Rate the Last Movie You Saw

[Sock Monkey]

I've been on vacation trying desperately to find a new job before my psychotic co-worker takes over as big boss tomorrow morning, so I've been watching a LOT of movies at night to try to calm my skyrocketing blood pressure. Among the many:

THE MISSION on TCM on Demand, from 1986. A gorgeous film about 1700's Jesuit missionaries trying to save indigenous tribes from Portuguese slavers. Baby-faced stars include Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, and Liam Neeson, who was so young that I only recognized him from his height and accent. The scenery is amazing, and the scenes of Irons and De Niro climbing massive cliffs had me totally perplexed at how they did it. Highly recommended.

UNDER PARIS on Netflix is a French film about a shark on the loose in the Seine during a massive triathlon. Totally ridiculous, and suffering from the same weird plot device as the French giant spider movie I saw on Shudder a few weeks back (No spoilers!), but it was fun, and had a totally unexpected last act. As always, CGI sharks always look dodgy......give me Bruce chomping on Quint any day. My wife loved it.

FURY on Apple. This is one of those "How did I miss this for so long???" type of films. WWII tank action with Brad Pitt, with a totally bonkers finale...probably one of the best war films I've ever seen. Wife and I both loved it.

I always remember the poster/cover art for THE MISSION with DeNIro with a sword, but I've never checked it out. Great cast, though.

I saw the "trailer" (you know, those stupid short clips that Netflix runs if you stay on the tile too long, which are usually the most boring part of the movie and never gives you any good hint as to what the stinking movie or show is about), but decided to give it a pass. I have a hard time "blind watching" anything on Netflix. There's so much junk on there that I feel I could waste hours just watching the first five minutes of bad movies. It's too bad because I enjoy animal attack movies when done right. I actually had a blast with Alexandre Aja's CRAWL.

Your praise of FURY has got me thinking I need to give it another shot. I watched the first fifteen minutes or so of the film during a flight (granted not the best way to watch a movie) and just couldn't get engaged. My friend praised it as well, but his taste diverges greatly from mine at times so I took it with a grain of salt. Also, come to find out my wife really likes war movies so this might be up her alley.

[Sock Monkey]

The wife is out of town for a little over a week, so I have sole control of television!

Friday night I was browsing Shudder and stumbled across THE LAST DRIVE-IN SHOW right before it started. I have a weird relationship to THE LAST DRIVE-IN SHOW as I tend to enjoy Joe Bob Briggs and have some nostalgia for the few times that I caught MONSTERVISION back in the day, but I almost never watch THE LAST DRIVE-IN SHOW. I'm almost never available to see the live show so I always have to come back to it later and I just have a hard time pulling the trigger because (a) if it's a movie a want to see but haven't, I don't really enjoy the film interruptions as it breaks the flow of the movie for me (this didn't bother me as much during MONSTERVISION because we were gonna get commercial breaks regardless), thus leading me to choose to watch the normal version of the film; and (b) if it's a movie I've already seen, then I have a hard time pulling the trigger on a three-hour "version" of it. But the wife isn't home and I was just curious as to the movie selection so I stuck around for a bit and after hearing that it was DONNIE DARKO, I committed to the watching the whole thing.

So first off, it's been an incredibly long time since I've seen DONNIE DARKO, though I've seen the film probably half a dozen times or so. I was surprised to see that it was released in 2001 because this always feels like a mid to late 90s film to me. Anyways, I still absolutely love this film, even though I'm unsure if the ending makes a lick of sense (I get the general sense of it, but I'm still left with a ton of questions). While the movie is definitely off-beat, there is something that is so watchable about it. It just sucks you in and feels so grounded and real in moments like when Donnie breaks down to his mom and asks her, "What's it like to have a whacko for a son?" To which she responds, tears in her eyes, "It's wonderful." Yet the film feels so dreamlike and surreal. The strength of the film truly is the amazing cast. Obviously, most people remember Jake Gyllenhaal, but the film also has his sister Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wyle, Mary McDonnell, and Jena Malone (who was everywhere in independent films after this). It's even got Seth Rogan as a bully! And a bunch other people that if you don't know their names, you'll know their faces. The cast sells every minute of this film. They did show the theatrical version, so I might dig out my director's cut to give it a watch as well. I remember not being blown away by it, thinking that the theatrical was stronger, but I could be wrong on that. Anyways, DONNIE DARKO is highly recommended.

As for my experience with THE LAST DRIVE-IN, I think I was coming at it backwards by looking at it as if I wanted to see the movie itself or not, instead of viewing it as live "appointment television"-type thing, where I'm sitting down on Friday night to watch THE LAST DRIVE-IN SHOW regardless of what's playing. So I wound up enjoying it quite a bit. Maybe I'll carve more time out on Friday nights to watch it moving forward.

[Sock Monkey]

I'll try to keep this post shorter than the last one!

Last night I decided to revisit Christopher Nolan's DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY, though I only made it through the first two before calling a night. I was a little iffy because I remember really loving these movies when they came out and was concerned about how I would react to them as they have aged (BATMAN BEGINS came out in 2005 -- which is almost 20 YEARS AGO! -- THE DARK KNIGHT in 2008, and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES in 2012) and we have been bombarded with superhero movies ever since.

BATMAN BEGINS is a solid origin film and does a great job in the first part of the film of using various techniques to move the story back and forth in time to clear the hurdles of the death of Bruce's parents and so forth. The focus on Bruce Wayne over Batman and the mob over supervillains grounds the film even if the film still seems to be in a battle to prove that it's not Schumacher's Batman. For me, the turning point for the film where it begins to become its own thing is the scene where Bruce (Christian Bale) and Rachel (Katie Holmes, who I really enjoyed in the role) are sitting in the car and Bruce shows her the gun in his pocket and admits that he was going to kill Joe Chill. Rachel's reaction by slapping Bruce twice and telling him that his father would be ashamed of him, followed by Bruce looking so dejected could have been so cliched, but it felt surprisingly raw, letting the viewer know that this isn't just gonna be another Batman movie. I still struggle a bit with how quickly Murphy's Scarecrow is dispatched and it is hampered by being yet another Batman origin story. However, the seeds of greatness are sown here and I just don't think there is going to be better casting than Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman in a Batman film. GRADE: B+

THE DARK KNIGHT is really where Nolan reaps what he began to sow in BEGINS. People rant and rave about this film, mostly on Ledger's Joker performance, and it's easy to maybe dismiss it as hype (or nostalgia at this point), but watching this again what stood out was just how tightly plotted this movie is. I don't think there is one wasted scene in the film and everyone just hits in the film. Christian Bale nails "playboy Bruce Wayne" and Batman. Oldman, Caine, and Freeman are not flashy yet kill every scene. Aaron Eckhart is great as Harvey Dent and I actually really liked Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel. And Ledger's Joker, along with the script, just nails the duality of the character being both incredibly funny, but menacing (the video tape with the fake Batman stands out, showing the violence boiling under the surface). All of this comes together in just a great film. Frankly, I don't think another superhero movie has come close to this (CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER might be the closest but is nowhere near this intricately plotted). My only minor quibble is that even at a little over two and a half hours the film could have used just a little more breathing room in some scenes, maybe setting up Gordon's family a little more. Anyways, this was so great to rewatch. Grade: A

I'll be watching THE DARK KNIGHT RISES later tonight so we'll see how that goes as it is the most divisive in the trilogy.

[Sock Monkey]

I don't know why I never got around to watching it as it would be exactly in my wheelhouse--maybe I was turned off by the rather generic-looking DVD cover art--but last night I watched 2004's LAYER CAKE, starring a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig (and please disregard the cover art because Sienna Miller is in it for like five, ten minutes max). Anyways, it's a pretty fun (and very convoluted) crime thriller about a mid-level drug dealer and his crew, including a very young Tom Hardy, who get caught up in drug heist gone wrong. I really like this one and if I had seen it around release, it probably would have been in pretty heavy rotation. Grade: B+

And since I'm posting about Daniel Craig, I will do the obligatory public service announcement that if you haven't seen LOGAN LUCKY, do yourself a favor and check it out. It's a great (and funny) heist movie that bombed at the box office and is still criminally overlooked.

[RonClinton]

I don't know why I never got around to watching it as it would be exactly in my wheelhouse--maybe I was turned off by the rather generic-looking DVD cover art--but last night I watched 2004's LAYER CAKE, starring a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig (and please disregard the cover art because Sienna Miller is in it for like five, ten minutes max). Anyways, it's a pretty fun (and very convoluted) crime thriller about a mid-level drug dealer and his crew, including a very young Tom Hardy, who get caught up in drug heist gone wrong. I really like this one and if I had seen it around release, it probably would have been in pretty heavy rotation. Grade: B+

And since I'm posting about Daniel Craig, I will do the obligatory public service announcement that if you haven't seen LOGAN LUCKY, do yourself a favor and check it out. It's a great (and funny) heist movie that bombed at the box office and is still criminally overlooked.

I'm pretty sure I saw LOGAN LUCKY and enjoyed it. Speaking of Craig, I'm going to miss him as Bond...really unfortunate that not only will he not be back, but No Time to Die was the Bond film he went out on. Putting aside what felt (SPOILER) like a poorly contrived death scene for the character, the film was -- save for a great scene involving a Triumph Scrambler 1200 -- a real disappointment in a number of ways.