movies What's the last film you watched? And rate it!

High and Low 3/5
A title that did not fully reveal itself until the last scene. The first half is better than the second, although it has the common fallacy of a phone call taking a long time to trace… pro tip, if you call 911 and hang up… they still immediately know where you called from. you don't have to stay on the line for 60 seconds or however long some movies would have you believe.

Ugetsu 3/5
On time magazines top 100 films of all time.. this was entertaining, if not a little long. Near the end it got extremely creepy and gave me goosebumps.
 
Late Spring 2/5
Well it's definite. I'm not an ozu fan.
I'll have to put him in the same category as john ford. famous directors that I cannot stand.

The lead actress is pretty with a great smile, but then she spends the whole movie moping about. fail
 
sfoster said:
Late Spring 2/5
Well it's definite. I'm not an ozu fan.
I'll have to put him in the same category as john ford. famous directors that I cannot stand.

The lead actress is pretty with a great smile, but then she spends the whole movie moping about. fail
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At least you gave him a good shot by watching his two most celebrated works! :)
If you ever decide to explore international silent cinema I'd still recommend that you watch some of his silent films if only because they are very very very different from his works from his 'mature' period.
I've actually noticed a great amount of people that dislike Ozu also dislike Ford. And that many Ozu-lovers love Ford's work as well (as I do). I think I should try to seek out some parallels between their work (although they don't have much in common on a superficial level).

EDIT: Ah that lead actress is Setsuko Hara (my favorite actress btw!), if you want to see more of her work check out some of the films that she's in directed by Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita, and Akira Kurosawa's No Regrets For Our Youth. About a month ago I discovered a hidden gem she starred in titled The Ball At The Anjo House which I feel is one of cinema's greatest melodramas.

Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm directed by Eric Radomski & Bruce W. Timm - a strong 8/10
This is the Casablanca of Batman films! Its emotional ambitions through romance and effective use of flashback make this comparison clear for me. Not only is the animation great (like the other animated Batman films) but the story and character development is also great. I love how this film plays out very much like an Old Hollywood film with several twists in its story to keep the viewer interested. When I think of this film and analyze it, I feel like it is easily a masterpiece of conventional cinematic storytelling, however I don't know why but it doesn't resonate too strongly with me. Still this is a very great film even though I can't quite call it a masterpiece, anyone who loves Old Hollywood films will be surprised by how this film really feels like a film from that period in its storytelling. This film is actually better than many of the live-action Batman films IMO (though not all of them of course).
 
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Love And Death directed by Woody Allen - 9/10
This is so far the strongest Woody Allen film I've seen as I explore his filmography in chronological order. I like how it has the stronger concepts, intellectual references, cinematic influences, and cinematography that was found in Sleeper but in a much funnier film like his earlier ones. I love the dialogue in this, the Ingmar Bergman parodies, the Russian literature-inspired story, the philosophical discussions, the way it breaks the fourth wall, and especially the ending of the film which pretty much summarizes Allen's views. This was a remarkable film that was very funny and did so much with its length of under 90 minutes. Once again, another awesome film to see how Woody Allen develops as a filmmaker, and I'd say this is close to a masterpiece but not quite.
 
Curly Top directed by Irving Cummings; starring Shirley Temple - 6/10
An entertaining Shirley Temple vehicle. It's a very cute movie and I love the way Shirley Temple acts with her facial expressions. The filmmaking is solid but I feel like it could have done a better job at integrating the adult relationships (which is more melodramatic) with the cute Shirley scenes.
 
Rain (Regen) directed by Mannus Franken & Joris Ivens - 8/10
This short film is pure cinema aesthetics. I love the compositions and the way the film creates a living setting. However, the film didn't do much for me otherwise. I think my opinion may change if I watch it again. I like experimental cinema but some of these early experiments are too technical for my tastes. I love formalistic cinema though so I'll give this one another chance maybe in a week or so and watch more of these kinds of films!
 
Synecdoche, New York directed by Charlie Kaufman - 8/10
This is a very good film, but with my admiration there are quite a few reservations I have. I like the film's elliptical storytelling, its ambition, and the overall filmmaking is phenomenal. However, it felt lacking in some ways. The first comparison to come into my head was with the Michel Gondry directed Björk music video Bachelorette (a music video masterpiece IMO) with its 'play within a play' concept. Then I started seeing connections with Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 that got me even more interested. But I feel like this film lacks the sheer artistic brilliance of 8 1/2 or the charm of Bachelorette so then I look for more emotional connections in this film to make up for these weaknesses. But the fact is that the protagonist of the film is just a pretentious director that is unable to live a proper life. A lot of the ideas presented in the film are great, but I feel like this film could've had stronger relationships that would have given me more reason to care about the ideas.

Although I'm writing a lot of things I dislike, there are definitely lots of strengths in this film. It works perfectly fine as a great postmodern piece that plays with the viewer's expectations and explores interesting ideas. The filmmaking is great as I said, the cinematography is perfect for this kind of film, the acting is really good, and the elliptical storytelling always keeps me thinking but never throws me off completely! I think this is the first American film I've seen to implement elliptical storytelling properly, so that's a big plus! The character development in the beginning is incredible and sets us up to get into the real postmodern exploration later in the film. This is one of those films that my head loves a lot but my heart does not feel fully satisfied. I will want to watch this film again, especially since I had similar mixed feelings with some films that I now love a lot (this happened to me when I first tried to explore Godard).
 
Withnail and I 3/5

Started off amazing and had me laughing a bunch. The middle part with harry potter's gay dad in a cabin all really bored me. When they got back home again in the last 20 minutes it resumed being funny.

Chaplin Revue Disc 2 3/5
Another solid collection of chaplin shorts!! Disc 1 was slightly superior but all 4 of them on this disc were entertaining and worth the time to watch. Good show old chap (lin).
 
Glad you gave it a shot!

MiniJamesW said:
A lot of the ideas presented in the film are great, but I feel like this film could've had stronger relationships that would have given me more reason to care about the ideas.
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Interesting. I myself found the weak relationships within the film to contribute to the tone Kaufman was trying to create. The writer himself is incredibly disconnected from the world, only connected to the reality he has created, and the emotional relationships that exist out of the world that he has immersed himself into begin to deteriorate, and by the end he is trapped somewhere in between, disconnected from both realities, unsatisfied and depressed, unable to appreciate the power of his work or the amazing experiences of life. The play suffers from his destructive relationships existing outside of the play, the play perhaps being the thing that contributes to that destructiveness, both of them corrupting each other, and the main character not having relationships with people in either world.

This is one of those films that my head loves a lot but my heart does not feel fully satisfied. I will want to watch this film again, especially since I had similar mixed feelings with some films that I now love a lot (this happened to me when I first tried to explore Godard).
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Yup. Worth watching again. Roger Ebert wrote an article, naming Synecdoche, New York to be one the best film of the decade or 2000's (or whatever it was about, I forgot), and he stated the film was more satisfying and thought provoking upon second viewing.
 
Blind Date 2/5
This is the 37th bruce willis film I've seen. :lol:
It started off promising, kim basinger was a funny out of control drunk. But then she sobers up and the rest of the movie just drraaaags. I was surfing the web for the last half hour of this movie, I don't know why I ever bothered to finish it.

Deliverance 3/5
Really solid film here. Although I can't recall ever having seen a gay rape on film scene before… i think this was better than 'a river wild' with kevin bacon
 
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ChimpPhobiaFilms said:
Interesting. I myself found the weak relationships within the film to contribute to the tone Kaufman was trying to create. The writer himself is incredibly disconnected from the world, only connected to the reality he has created, and the emotional relationships that exist out of the world that he has immersed himself into begin to deteriorate, and by the end he is trapped somewhere in between, disconnected from both realities, unsatisfied and depressed, unable to appreciate the power of his work or the amazing experiences of life. The play suffers from his destructive relationships existing outside of the play, the play perhaps being the thing that contributes to that destructiveness, both of them corrupting each other, and the main character not having relationships with people in either world.
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While I agree with this, I just personally felt disconnected from the film because of it. I always try to connect with something in a film but aside from the postmodern structure I couldn't really grab on to anything. I do believe that if I watch it again I'll like it more (as film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum says, you have to watch a film once to get rid of expectations and then the second time you really are able to watch it).

I'd like to think that the protagonist was already corrupt before the play, the play only serves to illustrate this more vividly. I doubt that if he didn't get the grant money that he'd live a happy life with satisfying relationships.

However, I guess my point is not about the relationships later in the film but like the relationship with his daughter or with his first wife or even with Hazel. These three relationships (not the others) have several scenes that indicate that they are meaningful so when something sad happens I feel the movie wants us to care. But I didn't really care when
the daughter died or when any of these characters died
because the film only suggests that those relationships were meaningful. Now that you mentioned your point, I do actually see how this could strengthen most of the film but I think it still weakens these three key relationships in the film.

EDIT: After thinking about it, well at first I thought I may just have something against films with disconnectedness but then I remembered how much I loved Tsai Ming-liang's work. His work is pure alienation with barely any dialogue or characters and I loved the disconnectedness in that film. So I guess although I can't describe it really well, Synedoche, New York just doesn't succeed for me on that level.
 
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The Thin Blue Line directed by Errol Morris - 10/10
This is the Rashomon of documentaries in its persistent search for truth. Fortunately, in this case justice was served and the truth was revealed. I love how this film begins just telling multiple points of views and carefully examines the facts as the film goes along. The nonlinear story here works because it allows the audience to connect pieces of evidence and discover the truth along with the film. This is a wonderful documentary that tells a great story that unfortunately is still relevant as there are still flaws in justice systems in the U.S. and all over the world.
 
ChimpPhobiaFilms said:
I can see your POV. Definitely a movie that either clicks or doesn't.
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Yeah, I guess. It is one film that I am considering watching again later on though, so my mind may change (and I hope it does lol I want to appreciate every film that's worth appreciating!). And it's still a very good movie, I just feel like it didn't live up to its potential (which is very great, this is possibly the most ambitious film of the 21st century that I have seen!).
 
The Godfather directed by Francis Ford Coppola - 10/10
I don't even have much to say, this is just scene for scene one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces of all-time, I think it's flawless. I don't usually like watching long films so I delayed viewing this film for such a long time and now I realize how stupid I was lol. Hopefully part II is as good as people say it is! Thanks to this film from now on I'll be trying to watch at least one long film each week (150 min or longer).
 
I had an Oliver Stone marathon.
Every single movie was over two hours :lol:

Heaven and Earth 3/5
The last of his vietnam trilogy, I wish my disc came with a commentary so I could hear about if tommy lee jones character was based on a real person. What a mindfuck. I enjoyed this but platoon was still by far the best of the trilogy. I thought this movie dragged a little bit for me

The Doors 3/5
I can't believe I watched this sober. This movie made me want to drop acid and party like a rock star. Also can't believe that with a whole world of drugs at his fingertips jim's poison of choice was to drink himself to death. I've just never gotten that much joy out of alcohol. Also this guy didn't really know how to party in the first place, getting drunk and walking out on ledges threatening to kill yourself isn't cool. It's being an attention whore (in a bad way)

Also thought it was nuts that he kept getting back with meg ryan. They both tried to kill each other at different points and yet no one broke it off.. I had a girl almost kill me once, that was the end of our relationship. Then again I don't have an obsession for flirting with death like these two

Savages 3/5
This movie really made me want some pizza. :lol: I realize now I haven't had pizza in a long time.. Also, once again a movie that would probably be better if you're not sober. I'm seeing a pattern here. I also think I heard some doors music at one point but I can't be sure. I didn't really like how there were two different endings. Bizarre and misleading. This was no scarface but it was enjoyable nonetheless (oliver stone wrote scarface for those of you that aren't aware)
 
This popped into my head today :lol:
I never listened to the doors (though i guess i had heard that light my fire song in passing) before watching the film, although I had seen the jimmy fallon skit here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBRYsAfchkY
 
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