Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[dave jenkins]

L'homme qu'on aimait trop / In the Name of My Daughter (2014) - 8/10. Gallic true crime--against the backdrop of Nice casinos in the 70s. Andre Techine shoots and edits much like Assayas did for Carlos, which means details are covered at breakneck speed and nobody has the chance to get bored. Also the film is exceptionally well cast. To say more would spoil things.

After a re-watch I still like this one. We need more true crime stories from France.

[dave jenkins]

Le dernier metro (1980) - 9/10. I can watch this any number of times, and have done. It's not flawless--FT has a tendency to stoop to docu-drama summaries to get through exposition--but the plot is wonderful, particularly the dual love story. There are also so many well-observed details that it is obvious much of them come from the recollections of historical characters. And of course this was made at the time when Deneuve was at the pinnacle of her beauty.

There are other pleasures: the allusions to other films (the intro, for example, paying homage to the beginning of Children of Paradise); the way in which Truffaut's predilections (especially focusing on women's legs) are amusingly worked into the proceedings; the use of stage lighting throughout the film, as a way of erasing the distinction between what is "real" and what is theatrical; et. al. A real pleasure to watch.

[noodles_leone]

It's a movie I love every other time I watch it, and that disappoints me the other time. It's a also a movie I keep returning to.

[drinkanddestroy]

It's a movie I love every other time I watch it, and that disappoints me the other time. It's a also a movie I keep returning to.

I have watched it once, have little interest in re-watching.

[dave jenkins]

The Velvet Touch (1948) - 8/10. It's theater noir! Broadway producer Leon Ames browbeats his star Rosalind Russell one time too many and Roz decides to return the favor, with extreme prejudice. And the murder weapon turns out to be one of the man's award statues! Cue ironic insert! Cue flashback! Then it's All About Eve in miniature, which lasts the first third of the film. For Act II we're back in the present as police captain Sydney Greenstreet investigates. Circumstances favor Miz Russell, and unless she fesses up, it looks like Claire Trevor is going over for the crime. But wait! In Act III we get rehearsals and opening night for Hedda Gabler, Roz's new star vehicle. If you know the ending of Ibsen's play (and even if you don't), the question becomes, will fact mirror fiction? The suspense is well devised, and the audience at the end gives Miz Russell a standing ovation. How is it I've never seen this great film until now? It would pair very nicely with A Double Life.

[dave jenkins]

Stretch (2014) - 5/10. A limo driver, hoping for a good tip, transports a passenger who is up to no good. Danger ensues. Huh, kinda reminds me of another film. After being very impressed with Copshop (2021), I've been trying to catch up with everything Joe Carnahan has directed. This one doesn't quite make it. I now realize that I've seen two other of his films that I didn't like, The A-Team, and The Grey. I guess I'll give Boss Level a shot, and then give up.

[noodles_leone]

Last Night in Soho 11/10 and 4/10

The first third is as exhilarating as it gets. I had never experienced such a contagiously joyful ride on a big screen. This NEEDS to be seen and heard in a movie theater: they're remastering classic songs from the 60's, you'll never ever hear Cilia Black's You're my World the same way after. The second third keeps the same virtuosity but the horror parts are a big fail (looks more like Disneyland's haunted hosue than like the ialian horror movies that inspired Wright) and the "behind the scenes of the Soho dream" parts aren't half as disturbing as they should. The last part mostly sucks, it becomes stupid, we start spending way too much time with underdevelopped characters for stupid twists. But I don't really care. The first part is just so, so good. It radically changed my mood for days.
Also, I now see how Edgar Wright is one of the very few direct Leone inheritors (and not only because of the beautiful transitions between different periods).

[dave jenkins]

Last Night in Soho 11/10 and 4/10

The first third is as exhilarating as it gets. I had never experienced such a contagiously joyful ride on a big screen. This NEEDS to be seen and heard in a movie theater: they're remastering classic songs from the 60's, you'll never ever hear Cilia Black's You're my World the same way after. The second third keeps the same virtuosity but the horror parts are a big fail (looks more like Disneyland's haunted hosue than like the ialian horror movies that inspired Wright) and the "behind the scenes of the Soho dream" parts aren't half as disturbing as they should. The last part mostly sucks, it becomes stupid, we start spending way too much time with underdevelopped characters for stupid twists. But I don't really care. The first part is just so, so good. It radically changed my mood for days.
Also, I now see how Edgar Wright is one of the very few direct Leone inheritors (and not only because of the beautiful transitions between different periods).

I will see it today.

[dave jenkins]

Kiru (1962) - 9/10. Not to be confused with Okamoto's Kiru (1968), also a chambara. This one is by Kenji Misumi, and stars Raizo Ichikawa. Those lunkheads at IMDb did get them confused, though, and put the trailer for Okamoto's film up in place of Misumi's (this in spite of the fact Okamoto's film is in b&w, Misumi's in color). Still, it's worth visiting the site, if for no other reason than this write-up:

Kenji Misumi was a master director and Kiru alone is proof enough.

On paper, this may seem like another in a long line of Daiei star vehicles for their leading box office draw, Raizo Ichikawa. Misumi himself had already directed him in a few of those potboilers (the SATAN'S SWORD trilogy). I dunno if it should be ascribed to the zealousness of a young director eager to break free from the constraints of studio production-line film-making, if Misumi intended it as a calling card that would help him graduate into the A-list club that included Masaki Kobayashi and others, or if, concerns about status be damned, it should serve as exhibit A in the case many of us have been trying to make about Misumi as a righteous auteur with a directorial voice all his own separate from the bulk of genre filmmakers, but Kiru screams stylized masterpiece even from its opening prologue and it's obvious it was pieced together with great care and superior craftsmanship.

The slow deliberate pacing and eliptical minimalist storytelling one would sooner find in an art-house film than a chambara is broken by sudden bursts of violence, these emphasizing not bodycount and arterial sprays but beautiful choreography between camera and characters, with the killings often as not taking place off screen. In filtering his chambara dynamics through a meditative mood, in giving more weight on the preparation rather than the fight (with duels edited in a Leone fashion a few years before Leone, tight closeups of eyes and bodies et al), Kiru soars above anything else Daiei was producing at the time to occupy the same stylized moody genre space others like Jean Pierre Melville would arrive years later. The gloomy fatalism and visual grammar is all Misumi's though and it would continue to show up in his work in the coming years, although stunning shots like the circular overhead shot of Ichikawa opening doors in search of his boss would rarely be repeated.

Misumi may never get the critical acclaim and Criterions other of his peers who created in genre film-making like Yasuzo Masumura (also in Daiei), Masahiro Shinoda (in Shochiku) and Seijun Suzuki (in Nikkatsu) have enjoyed because he never got on board the Japanese New Wave wagon, but Kiru is proof enough that he was one of the master directors of his generation.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056144/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_45

This amazing film is only 71 minutes long! Here's one place you can see it: https://ok.ru/video/3025615784558

[dave jenkins]

Last Night in Soho 11/10 and 4/10

Errr . . . I'm gonna go with 4/10.

[noodles_leone]

And 11/10. It isn?t a ? or ?.

[dave jenkins]

And 11/10. It isn?t a ? or ?.

Well, let me put it this way: I hated this film.

[noodles_leone]

Well, let me put it this way: I hated this film.

You cannot hate the first part. I just don?t believe it.

[noodles_leone]

Oh by the way I went to see the crew if the next John wick setting up a shot in montmartre a couple of weeks ago. There is gonna be a big action scene in the stairs in front of the sacr? c?ur.

[dave jenkins]

You cannot hate the first part. I just don?t believe it.

If by the first part you mean the dance performed during the title sequence, you are right. Everything else immediately following, though (Rita Tushingham as Gran, the journey to  London, the lecherous cab driver, the instant boyfriend, the roommate from hell, the overslept-on-the-first-day routine, et. al.) had me cringing. The mirror trick wasn't bad, but it was overused about 100 times too many.