Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[cigar joe]

The City That Never Sleeps (1953) Gig Young, Marla Powers, William Tallman, Marie Windsor, Chill Wills, and Chicago, interesting Film Noir. Discouraged policeman tron between chucking it all for a stripper or carrying on his family tradition. 7/10

[PowerRR]

The Quiet Duel
This one passes the lines of melodrama and instead comes off as a daytime TV soap opera special. Thankfully, this 'soap opera' is masterfully directed by Akira Kurosawa, who somehow makes the often-times hammy plot/dialogue into an intriguing drama. It's one of his lesser movies, but I've still yet to see a Kurosawa film I've disliked. High and Low comes close because of it's messy structure.

[sargatanas]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i think charlie manson caught this film in '64 and used it as a prototype for his " family" the tate labianca murders ( the wino )
you got the inner family, ( james caan ) randall, rapheal campos ( esse ) and jennifer billingsly ( elaine ) as murderous as randall. jeff cory is my favorite character ( the old wino george l. brady, jr. ) who gets stabbed by esse via randall's orders.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058283/   scatman crothers even plays a thug.  watch whole movie here\

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSlodP2MZxA virtually every character is a predator. i saw it in '64 when i was 15. james caan's  introduction to the movies.
    anybody else seen this ? it was banned in britian in '64 for obvious reasons. very mansonesque'

[dave jenkins]

High and Low comes close because of it's messy structure.

High and Low has an elegant structure, and it is AK's best film.

[PowerRR]

High and Low has an elegant structure, and it is AK's best film.

I hate how it feels like two different movies. The first half is extremely tense and absolutely excellent, mixing Mifune's moral dilemma with Hitchcock-like suspense. I consider this close to Kurosawa's best work. And then it turns into a pretty decent crime noir, but with almost its own plot. The perfection of the first half is thrown out the window, and that's when I lost interest (probably around or a little after the train photography scene). I will say a second viewing is probably necessary now that I know the film's overall focus.

[dave jenkins]

I hate how it feels like two different movies. The first half is extremely tense and absolutely excellent, mixing Mifune's moral dilemma with Hitchcock-like suspense. I consider this close to Kurosawa's best work. And then it turns into a pretty decent crime noir, but with almost its own plot. The perfection of the first half is thrown out the window . . . .

To be followed by the perfection of the second half. Granted, it becomes a very different movie at that point, but the second part is excellent in its own way. I particularly enjoy the change of pace. And anyway, there was no way the beginning half of the picture could be sustained for the entirety of the film. Were we supposed to stay at home with Mifune while the police are out chasing around and just wait with him by the phone? The focus of the story shifts--Mifune, the center of interest at the beginning, must give way to Nakadai and his team as they go about solving the crime. As police procedurals go, the second half of H&L is about as good as that kind of thing gets. And then Mifune, who has been in the background for the second half (but Kurosawa manages to keep him in the picture nonethess, he never disappears completely) returns to the foreground for the final coda, where AK gets to do some wonderful riffing on Dostoevsky. Masterful work.


This kind of thing is really difficult to pull off--the 2 films in one approach--which is why you don't see it very often. Lesser filmmakers settle for either the one-set observe-the-unities routine OR the run-all-over-town routine because they couldn't even conceive of combining the two. AK shows that he can not only conceive of it, he can do it, and convincingly. This is why he is rightly considered one of the 10 greatest filmmakers who've ever lived.

[Groggy]

Alien - 7/10 - 2nd viewing. Starts out really well, with a creepy futuristic atmosphere and set design, not to mention the variety of alien creepy-crawlies. The second half devolves into a slasher movie with a dick-headed alien, which is a pity.

[cigar joe]

Desperate (1947) Director: Anthony Mann, Stars: Steve Brodie, Audrey Long and Raymond Burr, a great little gem of a Noir 9/10

[PowerRR]

To be followed by the perfection of the second half. Granted, it becomes a very different movie at that point, but the second part is excellent in its own way. I particularly enjoy the change of pace. And anyway, there was no way the beginning half of the picture could be sustained for the entirety of the film. Were we supposed to stay at home with Mifune while the police are out chasing around and just wait with him by the phone? The focus of the story shifts--Mifune, the center of interest at the beginning, must give way to Nakadai and his team as they go about solving the crime. As police procedurals go, the second half of H&L is about as good as that kind of thing gets. And then Mifune, who has been in the background for the second half (but Kurosawa manages to keep him in the picture nonethess, he never disappears completely) returns to the foreground for the final coda, where AK gets to do some wonderful riffing on Dostoevsky. Masterful work.


This kind of thing is really difficult to pull off--the 2 films in one approach--which is why you don't see it very often. Lesser filmmakers settle for either the one-set observe-the-unities routine OR the run-all-over-town routine because they couldn't even conceive of combining the two. AK shows that he can not only conceive of it, he can do it, and convincingly. This is why he is rightly considered one of the 10 greatest filmmakers who've ever lived.

I'll have to watch it again. I guess my major complaint is that I didn't think that AK did a good job of keeping Mifune in the picture for the second half.

The New World: With More Frolicking, Whispering, and Trees
AKA The Extended Cut (my first real viewing of it). I'll defend the theatrical New World any day, a film that even Malick fans don't find to be all that great. Personally, it's still my least favorite of his films, but still a masterful work. With the extended cut however, I believe Malick overdoes his own style. The extra '40 minutes of footage' is really just that... footage. It doesn't add anything to the film except for length. I had just watched the original cut of The New World two months ago, and I couldn't tell you any specific differences (besides maybe one scene, the first few opening shots, and the addition of distracting title cards). The point being, almost all added footage is pointless time-fillers, which fail to contribute to either plot or emotional depth. Great, great film, but I don't think I'll be returning to the longer version other than for maybe the Blu-Ray aspect.

PS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UraxfJFTJk

[Groggy]

Prometheus - 7/10 - A decent stab at cerebral sci-fi, with lots of creative visuals (excellent even in 2-D) and plenty of interesting ideas that aren't fully realized. The story is well-executed aside from a silly, pointless twist two-thirds of the way through. Lots of gruesome gore but the aliens are less interesting than Scott's earlier beasts, even with a xenomorph walk-on. The cast too is disappointing: only Charlize Theron (icy hot as ever) and Michael Fassbender (playing an android playing Peter O'Toole playing T.E. Lawrence) make much impression. Ridley Scott's best film since American Gangster, showing he's still capable of competence.

[PowerRR]

American Gangster sucked.

The Royal Tenenbaums
Wes Anderson would be an excellent director if he toned down his style just a bit. It's often way too "IN YOUR FACE" but still a very entertaining and unique vision. This or Rushmore is his best movie, probably Rushmore (his style there is at the perfect level). I've seen them all besides Moonrise Kingdom, which I'm excited especially since it was filmed mainly about a half hour away from me in Rhode Island.

[Groggy]

The Adventures of Rusty - 4/10 - 3rd viewing. A miscreant boy rebels against his new stepmom, bonds with a vicious German shepherd and helps capture Nazi spies. Classic '40s kitsch, silly and mawkish without a trace of irony. The really bad parenting on display is a hoot (moms! win over your stepson by treating him like crap), and I'm still puzzling how Nazis got to Illinois via U-boat. Later entries are more enjoyable but this one is pretty amusing.

[Groggy]

A Few Good Men - 7/10 - 2nd viewing. A slickly made courtroom drama with several flaws. With an Aaron Sorkin script it's full of sharp dialogue, and the story and ideas are compelling even when it slips into contrivance. The leads are a problem: Tom Cruise is highly punchable, Demi Moore is bland and Jack Nicholson a bloviating caricature. Fortunately this allows the excellent supporting cast to step up to the plate: Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, Kiefer Sutherland, Wolfgang Bodison and the indispensible J.T. Walsh are superb. An entertaining movie but not as good as I remembered.

[Groggy]

The Wolf Man - 7/10 - Perfectly efficient vintage horror film.

[moviesceleton]

Avanti! (!972) - 5.5/10
Out of the fifteen movies I've seen from Wilder, this is one of the weakest. I had a couple of laughs, but overall it's rather jarring and stagy.