Americans (then referred to as Red (why red?) Indians who roamed, lived and hunted throughout this vast area. Later it was the route used by covered wagons as people migrated West towards Oregon. The camera captures the birds and animals as they migrate, hunt, mate (a sexual dance by cranes) and frolic - assorted birds, deer, jack rabbits, a mountain lion on the hunt, gophers, scuttling prairie dogs, swooping falcons, shuffling bison (also a quick shot of one giving birth - which was a first in a Disney movie). There is facinating use of music which accompanies the wild life as they swim, fly and interact with each other often in balletic mode. The film culminates with a brutal lightning storm which results in a fire and a flood on the prairie - nature at its best & worst, yet truly beautiful.
Good Grief (Dan Levy, 2023) 6/10
This earnest little film sadly comes off like one of those derivative Hallmark tv films - good looking people in lovely settings doing what friends do while one suffers stoically through not one but two traumas. A book illustrator (Dan Levy), married to a very successful author (Luke Evans) of romantic novels, suddenly finds his life collapsing around him due to a tragic event. His two bosom pals - an art dealer and former lover (Himesh Patel) and a boozy neurotic (Ruth Negga) - give him full support until suddenly he discovers his tragedy turning into betrayal. The trio turn up in Paris where the three try to find some meaning in life while trying to navigate fresh relationships. Levy, who starred in and created "Schitt's Creek" on tv, tries his hand on the big screen. While he has good screen presence the film misses several beats when the screenplay tries to push broad comedy into what is basically a bittersweet story about love and loss. The attempt to channel Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyers, and Richard Curtis does not quite work. And why is everything so perfect? - the snazzy clothes they wear, the parties they attend, the gorgeous apartments they live in, the romantic music accompanying every beat of the story, and topping it all there is Paris. In reality life is often too chaotic, messy and downbeat (with happy bubbles punctuating periodically) for all on view here to really seem authentic. The three leads work well together and are very convincing as long-term friends with their comfort level between each other vividly shining through.
The Terminal List (Antoine Fuqua, Ellen Kuras, M.J. Bassett, Frederick E.O. Toye, Tucker Gates & Sylvain White, 2022)
Compelling limited series based on former Navy SEAL officer Jack Carr's thriller novel. When a platoon is ambushed during a covert mission in Syria only two survive - their Commander (Chris Pratt) and his close friend who soon after commits suicide under mysterious circumstances. When the lone survivor's wife and daughter are murdered in cold blood he goes on the run. It appears a pharmaceutical company, his seniors at the Navy, and even the Pentagon may be involved. Helping him on his mission are a journalist (Constance Wu), who is looking for a story, and another close buddy and former teammate (Taylor Kitsch) who is a CIA operative. As he investigates the mystery he makes a list of ten names whom he, one by one, starts to eliminate in true vigilante fashion. Action packed conspiracy thriller is entertaining with enough twists to keep you bingeing through the eight episodes.
Three Pines (Sam Donovan, Tracey Deer & Daniel Grou, 2022) 9/10
Murder mysteries based on the series of novels by Canadian writer Louise Penny. Remarkable how the Agatha Christie formula continues to inspire modern writers - a murder followed by a bunch of suspects whom the detective - here he is Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (Alfred Molina) of the Sûreté du Québec police force - who doggedly solves the crime. Not quite Poirot, but pretty close in tone. The stories are all set in an idyllic fictional village - Three Pines - in Quebec, Canada. The series consists of four murder mysteries (two episodes each) along with a secondary storyline about a missing North American Indigenous girl which is spread out throughout the eight episodes. Quirky, atmospheric, often quite macabre and melancholic plotlines, with the detective suffering through his own neurosis which harks back to a childhood trauma. Molina is superb. Sadly the series was cancelled after just one season although there are several more award-winning books by the author which could have been adapted.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (Arjun Varain Singh, 2023) 7/10
Hallelujah! We actually get to see here a superb performance by Ananya Panday. A tale of friendship set during the era of social media. That is now. Three besties - a stand-up comedian (Siddhant Chaturvedi), an MBA graduate from Harvard (Ananya Panday) who works as a corporate consultant (the screenplay is by Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti & director Singh, and Panday's casting shockingly works) and a personal trainer (Adarsh Gourav) - face the usual life trials twenty-somethings get to face and handle, not always successfully. While the screenplay predictably covers their banter, inner and outer conflicts, acrimony, separation and reunion, there is an honesty in their relationship and how this generation navigates through life using their phone and social media as a means to vent, reflect and get validation. What successfully moves the story forward is the immense chemistry between the three leads who portray their characters with a great deal of honesty. No melodrama here. Just a strong message about the extent to which people have taken to social media which has enveloped them in a lifestyle that is often fake and can swifty bring on heartbreak. The film's outstanding song score goes a long way in creating the perfect mood for what plays across the screen.
A Family Divided (Donald Wrye, 1995) 6/10
A young girl is gang raped by five college students at a frat house. One of the boys confesses to his lawyer father (Stephen Collins) who advises the boys to keep quiet. However, the boy's mother (Faye Dunaway) begins to suspect when the victim disappears and she becomes the moral centerpiece of her middle class family by confronting her son and husband. She refuses to go along with the deception and rages against her family members who are hell bent on hiding the facts. Overwrought drama has Dunaway's outstanding performance as the horror-stricken mother who can't believe how her son and husband could keep quiet over such a tragedy. Like many previous films on social issues American tv once more comes up with a dramatic subject which has a strong message.
The People Next Door (Tim Hunter, 1996) 2/10
Z-grade tv film about child kidnapping has a screenplay full of holes and character emotions that need to be played up. Woman (Nicolette Sheridan) escapes from her abusive husband and moves back with her three young daughters to be near her mother (Faye Dunaway) with whom she has an antogonistic relationship. Her loving neighbours, a childless couple (Michael O'Keefe & Tracey Ellis), help with the kids but later end up kidnapping two of the girls. Sheridan sleepwalks through the ordeal of trying to find her children while a miscast Dunaway blows hot and cold - often berating her daughter and then suddenly showing sympathy. O'Keefe also alternates being a loving kidnapper who in the blink of an eye appears to go off the deep end. Story needs an element of hysteria which is completely missing.
Running Mates (Ron Lagomarsino, 2000) 7/10
Antiseptic film follows the election campaign of a Democratic Party presidential candidate (Tom Selleck) whose most pressing chore is deciding on who yo choose as his Vice President while four women - all of whom he has bedded - try to influence his decision. The clever women surrounding him are three former lovers - his campaign manager (Laura Linney), his shallow Hollywood campaign fundraising manager (Teri Hatcher), and a garrulous Washington socialite (Faye Dunaway) who wants the VP slot for her womanizing husband (Robert Culp); the fourth is his current lover and wife (Nancy Travis). Will these women help him make the right decision or will they be more intent on exerting control over him while trying to win their own personal battles against each other? There is a funny sequence when all four ladies get together in the powder room and discuss his cocksmanship. The attractive cast makes the most of this comedy-drama with Selleck, front and center, making a dashing presidential candidate. Dunaway delightfully steals every scene and was rewarded with a nomination for a Golden Globe.
Blind Horizon (Michael Haussman, 2003) 4/10
If your plot involves an amnesiac you cannot make the mystery stretch to an inordinate length without divulging what the hell is going on especially when the remaining plot merely meanders along. An IRS employee (Val Kilmer) is shot, left for dead, recovers but has accute amnesia. The small-town cop (Sam Shepard) finds no clues and the patient, who keeps having visions - Faye Dunaway appears several times giving him or someone else some sort of instructions - and in a violent and confused state he divulges a confused plot about an assassination attempt on the United States President. The man's fiancée (Neve Campbell) appears and his nurse (Amy Smart) shows continued sympathy. Then the President arrives in this backwater and an assassin's rifle is discovered by the amnesiac. Is he the assassin? Is someone else also attempting to kill? Confused and confusing plot tries to annoyingly overdo the mystery angle. Unnecessarily arty direction, editing, camera movements with the actors posing like models. The excellent cast obviously took this project on for the paycheck. The mystery proves to be quite a bore long before this film ends. The time one wastes to check off yet another film with Faye Dunaway is also one of life's stupefying mysteries.
Elephant Walk (William Dieterle, 1954) 6/10
The plot of this film - based on the novel by Robert Standish - has more than a passing resemblance to Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca". On a visit to England dashing Colonial tea planter (Peter Finch) weds a lovely young lady (Elizabeth Taylor) and takes her to his late father's plantation in Ceylon. As in the du Maurier novel the young woman finds herself in over her head in her new surroundings. The huge bungalow is run by an imposing major-domo (shades of Mrs Danvers) who does not like the new mistress interfering in the household, the overwhelming presence of her husband's dead father who is still treated like god (shades of the dead Rebecca), and her husband's volatile mood swings. Providing some respite is the plantation's manager (Dana Andrews) who offers much needed attention and friendship but who also falls in love with her. Adding to the problems is a rogue male elephant who has been pissed off because his path to the river was blocked when the bungalow was built across it. And then a cholera epidemic breaks out followed by the elephants going on a rampage. Colorful adventure film has the beauty of Elizabeth Taylor front and center and lovely location filming on an actual tea plantation in Ceylon. Initially Vivien Leigh - then Lady Olivier - was cast and actually filmed some scenes (she can be seen in longshot) before her bipolar disorder made her drop out - she and Peter Finch were also in the midst of a torrid affair which added to her problems. Extensive location filming took part in Kandy and Sigiria in Ceylon.
The Heat of the Day (Christopher Morahan, 1989) 7/10
Harold Pinter adapts the novel by Anglo-Irish Elizabeth Bowen. Set during the London Blitz the story revolves around a British intelligence agent (Michael Gambon) who blackmails a middle-aged woman (Patricia Hodge) to become his mistress or he will expose her lover (Michael York) who is revealing government secrets to the Germans. Since we are in Pinter territory it is all played out as if in slow motion with a number of characters populating the plot on the side - a young nymphomaniac (Imelda Staunton), an old lady in a home (Dame Peggy Ashcroft) whose husband drops dead and leaves his Irish estate to a distant nephew. Genteel drama acted to perfection by the distinguished cast.
Butcher's Crossing (Gabe Polsky, 2023) 6/10
The star of the film is the spectacular location in Glacier National Park in Montana. During the early 1870s an idealistic young Harvard dropout (Fred Hechinger) travels out West to the plains of Kansas and hooks up with a buffalo hunter (Nicolas Cage) collecting hides for a price. Their journey to a remote valley in Montana is fraught with danger and coupled with the reckless massacre of the bison herd and the sudden arrival of winter puts a total damper on their plans. After sitting out eight months of freezing weather the group return to find that the price of bison hides has dropped. Based on the 1960 novel by John Edward Williams which covers the exploration of the Wild West, confronting and surviving the brutal realities of nature, and a contemplation of man's purpose in life with respect to nature.
Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee, 1995) 10/10
Such a happy marriage between two quite different auteurs - a director from Taiwan and a British actor/screenwriter - who join hands to bring to the screen this delightful adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel. When their father dies the Dashwood Sisters - Elinor (Emma Thompson), reserved, practical, and a thoughful young woman representing "sense", and Marianne (Kate Winslet), spontaneous, a lover of nature, idealistically romantic, representing "sensibility" - find themselves, along with their mother (Gemma Jones) and younger sister in genteel poverty. A cousin (Robert Hardy) and his mother-in-law (the delightful Elizabeth Spriggs) provide them a cottage as shelter. No romantic fiction would be complete without dashing male lovers coming along and sweeping the women off their feet. Elinor is smitten by a shy but affectionate young man (Hugh Grant) who is informed by his mother that he shall be disinherited if he gets married to someone below his station. It's love at first sight for rich melancholic old bachelor (Alan Rickman), but Marianne instead falls head over heels in love with a very handsome but deceitful and selfish Byronic young man (Greg Wise). Matters of the heart do not run smoothly and it takes a whole lot of anguish and heartache before there is a semblance of happiness in sight. The entire cast is a miracle (including Imogen Stubbs, Hugh Laurie, Harriet Walter, Imelda Staunton) with Emma Thompson's Oscar winning screenplay a warm and witty delight. The film, both Thompson and Winslet (for their acting), the score, cinematography and costumes were nominated for the Academy award. Ang Lee's elegant direction was shockingly overlooked for a nomination although he absolutely nails Austen's stinging social observation and satire. And he does this thankfully without overloading the film with unnecessary period frills instead letting the screenplay provide its magic on screen in all its simplicity.
Hallelujah! We actually get to see here a superb performance by Ananya Panday. A tale of friendship set during the era of social media. That is now. Three besties - a stand-up comedian (Siddhant Chaturvedi), an MBA graduate from Harvard (Ananya Panday) who works as a corporate consultant (the screenplay is by Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti & director Singh, and Panday's casting shockingly works) and a personal trainer (Adarsh Gourav) - face the usual life trials twenty-somethings get to face and handle, not always successfully. While the screenplay predictably covers their banter, inner and outer conflicts, acrimony, separation and reunion, there is an honesty in their relationship and how this generation navigates through life using their phone and social media as a means to vent, reflect and get validation. What successfully moves the story forward is the immense chemistry between the three leads who portray their characters with a great deal of honesty. No melodrama here. Just a strong message about the extent to which people have taken to social media which has enveloped them in a lifestyle that is often fake and can swifty bring on heartbreak. The film's outstanding song score goes a long way in creating the perfect mood for what plays across the screen.
A Family Divided (Donald Wrye, 1995) 6/10
A young girl is gang raped by five college students at a frat house. One of the boys confesses to his lawyer father (Stephen Collins) who advises the boys to keep quiet. However, the boy's mother (Faye Dunaway) begins to suspect when the victim disappears and she becomes the moral centerpiece of her middle class family by confronting her son and husband. She refuses to go along with the deception and rages against her family members who are hell bent on hiding the facts. Overwrought drama has Dunaway's outstanding performance as the horror-stricken mother who can't believe how her son and husband could keep quiet over such a tragedy. Like many previous films on social issues American tv once more comes up with a dramatic subject which has a strong message.
The People Next Door (Tim Hunter, 1996) 2/10
Z-grade tv film about child kidnapping has a screenplay full of holes and character emotions that need to be played up. Woman (Nicolette Sheridan) escapes from her abusive husband and moves back with her three young daughters to be near her mother (Faye Dunaway) with whom she has an antogonistic relationship. Her loving neighbours, a childless couple (Michael O'Keefe & Tracey Ellis), help with the kids but later end up kidnapping two of the girls. Sheridan sleepwalks through the ordeal of trying to find her children while a miscast Dunaway blows hot and cold - often berating her daughter and then suddenly showing sympathy. O'Keefe also alternates being a loving kidnapper who in the blink of an eye appears to go off the deep end. Story needs an element of hysteria which is completely missing.
Running Mates (Ron Lagomarsino, 2000) 7/10
Antiseptic film follows the election campaign of a Democratic Party presidential candidate (Tom Selleck) whose most pressing chore is deciding on who yo choose as his Vice President while four women - all of whom he has bedded - try to influence his decision. The clever women surrounding him are three former lovers - his campaign manager (Laura Linney), his shallow Hollywood campaign fundraising manager (Teri Hatcher), and a garrulous Washington socialite (Faye Dunaway) who wants the VP slot for her womanizing husband (Robert Culp); the fourth is his current lover and wife (Nancy Travis). Will these women help him make the right decision or will they be more intent on exerting control over him while trying to win their own personal battles against each other? There is a funny sequence when all four ladies get together in the powder room and discuss his cocksmanship. The attractive cast makes the most of this comedy-drama with Selleck, front and center, making a dashing presidential candidate. Dunaway delightfully steals every scene and was rewarded with a nomination for a Golden Globe.
Blind Horizon (Michael Haussman, 2003) 4/10
If your plot involves an amnesiac you cannot make the mystery stretch to an inordinate length without divulging what the hell is going on especially when the remaining plot merely meanders along. An IRS employee (Val Kilmer) is shot, left for dead, recovers but has accute amnesia. The small-town cop (Sam Shepard) finds no clues and the patient, who keeps having visions - Faye Dunaway appears several times giving him or someone else some sort of instructions - and in a violent and confused state he divulges a confused plot about an assassination attempt on the United States President. The man's fiancée (Neve Campbell) appears and his nurse (Amy Smart) shows continued sympathy. Then the President arrives in this backwater and an assassin's rifle is discovered by the amnesiac. Is he the assassin? Is someone else also attempting to kill? Confused and confusing plot tries to annoyingly overdo the mystery angle. Unnecessarily arty direction, editing, camera movements with the actors posing like models. The excellent cast obviously took this project on for the paycheck. The mystery proves to be quite a bore long before this film ends. The time one wastes to check off yet another film with Faye Dunaway is also one of life's stupefying mysteries.
Elephant Walk (William Dieterle, 1954) 6/10
The plot of this film - based on the novel by Robert Standish - has more than a passing resemblance to Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca". On a visit to England dashing Colonial tea planter (Peter Finch) weds a lovely young lady (Elizabeth Taylor) and takes her to his late father's plantation in Ceylon. As in the du Maurier novel the young woman finds herself in over her head in her new surroundings. The huge bungalow is run by an imposing major-domo (shades of Mrs Danvers) who does not like the new mistress interfering in the household, the overwhelming presence of her husband's dead father who is still treated like god (shades of the dead Rebecca), and her husband's volatile mood swings. Providing some respite is the plantation's manager (Dana Andrews) who offers much needed attention and friendship but who also falls in love with her. Adding to the problems is a rogue male elephant who has been pissed off because his path to the river was blocked when the bungalow was built across it. And then a cholera epidemic breaks out followed by the elephants going on a rampage. Colorful adventure film has the beauty of Elizabeth Taylor front and center and lovely location filming on an actual tea plantation in Ceylon. Initially Vivien Leigh - then Lady Olivier - was cast and actually filmed some scenes (she can be seen in longshot) before her bipolar disorder made her drop out - she and Peter Finch were also in the midst of a torrid affair which added to her problems. Extensive location filming took part in Kandy and Sigiria in Ceylon.
The Heat of the Day (Christopher Morahan, 1989) 7/10
Harold Pinter adapts the novel by Anglo-Irish Elizabeth Bowen. Set during the London Blitz the story revolves around a British intelligence agent (Michael Gambon) who blackmails a middle-aged woman (Patricia Hodge) to become his mistress or he will expose her lover (Michael York) who is revealing government secrets to the Germans. Since we are in Pinter territory it is all played out as if in slow motion with a number of characters populating the plot on the side - a young nymphomaniac (Imelda Staunton), an old lady in a home (Dame Peggy Ashcroft) whose husband drops dead and leaves his Irish estate to a distant nephew. Genteel drama acted to perfection by the distinguished cast.
Butcher's Crossing (Gabe Polsky, 2023) 6/10
The star of the film is the spectacular location in Glacier National Park in Montana. During the early 1870s an idealistic young Harvard dropout (Fred Hechinger) travels out West to the plains of Kansas and hooks up with a buffalo hunter (Nicolas Cage) collecting hides for a price. Their journey to a remote valley in Montana is fraught with danger and coupled with the reckless massacre of the bison herd and the sudden arrival of winter puts a total damper on their plans. After sitting out eight months of freezing weather the group return to find that the price of bison hides has dropped. Based on the 1960 novel by John Edward Williams which covers the exploration of the Wild West, confronting and surviving the brutal realities of nature, and a contemplation of man's purpose in life with respect to nature.
Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee, 1995) 10/10
Such a happy marriage between two quite different auteurs - a director from Taiwan and a British actor/screenwriter - who join hands to bring to the screen this delightful adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel. When their father dies the Dashwood Sisters - Elinor (Emma Thompson), reserved, practical, and a thoughful young woman representing "sense", and Marianne (Kate Winslet), spontaneous, a lover of nature, idealistically romantic, representing "sensibility" - find themselves, along with their mother (Gemma Jones) and younger sister in genteel poverty. A cousin (Robert Hardy) and his mother-in-law (the delightful Elizabeth Spriggs) provide them a cottage as shelter. No romantic fiction would be complete without dashing male lovers coming along and sweeping the women off their feet. Elinor is smitten by a shy but affectionate young man (Hugh Grant) who is informed by his mother that he shall be disinherited if he gets married to someone below his station. It's love at first sight for rich melancholic old bachelor (Alan Rickman), but Marianne instead falls head over heels in love with a very handsome but deceitful and selfish Byronic young man (Greg Wise). Matters of the heart do not run smoothly and it takes a whole lot of anguish and heartache before there is a semblance of happiness in sight. The entire cast is a miracle (including Imogen Stubbs, Hugh Laurie, Harriet Walter, Imelda Staunton) with Emma Thompson's Oscar winning screenplay a warm and witty delight. The film, both Thompson and Winslet (for their acting), the score, cinematography and costumes were nominated for the Academy award. Ang Lee's elegant direction was shockingly overlooked for a nomination although he absolutely nails Austen's stinging social observation and satire. And he does this thankfully without overloading the film with unnecessary period frills instead letting the screenplay provide its magic on screen in all its simplicity.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
They confided in him because he was a good listener who also knew how to play them.Reza wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 7:07 am
Saltburn (Emerald Fennell, 2023) 5/10
Keoghan, who is often filmed in extreme close-up, rightfully plays his character totally deadpan but fails to convey why every character so easily confides in him. He is physically not the kind of person anyone would easily cozy up to. And that is the film's major failure.
I didn't see the Waugh reference but maybe a little of The Loved One slips in. However, I did think this was a deft blend of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Teorema as well as Kind Hearts and Coronets and Something for Everyone (itself a takeoff on Teorema).
I liked it a lot. Compared to Maestro, which was a big letdown for me, this was the more interesting film. My reviews of both will be up on Cinema Sight at 11 a.m. EST.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Saltburn (Emerald Fennell, 2023) 5/10
Take a spoonful of Evelyn Waugh, a dash of L.P. Hartley, a rather heavy dose of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley, and the outrageous sexuality of Pasolini's Teorema, and what you get is Saltburn - a richly expansive country estate in England where a lonely Oxford scholarship student (Barry Keoghan) is invited by his college mate (Jacob Elordi) to come stay for the summer with his uppity-rich eccentric family - dad, Sir James Catton (Richard E. Grant), mom, Lady Elspeth Catton (Rosamund Pike), bulimic sister (Alison Oliver), needy American cousin (Archie Madekwe), and depressed attention-seeking family friend (Carey Mulligan). The gauche young man is at first enthusiastically welcomed by the family but who gradually begin to realise that something seems off about him and he has enveloped his life in a web of lies. A story about obsessive love and hate appears to have gotten director Fennell way in over her head. What she feels is her attempt at showing shocking moments on screen - the slimy sexual finger and mouth fondling with a menstruating vagina making Keoghan's blood-soaked mouth looking like a vampire, the voyeuristic masturbation in a bathtub followed by sensually drinking the after effects as the water runs down the drain, and getting naked and humping a newly dug muddy grave - prove to be merely silly flourishes totally devoid of genuine erotica. None of these moments seem credible to the plot at all. The over-the-top finalé seems to have been hurriedly put together to get to a conclusion that is all too familiar from many films from the past. The ending smells of very stale wine making the film in many ways quite similar in tone to Fennell's previous film, "Promising Young Woman", which also ended up with an absurdly over-the-top ending. The film's highlight is the grand house through which the camera moves catching moments of garish caricatures amongst the rich inhabitants. Standing out in the cast are both Grant as the slightly addled father and especially Pike who gets all the unfiltered witty dialogue. Keoghan, who is often filmed in extreme close-up, rightfully plays his character totally deadpan but fails to convey why every character so easily confides in him. He is physically not the kind of person anyone would easily cozy up to. And that is the film's major failure.
Freelance (Pierre Morel, 2023) 2/10
Inane, lifeless action thriller merely goes through motions like a cow regurgitating its cud. Many much better films are brought to mind - "Romancing the Stone", for one - which this one hopes to emulate but fails miserably. A former U.S. Army Special Forces officer (John Cena) is tasked with providing security to a disgraced news journalist (Alison Brie) as she attempts to get an exclusive interview with a Central or South American dictator - the country is fictional but everyone speaks spanish. However, they arrive just as a coup is being attempted and the trio go on the run after the security officer kills all the attackers. Are American corporations after valuable minerals and attempting to prop another person in place of the dictator who refuses to do their bidding? Amazing how even third rate movie plots get to speak the truth about how the United States is in relentless pursuit of self gratification while totally indifferent to collateral damage of the human kind. Cena is a square-jawed mannequin and Brie is annoyingly perky as they dodge bullets and trade barbs. And why on earth has Christian Slater been relegated to tv shows and embarrasingly small parts in Hollywood films? Skip this turd of a movie.
Leave the World Behind (Sam Esmail, 2023) 7/10
The first end-of-the-world apocalyptic thriller out of Hollywood that has the sense to acknowledge all the interference by the United States government in other countries which could in turn actually result in nations joining up and retaliating leading to chaos and death. A misanthrope (Julia Roberts), married to a college professor (Ethan Hawke), arranges a weekend vacation for her family (teenage son and daughter in tow) by renting a house in Long Island. Very gradually things start getting askew - there is a complete blackout in the city, planes crash, the tv stops working as do cell phones and the internet. A large herd of deer suddenly appear out of the surrounding forest along with flamingos in the pool. A high decibel sound is heard, the son falls sick and the affluent African-American owner (Mahershala Ali) of the house arrives in the dead of night with his daughter and asks to move into the house with them. An adaptation of Rumaan Alam's novel, the film creates dread and supense by superbly using the camera to create unsettling moments capturing the characters from above, sideways and sometimes even upside down with its sweeping movements. He also uses rapid cross cutting between scenes adding to the tension.
Rush Hour 3 (Brett Ratner, 2007) 5/10
In the midst of the usual shenanigans - the cop duo (Chris Tucker & Jackie Chan) are in Paris tracking an assassin (Hiroyuki Sanada) - there are hilarious vignettes along the way via cameos by Yvan Attal (as a french cabbie), Roman Polanski (as a french policeman who harrases the two cops), and Dana Ivey (as a nun who translates 4-letter words into french). The sequence with a tall Chinese martial arts expert (basketball player Sun Mingming) making mince meat of the two cops is a riff on Bruce Lee's "Game of Death" where the short Lee tackled the very tall Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Tucker does his obligatory sing and dance act while mouthing inane dialogue at rat-a-tat speed. Chan is in serious mode as he confronts the assassin who is his foster brother from the distant past. Since its Paris the Eiffel Tower gets to take part in an action sequence. The great Max von Sydow appears as a villain.
Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (Don Michael Paul, 2012) 3/10
Direct sequel to the previous schlock takes off from the scene of mayhem in a grocery store where badly wounded, gravel-voiced, hunting guide - the semi-butch Yancy Butler - ferociously stabbed a crocodile before expiring. Well this installment opens with Ms Butler opening her eyes - yup, she survived - clutches her ample bosom, staggers up to find a giant crocodile hissing at her. "You again?", she grunts. "You really want to do this?" And with a sudden flip she knifes the reptile as the screen dissolves into the opening credits. The screenplay this time really tries with that kick-ass opening. However, it really is more of the same. Utter Schlock!!
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (Karan Johar, 2001) 8/10
Karan Johar cranks up the melodrama quotient to the highest possible decibel and then takes it even further over the top. Very rich boy (Shah Rukh Khan) unexpectedly falls in love with poor girl (Kajol overacting to high heaven) from the wrong side of the tracks - Chandni Chowk - much to the arrogant consternation of his rigid dad (Amitabh Bachchan) who wants him to marry a friend and socialite (Rani Mukerji). He is literally sent into exile out of the family circle when he does marry the boistrous Punjabi girl. His doting Mom (Jaye Bachchan) looks on helplessly as her husband shows no mercy and shuts her up when she protests. Meanwhile Karan's obsession and adulation of Yash Chopra goes into full swing during the many, many song and dance numbers, never moreso than when the lovers realize their love for each other and the camera moves swiftly from the crowded streets of Chandni Chowk to the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Bahariya Oasis in Egypt, as a slinky Kajol gyrates to the tune of "Suraj Hua Madhham" in numerous chiffon sarees (red, lime green, yellow, orange, black, blue and white) all worn during the same song. Meanwhile exile is in London where the couple make a life with each other and the saalee - the iconic Poo (Kareena Kapoor). Trying to bring the family together is younger Bro - once fat boy but all grownup as a hunk (Hrithik Roshan) - who catches the eye of spoilt Poo. As if the main cast was not starry enough the supporting cast is equally memorable - Farida Jalal, Johny Lever, Shashikala, Achala Sachdev, Sushma Seth & Alok Nath. A huge success the film was nominated for 16 Filmfare awards including for the film, Karan, Shah Rukh, Amitabh, Hrithik & Kareena - winning for Kajol, Jaya, the production design, & Karan's dramatic (and often very patriotic) dialogue. Arm yourself with a truck full of tissues as the film will not only make you laugh but also cry bucket loads.
Take a spoonful of Evelyn Waugh, a dash of L.P. Hartley, a rather heavy dose of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley, and the outrageous sexuality of Pasolini's Teorema, and what you get is Saltburn - a richly expansive country estate in England where a lonely Oxford scholarship student (Barry Keoghan) is invited by his college mate (Jacob Elordi) to come stay for the summer with his uppity-rich eccentric family - dad, Sir James Catton (Richard E. Grant), mom, Lady Elspeth Catton (Rosamund Pike), bulimic sister (Alison Oliver), needy American cousin (Archie Madekwe), and depressed attention-seeking family friend (Carey Mulligan). The gauche young man is at first enthusiastically welcomed by the family but who gradually begin to realise that something seems off about him and he has enveloped his life in a web of lies. A story about obsessive love and hate appears to have gotten director Fennell way in over her head. What she feels is her attempt at showing shocking moments on screen - the slimy sexual finger and mouth fondling with a menstruating vagina making Keoghan's blood-soaked mouth looking like a vampire, the voyeuristic masturbation in a bathtub followed by sensually drinking the after effects as the water runs down the drain, and getting naked and humping a newly dug muddy grave - prove to be merely silly flourishes totally devoid of genuine erotica. None of these moments seem credible to the plot at all. The over-the-top finalé seems to have been hurriedly put together to get to a conclusion that is all too familiar from many films from the past. The ending smells of very stale wine making the film in many ways quite similar in tone to Fennell's previous film, "Promising Young Woman", which also ended up with an absurdly over-the-top ending. The film's highlight is the grand house through which the camera moves catching moments of garish caricatures amongst the rich inhabitants. Standing out in the cast are both Grant as the slightly addled father and especially Pike who gets all the unfiltered witty dialogue. Keoghan, who is often filmed in extreme close-up, rightfully plays his character totally deadpan but fails to convey why every character so easily confides in him. He is physically not the kind of person anyone would easily cozy up to. And that is the film's major failure.
Freelance (Pierre Morel, 2023) 2/10
Inane, lifeless action thriller merely goes through motions like a cow regurgitating its cud. Many much better films are brought to mind - "Romancing the Stone", for one - which this one hopes to emulate but fails miserably. A former U.S. Army Special Forces officer (John Cena) is tasked with providing security to a disgraced news journalist (Alison Brie) as she attempts to get an exclusive interview with a Central or South American dictator - the country is fictional but everyone speaks spanish. However, they arrive just as a coup is being attempted and the trio go on the run after the security officer kills all the attackers. Are American corporations after valuable minerals and attempting to prop another person in place of the dictator who refuses to do their bidding? Amazing how even third rate movie plots get to speak the truth about how the United States is in relentless pursuit of self gratification while totally indifferent to collateral damage of the human kind. Cena is a square-jawed mannequin and Brie is annoyingly perky as they dodge bullets and trade barbs. And why on earth has Christian Slater been relegated to tv shows and embarrasingly small parts in Hollywood films? Skip this turd of a movie.
Leave the World Behind (Sam Esmail, 2023) 7/10
The first end-of-the-world apocalyptic thriller out of Hollywood that has the sense to acknowledge all the interference by the United States government in other countries which could in turn actually result in nations joining up and retaliating leading to chaos and death. A misanthrope (Julia Roberts), married to a college professor (Ethan Hawke), arranges a weekend vacation for her family (teenage son and daughter in tow) by renting a house in Long Island. Very gradually things start getting askew - there is a complete blackout in the city, planes crash, the tv stops working as do cell phones and the internet. A large herd of deer suddenly appear out of the surrounding forest along with flamingos in the pool. A high decibel sound is heard, the son falls sick and the affluent African-American owner (Mahershala Ali) of the house arrives in the dead of night with his daughter and asks to move into the house with them. An adaptation of Rumaan Alam's novel, the film creates dread and supense by superbly using the camera to create unsettling moments capturing the characters from above, sideways and sometimes even upside down with its sweeping movements. He also uses rapid cross cutting between scenes adding to the tension.
Rush Hour 3 (Brett Ratner, 2007) 5/10
In the midst of the usual shenanigans - the cop duo (Chris Tucker & Jackie Chan) are in Paris tracking an assassin (Hiroyuki Sanada) - there are hilarious vignettes along the way via cameos by Yvan Attal (as a french cabbie), Roman Polanski (as a french policeman who harrases the two cops), and Dana Ivey (as a nun who translates 4-letter words into french). The sequence with a tall Chinese martial arts expert (basketball player Sun Mingming) making mince meat of the two cops is a riff on Bruce Lee's "Game of Death" where the short Lee tackled the very tall Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Tucker does his obligatory sing and dance act while mouthing inane dialogue at rat-a-tat speed. Chan is in serious mode as he confronts the assassin who is his foster brother from the distant past. Since its Paris the Eiffel Tower gets to take part in an action sequence. The great Max von Sydow appears as a villain.
Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (Don Michael Paul, 2012) 3/10
Direct sequel to the previous schlock takes off from the scene of mayhem in a grocery store where badly wounded, gravel-voiced, hunting guide - the semi-butch Yancy Butler - ferociously stabbed a crocodile before expiring. Well this installment opens with Ms Butler opening her eyes - yup, she survived - clutches her ample bosom, staggers up to find a giant crocodile hissing at her. "You again?", she grunts. "You really want to do this?" And with a sudden flip she knifes the reptile as the screen dissolves into the opening credits. The screenplay this time really tries with that kick-ass opening. However, it really is more of the same. Utter Schlock!!
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (Karan Johar, 2001) 8/10
Karan Johar cranks up the melodrama quotient to the highest possible decibel and then takes it even further over the top. Very rich boy (Shah Rukh Khan) unexpectedly falls in love with poor girl (Kajol overacting to high heaven) from the wrong side of the tracks - Chandni Chowk - much to the arrogant consternation of his rigid dad (Amitabh Bachchan) who wants him to marry a friend and socialite (Rani Mukerji). He is literally sent into exile out of the family circle when he does marry the boistrous Punjabi girl. His doting Mom (Jaye Bachchan) looks on helplessly as her husband shows no mercy and shuts her up when she protests. Meanwhile Karan's obsession and adulation of Yash Chopra goes into full swing during the many, many song and dance numbers, never moreso than when the lovers realize their love for each other and the camera moves swiftly from the crowded streets of Chandni Chowk to the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Bahariya Oasis in Egypt, as a slinky Kajol gyrates to the tune of "Suraj Hua Madhham" in numerous chiffon sarees (red, lime green, yellow, orange, black, blue and white) all worn during the same song. Meanwhile exile is in London where the couple make a life with each other and the saalee - the iconic Poo (Kareena Kapoor). Trying to bring the family together is younger Bro - once fat boy but all grownup as a hunk (Hrithik Roshan) - who catches the eye of spoilt Poo. As if the main cast was not starry enough the supporting cast is equally memorable - Farida Jalal, Johny Lever, Shashikala, Achala Sachdev, Sushma Seth & Alok Nath. A huge success the film was nominated for 16 Filmfare awards including for the film, Karan, Shah Rukh, Amitabh, Hrithik & Kareena - winning for Kajol, Jaya, the production design, & Karan's dramatic (and often very patriotic) dialogue. Arm yourself with a truck full of tissues as the film will not only make you laugh but also cry bucket loads.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
21 Up (1977) - 7/10 - The people from the first two films are gathered together to watch those films now that they are 21 years old. They are asked a series of questions, but we also get more from them interacting with each other or giving longer and more thoughtful answers. The film itself is a lot longer than the previous entries which is a mixed blessing.
28 Up (1984) - 7.5/10
35 Up (1991) - 7/10
42 Up (1998) - 7/10
49 Up (2005) - 7/10
56 Up (2012) - 7.5/10
63 Up (2019) - 7.5/10
When you watch these films over a short period of time, you see how much footage is repeated from one film to the next. There's a lot. With a 7 year break between releases, though, I'm sure that it was necessary to refresh peoples' memory. I think they became a little bit better with incorporating the flashbacks in the last couple of episodes. The series also became a bit more contemplative as it progressed. It was pretty interesting watching all of these people for a few days every 7 years as they aged.
Black Rain / Kuroi ame (1989) - 8.5/10 - The film starts just before the atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima and deals with both the immediate aftermath and 5 years later as people are still dealing with the effects of the blast. It's fairly bleak, but good.
The King's Choice (2016) - 8/10 - In 1940, Germany invades Norway and the king had to decide whether or not to capitulate to the Germans or resist. Jesper Christensen is really good as King Haakon VII and it's a fairly solid drama.
Alvorada: Brazil's Changing Face (1962) - 8/10 - This West German documentary gives an overview of life in Brazil, told mostly in a visual manner with occasional narration and music. The images and editing are pretty good. It was nominated for an Academy Award.
Love and Death (1975) - 8/10 - Woody Allen plays Boris, a Russian peasant in the early 1800s who gets roped into being a soldier in the fight against Napoleon and inadvertently becomes a hero. The woman he loves doesn't love him back and gets him involved in a dangerous plot. I liked the first half of the film more than the second half, but overall it is still a nice film with plenty of Allen's brand of humor.
My Voyage to Italy (1999) - 8/10 - Martin Scorsese narrates a look through the history of Italian film during the classic era of his youth, mixing in personal recollections, anecdotes, and more. It's a bit on the long side, but is very good.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008) - 8/10 - In 2001, Doctor Andrew Bagby was murdered in a parking lot. One of his best friends started making a documentary about his friend, interviewing his parents and friends plus including lots of archival footage of Andrew. There are a lot of twists and turns during the film.
High School (1968) - 7.5/10 - It's an interesting look at high school life in the 1960s. It's definitely a different world from what I experienced 15-20 years later, more regimented and strict. The classroom scenes were not necessarily all that different, but the rules outside the classroom seemed to have loosened up by the 1980s, at least at my school. My parents and grandparents were all teaching at the time, though only my grandfather was teaching a high school. This was good, though I prefer the 1983 Guggenheim documentary - High Schools.
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016) - 7.5/10 - A young soldier becomes a bit of a celebrity when he is caught on camera in Iraq trying to rescue his wounded sergeant. His squad is back in the states and is set to be honored at a professional football game. He also reconnects with his family, especially his sister. The story of what happened during that fateful incident is told during flashbacks. I thought the film was pretty good, though Steve Martin seemed miscast in his role.
Sisu (2022) - 7.5/10 - In 1944, a Finnish prospector and former commando finds a large vein of gold. While riding on his horse to take the gold to Helsinki, he is accosted by a Nazi patrol who have been destroying villages and taking women prisoner. The film is ridiculous, ridiculously violent, funny at times, and entertaining. Never underestimate the versatility of a pickaxe.
Three Minutes: A Lengthening (2021) - 7.5/10 - A man found three minutes of old 16mm film that his grandfather had shot while on a trip to Poland in 1938, a year before WWII. The film captures a number of the Jewish residents of the town, including many children. The film was restored somewhat and digitized. The film is an examination of the footage, including attempts to identify the location of the film and any of the people who are shown. A few survivors or relatives of people in the film are interviewed. It's an interesting examination.
Alone in the Wilderness (2004) - 7.5/10 - In 1967, a man retired to the Alaskan wilderness, built himself a log cabin, complete with fireplace and chimney, and then lived there for the next 30 years. The film shows a lot of the effort that he put into making his home habitable plus gathering food, etc. during that first year with narration explaining things along the way. It's a fairly straightforward idea, but I also found it interesting seeing this lone man creating a home in the wilderness.
Ashes and Snow (2005) - 7.5/10 - The imagery was very nice and I liked the music, too. The film had a meditative quality through much of it.
Ydessa, the Bears and etc. (2004) - 7/10 - Varda learned about a woman who had an art installation filled with photographs of people with teddy bears. Varda then flew to Toronto to interview the woman and find out what her story was and the process she used. This was more interesting than I expected and the photographs are cool as well.
Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art (2020) - 7/10 - In the mid-90s, a woman named Glafira Rosales walked into a prominent art gallery in New York City with unknown paintings by major 20th Century abstract artists. After some research, the gallery purchased the paintings and kept purchasing more over the next 15+ years, selling them for obscene amounts of money. Too bad these paintings were fakes. The film features interviews with a number of people involved in the case, including the director of the art gallery (which closed in 2011), people who had purchased the fakes, the man who actually painted the fakes, and various art experts. I liked the film, though I thought the middle section went on too long. The art world seems pretty sketchy in a number of respects.
Ashkal (2022) - 7/10 - Detectives start investigating after people start dying from self-immolation. It's definitely a slow burn, but a little too slow at times. I liked Fatma Oussaifi in the lead role and the setting and sounds were each pretty good. I didn't totally connect with the story, but still thought it was a good film.
Red Sorghum (1988) - 7/10 - A young woman (Gong Li) is sold to a 50 year old leper who owns a remote winery. He soon dies, though, and she takes charge of the winery and makes it a success, until the Japanese arrive. The film started out pretty well, but became less interesting after that.
Chimes at Midnight (1965) - 6.5/10 - Orson Welles directs and also stars as Falstaff, an obese drunkard around the year 1400 who is friends with the son of the king. The film looks good and has a few nice battles, but overall I didn't really get into it that much, except on occasion.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) - 6.5/10 - Tom Conti stars as Colonel John Lawrence, a prisoner in a Japanese camp on Java during WWII who is fluent in Japanese and acts as an intermediary with their Japanese captors. A new prisoner is brought into the camp (David Bowie) and breaks the routine somewhat. I like Bowie as a singer, but I'm not very fond of his acting. Conti was good as Lawrence and Ryuichi Sakamoto and Beat Takeshi weren't bad in their roles. The film also looked pretty good, but I found the story to be pretty boring most of the time and Bowie certainly didn't help thing.
The Pigeon Tunnel (2023) - 5.5/10 - Errol Morris interviews David Cornwell (aka John Le Carre) about his life. Cornwell seems to have lived a pretty interesting life, but is a very dull interviewee.
Breaker! Breaker! (1977) - 5/10 - A young truck driver on his first solo job gets lured into a trap by a corrupt judge and his followers in a remote desert town. His brother (Chuck Norris) goes off in search of him when he goes missing and the brother wreaks havoc in the town. The story was pretty dumb and the acting was bad, but at least it wasn't dull.
Les carabiniers (1963) - 4/10 - A couple of farmers are recruited to become soldiers with promises of wealth and the ability to take just about anything they want. They send postcards home to their wives in this Godard comedy.. There were a couple of funny bits, but it was mostly just dumb.
For Ever Mozart (1996) - 4/10 - A crotchety director is working on his latest film. Meanwhile, his daughter and nephew decide to travel to war torn Bosnia to stage a play. None of it was really all that interesting.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) - 4/10 - An uncouth English gangster takes over a high class French restaurant. His wife starts an affair with one of the customers. The actors do a good job with what they are given and the film has a decent soundtrack. Unfortunately, I just didn't like it very much.
Reason Over Passion (1969) - 2/10 - This was pretty dumb and impenetrable.
28 Up (1984) - 7.5/10
35 Up (1991) - 7/10
42 Up (1998) - 7/10
49 Up (2005) - 7/10
56 Up (2012) - 7.5/10
63 Up (2019) - 7.5/10
When you watch these films over a short period of time, you see how much footage is repeated from one film to the next. There's a lot. With a 7 year break between releases, though, I'm sure that it was necessary to refresh peoples' memory. I think they became a little bit better with incorporating the flashbacks in the last couple of episodes. The series also became a bit more contemplative as it progressed. It was pretty interesting watching all of these people for a few days every 7 years as they aged.
Black Rain / Kuroi ame (1989) - 8.5/10 - The film starts just before the atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima and deals with both the immediate aftermath and 5 years later as people are still dealing with the effects of the blast. It's fairly bleak, but good.
The King's Choice (2016) - 8/10 - In 1940, Germany invades Norway and the king had to decide whether or not to capitulate to the Germans or resist. Jesper Christensen is really good as King Haakon VII and it's a fairly solid drama.
Alvorada: Brazil's Changing Face (1962) - 8/10 - This West German documentary gives an overview of life in Brazil, told mostly in a visual manner with occasional narration and music. The images and editing are pretty good. It was nominated for an Academy Award.
Love and Death (1975) - 8/10 - Woody Allen plays Boris, a Russian peasant in the early 1800s who gets roped into being a soldier in the fight against Napoleon and inadvertently becomes a hero. The woman he loves doesn't love him back and gets him involved in a dangerous plot. I liked the first half of the film more than the second half, but overall it is still a nice film with plenty of Allen's brand of humor.
My Voyage to Italy (1999) - 8/10 - Martin Scorsese narrates a look through the history of Italian film during the classic era of his youth, mixing in personal recollections, anecdotes, and more. It's a bit on the long side, but is very good.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008) - 8/10 - In 2001, Doctor Andrew Bagby was murdered in a parking lot. One of his best friends started making a documentary about his friend, interviewing his parents and friends plus including lots of archival footage of Andrew. There are a lot of twists and turns during the film.
High School (1968) - 7.5/10 - It's an interesting look at high school life in the 1960s. It's definitely a different world from what I experienced 15-20 years later, more regimented and strict. The classroom scenes were not necessarily all that different, but the rules outside the classroom seemed to have loosened up by the 1980s, at least at my school. My parents and grandparents were all teaching at the time, though only my grandfather was teaching a high school. This was good, though I prefer the 1983 Guggenheim documentary - High Schools.
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016) - 7.5/10 - A young soldier becomes a bit of a celebrity when he is caught on camera in Iraq trying to rescue his wounded sergeant. His squad is back in the states and is set to be honored at a professional football game. He also reconnects with his family, especially his sister. The story of what happened during that fateful incident is told during flashbacks. I thought the film was pretty good, though Steve Martin seemed miscast in his role.
Sisu (2022) - 7.5/10 - In 1944, a Finnish prospector and former commando finds a large vein of gold. While riding on his horse to take the gold to Helsinki, he is accosted by a Nazi patrol who have been destroying villages and taking women prisoner. The film is ridiculous, ridiculously violent, funny at times, and entertaining. Never underestimate the versatility of a pickaxe.
Three Minutes: A Lengthening (2021) - 7.5/10 - A man found three minutes of old 16mm film that his grandfather had shot while on a trip to Poland in 1938, a year before WWII. The film captures a number of the Jewish residents of the town, including many children. The film was restored somewhat and digitized. The film is an examination of the footage, including attempts to identify the location of the film and any of the people who are shown. A few survivors or relatives of people in the film are interviewed. It's an interesting examination.
Alone in the Wilderness (2004) - 7.5/10 - In 1967, a man retired to the Alaskan wilderness, built himself a log cabin, complete with fireplace and chimney, and then lived there for the next 30 years. The film shows a lot of the effort that he put into making his home habitable plus gathering food, etc. during that first year with narration explaining things along the way. It's a fairly straightforward idea, but I also found it interesting seeing this lone man creating a home in the wilderness.
Ashes and Snow (2005) - 7.5/10 - The imagery was very nice and I liked the music, too. The film had a meditative quality through much of it.
Ydessa, the Bears and etc. (2004) - 7/10 - Varda learned about a woman who had an art installation filled with photographs of people with teddy bears. Varda then flew to Toronto to interview the woman and find out what her story was and the process she used. This was more interesting than I expected and the photographs are cool as well.
Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art (2020) - 7/10 - In the mid-90s, a woman named Glafira Rosales walked into a prominent art gallery in New York City with unknown paintings by major 20th Century abstract artists. After some research, the gallery purchased the paintings and kept purchasing more over the next 15+ years, selling them for obscene amounts of money. Too bad these paintings were fakes. The film features interviews with a number of people involved in the case, including the director of the art gallery (which closed in 2011), people who had purchased the fakes, the man who actually painted the fakes, and various art experts. I liked the film, though I thought the middle section went on too long. The art world seems pretty sketchy in a number of respects.
Ashkal (2022) - 7/10 - Detectives start investigating after people start dying from self-immolation. It's definitely a slow burn, but a little too slow at times. I liked Fatma Oussaifi in the lead role and the setting and sounds were each pretty good. I didn't totally connect with the story, but still thought it was a good film.
Red Sorghum (1988) - 7/10 - A young woman (Gong Li) is sold to a 50 year old leper who owns a remote winery. He soon dies, though, and she takes charge of the winery and makes it a success, until the Japanese arrive. The film started out pretty well, but became less interesting after that.
Chimes at Midnight (1965) - 6.5/10 - Orson Welles directs and also stars as Falstaff, an obese drunkard around the year 1400 who is friends with the son of the king. The film looks good and has a few nice battles, but overall I didn't really get into it that much, except on occasion.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) - 6.5/10 - Tom Conti stars as Colonel John Lawrence, a prisoner in a Japanese camp on Java during WWII who is fluent in Japanese and acts as an intermediary with their Japanese captors. A new prisoner is brought into the camp (David Bowie) and breaks the routine somewhat. I like Bowie as a singer, but I'm not very fond of his acting. Conti was good as Lawrence and Ryuichi Sakamoto and Beat Takeshi weren't bad in their roles. The film also looked pretty good, but I found the story to be pretty boring most of the time and Bowie certainly didn't help thing.
The Pigeon Tunnel (2023) - 5.5/10 - Errol Morris interviews David Cornwell (aka John Le Carre) about his life. Cornwell seems to have lived a pretty interesting life, but is a very dull interviewee.
Breaker! Breaker! (1977) - 5/10 - A young truck driver on his first solo job gets lured into a trap by a corrupt judge and his followers in a remote desert town. His brother (Chuck Norris) goes off in search of him when he goes missing and the brother wreaks havoc in the town. The story was pretty dumb and the acting was bad, but at least it wasn't dull.
Les carabiniers (1963) - 4/10 - A couple of farmers are recruited to become soldiers with promises of wealth and the ability to take just about anything they want. They send postcards home to their wives in this Godard comedy.. There were a couple of funny bits, but it was mostly just dumb.
For Ever Mozart (1996) - 4/10 - A crotchety director is working on his latest film. Meanwhile, his daughter and nephew decide to travel to war torn Bosnia to stage a play. None of it was really all that interesting.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) - 4/10 - An uncouth English gangster takes over a high class French restaurant. His wife starts an affair with one of the customers. The actors do a good job with what they are given and the film has a decent soundtrack. Unfortunately, I just didn't like it very much.
Reason Over Passion (1969) - 2/10 - This was pretty dumb and impenetrable.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
The Archies (Zoya Akhtar, 2023) 8/10
This American institution - the Archie comic book - makes a very happy diverse marriage with the Anglo-Indian community of Goa. All the characters from the comic book come to life in small-town Riverdale in a screenplay that has a special "green" message. When Mr. Lodge, the town's richest businessman, decides to plonk a new hotel in the midst of Green Park - the town's environmentally friendly landscape - all hell breaks loose in town. The kids meantime have problems of their own. Serial dater, Archie Andrews (Agastya Nanda), has eyes on spoilt rich girl Veronica Lodge (Suhana Khan) and on wholesome girl-next-door Betty Cooper (Khushi Kapoor). Vain Reggie Mantle (Vedang Raina) needs to grow up fast to take up a job at his father's newspaper. Jughead (Mihir Ahuja), who loves being at Pop's Diner, can't stop eating and is loved by Ethel Muggs (Aditi "Dot" Saiga). Smart and cute inventor Dilton Doiley (Yuvraj Menda) has his eyes on Reggie, while not too bright Moose Mason (Rudra Mahuvarkar) finds a champion in Midge Klump (Santana Roach). Zoya Akhtar brings fresh pizzazz to the film which along with memorable rock and roll music - the film has 16 songs - delightfully allows the entire cast of new actors to shine. There is not a single false beat in any of the young cast members as they confidently sing, dance and emote like true professionals. The director subjected her cast to a boot camp where they undertook singing, dancing and acting lessons before the film's shoot. It has paid off in spades as this bouncy musical is a wonderful tribute to the iconic comic book. The entire production is topnotch with outstanding production design, costumes, choreography, memorable music (by Shankar Ehsaan Loy & Dot.), peppy lyrics (courtesy of Javed Akhtar) and cinematography. Of the three lead actors Agastya Nanda scores big as he perfectly captures the comic book's Archie and is a natural on the dance floor. Both Suhana Khan and Khushi Kapoor come off a little self conscious on screen although both are superb dancers. Kudos to Zoya Akhtar for managing to smoothly blend something so very American into an Indian environment. This film is to the 1960s what "Grease" was to the 1950s.
The Other Woman (Nick Cassavetes, 2014) 6/10
For a change Hollywood takes "inspiration" from a Bollywood movie - the 2011 comedy "Ladies vs Ricky Bahl" - along with dipping into the plot of the 1996 comedy "The First Wives Club". New York attorney (Cameron Diaz), involved in a hot affair with captivating businessman (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), suddenly discovers he has a wife (Leslie Mann). The two women end up friends after a boozy night together and decide to make the man pay for his deceit. Matters take a further turn when they find out that he has been two timing them both with a very young blonde swimsuit supermodel (Kate Upton). The predictable, corny but often very funny plot - yes the laughs are indeed cheap involving pratfalls and scatological humour - has the three women ganging up to seek revenge and teach him a lesson. This women empowerment comedy got roasted by the critics and unfairly winning Cameron Diaz the Razzie award for worst actress of the year. That's really not true as she is quite charming throughout unlike Lesley Mann who plays her character with a permanent dose of very loud hysteria. Don Johnson plays Diaz's suave dad who also plays the field.
God is a Bullet (Nick Cassavetes, 2023) 7/10
Cassavetes brings to the screen an adaptation of the cult novel by Boston Teran. This road movie is a journey into hell as it follows the search by a police detective (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) for his kidnapped daughter taken by a group of satanic cult members. Helping him find her is a former cult member (Maika Monroe) and a social renegade (Jamie Foxx). The crazed tattooed cult members resemble the equally deranged characters from the Mad Max movies. Extremely violent film goes for the jugular from the get go when the girl is snatched and her mother is brutally shot repeatedly at the start of the film. The violence never lets up as body parts are chopped, shot at, cut off and stabbed ad nauseum. There is a kind of fascination watching this flow of blood as nasty people get their deserved comeuppance. I'm surprised the film was panned by critics mainly for its violence when Tarantino and others have won raves for similar blood thirsty moments on screen. Stylized roller coaster ride is a thrilling film although not without a number of potholes in the screenplay. Ignore them and enjoy the ride but only if you can stomach blood.
57 Seconds (Rusty Cundieff, 2023) 6/10
One of those B-films with a ridiculous Sc-Fi plot, a young leading man who you (if a senior citizen like me) have never heard of BUT have seen in a few films which you discover later, and a very famous star character actor in a small role which he probably took on as a favour to someone on the production or just decided to do it for a hefty paycheck. Tech blogger (Josh Hutcherson, who?) goes after a pharmaceutical company marketing a painkiller that killed his sister. He does it with the help of a mysterious ring which allows him to travel back in time by 57 seconds after rubbing it â la Aladdin. The ring may have something to do with a visionary tech guru (Morgan Freeman) whose life he saved from an assassin's bullet. Ignore the far fetched plot elements (and potholes in the script) which provide amusing and suspenseful moments and just go along for the fun ride.
Employees' Entrance (Roy Del Ruth, 1933) 6/10
Ruthless store general manager (Warren William) insists on riding his employees to the breaking point. He hires a broke and unemployed young woman (Loretta Young) after seducing her, and sees potential in a young man (Wallace Ford) whom he grooms to become his assistant. These two fall in love and get married without telling their compulsively philandering boss who later tries every trick in the book to keep the two lovers apart. Frank look at sex at the work place and how the casting couch works (rape) to the advantage of some and to the disadvantage of others - a senior board member of the store is blackmailed by a secretary (Alice White). William - nicknamed the "King of Pre-Code" - is superb as the brutal cad firing people left and right for the smallest of errors. Young, at age 20, is at her most beautiful.
Foyle's War (Giles Foster & Jeremy Silberston, 2003) - Season Two 8/10
Murder, espionage, and treason solved by police detective Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen) who reluctantly remains on duty in his quiet English coastal town. Guest stars include Alan Howard, Emily Blunt, Laurence Fox, Phoebe Nicholls, Joanna David, Corin Redgrave.
This American institution - the Archie comic book - makes a very happy diverse marriage with the Anglo-Indian community of Goa. All the characters from the comic book come to life in small-town Riverdale in a screenplay that has a special "green" message. When Mr. Lodge, the town's richest businessman, decides to plonk a new hotel in the midst of Green Park - the town's environmentally friendly landscape - all hell breaks loose in town. The kids meantime have problems of their own. Serial dater, Archie Andrews (Agastya Nanda), has eyes on spoilt rich girl Veronica Lodge (Suhana Khan) and on wholesome girl-next-door Betty Cooper (Khushi Kapoor). Vain Reggie Mantle (Vedang Raina) needs to grow up fast to take up a job at his father's newspaper. Jughead (Mihir Ahuja), who loves being at Pop's Diner, can't stop eating and is loved by Ethel Muggs (Aditi "Dot" Saiga). Smart and cute inventor Dilton Doiley (Yuvraj Menda) has his eyes on Reggie, while not too bright Moose Mason (Rudra Mahuvarkar) finds a champion in Midge Klump (Santana Roach). Zoya Akhtar brings fresh pizzazz to the film which along with memorable rock and roll music - the film has 16 songs - delightfully allows the entire cast of new actors to shine. There is not a single false beat in any of the young cast members as they confidently sing, dance and emote like true professionals. The director subjected her cast to a boot camp where they undertook singing, dancing and acting lessons before the film's shoot. It has paid off in spades as this bouncy musical is a wonderful tribute to the iconic comic book. The entire production is topnotch with outstanding production design, costumes, choreography, memorable music (by Shankar Ehsaan Loy & Dot.), peppy lyrics (courtesy of Javed Akhtar) and cinematography. Of the three lead actors Agastya Nanda scores big as he perfectly captures the comic book's Archie and is a natural on the dance floor. Both Suhana Khan and Khushi Kapoor come off a little self conscious on screen although both are superb dancers. Kudos to Zoya Akhtar for managing to smoothly blend something so very American into an Indian environment. This film is to the 1960s what "Grease" was to the 1950s.
The Other Woman (Nick Cassavetes, 2014) 6/10
For a change Hollywood takes "inspiration" from a Bollywood movie - the 2011 comedy "Ladies vs Ricky Bahl" - along with dipping into the plot of the 1996 comedy "The First Wives Club". New York attorney (Cameron Diaz), involved in a hot affair with captivating businessman (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), suddenly discovers he has a wife (Leslie Mann). The two women end up friends after a boozy night together and decide to make the man pay for his deceit. Matters take a further turn when they find out that he has been two timing them both with a very young blonde swimsuit supermodel (Kate Upton). The predictable, corny but often very funny plot - yes the laughs are indeed cheap involving pratfalls and scatological humour - has the three women ganging up to seek revenge and teach him a lesson. This women empowerment comedy got roasted by the critics and unfairly winning Cameron Diaz the Razzie award for worst actress of the year. That's really not true as she is quite charming throughout unlike Lesley Mann who plays her character with a permanent dose of very loud hysteria. Don Johnson plays Diaz's suave dad who also plays the field.
God is a Bullet (Nick Cassavetes, 2023) 7/10
Cassavetes brings to the screen an adaptation of the cult novel by Boston Teran. This road movie is a journey into hell as it follows the search by a police detective (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) for his kidnapped daughter taken by a group of satanic cult members. Helping him find her is a former cult member (Maika Monroe) and a social renegade (Jamie Foxx). The crazed tattooed cult members resemble the equally deranged characters from the Mad Max movies. Extremely violent film goes for the jugular from the get go when the girl is snatched and her mother is brutally shot repeatedly at the start of the film. The violence never lets up as body parts are chopped, shot at, cut off and stabbed ad nauseum. There is a kind of fascination watching this flow of blood as nasty people get their deserved comeuppance. I'm surprised the film was panned by critics mainly for its violence when Tarantino and others have won raves for similar blood thirsty moments on screen. Stylized roller coaster ride is a thrilling film although not without a number of potholes in the screenplay. Ignore them and enjoy the ride but only if you can stomach blood.
57 Seconds (Rusty Cundieff, 2023) 6/10
One of those B-films with a ridiculous Sc-Fi plot, a young leading man who you (if a senior citizen like me) have never heard of BUT have seen in a few films which you discover later, and a very famous star character actor in a small role which he probably took on as a favour to someone on the production or just decided to do it for a hefty paycheck. Tech blogger (Josh Hutcherson, who?) goes after a pharmaceutical company marketing a painkiller that killed his sister. He does it with the help of a mysterious ring which allows him to travel back in time by 57 seconds after rubbing it â la Aladdin. The ring may have something to do with a visionary tech guru (Morgan Freeman) whose life he saved from an assassin's bullet. Ignore the far fetched plot elements (and potholes in the script) which provide amusing and suspenseful moments and just go along for the fun ride.
Employees' Entrance (Roy Del Ruth, 1933) 6/10
Ruthless store general manager (Warren William) insists on riding his employees to the breaking point. He hires a broke and unemployed young woman (Loretta Young) after seducing her, and sees potential in a young man (Wallace Ford) whom he grooms to become his assistant. These two fall in love and get married without telling their compulsively philandering boss who later tries every trick in the book to keep the two lovers apart. Frank look at sex at the work place and how the casting couch works (rape) to the advantage of some and to the disadvantage of others - a senior board member of the store is blackmailed by a secretary (Alice White). William - nicknamed the "King of Pre-Code" - is superb as the brutal cad firing people left and right for the smallest of errors. Young, at age 20, is at her most beautiful.
Foyle's War (Giles Foster & Jeremy Silberston, 2003) - Season Two 8/10
Murder, espionage, and treason solved by police detective Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen) who reluctantly remains on duty in his quiet English coastal town. Guest stars include Alan Howard, Emily Blunt, Laurence Fox, Phoebe Nicholls, Joanna David, Corin Redgrave.
Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
The Mauritanian (Kevin Macdonald, 2021) 7/10
Someday there will be a kick-ass film based on the terrors inflicted on innocent prisoners by the United States Government at Guantánamo. This film is not it, although we do get to see the main protagonist suffer notorious forms of torture that involved savage beatings, water boarding, binding in contorted stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep disruption, sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination, subjection to extreme cold, death threats and sexual humiliation. One has been conditioned to believe that such inhuman torture methods were only either part of medieval history or in the recent past the sadistic playtime of the Stalin, Nazi and Vietcong menace. Never could it be imagined that a country priding itself as the Leader of the World would fall so low as to do exactly that. Of course that "holier than thou" aura of the United States has been repeatedly shattered during the last few years. Based on the bestselling memoir, "Guantánamo Diary", written by Mohamedou Ould Salahi, whom the United States held, without charge, for fourteen years and officially acknowledged by them that he had been tortured. The case comes to light when defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) and her associate Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley in an underwritten part) decide to defend languishing prisoner Salahi (Tahar Rahim) who had been abducted from his home in Mauritania on suspicion of being involved in the 9/11 attacks. Their controversial advocacy along with fabricated evidence uncovered by the military prosecutor (Benedict Cumberbatch) reveals a shocking conspiracy by officials to falsely condemn the prisoner by coercing a confession out of him using extreme torture methods. The screenplay lacks drama and takes a rather bland route merely ticking off all the major events in the life of this prisoner and comes across as a flat legal procedural. At the center of the film is the outstanding performance of Tahar Rahim who underplays yet perfectly conveys the character's humour, wit, confusion, trauma and who uses his strong religious faith to sustain him through his incredible ordeal of fourteen years in prison. Jodie Foster, wearing a startling white wig and in brusque "Clarice Starling" mode, not only adds marquee value but also adds spice to all her scenes opposite Rahim. Although the film is a strong indictment against the Bush era I found the film's emphasis on forgiveness hard to take as it deflects completely from the major issue of the United States government still refusing to apologise for its hand in the goings-on in Guantánamo which is still very much around and kicking. The film ends on a memorable note with footage of Salahi being welcomed back home and singing a Bob Dylan song.
Agora (Alejandro Amenábar, 2009) 3/10
Very interesting period - late 4th-century Roman Egypt - about a clash between pagans and early Christians in Alexandria with the great library as the backdrop. At the center is a mathematician, philosopher and astronomer - a woman (Rachel Weisz) - who struggles to save classical antiquity in the midst of great social upheaval. She is loved by a student (Oscar Isaac) and by her father's slave (Max Minghella) whose love remains unrequited so he converts to Christianity and turns against her. Badly edited film makes the plot confusing and hence uninvolving. The film's only saving grace is the radiant performance by Rachel Weisz.
The Old Man (Jon Watts, Greg Yaitanes, Zeta Fuentes & Jet Wilkinson, 2023) Season One 7/10
Retired CIA agent and Vietnam veteran (Jeff Bridges) suddenly finds himself thirty years later being hunted by the agency at the behest of his former colleagues (John Lithgow & Joel Grey). He is forced to go on the run with a reluctant woman (Amy Brenneman) he meets along the way. Flashbacks to the war in Afghanistan hold the key to the mystery and the dilemma the old man finds himself in. These scenes quickly become very tedious and the series' main interest lies in the scenes set in the present with Bridges, Brenneman and Lithgow in a series of cat-and-mouse chase sequences. Bridges (who was nominated for an Emmy) is absolutely sublime in this late career role which allows him to shine brightly.
A Queen is Crowned (1953) 9/10
British documentary on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Shot in stunning colour and narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier the film captures the pageantry of the event on the streets of London and inside Westminister Abbey. Nominated for an Academy Award in the Documentary Feature category.
Tokyo Twilight (Yasujirō Ozu, 1957) 10/10
A rare Ozu that is incredibly grim throughout. While the film has his signature low level static shots he bathes the entire story in shadows and wintery darkness. This sets the tone for the plot about two sisters - the elder (a sublime Setsuko Hara) returns with her small child to the home of her father (Chishū Ryū) escaping from a bad marriage to an alcoholic; the younger (Ineko Arima) finds herself pregnant by her uncaring boyfriend and goes in for an abortion. Adding to their woes is the return of their mother who had abandoned them in childhood and run off with another man. The father quietly suffers guilt for forcing his older daughter to marry someone she did not like and indulging and spoiling his youngest - a third child, a son died a few years before in a mountain climbing accident. Extremely pessimistic drama is acted to perfection as the characters go about in stoic fashion - the japanese way - with no sign of any hysteria despite being struck by life's many anguish filled moments. This quietly magnificent film retains enormous dramatic power as Ozu's camera moves out of the troubled family home and explores even darker corners of Tokyo - smoky mahjong parlors, Ginza bars, and seedy gambling dens - before finding a somewhat forced ray of light at the end of the tunnel. After all life must go on despite the tragedy.
The Creator (Gareth Edwards, 2023) 7/10
"Star Wars" really started the Sci-Fi ball rolling and which then eventually evolved into many different hybrids of which this is one of the better ones. It's a cross between "Blade Runner", "Apocalypse Now" & "Paper Moon" with a whiff of combat Indiana Jones. After a rogue AI decimates Los Angeles via a nuclear bomb the Western Nations wage war against all AI who have evolved into fighting machines and have made allies of the Far East nations. An Army sergeant (John David Washington) is tasked with going undercover to route out the mysterious "Nirmata the Creator", the chief architect behind the AI advancements. He falls in love and gets married to Nirmata's daughter Maya (Gemma Chan) who gets killed during an attack by the Allied forces. Some years later he is again tasked with going after a new weapon created by Nirmata, discovers his wife may be alive and comes across a child who is part AI and holds immense power to change the course of all future warfare. Is this child-weapon his own daughter? Visually stunning film has superb production design, special effects and cinematography which needless to say overwhelm the rather silly plot which seems to have been created by taking moments from at least a dozen far greater films and pieced together. It doesn't mean the film is a bore. Far from it as the action set pieces make for an excellent fun time at the movies. The otherwise bland Washington here makes a fine action hero as he makes his way through the war torn terrain trading quips with the innocent, innovative but deadly child.
Nope (Gordon Peele, 2022) 3/10
A couple of horse wrangler siblings (Daniel Kaluuya & Keke Palmer) encounter on their farm the presence of strange goings on - flashing lights, scared and disappearing horses, a still cloud, steel pellets raining down and a downpour of flowing blood - which they discover to be a UFO and an alien-like beast. I found the whole premise ridiculous, totally devoid of horror or suspense, and painfully paced with a number of moments making no sense. Kaluuya goes through the film with a deadpan expression while Keke Palmer uses a constant flow of four-letter words to possibly help the audience from falling asleep. Peele appears to be paying an hommage to Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" but sadly comes off just as loopy as that M. Night Shyamalan alien film. Skip this nonsense.
Only Murders in the Building - Season 2 (2022) 9/10
Murder strikes again in the Upper West Side apartment building and the series' three protagonists - semi-retired actor (Steve Martin), a financially struggling Broadway director (Martin Short) and a young artist (Selena Gomez) - are implicated when the latter is found covered in blood holding a knife over a dead body. As before there are various eccentric suspects and a cop (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) trying to solve the case. Shirley MacLaine guests as Martin's late father's foul-mouthed lover.
Someday there will be a kick-ass film based on the terrors inflicted on innocent prisoners by the United States Government at Guantánamo. This film is not it, although we do get to see the main protagonist suffer notorious forms of torture that involved savage beatings, water boarding, binding in contorted stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep disruption, sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination, subjection to extreme cold, death threats and sexual humiliation. One has been conditioned to believe that such inhuman torture methods were only either part of medieval history or in the recent past the sadistic playtime of the Stalin, Nazi and Vietcong menace. Never could it be imagined that a country priding itself as the Leader of the World would fall so low as to do exactly that. Of course that "holier than thou" aura of the United States has been repeatedly shattered during the last few years. Based on the bestselling memoir, "Guantánamo Diary", written by Mohamedou Ould Salahi, whom the United States held, without charge, for fourteen years and officially acknowledged by them that he had been tortured. The case comes to light when defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) and her associate Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley in an underwritten part) decide to defend languishing prisoner Salahi (Tahar Rahim) who had been abducted from his home in Mauritania on suspicion of being involved in the 9/11 attacks. Their controversial advocacy along with fabricated evidence uncovered by the military prosecutor (Benedict Cumberbatch) reveals a shocking conspiracy by officials to falsely condemn the prisoner by coercing a confession out of him using extreme torture methods. The screenplay lacks drama and takes a rather bland route merely ticking off all the major events in the life of this prisoner and comes across as a flat legal procedural. At the center of the film is the outstanding performance of Tahar Rahim who underplays yet perfectly conveys the character's humour, wit, confusion, trauma and who uses his strong religious faith to sustain him through his incredible ordeal of fourteen years in prison. Jodie Foster, wearing a startling white wig and in brusque "Clarice Starling" mode, not only adds marquee value but also adds spice to all her scenes opposite Rahim. Although the film is a strong indictment against the Bush era I found the film's emphasis on forgiveness hard to take as it deflects completely from the major issue of the United States government still refusing to apologise for its hand in the goings-on in Guantánamo which is still very much around and kicking. The film ends on a memorable note with footage of Salahi being welcomed back home and singing a Bob Dylan song.
Agora (Alejandro Amenábar, 2009) 3/10
Very interesting period - late 4th-century Roman Egypt - about a clash between pagans and early Christians in Alexandria with the great library as the backdrop. At the center is a mathematician, philosopher and astronomer - a woman (Rachel Weisz) - who struggles to save classical antiquity in the midst of great social upheaval. She is loved by a student (Oscar Isaac) and by her father's slave (Max Minghella) whose love remains unrequited so he converts to Christianity and turns against her. Badly edited film makes the plot confusing and hence uninvolving. The film's only saving grace is the radiant performance by Rachel Weisz.
The Old Man (Jon Watts, Greg Yaitanes, Zeta Fuentes & Jet Wilkinson, 2023) Season One 7/10
Retired CIA agent and Vietnam veteran (Jeff Bridges) suddenly finds himself thirty years later being hunted by the agency at the behest of his former colleagues (John Lithgow & Joel Grey). He is forced to go on the run with a reluctant woman (Amy Brenneman) he meets along the way. Flashbacks to the war in Afghanistan hold the key to the mystery and the dilemma the old man finds himself in. These scenes quickly become very tedious and the series' main interest lies in the scenes set in the present with Bridges, Brenneman and Lithgow in a series of cat-and-mouse chase sequences. Bridges (who was nominated for an Emmy) is absolutely sublime in this late career role which allows him to shine brightly.
A Queen is Crowned (1953) 9/10
British documentary on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Shot in stunning colour and narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier the film captures the pageantry of the event on the streets of London and inside Westminister Abbey. Nominated for an Academy Award in the Documentary Feature category.
Tokyo Twilight (Yasujirō Ozu, 1957) 10/10
A rare Ozu that is incredibly grim throughout. While the film has his signature low level static shots he bathes the entire story in shadows and wintery darkness. This sets the tone for the plot about two sisters - the elder (a sublime Setsuko Hara) returns with her small child to the home of her father (Chishū Ryū) escaping from a bad marriage to an alcoholic; the younger (Ineko Arima) finds herself pregnant by her uncaring boyfriend and goes in for an abortion. Adding to their woes is the return of their mother who had abandoned them in childhood and run off with another man. The father quietly suffers guilt for forcing his older daughter to marry someone she did not like and indulging and spoiling his youngest - a third child, a son died a few years before in a mountain climbing accident. Extremely pessimistic drama is acted to perfection as the characters go about in stoic fashion - the japanese way - with no sign of any hysteria despite being struck by life's many anguish filled moments. This quietly magnificent film retains enormous dramatic power as Ozu's camera moves out of the troubled family home and explores even darker corners of Tokyo - smoky mahjong parlors, Ginza bars, and seedy gambling dens - before finding a somewhat forced ray of light at the end of the tunnel. After all life must go on despite the tragedy.
The Creator (Gareth Edwards, 2023) 7/10
"Star Wars" really started the Sci-Fi ball rolling and which then eventually evolved into many different hybrids of which this is one of the better ones. It's a cross between "Blade Runner", "Apocalypse Now" & "Paper Moon" with a whiff of combat Indiana Jones. After a rogue AI decimates Los Angeles via a nuclear bomb the Western Nations wage war against all AI who have evolved into fighting machines and have made allies of the Far East nations. An Army sergeant (John David Washington) is tasked with going undercover to route out the mysterious "Nirmata the Creator", the chief architect behind the AI advancements. He falls in love and gets married to Nirmata's daughter Maya (Gemma Chan) who gets killed during an attack by the Allied forces. Some years later he is again tasked with going after a new weapon created by Nirmata, discovers his wife may be alive and comes across a child who is part AI and holds immense power to change the course of all future warfare. Is this child-weapon his own daughter? Visually stunning film has superb production design, special effects and cinematography which needless to say overwhelm the rather silly plot which seems to have been created by taking moments from at least a dozen far greater films and pieced together. It doesn't mean the film is a bore. Far from it as the action set pieces make for an excellent fun time at the movies. The otherwise bland Washington here makes a fine action hero as he makes his way through the war torn terrain trading quips with the innocent, innovative but deadly child.
Nope (Gordon Peele, 2022) 3/10
A couple of horse wrangler siblings (Daniel Kaluuya & Keke Palmer) encounter on their farm the presence of strange goings on - flashing lights, scared and disappearing horses, a still cloud, steel pellets raining down and a downpour of flowing blood - which they discover to be a UFO and an alien-like beast. I found the whole premise ridiculous, totally devoid of horror or suspense, and painfully paced with a number of moments making no sense. Kaluuya goes through the film with a deadpan expression while Keke Palmer uses a constant flow of four-letter words to possibly help the audience from falling asleep. Peele appears to be paying an hommage to Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" but sadly comes off just as loopy as that M. Night Shyamalan alien film. Skip this nonsense.
Only Murders in the Building - Season 2 (2022) 9/10
Murder strikes again in the Upper West Side apartment building and the series' three protagonists - semi-retired actor (Steve Martin), a financially struggling Broadway director (Martin Short) and a young artist (Selena Gomez) - are implicated when the latter is found covered in blood holding a knife over a dead body. As before there are various eccentric suspects and a cop (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) trying to solve the case. Shirley MacLaine guests as Martin's late father's foul-mouthed lover.