Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 216

Lisa Frankenstein - 7.5/10
A campy movie that felt like Tim Burton made it in the ‘90’s.

 

I don't go a-wandering this forum much. Only just discovered this thread.

Menilmontant (1926)

Very good, probably great. Excellent transmission of lonely grief and of impoverishment in 1920s Paris. No title cards, which forces you to clutch for the plot points, which basically dissolve anyway. All the dissolving visuals, double exposures, and unmatched editing imbue the film with a dreamlike feeling, but it's shaped by stark and small reality, bookended by murders startling in their own stark disorienting edits. And silent film has a reputation for acting histrionics but the lead actress in this puts in a phenomenally sympathetic performance.

Version I watched featured a weighty, often dissonant score from Paul Mercer. Be interested to watch it sans music.

 

Abigail - 8.5
This really surprised me. The child actor did an amazing job being an evil terrifying creature and switching back and forth. The final act was brutal.

 

Same for me and I could legit see Abigail being a legit cult classic alongside Lisa Frankenstein in the next few years.

 

Trap 5/10

Nothing happens.

 

Nothing happens!?

wild takeaway from that movie lmao. Too tired to post my review but I'll get to that and Cuckoo tomorrow morning

 

I mean, technically stuff happens but that doesn't make any of it good or interesting.

I really liked the casting and thought the lead did a great job they just didn't stick the landing at all. So much build up for nothing.

 

I'm so mad they spoiled the big reveal so much ahead of time. I know it was "announced" like a year and a half before blah blah blah but I didn't realize that's what this movie was. You could totally have sold it on the Old Dark House and "I don't think were alone in here!" without giving away the game.

 

Trap - 7.5/10
After thinking Old was shockingly bad and Knock at the Cabin was genuinely quite good, I'm very happy to report that Trap is Shyamalan's most fun film since The Visit and perhaps his the purest distillation of his desire to make B-movies while aspiring for Hitchcock levels of intrigue. The movie definitely goes on a beat too long, but it's hard to care when everyone seems to be having so much fun making it. Hartnett has seemingly drank the Cage/Wahlberg juice and is hamming up every scene, whether it calls for it or not; across from him, Shyamalan's daughter Saleka lends her abilities as a genuinely talented singer and relatively grounded actress. It would be easy to nitpick plot holes about how concerts work throughout the first half of the film, but the movie had me so charmed that I had no interest in doing so, and the film's unpredictable second half had me genuinely tense. I can't get over how impressive it is to have your daughter write an album of original, high-quality pop songs so you can direct an entire in-film concert in addition to the film at hand. This is the mode I like Shyamalan in these days; he might never be a great writer when it comes to dialogue, but as director of gleefully tongue-in-cheek genre films, he really flexes here.

Cuckoo - 7.5/10
A film that lives up to its name, and for my money, as far as mysteriously marketed 2024 Neon horror films that vaguely recall another decade and are batshit crazy but missing some connective tissue, I'm taking this one over Longlegs. There is a lot going on here that makes it difficult to unpack the film's full scope both while watching and after, but the film is stylishly directed and presents three-dimensional characters performed, most notably, by Hunter Schaeffer and Dan Stevens. (The latter's current character actor arc is incredible.) Above all, and despite a number of reviews I've seen, the film doesn't forget to have fun with its bonkers subject matter, padding human experimentation and perceived time loops with plenty of pulpy action and violence along the way. Despite its faults, it thrives.

 

Awesome write-ups. I agree with all of it, but I’d rate Cuckoo higher.

 

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed both movies!

 

Maybe I will do Trap and Alien this weekend. Priority will go to which one starts earliest on Saturday morning.

 

I really enjoyed this one a lot and can see it getting some legs on streaming and becoming a cult classic. I'm surprised the critics score is so low on RT but I'm happy to see the audience score much higher.

 

Ideal Saturday morning:

1. Swimming before the Sun comes up
2. Fall asleep sitting in the pool chairs
3. Go see an early movie and eat popcorn for brunch

 

Yeah, I had an absolute blast with it and hope it picks up more steam with audiences. 90s Tim Burton was exactly my reference point as well (complimentary). Just so fun, the kind of non-IP movie you don't see a lot of anymore.

 

Was intrigued by the original concept of Trap but it doesn't generate the advancing claustrophobia necessary to create any warped Hitchcockian sympathy for the father — he keeps jumping out of the arena for a start — nor is it quite bonkers and bombastic enough to jet wash all the plot contrivances, clunky dialogue, and boring teenage friend drama away.

Once they leave the arena it just crosses the border into generic thriller, complete with serial killer mummy issues because Shyamalan likes Psycho I guess.

 

It's a movie with all setup and no payoffs

 

The setup is getting to see Hartnett be charming while delivering insane Shyamalan dialogue and the payoff is also that

 

The teenage friend drama is roughly 5 minutes of a 105 minute movie. It doesn't even stick around long enough to be boring!

 

Of his last three I’d say trap > old > cabin

 

Also would definitely put cuckoo above longlegs. The more I think about longlegs the less I like it.

 

Speak for yourself; I groaned every time the friend's mother came back. Could almost see Shyamalan hovering over his computer, telling himself we needed to see Hartnett's character being a concerned father. Fine if the rest of the movie is good but otherwise it's just another Brussels sprout on the plateful.

 

My Neighbour Totoro is playing in UK cinemas at the moment. I've been and watched it twice this week. If there weren't people in my house to judge me then I'd go a third time.

Enchanting, modest, perfect.

 

I was really dreading Matilda on this list, so I thought I would just suffer through it only for it to be surprisingly good. When it comes to kids' films, there is the garbage that is made by studios and executives that think there is no point in trying very hard because kids are stupid, and then there are those films where they take the freeform of the genre and really go wild. Unfortunately, the former usually makes more money, while stuff like Matilda and the Iron Giant a few years later underperform. It is big and absurd and silly because that is the best way to interpret the ways young eyes see and experience the world. It is a shame DeVito does not direct more.

The Craft is one of those films that is only so high on the list because of the hyper-specific demographics of who uses Letterboxd, and outside of being Hot Topic-adjacent there is nothing really special to talk about. It is really weird that Clea DuVall was not in this.