What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[TS Evelyn Summers]

The Tax Collector ..... What An AWESOME Movie !!!

[Stavros]

Tenet (Christopher Nolan, 2020)

If you are interested in challenges to the dominance of a linear concept of time, if you think time bends, that you may be able to move forward and backard in time, you will find in this film it is really not that cool. For all its philosophical pretensions, Tenet is a Palindrome, as a film, as the title sugests, reading the same forward as it does backward. And, with its silly James Bond style plot, complete with cardboard, vodka-drinking Russian Oligarch villain + trophy wife in white underwear, there are ten minutes to save the world, or more intriguingly, Ten + Ten minutes, hence tenet.

As is usually the case with Nolan's films, fabulous production cannot induce any empathy for the characters, so the film can seem like an essay in film by a conceited man convinced of his own skill and not bothered by much in the way of human emotion. Worst of all, is that I could not understand what the characters were saying which, in a film of this compexity contributed to my lack of interest. Lastly, I saw this in the cinema, with about 20 others, at a cost of £4.99 (about $6.58 ). I don't mind wearing a mask, but as I need to use spectacles in a cinema, they kept steaming up, not that it mattered much with this film.

[Stavros]

Mandy (Panos Cosmatos, 2018 )

I won't be going to Crystal Lake on my holidays. Blame it on screaming Nicholas Cage, the weirdos and whatever they're smoking, and God.

[Cereal Escapist]

Tenet (Christopher Nolan, 2020)

If you are interested in challenges to the dominance of a linear concept of time, if you think time bends, that you may be able to move forward and backard in time, you will find in this film it is really not that cool. For all its philosophical pretensions, Tenet is a Palindrome, as a film, as the title sugests, reading the same forward as it does backward. And, with its silly James Bond style plot, complete with cardboard, vodka-drinking Russian Oligarch villain + trophy wife in white underwear, there are ten minutes to save the world, or more intriguingly, Ten + Ten minutes, hence tenet.

As is usually the case with Nolan's films, fabulous production cannot induce any empathy for the characters, so the film can seem like an essay in film by a conceited man convinced of his own skill and not bothered by much in the way of human emotion. Worst of all, is that I could not understand what the characters were saying which, in a film of this compexity contributed to my lack of interest. Lastly, I saw this in the cinema, with about 20 others, at a cost of £4.99 (about $6.58 ). I don't mind wearing a mask, but as I need to use spectacles in a cinema, they kept steaming up, not that it mattered much with this film.

Tenet, to me, was nearly identical to Interstellar.

It was far more style over substance because Nolan clearly had a decent idea but as with Interstellar, had no good way to close the movie and as such, Tenet ended up being a train wreck. It was entirely predictable and in no way worthy of all the praise it is getting.

The first hour is confusing because Nolan tries to befuddle the viewer with time shifts and flashing in camera visuals that, while stunning as a piece of film making, do little to advance a good story. The moment that the protagonist and Neil invert themselves for Kat, the movie completely lost me and I was done with it. That it ends as it does shows me Nolan just needed to wrap it up and let them "live" happily ever after"

Nolan is a talented director and visionary when it comes to modern in-camera visual effects. His disdain for CGI is something I admire about him but ultimately, I believe he has now proven himself, between Interstellar, The Dark Knight Rises and now Tenet, that he is a poor story teller and writer.

[Stavros]

I agree with you, Cereal Escapist, as this has been my reaction to the films of his I have seen, most, with the exceptions of Dunkirk and The Dark Knight. I think you might be wrong re CGI in the case of Inception and Interstellar, and though I am confused by his anthropology in the Alien series, I think a comparison with Ridley Scott shows that he also uses elaborate productions but with a deep enough meaning to reward repeated viewing. I think Blade Runner must now be a contemporary classic, and it is interesting from the DVD extras how much from the first film was incorporated by Denis Villeneuve in Blade Runner 2049. From this perspective, Nolan has a more limited vision. I am aso disappointed that the concept of linear time has not really been explored, but used merely as a plot device, and in Tenet, one that becomes irrlevant by the end when, as you say, the plot must be sealed and the story come to an end.

[Stavros]

Monos (Alejandro Landes, 2019)

I bought this DVD not knowing anything other than the synopsis on the box, and before looking it up on imdb. As confirmed there, this is a Colombian version of Lord of the Flies with a difference. A group of male and female 'soldiers' are part of 'The Organization' charged with taking care of an American hostage, a doctor, and the film charts the disintegration of the group as they move from a secure base in the hills into the rain forest.
I have not seen any films from Colombia before, and while this is a well-told if predictable story and the landscape is fantastic, I had no interest in any of the characters. I would not recommend it, but it is not a bad film, some may appreciate it more than I did.

[Stavros]

The Warriors (Walter Hill, 1979 -Director's Cut, 2005)

I became a fan of Hill when The Driver was released in 1978 -it remains one the best films of the 1970s and with Bullitt (1968 ) and The French Connection (1971) has some of the best car chases ever seen on film, wth the additional argument that cars stand in for characters in The Driver.

So I first saw The Warriors in a cinema in 1979 and the version I have seen since then is that one. The 2005 director's cut restores what Hill wanted which Paramount did not -introducing each chapter with a Comic Book frame. I don't mind it because the film has retained the flow that Hill was able to achieve in his early films, with some tight editing and a decent script. Not so much of it looks out of date, though I don't know how relevant to gang sub-culture it was even then. One point of interest is seeing the actors who appeared in this film and also 48 hours, David Kellly and James Remar, but sadly Hill did not maintain the quality of his early work with the films he made with Schwarzenegger and Sylvie Stallion (Bullet to the Head). I didn't know he was associated as Producer with the Alien films. A mercurial talent, like Michael Mann.

[Stavros]

US (Jordan Peele. 2019)

Another film that begins with an intriguing premise that fails to deliver at its end. Although I made a guess in an early scene that turned out to be right, for most of the film I dismissed it, and it did not make sense when it happened. The word 'tethered' to me suggests coercion, but humaniity can also be united, which is positive. And the concept of the double is a useful tool in storytelling but tends to be used as a simplistic contrast between good and bad, even as it attempts to portray complexity in u as humans, with a duality of emotions, and so forth, so that the idea fails to get beyond these basic contrasts. It is a sort of enjoyable film until the later scenes when the need for the reveal to resolve the tensions resorts, as most Americans films seem to do, in violence, there being no other solution. It is a pity Peele relies on violence in his films, when the more complex reality would be to explore his themes of identity without it.

[Stavros]

The Personal History of David Copperfield (Armando Ianucci, 2019)

Probably the worst adaptation of Dickens I have seen -trivial, silly, superficial, ill-conceived, badly-written. I have an ambiguous attitude to Dickens as a writer (like a lot of clever people he was a shit as a man), but I think one of his best novels either deserves better, or remain a reading pleasure.

[sukumvit boy]

The Personal History of David Copperfield (Armando Ianucci, 2019)

Probably the worst adaptation of Dickens I have seen -trivial, silly, superficial, ill-conceived, badly-written. I have an ambiguous attitude to Dickens as a writer (like a lot of clever people he was a shit as a man), but I think one of his best novels either deserves better, or remain a reading pleasure.

Yes ,an interesting point about famous nasty people. Newton was a notorious 'prick'.