Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 214

Also the music right around that scene "The Boat on the Water" is incredible. I listen to it often on its own.

 

Watch IV and VI, Tetra

 

Watch Jason Takes Manhattan

genuinely love that movie, but in all seriousness, Part 2 is lit.

 

I have 37 more films in this project to finish and there is no more Jason in there. When I finish we will be deep in end-of-year 2024 season.

 

what’s the project?

 

I sorted all movies on Letterboxd by popularity and I am watching films pre-2000 (because it is almost all Harry Potter and superhero movies) that I have not seen. So far, Thelma and Louise was the best new experience.

 

Horror in the High Desert 3: Firewatch - 8/10
After really enjoying the previous two films, I'm so glad this one really embraces what it wants to be (a Blair Witch Project-esque spin on The Hills Have Eyes, influenced by creepypasta and analog horror) and fully commits to setting up a sequel. Once again, these movies don't pull a lot of tricks, but they're consistent, and they do what they do so, so well. Each film unravels a new piece of a mystery that might never fully be solved, but it's satisfying nonetheless. The kind of movie you can recommend watching on a laptop screen close to your face for optimal effect. I'm not claustrophobic, but there's a sequence in this that really got to me. I hope we get four more of these. I like Hell House LLC, but these movies deserve the love those movies get.

Taxi Driver - 8.5/10
A film that benefits with each new viewing, even if I'm still not convinced it's Scorsese's best. The whole incel culture/machismo discourse is so played out that all you want to do is take the movie in for what it is, and unfortunately, that can be really hard to do as the world continues to encourage senseless violence. Scorsese and DeNiro manage to make Bickle charming despite being selfish sociopath without purpose. His attempt to save Iris is just as random and misguided as his attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate, and while saving girl being sex trafficked sounds like an objectively good thing, he's now traumatized her by violently killing a number of men (and attempting to kill himself in front of her). The nihilism here feels palpable. But from Berrmann's score and the way Scorsese shoots the city at night all the way down to the film's supporting cast (Al Brooks!), everyone is firing on all cylinders to deliver a film that attempts to make sense of the chaos we live in while refusing to hold your hand. It remains bold and, unfortunately, relevant.

The Witch - 9/10
This might be a perfect movie. I love that it commits to being a folktale right from its title card. I remember catching this in theaters early into A24's rise and watching a lot of disappointed folks who did not prepare themselves for a slowburn. The thing is, it's really, really well-paced. As someone who struggles with historical films, even the dialogue fails to be a barrier to entry here. It's not hard to follow, and your investment in the characters is multiplied by fantastic turns from Ralph Ineson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Harvey Scrimshaw (who offers one of the best child performances I've ever seen), and Kate Dickie. I tend to roll my eyes when people say "It's what you don't see that makes it scarier," but it's true that everything shown to you here is deliberate, and the real horror comes from the film's atmosphere and the Hell we witness this family endure (although images of a crow pecking at a woman's breast can certainly get under your skin). Despite the memes and jokes about Black Phillip, the ending here is not a happy one; Thomasin is granted some degree of freedom from her oppressive faith, but at a dire cost she doesn't seem to understand yet. Kudos to Eggars on the way this film is lit and shot; it was clear he would become a star from the very get-go.

Brain Dead (1990) = 6.5/10
Not to be confused with the alternate title for Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. The cover art for this film has been seared into my brain since I was a kid. It's funny, all signs point to this being a trashy horror flick, but it winds up being a relatively interesting (albeit slight) paranoid thriller with a short runtime and two Bills (Paxton and Pullman) to boot. It's not exactly original, but it's mostly competent and will scratch a very specific straight-to-video 90s itch.

 

Now watch Taxi with Queen Latifah and see how it stacks up to other Taxi themed movies.

 

Trap - 7/10
The first half was boring. Josh Hartnett did amazing at being a serial killer though. The second half really picked it up. I give Shyamalan credit and respect for taking risks and making original films. There are a couple of his I still need to watch, but I want to get on that soon.

 

ok I’m interested

which phd? and what’s your thesis?

 

sociology (specifically the sociology of religion, organizations, quantitative methods, and survey design). this isn't my dissertation - that's on the organizational-level and extra-individual determinants of campus ministry provision by universities and religious bodies, and how they might impact potential participation. my master's thesis was similarly on how social service programming in religious congregations varies by congregation size and other sociodemographic factors - pointing to how megachurches (from a resource standpoint) might be best equipped to meet their congregants' social and religious needs.

what i said about anime through the lens of social constructionism is just basic theory we all learn really early on. it's just interesting to frame media (and its popularity) through these lenses

 

oh ok wasn’t expecting that

 

think I’m gonna watch My Dinner with Andre today

 

Cuckoo - 9/10
I absolutely loved this. Hunter Schafer did a fantastic job and the mystery and eeriness of the hotel were good too. I never saw the bonkers ending coming. Between this and Longlegs, Neon is killing it with horror this year.

 

Jurassic Park - 10/10

I had not watched Jurassic Park in a very long time and I thought I give it a watch before I go to sleep and still an fantastic, edge of your seat adventure film after all this time.. an all time classic for me.

 

Now watch Jurassic World

 

maybe this weekend. it’s been a day (from hell)

 

My friends and I are going to Deadpool 3 tomorrow. One of them hadn't seen the first two so we watched them via Discord, I enjoyed the second more than I remember but the kid is still annoying

Oh, and Van was damseled in one film then fridged in the next

 

I Saw the TV Glow - 9/10

this was a blind buy from A24 for me. had every intention of watching it, but it wasn't playing anywhere near me when it was released in theaters. finally got the chance to pop in the Blu-Ray last night.

visually, this is a masterclass in atmospherics that wears its 90s influences on its sleeve (specifically Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks). story-wise, while there were some elements i wish they would've expanded upon (combined with other criticisms i've seen of how Schoenbrun handles barriers to transition for non-White individuals), it felt very intriguing, and i haven't been able to stop thinking about it. i think i need to watch it again to fully appreciate its depth.

 

Batman: Caped Crusader - 8/10
Ten episodes on Amazon. It’s a Batman series taking place in the ‘30’s or ‘40’s. Man-babies online are mad that Penguin is a woman and Barbara Gordon and Montoya are lesbians in this, but I don’t care. Harley Quinn is given an interesting origin without the Joker. There are character arcs and less of a one-and-done cartoon. I never watched the animated series from the ‘90’s, so I don’t know how it compares. I hope a season two is announced soon.

 

I got through a lot of classic Disney on my list: Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland, and Hercules. They are so infamous that the plot beats never really surprise, but I was surprised how posh Alice is and how anyone allowed some of those accents in Mary Poppins to go forward. If this project has taught me anything it is that my earlier suspicions of adults who rank these films among their favorite are at best incurious about art and at worst incomplete people. During pre-planning for the school year, we were required to name our favorite book, and someone from another school said that they loved a YA series. They might be nice people who pay their taxes and help family members in need but even a 75 minute film feels like an eternity when there are so little stakes.

Whisper of the Heart was another anime that did not move the needle but the most interesting movie to see for the first time was Girl, Interrupted. I doubt I am the first person to make this observation but it is pretty surreal that one of Ryder's first lines is about stealing stuff even though you could afford it. Setting a film in a mental institution is going to invite obvious comparisons to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but while that film was making a broader statement about the modern world breaking men, here it is more interested in the personal dynamics between the main characters. Was this the film that made people defend Mangold as the right choice for Indiana Jones 5? It isn't a late-90's indie-coded movie without Clea Duvall, but the film is obsessed with Jolie, who has been a status celebrity for so long that it is easy to forget she was once a very respected actor. The same goes for Whoopi Goldberg, who has spent so long moderating the odious arguments of The View that you can forget how she rose up in the first place.

 

Mary Poppins is in my top 5 and I've seen about 1,000 more movies than you have pre-1960. Kiss my ass.

 

Weird post

 

Once a pretentious douchebag, always a pretentious douchebag.

 

Theres no Disney or kids movies but my list is full of nostalgia. When you watch a movie is as important as the movie itself, if it impacts you and stays with you thats real magic and should be reflected in your list.

If returning to those feeling is the only thing you look for in art you are incomplete.