What did You Watch Last Week (30/11 - 06/12) CLOSED

Welcome back to another week of the BEST & WORST edition of 'what movies did you see last week?' thread. For those who haven't been part of it before, basically your host (me) posts my weekly movies and you can comment on those and list your movie for the same time frame. I will get back to you on yours and you can talk to other users here about their films. It's a great place to talk about film.

FIRST TIME MOVIE VIEWING

Fatman (2020, Eshom Nelms, Ian Nelms)
Pretty fun dark comedy with Mel Gibson as Santa and Walton Goggins as a hitman trying to kill him.
7/10

Night Falls on Manhattan  (1996, Sidney Lumet)
Solid enough but a little dated for its time Crime Drama from famed director Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon).  Andy Garcia (The Godfather Part III) plays a newly elected District Attorney who finds himself in the middle of a police corruption investigation that may involve his father and his partner.
I enjoyed it enough for a once off viewing, I doubt i'd seek it out again though.
6.5/10

Rifkin's Festival (2020, Woody Allen)
Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride) is a veteran of several prior Woody Allen films takes the lead role here as a man accompanying his wife (Gina Gershon) on a business trip to a film festival in Italy. I like Shawn in his smaller roles but he doesn’t feel the right fit to carry this movie. Despite that there is plenty to enjoy from the dialogue, scenery and dream sequences that reference the classics of yesteryear.
6.5/10

REPEAT MOVIE VIEWING

The Empire Strikes Back (1980, Irvin Kershner)
blu ray
The great sequel.
9/10

The Return of the Jedi (1983, Richard Marquand)
blu ray
The great trilogy closer.
8.5/10

The Two Faces of January (2014, Hossein Amini)
blu ray
The film has the same kind of romantic european feel of The Talented Mr Ripley, which makes sense as both films are based on the works of famed author Patricia Highsmith, The film has a great cast too with Viggo Mortensen and Oscar Isaac in particular putting in good work. However the 93 minute movie does feel a little light on story to tell. That said I really enjoyed this.
7/10

Training Day (2001, Antoine Fuqua)
Netflix
This wild LA set crime film is pretty entertaining although the plot is pretty convoluted.  Denzel is great in the role but the role was hardly an Oscar winning type role and reeks of a make up oscar for him missing out for Malcolm X.
7/10

Mank (2020, David Fincher)
Netflix
Enjoyed it more on second viewing. Fir some strange reason I had much clearer sound at home on Netflix than I did in the cinema. So the dialogue was a lot more audible which alleviated the frustration from the first viewing to a degree.
I still found it under lit throughout but managed to get into the story much quicker this time.
I am curious how it will go in the awards season as on the surface its the kind of film that does well with awards and I am sure it will get acting nods but with it being based on a slanderous and debunked article it may run into problems for other awards consideration. Then again this is a thinner year than most so who knows.
6/10

Raising Cain (1992, Brian De Palma)
Well this one is a kind of fun but not very good movie. It is a wild over the top tale that involves split personalities, child abduction, scientific experiments and of course De Palma set pieces that are ramped up to absurdity. John Lithgow is really campy in this one and I am not that fond of his performance which feels like a it is in a different film from the rest of the cast.
6/10

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977, John Boorman)
blu ray
This legendarily bad sequel is as bad as they say but at least does not try to be a carbon copy of the original and does try to expand on the mythology. Richard Burton is god awful in the lead, the cinematography is bad and Morricone's music seems misplaced. It does get pretty wild in the last half hour and is pretty entertaining  in its terribleness overall.
2/10

WEEKLY FILM AWARDS

BEST FILM: The Empire Strikes Back
BEST ACTOR:  Oscar Isaac - The Two Faces of January
BEST ACTRESS: Carrie Fischer - The Empire Strikes Back
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Viggo Mortensen - The Two Faces of January
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Elena Anaya - Rifkin's Festival
BEST EDITING: Sean Barton - The Return of the Jedi
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Marcel Zyskind - The Two Faces of January
BEST SCRIPT: Lawrence Kasdan - The Empire Strikes Back
BEST SCORE: John Williams - The Empire Strikes Back
BEST DIRECTOR: Irvin Kershner - The Empire Strikes Back

10/10 - Perfection (or as close to it as possible)
09/10 - An Excellent film
08/10 - A VERY Good film
07/10 - A Good film
06/10 - A Solid film
05/10 - An Average film
04/10 - Below Average film
03/10 - A mostly bad film
02/10 - A mostly terrible film
01/10 - Awful through and through
00/10 - Not only awful but offensive too