Amph What was the last movie you saw? (Ver. 2)

The Card Counter 2021

D: Paul Schraeder.

Another of Schraeder's Lonely Man portraits, ( but it's what he's good at.) Oscar Isaac is great as the gambler , he's also got a lot of guilt about what he did in the war so he's looking for some sort of redemption, al the usual Schraeder themes.
But I was engrossed throughout.

 

My Best Friend Anne Frank (2021)

The world over knows the story of Anne Frank; the teenager whose story had been written in the pages of her diary while her family lived in an Annex to hide from Nazi persecution and capture in occupied Holland. This film gives an alternate perspective of life for Jewish people in the region. Hannah Goslar is a reserved and somewhat timid teenager. She cares for her little sister while her mother is pregnant; but spends a good amount of time with her outgoing and rambunctious close friend Anne. The story features both flashbacks in Amsterdam as well as flash-forwards; where both Hannah and Anne are prisoners in the concentration camp known as Bergen-Belsen. Produced by Dutch filmmakers, this film certainly gives you some raw emotions.

 

A double-feature at the Mahoning Drive-In last night: "The Creeping Unknown" and "It! The Terror from Beyond Space".
The former is the U.S. cut of "The Quatermass Xperiment", the first Quatermass movie. The only differences I notice were they shortened a couple of scenes and maybe dubbed over one actress's voice. But it's still a dark and well-made story. There a big dispute among fans over Brian Donlevy's work as Quatermass, but I think his "my way or no way" attitude works well for a man in his position. And Richard Wordsworth delivers an excellent performance as the doomed Caroon.
The latter is a well-made B-level sci-fi thriller that is an obvious (and, I believe, officially acknowledged) inspiration for "Alien". A group of astronauts returning from Mars (including the disgraced sole survivor of a previous mission) is attacked in flight by a murderous, stowaway alien. There are the usual conventions of 50s sci-fi (like they brought rifles, handguns, grenades, and cigarettes on the trip), but there is also a fair amount of suspense. There were several points, though, where you almost want to shout at the screen ("OPEN THE FREAKING AIRLOCK!!") and save the crew a lot of trouble.
Actually, this was a quadruple feature, but I couldn't stay for the next two movies: "The Man from Planet X" (a generally OK flick) and "Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster" (an awful movie).

 

Thor Ragnarök.
It was okay. The humor was very hit and miss for me and a bit much at times. Still; it's fun and doesn't take itself seriously. Not even one bit. Everyone seems to rave about this movie but I was a little bored. There's no stakes as Thor and the Hulk are so superpowered.

 

I've never heard of this film, but I did see the documentary Little Dieter Must Fly, and I've read some about Dengler. I'd expect the movie to be fairly harrowing if it's at all accurate.

 

Memoria (2021) – Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Wow, okay, so I’ve reviewed some challenging movies in my time. I mean “challenging” in the sense of “challenging to write about.” But Memoria is stretching my writing brain yet again. How can I even talk about this movie? Maybe I should start with a plot summary lol.

Tilda Swinton is a British woman who has come to Colombia because of her sister’s illness; she begins to be haunted by a strange sound, a sort of percussive boom that recurs at the strangest of times and can’t be heard by anyone else. She makes small personal connections with a couple of people she meets along the way and finds herself drawn to an archaeological dig seeking to uncover indigenous ruins. She struggles to sleep, but might just find rest in the end. Not a lot to hang on two-and-a-quarter hours, but director Weerasethakul (his nickname, thankfully, is Joe, so that’s what I’ll call him from here on out) has his own method which is to let scenes . . . or even just moments, not scenes, unfold at a dreamlike pace that some will find hypnotic and reverie inducing and others will find stultifying. I’ll just tip my hand that I’m neither sold on this movie as one of the great profound films of all time or bored by it. I’m not exactly in the middle, but I have my issues with the movie. Either way, I find some scenes to fall into the former category and some into the latter. A long single-take scene of a sound engineer listening to a classical recording is beautiful and blood-slowing in all the right ways; a scene of car alarms triggering each other in a car park just goes on too long.

Swinton’s performance is somewhat strange (wow, there’s something I’ve only said about a thousand times) and I have to say it didn’t totally work for me. It’s an oddly emotionally distant performance; I think I needed her to feel something about this haunting sound – maybe a sense of dread or fear. But she seems to have only the vaguest of curiosities; she does investigate the sound, but in a surprisingly lackadaisical way and, weirdly, she never really seems that invested or troubled by the strange phenomenon. Juan Pablo Urrega is charming and warm as the young sound engineer that she forms a surprising friendship with. Agnes Brekke has a wonderful energy as Swinton’s sister. Constanza Guttierez absolutely nails one of those “no small parts” roles with a one scene appearance as a quite funny doctor. And Elkin Diaz really knocks it out of the park in his role as a rural fisherman Swinton encounters near the end of the film; their first scene, a quiet, but wide-ranging, conversation by a creek outside his small hut is ultimately the most satisfyingly profound scene in the film.

Honestly, I wish the film had ended with that scene. It’s a beautifully written scene, strange, elliptical, ambiguous, but it also gives you enough to hang your hat on in terms of the significance, both metaphorical and literal, of the strange sound at the heart of the movie, that it feels like an actual ending. In a weird way, I found the following scenes to be overall too literal, not something I was expecting from this movie; the poetry of the film is, to some degree, abandoned in favor of an ending that I found too . . . concrete, for lack of a better term. And I think the scene immediately following the conversation outside the hut is the film’s worst offender in terms of just going too long; the poetry of the quiet and slowness really did just transition into a kind of tiredness for me in that scene, particularly because I felt the script was overegging the pudding, the pudding that had reached real perfection in the previous scene.

Still, the film does come recommended because, though I have quibbles, most of them surrounding that scene inside the house, it really did ultimately leave me in a place of profound awareness and contemplation. Perhaps not surprisingly given the premise, one of the most striking elements of this film really is the sound design and the way it creates the various environments you find yourself in. As the film slowly rolls to a close, it delivers some crucial plot exposition in a radio broadcast, a radio broadcast you can really barely hear and it’s the sound of a distant thunderstorm that close the film. But it’s those sounds that really create the atmosphere of the film, whether you’re listening to rain quietly falling, the wind softly blowing, a crisp classical music recording or the ambient sounds of a large city. Walking out of the theater, I was in a very strange headspace where I felt hyper-aware of all the sounds going on around me. Standing against the wall in the hallway, I was conscious of this quiet hum underneath everything, the hum of some sort of machinery behind the wall; when I moved, I heard the sound of my shirt move on my skin. So, for whatever issues I have with the film as a film, it’s certainly a transporting experience with an after-effect that lingers in a really beautiful way. It will force you to slow your senses and focus on the minutae and if I had one bit of advice for anyone about to watch this movie, it would honestly be: don’t fight it. No, it isn’t a perfect movie, but roll with it; when the wind blows, drift with it and it will take you somewhere very much worth being. 3 ½ stars.

tl;dr – slow-moving, philosophical and often profound, Memoria has a few problems, but at the end of the day, it’s an enriching and lingering experience. 3 ½ stars.

 

NOPE

i really enjoyed the movie. It’s Jaws meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I think it’s sort of great in a pinching above it’s weight class sort of way.

I usually sit closer to the screen. I like my movies big. But the sound is probably better in the back. I watched this in the back.

 

Fallen Angels. Sexy, cool, weird, and hilarious, Fallen Angels goes for a lot of different tones and manages them all. Spun off from a story intended as part of Chungking Express, it’s a sort of parallel and inverse to the film, often playfully invoking it. It also has two intertwining stories about relationships that don’t quite work out, but it’s a darker film.

One story is about Leon Lei, a hitman whose affairs are largely managed by his beautiful assistant Michelle Reis, a business relationship that has them tightly intertwined while hardly ever actually interacting in person. After caring for him from a distance for so long, she has become romantically obsessed with him, while he seems fearful of introducing real feelings into his isolated life, instead taking solace in an obnoxious, disposable floozy. Meanwhile, Takeshi Kaneshiro plays a hilariously whimsical, nutty criminal, a mute who breaks into businesses after hours to force their goods and services upon unwilling customers. Lonely and loony, unmoored to anything but his oft-baffled father, he eventually drifts into Charlie Yeung, a woman as batty as he is, obsessed with her stolen boyfriend.

But the film is less about plot than atmosphere, and the atmosphere is amazing. Loneliness and busted relationships, longing for connection amidst mindless violence, neon nights and cigarettes in the wee hours. It’s an incredibly stylish, soulful, yet whimsically playful film, a versatile delight.

 

Everything Everywhere All at Once (dir. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, 2022) streaming



Not really sure what I can write this film that doesn't give anything away that hasn't been said before, so I'll be short; (1) Michelle Yeoh is pretty awesome; (2) this film is hilarious and totally bonkers and I love it; (2) I shouldn't have waiting so long to see this film.

 

The Spy Who Loved Me
1977

Really entertaining and a top Bond entry and my favorite Moore film so far. Barbara Bach is great. And Jaws.
Top notch sets and production design. Very entertaining entry and a top 10 from the franchise imo.

 

The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)

This isn't about the tennis star, nor is it about Michael Jackson's song. The original Supergirl's Helen Slater stars alongside Christian Slater (not related) in this coming of age film where a teenager carves a name for herself among the populace after getting herself into a bad situation and having to evade the law. Yeardly Smith (VA for Lisa Simpson) costars, along with a few other recognizable faces from 80s films. I know the film wasn't received all that well during it's run, but I still enjoyed it. It's a shame that outside of Supergirl, Helen Slater hasn't really been in the spotlight all of these years. I think she's a fine actress overall.

Just an FYI, if you've ever heard Pat Benatar's, "Invincible", it is actually the movie's theme.

 

I never even knew they were brother and sister.

 

I just updated my post. After confirming, they aren't related; it's just a coincidence.

 

Arguably Moore's finest moment. One of my favourites of the franchise too.

They Live Nada is a down on his luck drifter who finds work at a construction site and a home in a temporary camp in the city for homeless people. But he stumbles upon a strange meeting at a nearby church, a resistance thats been formed against aliens who look like humans that walk among us, control society and keep humans compliant with subliminal messages on the tv, on billboards and n magazines. The only way to see the aliens true from and the messages is through specially designed sunglasses that they intend to distribute as well as disrupting the TV signal so that humans will be able to see the aliens true identity and see their controlling intentions.

John Carpenters sci-fi action film is a sort of satirical take on modern media and possibly even a forerunner to something like the Matrix in a weird kind of way. Some humans are in on it so that they can have a good life, the aliens have technology that can beam them anywhere, what are the aliens true intentions.... all great concepts that weren't done justice to IMO. The lead character is played by Roddy Piper, someone I've never seen before and maybe this would have been better with some star power, hes almost like a bargain basement Kurt Russell. It was enjoyable enough, but its such a good idea that I thought bumbles along without a real pay off for me, with ideas that seemed unfinished or rushed and all with a low budget b-movie feel to it (maybe thats what he was going for)?

 

And Angels in the Outfield was better than both.

The rest of the Big Lebowski could’ve been absolute crap, but it would still be one of my favorite movies of all time because of the Eagles sequence in the cab. Amen, Coen bros. I hate the Eagles too.

 

July 2022 viewings (* denotes theatrical viewing):

The Strange One (1957, Jack Garfein)
Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)
The Seventh Victim (1943, Mark Robson)
The Leopard Man (1943, Jacques Tourneur)
Dr. No (1962, Terence Young)
I Walked with a Zombie (1943, Jacques Tourneur)
Thor: Love & Thunder (2022, Taika Waititi)*
Isle of the Dead (1945, Mark Robson)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975, Sidney Lumet)
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956, Fred F. Sears)
From Russia with Love (1963, Terence Young)
Lost River (2014, Ryan Gosling)
Cat People (1942, Jacques Tourneur)
The Curse of the Cat People (1944, Robert Wise and Gunther von Fritsch)
Goldfinger (1964, Guy Hamilton)
He Walked by Night (1948, Anthony Mann and Alfred L. Werker)
Thunderball (1965, Terence Young)
You Only Live Twice (1967, Lewis Gilbert)
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021, Dean Fleischer-Camp)*
Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele)
Night of the Demon (1957, Jacques Tourneur)
Black Angel (1980, Roger Christian) [short film]
Us (2019, Jordan Peele)
Nope (2022, Jordan Peele)*
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969, Peter R. Hunt)
Diamonds are Forever (1971, Guy Hamilton)
The Sea Beast (2022, Chris Williams)
The Naked City (1948, Jules Dassin)
Predators (2010, Nimród Antal)
Psycho Goreman (2020, Steven Kostanski)
Bringing Out the Dead (1999, Martin Scorsese)
Dark Star (1974, John Carpenter)
Inferno (1980, Dario Argento)
Total Recall (1990, Paul Verhoeven)
Raw Deal (1948, Anthony Mann)
Predator (1987, John McTiernan)

 

A League of Her Own (1992)

 

Kelly’s Heroes. Like MASH was a Vietnam movie disguised as a Korean War movie, this is a Vietnam movie disguised as a World War II movie. A cynical satire about a bunch of jaded, self-interested soldiers putting together an expedition to rob millions in German gold from a bank behind enemy lines, it’s a hilariously goofy anti-establishment wartime comedy with an absolutely stacked cast. Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland (the best part of the movie as a blissed-out proto-hippie tank commander), Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Stuart Margolin, Harry Dean Stanton, Carroll O’Connor, Gavin MacLeod, Len Lesser — the movie is deep in talent, and it shows up on screen. A hilarious parody of the straight-laced war movie that also works as a pretty good action-adventure itself, it’s full of great lines and great performances. At two and a half hours, it’s longer than it needs to be, but that’s the only criticism of one of the great war comedies.

 

Dr. No
1962

First viewing and I really enjoyed it, although I was surprised that I'd seen approximately twenty percent of the movie due to seeing scenes on tv or on YouTube, and memes and gifs and references. It was truly great to see it front to back with no interruptions.

I'll be brief as I've a lot to say, but it is late or too early as it were; this film is really cool and set up quite a lot for subsequent films in this genre to emulate. I kept thinking of set pieces in this that reminded me of other movies that came out both before and after this picture, and that resonance that Dr. No has with popular cinema history was fascinating to finally see realized from someone who has seen a lot of movies, and is attempting to fill in some gaps as we all do.

Well, I though Dr. No was terrific and perhaps even better after first having seen HELP! so many times and later Austin Powers and then finally Daniel Craig. I'm going about this backwards you see. J/k. But I can say it's been so fun catching up with 007 after largely ignoring for so many years. It is very entertaining content. And it is obvious why this film franchise took off and is still popular 60 years later and such a terrific kickoff here with Connery and company.

I'm honestly surprised how much I liked this movie. It was a really enjoyable watch for so many reasons and especially for all of the ways it can be discussed and analyzed in terms of cinema, pop culture, and a whole lot more.

 

I watched a couple of Ryan Reynolds movies recently, The Adam Project and Red Notice , and I realised : he just does the same schtick now in every movie, it's gotten tiresome.

 

Love the sci-fi /monster movies of that era, and while it is likely just pure nostalgia, really miss drive-ins, that unique atmosphere! Thanks for sharing!

 

Rewatched Us after knowing the surprise twist. What doesn't make sense to me is why that character would stay down there. The twist doesn't hold up to scrutiny. I think it would have been a better movie without it.

 

i watched the original friday the 13th for the first time. it had its cheesy moments and some bad acting from the young cast, but great cinematography and score and some sweet practical effects preserve its overall creepiness all these years later.