Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[drinkanddestroy]

Shadows (1959)  This is hailed as the first American Indie film to receive success outside of the Hollywood System.  Directed by John Cassavetes and inspired by a acting class he was running in New York.  The project is basically a movie length improvisation filmed on location in New York without filming permits and no script.  Cassavetes would tell the actors what he wanted on the spot and they would improvise.  It was very low budget and the film flopped during initial screenings.  Cassavetes remade the film and critics who loved the original say the second was more commercial in nature and lost the appeal of the original.  I found the film to have great subject matter but found it tedious to watch.  I couldn't get past some of the acting.  I rate it a 6 out of 10...

I agree, I found Shadows to be crap.

[noodles_leone]

Amarcord - 7/10
Slowly but surely catching up with my "impossible to miss yet somehow missed until that point films". I liked it a lot, but it's clunky as hell. It works more as an inpiration for other filmmakers than as an actual film.

Paris est à nous - 5/10
A feature film that started with a director and actors filming guerrilla style in the street of Paris right  after the 2015 attacks, then became a Kickstarter campaign and is now on Netlfix. The writing isn't good, the voice over is mostly empty and pretentious and the whole thing is way too heavily inspired by Terrence Mallick (without the grace) and Gaspar Noe (without the raw sensual and violent power... but with the stupid characters) for its own good. Of course, given how it was done, the film had to be flawed. They could have managed to create interesting characters though. Yet, they caught something on camera, something from that period. This is how Paris was for 6 months. And from time to time, the voice over "gets it" for a few seconds. All in all, a bad film that would deserve a lesser note, but I like the story of the production (go guerilla!), and more importantly... it's a good thing it exists. Hence the rating.

Die Hard with a Vengeance - 8.5/10
Of course, the very best of the series. I like the French title better though: une Journée en Enfer (a Day in Hell).

Margin Call - 7/10
Very good dialogues, great performances.

[drinkanddestroy]

Die Hard with a Vengeance - 8.5/10
Of course, the very best of the series. I like the French title better thoug: une Journée en Enfer (a Day in Hell).

Ahhh, this brings back memories!

In my late teenaged years (early 2000's), I watched those 3 Die Hard movies a total of like a hundred times on VHS. And this one was my favorite of all - I watched it more than the first two combined. (If The Patriot was my favorite film, Die Hard with a Vengeance was not too far behind.)

BTW, I watched the fourth one once and did not like it. I have not bothered to see the fifth.

[noodles_leone]

Ahhh, this brings back memories!

In my late teenaged years (early 2000's), I watched those 3 Die Hard movies a total of like a hundred times on VHS. And this one was my favorite of all - I watched it more than the first two combined. (If The Patriot was my favorite film, Die Hard with a Vengeance was not too far behind.)

BTW, I watched the fourth one once and did not like it. I have not bothered to see the fifth.

I have watched the fourth. Its first 40 minutes are watchable. I haven't bothered with the 5th installment which is, by all accounts, an embarrassment for everyone involved.
Anyway, Die Hard 3 aged amazingly well. If you forget the over use of long focals and remove something like 30-60 seconds of discussion about race that feel outdated ("Have I ever oppressed you?"), it could be released tomorrow and be a huge success.

[dave jenkins]

Les miserables (1933) - 10/10. Greatest French film ever made (yes, even superior to Children of Paradise--CoP doesn't have Harry Baur).

[drinkanddestroy]

I have watched the fourth. Its first 40 minutes are watchable. I haven't bothered with the 5th installment which is, by all accounts, an embarrassment for everyone involved.
Anyway, Die Hard 3 aged amazingly well. If you forget the over use of long focals and remove something like 30-60 seconds of discussion about race that feel outdated ("Have I ever oppressed you?"), it could be released tomorrow and be a huge success.

Today they would have to make the racial dialogue about the white guy hating blacks instead of the other way around.

And no way would they have a white guy walk into Harlem wearing a sandwich board reading, "I HATE NIGGERS."

The action there - though of course not really "realistic," was ok for movie suspension of disbelief. But I remember that the 4th had this scene where the car flies up and hits the helicopter and I just rolled my eyes and said, "This is BS. This movie is supposed to be live action action, not cartoon action."

One thing a bit odd, IMO, was the use of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" as the musical theme.

YIPEEKAYAY MOTHERFUCKER!

[noodles_leone]

Today they would have to make the racial dialogue about the white guy hating blacks instead of the other way around.

I absolutely don't think so. Crash got an Oscar for doing it exactly the same way.

[dave jenkins]

Taxi Driver (1976) - 7/10. Chapman's photography is superb, as is Herrmann's score. Scorsese is remarkably good as an actor. Bobby, of course, is very pretty. A shame about Harvey Keitel, though--he's just not black enough to be a convincing pimp. And the ending is still ridiculous.

[PowerRR]

Taxi Driver (1976) - 7/10. Chapman's photography is superb, as is Herrmann's score. Scorsese is remarkably good as an actor. Bobby, of course, is very pretty. A shame about Harvey Keitel, though--he's just not black enough to be a convincing pimp. And the ending is still ridiculous.

Who the fuck gives Taxi Driver a seven? That's like saying "Yeah, I guess Once Upon a time in the West is kinda all right"

[dave jenkins]

Who the fuck gives Taxi Driver a seven?

Someone who was sitting in a theater watching it in 1976 and who has watched it many times subsequently, sonny.

[noodles_leone]

Who the fuck gives Taxi Driver a seven? That's like saying "Yeah, I guess Once Upon a time in the West is kinda all right"

So now you're taking the "objective, rational" approach to movie rating, kid?

[PowerRR]

Someone who was sitting in a theater watching it in 1976 and who has watched it many times subsequently, sonny.

Fair enough, gramps.

So now you're taking the "objective, rational" approach to movie rating, kid?

I always like to change it up.

[cigar joe]

Who the fuck gives Taxi Driver a seven? That's like saying "Yeah, I guess Once Upon a time in the West is kinda all right"

agree.

shame about Harvey Keitel, though--he's just not black enough to be a convincing pimp

Why would he have to be black? He looks more like a Puerto Rican pimp.

[T.H.]

I love Keitel and think Taxi Driver is an easy 10/10 movie, but DJ is right about the character. If they're going to cast Keitel, they should have had him play a scumbag junkie pimp instead of a jive talking white pimp that I assume didn't exist on the NYC streets in the 70s.

[dave jenkins]

Pickpocket (1959)  I like Robert Bresson films so I gave this a look.  I loved the on location filming and the cinematography.  The plot was kinda thin but I liked how they showed how these thieves work.  I rate it a 7.5 out of 10...

Marika Green?