What is the last movie you saw? and rate it.

[Emil Miller]

This YouTube documentary bills itself a 'conspiracy shocker'; if you believe it's a conspiracy you are unlikely to be shocked: otherwise you certainly will be. According to the video's assembled witnesses, Bill Clinton was a cocaine addict who, while governor of Arkansas, was involved in smuggling large amounts of cocaine into the USA: his brother Roger was charged with possession of the drug.
Moreover, two young boys who witnessed the unloading of the drug at a secluded airstrip, were found dead on a railway line on which Governor Clinton's medical examiner said they had fallen asleep.
A number of people investigating his administration were said to have committed suicide and at least one woman claims that he had sexually assaulted her.
Now whether it is true or simply a scurrilous attempt to blunt Hilary Clinton's shot at the White House, is something the audience will have to decide individually but, interestingly, nothing is mentioned about President Clinton ignoring flagrant breaches of the Glass-Steagall Act and finally annulling it at the behest of the banking lobby; all of which led to the near collapse of the banking system in 2007/8.

Perhaps somebody should have told him........'It's the economy, stupid'.


8/10

[YesNo]

...at least one woman claims that he had sexually assaulted her.....

Anything with Bill Clinton and sex in it seems plausible to me after recalling his denial of involvement with Monica Lewinski. It is even more embarrassing since I voted for him. Were I more politically motivated, I would watch this. You did pick out a good documentary earlier on the Apollo missions. I'll never be the same after watching that one.

[Emil Miller]

Anything with Bill Clinton and sex in it seems plausible to me after recalling his denial of involvement with Monica Lewinski. It is even more embarrassing since I voted for him. Were I more politically motivated, I would watch this. You did pick out a good documentary earlier on the Apollo missions. I'll never be the same after watching that one.

The problem with YouTube videos is that one needs to be circumspect in choosing what to watch. Many of them are obviously silly and posted by cranks but some are quite professionally done and worth watching. I imagine some are posted as disinformation by those who want to discredit all YouTube videos as the work of conspiracy theorists and thus discourage others from investigating cases of abuse by those agencies called into question.

I would think that quite a lot of people were disconcerted by the Apollo documentary. That take-off from the Moon's surface was pure Legoland regardless of whether men had walked on the Moon or not.

[papayahed]

Star Wars: The Force Awakens. 8/10.

[Emil Miller]

This BBC documentary corresponds pretty much to my own experience of a disastrous decade when infantile exhibitionism and political and economic irresponsibility led to the collapse of 1976.
It ushered in the age of charlatanry when millions were taken to the cleaners by singers who couldn't sing, politicians who couldn't govern and architects who couldn't design...... as witness the very gratifying last few minutes of this cautionary tale.

9/10


https://youtu.be/VJM-xA8PcQ8

[swathisharan]

If it is in theater then minions

[YesNo]

I thought Minions was pretty good. Those happy little guys kept accidentally killing off the bad guy whom they wanted to help, but that didn't discourage them from trying again.

[qimissung]

Room with Brie Larsen and Jacob Tremblay. This was an excellent movie about a very difficult subject, beautifully and delicately handled.

[YesNo]

Irrational Man by Woody Allen: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/irrational_man/

This is the story of a famous, but burnt-out philosophy professor (the irrational man) who goes to a new school where one of the married female faculty members and one of his attached female students (the irrational women) try to get this dark, plump, life-defying, mystery man in bed with them in spite of their current relationships. He is able to avoid their attempts until he finds a reason for living.

If you like the Woody Allen style of trashing deep existential intellectuals, as I do, you should like this movie. It also should appeal to the crowd who are a little too mature for a rom-com, but like to watch men and women make life entertaining for their neighbors.

Those at Rotten Tomatoes didn't think much of the movie and admittedly the general anti-intellectualist plot did seem to have been done many times before. But I'm not as picky as most and I had a good time.

Score: 10/10

[Emil Miller]

A rare excursion into post-studio system films for me, this didn't particularly impress and was more or less what I expected.
The body count was reminiscent of a minor war and much of the the dialogue was mumbled and almost required sub-titles.
The format was similar to that of 'The Terminator' with a practically indestructible villain who kills about 15-20 people while on the trail of a man who has stolen $2 million dollars of drug money.
Eventually he is involved in a car crash which apparently kills the other driver and leaves the villain badly damaged but, as with Arnold Schwarzenegger, he still continues staggering on in pursuit of the money: I actually laughed when he climbed out of the wrecked car and walked around like Frankenstein's monster.

Definitely a movie for (very) young men but no film for an older generation.

6/10

[qimissung]

The Martian. Fun movie. 8/10

Anomalisa. Brilliant movie. 9/10

[Emil Miller]

Directed by Robert Aldrich this is a remake of No Orchids for Miss Blandish that I reviewed recently.
Unlike the British version, Aldrich sets the action in the 1920s rather than the 1940s, so the film has a very different ambiance even though it adheres broadly to the original story.
Whereas the British film was a pastiche of the American gangster films of the period, the US version is a satire on the gangster films of the twenties with everyone killing everyone else and a Keystone cops motorcycle chase at the end.

Searching through some correspondence yesterday I came upon this missive that has some bearing on the British film:

Dear Emil,

The other day, as is my wont, I was sitting in the bath contemplating one of life's little absurdities ( No
not that one! ) concerning the unlikely prospect of seeing certain films again: one of which was that
outstanding example of cinematic crumminess 'No Orchids for Miss Blandish.'
You can imagine my surprise when, a few days later, I received the NFT programme for April which
showed that it will be screened on Friday, April 2nd at 8.30 pm.
As an aficionado of the genre, you might care to see it. If not, a glance at the following critique from
Halliwell's Film Guide may change your mind.

An heiress is kidnapped by gangsters and falls for their psychopathic leader.
Hilariously awful gangster movie from a bestselling shocker.
Everyone concerned is all at sea, and the result is one of the worst films ever made.

There, you can't say fairer than that!

Of course, it's not quite the same as seeing it in 1948, because one misses the effect of leaving the
cinema with popcorn and choc-ice all down the front of one's suit, but for £2.00 it's still a
bargain for all practising sado-masochists.
Should you be interested, please call me on 703 0911 ext.211, 9 am-6 pm and I will try to get a
couple of tickets with a gangway seat.

à bientôt

Willi

[Ecurb]

I saw "The Revenant" yesterday. This film has been nominated for a dozen Academy Awards, and Leo DiCaprio is the favorite to win "best actor", presumably due to his ability to groan as if in pain. He performs this feat for perhaps an hour of the 2 hour + movie, and, although he does it well, it began to bore this member of the audience.

The movie is based on a novel which is based on a legend which is based on (perhaps) a true story. It involves Hugh Glass, a mountain man in the 1820s. He gets attacked by Indians, mauled by a grizzly, and abandoned by his compatriots. I read an earlier version of the story, maybe 30 years ago, and the movie appears to spruce up the tale in predictable ways: the Indians are more noble (they are searching for one of their stolen women, even though she was stolen by a different group of white men than those that they massacre.). Glass is given a half-breed son whom the villain of the piece murders (in the book Glass is motivated by revenge for being abandoned, but it's unclear whether the abandonment was a reasonable triage, so his desire for revenge is not completely justified).

"Revenant is directed by Alejandro Inarratu, who took home some Oscars for "Birdman" last year. It is spectacularly pretty (Emmanuel Lubezki is the cinematographer). But Glass's test of endurance in crawling back to civilization while badly injured becomes a test of endurance for the audience. It reminded me of "Gravity", another movie about a solo survival. Gravity was also pretty -- but movies are essentially "dramatic" -- that is, as in dramas, characters are best elucidated through dialog. DiCaprio relies on grunting and moaning in pain instead of talking to further his (apparently considerable) Oscar hopes.

In addition, Inarratu seems to enjoy shock for shock's sake. The grizzly mauling continues endlessly; at one point, Glass eviscerates a dead horse and crawls inside it (eeewww, gross!) for no better reason than to keep warm (whats wrong with his buffalo pelt?). When Glass catches a fish, he stands in the icy water eating it raw (shouldn't the master survivalist, however hungry, worry about freezing his feet off?).

Inarratu employs some magical realism (as he did in Birdman), but it seems a mere flourish, and is not essential to the movie. I skipped "The Martian" earlier this year, because I though that, like Gravity or Castaway, movies about people surviving on their own tend to be dull. They lack interpersonal drama. I'm not sorry I saw "The Revenant" -- but it's not a great candidate for the Best Picture Oscar.

[YesNo]

I agree with you about Gravity. I'll postpone seeing The Martian as well.

[Ecurb]

I was thinking a bit more about my preference for dialog in delineating character. I'm not a big Cormac McCarthy fan (for example) possibly because he prefers description and action to dialog. IN the last five years we've seen critically acclaimed, award winning movies like "Silent Movie", "Gravity". "The Martian (which I haven't seen) and now "The Revenant". Are modern "auteur" directors trying to eliminate "competition" from screen writers and playwrights for the "auteur" title? Thinking further, I'm a big Terrence Malick fan -- so I like SOME visually exciting movies lacking good dialog. I don't get Leonardo DiCaprio as a favorite for "best actor", though.