Last Movie You Watched Part II, Electric Bugaloo

[batnbreakfast]

The Mule
Richard Jewell
Started gravitating towards Eastwood's movies after Million Dollar Baby and am a fan ever since. While I certainly like The Mule more than Richard Jewell for its "happy" ending and the humor both movies have great performances and will linger with me for days. If you were mean-spirited you could say Eastwood almost doesn't act in Mule (or maybe he does) and just wanted to party with ladies 70 years younger than him... Sam Rockwell is in RJ and he's enjoyable as always.

[Starter Set]

Eli, 2019.

Found it on Netflix, never heard anything about it before that and well, that was a pleasant surprise. Good enough acting, a somewhat good writing and pacing and with a satisfying end.

Not really an horror movie, more of a "what the hell is going on with those people" type. Which i liked and cause i didn't know at all what was that movie about before watching it i was genuinely puzzled by the characters behavior.

Which is such a refreshing thing. Now, it's no masterpiece so don't expect too much from it but it's well worth a watch.

[Jim Kelly]

LA PETITE LILI (2003), directed by Claude Miller, based on THE SEAGULL by Anton Chekov.

This is an interesting movie about making movies. The attitude of the young would-be director is hostile toward the artificial cinema of the old established director, yet the young director falls into the same smug world of French movie-making by the end. The movie is filmed on location for the most part, in rural France, but the last part has the young director recreating the same scenes on a studio set, with matte shots to fake the natural world.

[Starter Set]

Still on Netflix, rainy week-end sadly.

The Dark Tower, from a King's novel apparently. (never read that one)

Enjoyable enough i guess for a rainy sunday, very YA (felt like watching percy jackson at times but not as bad) and well, Idris Elba. He's like sugar, he makes so much things better.

And Malevolent, from back then in 2018 when life was easier. Meh, it's not bad, it's not really good. The concept was pretty decent, fake supernatural "investigators" (like all those clowns on youtube except this one is set during the 80's) being caught in their own game, but the execution while not unbearable is defintely lacking.

[Arfguy]

Judgment Night. I remember watching this a long, long time ago and thought it was a pretty thrilling movie. Ended up watching it a couple of nights ago and thought it held up pretty well. Another one of those types of movies that they don't really make anymore, as far as I'm concerned.

[Jim Kelly]

LA FILLE DE L'EAU (1925), directed by Jean Renoir, starring Catherine Hessling; DOWNHILL (1927), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ivor Novello.

It's pure happenstance that I watched both these silent movies on the same day, yet thinking about them there's a lot of similarities. In the Renoir film--his first--the female protagonist goes through a series of travails that leave her in a desperate state; in the Hitchcock, the male protagonist likewise descends through one degradation after another. There's even an extended scene in both movies, where each is in a delirium, which allows the directors to use special effects shots and fantastic imagery. The difference is that the young woman comes from poverty, while the young man comes from wealth. And while the female can't really be held at fault for any of the wrongs done to her, the male seems to bring a lot of his suffering upon himself. Although, in a way, Novello's interpretation puts his character in the traditional female victim role--he's wronged, robbed and prostituted, like so many women in film.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

Tenet:

I won't call my thoughts toward it hate, that's too strong and hyperbolic way to describe how confused and bored I was with it. I'll say I disliked it, and it won't change my lack of interest while watching it. The love is nonsensical and random.

[Jim Kelly]

"No Time to Die"
--a COLUMBO T.V. movie--original air date March 15, 1992.

I've been watching MELROSE PLACE and COLUMBO. However, I find the COLUMBO T.V. movies in the 1990s too MELROSE for my taste. "No Time to Die" is the MELROSE PLACE of COLUMBO to beat them all. It stars both Thomas Calabro (Dr. Mancini) and Doug Savant (Matt Fielding) as buddy cops. The worst of it is this is no Columbo at all--it doesn't follow the Howdunnit formula. There's no murder to solve. It's a regular cop procedural drama. Peter Falk is excellent, of course, but there's none of the delicious cat and mouse game between Columbo and a featured killer guest star.

For its oddity, it's an interesting case study. And to be fair, MELROSE PLACE didn't actually go to air until five months after this T.V. movie. There's also a curious "Nanny" conjunction--as both Juliet Mills, Nanny from NANNY AND THE PROFESSOR, and Daniel Davis, Niles the butler from THE NANNY, share a scene together. After this movie disaster, no other movie should ever dare to call itself "No Time to Die"--the title is a jinx.

[Starter Set]

Finally watched the 2019 version of Pet Sematary, about damn time considering it's based on my favorite book from King. (and that i quite enjoyed the 89 movie back then)

Cool version. Not a big fan of the changes they made to Judd's story and his relation with Louis but i did like most of the other changes. The end is a bit silly if you ask me and doesn't work as well as the one from the book or the 89 movie but no biggie.

Really gave me the impression though that the whole thing with the masks was just added to the movie in order to make cool posters lol. Anyway, a solid 7 out of 10 as far i'm concerned.

[From The Shadows]

Judgment Night. I remember watching this a long, long time ago and thought it was a pretty thrilling movie. Ended up watching it a couple of nights ago and thought it held up pretty well. Another one of those types of movies that they don't really make anymore, as far as I'm concerned.

I remember seeing that in the movies. I thought it was very unique, the trailer made me want to see it. I was also big on Emilio Estevez at the time so that helped but the plot was the biggest draw for me. Good movie.

[Arfguy]

I remember seeing that in the movies. I thought it was very unique, the trailer made me want to see it. I was also big on Emilio Estevez at the time so that helped but the plot was the biggest draw for me. Good movie.

Sweet. I'm finding myself watching a lot of movies that seem to get lost in time these days. Recent watches:

Breakdown
Ready or Not

[From The Shadows]

Sweet. I'm finding myself watching a lot of movies that seem to get lost in time these days. Recent watches:

Breakdown
Ready or Not

Breakdown was a rather good Kurt Russel film. It sort of reminds me of Frantic, a film with Harrison Ford. I don't think I know about Ready or Not I may have to add that to my list.

[ed2962]

Da Five Bloods

Me little less than half way through: This is pretty good. Hey, wasn't there some old movie with Bogart about some guys fighting over some loot they found Mexico or something?

Viet Cong Guy in movie: We don't need no stinking badges!

Me: Ha! I see what you did there...

[Arfguy]

Breakdown was a rather good Kurt Russel film. It sort of reminds me of Frantic, a film with Harrison Ford. I don't think I know about Ready or Not I may have to add that to my list.

I had never seen Breakdown before, but I remember the movie trailers from way back so I decided to check it out. I have definitely never heard of Frantic. Now I'm going to have to look it up.

Ready or Not is pretty much a popcorn survival horror movie. It had an over-the-top premise and had pretty good production value. I enjoyed it a lot.

Recently watched: Flinch

[Jim Kelly]

PRÉPAREZ VOS MOUCHOIRS (1978), written and directed by Bertrand Blier; starring Gérard Depardieu, Carole Laure, Patrick Dewaere and Riton Liebman.

Ah, Depardieu is so young and slim and handsome in this picture.

I saw this movie in the theatre, back in the 1980s some time, when it was shown in North America as GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS. The premise is that a husband (Depardieu) gives his wife (Laure) to another man (Dewaere), because he can't make her happy--and the three end up sharing a life together. There is one scene in particular that has stayed with me--but the movie was dubbed in English and I hated the dubbing. I tried to find it on video after that, but the only tapes I could rent were also dubbed into English.

Remembering this the other day, I looked in the library catalogue and put a hold on a French copy. But the copy I got had no English subtitles, so I opted to look for it instead online in French with English subtitles. And I finally heard the actual actors speaking the lines. Dialogue in French is poetry to me.

At the time of this film, Canada's Carole Laure was famous as a singer and an actress. She appeared in many movies, including the Canada-France co-production SWEET MOVIE (1974), directed by Dušan Makavejev. There she is Miss Canada, literally carried around as luggage and, in PRÉPAREZ VOS MOUCHOIRS, as Solange she spends a lot of the screen time as an object to be pulled and pushed around.

SWEET MOVIE was so controversial that it was banned in many countries (but not Canada) and it's still banned in some places. Whereas, PRÉPAREZ VOS MOUCHOIRS won the Academy Award in 1979 for Best Foreign Language Film. And while it's not as scandalous as SWEET MOVIE, it goes in a direction (which I'd forgotten) that would certainly be questioned today--as there's something involving a thirteen year old boy that's outright illegal.

Still, there are many clever and amusing things going on in this picture. Such as, Solange is always knitting and each of the men in her life end up wearing the exact same sweater.

And PRÉPAREZ VOS MOUCHOIRS features one of my favourite scenes in all of movies. Depardieu, Laure and Dewaere are in their apartment--they are playing a record of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto--and Depardieu begins to suggest what if Mozart was reborn today and he's walking along and he hears his concerto and follows the sound as it gets louder and he can hear it clearly and he comes up the stairs and walks down the hall and now he is at the door. With the concerto playing and Depardieu vividly describing Mozart's feelings and actions, it's like this really is happening, Mozart is there in that moment.

Of course, the Clarinet Concerto is one of my favourite pieces by Mozart. It was even before I had seen GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS in the 1980s--I had the record--but that scene made it even more special.