What Films did You Watch Last Week (07/12 - 13/12) 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

Sound of Metal (2020, Darius Marder)
Riz Ahmed (Rogue One) plays an underground metal drummer whose life is thrown into freefall when he begins to lose his hearing.
This indie is an interesting character study and one of the best films of this year.
7.5/10

The Notebook (2004,  Nick Cassavetes)
Netflix
This is one of the more famous films I have not seen before and I was not sure what to expect. In the end, this is far and away the best Nicolas Sparks adaptation I have seen.  Gorgeous cinematography and great actors putting in good work, enjoyable stuff.
7.5/10

Cairo Station (1958, Youssef Chahine)
Netflix
This film sees a newspaper salesman at the train station in Cairo develops an unhealthy obsession with a woman who sells refreshments.
It is well  made and well paced.
7/10

Black Bear (2020, Lawrence Michael Levine)
This indie is a captivating little film with a great central performance from Aubrey Plaza (Safety Not Guaranteed). It does try a little too hard to make an arthouse twist happen without complete success. This definitely wont be for everyone... think Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf meets Certified Copy.
6.5/10

The Ref (1994, Ted Demme)
This is a solid enough comedy about a cat burglar (Denis Leary) who  is forced to take a bickering, dysfunctional family hostage on Christmas Eve.
Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects) and Judy Davis (Husbands and Wives) shine in the lead roles and make the film what it is.
6/10

Kajillionaire (2020, Miranda July)
Evan Rachel Wood (West World) is a woman whose life is turned upside down when her criminal parents invite an outsider to join them on a major heist they're planning.
This is a fun little film with some odd stretches that is held together by great performances from Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger and Gina Rodriguez.
6/10

The Presidio (1988, Peter Hyams)
I was hoping this might squeeze into my top 5 for this director and I think it just fell short but I might have to rewatch my current fifth place Hyams film, 1997's The Relic.  This buddy-cop film is set in San Francisco where a civilian police detective (Mark Harmon) is forced to work on a series of murders with his former enemy commanding officer (Sean Connery) while dating his daughter (Meg Ryan).
The film looks great and Connery is excellent but Harmon is merely passable and this film would've worked better with a more appealing leading man.
5.5/10

Freaky (2020, Christopher Landon)
This director made waves with his mash-up movie Happy Death Day which put together Groundhog Day with slasher movies. He is at it again with a good idea on paper with a mix of the body swapping Freaky Friday and Friday the 13th.  The film doesn't really work that well and loses steam pretty early. It is certainly watchable enough for a once off though.
5/10

REPEAT MOVIE VIEWING

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999, Geoege Lucas)
blu ray
The first of the prequels is very ugly visually a lot of the time, poorly written but it does have a great light sabre battle at the end (maybe the best of the series) and a rousing John Williams score.
4.5/10

FIRST TIME TV VIEWING

An Evening with Tim Heidecker (2020, Stand-up special)
Interesting stand up special where Heidecker is performing a set designed to bomb on purpose, much to the delight of the audience.
Okay TV

WEEKLY FILM AWARDS

BEST FILM: Sound of Metal
BEST ACTOR: Riz Ahmed - Sound of Metal
BEST ACTRESS: Aubrey Plaza - Black Bear
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: James Garner - The Notebook
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Gina Rodriguez - Kajillionaire
BEST EDITING: Kamal Abdul Ela - Cairo Station
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Robert Fraisse - The Notebook
BEST SCRIPT: Jeremy Levin - The Notebook
BEST SCORE: John Williams - The Phantom Menace
BEST DIRECTOR: Nick Cassavetes - The Notebook

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