What Films did You Watch Last Week (18/07 - 24/07) CLOSED

Repeat Viewings:

Death on the Nile (2022) 7/10

First Viewings:

Comanche (1956) 5/10

Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981) 2/10

Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1965) 5/10

Atlas (1961) 4/10

Irma la Douce (1963) 6/10

A Dark Truth (2012) 3/10

RRR (Rise Roar Revolt) (2022) 8/10

Below the Sea (1933) 5/10

Isle of Fury (1936) 6/10

You Kill Me (2007) 5/10

Double Indemnity - A favorite of mine. 9/10

Heist - 7/10


First Time Viewings: 

Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982, Robert Altman) - 7/10

The Parallax View (1974, Alan J. Pakula) - 7/10

Lolita (1997, Adrian Lyne) - 6.5/10

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022, Tom Gormican) - 7/10

Jurassic World Dominion (2022, Colin Trevorrow) - 5.5/10

Spielberg (2017, Susan Lacy) - 8/10

SubUrbia (1996, Richard Linklater) - 7/10

Reign of Fire (2002, Rob Bowman) - 6.5/10


Repeat Viewings: 

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Steven Spielberg) - 10/10

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984, Steven Spielberg) - 9/10

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989, Steven Spielberg) - 9.5/10

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007, Jake Kasdan) - 8/10

Lethal Weapon (1987, Richard Donner) - 8.5/10

Lethal Weapon 2 (1989, Richard Donner) - 8.5/10

'night, Mother (1986, Tom Moore) - 8/10


TV Viewings: 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 1 (2008-2009) - 7/10

Star Wars: Visions - Season 1 (2021) - 7/10


Movie Awards:

BEST FILM: Raiders of the Lost Ark
BEST ACTOR: Mel Gibson - Lethal Weapon
BEST ACTRESS: Anne Bancroft - 'night, Mother
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Sean Connery - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Karen Allen - Raiders of the Lost Ark
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Douglas Slocombe - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
BEST SCORE: John Williams - Raiders of the Lost Ark
BEST SCRIPT: Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas, & Philip Kaufman - Raiders of the Lost Ark
BEST DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg - Raiders of the Lost Ark

Only one of yours this week.

Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder) - Great movie and honestly one of my favorites from Wilder. Classic noir that just works all around and has some wonderful shots. 8/10

Mine: Just a heads up... there's a lot this week.

The Canterbury Tales (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1972)

Second part of Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life" (followed by The Decameron which I watched last week) where he takes great works of literature, and makes an anthology film of them but only telling the more comedic or explicit tales. This one focuses on Chaucer's most famous works. This one is much more slapstick in terms of its humor and less ironic than the last, which personally doesn't work for me quite as well. There's some nice moments of physical comedy (the Cook's tale plays up straight like a Charlie Chaplin film) but it's a lot sillier than the first. Enjoyable, but not quite up to what the first film did. 7/10

The White Sheik (Federico Fellini, 1952)

First Fellini film of the week (yes, warning you now, there will be more), which was also Fellini's first film as a solo director, and it's… shockingly not very Fellini like at all. Very few of his usual touches appear in the film (there is a parade, but that's about it) and instead of being beautifully shot and full of artistic touches, it's honestly just a screwball comedy. It's a fairly entertaining one but not particularly noteworthy despite being the early work of a famous director. 6/10

Le Petit Soldat (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)

Alright, after loving Band of Outsiders last week I've decided to give Godard another shot. This one is easily the most straightforward Godard film I've seen. It honestly doesn't even feel like one of his films most of the time. There's no jarring "you're watching a film and I'm taking you out of the scene to remind you that" moments. Very little winking at the camera and having fun with the audience. It's a serious political film that tries to instead inform the viewer of the methods of torture being used on captives. This was initially intended to be Godard's second film and in fact he started filming it immediately after Breathless. Upon finishing, it was held up by French censors for its surprisingly graphic scenes of torture and wasn't released until several years (and films) later. 7/10

Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966)

One of the definitive Spaghetti Westerns and it is so much damn fun. Over the top violent, ridiculous action scenes and a character traveling the desert literally dragging around a coffin everywhere he goes. Sure it's not as artistic as say The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but it's great from start to finish. 8/10

Fellini Satyricon (Federico Fellini, 1969)

Second Fellini film of the week and by far the strangest of his films I've seen thus far. The film is beautiful but doesn't make a lot of sense being extremely disjointed. This is purposeful though as it is based on the Satyricon which is a work that much of has been lost over time. Fellini thus reflects that in the narrative making you feel like you missed large sections. I don't know if it completely works, but I personally enjoyed its dream like feel and the visuals enough (also fun note, he put his name in the title not because of just self advertisement, but because as soon as he started talking about making a movie about it, someone else in Italy apparently swooped in and copyrighted the title in hopes of stealing it away and this was his way around it). 7/10

Judex (Georges Franju, 1963)

A French film from the 60s, shot using techniques that make it feel even older, specifically because it tries to feel like one of those old serials from the 20s-30s. It's fun for people familiar with said serials, but not honestly something I could recommend to anyone who wasn't a fan of them. 6/10

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (Chad Stahelski, 2019)

Somehow I missed watching this until now which is odd because despite not being much of an action movie fan, I really like the John Wick films. That said, this one is my least favorite thus far. It's fun and has wonderful action choreography, but there just seemed like way too many times where Wick should have been shot in the back or killed while he was down and simply survived because he's John Wick and you can't kill him. Fun, just not up to the first two. 7/10

Pompo: The Cinephile (Takayuki Hirao, 2021)

An anime movie about making movies. This was a refreshingly optimistic and light hearted take on the subject, while still treating it seriously. It's a movie about the passion behind creating, and very clearly it's a movie designed with that same passion, a story told not because the film is a guarinteed success (an anime picture where a solid third of the film is about the process of editing is kind of a hard sale), but it works. I do disagree with a thesis put across by one of the main characters that the "best movies are 90 minutes" but it did make me chuckle when I looked at my blu-ray player and saw that the credits start at 90 minutes in. 8/10

In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)

A rather unusual Bogart movie that plays with a lot of the usual tropes associated with his characters, but seems to try to realistically point out how horrible such a person would be to be around for long. A melodramatic love story meets psychological noir that works more often than it doesn't but felt a bit oddly paced at times to me. 7/10

After Life (Hirokazu Koreeda, 1998)

This is the after life. You arrive at a regular building where a bunch of office workers put you in a queue. After waiting a bit you arrive in a room where they say you have seven days to relax in the building, but within the first three you must pick one moment to take with you from your life into the next. You will lose all your memories but this one will remain. Why three days? Because in the three days after the workers will film the memory of your life using actors. This is the sort of movie that if Hollywood remade would be all about pulling at your heart strings. Here we get a quiet and surprisingly uplifting movie that feels almost like a documentary… and it's charming for that very reason. Part of the film is examining meaningful moments and what stands out over the passage of years. The other part is a love of what filmmaking makes us feel. 9/10

Torso (Sergio Martino, 1973)

A surprisingly good Giallo. Starts out pretty much standard slasher for the first hour, but the last thirty minutes is a shockingly suspenseful cat and mouse horror chase. 7/10

Juliet of the Spirits (Federico Fellini, 1965)

Third and final Fellini film of the week (Sorry non-Fellini fans for having so many). I did not like this one. I find the film beautifully shot (as pretty much all of his films are) but I do not like it. The plot follows a woman who is trying to decide if she should leave her husband after finding out he is having an affair. Her neighbor seems to be encouraging her to embrace a free love solution, her family encouraging leaving and a ton of spirits seemingly haunting here seem to have differing opinions. The movie is just too weird for its own good, and frankly I find the plot rather insulting as Fellini cast his own wife as the lead and the woman he was actually having an affair with as the neighbor… so it really seems to be him saying "hey, wouldn't it be cool if you were just okay with the situation? If not, just leave." 5/10

Evil Dead Trap (Toshiharu Ikeda, 1988)

This one is kind of legendary in some areas of horror fandom. It's an extremely gory 80s horror movie with some special effects that are still pretty damn shocking today. That said it's also one of the most insane films I've ever seen. Reasons for its insanity would be major spoilers, but let's just say the last 20 minutes goes completely off the rails of what could possibly be expected and after a while I just had to start shrugging and going "yep, that's something I've seen now." A ridiculous amount of fun if you like such movies. 8/10

Strip Nude for Your Killer (Andrea Bianchi, 1975)

Well, let's end this week on a classy note... if Torso was a shockingly good Giallo film, this is well... shockingly not terrible. It's bad, but I honestly went into it expecting it to be absolutely dreadful. It isn't that bad. It's really generic though, practically a paint by numbers Giallo that apparently the director realized wouldn't even be noticed so he threw in a bunch of random softcore scenes. 5/10... Why yes, I am ashamed to give it this high of a score.

Lolita did have nice cinematography and of course I liked the score too. The performances were solid, but I like everyone in Kubrick's version better, plus despite the limitations of the time, I think Kubrick told the story a lot better.

MINE

This Land Is Mine (1943 Jean Renoir) - 7.5/10

The Gray Man (2022 Anthony Russo & Joe Russo) - 6.5/10

Nope (2022 Jordan Peele) - 9/10

Firestarter (2022 Keith Thomas) - 4.5/10

Leave Her to Heaven (1945 John M. Stahl) - 6.5/10

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022 Jeff Fowler) - 5.5/10

The Batman vs. Dracula (2005 Michael Goguen) - 6/10

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005 Steve Box & Nick Park) - 7/10

Swamp Water (1941 Jean Renoir) - 7/10

The 355 (2022 Simon Kinberg) - 4/10


Television 

Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 2 (2001) - 8/10














Film Awards

BEST PICTURE



BEST ACTOR


Charles Laughton (This Land Is Mine)

BEST ACTRESS


Gene Teirney (Leave Her to Heaven)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR


Walter Brennan (Swamp Water)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS


Keke Palmer (Nope)

BEST DIRECTOR


Jordan Peele (Nope)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY


Nope

BEST SCORE

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit - Fun movie, glad you liked it. 7/10