What movies did you see last week? (4/22-4/28)

2 first time watches:

Door (1988) - Part tension filled home invasion film........part, uh, everything else: creepy rape fantasy (extended), part social critique, part tranference of evil, part schlocky slo-mo exploitation...........3.6 on Letterboxd.....that's too high......

Challengers (2024) - Highly entertaining and watchable time killer....but it's too long......but still in 2024 that's enough to make it fncking Jules and Jim

Zoolander
M*A*S*H
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (re-watch)

I'm afraid, I didn't see that much.

Hello I Must Be Going - 6 / 10

Basic - 4 / 10

The Fall Guy - 7.5 / 10

Short Cuts (1993) 8/10. Thoughts shared in the "MVP of Short Cuts (1993)" thread.

The Age of Innocence (1993). 7.5/10. I liked this, but why was Winona the one getting all the accolades when she had perhaps the most uninteresting character and Michelle Pfeiffer was right there, giving one of her best performances? 

I know but I think/hope in future viewings the beauty of her work will reveal itself to you... May always looks and sounds the softest person in the room but she's actually the one who manages to get what she wants "the most" out of the three of 'em by the end.

and Marat/Sade was a hardboiled good time, psychoboi Stett. 

Boom - Speaking of movies that are more fun to discuss than to actually watch... John Waters hyped it up way too much for me, for it is mostly just pretty dull. Some high camp, sure, but you really have to wait for it. And I'm not entirely sure it's worth it. Joseph Losey? More like Joseph Lousy.

The Swarm - A disaster movie in every sense of the word... but some of it is weirdly enjoyable. Did it have to bee 2.5 hours long, though? And lol at the Costume Design nomination. I was confused as to why the fuck this Paul Zastupnevich guy received 3 Oscar nods for doing the costumes for Irwin Allen films but it turns out he was also Allen's assistant. I wonder how much his boss paid for those nominations

Bunny Lake Is Missing - A solid thriller in which Otto Preminger really wants to be Alfred Hitchcock, only with a much more active camera. Seriously, Preminger's crane seems to always be on the move. Which is fun as the film gains a certain urgent energy due to it. All in all it's a decent mystery.

Evil Does Not Exist - Part contemplative nature movie, part Drive My Car, part captivating and difficult arthouse fare... I really dug it. Great aftertaste this one has.

Valentino - Not the best representative of Ken Russell's terrific 1970s run but still pretty good. And just completely fantastic from a design standpoint. At first I thought it was a bit restrained for Russell but rest assured, the madness does eventually kick in.

The Teahouse of the August Moon - Not a great movie (like, at all) but a great chance to see Brando do something almost fully irreverent, including a lot of physical comedy. And yes, he does it in yellowface but what can you do - different times, different rules And who cares, the best performance in the film belongs to Glenn Ford anyway.

The Tin Star - A delightful surprise. I thought this was considered a minor Anthony Mann entry but I found it damn terrific. Very lean and very engaging. Henry Fonda rocks.

New Life - I suppose fans of low budget thriller/horror stuff will find things to appreciate about this one... but I'm not one of them so it wasn't really my cup of tea.

Tommy - REWATCH. There were times during this watch when I felt this was possibly the craziest movie ever, and I mean that as a great compliment. It's almost Russell's masterpiece, the last 15 minutes or so being the only thing that prevents it from becoming one. I mean, they're good but not as awesome as the rest of it.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God - REWATCH. Excellento. Don't necessarily see a masterpiece here but it's certainly terrific. The "boat in the tree" scene is where it's all really at, that's some near-transcendent shit the rest of the film doesn't quite reach. But it's always hovering somewhere around.

Monkey Man - Kudos to Patel for taking a big swing for the fences with his directorial debut but I'd be lying if I said that I found the result entirely successful. It's just too damn serious for its own good, so much so that at a certain point it becomes a bit tiresome. Maybe that's just me but I kinda like to have fun when I'm watching an action flick. Not a lot of fun here, I'm afraid. The movie wants to sit on two chairs at the same time - the heavy-handedness chair and the exploitation chair - but its ass never really settles into a comfortable position. That said, Patel handles the B-level material with enough verve and aplomb to make me look forward to what he's gonna do next.

Irish Wish - I want to support Lindsay Lohan as much as the next guy but these horrible Netflix romcoms ain't it. This doesn't even pretend to be a real film, so much so that there's almost a contempt for the medium in how lazily it's put together. And Lohan isn't very good either... Give her a normal movie, please. The only thing to be gained from this is a drinking game - drain your glass every time you see a drone shot of Irish landscapes and try to survive until the end credits. Maybe the Irish are the only ones who'll be able to, tbh.

Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver - Everyone started dumping on it the second it was released because of how bad the first one was... but I don't think that's entirely fair. I don't know how this isn't an improvement over #1 - if that one was two hours of stumbling around random locations collecting boring team members, this one is basically 25 minutes of slow motion wheat harvesting followed by a whole bunch of action. Which is certainly an upgrade in my book. I still wouldn't call it a good movie but at least I was kinda entertained by its video game-like shoot'em-up-blow'em-up chaos.

Ryan Gosling works his ass off to make this movie better than the script. I think Gerwig's failure is too fascinating to totally hate - she seems to have so much compassion for the Kens to the point that she sabotages the actual screechy speech by Ferrara, which makes me wonder what the movie would have been like if Ken was the protagonist instead.

I am beginning to like it more and more as I look back on it. It's a failure of a narrative without any cohesive worldbuilding, sure. It's politically schizophrenic, totally. The self-actualization themes for Barbie herself are shoehorned in through the use of Granny the Plot Device, granted. But the fact that Gerwig failed so *impressively* makes me happy I watched it - it's a big event of a screw-up, one that isn't dull once it actually picks up. I think it would be cool to discuss this movie with her too, as she seems like the kind of person that could defend her decisions and converse with a critical view of the movie even if somebody hates it. I could be wrong on that, of course.