rate the last movie you saw

Talk about the latest movies and video releases here!
Message
Author
User avatar
Paul MacLean
Posts: 7031
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2004 10:26 pm
Location: New York

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3166 Post by Paul MacLean »

Mishima (6/10)

Paul Schrader's 1985 film tells the story of Yukio Mishima, one of most esteemed and successful writers of 20th century Japan -- who shocked the nation when he took an army general captive, and then committed seppuku (i.e. ritual suicide) after delivering an impassioned speech about the importance of tradition and nationalism to the soldiers under the general's command.

Mishima's life story is a potentially interesting one, with all the requisite trappings that produce a "tormented artist" -- a difficult upbringing, an overly-protective grandmother, an overbearing father (though oddly Mishima's father is not included in the film's narrative), difficulty impressing girls, and a dissatisfaction with life despite his artistic success.

However the film is ambiguous about what kind of character it is trying to depict. At times it would seem to promote the idea of its title character as a "visionary" -- a literary giant (his western equivalent would be someone on the level of Norman Mailer or Gore Vidal), but a tragically misunderstood one. At other times, the character comes off as a sociopathic narcissist -- a man insecure about his sexuality, vain about his looks, and desperate to be more "significant" than a mere writer. Mishima forms a private paramilitary organization (presumably tolerated by the government because of the writer's celebrity), whose young recruits idolize him. His grandly audacious publicity stunt -- carried out ostensibly to inspire the military to return to their warrior roots -- comes off as an act of presumptuous arrogance, and an attempt to go down in history as a "martyr".

Jeered and mocked by the soldiers, he disembowels himself in the samurai tradition. Clearly Mishima was insane (and colossally egotistical) if he actually believed anyone in Japan would embrace his plea to return to the archaic, militaristic traditions which all but destroyed the nation in World War II (especially when the country was in the midst of the most prosperous era in its history).

The film also neglects to show that the young acolyte who was supposed to decapitate Mishima after he stabbed himself (in accordance with samurai tradition, to quickly end the suffering of someone committing seppuku) actually botched the job, making several failed attempts to sever his master's head, and finally handing the sword to someone else. (Of course, this would be difficult to portray without coming off as utterly revolting, or conversely, funny -- though more likely some grotesque combination of the two.)

Apart from the fact the protagonist isn't especially sympathetic, Schrader's interpretation of the material is dense, and frequently confusing. Some scenes are shot in color, others in black and white, with still other scenes where it is not entirely clear whether one is watching a stylized flashback or a dramatization of one of Mishima's plays. In fairness, the scenes where Mishima prepares and carries out his "grand final gesture" have a level of suspense and dramatic tension, plus they are depicted in a more straightforward manner (unlike much of the rest of the movie). I think if Schrader had opted to be less "stylish" it might have resulted in a more effective picture.

Phillip Glass' score is comically inappropriate, its monotonous, endlessly repeating arpeggios and "loops" providing no dramatic support or interpretation of the drama, but just smearing over the whole thing like white sound. (Presumably Schrader felt such an "important" subject couldn't be left in the hands of a "Hollywood hack" -- a film of this stature required a "real" composer. :roll: )


Eric Paddon
Posts: 8595
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2005 5:49 pm

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3167 Post by Eric Paddon »

In Cold Blood (1967) (6 of 10)

So I saw this for the first time courtesy of my Criterion discount. The location footage is great, the performances by Robert Blake (life later imitates art?) and Scott Wilson are compelling, but......in the end I have to ask what was the point, ultimately? I haven't read Capote's book but to be honest, this is just not a true crime story that I think was begging to be told, at least not in this fashion. Richard Brooks goes out of his way to make the victims who were slaughtered brutally the most one-note boring people you could ever meet as if out of a purposeful attempt to not make us overly care about them, and thus that way we can end up "caring" about all the psycho-babble behind Perry Smith's troubled past and his torturous relationship with his father etc. and somehow be motivated to think that executing him is a "crime" because he was "mentally ill." Sorry, I don't buy that argument. What may have seemed so uber-realistic compelling then today has the effect of looking more like an A+E/Discovery Channel type documentary with dramatized re-enactments that you see today. I came away quite underwhelmed.

User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3168 Post by AndyDursin »

I was surprised you bought IN COLD BLOOD -- didn't seem like it was your kind of film Eric. And I agree, that's pretty much how I felt about it also when it was over. What I did appreciate were the stylistic elements of the film and the cinematography by Conrad Hall -- I think those elements of the film are notable. But ultimately, to some degree, it's also not unlike TOM JONES, where it was a "rite of passage" for cinema in the 1960s but is a movie that's not as great as its reputation might lead one to believe. Also I felt the movie didn't do a particularly good job of following through on its obvious intent -- which was to humanize the killers, because in the end, I felt they got exactly what they deserved, which wasn't what Capote was hoping to convey.

Eric Paddon
Posts: 8595
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2005 5:49 pm

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3169 Post by Eric Paddon »

I think I decided to give it a chance because I can appreciate realistic type "process" investigation stuff as I have in many a TV series. I didn't read the book but I did when I was young read "Helter-Skelter" which can be said to have built on that style (even though it benefited from being written by the actual prosecutor). I can see what they were doing with the barrier breaking on language and bodily function references, but I just was stunned how a film so lauded lacked any sense of compelling narrative. The one-note monotone delivery of the victims as we saw them in their lives before they were slaughtered and even when they were being terrorized was something I knew Brooks was doing on purpose and it really rubbed me the wrong way because it was as if he was saying, "They're not important.....they're total non-entities." Only when the daughter is being terrorized was their a bit of an exception to this, but even there it was being done more to show a "humanizing" touch in Blake that was really unearned ultimately.

And yes, these two killers got what they deserved. I will admit I'm not a fan of hanging as a form of execution but this type of killing is exactly why I have no sympathy for those who are anti-death penalty in all cases.

User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3170 Post by AndyDursin »

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
5/10

Director Kenneth Branagh puts the heavy accent (no pun intended) on star Kenneth Branagh’s plum role of Detective Hercule Poirot in this forgettable new take on Agatha Christie’s oft-adapted novel.

Although he utilizes Christie’s list of suspects as fodder for an all-star supporting cast – Willem Dafoe, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Josh Gad, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, and Leslie Odom Jr. among them – Branagh vainly reworks the material as less of an ensemble piece (as Sidney Lumet’s 1974 film was) and more a showcase for Poirot, even going so far as to set up the ending as a “franchise” for himself in the film’s concluding frames!

Throughout, this Ridley Scott-produced picture also feels too contemporary in its casting and artificial in its visual gloss, with Branagh tediously using the same exterior shot of the train car over and over again. Johnny Depp also fails to register as the story’s antagonist, while Michael Green’s script sticks closely enough to the source so that anyone familiar with it will find no surprises at all. Ultimately, it’s hard not to think buying a boarding pass for the 1974 version isn’t still a much better idea.

Fox’s 4K UHD presentation looks nice though the HDR tends to accentuate the movie’s overly digital appearance. The Dolby Atmos audio is serviceable though the muddled accents are sometimes garbled in their delivery here. Extras on the Blu-Ray include deleted scenes, commentary from Branagh and Green, a handful of featurettes and a Digital HD copy.

Eric Paddon
Posts: 8595
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2005 5:49 pm

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3171 Post by Eric Paddon »

Yes, I was underwhelmed by it. The casting is indeed too "contemporary" and on top of that they have to start the film by giving us a "Poirot steps in ****" moment that epitomizes the cheap coarseness of contemporary film thinking.

User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3172 Post by AndyDursin »

Eric Paddon wrote: Tue Feb 27, 2018 2:53 pm Yes, I was underwhelmed by it. The casting is indeed too "contemporary" and on top of that they have to start the film by giving us a "Poirot steps in ****" moment that epitomizes the cheap coarseness of contemporary film thinking.
It's sad, because it's kind of thing where you wish it WAS good, and was well handled, because goodness knows most of us are tired of tentpoles and $200 million budgeted super-heroes. But the film really was lacking...like "Agatha Christie For Dummies" or something. :lol:

User avatar
Paul MacLean
Posts: 7031
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2004 10:26 pm
Location: New York

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3173 Post by Paul MacLean »

I haven't seen this movie, but I never understand this need to remake classics.

Ok, it is based on a great book, and some some material is good enough to merit multiple adaptations (as Branagh himself proved with Henry V).

But the 1974 Murder on the Orient Express is one of those perfect films. It is a veritable "who's-who" of cinematic icons -- not just the cast (which is incredible -- Finney, Bacall, Connery, Widmark, Perkins, York, Hiller, Bergman, Gielgud, etc.) but also Geoffrey Unsworth, Richard Rodney Bennett, and of course Sidney Lumet. How can you improve on that?


User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3174 Post by AndyDursin »

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
7.5/10

Writer-director Martin McDonagh’s films can be an acquired taste, but he mostly gets it right in this well-acted tale of a grieving, frustrated mother (Frances McDormand) who takes to criticizing the local sheriff (Woody Harrelson) over the lack of information regarding her daughter’s brutal rape and murder. In putting up a series of billboards on the outskirts of their small Missouri town, McDormand’s character stirs up a swath of emotions both for herself and her teenage son, as well as other colorful characters in town – most particularly a child-like deputy (Sam Rockwell) who lives with his mother and pet turtle.

“Three Bilboards” is an entertaining and interesting film, constantly straddling the line between disturbing violence and comedy while populated by characters filled with contradictions. McDormand is, as always, marvelous while Rockwell is dynamic as a character who veers from being despicable to commendable – as most of McDonagh’s characters are. As with some of the director’s past work, some viewers may not care for the jarring tonal shifts between pain and lightheartedness, but the mix is nevertheless potent and more satisfying here than in much of his prior efforts.

Eric Paddon
Posts: 8595
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2005 5:49 pm

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3175 Post by Eric Paddon »

Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) 8 of 10

-Another one of my Criterion discount purchases, this was the first time I'd seen this film. We have reached a point in time where we are more years away from this film than the people who made it were from when Lincoln was alive. It represents how we learned history from Hollywood in a way that was by no means accurate (the trial that served as the basis for the story actually took place in 1858 and involved a completely different scenario), but nonetheless gave us some basic truths about truly great figures in American history and more importantly instilled a love and reverence for America's past that has vanished completely from today's Hollywood. Fonda is excellent, and I was struck by how Ford gave us a shot and lighting at the end when Lincoln steps forward that through the shadows conveys the illusion of an older bearded Lincoln even though he isn't. I hadn't realized that Alfred Newman first used the main theme I remembered so well in "A Man Called Peter" in this film and it works well. It was also surprising to see Milburn Stone, Doc from "Gunsmoke" looking so young and without moustache in his role as the young Stephen A. Douglas (also the first time I ever saw Ward Bond without a moustache)

-I do have to admit though that the courtroom theatrics that culminate with Lincoln exposing the "real killer" can today seem more like a blueprint for the climactic kind of courtroom theatrics that defined a weekly Perry Mason episode (and perhaps that in fact was the basis for what they went with). But otherwise, the film was a great one to be introduced to.

User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3176 Post by AndyDursin »

Couple more very quick takes:

I TONYA
6/10


Surprisingly lightweight -- and disposable -- dramatization of the infamous figure skater's life and times isn't nearly as interesting as one of the real documentaries on Tonya Harding herself (ESPN's "Price of Gold" 30 for 30 documentary most specifically). Margot Robbie gives a capable performance but director Craig Gillespie's film is as annoyingly interested in the peripheral details of the hangers-on who essentially sunk her career, from her mother (Allison Janey) to her deadbeat boyfriend/husband (Sebastian Stan). The movie employs a freewheeling approach that's never as clever or funny as it thinks it is; the skating sequences are vibrantly edited and Robbie has one strong scene near the end (when Harding tearfully receives her sentence from a judge), but it's not nearly enough to recommend this disappointingly shallow affair.

LADYBIRD
6.5/10


If I just walked into Greta Gerwig's directorial debut and had heard nothing about it, I'd have thought LADYBIRD was a familiar, mildly enjoyable yet superficial film about an extroverted Sacramento teenager (Saoirse Ronan), yearning for "something more," and her senior year at a private Catholic school. That this little movie was universally acclaimed and nominated for a slew of Oscars, though, is almost impossible to believe. Gerwig's movie is distressingly short on development, introducing a series of would-be subplots that must've been jettisoned in the editing room as they serve no point at all, while the film artlessly moves from one predictable "high school" standby (Ladybird constantly blows up at her hard-working mother [Laurie Metcalf], only to realize she shares something in common with her; Ladybird ditches her best friend for a more popular clique; Ladybird finds out neither of her romantic pursuits are all they're cracked up to be) to the next. It all ends right at the 90 minute mark, in a neutral position that pretty much sums up how I felt about this well-performed yet overpraised picture.

BobaMike
Posts: 558
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 5:57 pm

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3177 Post by BobaMike »

Black Panther
6/10

Some buddies and I finally got around to seeing this movie, after hearing how amazing it was for the past few weeks. Many of my students have raved how funny and exciting it was.

I don't understand their enthusiasm for the movie. All of us came away thinking we enjoyed other Marvel movies much more (even the last two, Spiderman and Thor 3 were better in my view).

quick thoughts as my students take a test:
-the main character has no arc. He is a perfect wonderful human being, stays the same, and ends just as he started. The only challenge for him was dying in a fight. (from which he magically comes back to life). He learns nothing, and was boring to me.
-too much unbelievability. I can buy a "Spider" man, I can believe in a talking outerspace racoon, but an entire hidden country that is advanced beyond all reason strains credibility. Of course I come across as racist for even thinking that.
-the score was okay, but mostly just sounded like his Creed score + African drums
-sub-par effects. Every time the characters were outside in the sun, it looked completely fake and green-screened (which it probably was). And those Rhinos looked pathetic.
-I didn't like that they killed off Andy Serkis, as he was the only bright spot in the movie, which dragged a lot after he was gone.

User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3178 Post by AndyDursin »

BM, thanks for the review. I was going to see it but weather and other issues got in the way. At this point I'm going to wait for video!

User avatar
AndyDursin
Posts: 34185
Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
Location: RI

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3179 Post by AndyDursin »

ANNIHILATION
6/10

Natalie Portman goes looking for what happened to her formerly MIA soldier-husband (Oscar Isaac), who vanished in a top secret area housed by an extraterrestrial organism in this latest sci-fi thriller from Alex Garland ("Ex Machina"), still in theaters though now on Netflix outside the U.S.

A horrifying and at times extremely disturbing "apocalyptic" picture, "Annihilation" is well-made but suffers from the same issue I had with Garland's other film -- namely, why I should care about any of its mopey protagonists in a humorless setting that's patently depressing to experience from a viewer's standpoint. Portman leads a team of fellow females -- all emotionally ravaged in some way -- into "The Shimmer," but Garland is really more interested in its lead character's compulsion (if not downright self-destruction) than anything else.

There are some images in this film that are hard to shake off (including one sequence involving a mutated bear-like creature), but there's also nobody to root for, with downbeat flashbacks to Portman and Isaac's relationship intercutting the sometimes gory creature-mutants the characters experience. It's like watching "Ordinary People" mixed with "The Thing," and even though some critics have hailed this as a kind of "intellectual sci-fi masterwork," the plot isn't any smarter than a '50s B-movie, ending with a weird climax and a predictable downbeat "twist" that Paramount (understandably) wanted to reshoot.

I also have to admit, on a personal level, these kind of films are becoming less and less interesting to me. This is a movie about depression and loss in addition to the end of the world -- it used to be enough to "escape" in a genre film with characters you might care about facing insurmountable odds, even if the circumstances are dire (like "The Thing"). "Annihilation" is a grim, hopeless, pretentious, heavy film, one that you don't find escapism from, but rather come out feeling worse than you did when it started. Frankly, after going through several funerals in the last year, not only didn't I like how it made me feel, but I question what it actually adds to the human condition in general. It's well made and acted, and has some impressive imagery -- but so what?

User avatar
Paul MacLean
Posts: 7031
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2004 10:26 pm
Location: New York

Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3180 Post by Paul MacLean »

AndyDursin wrote: Wed Mar 14, 2018 9:18 am There are some images in this film that are hard to shake off (including one sequence involving a mutated bear-like creature)
Wow, I've never seen anything like that in a movie before!

Post Reply