Well, I haven’t seen all these movies, and some of them millons of lightyears ago (in a galaxy long gone), but I can’t see a 5-star movie in the list either. Once Upon a Time in America is no doubt the best of the list, but no as good as some of the director’s other movies either. I wonder how i would react to Paris, Texas today. It was an immensily popular movie among young intellectuals in those days, and i was among the unlucky few who didn’t like it. Pretty in Pink was a nice movie, as far as I remember. I fancied molly ringwald for some reason. She wasn’t that pretty, but had that inexplicable something in the way she moved
Paris Texas is a 5 star (cinco estrelas) to me, one I like to watch from time to time (great soundtrack too).
Also Das Boot, Ran (not the best Kurosawa to me but still a fiver to my taste), BIg Trouble in litle Chine is sort of Starship Troopers from the 80’s a solid 4 stars to me.
Yes, Once upon a time in America not the best Leone but with a 5 star ending
I don’t remember a thing of it, other than that Mickey Rourke and Bill Cosby’s daughter (from the show) is in it. No idea what twist you are referring to, so maybe my second viewing would be similar to the first …
No. I’ve arranged the movies I’m watching for my movie challenges in a loosely ascending order of personal preference. It’s not definitive and, here and there, I’ve pulled some out of order altogether (watching The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi much earlier in the month than my preference would dictate simply so they coincide with May the 4th - Star Wars Day - for instance), but by and large my favourites and five-stars will likely turn up in the last week of the month.
I’ve always loved OuaTiA but, this viewing, it felt overwrought and, tbh, a little bit of a chore at times. And the last half-hour or so felt absolutely interminable. Felt like three hours on its own, that exchange between Woods and De Niro. Sometimes you’ve just got to be in the right frame of mind for a movie; one of the drawbacks of committing to a specific movie on a specific day rather than sticking it on when you’re feeling it, you know?
It’s a big fat pile of nonsense of course, but it has a lot of nostalgia credit with me. Commando was the first pirate video I ever managed to acquire, from a car boot sale I think. It was over saturated and a roughly tenth-generation copy of a copy so all detail was gone and the sound might as well have been coming from the bottom of the sea, it was so muffled. But it was Arnie’s new film, Commando, on video! Now, I find most of it laugh-out-loud funny. My son and I were both yelling “Let off some steam, Bennett!” at one another in our best Schwarzenegger voices hours later.
It’s very close to one for me too. Probably would be on another day.
Just as Paris, Texas was close to those 5 stars and maybe should’ve had them, so Angel Heart was close to four and maybe should’ve had them. Knowing how it will play out doesn’t especially diminish things really imho, it just helps with that feeling of things moving to an inexorable conclusion, like bad dream you know you’ve had before but can’t change.
The thing that I enjoyed the most about the movie was its infernal, exceedingly oppressive atmosphere. Even if this twist is supposed to be a surprise, I kind of anticipated it before it actually happened. I still enjoyed it purely by virtue of it having this hellish zest. I guess if this miasma of fatefulness is as pervasive the second time around, it will stay 4 star (or 8/10) film for me.
It just didn’t work for me at all. Not much of an Arnie fan, but I kinda knew what I was going into, so I should have liked it, but never warmed up to it. Sure, it technically has all the necessary ingredients for the dumb actioner formula, but it just kind of never worked out. I did enjoy the hell out of The Running Man though, which is a very similar type of movie. I dunno. I guess Commando was a notch too asinine for me.
A sumptuous, intriguing, but also uneven historic fresco painting the transition of British India to independence, and the turmoil that was caused by the deep cultural and religious differences between Muslims and Hindus. Hugh Bonneville stars as Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, who was asked to oversee the transition.
Thanks to good performances and meticulous care to period detail, the historic fresco works pretty well, even though history buffs have criticized some of the script’s details, notably the claim that Mountbatten was a used as a puppet and that Pakistan was created by Churchill and the British government as a buffer state between the Soviet Union and the subcontinent. Newsreels about the historic events add to a sense of realism, but unfortunately a story of star-crossed lovers (a Muslim girl and a Hindu servant) is added to please audiences and add a conciliatory element to the altogether rather bleak movie that seems to tackle any possible hope that we will ever live on peaceful planet.
I didn’t have much luck with movies lately, but let’s take a look anyway:
The Cloverfield Paradox
I like two previous movies of the franchise, especially Cloverfield Lane. This one starts promissingly, but as weird things begin to unfold it’s clear why Paramount sold this trash to Netflix, (similarly as Annihilation), which starts to be new “direct to dvd” platform. 2 out of 5.
They Live (1988)
Never seen this before. I think this must be one of the worst sci-fi movies I’ve ever encountered. Also starts interestingly, and when Rody Piper puts shades on it is pretty intense, but soon enough the movie turns itself into pretty much the most idiotic action packed conspiracy flick out there. I can’t believe it was made by the same person who directed Escape From NY. I literally can’t. How? What? I laughed through it to the very end, but now I’m really sad. When you are doing a movie about humanity being asleep thanks to various sources of subliminal messages, and one of that sources is also popculture television trash, don’t make a movie which looks like one of those trashy productions bad ETs would make. Oh god, and what the fuck was with that extremely prolonged wrestling fight. We all know that Rody Piper is (was) wrestling star, you don’t have to shove it up our arses. Normally I like Carpenter’s music, this one just doesn’t fit and it’s horrible.
While I wouldn’t say it’s one of the worst Sci-Fi out there, it’s easily the worst Carpenter flick I’ve ever seen. The problem with the movie is that it tries to be tongue-in-cheek and hilarious, but it just doesn’t work. At all. It’s one of those movies that has an excellent premise and completely squanders it. Such a shame.
Yeah, it was one of the moments I cringed at the most too. It is so long, so protracted that it becomes a tangible detriment to the narrative. I don’t know how long it lasts, but it feels like ages in the context of the film. And it’s bad. Really fucking bad.
Has John Carpenter done anything good since ‘The Thing’? … I haven’t followed his career too closely, and the last one I took a chance on was ‘Ghosts of Mars’, which was so rubbish in places, I couldn’t decide if it was a parody, or just a really bad film.
Jason Statham and Ice Cube !!! does anybody really want these two in their films - no talent or personality personified.
They live is a cool film, tries a bit to hard to criticize American/Western society of the 80’s, but hey there’s a Wrestler as the main actor, can’t figure out a greater paradox than that.
Nah, he’s done some good movies after The Thing: Starman, Christine and some others. Also, am I the only one that really likes In the Mouth of Madness? I really enjoyed that one. Haven’t seen Prince of Darkness yet.
It’s not that They Live is so bad. I was merely severely disappointed with that one. It was like meh, not really that great. Some of it is somewhat cringy as well, the abovementioned wresting scene was super awful and excessively slapsticky. The fact that we talk about slapstickery in a Carpenter movie speaks for itself as well.
It’s a big fat pile of nonsense of course, but it has a lot of nostalgia credit with me. Commando was the first pirate video I ever managed to acquire, from a car boot sale I think. It was over saturated and a roughly tenth-generation copy of a copy so all detail was gone and the sound might as well have been coming from the bottom of the sea, it was so muffled. But it was Arnie’s new film, Commando, on video! Now, I find most of it laugh-out-loud funny. My son and I were both yelling “Let off some steam, Bennett!” at one another in our best Schwarzenegger voices hours later.
