What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[BlüeKarma]

[sukumvit boy]

Not a "movie" but the latest season(season 10) of "Death in Paradise". Streaming on Amazon. I'm a fan.

[Stavros]

The House at the End of the Street (Mark Tonderai, 2012)

Even with a plot twist, Jennifer Lawrence cannot save this film, burdened as it is with tired tropes -the 'house of horror' and its neighbour surrounded by a 'dark forest'; the nubile young girls who have problematic relations with their single moms; the sexual frustrations of 'college kids' -who seem immune to the enticements of dope- and the various references to Hitchcock as if we were supposed to be impressed. The only amazing thing about this, is that I didn't fall asleep while watching it.

[sukumvit boy]

[Stavros]

Official Secrets (Gavin Hood, 2019)

Based on a true story the film is well-made, well-acted, but lacking any surprises comes across as a cross-between a documentary and a drama. That Tony Blair after the war stated in a powerful documentary on Iraq "I took the view that we needed to remake the Middle East", exposes what a liar he was when justifying it as something different. The film is thus both accurate and out of date.

[Stavros]

Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963).

I had not seen the whole of this film before, and learning that someone is threatening to release the 6-hour 'Director's cut' would cause concern, but I really don't care. Daryl F. Zanuck butchered this film n release, but whichever version you see it cannot pump any interest into the tediously long first half when Julius Caesar pretends to love Cleopatra and she him. The equally tedious second half has Richard Burton in a succession of mini-skirts seducing or being seduced by Hollywood's most effective screaming queen, Elizabeth Taylor, with the most memorable exchange being the first meeting when Tony arrives in a fetching mini-skirt -
"I find what you're wearing most becoming," Cleopatra purrs. "Greek, isn't it?" He replies: "I have a fondness for almost all Greek things."

Not sure what else to say, hours of my life wasted on a film with no dramatic depth, no visual intelligence, just show, just a bit too Hollywood. Music intrusive, loud and ugly. That said, the film is surprisingly perhaps, historically accurate except for the make-up and costumes which won awards; the entry of Cleopatra into Rome is spectacular indeed, but as someone remarked, it could as well have been Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas as Rome. Some of the acting is beyond hope, not just Taylor and Burton, but Roddy McDowall as Octavian. He might as well have been in yet another episode of Colombo.

[sukumvit boy]

[Stavros]

The Negotiator (Brad Anderson, 2018 )

I bought this along with Cleopatra and David Lean's Oliver Twist as a £10 deal, and it's not a bad film. Based mosty in Beirut prior to Israel's invasion in 1982, the plot hinges on the kidnap of an American who is traded for money by an old 'Beirut hand' (the American) and a rogue Palestinian outfit -hence the assistance at the end of the PLO (more properly Arafat's Fateh). Although a fair amount is historically accurate, and the woe that is Beirut seems well done, the film never takes off, as the acting is, I think, too low key. The film is too intelligent for its own good, and probably needed some Hollywood crash bang, wallop to help it, as wood on its own just makes tables and chairs, and paper. Recommended if you have nothing better to do.

[diddyboponTOP]

Free Guy, just today I loved it.

[Stavros]

Oh God! That was awful ,what a slog, I couldn't even finish watching it.
Makes me wonder how and why usually dependable actors and directors get involved in projects like this!?

If you didn't like The Mule, I can't recommend another film of an old man robbing banks, apparently also based on a true story.

The Old Man and the Gun (David Lowery, 2018 ) has been showing on UK tv more than once, and is a tedious succession of polite exchanges between Robert Redford and some unfortunate bank teller or manager, with the inevitable gun somewhere in his grasp. The film has the charm of cat shit on the carpet, as the memory of its 'banter' with horse-loving Sissy Spacek lingers unwanted, for at least 24 hours. That said, Ms Spacek - who made some genuinely memorable films in the 1980s- looks to be in better condition than Mr Redford- maybe we should all take up horse riding as we get older. Got to be safer and healthier than robbing banks.