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

[Reza]

Winter's Bone, on the other hand, is a puzzlement for me. I didn't know any of the actors. I figured out who John Hawkes was from the size of his role, but Dale Dickey I just looked up. She plays the mean woman.

I don't get what's so special about this film. It's about a bunch of lowlifes who, without spoiling the plot, do a lot of bad things, presumably because they're from the Ozarks where there's a lot of inbreeding which has messed up their heads. As for Jennifer Lawrence, I kept thinking about what Thelma Ritter had to say about Anne Baxter's hard luck story at the beginning of All About Eve, "What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end."

I just loved the stark, bleak ''world'' depicted in this film. I think those lowlifes in Deliverance must have come from this same ''world''. Lol.

[Big Magilla]

I haven't written about The Social Network because I'm on the fence about it. I generally like David Fincher's films, but except for Benjamin Button they take more than one viewing for me to fully appreciate them. But I certainly knew who Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake were.

Winter's Bone, on the other hand, is a puzzlement for me. I didn't know any of the actors. I figured out who John Hawkes was from the size of his role, but Dale Dickey I just looked up. She plays the mean woman.

I don't get what's so special about this film. It's about a bunch of lowlifes who, without spoiling the plot, do a lot of bad things, presumably because they're from the Ozarks where there's a lot of inbreeding which has messed up their heads. As for Jennifer Lawrence, I kept thinking about what Thelma Ritter had to say about Anne Baxter's hard luck story at the beginning of All About Eve, "What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end."



Edited By Big Magilla on 1288620784

[Reza]

Frozen (Adam Green, 2010) 5/10

A variation of the 1970s disaster flicks with basically a cast of three unknown actors. Peril on a suspended ski lift with snow and wolves in the mix. Not bad.

I Am Love (Luca Guadagino, 2009) 6/10

Tilda Swinton has suddenly become a very interesting actor............come to think of it she always was but has now gone more mainstream. The lovely Italian locations are a big plus factor along with the appearances of Gabriele Ferzetti and a superb Marisa Berenson (who unfortunately looks too preserved thanks to a bad facelift).

Winter's Bone (Debra Granik, 2010) 9/10

The year's best film so far with an exceptional performance by the young leading lady. I don't care if Annette Bening or Julianne Moore go Oscarless again this year but I'll be thrilled if the superb Jennifer Lawrence wins best actress. Great script, direction and cinematography. Plus wonderful supporting performances by John Hawkes and Dale Dickey, two actors I'd never heard of before.

The Social Network (David Fincher) 6/10

I think I prefer Facebook itself. The film has an urgency to it that was catchy. Jesse Eisenberg is good as the cocky protagonist. I could not put a name to any of the other actors on screen except, maybe, David Selby. So I came away not knowing who the critically acclaimed Justin Timberlake or Andrew Garfield were and what parts they had played. And I wasn't interested enough to check up on them.

[anonymous1980]

The Ballad of Narayama (Shohei Imamura) - 9/10

[Big Magilla]

The Age of Innocence (1934) Philip Moeller 6/10
The Age of Innocence (1993) Martin Scorsese 6/10

I'd seen both film versions of Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize winning novel before, but not back-to-back.

The older version begins with a Jazz Age montage, then goes back in time to the 1870s as Newland Archer (John Boles) relays the tale to his grandson (Kane Richmond). The newer version begins at an opera in the 1870s and ends with Archer (Daniel Day-Leeis) and his son rather than his grandson (Robert Sean Leonard) in Paris.

The older version has a more coherent script while the newer version relies heavily on Joanne Woodward's narration to fill in the blanks. Even with the narration, motivations are not as clear as they are in the earlier version.

Production values, aside from the opening scene, in the earlier version are fairly static. The newer version is one gorgeous scene after another.

Irene Dunne, who was one of the best actresses of the 1930s and 40s, plays Ellen, the Countess Olenska in the earlier version. She's luminous as ever but lacks the vulnerability that Michelle Pfeiffer brings to the newer version. Margaret Sullavan might have been a better choice.

The earlier version provides prominent supporting roles for Helen Wesley as Mrs. Mingott, grandmother of both Ellen and her cousin May Welland, Laura Hope Crews as Mrs. Welland, Julie Haydon as May and Lionel Atwill as Beauford, Ellen's marreid paramour.

The newer version primarily dwells on the characters of Newland, Ellen and May (Winona Ryder) while the other characters are pushed to the background along with numerous other characters from the book. The result is dramatically unsatisfying.

Why hire actors of the caliber of Geraldine Chaplin, Jonathan Pryce, Miriam Margolyes, Sian Phillips, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard E. Grant, Alec McCowen and Alexis Smith and give them so little to do?

Verdict: read the book or see the earlier version to get the full essence of the story, see the newer version to luxuriate in the trappings and the performances of the three leads. Pfeiffer is especially good as Ellen.

[anonymous1980]

The Funhouse (Tobe Hooper) - 6.5/10

[Big Magilla]

Several films noir:

Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) Boris Ingster 6/10

Cult murder mystery with several bizarre dream sequences is considered to be the first film noir. Of course nobody called them that until years later, but this is the one that started the trend toward dark, nightmarish guy or gal in jeopardy movies that were the hallmark of the genre.

John McGuire, an actor who who usually played small roles, many of them unbilled, is the lead, but Peter Lorre, making his last film under contract to RKO gets star billing even though he has few scenes and fewer lines. Elisha Cook, Jr., as always, makes a small part as a falsely accused killer stand out.

This Side of the Law (1950) Richard Bare 6/10

Viveca Landfors gets star billing, but Kent Smith is the actual lead as a man duped into impersonating her missing millionaire husband just before he was about to be declared legally dead. Robert Douglas and Janis Paige co-star.

The film begins with Smith buried alive in a sistern he is unable to escape from. It isn't difficult to figure out who put him there and why.

Thunder on the Hill (1951) Douglas Sirk 7/10

Sirk's first film under contract to Universal is actually the film version of a famous British play but has the look and feel of a noir. It takes place at an isolated convent hospital somewhere on the moors.

Claudette Colbert plays a nun who sets out to prove the innocence of a girl (Ann Blyth) abbout to be hanged for the murder of her invalid brother. Gladys Cooper is the Mother Superior and Robert Douglas the stranded doctor from the girl's village. Connie Gilchrist is the comedy relief as the nun in charge of the kitchen. She's also the one who supplies the clue that breaks the case.

I originally saw this in a faded print, but the new TCM Vault release does proper justice to Sirk's vivid compositions. This was Colbert's last great screen role and Blyth's best since Mildred Pierce. Cooper's performance, which I wasn't too impressed with originally, is actually one of her best, her facial expressions in the improved picture adding subtlety and texture to her seemingly one-dimensional authoritarian figure.

The Killer Inside Me (2010) Michel Winterbottom 7/10

Jim Thompson's novel was originally filmed in 1976 with Stacy Keach and Susan Tyrrell, but I never saw it. Thompson who wrote the dialogue for Kubrick's The Killing and had a hand in the screenplay of Paths of Glory has had several of his novels turned into films, most notably The Getaway and The Grifters.

This one resembles The Grifter in its penchant for violence.

Casey Affleck is the seemingly mild-mannered deputy West Texas sheriff who is really a sadistic, cold-blooded killer. Everyone who crosses his path is in danger of dying a sudden death.

Affleck has never been better, and there are good supporting turns including unexpected ones from Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson as well as Simon Baker, Elias Koteas and Ned Beatty among others.

[Reza]

Piranha (Alexandre Aja, 2010) 5/10

Trashy............but fun.

Red (Robert Schwentke, 2010) 3/10

More trash......... with the only saving grace in seeing Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren wielding big guns. Bruce Willis still hasn't graduated from his Die Hard facial expression and Mary Louise Parker seems to be high on something throughout.

[Precious Doll]

Cinevardaphoto (2004) Agnes Varda 6/10
Eccentricities of a Blonde-haired Woman (2009) Manoel de Oliveria 7/10
A Brand New Life (2009) Ounie Lecomte 6/10
Silent Wedding (2008) Horatiu Malaele 4/10
The Inugami Clan (2006) Kon Ichikawa 6/10
The Dust of Time (2009) Theo Angelopoulos 3/10
Red (2010) Robert Schwentke 6/10
Made in Dagenham (2010) Nigel Cole 6/10

Very entertaining, but no Oscar nods for this one I'm afraid.



Edited By Precious Doll on 1288264542

[Hustler]

The Town 6/10
The Social Network 7/10

[anonymous1980]

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman) - 9/10

[OscarGuy]

That explains it, BJ. I guess I just didn't recognize the change in setting.

[Big Magilla]

Ah, yes, it comes back.

[The Original BJ]

Laura.

SPOILERS below

Ok. so, I just saw this and while it's an interesting mystery, I'm confused by two scenes. The first is the detective smashing open the clock base and finding nothing there, yet within 5 minutes, he's opening it with Laura and not only is it not smashed, but the shot gun is there. Can anyone explain this to me? Is it just poor editing or is there something else I'm missing?

MAJOR LAURA SPOILERS BELOW

There are two identical clocks.

One is in Waldo's apartment, the other is in Laura's.

Mark opens first the clock in Waldo's apartment, and finds nothing, but suspects that empty space could be an ideal place to hide a murder weapon.

Mark then goes to Laura's apartment, and finds the same clock (that Waldo had given to Laura as a gift...and which Waldo had been trying to take out of Laura's apartment), with the same stow-away space, and this time, the murder weapon that Waldo used to kill the woman he thought was Laura.

[Big Magilla]

It's probably an error. The film has several (see IMDb. section on "goofs").