Movies You've Seen Recently | November 2020

MidnightCowboy · Nov 2, 2020

Welcome
Hello and welcome to the monthly Movies You've Seen Recently thread. The place to hang out with fellow movie lovers!

Thread rules
1. Be nice, be civil, use common sense
2. Respect the opinions of other members, no matter how wrong they are
3. Use spoiler tags accordingly
4. Have fun, we're all here because we love movies

Want to introduce yourself?
New to the Movies You've Seen Recently community? Let us know a bit about yourself:
1. What's your favorite Movie?
2. Who's your favorite director?
3. Who are your favorite actors/actresses?
4. Favorite Genre(s)?
5. What's your favorite performance in film?

- Post your top 5 new viewings from the previous month!

Useful external links:
Letterboxd
ICheckMovies
IMDb
Rotten Tomatoes
Metacritic

If you want to be added to the list above, shoot me a PM and you'll be added.

Last Month's Poll Results
Question: Favorite Universal Classic Monster?
Dracula 20
Frankenstein 5
The Mummy 1
The Wolf Man 3
The Invisible Man 9
Creature From the Black Lagoon 4

Also check out the official Film Era discord!

https://discord.gg/ze4JwUD

Unsure of what to watch? Just ask for recommendations in here. We don't bite!

MidnightCowboy · Nov 2, 2020

Last month was a gaming heavy month for me, but I still managed to sneak in 15 movies.

Top 5 New:
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Amarcord
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928, Epstein)
Manhunter
Peeping Tom

Rewatches, all great:
Psycho
Silence of the Lambs
The Shining

The rest, which were all good/great as well:
The Old Dark House
The Wicker Man
Don't Look Now
Society
Let's Scare Jessica to Death
Shivers
Shadow of a Doubt

FaceHugger · Nov 2, 2020

Roald Dahl's The Witches (2020 HBO Max joint)

More truthful at its core to the book than the old 90's adaptation, but I think it may have spent a little too much time on Hero Boy's backstory. Don't watch this with your kids if they're really young: Anne Hathaway is a crazily good villain and will give your little kids nightmares.

More_Badass · Nov 2, 2020

Best new watches of October (not from my 31 Days of Horror list)

- Xtro
- Mermaid Legend
- Save The Green Planet
- Demon Knight
- Cohen & Tate
- The Abominable Dr Phibes
- Body Parts
- Hudsucker Proxy
- Long Arm of the Law 3
- Rituals
- Crime Story
- May The Devil Take You Too
- Premutos
- For The Sake of Vicious
- The Funhouse
- Wer
- Evil Dead Trap 2

Best Rewatches

- Suspiria (1977)
- Dawn of the Dead
- The Killer
- Poltergeist
- The Wild Goose Lake
- Brotherhood of the Wolf

Sean C. · Nov 2, 2020

23 films for October 2020, more than I thought given that I spent a fair amount of time on Haunting of Bly Manor and The Queen's Gambit.

Toy Story series rankings: 3 > 2 > 4 > 1

Top 5 first viewings
1. The Exorcist (1973)
2. Black Christmas (1974)
3. Peeping Tom (1960)
4. Criss Cross (1949)
5. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

Top 5 repeat viewings
1. Roman Holiday (1953)
2. Whiplash (2014)
3. Modern Times (1936)
4. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
5. The VVitch (2016)

The Exorcist (1973): Safe within the Atlantic Bubble, I spent All Hallows' Eve at the City Cinema for this special screening of the director's cut. The craft that William Friedkin and co. brought to this film is really remarkable, so much so that despite a half-century's worth of imitators and parodies the key scenes still retain their power. It's also noteworthy how long Friedkin draws out the buildup to the actual supernatural possession, in a way that basically no filmmaker would do today. Also, the only thing about this movie that feels implausible is how long Father Karras keeps insisting he doesn't quite believe it's a demonic possession even when the kid looks like a corpse and is moving things with telekinesis.

Honey Boy (2019): Being approximately the same age as Shia LaBeouf, I've seen him go from starring in a Disney Channel show that I was more aware of than a fan of, to starring in some of the most obnoxious blockbuster films of the period while also acting like a conceited jerk in public appearances, to now seeming to find more personal stability while working mainly in independent films. This film is a very effect bit of autobiography that contextualizes much of his troubled childhood, with strong performances both from him (playing his father) and Noah Jupe as the young kid.

Teenage Fansub · Nov 2, 2020

I went hard last month. 40 movies watched, 27 new, 13 re. 29 horror movies which was helped by a couple of local cinemas having heavy October horror programming, with some really fun stuff like 35mm prints of Manos: The Hands of Fate, The Wizard of Gore and The Beyond (though it was the censored R-rated cut).

Top 10 new:
Rebecca (1940)
Dick Johnson Is Dead
Babyteeth
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Saint Maud
One Cut of the Dead
The Innocents
The Raven
The Slumber Party Massacre
The Beyond

Worst (or more 'least enjoyable' or 'most disappointing' since I saw a lot of fun "bad" movies)
The Mortuary Collection
On the Rocks
Rebecca (2020)

edit: Oh, and I kicked November off with watching Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for the first time and that instantly shot to somewhere in my top 10 or so movies of all time list.

Blader · Nov 2, 2020

Quick recap of my 31 Days of Horror 2020 month:

Night Gallery - 6/10
Friday the 13th (rewatch) - 6/10
The Innocents - 7/10
The Sixth Sense - 7/10
Friday the 13th Part 2 (rewatch) - 7/10
The Body Snatcher - 5/10
Psycho II - 8/10
Shutter Island (rewatch) - 8/10
The Brides of Dracula - 6/10
Friday the 13th Part III - 3/10
Doctor Sleep - 7/10
The Changeling - 7/10
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (rewatch) - 6/10
The Guest (rewatch) - 8/10
The Shining (rewatch) - 9/10

Favorite new watch: Psycho II
Worst of the month (and potentially the worst I've seen all year): Friday the 13th Part III

Now for November:

Dr. No
Rewatch, of course in Sean Connery's memory. Every time I see this movie I'm struck by a few things: how low-key and relatively grounded the film is (up until the last half hour anyway); how an odd choice of a story for the very first Bond film; the fact that the movie is called Dr. No and not something with "James Bond" in it (was it a popular enough book series by 1962 that they didn't have to advertise the character as part of the movie's name?); and how much of a nearly 60-year-old franchise is seeded right here in this movie: the theme song, the gun barrel, "Bond...James Bond." While the film feels very much like a pilot that's just feeling out the contours of what a Bond movie would be, it's pretty wild how much of the franchise's DNA really started here.

Chief among them Sean Connery's performance, which also feels like something of a rough draft for later Bond outings (Bond here has a slightly harder edge than Connery would in later movies, e.g. shooting an unarmed man to death twice!), but at the same time is an immediately iconic blend of cool charm and a believably rough and tumble physicality. Connery would do it all better in later films, but this is a defining start. The same goes for the film itself: while it does drag, especially in the first half hour, and doesn't come close to the highs of Connery's next Bond outings, it is a pretty solid and surprisingly grounded 60s spy movie in its own right -- and effectively sets the stage for bigger and better to come.
7/10

FaceHugger · Nov 2, 2020

I am watching the new Craft movie and I just came to the realization I am old.

Aside from that it is entertaining and the lead actress is really good. I hope she turns up in more things.

Rhomega · Nov 2, 2020

Top 5 of October:

1. The Social Dilemma
2. Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th
3. Trial of the Chicago 7
4. Halloweentown
5. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Strings · Nov 2, 2020

The Jacket (2005). Wanted to like it because conceptually it's pretty cool, but it has strong student film energy. Figured it was a first time writer/director, but nope, just one of those early 2000s music video turned feature directors who have nfi what they're doing.

Toy Story rankings: 1 > 3 > 2 > 4

FaceHugger · Nov 3, 2020

Fast Five

I am doing a weird thing where I am actually working backwards through the franchise, as I only started with Fate of the Furious, then checked out Hobbs and Shaw. These movies are great. The endings make me feel good. The good guys get everything they want, friends are made of enemies, they're like fairy tales.

thenexus6 · Nov 3, 2020

Possessor (Uncut)

Yup, that was directed by David Cronenberg's son. I enjoyed it alot.

I want to know the normal vs uncut differences but can't seem to find them anywhere online.

wideface · Nov 3, 2020

Host (2020). Interesting concept. But pretty meh movie, not gonna lie.

Naijaboy · Nov 3, 2020

Gaslight (1944) Whoever suggested watching Gaslight was a genius. This was much better movie that commits to the art of turning the heroine mad with paranoia. It's too bad Hollywood didn't have more ofIngrid Bergman because she was phenomenal in her role. She deserved that Oscar. Charlea Boyer and Joseph Cotton were also excellent in their roles. It's one of those movies I wish they try and do a remake especially given how popular the word is now. 8.5/10

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2200) It felt like today was the perfect time to watch this film. I'mm not too familiar with his work, and I have to say that it wasn't really spectacular. It may be because I was more horrified at how easily Sacha fulled a whole crowd into calling the deaths of Fauci and Obama and whatever the hell that was with Giluliani. Here's hoping this puts a nail in the coffin for the Trump administration. Other than that I felt it was only mildly funny. 6/10

MidnightCowboy · Nov 4, 2020

Hate to say it, but Face/Off was a disappointment. No amount of legendary ham can atone for the 140 minute runtime and weak melodrama. It just drags and drags. Bottom-tier Woo for me.

Strings · Nov 4, 2020

MidnightCowboy said:
Hate to say it, but Face/Off was a disappointment. No amount of legendary ham can atone for the 140 minute runtime and weak melodrama. It just drags and drags. Bottom-tier Woo for me.

I unironically love the performances and the overall excess.

MidnightCowboy · Nov 4, 2020

Strings said:
I unironically love the performances and the overall excess.

The performances are great, I can't deny that.

Meows · Nov 5, 2020

Naijaboy said:
Gaslight (1944) Whoever suggested watching Gaslight was a genius. This was much better movie that commits to the art of turning the heroine mad with paranoia. It's too bad Hollywood didn't have more ofIngrid Bergman because she was phenomenal in her role. She deserved that Oscar. Charlea Boyer and Joseph Cotton were also excellent in their roles. It's one of those movies I wish they try and do a remake especially given how popular the word is now. 8.5/10

She had really tough competition, considering that she was up against Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity! But even Barbara agreed that Bergman deserved her win. Don't know what else you have seen from Ingrid Bergman but I highly recommend Notorious by Alfred Hitchcock, Autumn Sonata by Ingmar Bergman, and any of her major movies (Europa 51, Journey to Italy, and Stromboli) with Roberto Rossellini.

Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962) - dark and shattering portrayal of the collapse of a family struggling with addiction and looming death, filled with powerhouse acting by Katharine Hepburn in what might be her best turn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and a special mention to Dean Stockwell, who was second best of the cast. It kind of reminds me of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf - the limited set, the close cameras, the back and forth of love and venom. At nearly three hours, it is not for everyone. It is solemn and bitter. But if you have the time set aside, I would definitely watch for the great script and brilliant acting (all four actors won Cannes for their performance).

Aurica · Nov 5, 2020

The Japan Society has three Ryusuke Hamaguchi films to rent for 10 bucks tomorrow. Playback may not be possible outside of the US, but I'm not certain.

Japan Society Film | Three by Ryusuke Hamaguchi

A partial retrospective featuring the work of acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi, including his rarely screened debut feature film and two medium length narrative fiction gems.

film.japansociety.org

Teenage Fansub said:
One Cut of the Dead
The Innocents

Both are distinctly incredible. One Cut of the Dead is wonderful as a love letter to film making in general. You can feel the passion in every scene, especially in its second half.

More_Badass · Nov 5, 2020

Carlito's Way
★★★★½
Carlito's Way is bruising neo-noir as sleek as Pacino's leather jacket and as electric as his attitude. A dense 90 minutes intricately assemble a chessboard of honorable intentions, second chances, and scumbags...then De Palma spends the next forty tearing it apart in a sustained adrenaline rush of bloody consequences. Al Pacino's Carlito is as ambitiously tenacious as Tony Montana but rounded with tenderness and nuanced conflict. The script is razor-sharp too, and there's not a weak performance among the entire supporting cast. (Not that you would expect any when said support includes Leguizamo, Penn, Guzman, Mortensen, and other notable character-actors).

This is compelling all the way through, but once the dominoes start falling, Carlito's Way becomes a crime thriller all-timer. De Palma's lurid love for gushing crimson means the violence erupts off the screen, but his mastery of suspense is even more potent. The director reins in his stylization to a laser-focused application of pans and diopters and slick edits, imbuing simple interactions with edge-of-your-seat momentum. The final act among Manhattan's bowels and through Grand Central is a masterclass of modulating tension: a perpetual juggle of intensity and anticipation that turns crowds, subways cars, and escalators into finely-tuned suspense engines.

If there's a flaw/annoyance/gripe, it's that choice of opening. But then I think how opening there positions Carlito's Way as a doomed tragedy, and that even with foresight, De Palma constructs a breathless nerve-wracker of a crime film.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (rewatch)
★★★★

Dario Argento's debut is a confident giallo yarn, backed by Morricone-jazz and bursts with thriller brilliance that would be further refined in the Italian maestro's later works. One fateful night, expat writer Sam can only watch helplessly as a woman is brutally attacked before his eyes. First as a key witness, then as an amateur sleuth, he becomes embroiled in a string of murders throughout Rome and targeted by a black-coated killer.

The Bird With The Crystal Plumage has one of the better plots among giallo and Italian thrillers I've seen. Well-paced, never too long till another odd character shows up, with a causal underdog presence from Tom Musante. The scenes of him relaxing and brain-storming clues with his girlfriend go a long way in giving the guy a personality; the couple end up being legitimately likable characters with cute chemistry, which alone puts this a tier above most.

While his style would only grow more heightened, the genre more lurid, what's full-formed from the start is Argento's eye for striking set-pieces and compositions. Gloved hands caressing blades, the art-gallery attack, a match-lit stairway ascent: each unfolds like a bespoke suspense short, a sine wave of tension and style that build towards a bloody jolt. (De Palma sure liked this; Dressed To Kill essentially apes an entire scene.)

In hindsight, that gallery sequence comes across as the ultimate distillation of Argento's style, a bold declaration of his sensibilities: violence as cinematic art-piece, sensational brutality amid baroque locale, the audience helpless to only watch and squirm.

The House That Screamed
★★★★

Narciso Serrador's The House That Screamed is indebted to Psycho, but Black Christmas and Suspiria are indebted to The House That Screamed.

This Spanish proto-giallo is cloaked in thick gothic mood. Long baroque corridors and flickering candelabras, thundering downpours and fog-choked gardens, cruel headmistress and secret chambers and odd groundskeeper. Don't expect many kills or heavy stylization, but The House That Screamed doesn't need those to be an excellent early genre entry. A restrained pace allows the characters and their interactions to drive the tension. The 19th-century boarding-school unrest is engaging on its own, especially with the headmistress' draconian iron grip and the echoes of De Palma's psycho-sleaze reverberating through the halls. Atop the sexual repression and all-girls drama, add a mysterious killer, unsettling violence, a few very suspenseful sequences oozing with candlelit creaking-floor atmosphere, and a mean twisted gem of an ending.

Odd Man Out
★★★½

Belfast noir that unfolds like an inverse "'71" across a single day and night. An IRA gunman is left behind after a heist, slowly bleeding to death from a bullet wound as police, allies, and opportunists search for him. Tense chases and consequences give way to grey decisions and guilty visions, among a textured time-capsule setting drowned in deep shadows.

meowdi gras · Nov 5, 2020

Lukes said:
Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962) - dark and shattering portrayal of the collapse of a family struggling with addiction and looming death, filled with powerhouse acting by Katharine Hepburn in what might be her best turn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and a special mention to Dean Stockwell, who was second best of the cast. It kind of reminds me of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf - the limited set, the close cameras, the back and forth of love and venom. At nearly three hours, it is not for everyone. It is solemn and bitter. But if you have the time set aside, I would definitely watch for the great script and brilliant acting (all four actors won Cannes for their performance).

Eugene O'Neill is my fursona.

Lumet's Long Day's Journey is a great adaptation. I still kinda wish they had retained the Tyrone patriarch from the original Broadway run, Frederic March, whom I imagine would've been fantastic in the movie version, particularly with Hepburn. Ralph Richardson is one of my very favorite actors of that era and he puts in solid work here, but his radiating Englishness stands out like a sore thumb.

If you haven't yet seen it, I highly recommend the John Frankenheimer film version of The Iceman Cometh, my very fave O'Neill screen adaptation. Robert Ryan, in particular, puts in some truly phenomenal work.

Sean C. · Nov 5, 2020

Downfall (2004): I rewatched this on Monday night to generate some positive vibes going into Tuesday.

Setting aside the memes (which are still fun), this is one of the best cinematic depictions of the Second World War, centered around the late Bruno Ganz's superb performance as Hitler.

Dressed to Kill (1980): The movie that taught a teenage J.K. Rowling everything she felt she needed to know about trans people.

Has far worse representational issues than The Silence of the Lambs a decade later, and without that film's feminism and pitch-perfect casting (Nancy Allen, at the time Mrs. Brian De Palma, is very wrong for the lead role of an upscale escort). De Palma's direction is typically kinetic and interesting to watch, even if the story is fairly weak. As well, De Palma is well-known for his Hitchcock worship, and this contains numerous riffs on Psycho, unexpectedly including a variant of the widely-disliked psychiatrist scene at the very end.

FaceHugger · Nov 6, 2020

The Trump Prophecy

I wanted to see how silly literal Christian pro-Trump propaganda is. Kind of like one last laugh, one last send off to his crazy cultists as Biden slowly slides into victory.

It's even worse than you can imagine, I guarantee it. It's made by hypocrites, for conservative authoritarian hypocrites. It is unintentionally hilarious at times however, so there is some value in watching it for an ironic laugh.

Deleted member 45614 · Nov 6, 2020

Haven't been keeping a tally of films I've watched but recently I rewatched a couple Stephen Chow films and man if anyone could do a live action Dragon Ball film justice it would be this man, great comedy and over the top action the just works. Also watched Sofia Coppola's new film and was underwhelmed considering how much I like some of her other work particularly Lost in Translation. Will edit in more films when I think of them.

Rewatches:
Kung Fu Hustle (2004) -10/10
Shaolin Soccer (2001) - 8/10

New:
On the Rocks (2020) - 7/10

lazybones18 · Nov 6, 2020

Memories of Murder

I saw this in October, but I forgot to mention in my post in last month's thread. This was another movie I got to see at the theater

Anyway, while I wouldn't say it's the best Bong Joon Ho movie I've seen (Parasite obviously), it was still very good. This is an example of how NOT to handle murder/serial killer investigations, especially if it's your first time dealing with a serial killer and multiple murders. I could really feel myself cringing at the first 10 minutes of the movie since murder is prominent in America and other countries and they were more advanced in handling procedures at crime scenes. Aside from the cringe, there are definite tense moments and there was one moment near the end that absolutely took me by surprise.

Glad I stuck around after the movie ended to see Ho interviewed by Edgar Wright, although it felt like Wright did most of the talking with his constant rambling.

I know that the killer was ultimately caught long after the movie came out, but I honestly forgot that the person was found out last year. I will certainly place blame on this year feeling like an eternity.

Deleted member 45614 · Nov 6, 2020

lazybones18 said:
Memories of Murder

I saw this in October, but I forgot to mention in my post in last month's thread. This was another movie I got to see at the theater

Anyway, while I wouldn't say it's the best Bong Joon Ho movie I've seen (Parasite obviously), it was still very good. This is an example of how NOT to handle murder/serial killer investigations, especially if it's your first time dealing with a serial killer and multiple murders. I could really feel myself cringing at the first 10 minutes of the movie since murder is prominent in America and other countries and they were more advanced in handling procedures at crime scenes. Aside from the cringe, there are definite tense moments and there was one moment near the end that absolutely took me by surprise.

Glad I stuck around after the movie ended to see Ho interviewed by Edgar Wright, although it felt like Wright did most of the talking with his constant rambling.

I know that the killer was ultimately caught long after the movie came out, but I honestly forgot that the person was found out last year. I will certainly place blame on this year feeling like an eternity.

It's a great movie, one of his best for sure (I agree Parasite is better, Parasite is a top 3 movie all time for me though) and yeah even more crazy with the developments around the case that have happened since.

Just a heads up this may seem nitpicky but his surname is Bong not Ho in Korea (and much of Asia) the surname is the first name not the last.

darz1 · Nov 6, 2020

Speaking of Toy Story, there's never a bad time to post this epic prank

darz1 · Nov 6, 2020

hi I'm new,

1. What's your favorite Movie? The Crow or Clockers or maybe even Creed
2. Who's your favorite director? Spike Lee
3. Who are your favorite actors/actresses? Denzel Washington
4. Favorite Genre(s)? Action, comedy, horror, drama
5. What's your favorite performance in film? Denzel in The Hurricane or Malcolm X

- Post your top 5 new viewings from the previous month!

Creed - great performances and great cinematography, what a great film. Made me feel like a kid again (I loved the Rocky films as a kid)

Creed 2 - good sequel to Creed and to my favorite Rocky film

The Thing - finally got around to seeing this classic film and wow what a great movie. Even with zero nostalgia this movie was kick ass.

Dredd - can't believe I never saw this. Great action,

Borgnine · Nov 6, 2020

Rewatched Bicycle Thieves which is still pretty good but I had an idea. What if instead of having to listen to the awful dubbed Italian dialog in all those old movies they re-recorded it so it didn't all sound like it was recoded in a sound booth on a Shure SM7? Kind of like colorization but for sound. Who's with me? Great idea or greatest idea?

Akumatica · Nov 7, 2020

Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)
Black & white experimental Japanese film about trans women (gay boys is the term used here) working as hostesses in Tokyo.

The film is interesting in the subject matter, the backdrop of the '60's protests and riots as well as how it experiments with the medium. Transition titles, avant-garde imagery, meta moments, comedic scenes and much more as it leads to a dramatic ending.

It breaks the 4th wall and will interview the actors about their lives and about making the film. Issues of sexuality, gender, gender attitudes and constructs are front and center.

Really well made and often beautiful.
= 4.5 out of 5

Akumatica · Nov 8, 2020

Shin Godzilla (2016)
Wow, this was amazing! Only some off effects toward the beginning and cheesy dialogue at the end slightly mar this story of bureaucracy & politics being ineffective against a giant monster wrecking havoc. The scenes of destruction are incredible, especially the main assault by Godzilla.

Nice to see Tetsuo: the Iron Man director Shinya Tsukamoto among the cast too.
= 4.5 out of 5

Noriko's Dinner Table (2005)
Sion Sono's companion piece to his film Suicide Club examines personas and the roles we play with family, friends and people at large, as well as finding your way into adulthood and reconciliation.

Told from 4 points of view over 2 1/2 hours, it comes across as very grounded until it clashes with the darkly satirical callousness to death, dying and being murdered. The last half veers back and forth unevenly between these tones. The message trying to explain Suicide Club falls flat with me.

Technically well made with some fine acting, I just found it a bit frustrating.
= 3 out of 5

Messofanego · Nov 8, 2020

Akumatica said:
Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)
Black & white experimental Japanese film about trans women (gay boys is the term used here) working as hostesses in Tokyo.

The film is interesting in the subject matter, the backdrop of the '60's protests and riots as well as how it experiments with the medium. Transition titles, avant-garde imagery, meta moments, comedic scenes and much more as it leads to a dramatic ending.

It breaks the 4th wall and will interview the actors about their lives and about making the film. Issues of sexuality, gender, gender attitudes and constructs are front and center.

Really well made and often beautiful.
= 4.5 out of 5

Ooooh this is interesting, wouldn't expect this from that era.

Akumatica · Nov 8, 2020

Messofanego said:
Ooooh this is interesting, wouldn't expect this from that era.

Just be aware that the film goes to some dark and violent places.

thenexus6 · Nov 8, 2020

For some reason i'd never seen this, and for some reason it popped into my head so I decided to give it a try. Man, what a good film! This has to be one of my favourite Sly performances. Stellar cast too.

HylianMaster2020 · Nov 8, 2020

Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest, still absolutely dramatic and incredible, Depp is all over it top 5 pirate movie.
4/5

Vaser · Nov 8, 2020

Demolition Man (1993) - my favorite Stallone movie. Also, Wesley Snipes as Simon Phoenix is one of the greatest movie villains ever!

less · Nov 8, 2020

Vaser said:
Demolition Man (1993) - my favorite Stallone movie. Also, Wesley Snipes as Simon Phoenix is one of the greatest movie villains ever!

I rather enjoyed this film! Pretty damn fun movie though I wouldn't say it is my favorite Stallone film. Far from it.

Naijaboy · Nov 9, 2020

Rebel Without A Cause (1955) This was a rather groundbreaking film at the time portraying the various tensions within teenagers as well as their parents failing to reconcile with them... which can be pretty familiar in today's standards. It's nothing special, but it's an interesting look at what would be the Silent Generation. 7/10

Sneakers (1992) - Now this is just a good old caper with the twist of the prize being the ultimate codebreaker. It also comes with the added twist of being a tale of two former friends now pitted against each other. The characters are great for the most part and the theme of the power of information is even more relevant today. There were plenty of ways around various alarms that were actually proven as at least plausible by Mythbusters. Also, I learned this was where the 'generous donation' meme came from (the more things chance for the Republican Party, the more stay the same huh). 8/10

Akumatica · Nov 9, 2020

Urban Legend (1998)
Dumb and improbable slasher with mostly unlikable characters & focused around urban legends.
Continuity mistakes, fake outs, red herrings and contrivances are here in spades as well as a stupid ending.

Might be ok to watch with a group to make fun of, but so many post-Scream slashers just suck.
= 1.5 out of 5

God Told Me To (1976)
What if god emerged in present day and wanted old testament style human sacrifices in the form of spree killings?
A deeply Catholic New York detective tries to solve the case and struggles with his own beliefs.

Then it takes a turn to the stupid by introducing sci-fi elements and wastes a very interesting setup.

Low rent and scuzzy, it's weird enough that I didn't hate it.
= 2.5 out of 5

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Who is the worst? The sociopaths that are the main characters, the media presented here that enabled them and wants sensational footage no matter the cost, or the makers of this badly acted film filled with racist portrayals, rape & the prolonged slaughter of animals while treating the cast and crew terribly IRL? I'll say the later as this is just exploitation.

The cruelty is shocking and there's some gore (human) gore effects, which is the best I can say about this. Otherwise it's pretty mundane.
= 1.5 out of 5

Sean C. · Nov 10, 2020

Touch of Evil (1958): A rewatch of the Welles memo version, now purchased on Blu-ray. One of the better 1950s film noir, featuring a great Orson Welles performance (Charlton Heston is also very good, if you overlook that he's playing a Mexican, which has come to dominate discussion of it now) and some really superb cinematography courtesy of Douglas Sirk's regular DP, Russell Metty. Welles was gone from Hollywood after this, having burned every bridge, and spent the remainder of his productive career trying to cobble together films with whatever he could find under the couch cushions, alas (though Chimes at Midnight is one of the best and most underappreciated films of the 1960s).

Saving Private Ryan (1998): The local Cineplex has been getting a steady stream of re-releases of older movies (many by Steven Spielberg), and I seized the opportunity to see Saving Private Ryan on the big screen -- I was eleven during its initial theatrical run, so I obviously didn't go see it at the time. Spielberg rewrote the cinematic playbook a number of times in his career, this being the most recent instance of it; almost every war movie looks like this now. Even with the aesthetic having become more familiar, it's still a technical masterpiece, and this time around the post-D Day scenes came together better for me than they have on some viewings of it. The cast has only become more distractingly full of recognizable actors as the years go by, even in minor roles.

Working Girls (1931): Directed by Dorothy Arzner, the first female member of the Directors Guild of America and the only one working for a Hollywood studio from the late 1920s to the early 1940s; and she's working from a screenplay by another woman, adapted from a play by two other women. A combination like that would be unusual today, let alone in 1931. That behind the scenes stuff is the most interesting thing about the movie, an engaging-but-dumb story about two smalltown sisters who move to the Big Apple and get involved with various men. Some scenes seem to call for a harder lean into farce than Arzner's directing brings to it. But then, this is a very early sound film, everybody was still finding their footing.

A Little Romance (1979): Diane Lane's film debut, in which she plays a 13-year-old America expatriate in Paris, where her mother is working as an actress; she strikes up a juvenile romance with a French boy, and faced with being separated on her family returning to America, decide to run away to Venice to kiss under the Bridge of Sighs, based on a tale spun to them by an old pickpocket (Laurence Olivier) who they think is a retired diplomat. Directed by George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, etc.), this is a really charming movie that I first encountered on TCM a while ago, and which was just released on Blu-ray through the Warner Archive imprint (which also just throws into sharp relief how much Paramount sucks at releasing its back catalog; there is no way a lovely but obscure movie like this should have a Blu-ray release when they only just got around to making Roman Holiday available). I believe Wes Anderson has cited this as one of the influences on Moonrise Kingdom, and you can see why.

Deleted member 13496 · Nov 10, 2020

Re-watched 3:10 to Yuma last night, and while I still love the movie (Ben Foster fucking rules), there was something pointed out to me that I cannot get over.

Not really spoilers I guess but in the beginning of the movie it's shown that Christian Bale's character uses a prosthetic leg and walks with a limp.

By the end of the movie him and Russel Crowe are in full send mode, running and jumping off rooftops and leaping over barrels, through windows, etc. all while sprinting and avoiding gunfire. Not bad for a guy with a mid-18th century prosthetic.

Other than that lil fuckup, the movie is still pretty great. And having lost my father earlier in the year, the movie's themes about fatherhood hit way harder this time around.

It’s Reyn Time! · Nov 10, 2020

Just been watching Ghosts of War on Netflix. So far, so average. Loads of cheap jump scares but whatever, I'm in the mood for trash.

If anyone else has watched this, is there a scene missing about thirty minutes in? Between scenes half of the characters just accumulated a bunch of facial injuries, like they've been in a brawl. No explanation, no hint as to how that happened. The hell?

MidnightCowboy · Nov 10, 2020

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Thought I couldn't love Pedro any more than I already do, but then he went ahead and remixed the "Lie to me" scene from Johnny Guitar. His visual prowess is almost underrated, he should be hailed as one of the greatest to ever do it. I've seen enough to say nobody has put color to better use than him.

Meows · Nov 12, 2020

meowdi gras said:
Eugene O'Neill is my fursona.

Lumet's Long Day's Journey is a great adaptation. I still kinda wish they had retained the Tyrone patriarch from the original Broadway run, Frederic March, whom I imagine would've been fantastic in the movie version, particularly with Hepburn. Ralph Richardson is one of my very favorite actors of that era and he puts in solid work here, but his radiating Englishness stands out like a sore thumb.

If you haven't yet seen it, I highly recommend the John Frankenheimer film version of The Iceman Cometh, my very fave O'Neill screen adaptation. Robert Ryan, in particular, puts in some truly phenomenal work.

March would have been amazing in it, agreed. I have not seen The Iceman Cometh, I will look into it though that four hour runtime sounds even more daunting than Long Day's Journey Into Night! But I like those stagey movies where people ramble and wax poetically. Looks like a great cast.

In Name Only (1939) - one sees the names Carole Lombard and Cary Grant together; what is immediately expected? A screwball comedy? A witty satire? No. This film is a romantic drama about a loveless marriage and the war between two women, the old Mrs. Walker (Key Francis) and the soon-to-be new Mrs. Walker (Carole Lombard). While it is standard melodrama in many ways, all three actors give it their best and have a good time with it. This is probably the first straight drama I have seen from Lombard and she impressed.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) - interesting film noir that mirrors Double Indemnity in many ways - but also differentiates itself as well. Both stories were written by James M. Cain. While Indemnity plays it fairly straight while still being elusive, Postman is filled with twists and turns all the way up till the very end. Lana Turner is wonderful as Cora, the femme fatale wife that longs for a better (and more successful) life. Even though monstrous acts are committed, there is still a certain vulnerability to Turner, who is constantly wavering in her commitment until she is finally trapped into a life she never asked for. Did that man deserve that though? No.

In a Lonely Place (1950) - directed by Nicholas Ray, this is a wild ride of a film that breaks the heart by the end. This is the first film I have seen with Gloria Grahame (who I primarily knew by her scandalous personal life.. she was married to Ray and then married her step-son years later, what a wild family reunion that must have been) but both she and Humphrey Bogart were phenomenal in this film. It is honest and candid about how destructive an abusive relationship can be and how important trust is in making or breaking it - but also showing how easy it is to fall head over heels in love and what a great, if fleeting, moment that can be. It is like a film noir but only because it is repeated in your head that it has to be one.

Such a powerful and devastating ending.

Black Narcissus (1947) - gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous film. It really cannot be overstated just how good this movie looks, in terms of cinematography and art direction and production design. Genuinely might be one of the greatest looking movies ever. It follows an order of Anglican nuns that travel to the Himalayas to set up a school and hospital but only ever seem to find passion, horror, and temptation in their path as they try to follow their purpose. The film unfolding into a psychological thrill ride in the last third was wonderful and unnerving. There are definitely some problematic elements that date the film - though they did manage to get a big name Indian star (Sabu) and had a pretty large cast of background actors, it is unfortunate that we had to have Jean Simmons in brownface. Can't go without saying how wonderful Deborah Kerr was in this, as the pillar of strength in her community slowly wavering as her old desire begin to resurface.

More_Badass · Nov 12, 2020

Continued my watch through De Palma films with a revisit of Mission Impossible
★★★★½

Revisiting Mission Impossible after watching the director's style crystallize throughout his films made one thing clear: De Palma and spies were an inevitable pairing. The theatre of espionage, the weaponized voyeurism of screens and bugs, the clockwork structure of field operations, it all fits snugly within his wheelhouse. The pre-credits mission comes across as De Palma settling back into Blowout mode, recalibrating that film's political conspiracy and backstage magic to suit the world of special agents. He even sates his Hitchcock passion by positioning Ethan Hunt in a "wrong man on the run" role.

Everything up to the bullet train exterior is top-tier spy-game thrills. Nothing too deconstructive, just De Palma indulging in genre fun with his own signature touches. A multitude of sleek spit-diopters (even noticed a horizontal one), POV shots, Dutch-angled agitation, illuminating pans, screens within screens, and pulpy flair. Elaborate clockwork set-pieces that carefully interweave geography with the suspense. Tom Cruise gets to flex his range, shifting from causal operator to exhausted paranoia to confident rogue wit; the whole cast, from the early team to Reno and Rhames, have strong suave chemistry.

The Langley heist remains an all-time caper, De Palma at his peak of his cinematic powers making an impossible mission look super-cool and edge-of-your-seat tense. The sequels have gone bigger, but none have matched this sequence's laser-focused intensity and stark intricacies. After that unforgettable peak, the final act can only hope to satisfy with answers and resolution. The bombastic CGI-heavy incongruity of fighting atop a speeding bullet train hooked to a helicopter actually felt kind of quaint. You just know that the madman would do it for real nowadays.

Panic in the Streets (1950)
★★★★½

Panic In The Streets is a contract-tracing noir for our times. A gangster kills a man and dumps his body. Authorities soon discover that the victim was sick with pneumonic plague; now there's a race against time to prevent an epidemic in New Orleans. A doctor, along with a cop liaison, races across the city's shadowy working-class dockside to find the infected killer and anyone he contacted. Unaware of his symptomatic fate, the gangster goes on the run, and thus we have Elia Kazan's unorthodox cat-&-mouse thriller. There is a surreal fascination in seeing now-familiar notions framed through a noir lens: contract tracing, quarantine, skeptical bureaucracy, preventing panic taking precedence over public safety, a less-than-helpful public.

Kazan constructs a ticking-clock manhunt from scientific distress and impoverished tensions. Richard Widmark's health officer finds a compelling balance of anxious frustration and selfless intensity, a Hippocratic tweak on the detective searching for leads among dive bars and rowdy sailor haunts. His buddy-cop teamwork with Paul Douglas' police captain provides Panic In The Street with a grey streak, as their methods grow questionable with time running out. A gaunt and looming Jack Palance plays the stressed gangster, trying to deduce why the police are so frantically searching for him. Must be a rat or a set-up...

The criminal flight and medical hunt interweave for well-crafted suspense, our knowledge of the stakes placing Palance's hard-boiled interactions in a different light. Kazan makes stellar use of the New Orleans' port-city texture, filming on location among its warehouses and harbors. Contract tracing becomes a hectic challenge of teasing information from nervous immigrants and unruly sorts wary of undercover cops poking about.

Panic In The Streets even manages to pack in sincere melodrama between Widmark's family man and his wife, as well as a gripping finale that sets a clumsy panicked chase/shootout around, through, under the port. Elia Kazan's doctor-hero noir was probably unique even in its day, but this taut genre entry gains new relevance in the COVID era.

Downrange (2017)
★★★
Taut single-location thrills and oozing visceral bloodshed compensate for Downrange's perfunctory characters. Bunch of teens on a roadtrip find themselves pinned down behind their truck by a sniper. Kitamura mines the scenario for kinetic camerawork and nuggets of intense suspense, while also clogging said scenario with flat emotion and questionable decisions. Watch this for the tension and the slasher-movie gore, Downrange offers both in spades.

Peninsula (2020)
★★½
If you enjoyed Train To Busan, you might not enjoy Peninsula.
If you enjoyed Land of the Dead, I Am Legend, Road Warrior, Escape From New York, and Neil Marshall's Doomsday, Peninsula might be the zombie movie for you.

The genre rarely has the opportunity to go this big or bombastic, and Yeon Sang-ho relishes the opportunity to do the zombie film as heist thriller/post-apocalyptic tribal survival/Mad Max mayhem. That propulsive pace comes at a cost though, because the character drama and precisely-modulated tension that defined Train To Busan are nowhere to be seen.

Peninsula isn't trying to be Train To Busan; it's the comic-panels-come-to-life full-throttle T2 to Busan's claustrophobic Terminator. But Sang-ho brings nothing else to the table beyond scale and CGI-heavy chaos, leaving us with characters we don't care about, melodrama that only feels forced, and a two hours of plot that only acts as an excuse for set-pieces. I applaud the ambition and kineticism of the action, but Peninsula blindly overreaches in its furious desire to entertain. Most of the final act looks like cutscenes ripped from a PS3 game.

The Dark and the Wicked (2020)
★★★½
Bryan Bertino burst onto the horror scene with The Strangers, a film that knew when to remain unsettling, assault with scares, and get mean. Over a decade and several films later, The Dark & The Wicked is a further refinement of those aspects, and Bertino's best movie yet. Horrific emotionally-draining American Gothic; a Midwest abyss of snarling plains and creaking windmills.

The first act is arguably the film's strongest. An isolated unease as a woman endures... something in resigned silence, something that disturbs the goats and lurks among twilight. Soon after, a brother and sister arrive at the farm to sit by their dying father's deathbed, noticing that their mother is acting odd. One stomach-turning sequence of gore later, and the film begins ratcheting the atmosphere, compounding the trauma day by day. The horror elements are intense, but the grief and coping are more so, thanks to raw haggard performances from Marin Ireland and Michael Abbott Jr.

The Dark & The Wicked delivers anguish, suffocating dread, and jump scares in equal measure. On the surface, its tone and terror are reminiscent of "The Wind", but the characters' domestic turmoil make this a thematic companion to Relic. Bertino takes his story to dark cruel depths, a journey marked by prickling unease and startling violence. Its horrors may be familiar, a jarringly abrupt ending didn't quite stick the landing, but the rest of Dark & Wicked remains a bleakly harrowing haunting.

Irmavep · Nov 12, 2020

Lukes said:
Black Narcissus (1947) - gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous film. It really cannot be overstated just how good this movie looks, in terms of cinematography and art direction and production design. Genuinely might be one of the greatest looking movies ever. It follows an order of Anglican nuns that travel to the Himalayas to set up a school and hospital but only ever seem to find passion, horror, and temptation in their path as they try to follow their purpose. The film unfolding into a psychological thrill ride in the last third was wonderful and unnerving. There are definitely some problematic elements that date the film - though they did manage to get a big name Indian star (Sabu) and had a pretty large cast of background actors, it is unfortunate that we had to have Jean Simmons in brownface. Can't go without saying how wonderful Deborah Kerr was in this, as the pillar of strength in her community slowly wavering as her old desire begin to resurface.

Gorgeous film indeed. The use of color and lighting to accentuate Kathleen Byron's character transformation is wonderful.

BlueTsunami · Nov 13, 2020

I just finished watching Honey Boy

I wasn't ready, y'all. This was so damn good. The sense of generational pain was conveyed in such a devastatingly beautiful way. Give it a watch if you haven't.

Truant · Nov 13, 2020

I'm craving something similar to The Invitation (2015). Any good recent suggestions on VOD? Just looking for that bottle-episode vibe.

Messofanego · Nov 14, 2020

Has anyone seen Roy Andersson's new film About Endlessness?

djinn · Nov 14, 2020

I watched Teenagers From Outer Space. It was pretty good. I liked the crayfish they held up to studio lights to make monster silhouettes.

Movies You've Seen Recently | November 2020

Best Toy Story?

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▲ Legend ▲

音楽オタク - Comics Council 2020

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