What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[rodinuk]

All fair points, with which I agree. I get the impression 'sci-fi' is a genre you like, so I would appreciate some recommendations of films mostly those I have probably not seen or heard of.

Well I would recommend The Fifth Element but I would imagine you have seen it and perhaps rather strangely Farmageddon starring Shaun the Sheep which is packed with references.

[Stavros]

Well I would recommend The Fifth Element but I would imagine you have seen it and perhaps rather strangely Farmageddon starring Shaun the Sheep which is packed with references.

Shaun the Sheep? Bah! But it does sound a hoot so I will track it down. Fifth Element is ok as an enjoyable essay in nonsense.

[HbgDon]

John Wick Chapter 4. Amazing movie!!

[hardiron4u]

The Angel

A true story Netflix film of an Egyptian espionage spy working for Mossad in 1973 and the Yom Kippur War.

[Stavros]

Moonfall (Roland Emmerich, 2022)

Could be called Moonfail. Roland Emmerich, famous for disaster movies, has made a disaster. You may never look at the Moon the same way again, though you would be a fool -or a fall- to take this seriously, not least when it becomes another version of The Swarm...(that's the 1978 film).

Those of you interested in the real science might like this, but spoiler alert! If such rubbish can be spoiled.
Could the moon ever be pushed from orbit, like in 'Moonfall'? | Live Science

[Stavros]

Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, 2022)

A divorced man takes his 11 year-old daughter on holiday to a resort in Turkey. They swim, go for dinner, chat, go on a tour, play pool, and so on. A film which observes its characters, who through a cam corder record and observe each other (the film is set in the 1990s). The key to the film is that all the small incidents accumulate so that by the film's end, the tenderness of belonging, and the sadness of separation are magnified. So the more I think of it, the better this film is. The Scottish woman who made it, Charlotte Wells, has been mostly a producer - the photography is outstanding and the script is fine- so this is her first feature, and I hope, not her last. I rate this 8/10.

[Stavros]

The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi, 2019)

Somewhere in this conceited drivel there are some intriguing ideas. Unfortunately, one of the key characters has no credibility as a lover, art critic or actor, whereas Mick Jagger in his brief appearances is splendid, and Donald Sutherland is, well, Donald Sutherland as he has been playing himself for the last 30 years (167 films and yet more I dare say). Elizabeth Debicki is the spindly love-interest, or sex-interest, so in descending order, we have
Donald Sutherland 6'4"
Claes Bang, 6'4"
Elizabeth Debicki 6'2"
Mick Jagger 5'10" so he looks like a dwarf. Funny old world, innit?

[broncofan]

The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi, 2019)

Somewhere in this conceited drivel there are some intriguing ideas. Unfortunately, one of the key characters has no credibility as a lover, art critic or actor, whereas Mick Jagger in his brief appearances is splendid, and Donald Sutherland is, well, Donald Sutherland as he has been playing himself for the last 30 years (167 films and yet more I dare say). Elizabeth Debicki is the spindly love-interest, or sex-interest, so in descending order, we have
Donald Sutherland 6'4"
Claes Bang, 6'4"
Elizabeth Debicki 6'2"
Mick Jagger 5'10" so he looks like a dwarf. Funny old world, innit?

This is based on the book by Charles Willeford I assume. I stopped reading it about 70 pages in. From your review, I sense the movie was true to the source material.

[Stavros]

This is based on the book by Charles Willeford I assume. I stopped reading it about 70 pages in. From your review, I sense the movie was true to the source material.

I don't know the book. The film opens with a clever exposition of the 'Power of the Critic' in which the critic shows a painting to a group of American women, most of who we assume buy art. He gives them a moving backstory to the painting and gets a large show of hands when he asks if they would buy it, before flipping the presentation to explain the painting is worthless, that he made up the painting and the story and so on. It is similar to the acidly-written book The Painted Word, in which Tom Wolfe takes art critics to the cleaners, explaining how a small group in the US made the reputations of Abstract Expressionists and with it a while heap of money while the value (in aesthetic terms) of the art itself receded behind the words of the critics. Throw in a reclusive artist who along with his work hasn't been seen for 50 years, and you have the tempting possibility that he has been working and that the painting(s) will be worth a lot of money.

This initiates a deal between the collector (Jagger) and the critic (Bang) to tempt the artist (Sutherland) out of hiding so the collector can reap the financial reward and the critics his reputation. Throw in a tall, thin blonde and a murder, completely pointless in my view, and you have this mess even if the last few minutes flip the story again.
The director has not used the camera to explore the trope -'I paint what I see not what is there' (Turner), or explore price and value though the Jagger character says something along these lines near the end. So it begins well but ends poorly, and is not helped by Claes Bang who doesn't fit, and the other unnecessary scene in which he and Debicki have sex, merely visual titillation if you want to see her breasts, and his hairy torso.

On that basis, the book might be better than the film.

[Stavros]

Tár (Todd Field, 2022)

When the film opens, Lydia Tár is at the summit of her career as a conductor. A pupil of Leonard Bernstein, Gay, in a marriage with the lead violin of the Berlin orchestra she is in charge of, a book about her life coming out, and a concert of Mahler's 5th Symphony which will be recorded and be the last of their recordings of the Mahler Symphony cycle (though it is the least interesting of Mahler's symphonies and luckily we don't hear much of it, or indeed any other music). By the end of the film, Lydia Tár has been sacked, her marriage has collapsed, and she is lucky to get a job conducting an orchestra in Manila for a Cosplay concert (something to do with a video game I know nothing of).

Unfortunately, the film cannot decide if it is about cancel culture, or the perils of power used for selfish ends. The downfall is occasioned by the suicide of a young musician whom Tár has told many people not to hire because of the woman's erratic behaviour though it is alleged they had an affair which Tár broke off, thus causing a #metoo reaction amongst Tár's critics. Someone also uses a camera phone to record a talk on conducting she gives at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, edited to make it look like she is ridiculing or even bullying a young student, albeit one who is so short of a few useful crotchets he might be better off flipping burgers. I wrote down one of his precious lines when he responds to Tár's question about JS Bach-

"Honestly, as a BIPOC, pangender person, I would say Bach's misogynistic life makes it kind of impossible for me to take his music seriously".

There have been so many rave reviews of this film, and there are a few interesting analyses on YouTube, but though I am sure she had some tuition in preparation for the role, it is evident Cate Blanchett can't conduct, while the climactic scene in the Berlin Philharmonie is ludicrous and undermines any serious intent the film might have. Unfortunately, there is a pupil of Leonard Bernstein who conducts and is gay, namely Marin Alsop, and I am sure Todd Field was aware of this. So all in all, a disappointing film which fails to address the subjects of power or cancel culture, as ultimately, I really didn't care about Lydia, and there are no significant other characters in the film to give it the depth that it needs.