The Last Movie You Watched? ver.2.0

runtime says 93 min.

Thatā€™ll be the US theatrical cut. The ā€˜fullā€™ version is 107 minutes.

ā€œSuddenlyā€ (1954), with Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden.

Over the month of May so far:

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) :star2::star2::star2::star2::star2:
If You Meet Sartana Pray For Your Death (1968) :star2::star2::star2::star2:
Rashōmon (1950) :star2::star2::star2::star2::star2:
Lady Snowblood (1973) :star2::star2::star2::star2:
Colossal (2016) :star2::star2::star2::star2:
The Hunting Party (1971) :star2::star2::star2:
Dead Space: Aftermath (2011) :star2::star2::star2:
Ninja Scroll (1993) :star2::star2::star2::star2::star2:

I went to the movies to watch ALIEN COVENANT yesterday. Canā€™t believe that after 5 whole years from the excellent PROMETHEUS they could only come up with this. The story was such a mess that it kinda ruined the ALIEN mythology. Seems Ridley Scott run out of ideas this time, Very disappointing indeed.

Saw Alien Covenant last night and wasnā€™t impressed. I hadnā€™t seen any alien films prior, nor will I find myself viewing any on the near future. Their are a number of sceneā€™s in the first hour that seem to go nowhere, and two or three sceneā€™s so horribly shot, Iā€™d cut them out altogether. Some of the actions so poorly shot, that if one would have blinked, he/she would have missed an important moment.

At some point within the next week or so, I will have viewed the following :
1.Torso 1973, directed by Sergio Martino
2.Kill Baby Kill 1977, directed by Mario Bava,
3.Deep Red 1975 the Argento classic, Iā€™ve seen it, and wanted a copy on DVD.

Yesterday I watched The Mighty Peking Man (Ho, 1977), The Reef (Traucki, 2010) and Wonder Woman (not the imminent entry into the DCEU starring Gal Gadot but the fourth picture in the ā€œDC Universe Animated Original Moviesā€ series of films, made in 2009 by Lauren Montgomery), all of which were excellent in their own distinct way and all of which come highly recommended if you fancy some Shaw Brothers-style monster movie madness, a genuinely tense shark flick and some animated superhero shenanigans, respectively.

ā€œInside the Walls of Folsom Prisonā€ (1951), with Steve Cochran, Phil Carey and Ted de Corsia as the warden (who does a Django impression haha).

I made it a Sunday night double-featureā€“

ā€œThe Killingā€ (1956), with Sterling Hayden, Elisha Cook Jr, Ted de Corsia, Vince Edwards, Marie Windsor, Jay C. Flippen and Timothy Carey. Regia di Stanley Kubrick.

Magic in the Moonlight (2014, Woody Allen)

Minor Woody. Colin Firth is a James Randi-like skeptic of the supernatural: heā€™s a stage illusionist himself, but also a great debunker of paranormal or pseudoscientific claims. Heā€™s asked by a friend to reveal a clairvoyant, a young woman (Emma Stone) whoā€™s possibly trying - with the help of her scheming mother - to ruin an American family living in the South of France. Heā€™s convinced the girl is a fraud, but the more time he spends with her, he starts thinking that she might actually have second sight. Or is he blinded by those special feelings heā€™s developing for her ā€¦

Magic in the Moonlight is full of Allenisms, often presented as opposites, pessimism versus joy of life, science versus mystery, rationality versus belief, etc. Itā€™s also marked by the detective influences that have infused Allenā€™s work in recent years: if this woman is not a clairvoyant, how can she do the things sheā€™s doing? The detective aspect works quite well: I was really wondering what was going on and the revelation is believable and well-prepared. Unfortunately the romantic aspect is less convincing: both Firth and Stone are okay (if not great) but thereā€™s little or no chemistry between them. Dame Eileen June Atkins turns in the movieā€™s best performance as Firthā€™s aunt.

A minor comedy by Woody is better than most comedies by others, but this one definitely belongs to the lower echelons of his vast body of work.
3- out of 5

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I agree with you. Iā€™ve liked quite a lot of Allenā€™s recent films but this one -though watchable- wasnā€™t up there with his standard.

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Today: John Wick: Chapter 2 (Stahelski, 2017)

When John (Keanu Reeves) is double-crossed by a crime lord and has a $7,000,000 bounty placed on his head for doing the job heā€™d been asked/forced to do, he has every hit man in the city of New York after him. And boy, there are a LOT of hit men in New York! By the logic of John Wick: Chapter 2, there shouldnā€™t be any room in the city for anyone who isnā€™t a gun-for-hire. And the only respite for John comes at the Continental, a global chain of hotels which serve as underworld ā€œneutral groundsā€ where no blood may be spilt, and where the managers (Ian McShane at the New York branch, Franco Nero at the Rome branch) provide their clients with weaponry, armour, a nice relaxing scotch and a place to drink it in peace. And if youā€™re nice, the concierge might even look after your dog while you busy yourself spreading heads across every neon lightbulb and mirrored surface in the city.

John Wick:Chapter 2 ramps up the manic action silliness presented by its 2014 predecessor by at least 500%, but it remains an absolute blast. Improbable and daft, of course, but itā€™s an actioner with a lot of panache.

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Saw this in the cinema, ( still havenā€™t seen the first one) but I had a vague idea of the story. Not a bad film, decent action, moving somewhat at a fast pace, and Keanu isnā€™t terrible in the lead, not something Iā€™d watch over and over, and I donā€™t see the film being classified as a ā€œneo- noirā€.

Finally had a chance to watch the blue underground version of this film, which was a real beauty, and is in full English, uncensored, and uncut. Martinoā€™s film revolves around a sexually obsessed killer, troubled from events that took place in his childhood. On screen all one seeā€™s is his black gloves, dark clothes, and a ski mask. Our killer spends most of the film strangling women in cars, the woods, and other spots where collegiate students hang out. Their is one scene where he hits a man with his car, and this scene shows us that Martino has good love for exploitation and gore. Some of the sceneā€™s blur the lines between porn and exploitation. The story itself isnā€™t too hard to follow, and the killer turns out to be a bit of a surprise ( for me anyway) . Any fan of the gallio genre should give this a view.

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Two nights ago: Hounds of Love (Young, 2016)

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Fine review, still have my doubts about the movie after reading it, but iā€™ll give it a try

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Over the bank holiday weekend:
Saturday - The Wild Geese (McLaglen, 1978)
Sunday - Live and Let Die (Hamilton, 1973)

  • For Your Eyes Only (Glen, 1981)
  • Jaws 2 (Szwarc, 1978)

I promised myself a bit of a Roger-Moore-a-thon this weekend (I may yet watch another Moore-era Bond later today), and a silly TV spoof of Jaws which aired in the UK on Saturday night put me in the mood for a bit of sharkey-bitey action so I stuck Jaws 2 on the following evening.

Today (so far) - The Lego Batman Movie (McKay, 2017)

  • Teen Titans:The Judas Contract (Liu, 2017)

Lego Batman was very silly but also genuinely funny and surprisingly heart-warming. The Teen Titans pic was far from the greatest animated superhero movie Iā€™ve seen but it was pretty good, quite a bit better than I expected it to be.

The Equalizer (2014, Antoine Fuqua)

Denzel Washington plays a mysterious man who once executed black operations for the CIA, but is now working in a Home Mart hardware store and spending his nights reading books. A young woman (ChloĆ« Grace Moretz) whoā€™s under the control of the Russia Mafia forces him to return to his former way of life.

Denzel & ChloĆ« have a few good scenes together early on, but she drops out of the movie after half an hour or so, only to return for a brief encounter in the movieā€™s dying moments. The rest of the time is filled with Washingtonā€™s ex-CIA operative disposing of criminal vermin. The criminal mastermind from Russia - called Pushkin, no less - keeps sending in new scum, until our man takes to plane to Moscow to settle things once and for all.

If you think the world needs one more vigilante movie, Denzel Washington is probably the best choice for the lead and Antoine Fuqua not a bad choice for the directional chair, but to me The Equalizer felt like a missed opportunity. It almost feels cartoonish, with Washington impersonating a larger-than-life, virtually indestructible character, but instead of tongue-in-cheek (which might have done the film a lot of good), the atmosphere is rather stern and most of the violence directed at Washingtonā€™s opponents is pretty nasty.

Thereā€™s also some of the sermonizing (bad people will be spared if they promise to do ā€˜the good thingā€™) that has become an increasingly important part of Denzel Washingtonā€™s movies in recent years. Itā€™s obvious what Washington and Fuqua had in mind - the equalizer is a messianic savior of those who are without hope - but the idea needs a better movie to bloom.

I took it as that from the very first moments and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Moore is filmmaker from Detroit Michigan. Mooreā€™s documentaries are controversial, sometimes biased, and known to stretch the truth. This one is no exception, but I found some of the material informative.