Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 98

My February;

1. Eastern Condors (1987) [Hong Kong]
2. Drunken Master (1978) [Hong Kong]
3. The Legend of Drunken Master (1994) [Hong Kong]
4. Struggle For Life (2016) [France]
5. World of Tommorrow (2015) [USA]
6. Grave of the Fireflies (1988) [Japan]
7. Six Shooter (2004) [Ireland]
8. Man Bites Dog (1992) [Belgium]
9. Phantom Thread (2017) [UK]
10. Not One Less (1999) [China]
11. The Road Home (1999) [China]
12. Ingrid Goes West (2017) [USA]
13. Dr Strangelove (1964) [USA]
14. Fifty Shades Freed (2018) [USA]
15. Pedicab Driver (1989) [Hong Kong]
16. Blackfish (2013) [USA]
17. The Prodigal Son (1981) [Hong Kong]
18. Lady Bird (2017) [USA]
19. In Bed With Victoria (2016) [France]

Of these, Dr Strangelove was the only re-watch.

Favourites were Dr Strangelove (obviously), Phantom Thread, Ingrid Goes West, Not One Less and Grave of the Fireflies.

Least favourites were Fifty Shades Freed (Obviously - but it's so much worse than I thought), Eastern Condors and Lady Bird (which I was gutted I didn't enjoy more).

BlackFish was an interesting one, at the time of watching it, I got very caught up in it, and some of the footage is extraordinary (The Orcas creating waves to knock a seal off a bit of ice was brilliant, and the clip of the Orca dragging the instructor to the bottom of the pool was absolutely horrifying), but after watching it I realised that it was a completely one-sided piece of film-making, that relied on pure emotive reaction, not any actual factual basis. I'm sure Seaworld is awful, but testimony about Orca's natural habitats from former trainers is not the expert testimoney I want. Fantastic piece of "propaganda" (not meant in a bad way) though.

Ingrid Goes West is a really fun, surprisngly meaty thriller / psychological piece. I don't know if it was poorly promoted, but I remember seeing a trailer for it, and thinking it'd be a light comedy, but it's actually a decently dark satire, with some heavy nods to Taxi Driver or King of Comedy.

In Bed With Victoria is a nice light French Romantic-Comedy, it touches on a lot of the tropes you'd see in American rom-coms, but with a nice bit of French absurdity (Chimpanzees and dogs testifying at a trial etc). Very minor note, but a pleasant watch.

50 Shades is 50x worse than I expected. Truly unbearbly bad, whereas I thought it would be unremarkably shit.

The rest of the films I've either commented on before, or have nothing worth saying about!

 

I've only seen the first Fifty Shades but it may be the best looking, sleekest piece of shit movie I've ever seen.

 

Spring Breakers exists!

 

Grave of the Fireflies is a good one that I'll never watch again

 

Breakfast Club still holds up. Solid film, great performances. I need to show it to my kids at some point.

 

I still have never seen this

 

Yeah every time I go back to it expecting that having seen another 300 movies will make that one shine a little less and it never does

 

We don't even have Saturday school anymore. These kids don't know how good they have it.

 

I saw Zhang Yimou's Hero today. From a purely visual perspective, it was absolutely beautiful. The framing, cinematography and use of colour was utterly perfect. You could take a still of any single scene in this film and it could be hung in a gallery. Truly a visual masterpiece.

The plot and story itself was totally forgettable and held together with some strong performances, with the combination of Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung being unsurprisingly brilliant. I don't think the film has anything particularly interesting to say, but whatever it's saying, it's bloody gorgeous to watch.

 

Three Billboards - 7.5/10

Well that film was truly weird, I don't remember the screenplays for In Bruges or Seven Psychopaths having such clunky dialogue. There were still some fun, black comedy moments scattered throughout and the performances were undoubtedly great from the leads. I don't necessarily have as much of an issue with the lack of racial commentary in this, but I can totally get where it's a legit issue, and that coupled with the quirky way that characters interact with each other in this certainly explains the loathing I've seen from this from my friends.

Enjoyable, but definitely flawed.

 

I saw Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, a superb Italian film from the 70s today. A high ranking police official murders his girlfriend and deliberately tries to leave clues so the other officers can catch him.

You could call it a very dark satire about power and corruption and Gian Moria Volonte is superb and captivating as the essentially fascist unnamed officer. No matter how blatantly all evidence points to him, he remains a "citizen above suspicion", which is taken to absolutely absurd levels as the film progresses. A really interesting film, and one worth seeking out.

The film has a Morricone score, which is always treat, but this one is a bit odd! It's somewhere in between Psycho and The Pink Panther, but then there's like this comic sounding "bonggg" sound every few bars haha. Super odd, but who am I to argue with Morricone...

 

The first Austin Powers movie is still very fun, and a clever satire at times. The second film really dips from the very opening; the product placement and cameos just become overwhelming. I don't know if I will make it to the third one.

 

But Fat Bastard and Mini-me!

 

The only celebrity I have ever met is Verne Troyer. I was in a bar in Italy and yelled at him to make a fourth Austin Powers movie before he asked me to leave him alone.

 

I watched Super Mario Bros last night and I'm not even a Mario obsessive but honestly what even was that.

 

The new Jumanji film is absolutely excellent. I had no attachment or feelings about the original Robin Williams one, so I expected the remake / re-boot to be a more-or-less worthless middle of the road action film, but it's an absolutely superb bit of family friendly Hollywood action cinema.

It reminds me a lot of the original Mummy film (which I absolutely love), it's a tightly plotted, brilliantly casted and genuinely funny action movie. All four of the leads have an excellent chemistry together, and are perfect foils for each other in the film. The villain is Imhotep-esuqe and suitably menacing. It's not over-long, has some excellent set pieces, avoids any obvious plot holes or overly sentimental or "serious" moments, and it's just overall proper good clean fun. Dead surprised, but I loved it.

 

Omg

 

Even with a run time of 1:34 I still found Lady Bird to feel long. It was ok though.

 

This is good news.

 

Ghostland was solid. This year's Raw/Get Out.

 

Watched Irreplaceable You on Netflix with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Christopher Walken, and Kate McKinnon. Definitely a downer movie, but it was really well done. It's probably gotta be the right time and place for most people to take it in, but it's a good movie.

 

Phoenix was a fine movie with as perfect an ending I've ever seen.

 

I get to see Gemini with Aaron Katz in attendance next week! Bonus: free screening of The Long Goodbye with Aaron right after.

 

The Gift (2015) starring Jason Bateman. It starts off like any good 'ol mystery with a stalker concept, but it is not your ordinary. It's been a long time for a newer release to actually hold my interest. Recommend, and will watch again!

 

This week I watched Freddy Got Fingered and Pootie Tang. Both have become cult classics since they were largely dismissed when they came out, and both films are better than that initial reputation. If they had come out today they would have been more successful, and you can see how both films influenced future comedy. They are not great films or anything, but reading Ebert's angry criticisms of them is indicative at how bad film critics are at watching comedy films.