The Last Movie You Watched? ver.2.0

Not a Norris fan, and not really a Carradine fan either, but I thought this movie is quite alright. Haven’t seen it in quite a while either …

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I’ve just re-edited my initial post, by now including the main Francesco De Masi theme for ‘Lone Wolf’…worth hearing!

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013, John Moore)

The fifth entry in the Die Hard franchise and according to virtually every single fan the weakest - by far. Because of all these negative comments, I had avoided it so far. The film is not as bad as it’s reputed to be, it has its moments, but yes, it’s the weakest of the series.

Of all these wise-cracking, would-be funny action heroes from the 80s John McClane was my favorite. He was invincible, but he remained human, a hard-working, street-wise cop who had a special talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this fifth adventure he travels to Moscow to talk to his son, who seems to be in trouble, not knowing that his son is a CIA operative. He is soon caught in the crossfire of what looks like the first steps towards WWIII.

Sending a wise-cracking John McClane to Moscow wasn’t the greatest of ideas in the first place; his street credibility doesn’t stretch to a country where nobody understands his sarcastic comments and you get the feeling the character wandered off and ended up in the wrong movie (he’s more a side-kick here to Jai Courtney, who plays his son). Moreover director John Moore films this foreign adventure in a headache inducing style including rapid cuts, smash cuts, weird zooms, CGI’s and CGE’s (computer generated explosions).

The story picks up a little in the second half and there’s at least one surprising twist, but in the end A Good Day to Die Hard feels more like A Good Way to Kill the Franchise.
5/10

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Poodle Springs… 1998… is the last Philip Marlowe P.I. novel (the first was The Big Sleep, with Bogart) brought to the screen, this time starring James Caan. -Who’s brilliant here. He’s married to a hot, rich lawyer yet still tries to maintain his one-man detective agency under his wife’s pressure to move out of Los Angeles and retire.

It’s a typical Raymond Chandler murder-plot: incredibly interwoven by seemingly unrelated subtexts. -Stylishly set in 1963, with attention to detail. Plenty of philosophical dialogue, edgy suspense, and tough-guy action. And of course, the mystery-trail leads right to Joe Don Baker, as Marlowe’s father-in-law. 8.5 out of 10, easy.

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‘LIfeforce’ (1985), Dir. Tobe Hooper.

A species of space vampire is discovered in outer space, brought back to Britain, and then unleashes chaos. Chief of the vampires is gorgeous French actress, Mathilda May, who walks around naked most of the time, much to the dismay of British actors, Patrick Stewart, Frank Finlay, Peter Firth, and Nicholas Ball.
I have always enjoyed it; and - although not your everyday ‘blood and brain matter’ gore-fest, it is entertaining enough. The one thing that has always stood out, for me, is the fantastic score, written and performed by ‘Pink Panther’ composer, Henry Mancini.
In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I’m pretty blimmin hacked off that this soundtrack is now unobtainable.

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I watched a couple of movies on the MOOOV Film festival in my home town Turnhout. This one was (by far) the best so far:

AFTER THE STORM (2016, Kore-eda Hirokazu)

Another impressive slice of life from my favorite director, Kore-eda Hirokazo. The film tells the story of a group of people, members of the same family, who have never achieved what they wanted to achieve in life.

The mother recently became a widow and now tries to prevent that the family will fall apart completely. Her biggest worry: her son Ryota, who once won a prize for his first novel but hasn’t written a word ever since. He now has a low-grade job as a private eye but wastes the little money he makes on gambling. He is therefore not able to pay the monthly alimony to his ex-wife Kyoko nor to buy the expensive baseball gloves he’d like to give to his 10-year old son Shingo. In the meantime Kyoko and Shingo have their own worries: Kyoko is dating another man but is unsure about him, and Shingo realizes that he will never be a professional baseball player … A typhoon forces the family members to stay under one roof for the night and to come to terms with each other … and themselves.

Slow-moving, with not much happening most of the time, but wonderfully acted and flawlessly directed. Kore-eda is close to his very best here, but if you’re unfamiliar with his work, you might want to check out some of his other - more accessible - movies first, notably I Wish or Like Father, Like Son
4/5

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Sounds interesting, that. I’ve never heard of the director but I enjoy a meandering slice-of-life drama if it’s done well.

A few days ago: Get Out (Peele, 2017)

Against his best friend Rod’s (Lil Rel Howery) advice, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) - a black man - agrees to visit for a weekend at the home of his new white girlfriend Rose’s (Allison Williams) affluent parents. His initial reticence upon hearing that Rose hasn’t yet informed mommy and daddy she’s dating a black man is soothed by her rationale that she wouldn’t dream of taking him to their house if they were racists, would she? And her parents certainly don’t bat an eyelid upon meeting Chris. Rose’s father Dean (Bradley Whitford) - a revered neurosurgeon - is a cliché of white liberal guilt, repeatedly referring to Chris as “my man” and stumbling through attempts to urbanise his speech, and Rose’s mother Missy (Catherine Keener) - a hypnotherapist - seems overkeen on curing Chris of his smoking habit, but they seem well-meaning. They do have a couple of black people employed as home helps, and they are the f*cking weirdest black people Chris has ever met, but, still. The parents are definitely not racists, although Rose’s brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones) is definitely an asshole.

That night, Missy presses Chris about hypnosis, and about his mother, who died when Chris was very young. Chris politely declines to be hypnotised or to discuss his mother, but finds himself unable to move and compelled to answer any question Missy puts to him as Missy rhythmically stirs her teaspoon in her teacup. What’s happening? More pertinently, why is this happening? Chris decides he’d like to find Rose and leave, just as soon as he can move out of this chair…

I’d been led by the marketing to somewhat erroneously assume Get Out to be a horror but it’s really more of a sci-fi thriller, like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror, in which Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya also featured in its first season (in the second episode, entitled Fifteen Million Merits). Would a black man/woman - or, perhaps more specifically - a black American view Get Out as more of a genuine horror than a white suburban middle-aged Brit such as myself? I dunno. I liked it, though. Well made, top to bottom. Daniel Kaluuya has a very likeable quality, and I always enjoy Stephen Root (King of the Hill), even in a smaller role as here, in which he plays a blind art dealer.

SAMI BLOOD (2016, Amanda Kernell)

A coming-of-age tale, set against the background of cultural prejudice and racism. The Sami are the indigenous Finno-Ugric people living in Sapmi - in English known as Lapland - the arctic region stretching four nations, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Sami Blood is set in Sweden, in the 1930s (the story is presented as a flashback, bookended by two smaller sequences set in the present). If you thought the Swedes and Sami lived in perfect harmony, you might think differently after watching this movie.

The central characters are two Sami girls, Ella-Marja and Njella, who choose to follow different paths in life. Njella, the youngest of the two, feels one hundred percent Sami and rejects all things Swedish, Ella-Marja want to integrate into society and forget about her Sami roots as much as possible.

The first half vaguely resembles the Australian movie Rabbit Proof Fence (the girls are taken away from home and brought to a so-called Nomad school, a primary school for Sami children), the second half concentrates more on Ella-Marja’s difficulties to become ‘Swedish’. While the first half is by no means as devastating and hard-hitting as Rabbit Proof Fence, it works quite well; the girls are endearing and they act very well, but the second half, with Ella-Marja running away from the Nomad school and trying her luck in Swedish society, is far less convincing; some of the plot twists feel far-fetched and the ending leaves too many things unsaid.

Sami Blood was well-received on a couple of film festivals (I saw it on a film festival too), but probably more for what it suggests than what it actually says about its interesting premise. It’s well-meant and never boring, but in the end it’s too inconclusive.
3/5

Like for this one :slight_smile:

Yes, fourth one was kind of fresh in its outrageoulsy camp, cgi-overblown update for new generation way. This one has a direct-to-video feel, uninteresting characters and poor excuse for a story that is redeemed with nothing. Killed by boredom.

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For a short period of 90s, noir was back in vogue. I remember I liked this one with good ol Caan quite a lot.

Today: 47 Meters Down (Roberts, 2016)

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Don’t Fuck in the Woods(2016)

I tried to resist, but damn…what a catchy title. Anyways I watched the whole damn thing. As it was expected on this $100.00 budget, this was truly awful, but the tits on the loose cheap women were really nice though.

Nice review. I’m a bit of a sucker for a good shark movie as well.

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Syndicate Sadists.
Lotsa fun
https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/Syndicate_Sadists

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Alex Cross vs Jack Reacher vs John Wick (or James Patterson vs Lee Child vs videogame)

I have just recently saw all 3 first instalements of these short-and-catchy-badass-name-as-a-title action-crime-thrillers. They do not have same reputation: Cross is not so well received (to put it midly), while Reacher and especially Wick have received more positive response.

On my side, I don’t see much difference among all 3. It’s all the same meaningless macho bullshit to me. Not that I don’t have a thing for macho bullshit, obviously I’m on spaghetti western forum, It’s this “meaningless” part that’s a problem. Maybe I’m getting old, but I’m getting fed up with the movies that are supposed to be “fun” beacuse they are more violent than an average FPS game. All the cliches didn’t help either: baddie is a Russian guy played by Swedish actor…Wick operates himself in one scene, Rambo style…for the final fight - wait for it, wait for it - they drop the guns a decide they’ll settle it mano a mano with fists (scene is completed with the pouring rain that appears out of the blue (sic))…etc. etc. There is some humor and tongue-in-cheek, but not nearly enough to redeem the script which only purpose is to move Keanu from one location to another were he will kick and shoot people. And those non-stop action sequences were not really jaw-dropping after we’ve seen The Raid movies.

So in the end I’ve enjoyed Jack the Reacher most, because I had fun with my wife laughing how bad some parts of it and its dialogue are and because it is most tongue-in-cheek of the 3.

Animal Crackers (1930)

The second Marx Brothers movie, featuring all four of the brothers, Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo. It was based on a Broadway musical, also starring the brothers and still belongs to the pre-code era, which means the girls show their legs and there’s a lot of sexual innuendo (“We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren’t developed. But we’re going back again in a couple of weeks!”). The film is set during a weekend party at the Long Island Estate of the aristocratic Mrs. Rittenhouse; her guest of honor is the (in)famous explorer Captain Spaulding (Groucho himself).

There’s a story about a missing painting, but never mind. Not able to hide its stage origins, Animal Crackers is episodic, more vaudeville than movie (and the vignettes are a bit hit-and-miss), but it features some of the best jokes and routines of the brothers: Chico recognizes Abey the Peddler, Harpo steals a birthmark and Groucho shoots an elephant in his pajamas (“how he got into my pajamas, I will never know”). The film also features the classic song ‚Hurray for Captain Spaulding’ and the classic Harpo-Chico scene about a flash, a fish, a flit, a flush, etcetera etcetera …

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Today: The Happiest Place on Earth (Goshorn, 2015):

Today I’m going watch Face to Face, something I’d been wanting to see for a while but haven’t seen.

Theatrical or Uncut?