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

[DanielBenoit]

Just to clarify my comments about Raising Arizona--I had fallen asleep during Blood Simple while watching the newly-released VHS at a friend's house, but only because I was extremely tired. After that, my friends' love for the film made it impossible for me to watch it again from a fresh perspective.

Anyhow, I don't know when DanielBenoit saw Raising Arizona, but I thought Nick Cage was a pretty new and interesting face at the time. I can understand the see-saw type perspective, but I'll give the film an 8.

But Wild At Heart gets a 9, from me.

Yeah, I certainly wans't around at the time it was released, so I wouldn't understand the context in which it was released.

By the way, I hope I didn't offend anybody with my bad review of Raising Arizona

[billl]

Well, I panicked about not having mentioned Blood Simple in my list of reviews. Maybe I'd have felt the same as you about Raising Arizona if I had gotten a good viewing of Blood Simple first.

I still haven't seen No Country, can't wait for the right time to check that one out...

[Mathor]

The best of the Coen Brothers films is easily Fargo, though the only terrible movie they made I can think of is Intolerable Cruelty (Court-Room Romance? wtf?) or Burn After Reading.


500 Days of Summer - 7/10 - I wanted this to be a lot better. Some really good acting (on the part of Zooey Deschanel and her co-compadre) mixed with some very mediocre directing.

[Janine]

Yeah, I certainly wans't around at the time it was released, so I wouldn't understand the context in which it was released.

By the way, I hope I didn't offend anybody with my bad review of Raising Arizona

You didn't offend me, Daniel, but I liked the movie at the time I saw it - way back in the day, year it was released. I may hate it now; haven't seen it in ages, so I can't currently judge.

[Mathor]

The Hurt Locker (2009) - 10/10 - It's easy to see why this is the best reviewed movie of the year, because it's simply the best movie of the year. This movie realizes the realities of war, without putting some sort of political or situational brush on any of the issues. The things that happen simply happen, and they have nothing to do with whether or not the soldiers want to be in war or not. War presents an escape. As is quoted in the opening lines of the movie "War is a drug." Brilliant in every possible way. Look for this in the Best Picture category of the Oscars in a couple months.

[Nightshade]

THe Kingdom of Heaven ( director's cut)
It was a good ( really good actually - if a little long especiall concidering adverts ) film but the true story didn't need messing with and it would have been soooooo much better if they didnt add the needeless mush between Balian and Sibylla esp concidering in reality he was marrie...d to her sister. *grumble* *grumble* but all things concidered I think I have a new film for the favourites list. 9.5/10

[TheFifthElement]

Australia. Hmm. I'd give the first hour 0/10 and then the rest probably a 7/10. Nicole Kidman earns a 1/10 for some terrible overacting, and on the whole it was much too long. I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve with this movie and I'm not sure they were either, and as a consequence it is very hit and miss. No Moulin Rouge.

Overall, I'd give it a 4/10.

[DanielBenoit]

8 1/2
Well, this being one of my three favorite films of all time, whenever it's on, I never hesitate for a revisit.

First of all, this is the greatest dedication to film ever made; it is a complete homage to art and life, and how art can save life. The subtitle of this film was The Beautiful Confusion and that is exactly what it is. Throughout the film we feel as if the camera and actors are participating in some sort of surrealistic ballet. This film was so many layers of depth, everything gravitating around it's centeral character, who is without a doubt the Hamlet of cinema, Marcello Materorini in the performance of his career, a director who suffers from writers block and muses upon nostaligic memories of his childhood as the whole world around him waits at his feet for his next film.

At one level, this is a meta-fictional film, with even a self-referencial title to tell so (Fellini had directed seven features and three shorts before this). It is obvious that the director, Guido is Fellini, and that Fellini; after making La Dolce Vita was suffering from writers block, having no idea where to go next, so he decided to make a film about his very own confusion, and crafted it into a beautiful character study of a man who shares every part of us.

It's not just that Guido is searching for inspiration, but he is searching for meaning, for purpose, to his seemingly artifical, confusing and yet orderly life. Nobody understands him obviously; the producer is constantly bugigng him, his intellectual co-writer is always taking philosophical jabs at him, he even sees a priest, who has nothing of use to say but that he can never find salvation outside of the Church. His wife loves him, but is fed up with his confusion and ambivilence as well. He tries to drift off into peaceful moments in which he can muse upon the ideal beauty, his nostaligic past or sexually charged dreams of the subconscious.

There are so many flawlessly directed scenes in this film, all of them handled with such imagination and surrealism, that one is reminded why Fellini is Fellini. Nobody can express the confusion and surreality of both waking and sleeping life than Fellini, not Lynch, not anybody. Fellini handle Guido with sentimentality, but transends any kind of sympathetic/unsympathetic standards, by self-consciously answering any critics and believing enough in himself that Guido represents everyone of us.

(might be some spoilers)
Never has more personal a film been made than 8 1/2, nor has a more joyful, confusing and surreal film ever been made. By the end, Fellini dives into the chaos that is life and gives Guido the most beautiful Hamletian epiphany, and the film ends with a baroque band of circus performers playing the flute, tuba and horn, to the dancing of everyone whom Guido has ever known in the chaos of his life.
10/10

[byquist]

JCVD -- or, Jean-Claude Van Damme -- very interesting film and VD does some quality acting. A slick and subtle villain who you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley at night. A bit of Inside Man, F/X, and a film about film and filming. Worth seeing.

[Janine]

I have seen a lot of films lately but have not found the time to write them up in here. I hope to get to that eventually. But for now, here is one film I watched last night.

King of Hearts ~ Alan Bates ~ directed by Phillipe de Broca

I saw this great film years ago and when I discovered my library just purchased it, I checked it out for the weekend, thrilled that they had such good taste in films. I watched it two nights in a row. I love this film! It's both amusing and has a sweet poignancy to it; and a lot of social commentary on war - the futility of war and life in general. The closing line sums it all up...I won't give that one away - wonderful!

Basically, it's about a bumbling Scottish Private Plumpick, who is recruited (the General claims he's to be volunteered) to go into this quaint walled French village to disarm booms, rigged to the clock tower..a suicide mission for certain. He's a bird specialist, and tries to make the General realise this fact; that he knows nothing about ballistics...hahaha....thus the story begins. By the time he gets to the town, the town is evacuated; but the Germans have infiltrated; then they catch a glimpse of him walking through the streets in his kilt, with his birdcage in hand. A chase follows and he stashes the birds in some empty window well and takes off...he makes it to the gates of a lunatic asylum, into the building and finally all the way into a ward of very playful, eccentric mental patients. The men are playing cards and calling themselves by card related names; he quickly slips into a white coat, pretending to be one of them. When he announces to the German's that his name is the "King of Hearts" they leave (in fact, they run out in a flurry!), but the patients all exclaim with joy - "the King has finally arrived!" It's hilarious! He takes off again to retrieve his carrier pigeons, only to encounter the opposition, who knock him out accidentally; leaving him for dead. When he awakes he discovers the empty town has been taken over by the patients, these lovable eccentrics. They all dress in appropriate (or in some cases, 'inappropriate' costumes), which they find in the town..living out their individual fantasies. Now the real fun begins. No matter what he does, he cannot get through to the new town inhabitants, that he must disarm the weapons or they will all die. He can't find the weapons for one thing; the reason is made clear later on in the film. He's very frustrated, but he's becomes more and more involved and transformed by this happy carefree band of escapes.

The social commentary here is terrific. I won't tell anymore of the story, but I highly recommend it. Much of the film is in French, or German (with subtitles)...but there is some English, as well. I always find I am slow reading subtiles, so I watched the movie twice, as to absorb all the deeper meanings in the lines - great, clever script. I would say this is a true classic and deserves a 10/10.

On the back of the DVD it reads:

One of the most popular films of all times, plaiying continuously in some theatres for over five years, King of Hearts is a bright, lilting, whimsical, lyrical (Cue) comedy that cleverly satirizes the absurdity of war with a "message [that is] meaningful and entertaining" (Boxoffice).

[grace86]

Wow Janine you are very detailed!

The last movie I saw was last night with a friend of mine...All About Steve. It was a bit corny and sad but I really enjoyed it and the ending was good. 8/10

[Janine]

Wow Janine you are very detailed!

The last movie I saw was last night with a friend of mine...All About Steve. It was a bit corny and sad but I really enjoyed it and the ending was good. 8/10

Hi grace, good to see you on Litnet again...been awhile...haha..well the movie I saw impressed me AND you know me - long-winded! I never learned to abreviate. I write just like I talk!

All About Steve, hummm...I am not familar with that one. Who was in it? Is that title a play on words with the old film All About Eve? I just saw and reviewed that one recently on here. It starred an aging Betty Davis and was terrific.

[rimbaud]

I just saw Ice Age 3, and even though it's not as good as I hoped it would be, I had some laughs and one of my favorites was:

eddie: what's that sound?
buck: it's the wind, it's talking to us.
eddie: what does it say?
buck: I don't know. I don't speak Wind.

[byquist]

Der Tunnel (The Tunnel) or some such German title. Well-done serious film, about West vs. East Berlin, with touches of wit as well as sadness. 2 hrs. 40 minutes, so have time on your hands. Not a happy-go-lucky film. Serious history. The bad East German inspector is effective and subtle.

[DanielBenoit]

Blue Velvet - It's amazing how David Lynch can take something which seems to have been done a number of times, and craft it into something so entirely his own, that the influences almost seem to disappear. He creates simulacrum

Blue Velvet remains today Lynch's most powerful film (next to Mulholland Drive and his short film Grandmother) and certainly his most nostalgic; and though it may not be him at the height of his independent powers (much of this film is influenced by Hitchcock, with an almost blatantly Hitchockian climax), it is still in a very messy way, a masterpiece. It opens with a shot of roses, blowing in the spring wind, a surreal slow-motion shot of a friendly fireman waving at the camera, schoolchildren crossing the street. Lynch's pseudo-setting of Lumberton seems to exist in such a timeless and warm place, that we can only assume that all time and culture stopped in the 50's, hell, it's even filmed with the campy humour of a 50's flick.

Blue Velvet completely reflects Lynch's love of movies, especially Hitchcock and his weird juxtapositions, as well as his nostalgia for innocence. It can be seen in almost all of his films; Wild at Heart dances between the lines of a violent manhunt, an erotic Elvis-like love story, and an obvious homage to The Wizard of Oz all at once. Muholland Drive graciously floated between a parody on Hollywood and Nancy Drew, and a truly nightmarish dream and lesbian love story.

Compared with all of Lynch's other works, before and after Blue Velvet, it is moderately tame in its weirdness, but no less shocking. It is a story of maturity, as its main character Jeffery, who is such a good college-boy with not a dirty thought in his mind, who comes up with the idea of playing Mr. Detective and breaking into the apartment of a women who might be involved in the mystery of a severed ear that he found in the forest, without giving any second thoughts to other implications of his idea.

It's amazing how Lynch fiddles with the subconscious, of both the audience and his characters (learning from only the best; Hitchcock). It's quite interesting how Jeffery's attitude towards his plan is before he sneaks in, and after. Before, he takes it as if he is self-consciously in some detective film and Sandy (a highschool blonde who has all of the attributes of any 1950's movie cliches) being his accomplice. But once he arrives at Dorothy's empty apartment, and a series of circumstances leads to Jeffery hiding in a closet, he unwittingly watches her get undressed and then raped. Watch his eyes throughout the scene, they almost seem like a replication of the shot of Norman Bates, vouyeristically peering though a hole in the wall to watch one of his unsuspecting vacator’s get undressed.

It's about time that I get to the other world which inhabits Blue Velvet; a world completely pitted against the campy world of Lumbertown. The world of Dorothy's apartment, (all of these scenes, which interestingly take place at night) is one of victimization, sadomaschism and sexual violence. The two performances which are embraced in this world are Isabella Rossilini as Dorothy (in what is probably her most powerful performance) and her victimizer and rapist, Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth, who is undoubtedly one of the most sadistic and intense villians in the history of cinema. His terrifyingly intense yelling of the word "****" in every sentnece is greatly contrasted with Sandy's dreams of love, birds and angels.

Not enough can be said of Rossinlini's performance, which is so painful and powerful that we feel for her even before we even know who she is. What has happened, is that her husbund and son have been kidnapped by Frank Booth, and the only way she can get them back, is if she becomes his slave. It's so painful and strange to see how masochistic she is in a scene in which she is having violence inflicted upon her; it is one of the most shocking psychological devices in cinema representing the loss of innocence.

What Blue Velvet really seems to be about is how the mystery of a severed ear leads the eyes of the audience; Jeffery, to the haunting underworld of his very own hometown. But it's so much more than that: It's a story of the underlying evil lurking underneath everything beautiful and innocent in the world, and despite the fact that this evil may be defeated, innocence cannot be regained.

Blue Velvet is an extremely well-made movie with some moments of true genius (the Candy-Colored Clown scene for example), but then these great scenes are juxtaposed with some slightly mediocre scenes, which are quite difficult to accept on first viewing (such as Sandy’s melodramatic recollection of her dream of heaven), but then become appropriate after becoming familiar with Lynch’s other work. The reason why his juxtapositions are so extreme; why he combines blatantly campy satirical daytime scenes with scenes of the nocturnal horrors of the night; a time in which the id goes wild, is because it necessitates Lynch’s philosophy. In all of his films he seems to see a duality in the world; the beautiful, angelic, child-like and innocent and the violent, grotesque and strange. Much of this certainly seems to be rooted in his experience of Philadelphia as a young man and how he discovered the dark, absurd side of human nature. Many of his films are concerned with this discovery one way or another; Blue Velvet is about this discovery, oh and how beautifully nightmarish it is.
9/10