Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 192

Currently in the middle of this.

 

I don’t even know how to read and I have a library card

 

I live a 5 minute walk from one, legit just walked by it, and I haven’t gotten one yet. I need to.

 

hes perfecting the form

3 points
2 pictures
1 sentence

 

Mr. Century gets me

 

Hundreds of Beavers - 7.5/10
Admittedly a little less hot on this than everyone else I've seen, although it does walk a very fine line between madness and brilliance. The Looney Tunes comparison is apt, and I'd also call it something like the case of Jackass being hired to adapt a video game about a 19th century fur trapper that doesn't actually exist. It's the kind of film where, in addition to constantly bombarding its audience with a unique combination of live-action, green screen, and animation, there are literally so many jokes per minute that at a certain point, it doesn't matter how many land because nothing ever lingers for too long. And there are some VERY good bits here. I do think the film is at least 20 minutes too long; trim that second act down and maybe tone down some of the quirkier moments (I know that goes against tone a little bit) and I'd agree that this is a nu-slapstick film for the ages.

 

The Master - 4/5 (I’ll abandon my 3 star ranking system since people didn’t seem to appreciate it)

I miss PSH.

 

was happy to see him in The Big Lebowski the other night

 

Hoffman did his best work with Anderson. Like many great actors, he could take over a scene and block out everyone else with a lesser director, but Anderson always found the perfect roles for him. Hoffman was never particularly tough looking but he really leaned into that sleazy two-bit criminal persona in Punch-Drunk Love.

 

PSH was always one of those actors I never understood all the reverence for and then I happened to see a bunch of movies he was in and I totally flipped on it.

Even in bad movies or movies where he has a bit part he was so good at embodying the character and gave his all.

 

He really is funny in Along Came Polly, and he's the reason Mission Impossible III is my favorite (that I've seen).

 

He's so good in MI3. It's crazy.

 

Might post in here occasionally when I see something worth watching, but I'll spare you my thoughts on a lot of the Hong Kong mediocrity I watch!

The Untold Story (1993, Herman Yau)

This might have been the first Category III film I ever watched, back in those innocent and naive days of 2018. Certainly my first "notorious" Category III, and now 6 years later, I spend half my time watching scrappy, nasty films, frequently in horrendous quality. I blame Herman Yau and Anthony Wong for everything.

This is such an aggressively unpleasant film, with Yau and Wong really pushing the boundaries of good taste, to the point where it's almost impossible to imagine how they can top it, just relishing in the full blown nastiness of this film. There are a couple of scenes in particular here that are so grotesque, it almost defies belief. It's also so rare (for obvious reasons!) to see the onscreen murder of children, blood and everything, that even similarly nasty Cat IIIs wouldn't go for, but here it's just another line that the film crosses with glee and the joy of being horribly provocative.

And yet, and yet, the film has an absolutely black hearted sense of humour, it genuinely is a comedy for long stretches, just one convincingly disguised as a very nasty horror film. The film plays up the legend of the unintentional cannibalism of the real life Eight Immortals murder case, in all its ghoulish glory. We have an incompetent and deranged killer pitting his "wits" against slightly less deranged, but somehow more incompetent police, which leads to some very odd moments of humour.

Just completely deranged in the best way, when a film is this determined to be so unpleasant and comical, you really do have to salute it.

 

Days of Wine and Roses (1962, Blake Edwards)

You don't often notice excessive alcohol consumption in films like this, raised on noirs with the hard boiled detective nursing a drink, or screwball comedies with swinging parties and champagne flowing freely. Alcohol is either shown to have no effect, or we see the very end of it, a complete drunk. The middle ground isn't often depicted, the socially lubricating effect of alcohol, or the sense of being pleasantly tipsy and slightly slurring words, before that leads to something else.

Here though, we count and feel every single drink. We see the captivating and attractive elements of alcohol at first, Kirsten enjoying her first cocktail, and the lovely bonding that her and Joe do, when their guard is dropped slightly, however one drink becomes just one more, just one more and it's no longer thrilling. It's a relationship drama, where Joe initially drags Kirsten down, as opposed to supporting one another, which is so hard to watch.

There's an excellent scene early on where Joe comes home drunk from an office party, late at night and berates her for being sober, waking the baby in the process. It's the sort of thing that made my heart race, the shame and humiliation of it all, as Joe realises what he's become.

Things spiral out of control, and the sense of life slipping away from them is so clear and despairing. There are attempts to clean up, before slipping into lies that it's just one drink and one drink only, but before we know it, we're back to square one, and it's all the more heart breaking for it.

Feels like an obvious comparison between this and Billy Wilder's horrifying The Lost Weekend. There's no hope to the end here, it just feels like we're waiting for another relapse, with Joe staring at the neon "Bar" scene, desolate at night.

Jack Lemon is so good in this, I've probably seen him in barely half a dozen films, and he's always been the best thing about them. This is an incredibly desperate, physical performance that breaks your heart in two.

 

They are really cracking down on the movies we show in class, so during testing today we watched The Land Before Time and The Brave Little Toaster. I haven't seen either in probably 25-30 years, and I never realized how Toy Story is literally just The Brave Little Toaster but toys instead of appliances. I was also really surprised at how The Land Before Time is structured; it is just over an hour long but it takes almost half the film to get the central five characters together. There is little actually there for them to do together.

 

Punch-Drunk Love - 5/5

I eventually bought a blue suit because of this movie.

 

I bought a lot of pudding.

 

brave little toaster is a great movie

 

Punch-Drunk Love was one of those handful of movies in high school that redefined to me what a movie was.

 

Alien - 10/10
45th Anniversary Re-Release in theaters. Wow. I've seen this film probably half a dozen times, and this has to be my favorite viewing since the first time I saw it. Just an incredibly thoughtful and tense sci-fi-horror film. Things that specifically stood out to me this time were Jerry Goldsmith's score and how detailed all of the production design is -- not just the xenomorph and the facehugger, but specifically the Space Jockey. Any minor flubs or odd line reads are forgiven by one of the best ensemble casts in horror. It's just amazing that Scott managed to not only give us a slaher (complete with twist) in space, but make it secondary to two(!) original monsters. I've always said I preferred Aliens by a hair, but this viewing really gave that preferance a run for its money. What I would give to see some of these scenes with an audience during the film's original theater run...

Bad Taste - 8.5/10
The absolutely batshit DIY sci-fi-horror-comedy directorial debut of Peter Jackson - the same Peter Jackson that would eventually land The Lord of the Rings despite crafting a film about human harvesters and intergalactic fast food that includes one vomit-drinking scene and another where a guy crawls through an alien's head and out of its ass, eventually wearing its skin. Genuinely funny throughout and downright impressive that they turned a house into a UFO with a budget that small. Plus, great creature effects. Pure madness that lives up to its name. It's got the spirit of Raimi, that's for sure.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe - 8/10
A movie that's been on my list for a long time and one that I always confuse with The Taking of Deborah Logan (see below). I never expected this to be more than a B-movie, but this isolated gothic-supernatural horror flick is deliberate with its choices and could potentially make for a great play. Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch knock their roles out of the park as father-son coroners, and somehow, Olwyn Kelly may make the biggest impression despite the fact that she plays a corpse without a single piece of dialogue throughout the film's duration. It's gory but not gruesome, something that feels like a cross between a modern-day Poe adaptation and a nu-school Evil Dead film. Just a really effective and unique blend of subgenres and story reveals in this one.

The Taking of Deborah Logan - 6.5/10
After The Autopsy of Jane Doe, I had to see the film I'd been mixing it up with all these years. I've seen THAT pic/gif online, the most climactic scare of the film, and yeah, it still rocks. There's a serial killer element a'la season one of True Detective here that just manages to pull this found footage dementia scare film out of typical Paranormal Activity sequel territory. It's a little messy and reliant on cliches, but if you have a soft spot for found footage, it should definitely scratch the itch.

Mom and Dad (2017) - 5.5/10
For some reason, I remembered really liking this one. On rewatch, it feels a lot closer to a more unhinged version of aShyamalan flick, which as a descriptor may sell some folks alone. Bad dialogue, bonkers editing, and a performance from The King of Batshit himself Nic Cage turn this intergenerational spin on The Crazies into a film that is undeniably fascinating and occasionally fun to watch despite not being very good.

 

Miami Vice - 4/5

I think Michael Mann is one of my favorite directors. Have a few I still need to see and want to rewatch public enemies.

 

Still need to see The Autopsy of Deborah Logan-- I mean, The Taking of Jane Doe--I mean...

 

I just found out I had been mixing up Schindler's List with Bucket List. I thought Jack Nicholson was going to be visiting the camps before he died