Films Recently Watched

^ lol, I didn't realize they still made 80's movies in 1997. Awesome!

No disrespect but I hated Saltburn too. It made me feel sorry for the rich kid and that can't be right. A review on IMDB summed it up well for me:

"Emerald Fennell is a very very posh person. She's from extraordinary wealth. To take nothing away from her achievements as a filmmaker (Promising Young Woman was a terrific, difficult watch and rightly lauded) - but going in knowing that and then coming out the other side of this morally disturbing parable, it's a troubling setting and one that irks me.

The two most obvious antagonists are the type of people you'd typically be rooting for in a film about rich vs poor, and the fact it's turned on its head doesn't feel like an innovative step - it feels like the exact opposite. It feels like someone from enormous privilege trying to redress the balance, almost like a propaganda piece.

It's beautifully shot. It's really well acted. It's a solidly entertaining (if broadly unoriginal) little film, but as someone NOT from the world of Saltburn - it left a sour taste."

I'm not normally too keen on old black and white films but two very entertaining films I saw recently, both directed by Vittorio De Sica were 'Miracle in Milan' and 'The Roof'.

The new Nicholas Cage film, Dream Scenario is good but not an easy watch.

Saw a bunch of Shaw Brothers kung fu films recently - been a fan for years but they recently appeared on Mubi, so I binged on 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Shaolin Challenges Ninja, King Boxer, Dirty Ho, Five Deadly Venoms, One Armed Swordsman, Crippled Avengers, and more.

The Holdovers was great.

Killers of the Flower Moon

Leonardo diCaprio :

  On 7/7/2023 at 5:15 AM, Nebraska said:

 

I tried this and liked it more than forwards. it won't help, but now you know even people that claim to like it needed validation that it had a reason to claim its stupid logic

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
 

 

Expand  

I've become a bit obsessed with the Tenet soundtrack recently. 

Fucking hell.

 

Ricochet (1991), directed by Russell Mulcahy. I was in no way prepared for how wild this film is. John Lithgow at his most villainous (overwhelmingly so). Great watch. Denzel is a rookie top cop and law student who through his youthful exuberance and effectiveness gets promoted to assistant District Attorney. He catches the Lithgow character doing the crimes, and Lithgow vows revenge, breaking out of prison to accomplish his evil plan. Lithgow's character is absorbed by some vicious white supremacist Aryan ideology which is never fully explained. The wildness is there in the film at the beginning in spades and somehow manages to escalate in outrageous fashion throughout its entirety. Two thumbs up. Really no way to prepare yourself for how crazy this movie is, although it does have some similarities to Scorsese's excellent Cape Fear (released the same year, 1991) - the whole ex-con vowing to destroy the attorney who put him behind bars.

  On 1/31/2024 at 11:28 PM, decibal cooper said:

Ricochet (1991), directed by Russell Mulcahy. I was in no way prepared for how wild this film is. John Lithgow at his most villainous (overwhelmingly so). Great watch. Denzel is a rookie top cop and law student who through his youthful exuberance and effectiveness gets promoted to assistant District Attorney. He catches the Lithgow character doing the crimes, and Lithgow vows revenge, breaking out of prison to accomplish his evil plan. Lithgow's character is absorbed by some vicious white supremacist Aryan ideology which is never fully explained. The wildness is there in the film at the beginning in spades and somehow manages to escalate in outrageous fashion throughout its entirety. Two thumbs up. Really no way to prepare yourself for how crazy this movie is, although it does have some similarities to Scorsese's excellent Cape Fear (released the same year, 1991) - the whole ex-con vowing to destroy the attorney who put him behind bars.

Expand  

Hail, Caesar!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475290/

... surprisingly nah-ish for a Coen-thing.

in honor of the recent passing of legendary bad ass Mr. Carl Weathers, I decided to give this a whirl:

classic grindhouse blaxploitation film shot in a totally gritty 1970's downtown Kansas City. Carl has a minor role. the plot makes little sense, but who cares. lots of ass kicking. Pam Grier is in sultry goddess mode. great funk/library funk soundtrack. it was awesome.

All of us Strangers - A moving and brilliantly acted film about love, loss and connection. The sexy priest acted his tiny little eyes out, and Mezcal was excellent as the mysterious lover. It was shit really nicely and the soundtrack was good but relied a bit heavily on music from Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Certain elements of the reality in the film are far from clear, and as such I'll be watching it again soon. Elements of Lynch. 9/10

Anatomy of a Fall - I was expecting this to be a depressing borefest (despite the positive reviews) but I was pleasantly surprised. It goes without saying that the lead is excellent, but this film would have fallen flat on its face without the exceptional performance of the kid (can't remember his name rn). Who will surely go on to do great things in the future (probably mainly in France admittedly). 8/10

The Boy and the Heron - Did anyone else get the impression that the old architect was Mizaki? It's totally him right. A very solid animation with some interesting characters, but, the twist was predictable far too early on. And like some of his other work, there is some interesting rewriting/reimagining of key points in history here. 7/10

i watched Godzilla Vs Kong and it was pretty decent. it seemed they were going to try to go a touch more over the top/cutesy at times and i wish they had maybe, the tone of that earlier Kong film from a few years before was pretty great. this one had plenty of monsters fighting which is what you want, and the hollow earth stuff was actually a lot more interesting than expected, tho unexplored really. maybe in the next movie…characters weren’t too great, all pretty trope-y and not in really any great/fun ways. needed another rewrite or a different director maybe, but i still liked it well enough.

Don´t Worry He Won´t Get Far On Foot. A solid feel good type movie which I prob felt extra partial to due to having worked for a guy who´s situation was almost identical to that of the character played by Phoenix, who´s on total top form as usual. 

Zone of Interest 7/10..very lazy filmmaking that thinks its better than it is..just didn't really work for me..tried to be too stand offish and aloof..nice notion but gauge the room

This was barely a coherent movie, had vague high school memories of Susana Hoffs in her underwear, and that scene was underwhelming in reality, as was her acting, lol. Susana Hoffs convinced her mother to direct this film, maybe not the greatest idea? The 1987 Cali beach fashion was on point though.  It has a 0% RT critic score.
 

5 surf Chads/10

  On 2/7/2024 at 9:11 PM, Schlitze said:

Zone of Interest 7/10..very lazy filmmaking that thinks its better than it is..just didn't really work for me..tried to be too stand offish and aloof..nice notion but gauge the room

Disagree completely. Masterful filmmaking. Just got out of the theater and was riveted. The score alone knocked me out. 
Not sure which room you’re talking about, btw. 

The Hitler room.

  On 2/8/2024 at 6:03 AM, J3FF3R00 said:

Disagree completely. Masterful filmmaking. Just got out of the theater and was riveted. The score alone knocked me out. 
Not sure which room you’re talking about, btw. 

It's a fine film, the score is used sparingly, not a lot happens and I know that they want to showcase mundanity in nazi power.. to see these monsters as they are. I'm torn, just seemed a tad too smug. The White Ribbon is a favourite of mine and did it a bit better in my opinion 

  On 2/8/2024 at 10:31 PM, Schlitze said:

It's a fine film, the score is used sparingly, not a lot happens and I know that they want to showcase mundanity in nazi power.. to see these monsters as they are. I'm torn, just seemed a tad too smug. The White Ribbon is a favourite of mine and did it a bit better in my opinion 

Loved white ribbon too. I didn’t interpret ZOI as showcasing mundanity, but rather showcasing how human comforts can be at the expense of atrocities. 
Something interesting to note about the production is that it was largely shot using hidden cameras.

 From salon dot com…
 

  Quote

Here, we were doing something very different, Observationally, it was: let’s hear these people in this house. I don’t mind if we don’t hear the words so often. So rather than do the normal thing of having actors with microphones hidden in their clothing or their wig, here we made the film with 10 cameras hidden around the house and no crew members, and 20 mics hidden in the ceiling to have actors feel they were in 1943. A take would be about an hour long because that was the length of the memory stick in the cameras. The actors did not have to feel they were performing to a particular camera. They just had to be in the house, and say their lines, occasionally. Simultaneous scenes were happening. 

Expand  

Housebound

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3504048/

enter -out of- taining

spoiler:

looks dope 

4/10 had high hopes, but then the movie just abruptly stops somewhere and throws all the cool possibilities that could be done with the story out the window.
The picture is also somehow weirdly grainy all the time. No idea what they did wrong there.

  On 2/12/2024 at 1:44 PM, o00o said:

 

4/10 had high hopes, but then the movie just abruptly stops somewhere and throws all the cool possibilities that could be done with the story out the window.
The picture is also somehow weirdly grainy all the time. No idea what they did wrong there.

it was shot in 16mm - that*s where this graininess comes from. 

  On 2/12/2024 at 2:18 PM, iococoi said:

it was shot in 16mm - that*s where this graininess comes from. 

Expand  

yeah I guessed its on purpose didn't make the movie look better in cinema