Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[drinkanddestroy]

Play Misty For Me (1971) - 7/10. Here's the gag: Eastwood plays the bitch, Jessica Walter, the stalker in a pantsuit. Walter is justly acclaimed for her performance, but get a load of Clint! His essential masochism is here revealed, a quality he never had the courage to revisit in later films. Too bad the current transfer of the film looks like shit. Why is it KL can't do right by Eastwood? (or can do right only intermittently?)

I like this a lot. And it seems Fatal Attraction heavily borrows from this.

[dave jenkins]

Without this film Fatal Attraction would have been unimaginable.

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019) - 6/10. As I suspected, Herzog appropriates Chatwin's story as his own. There are several interesting anecdotes but they don't add up to much. Of course we get a lot of references to Herzog's films. I expected to see clips from Cobra Verde, but I had no idea there was a Chatwin connection to Scream of Stone. The clips of that made me want to see it again, and I suddenly realized I hadn't watched it since 1992. WTH? A check on amazon shows that Ripley's has a DVD available. Ordered!

Vera Cruz (1954) - 8/10. Why is it called Vera Cruz, when they never get there? A better title would be The Good, the Bad, and the Female. This really is the proto-Spaghetti: the killer buddies who will face each other in the final showdown; the gang leader planning to betray his gang; the marksmanship demonstration; lots of gratuitous killing; and of course, The Reason . . . The Gold! Burt is wonderfully consistent throughout the picture, and Coop doesn't embarrass himself. And the Mexican locations are amazing. If only this film could get a restoration or something. Current home video presentations are merely adequate.

[PowerRR]

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019) - 6/10. As I suspected, Herzog appropriates Chatwin's story as his own. There are several interesting anecdotes but they don't add up to much. Of course we get a lot of references to Herzog's films. I expected to see clips from Cobra Verde, but I had no idea there was a Chatwin connection to Scream of Stone. The clips of that made me want to see it again, and I suddenly realized I hadn't watched it since 1992. WTH? A check on amazon shows that Ripley's has a DVD available. Ordered!

I've been watching a ton of Werner lately. I watched Nomad last years and liked it a lot, maybe a 7 or 8. I'm interested in checking out Fireball... usually when a new Herzog movie is coming out, I'll watch a handful of those I haven't seen before. I really liked La Soufriere and God's Angry Man from this week.

I've never seen Scream of Stone, it's one of 3 or 4 of his fiction works that I'm missing out on.

DJ can you share some photos of your film collection? Seems to me like you have thousands of movies.

[drinkanddestroy]

There's Something About Mary (1998) 7/10
Hadn't seen it in ages, it's funnier than I remembered. A lot of the actors involved have yet to come close to that level of performance.

I saw this in 9th grade and was absolutely smitten with Cameron Diaz. I saw it a bunch of times. (This was The Patriot for me before I got serious and began liking serious movies like The Patriot  )

We once had a party in school, and I put a big gob of hair gel on my ear and another gob to stick the middle of my bangs straight up

[drinkanddestroy]

Play Misty For Me (1971) - 7/10. Here's the gag: Eastwood plays the bitch, Jessica Walter, the stalker in a pantsuit. Walter is justly acclaimed for her performance, but get a load of Clint! His essential masochism is here revealed, a quality he never had the courage to revisit in later films. Too bad the current transfer of the film looks like shit. Why is it KL can't do right by Eastwood? (or can do right only intermittently?)

Another good early Eastwood-directed movie is Breezy (1973). It was the third movie he directed: first Play Misty For Me, then High Plains Drifter, then Breezy. I never see it mentioned anywhere, but it's pretty good. William Holden is a middle-aged, conservative guy, who falls for Kay Lenz, a teen hippie. (In 1973, Holden was 55 and Lenz was 20.)

The plot definitely seems ripped off of Middle of the Night, a good 1959 movie ? screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, based on his own stage play. In the movie, the actors are Fredric March and Kim Novak. Edward G. Robinson was in the play in 1956-1957  ? It was his first stage work since 1930, and he took the gig because he was gray-listed at the time https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/edward-g-robinson-5280

[dave jenkins]

Mank (2020) - 3/10. In order to beatify the life and work of St. Mankiewicz, the makers of Mank decided to demonize just about everybody else. Not Welles: he's irrelevant, apparently he did almost nothing on the screenplay. The movie isn't really about Citizen Kane, or the writing of it, anyway, rather, it's about a man who supported Upton Sinclair for governor of California in 1934. It's also the story of a wonderful drunk with a heart of gold, who, in life, was completely ineffectual in every regard, but was able to bear witness to the perfidy about him. That perfidy is performed, in flashback, by a cast of Hollywood A-listers, every one, according to Finchers fils and pere, a shit. Hearst of course is evil, as is Louis B. Mayer, but the recriminations don't end there: Irving Thalberg is presented as utterly craven; Mank's brother Joe comes off as an industry tool; John Houseman is a buffoon; Selznick, an empty suit; even Marion Davies, who is treated respectfully throughout most of the movie, is finally shown to be feckless and vain.  It would be one thing if the characters were entirely the invention of the filmmakers--then they would just be boring. But they bear the names of actual historical people, people who were complex, people who, when summoned back from the dead, should be given substance. Were any of these folks actually talented? Were they at least good at what they did? The film couldn't care less. The important thing was how they got along with Mank, who saved us all, drinking himself to death for our sins. The stench of sanctimony wafting its way to me from the screen really put me off my popcorn.

[dave jenkins]

DJ can you share some photos of your film collection? Seems to me like you have thousands of movies.

Uh, you want to see photos of DVD spines? Well, I'll see what I can do . . .  .

[noodles_leone]

Mank (2020) - 3/10. In order to beatify the life and work of St. Mankiewicz, the makers of Mank decided to demonize just about everybody else. Not Welles: he's irrelevant, apparently he did almost nothing on the screenplay. The movie isn't really about Citizen Kane, or the writing of it, anyway, rather, it's about a man who supported Upton Sinclair for governor of California in 1934. It's also the story of a wonderful drunk with a heart of gold, who, in life, was completely ineffectual in every regard, but was able to bear witness to the perfidy about him. That perfidy is performed, in flashback, by a cast of Hollywood A-listers, every one, according to Finchers fils and pere, a shit. Hearst of course is evil, as is Louis B. Mayer, but the recriminations don't end there: Irving Thalberg is presented as utterly craven; Mank's brother Joe comes off as an industry tool; John Houseman is a buffoon; Selznick, an empty suit; even Marion Davies, who is treated respectfully throughout most of the movie, is finally shown to be feckless and vain.  It would be one thing if the characters were entirely the invention of the filmmakers--then they would just be boring. But they bear the names of actual historical people, people who were complex, people who, when summoned back from the dead, should be given substance. Were any of these folks actually talented? Were they at least good at what they did? The film couldn't care less. The important thing was how they got along with Mank, who saved us all, drinking himself to death for our sins. The stench of sanctimony wafting its way to me from the screen really put me off my popcorn.

I don't know what I did to you and why you want to hurt me but this isn't working.

[Cusser]

Le Rafle (2010) French film about round up of French jews in 1942.  Shows the french police and army terrified of the Nazis, so acted just like them, sad.  French with English subtitles.  Titled "The Roundup" too.  Melanie Laurant stars.

[noodles_leone]

Le Rafle (2010) French film about round up of French jews in 1942.  Shows the french police and army terrified of the Nazis, so acted just like them, sad.  French with English subtitles.  Titled "The Roundup" too.  Melanie Laurant stars.

It's famous for being pretty bad, in France. But what it depicts is real, and terrible (the big question is still open and very much part of the public debate: did the French police do what the nazis were asking or did they do MORE?). The filmmaker infamously (and implictely) said the people who didn't like the film were nazis, in two separate occasions. Here is the quote for one of the 2, for those who speak french:

"Il lui manque un gene : celui de la compassion [...] On pleure pendant La Rafle parce que... on ne peut que pleurer. Sauf si on est un enfant gat? de l'?poque, sauf si on se d?lecte du cynisme au cin?ma, sauf si on consid?re que les ?motions humaines sont une abomination ou une faiblesse. C'est du reste ce que pensait Hitler : que les ?motions sont de la sensiblerie. Il est int?ressant de voir que ces pisse-froid rejoignent Hitler en esprit, non ?"

- Roselyne Bosch, about those who aren't moved by her terrible film.

It's one of these cases where you've got to separate the film from the actual events it depicts from the artist. Luckily, here, all 3 elements get a rating near 0/10.

[noodles_leone]

Demolition Man (1993) 7/10
Very fun. Weirdly enough, it seems to be more about what 2021 will be about rather than 1993. I like the sets and costumes a lot.

Le Professionnel (1981) 5.5/10
They had a terrific movie in it but it would have required a much better director. Lautner managed to make Audiard?s dialogues sound lame. Still a lot of great ideas in it.
Next: Peur sur la Ville (Netflix France just uploaded a lot of classic Belmondo flicks, which also means quite a lot of Ennio Morricone to go with them)

[dave jenkins]

Living the Light-Robby Muller (2018) - 9/10. Scenes from Robby's greatest hits--Goalie's Anxiety, Alice, Kings, American Friend, Until the End of the World, Barfly, Mystery Train, Deadman, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark--but also outtakes, home movies, lots and lots of Polaroids. The usual suspects--Wim, Jim, Lars--provide commentary, but we also hear from members of the family (Muller died in 2018). Wonderful images. I'm docking this a point because it's only 86 mnutes: it should have gone on for days.

[dave jenkins]

Ghost Dog (1999) - 7/10. This is the one Jarmusch I'd never seen before, and the release of the new CC blu-ray is the occasion that allows me to correct that. This film isn't mentioned in the Living the Light documentary, which is odd, because it is beautifully lit, beautifully shot. You will believe that Jersey City is a work of art, which is something of a miracle. The story isn't bad, a kind of parody of Le Samourai, but it goes on a little too long, perhaps Jim had trouble finding an ending. Throughout the piece there are quotations from Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai, an actual ancient text; Forrest Whitaker intones words as they appear on the screen (a technique Jim would reuse in Paterson). Some of these aphorisms are clever, maybe even profound, but Jarmusch didn't use my favorite: "A samurai should live as though already dead, renouncing sensual pleasures. Once he no longer seeks the company of women, he can enter into perfect Dicklessness. A dickless samurai, no longer distracted with trips to Baltimore or D.C., can pursue his vocation faithfully, never missing a deadline. This is the acme of contentment."  Words of wisdom, Lloyd. Words of wisdom.

[dave jenkins]

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda (2017) - 8/10. Or is it Coda: Ryuichi Sakamoto? Either way it is a portrait of the musician and composer who, among other accomplishments, is responsible for the scores of The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky, and The Revenant.  The film begins with a visit to Fukushima in 2014 (Sakamoto, although Japanese, has lived in New York since the 80s). Then he announces to the camera that he has been diagnosed with throat cancer: he spends the rest of the film vacillating between pursuing treatment (which includes not doing any meaningful work) and doing meaningful work. Guess what he decides at the end? In the meantime we see career highlights: work with his 80s band YMO, his career as a solo artist, and, of course,  film clips showing off his most memorable cues. We also learn that he's a huge Tarkovsky fan, especially of Solaris, especially of the soundtrack of Solaris, which includes Bach, the sounds of raindrops and footsteps. Eventually it emerges that all of this is background for work on his 2017 album, async. Not only does he finish the album, we see him performing it live at the Park Avenue Armory to a select audience. As I was watching, I suddenly remembered that the Jenkins Archive holds a copy of async, and that I'd never listened to it. Miraculously, once the film finished, I was able to find the CD within seconds. I found some interesting liner notes:

I decided that the concept of my new album would be "a soundtrack for an Andrei Tarkovsky film that does not exist." As I thought about the scenes from his 7 films that have been embedded in my memory so deeply, I began assembling sound--of my walk in the woods, raindrops in my garden, scratches of a shamisen, and Arseny Tarkovsky's poetry read by my good friend David Sylvian.

I appreciate the fact that the film put me on to this album, although I won't be listening to it all that many times (not too many tunes, mostly a collection of highly abstract noodlings). I also like the reminder to re-watch Solaris soon, which I will do.

[dave jenkins]

Una vita difficile / A Difficult Life (1961) - 7/10. As I watched this I was frequently annoyed with the Sordi character--what a loser! And he's got Lea Massari, and he just throws her away--twice! Sometimes Sordi is funny, but a lot of times he's just pathetic and Risi doesn't cut away early enough. Plus all the references to Italian history is of no interest to anyone here in the Anglo-sphere. But I found myself reflecting on the film later and actually laughing at things I remembered, so it's go something. The bit actors are very good.

https://ok.ru/video/2431010671214
Watched it again and loved it. Very funny. No one deadpans like Sordi. Even the ending didn't bother me this time. This is now an 8/10, maybe even a 9.