What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[Stavros]

Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)

I was persuaded to watch this film again before seeing Mother, whenever that comes out on DVD. I am still puzzled by the film but have gone beyond my initial hostility to it as a lame performance of Swan Lake. I think it is now clear that the film itself is a re-enactment of the ballet, which is why the characters have dual names -Nina/Swan Queen; Lily/Black Swan, Leroy/The Gentleman. I think however that the choregrapher Leroy may be viewed as Rothbart who, in the ballet, has cast a spell on Odette who must live as a swan during the day and only revert to being human by night, unless a man declare true love for her in which case the spell will be broken and she will live free again.
The argument may thus be a sort of reversal of the ballet -Nina is a ballet dancer living with her mother and pale and sexually repressed, but is given her 'freedom' to dance the Swan by night. The rival to Odette, Odile, is the black swan who in the ballet is the means whereby Rothbart deceives the prince Siegfried and shatters Odette's hopes of freedom. Because the two swans in the film represent sexual repression and sexual freedom Nina can only dance both roles effectively by imagining herself a destructive agent to get in touch with the 'dark side' of Odile, but takes this so far that she ends up destroying herself.
The source of the ballet has never explained why Rothbart casts a spell on Odette but while there are contrasts to be made between day and night, freedom and oppression, marriage and celibacy, purity and experience, I think the problem is that Aronofsky lacks the skill to pull it off, so there is no subtlety in the film, and maybe all he is saying is that women should liberate themselves and have as much sex as they want or be left on the shelf, repressed and unhappy. It could also claim to argue that the best art emerges from a mix of the positive and the negative, the bright and the dark side of life. It doesn't go much deeper than that, and as for the ballet scenes, they bear such little resemblance to the real thing as to be of secondary importance, not least because at the end of ballet, Siegfried also jumps to his death, but not in this film.

[slave2u]

Max steel - not really worth it, more suited to a TV series.

[Stavros]

The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015)

I have seen one film by Greek director Lanthimos before, Kinetta (2005) -ill-conceived, badly written, and badly acted it looked and sounded like the film a first-year undergraduate might make. Given the relatively positive reviews of his latest film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, I thought I would give him another chance in the hope he has grown up and learned how to make films.

The Lobster succeeds in establishing itself in a dystopian future that doesn't work properly, where people who are single must spend 45 days in a hotel or be turned into the animal of their choice (hence the Lobster, the choice of the main character) and be turned into the wild. The cute twist in the film is that while most in the Hotel struggle to engage with their feelings, when they rebel and go into the wild they find love. There are some amusing moments, but again there are severe problems with the script and the overall theme of the film is superficial and lacking in interest. A diversion of sorts, but a failure. I paid £3.50 for it, and that is as much as it is worth.

[hamdasl]

Maltese Falcon.

[Torris]

Blade Runner 2049. Done by the same guy who did Arrival. Slow paced st times but the last half hour with Harrison Ford was a great payoff. How they did the effect with Sean Young’s replicant character is beyond me.

Great moody techno soundtrack too

[Fahrenheit451]

Underworld: Blood Wars ... I fell asleep. Always a sign franchise needs to end.

[sukumvit boy]

Blade Runner 2049. Done by the same guy who did Arrival. Slow paced st times but the last half hour with Harrison Ford was a great payoff. How they did the effect with Sean Young’s replicant character is beyond me.

Great moody techno soundtrack too

[slave2u]

John wick - not as high octane as I remember.

[slave2u]

Return of the seven. Not a patch on the original. Yul may look as cool as fuck, he is still pretty wooden.

[slave2u]

'a christmas horror story' - and very good it was. worth it alone for the william shatner segment.