What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[fab]

Just amazing, so much better than Star Wars. Go & see it.

[Stavros]

I haven't seen 1917, but most of the flms on release now are better than Star Wars, in fact, most films are better than Star Wars, except maybe Star Trek. Hard to choose between those two 'franchises', but best option is to opt out.

[Stavros]

For Sama (Waad al-Kateab & Edward Watts, 2019)

This often uncensored documentary concerns a young journalist and her doctor husband who choose to stay in Eastern Aleppo during the siege of 2016. It documents the aftermath of bombings, and the birth of her daughter Sama. The film is shot mostly by Waad, some if it appearing on the web; other scenes appear to be taken from archive footage, or possibly a drone, as with the last shot in the film. It is often uncompromising and distressing, and is the sort of film one should see if one wants to see the true horror of war, though in the midst of all this carnage there is a truly astonishing scene with a baby, a cry of hope in the midst of despair.
There are gaps- al-Kateab supports the Arab Spring in Syria, but we don't know why other than basic student protest, and we never really know what the couple's political background or their aims might be, but there does not seem to be any link to Daesh or Islamic extremists in the hospital where her husband, Hamza works. It also appears to be the case that Hamza broke off one relationship to marry Waad, but this isn't really clear though she says in the early part of the film that when they met he was in a long term relationship. The couple and their children now live in the UK, of their parents and wider family we know nothing.
This film is currently available on the UK's Channel 4 -I don't know if it is available outside the country, this is the link-
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/...mand/66428-001

[Stavros]

The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
I had not seen this film for years, and recall being unimpressed when I saw it, probably in the 1970s. I saw it in the shop on DVD at a good price and bought it. The film is much better than I recall, and in particular its use of music, which a lot of the time does not intrude on the drama. There is a lot wrong with the film, as there is no explanation for the means wherbey the Devil inhabits Regan's body, other than some playing around the a Ouija board which, if such things really did communicate with dead grannies and the devil would never have gone on sale. It is implied that the Satanic statuette Father Merrin brings back from Iraq is the key, much as in The French Connection it is the import of drugs from France that sparks the drama in the film, and its deaths. However, in the prelude to the latest DVD release where Friedkin says the film is about faith, the main character other than Regan, is Father Karras -inexplicably of Greek heritage for a Jesuit, and the weakest character in the film-who early on in the flm confesses to another that he has lost his faith, but ultimately at the climax of the exorcism shrieks 'take me! take me!' to the demon who, perhaps sensing a weak man, does that, and both then head off into the unknown. It is still worth watching.
Friedkin has made some of the best films you will ever see, The French Connection (1971) being the most obvious; and in more recent years Killer Joe (2011) which will change forever what you think a chicken drumstick is. Then there are the controversies and the turkeys so he has had an uneven career, but The Exorcist will remain one his most memorable films.

[Stavros]

First Love (Takashi Miike, 2019) -in Japanese Hatsukoi, there are other films called First Love).

Those familiar with Miike's films will know his families fractured from without are often contrasted with Yakuza families fracturing from within. In this film, the Yakuza family fractures through betrayal and a collision with a Chinese syndicate, with the two lovers caught between them, though there is little chemistry between them. The mash-up at the climax of the film is delirious and hilarious in the way Miike orchestrates his violence. Though lacking the eccentricity of Gozu, or the seriousness of the Triad trilogy -Shinjuku Triad Society, Rainy Dog and Ley Lines- First Love after a slow start has that momentum and even joy that is lacking in one of his lesser mimics, Tarantino.

[Stavros]

Contagion (Steven Soderbergh, 2011)

It may seem an obvious choice for terrestrial tv to show this, but I had not seen it before and for the most part it is a sober effort at delineating what can happen when systems break down, though so far we have been spared the violence if not the 'supermarket mania' that has left shelves bereft of rice, pasta and toilet paper. The last scene in the film begs questions about the behaviour of the cook, but perhaps that snap decision for a snapshot underlines how vulnerable we are.
On the other hand, in real life as far as Wuhan goes, how many Chinese people eat bat burgers and puppy pies?

[Stavros]

I have seen quite a few films on TV ad DVD but can't remember some of them and others I have commented on before. Two I had not seen before are:

Allied (Robert Zemeckis, 2016)
This film about a Canadian Air Force pilot and a member of the French Resistance who fall in love during an assignment in Morocco ought to be thrilling, but the plot twist is not so much on a knife edge as a wet rag on the floor. Brad Pitt shows a lack of interest in his own character, so cannot credibly be interested in his wife, so the film limps towards its who cares? end and that is all there is to say about it.

Beast (Michael Pearce, 2017)
This short but brilliant film begins with the (Irish) actor Jessie Buckley describing a whale in captivity going mad and harming itself, crushed by the captivity that makes a mockery of the freedom of the oceans whales ought to enjoy, just as the young woman's captivity is expressed in the insular character of Jersey and her family, though the freedom provided by her lover turns out to be another form of captivity, with tragic consequences. The script doesn't do too much, the metaphors and symbols nicely judged, from the use of a potato field to the cliffs of the island. The acting is finely balanced, and even with some 'sensational' elements is worth seeing.

[holzz]

A Clockwork Orange - a wicked satire on criminal justice.

Cromwell - as a history buff (partly because of the Stuart era) I loved it. I always wondered how Richard Harris played Cromwell when he seriously FUCKED UP Ireland. Even now, Irish people hate Cromwell and to be fair witht good reason.

Eyes Wide Shut - good film with a weird plot. David Icke reckons it's a window into the conspiracy world of the 1%, who knows? There are secret sex clubs out there, so anything is possible.

[Stavros]

I am not your Negro (Raoul Peck, 2016)

This aired on BBC-2 last night, and is a fierce examination of race as James Baldwin saw it through his friendships with Malik el-Shabbaz and Martin Luther King, in what became an uncompleted study (Baldwin died in 1987).

The film juxtaposes archive film and photography featuring Baldwin himself as well as a variety of Black and White sources (cinema, tv, photography), with contemporary footage the aim of which is to beg the question -what, in reality, has changed in the last 100 years? Baldwin might interject- 'in the last 400 years'.

The film is driven by the rage and resentment that marks (some might argue, mars) Baldwin's writing, often for good reason, but while there is no doubting his sincerity and eloquence, el-Shabazz and King both created political agendas to deal with race that Baldwin did not, perhaps his greatest weakness. The Atlantic review of the film criticizes the absence of any discussion of Baldwn's sexual preference, though I am not sure it would fit with the politics of the film, although there is one moment when the allure of Black movie stars -Belafonte and Poitier- is simultaneously there and denied.

The film presents uncensored and startling- indeed, distressing- footage of violence, mostly law enforcement - in one shot a Black woman on the ground while a large policeman bores his knee into her neck; in another, another Black woman all but crushed to the ground by a ferocious policeman as if on the football field- and humiliation: the shot of a white man using a Black man as a chair; multiple shots of White Power signs with the Nazi logo held aloft during Civil Rights disturbances in the South- all of it suggesting we live in an age where censored or edited footage of real events protects us, or conceals from us the hideous truth.

At his most eloquent best, is the moment on the Dick Cavett show not long after the assassination of Malik el-Shabazz when Baldwin says, and it could, maybe should be written in Bold for out times:

All your buried corpses now begin to speak...

[Stavros]

All the Money in the World IRidley Scott, 2017)

This film covers the same real life drama as the TV drama Trust, directed by Danny Boyle (201, but is not as good. It is not just the time a series has to develop character, but the superior acting. Michelle Williams and Christopher Plummer are fine, Mark Wahlberg is not, and there is a lack of drive in the film.

A review of the real events that happened (spoiler alert) can be found here-
https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2...story-history/