What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[Cerberus]

Trying to bring it back on track - Triple Frontier

[Stavros]

Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

Thief was I think the first full-lenth feature Mann made, and has what have become trademarks: the city at night, rainswept streets illuminated by rows of street lighing, overhead shots of the city (Chicago, mostly) with intricate networks of buildings; cars moving at speed or gliding by; tough guys on the make, broads who don't wear bras. In this case, the cliche is the independent thief (James Caan) who wants one last big heist to retire in luxury with a wife and child (purchased, as the wife is infertile), and who agrees to do a big job for the mob, with predictable consequences. Nevertheless, the visuals are so good it is still worth watching, as it establishes Mann as one of the best directors of this kind of film. One odd thing that occurred to me, with all the cars, was that at one point I was looking at Caan's cadillac and it looked badly made, whereas I thought the Cadillac had a high reputation. The texbook corrupt cops are a drag, but it is still worth watching, and there are also, according to IMDB a couple of versions of the film. Lastly, I don't think James Caan ever got over being Sonny in The Godfather, he is miles better than fake muscle-men like Sylvia Stallion, or maybe he wasn't offered parts that helped him become a more diverse actor.

[Stavros]

Twilight's Last Gleaming (Robert Aldrich, 1977)

I saw this film in the 1980s at the NFT and was keen to see it again. A rogue General falseley imprisoned, breaks out with three others, seizes control of a nuclear missile silo and demands money and that the US publish a secret NSC memo confirming the military knew the war in Vietnam could not be won and that young men would die to prove to the USSR that the US was capable and willing to sacrifice men to establish their military credibility. Orignally, the novel was concerned with the siege of the silo in return for money, but Aldrich -the scion of the Rockefeller dynasty who disowned him when he went to Hollywood- was a Democrat and in the aftermath of the Pentagon Papers wanted to make a political point. The film is mostly studio based, with exteriors shot in Bavaria, so it has dated in many senses, but it is well written, the acting is very 1960s with vintage actors, and the fate of the President quite extraordinary when you think the action is dated in 1981, more so in the present context. It remains an enjoyable film, but I always feel there is something missing in an Aldrich film.

[Stavros]

Widows (Steve MQueen, 20180
Widows (Euston Films, 1983, Series 1)

Widows is the fourth full-length feature film by Steve McQueen and, in comparison to Hunger, Shame, and Twelve Years a Slave, it is his weakest. The film is a new version of the 1980s drama from the UK (which McQeen watched in his teens), a drama that was at the time reaching audiences of 18 million an episode and concerned the widows of three villains who died in a robbery that went wrong. Inheriting his plans for the robbery of a security van, the widow of gang boss Harry Rawlings recruits the widows of the dead men to re-attempt the robbery while fighting off the efforts of a rival gang to take over Rawling's business. The 1983 drama, which I also watched, for the first time since I saw it, has a largely competent script, low production values, and of the four women, only Ann Mitchell can act, the others being wooden to the point of embarassment (and none went on to greater things, indeed one died of an overdose in LA at the age of 31).

McQueen has replaced the rivalry between two criminal gangs in London by moving the scene to Chicago where the robbery that goes wrong leaves Rawlings' widow liable to the people to whom the money belonged, including corrupt city cops and a rival whose close assciate is trying to get out of crime and into local politics through election to the city council. The robbery and the politics collide as the target is a safe in the politicians house that contains ove $3 million, and as such is one of the many problems with credibility the films has. Cruciallly, instead of the heist being the dramatic core of the film, takes place late on and is lacking in tension. But the films is poorly structured and one can only hope this usually brilliant director returns to form in his next feature.

The one noticeable feature of the film is McQueen's constant playing with opposites: mostly black and white: black woman, white husand; black skin, white sheets. Black woman, white dog. Dark night, bright windows of the Loop; a poster on the wall of Bellini's opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi. White men in a black car, and so on. The photography is good, but the film is a flop.

[Stevie.Thomas]

US

A family's serenity turns to chaos when a group of doppelgangers begins to terrorize them.

[marchbball]

W hat we do in the shadows Lot's of people are disregarding this movie due to "Lack of plot" or "Poor cinematography".

This isn't supposed to be that sort of movie, it's a mockumentary, done in the style of a documentary.

They have nailed that look perfectly, and the plot doesn't matter in a comedy.
What we do in the shadows
The comedy is great, the deadpan nature of it is hilarious, the jokes are brilliant.

Go in with the open mind that it's not your classic style of comedy.

I think it's a great movie.

[Stavros]

The Shallows (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2016)
Blake Lively surfs on a remote Mexican beach in homage to her dead mother, and for the challenge. She surfs alone, other than two young Mexicans, a seagull and a deadly shark. When the tide is low a rock protrudes in the bay and when the shark arrives for its breakfast, lunch and dinner, surfer girl spends the rest of this mercifully short film (85 minutes) perched on the rock with the seagull that has dislocated a wing, though even when this medical student fixes it the gull remains with her. The shark, when not taking part of her thigh for a snack gorges on the two young Mexicans, and later, and presumably from desperation, the metal bars of the light buoy to which she clings and that through a complex manoeuvre becomes the fatal nemesis of the shark, though why this enormous fish does not leave the bay for the ocean where it can find fresh food, or munch away on a dead whale is not explained. Blake Lively looks great in a bikini, and that is as good as it gets.

The Shallows was on broadcast tv, and I watched it having given up on Searching (Aneesh Chaganty, 2018 ) a film framed entirely through the screen of a laptop. I found this so irritating that I gave up just under half-way through, much as I find it hard t watch films seen through a hand-held camera, like Cloverfield. I understand the reaon why, but the format doesn't work for me.

[Stavros]

The Favorite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018 )

If you wonder why the last of the Stuart monarchs has been so forgotten, this film about Queen Anne (queen from 1702-1714) will help, as it is a forgettable film.

Singularity (Robert Kouba, 2017)

With a score of 3.9 on the imdb, this film is so singularly bad I can only concede in shame that I paid £1.50 for it.

The Magnifient Seven (Antoine Fuqua, 2016)
They can remake Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954) seven times but it will never be magnificent as the original still is, whereas in this 2016 case, it is not even magnaminous, just maggoty.

[Stavros]

If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018 )
And if it could talk it would, like Baldwin, be angrier, more tense, more aggressive than this tepid if worthy attempt.

[Stavros]

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

This sad, pathetic fantasy is tedious to watch. The script is flat, almost lifeless compared to the director's first two features, and the acting either over the top or matter of fact. The ending, which I am not to disclose, comes after two hours of what some consider a homage to the Western, network tv shows, and 'Hollywood' in the era when the Studio system ended and actors were independent and MGM stopped making musicals and so on. Who cares? Tarantino cares, and to some extent he matches the scenes from the Westerns being filmed with a scene at Spahn's Movie Ranch where the Manson family watch Cliff Booth stride up 'Main Street' toward, not the Saloon, but an old house. But once you see it the comparison becomes trite and overall has no other role in the movie. At a party at the Playboy Mansion, Steve McQueen shares a joint with a young woman, but is played by Damian Lewis in a blonde wig that makes him look not like Steve but an old Hollywood Queen, and is seen no more.

The fundamental problem is that the fading star of TV's Bounty Hunt and numerous Westerns, Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo di Caprio is a drunk, and as interesting as a drunk, which is not very much, just as his boyfriend Cliff is the Stunt Man who is closer in real life to the mean bounty hunting cowboy he lives for.
That's about it, other than to suggest Tarantino has a problem with women, but that is a discussion for another day if anyone can be bothered.
Oh, I forgot, just as Tarantino usually names characters after gay porn stars, there is a real 'Thick' Rick Dalton, a 'twink' with a thick cock who does gay porn. Go Figure.