Rate the Last Film you Watched

[Con 5,703]

19 hours ago, djw180 said:

True Romance (1993)

8/10

f*ck yeah! That Drexel scene alone is worth the watch!! That is in my Top 25. 

[Con 5,703]

Watched a few documentaries this past Saturday....

The Speed Cubers (2020)...5/5... Awesome short documentary featuring two of the world's best Rubik's Cube competitors in the world, these dudes solve a Rubik's Cube in three minutes!!!! I was neither smart or patient enough to master a Rubiks Cube, i was the kid that cheated by peeling the stickers off to finish a puzzle so i was in awe of these kids. The doc is elevated by the fact that although strong competitors, one of them suffers from Autism and his rival befriends him and its pretty cool to see Felix Zemdegs embrace the friendship when he really doesnt need to...so I have a lot of love for Felix. Why should you watch this?.......You love the Rubik's Cubes and had no idea there are massive tournaments around the world. 

Valley Uprising (2014)...5/5... I watched this with a purpose in mind and found myself totally forgetting why i set out to watch it and instead enjoyed learning so much about the climbing culture of Yosemite Park, I mean, I know about the modern fellas but didnt know much about the guys that started the culture of climbing those huge mountains for fun. Guys like Warren Harding and Royal Robbins. It was a compelling watch and I know I just have to get out to Yosemite before I die. Why should you watch it? It's interesting how these guys were rebels and you want to learn how the hell they had money to buy climbing equipment, food, and clothes since none of them had jobs and lived at the camp site.

The Dawn Wall (2017)...4/5... Naturally after watching Valley Uprising I had to watch some of those mountain climbing docs I have loved over the years and remembered I had been wanting to watch this but didnt since by then Alex Honnold had Free Solo'ed El Capitan and watching Tommy Caldwell take 21 days to ascend the Dawn Wall didnt sound like such an achievement (get a load of me, I cant even be 50 feet in the air without crapping my pants) anyways I finally watched The Dawn Wall and it was also fantastic...a bit slow I thought but it really had it all. Talk about a journey. I tell you what, anyone is lucky to call Tommy Caldwell their friend, that dude is the truth in more ways than one. Why should you watch it?? You want to test your heart during the Kyrgyzstan story...when they made the journey to the Pamir-Alia Mountains only to be kidnapped by rebels and that story...holy sh*t!!!!! If you really plan on watching this...dont spoil the whole Kyrgyzstan story as at the end of the documentary, they mention the story again and it's like "Pow". 

 

Edited August 17, 2020 by Con

[Con 5,703]

Will You Be My Neighbor? (2018)...4/5... Documentary about Fred Rogers better known as Mr. Rogers from the world famous Mr. Roger's Neighborhood TV Show. We follow his life by jumping from different parts and how they shaped the man we saw in front the cameras but also behind them and also answers the one question I had as a kid...Is Mr. Roger's really like that in real life or is he just a good *ss actor? And that is answered in this documentary. Was pretty cool to see how the show concept and show segments came to be and how the very first episode dealt with the assassination of Robert Kennedy...that is how the world was introduced to the show! Fred Rogers set out to make the world a better place through his show but we know he failed terribly at trying to teach generations about tolerance and turning wrongs into rights. I learned two huge things about Fred, 1) He was a REAL Christian, he understood the Beautitudes and teachings of his Jesus. 2) He didn't slip his God into his lessons....just common sense humanity. Why should you watch it? You are curious as to what kind of humans would put on a show like Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and want to know if Fred was scandalous outside the TV studio. 

Jasper Mall (2020)...4/5... Ever drive by one of those shopping plazas or malls that are now pretty much abandoned? Ever wonder why only a few stores remain and wonder why not just close the entire place down? Ever wonder how you would motivate yourself everyday to get up and go to a job that any day will just disappear without warning? Then this is the doc for you as we follow a year in the life of a dying shopping mall in Jasper, Alabama, USA. We focus on the security guard in charge and we learn the history of this once famous and unbelievably busy mall. But we also follow some of the other mall tenants. Some stay the full year and a few close as the doc proceeds and those moments are kind of sad. I never realized the importance of a mall to young people, I mean some fall in love for the first time at the mall and some have their first kisses at the mall. The mall is like this little planet for 12 hours and watching the nearly empty mall is kind of depressing because there was nothing wrong with the mall its just that the politicians ran on campaigns that promised the people something they thought they needed "a new mall downtown" and the Jasper Mall tenants could transfer over but now they had to pay higher rents...how was that fair? Anyways, the new mall downtown went up and Jasper Mall got f*cked. I hated watching that part honestly. Politician's promised jobs while erasing already long-established businesses...does that make sense? But the best part was the end because it honestly encapsulates the America and World I have always lived in and that is that no matter who you are or what you are for that matter, there is always something to replace you and life goes on for the living. Why should you watch it? You love exploring abandoned malls and want to know how a place once so popular and money making just ends up abandoned and unwanted. You also want to see this segment about an Army recruiting Office renting space at the mall and a young man and woman show up to sign up. So the guy in charge tells them that they will need to do a few "physical fitness" exercises that will give them a taste of what to expect if they are accepted to boot camp...and maaaaaan, I can see how some guys grow to hate women and how sometimes its their own fault, I found this segment so profound that I took these screenshots to explain...

Here is the recruiter taking the boy and girl for a brisk jog, not run...it starts well for the boy as he keeps up at first but towards the end of the jog, we can see he was way behind. No problem, not everyone can just jog and not get tired and perhaps the girl ran cross country at school. 

Now back at the recruiting office after the jog, we see the boy wiped the fak out. He can barely stand on his own...and they only jogged around the building. Problem for the boy is that the girl...she is barely breaking a sweat and we see the recruiter already paying more focus to the girl. The recruiter sees that the boy is still not ready for the next exercise so he tells him to take a breather and skip the next portion...

... the thing is that the office is filled with soldiers doing paperwork so they are witnessing everything and we can see them smiling and laughing under their breaths at the boy as he just stands there and watches the girl outperform him...

The girl is kicking so much *ss and the boy...well he wasn't ready for this at all. We see the girl doing the push-ups, she struggles but she finishes.

This image says it all....the boy is told to sit down for his safety and they give him a seat right in front of the exercise. You can see the disappointment, anger, and hurt on his face as he has to watch this girl get embraced and he is being treated like the delicate one. 

He is devastated. They tell him the Army might not be a good fit for him....and we never hear about these two or the recruiting office again in the doc.  Anyways this little segment really made me think about just how much it had to hurt that boy. Like why didnt anyone tell him that there is a lot of physical exercise forced on you when you join the armed forces and perhaps he didnt expect to be told there would be exercising at the recruiting office but I couldnt help but wonder what this did to his psyche....did he go home and change his diet and became a workout beast? Or did he go back home and found others to blame for him being unprepared or did he start to hate women cause one clearly made him look inadequate at Alpha Male central an army recruiting office, a place where you probably don't want to be outdone by a woman and have soldiers laugh at you under their breaths. Or did the boy learn that he has asthma or some condition that prevents him from physical activity. Either way it all made me wonder if experiences like the boy's is what turns men into the women haters i come across on the internet. The boy was rejected by the Army. Now let’s take it into theory, he is rejects by the military, he gets rejected by the next girl he approaches, he is rejected at home, and rejected at school, where is he supposed to go now? Who will accept him? 

Edited August 18, 2020 by Con

[LimeGreenLegend 4,173]

S.O.U.L Fest Shorts Volume 1: Visions

dir. Various/2020/1h3m

This is a collection of seven short films from the Screening Our Unseen Lives Festival, which showcases the best in young, black, British film-making from the last year.  As such, I'll give some quick thoughts on each short, then my review of the collection as a whole.

Arachnid:
dir. Papa-Kwesi/4m 

Arachnid, from Papa-Kwesi, is a film based on Ashanti folklore from Ghana.  It centres around Ama, an Ashanti goddess, and Anansi, her former lover, the trickster god who often takes the form of a spider.  The entire film is shot at night in a deserted village street in Ghana, with a gorgeous, otherworldly purple light bathing both of the characters as he desperately pleads with her to come back.  Despite being made up of very simple mid-shots of the two, with a few close-ups, the film still manages to create the atmosphere of a myth or a legend.  It also represents these gods as real people with real problems, and I became really invested in their relationship despite this being less than five minutes long.  8/10

Saint Valentine:
dir. Daniel Rands/12m

Daniel Rands's Saint Valentine is a film set in London about a young man with s*xual performance issues.  This frustration leads him to wander the streets at night in a choppily edited montage of meetings with friend and foe alike.  The handheld camera work and the stylised lighting, violent reds and greens indictae danger or saftey, gives the film a hallucinatory feel, like a waking dream or nightmare.  There is a pervasive sense of danger about this film, which comes entirely from the cinematography, but the end result doesn't fully live up to that promise.  6/10

Born Again:
Candice Onyeama/10m

Born Again, from British-Nigerian director Candice Onyeama, is a very visceral film about one woman's desperation to have children despite the three miscarriages she has already suffered through.  We first see Nwa as a little girl with a red balloon, a face drawn on to it.  She is holding the balloon close to her like you would a baby, but it pops, and she is left with nothing but scraps of red rubber.  We then see her as an adult, crying on the floor, blood pooling between her legs.  We see her relationship with her husband straining at the edges.  She is baptised, the scraps of red rubber appearing in her hands like the marks of stigmata, and finally she is able to embrace her younger self.  This is a fantastically well shot and very moving film which manages to tackle a tough subject with minimal dialogue in ten minutes better than any full-length film I've seen on the same subject.  My favourite film in the collection (only just), I can't wait to see what Onyeama does next.  9/10

 

Black Bottles:
dir. Eyerusalem Lema/5m

Black Bottles, by Eyerusalem Lema, is a film about masculinity and what it means to be a man, especially in the black community.  It deals with mental health issues from that community by taking real stories and turning them into an almost poetic monologue which is accompanied by beautifully shot portraits of young black men.  These portraits are unflinching with how close they get to their subjects, like the intimacy is trying to break down barriers that society has imposed upon these men, these boys.  There is again a symbolic use of a red balloon, perhaps to represent the fragility of these people, but I don't think there is a thematic link between this film and Born Again.  Maybe they both just really like IT.  I like how the differing landscapes for each portrait shows how we are all individuals, but we are still together fighting the same enemy.  I think that the fact that this was also directed by a woman helps in telling these very male stories.  It takes away some of the front and bravado that young men have and leaves behind very real, vulnerable yet strong, people.  8.5/10

Fragments:
dir. Adekemi Roluga/10m

Fragments is an autobiographical animated short by Adekemi Roluga made up of very simple white-on-black line drawings that bought to mind classroom chalkboards.  The film tells Adekemi's story.  Born to a white British mother and a black Nigerian father, her parents divorced when she was young.  Living with her mother, she sees less and less of her father, something she is actually happy about at the time because he was a reminder of her blackness, her “otherness”.  She tells how she would bleach and iron her hair so much, in a desperate effort to make it look “white” that by the time she started high school all of her hair had fallen out.  At the end of the film she tells us that she sees her father more now, but that the relationship in her youth really damaged her, and it took a long time for her to accept who she is, her individuality.  The title is a reference to how she was a mixed-race child of a broken home, how she had been broken down into fragments of her being, but now she is able to put those fragments together in a way which pleases her.  This is a brutally raw and honest film, the simplicity of the mostly static animation giving full focus on her words, and one that feels like it will bring a lot of hope to people who feel as fragmented as she did.  8/10

Crypsis:
dir. Christopher McGill/9m

The penultimate film in this collection is Christopher McGill's Crypsis.  Crypsis is the ability of an animal to avoid detection.  And that is exactly what the film is about.  The film opens in an office in Scotland where a gay African man is pleading for asylum.  The interview boils down to questions about his sexuality, which seems pointless and humiliating.  He is even asked to provide proof of his homosexuality, but he tells the interviewer that his “proof” was killed back in Africa, and the same will happen to him if he is forced to go back.  That night he goes to a gay club, in order to get some evidence of his sexuality.  Looking very uncomfortable, we see him walk around the club, asking for selfies with very obviously gay men, but the lights and the music combine to disorientate him, and he starts to have visions of his dead lover, bloodied and bruised.  Outside the club, we see him having a smoke while he deletes all of the selfies he took that evening, before he walks off into the night.  Like Black Bottles, this is based on real accounts, this time from LGBT African asylum seekers, and it is a sad and heartbreaking watch.  I like how out of place he felt in the club, perhaps representing how he feels being in this country, and it was all shot with a fantastic dramatic eye, the club scene taking on a more hellish demeanour the longer it goes on.  I also like how the love story between the main character and his lover was played out, really subtly.  The way he deletes the selfies showing just how faithful he still feels.  A fantastic short with a surreal edge to the cinematography, and a humane handling of another sensitive subject.  8.5/10

MISSED:
dir. Jeremiah Towolawi/12m

The final film in this collection is MISSED by Jeremiah Tololawi, a story about the relationship between a father and his young son.  The film opens with the child in the garden on his own, his father calling him in for his dinner, his favourite, spaghetti bolognese, although he can't make it as good as his mum.  Are they divorced?  In the middle of the night the child sneaks past his father, asleep on the sofa, and in the garden starts to build something.  Once he has finished he falls asleep on the grass, his father coming out to the garden to see what he's been building.  It's a telephone box full of Christmas lights and tinsel and a picture of his mother.  The father sits in the box and picks up the phone, and in an beautifully emotional and well acted scene, he has a conversation with his dead wife, how much he misses her and how he's trying to do his best with their son.  I thought this was a great film, the light-hearted tone turning very sombre and emotional at the end, and it shows how we are still connected to those we have lost.  9/10

As a whole I think this is a great collection of shorts.  I would have maybe opened with Saint Valentine and closed with Born Again, but MISSED is still a great end point for the collection, leaving us off with a bittersweet, optimistic feeling.  This is also a great showcase for new voices from an underrepresented group in the film industry, and I'll be keeping an eye out for several of the filmmakers showcased here.  8/10

[djw180 6,836]

Ophelia

A retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet from the point of view of Ophelia, who is Hamlet's love-interest in the original. It was directed by Claire McCarthy who I did not know of, but now know also directed the recent BBC drama series The Luminaries which I also enjoyed.

First thing I have to say is I almost didn't watch this due to the idiotic Netflix preview which rather than giving an introduction to or summary of Ophelia's story instead gives a snippet of the film focussing on one of the supporting characters! So although at first I assumed correctly what the film was based on the title and the image used (pretty much John Everett Millais' famous painting Ophelia) I then thought it was something else based on the preview, but returned to it having found nothing better!

It has a strong cast; Daisy Ridley is in the lead role, Naomi Watts as Gertrude (Hamlet's mother) and Clive Owen as Claudius (Hamlet's uncle who kills his brother, the King, and seizes the throne whilst Hamlet is away), George MacKay as Hamlet (I've not seen him before, but he does well and given who he is playing I think he has to be relatively un-known to leave the emphasis on Ophelia).The script varies between actual and altered Shakespearian lines and completely new ones and that does seem a bit odd at times as they change from speaking the way Shakespeare wrote to speaking in a more modern way. Most of it sticks pretty close to Hamlet whilst obviously adding scenes that expand and explain Ophelia's role. But one plot element is added that seems to me unnecessary. There is a secret sister of Gertrude, a healer, who unwittingly provides Claudius with the potion to kill Hamlet's father and Ophelia with the same to fake, in this version, her suicide – this character's back story is what Netflix gives you as their preview. But apart from that I really liked it. I do like things like this, retelling well known stories from another character's perspective. But I would say you really do have to know the original play to get the most of out of this. I don't know how it would go down as a stand-alone work for people who have not at least seen Hamlet once. I think it would still work but you just would not enjoy as much. You wouldn't see certain scenes coming or appreciate what certain minor characters do or turn out to be (in true Shakespearian style there are characters pretending to be someone else and just by having their hair done differently no one noticing!). It also appears from the very polarised reviews on IMDB that some people who take their Shakespeare very, maybe too, seriously do not like it at all. I have never studied Shakespeare academically, I just like watching his plays and film versions of them. Technically this seems very well made, not that I have any real understanding of film making. There is some very good use of colour, some scenes that are very visually appealing.

8/10

Edited August 30, 2020 by djw180

[LimeGreenLegend 4,173]

I have such a huge backlog of reviews I need to write 😞 

You can look forward to reading about French new-wave sci-fi noir, Germans pretending to be Spanish going mad in the rainforest and racist William Shatner, when I can be bothered to write them 😄 (extra points if you can name any of the films from those descriptions)

[djw180 6,836]

54 minutes ago, LimeGreenLegend said:

 

 Germans pretending to be Spanish going mad in the rainforest

Claus Kinsksi in Aguirre Wrath of God? If so I don't think he needed to pretend (to be mad).

Edited August 30, 2020 by djw180

[LimeGreenLegend 4,173]

8 hours ago, djw180 said:

Claus Kinsksi in Aguirre Wrath of God? If so I don't think he needed to pretend (to be mad).

Ding ding ding! 

[djw180 6,836]

Years ago I saw 2 documentaries, both made by Verner Herzhog I think, about the making of Aguirre Wrath of God and events related to it. I remember the first one claimed that in a scence where Klaus Kinski is dueling another conquistador he wasn't acting, he hated the other actor and was actually trying to at least seriously injure him. The other was a remarkable story about the sole survivour of a plane that crashed near where they were filming. But due to how dense the jungle was and heavy thunderstorms that caused the crash they never even heard it let alone realised there was a survivour nearby.

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by djw180

[LimeGreenLegend 4,173]

@djw180 I’ve been doing a lot of reading about their relationship and it seems so fascinating.  I don’t think it’s specifically about Aguirre, but Herzog made a film called My Best Friend about his relationship with Kinski which I put straight on my watchlist after seeing Aguirre.  I’ll have a look for the Aguirre specific films you mentioned too. 

[djw180 6,836]

The film about the plane crash survivor is Wings of Hope.

The other film I can not find the name of. It may have been a BBC or Channel4 made documentary featuring Verner Herzog rather than directed by him. Probably late 90s.

[Con 5,703]

17 hours ago, LimeGreenLegend said:

I have such a huge backlog of reviews I need to write 😞 

You can look forward to reading about French new-wave sci-fi noir, Germans pretending to be Spanish going mad in the rainforest and racist William Shatner, when I can be bothered to write them 😄 (extra points if you can name any of the films from those descriptions)

Tell me about it. My new computer should be arriving this week or next week and I cannot wait. The premise of the films you mention sound familiar but I cant say I know which ones they are. 

[Con 5,703]

Spree (2020)...3/5... "Found footage" of a wannabe YouTube and Social Media Influencer who fails to gain an audience an decides the only way to gain viewers is to shock them and he decides to do this as a "Spree" driver, the film's equivalent to "Uber". We follow the main character through his phone, other vloggers, surveillance cams, CCTV, and traffic cams and I thought that was done very well and I only found myself asking, "how did they get that shot?" only once, so I thought it was a clever way to show us the found footage. Now during a scene we see footage coming from a police body-cam I did ask why and how are we seeing that but I just resolved it by saying, "it's just the film's style, it must be only 99% found footage and 1% traditional storytelling. But i was wrong and that reveal was very satisfying as its basically the closing act of the film. The ending montage was superb and really nails the message of the film. I felt the film's concept worked and was only ruined by lack of public and police awareness as it is all being broadcast live on multiple social media platforms. Why should you watch it? You want to be an influencer and should know about some dangers involved. You absolutely love found footage films. Or your  film choices are between this and "Murder Mystery" with Adam Sandler. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Con

[Abizaga 51]

Um... Kazaam.. Yeah, ir was pretty bad. And Shaq's constant rhyming was... horrible. 10/10

 

[LimeGreenLegend 4,173]

Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution

dir. Jean-Luc Godard / 1965 / 1h39m

Alphaville is a French new-wave sci-fi neo-noir film from Jean-Luc Godard starring Eddie Constantine as Lemmy Caution, a private detective from the Outlands sent into the dystopian future city of Alphaville in order to destroy the AI which controls it, Alpha 60.  The character of Lemmy Caution had been in several films before this, played by Constantine, but here Godard transplants a typical 20th century archetype into the future, a blending of the old and the new that carries over into the look of the film and the way it was shot.  Even though this is a sci-fi film, it was shot entirely on location in Paris using the then modern buildings and more run down areas of the city to represent a more believable and relatable future.  The film also uses no artificial lighting, resulting in a very dark film, almost pitch black at times,which suits the tone and themes of the film.  

Alphaville is a city of logic.  In one famous scene several people are executed for acting illogically.  They are lined up at the side of a pool, shot so they fall in, then a load of beautiful, swimsuit-clad women dive in and stab them to death.  This is not a film of logic though, none of these disparate styles and genres should work together, but they do.  In the classic new-wave style, plot here is secondary to establishing tone and presenting political and philosophical ideals through character action and dialogue.  All of the stylistic conventions of the new-wave are also present, most noticeably in the jump-cut editing and constant fourth-wall breaks where the actors look directly at the camera as if confronting the audience.  One of Godard's main themes here is the blending of technology and humanity, represented mainly by Alpha 60,whose voice is provided by somebody who speaks through a voice-box, the deep, unnatural, guttural croaking punctuating the film with narration.  The power of art to change society, something that Godard became more passionate about from the late-60s onward where his films became more overtly political, is also fully present here in the way in which Caution confronts and defeats Alpha 60.

Just like in Breathless, here Godard wears his love of American films proudly, but this also takes inspiration from German expressionism, particularly Fritz Lang's Metropolis, and also the George Orwell novel 1984.  In turn, this went on to inspire films like Blade Runner and every other dark and gritty sci-fi crime thriller that came after.  I would recommend this to anyone who loves dark, brooding sci-fi, but with a caution that this is unlike any other film from the genre.  Personally, I loved it 9/10

 

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Aguirre, the Wrath of God

director. Werner Herzog / 1972 / 1h34m

Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a historical German film by prolific filmmaker (seriously, this guy has made so many movies) Werner Herzog, or as @JuniorChubb knows him, The Client from The Mandalorian 😉 It stars Klaus Kinski as Spanish conquistadore Lope de Aguirre, a real historical figure, who leads a doomed search through the Amazonian rainforest for the legendary city of gold, El Dorado.  This was a tense watch.  Everything about it felt real and dangerous, thanks in large part to how it was filmed.  It was shot on location in the Peruvian forest with handheld cameras, giving it a documentary feel; putting us right in the middle of the expedition.  It also had a minimal crew, with no stuntmen, so everything you see in the film was done by the actors and you can see genuine fear on their faces during some scenes.  But what brings the feeling of danger more than anything else is Kinski himself.  He is insane, and I mean in a real way, the dude was a lunatic.  Look at that poster above, just look at his face!  Him and Herzog had a strained relationship at best, despite going on to make four more films together, and that comes across in his performance.  It feels like he is attacking the camera with every mad stare, like he can attack Herzog that way.  One famous story from the making of this film is that Herzog pulled a loaded gun on Kinski when he threatened to walk off set!

But that all came together in a magical way to create a fantastic film.  If you've seen Apocalypse Now, which was hugely inspired by this film, then you will know the basic setup.  A group of soldiers travel through a forest by river in search of something and just go f*cking mad.  There are some small subplots involving attacks by the natives, and Aguirre's daughter, who is also on the expedition, but the main focus is on Aguirre and the way he mutinies and takes power before becoming consumed by it.  The final shot of Aguirre, alone and insane, floating downriver on a raft covered by monkeys is one of the best symbolic representations of someone losing their mind that I've seen.

One more fantastic element of the film is the soundtrack by the band Popol Vuh, a frequent collaborator of Herzog's.  I gushed over them in my review for The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner, and I'm going to do it again here.  The airy synthy soundtrack adds a dreamlike feeling to the film, with pounding drums in the background giving the whole thing a feeling of an oncoming storm.  It's not a soundtrack you would expect from a historical film like this, but that anachronism fits perfectly here in this mad and dangerous world.  If you like adventure films, or films about people absolutely losing their sh*t then you should check this out.  It's not my favourite Herzog film, from what I've seen of his extensive catalogue, but it's right up there.  8.5/10

=================================================================

The Intruder

dir. Roger Corman / 1962 / 1h24m

The Intruder is a drama from the master of the low budget/no budget exploitation movie, Roger Corman.  It stars a pre Star Trek William Shatner as Adam Cramer, the intruder of the title, a man who turns up in a small southern town on the eve of desegregation in their schools.  He incites the locals into a racist fervour with his vitriolic and hate filled speeches, leading to a cross burning and church bombing in the black part of town.  Desegregation still happens, which leads to the climax where a white girl at the school is forced, by Cramer, to accuse one of the new black students of r*ping her.  Cramer then leads a mob ready to lynch the boy before his facade is broken and the town left full of shame.

This was much better than I was expecting.  It wasn't as sensationalist as some films of that era can get, and it handles some sensitive subjects in a grounded, realistic way.  Shatner is brilliant at the sleazy salesman of hate, smugly taking control of what he considers to be a group of idiots and loving every second of power he gets.  He's making out with teenagers and seducing lonely housewives and throwing around the n-word for fun.  They make it really easy to hate this guy, but his performance is still engaging.  The rest of the cast range from solid to pretty bad, but that's to be expected from a film like this.  The direction is nothing special, but again that's expected.  I don't know what was smaller on this film, the budget or the time they had to film it, but that's Corman's style.  

This was a decent film overall.  It was fun seeing Shatner playing the bad guy, something he has hardly done since, and you can tell that he relished the part.  There are some laughs to be had, despite the heavy subject matter, and some of them were even intentional!  If you're looking for a schlocky b-movie to watch you could do a lot worse than this 7/10

================================================================

Bill & Ted Face the Music

dir. Dean Parisot / 2020 / 1h32m

Bill & Ted Face the Music is the third film in the series, returning after a nearly 30 year break.  This time it was directed by Dean Parisot, who also directed the brilliant Galaxy Quest, but still written by Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, writers of the original two films.  Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves also return as Bill S. Preston esq. and Ted Theodore Logan.  The plot this time around sees the duo in their middle age, still married to the princesses, still trying to write the song that will unite the world.  But they need to do it quick, because reality is collapsing in on itself.  This sets up a pretty nice ticking clock device which matches up with the runtime of the movie.  Every time someone said something like "we only have 32 minutes left" I checked the runtime of the film and it matched up.  To get the song they decide to travel into the future to steal it from themselves, so they go forward and meet several different Bill & Teds, my favourite being the ones with English accents.  Meanwhile, their daughters decide to help them by travelling back in time to assemble the greatest band ever, which led to a pretty funny scene where Jimi Hendrix has a music duel with Mozart.  

I was let down somewhat by the direction and the look of the film.  It's bland.  It's so grey and flat.  And some of the greenscreen work is pretty bad.  After the neon bright Bogus Journey, with its interesting set design this feels like a bland nothing.  If any film could get away with being bright and over the top it would be this one, and it just feels like they're holding back.  That blandness goes for the directing too, there was nothing interesting to note, no cool looking shots or interesting uses of editing.  Keanu Reeves was also pretty bad.  I don't know what it is, but it's like he doesn't know how to smile any more after playing John Wick all these years.  He looks like he's in pain for a lot of the film and it was pretty distracting.

With that said, there was still lots I liked.  The basic premise of the story is good, and I like the characterisation of Bill and Ted and how they still see themselves as one person, something that comes up in the pretty funny therapy scene.  Alex Winter carried this film.  He hasn't missed a step, it's like he's just lived the past 30 years as this character and he was instantly ready to start filming.  William Sadler steals every scene he's in as Death, I just wish he was in more of the movie.  If you're a fan of the original films then you'll like this enough to be entertained for its length, but it's definitely the weakest of the three.  What score am I thinking of?  6.9 dude!

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by LimeGreenLegend

[Fido_le_muet 5,197]

Battle Los Angeles

OK so I'm gonna give my score right now because I know the suspense is killing you : 2/10

That was really bad. Poor Aaron Eckhart, I have no idea how he ended up in that sh*t but my bet is a big fat check. This movie is a condensed pile of everything that's bad about war movies with the stereotyped soldiers that have zero depths and the american patriotism on steroids and the millions of explosions and the awful dialogues with the same lines that you can put word for word in every war movie involving american soldiers.

I thought the aliens would look cool but even that is disappointing. There is no world building at all, no backgroud on them whatsoever. They are just here to blow stuff up and as an excuse for the awesome badass gun totting american soldiers to blow more stuff up. This was a Michael Bay movie on steroids. 

Wasted 1h50 of my life. 

 

Bird Box 

Watched this today during my lunch break. 

Read the synopsis and it sounded like something similar to A Quiet Place which I loved. And there are a lot of similarities (family, sense deprivation, the atmosphere...) It's quite similar but ultimately, falls a bit short compared to AQP. And I believe that comes down to worldbuilding. AQP goes much further than Bird Box. 

I liked that the creatures are never shown. That was the right call IMO. In A Quiet Place the monsters are shown but it's OK cause they are very well done and are f*cking scary. The tense atmosphere is well made as well. The beginning reminded me of Knowing (2009) because of the mass suicides that look very very similar. 

My main criticism is that it's a bit too simple in almost every aspect. There is no surprises, you kinda know everything that's gonna happen and it does. Same with the relationship between Sandra Bullock's character and the kids. It's a good but superficial one. Could have been handled a lot better. And the worldbuilding is not fleshed out enough. Starts to be interesting but it stops fairly quickly. Also the river scene that lasts for almost the whole movie is mostly uninteresting. The trio never feels in danger. Again, predictable. 

One scene I think could have changed the tone of the whole movie is (spoiler about a key moment of the film)

Spoiler

in the boat when she's ready to sacrifice one of the kids. Ultimately she doesn't and I get it because the theme of the film is motherhood but I can't help but think that it would have made for a wholly different movie and a better one IMO, although a lot more darker. 

Overall a good movie that leaves me with a feeling of not enough. 6.5/10

[Con 5,703]

16 hours ago, Fido_le_muet said:

Bird Box 

Watched this today during my lunch break. 

  Reveal hidden contents

in the boat when she's ready to sacrifice one of the kids. Ultimately she doesn't and I get it because the theme of the film is motherhood but I can't help but think that it would have made for a wholly different movie and a better one IMO, although a lot more darker. 

Overall a good movie that leaves me with a feeling of not enough. 6.5/10

Totally agree about your spoiler point. 

Here is my Bird Box review... My Philosophical side gave it a 4/5, but my Regular Joe side gave it a 2/5.

 

[Fido_le_muet 5,197]

Jupiter Ascending

Started to watch it today during lunch break but, full disclosure, I couldn't watch more than 1 hour of it. Not because of a lack of time no, but because I couldn't take it anymore. 

That was so bad ! I couldn't find any sort of interest to this movie. It was just boring and I couldn't care less about what was happening to these forgettable characters, badly played by Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis. Seriously Chaning Tatum... I just can't with this guy. Can't name a movie where his acting is good. And Mila Kunis is just here looking pretty but she can't act. Hell I'm a better actor than her ! 

The plot is just nonsense. Mila is some kind of chosen one, a bee queen of sorts and she becomes another woman I don't know how and after that I began to watch without any interest and I lost track of the story but what was happening on screen never gave me the envy to jump back in. Chaning Tatum the 2D uninteresting character is just ridiculous with his flying boots. He's ice skating in the air while pursued by ridiculous aliens that destroys downtown Chicago but no one seems to notice the chaos and we just learn that everybody just forget and the city is magically fixed in the morning. Geez WTF ? Even the visuals and special effects are bad. There's nothing remotely decent in this. 

I was looking for a cool sci-fi movie to watch because I'm going through a sci-fi phase right now and I admit I was attracted by the beautiful Jupiter imagery in the posters and the title of the movie but that was just one hour of my life that I'm never getting back.

1/10

 

[Con 5,703]

38 minutes ago, Fido_le_muet said:

Jupiter Ascending

1/10

FU, man. 😄 😄 😄 Now I HAVE to watch it. See what you made me do. 😄  2/10....i surely would have missed it....1/10....thats what i call a "Dare". 😄 

Edited September 3, 2020 by Con

[DavidCore89 7,402]

The Mask (1994, Netflix)

Love this movie and it was great to see that it has aged quite well.

Prime Jim Carrey. Cameron Diaz on good form too!

I'll never be too old for silly sh*t.

8/10, at the least 

[Fido_le_muet 5,197]

12 minutes ago, DavidCore89 said:

The Mask (1994, Netflix)

Love it ! Saw it at least a dozen times ! 

[LimeGreenLegend 4,173]

57 minutes ago, DavidCore89 said:

Prime Jim Carrey

In that year he had The Mask, Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura!  Pretty good year for him.

[DavidCore89 7,402]

Just now, LimeGreenLegend said:

In that year he had The Mask, Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura!  Pretty good year for him.

Huge movies.

Received Golden Globe Best Actor nomination for The Mask.

Only Tom Hanks made more money from movies that year.

[LimeGreenLegend 4,173]

Just now, DavidCore89 said:

Huge movies.

Received Golden Globe Best Actor nomination for The Mask.

Only Tom Hanks made more money from movies that year.

Forrest who? 😄 

[Sinister 2,578]

The Founder. 
 

Michael Keaton (THE Batman) stars as McDonalds “Founder” Ray Kroc. We all know he didn’t start anything just weaseled his way in and eventually took everything through a BS handshake deal. 
 

  Good movie that shows just how much of a d*uchebag the guy was.