Which films did you see last week? (10.24.2021 - 10.30.2021)
Oct 31, 2021 10:36:51 GMT
Moviefan and petrolino like this
Post by Hurdy Gurdy Man on Oct 31, 2021 10:36:51 GMT
Hello, good folks of FG. The weekly film discussion thread is back.
The topic under discussion is made clear in the title. Made-for-TV, direct-to-video, streaming, TV series/episodes, documentaries, short films can also be listed.
The minimum requirement is that a numerical rating out of 5 or 10 be provided - whichever the poster wishes to choose - and it'll be even more helpful if he/she also writes a few thoughts regarding his/her experience with the feature/documentary/short/TV series' season. This will help in starting discussions, which is one of the main intentions of this thread. I also request all those who reply here to go through the whole thread once and see if you can see some common topic to discuss with other posters.
The topic under discussion is made clear in the title. Made-for-TV, direct-to-video, streaming, TV series/episodes, documentaries, short films can also be listed.
The minimum requirement is that a numerical rating out of 5 or 10 be provided - whichever the poster wishes to choose - and it'll be even more helpful if he/she also writes a few thoughts regarding his/her experience with the feature/documentary/short/TV series' season. This will help in starting discussions, which is one of the main intentions of this thread. I also request all those who reply here to go through the whole thread once and see if you can see some common topic to discuss with other posters.
I had a good week.
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I am not much of a western fan; I have only watched a handful of those in my lifetime. Jubal was the first western team-up of director Delmer Daves and actor Glenn Ford. Together, they later made the solid entertainer 3:10 to Yuma. Jubal is not in the same class, though. Its story is similar to Othello transported to the old west. I found the screenplay to be rather listless till the third act, the characters were too broadly written and the acting was about so-so. Not a must watch but you can give it a go if you are a fan of westerns in general or Glenn Ford or Roy Scheider in specific.
5/10
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A spoof on then-recent psycho-thrillers. The title is a combination of Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, plus the script also throws in Body Heat, Cape Fear and Sleeping with the Enemy in the blender for good measure. So many sources could have made for an entire series of spoofs by themselves. On top of it, Carl Reiner and team also threw in a hefty dose of Double Indemnity.
The last was a puzzling inclusion because the other titles were guaranteed to be fresh in the audience's memory but Double Indemnity, despite being a classic, was not an easily recalled title in the minds of most filmgoers. Remember, this was the early '90s - films were not yet accessible with literally just a click. It reminded me of the godawful spoof The Silence of the Hams, which purported to be a spoof of The Silence of the Lambs but later veered into spoofing Psycho for most of its runtime.
Not that I minded much because I had viewed all these titles - some multiple times - and was too busy laughing my jaws off. All the actors were solid and I especially admired Kate Nelligan's spot-on impression of Babs Stanwyck.
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I wanted to watch a Russ Meyer film for a long time, to see what the fuss was about. I was going to pick between Faster, Pussycat Kill! Kill! and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. But later on decided to go with Vixen! After all, it was a landmark in the history of MPAA as it was the first ever film to be rated X for sexual content.
I had expected it to have a threadbare story and plot structure designed only to hang a barrage of simulated sex scenes on. I now realize that I was basing my expectation on the 90s Cinemax style of skin flicks. Vixen does have a lot of unabashed nudity and sexuality but Meyer also includes frank depiction of nymphomania, incest, virulent racism, anti-Vietnam war and anti-communist views. He is also far more adept at cinematography and editing than 95% of smut peddlers out there. Lastly, both the women and men in this film are all-natural and very beautiful to look at, so I cannot say that it provides eye candy only for the men. I was entertained and now I am looking forward to Meyer's other works eagerly.
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I had read that it is a precursor to Inception and even its IMDb plot summary alludes to implanting ideas and false memories. Actually nothing of that sort is shown here. It is more in the vein of The Fury, Firestarter or Scanners where psychics are pursued and recruited by covert government agencies.
I found the film to be disposable fun. The dream sequences are cool to look at. Dennis Quaid does the usual cocky charmer routine. Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer are present to lend solid thespian support.
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All the sequences involving Russian roulette are unbelievably intense: the acting, the camerawork, the editing, the sound - the cumulative effect is to grip your mind harrowingly. All performances were good but Christopher Walken was excellent in a revelatory breakout role. I haven't been a fan of his odd, awkward style of acting elsewhere but I felt that he was perfect here. I did not think it was a racist film as I do not think it was making any point against the North Vietnamese specifically. I just took it as a commentary on wartime insanity that anyone's mind can succumb to, regardless of race or nationality.
Although a number of things were either too stretched or did not make sense to me. Why does de Niro strip and run naked through the town? Why is he mean towards others on the first hunting trip? They could also have shortened the first act before the Vietnam section.
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The only film I watched last week that qualifies as bad. It was Dempsey's attempt to break out of his teen idol image and show that he was ready for more mature characters and venture outside rom-coms. He should have exercised more caution before choosing such a by-the-numbers, brain-dead script. It is a simple concept of a guy being at the wrong place at the wrong time, leading to a manhunt. But everything smacks of sloppiness, whether it is the plot development, stunt work or editing. I understand that providing disposable entertainment to kill time for 90 mins. is its only purpose and nothing more but there are much better films out there in this niche. Dempsey's big screen acting career went rapidly downhill from here until the mid-2000s when he re-emerged as the older romantic hero in films like Enchanted and Made of Honor.
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After the success of The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en, every studio commissioned at least one similar screenplay about serial killers and forensics. The Bone Collector is based on Jeffery Deaver's novel. It boasts of reliable if workmanlike direction by Phillip Noyce and good showing by Denzel Washington and a pre-hype Angelina Jolie. However, unlike its successful predecessors whose bandwagon it was riding, it doesn't have much of a personality of its own, being too intent on hitting the expected story beats. They also screwed up by watering down the killer's back story and motive - it was way stronger n the novel.
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