Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

[Reza]

A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper, 2018) 3/10

Does the world really need yet another remake of this old chestnut? After all there have been versions of this story in 1932, 1937, 1954, 1973 (Bollywood) and 1976. Not sure about the world but Hollywood certainly needs another version because it knows that nobody amongst the avid movie goers today is familiar with old movies so there is a good chance the film will bring in bucks. And it has. What's more of a surprise is that the critics are acting as if this is not a remake but more like the "second coming". This movie is strictly old wine in a new bottle. If you want to remake a film for the umpteenth time at least don't be lazy and instead come up with some different angle. What we have here is the exact same schtick- cute (if straggly beards are your thing) alcoholic famous singer (Bradley Cooper) on the skids sees ugly duckling (Lady Gaga) singing in a drag club (doesn't help when the drag queens look more appealing than the leading lady), becomes instantly infatuated by her charisma and vocal talent (although Gaga is seen singing an extremely lousy rendition of "La vie en rose"), dates her, promotes her on stage and helps to create her into a singing sensation. Marriage quickly follows along with insecurity bringing on pangs of jealousy for his now very successful wife while his own star is on the wane. Bland songs, slow pacing and the wooden acting of Lady Gaga only make you want to run and catch the version with Judy Garland. Hell, even the Streisand version was better than this mess. Cooper is not bad but he seems to be copying Sam Elliott who, along with his guttural voice, is also in the film playing his older brother with whom he has a fraught filled relationship. Won't ask anyone to skip this film. By all means watch it but DO also check out the older versions as well to see why this one is such a bore in comparison.

[Reza]

to the ludicrous take on old ladies called Book Club that to my horror I've discovered some little old ladies actually like.

Ludicrous? Yes, the plot certainly is. But where else can you see so many famous female stars together on screen? That's the reason why some have liked it.

So many older actresses, like many of their male counterparts, don't know how to play "old". Like Fonda, Keaton and Steenburgen in the film, they behave as though they were thirty or forty years younger, able to entice any man, older or younger. Only Candice Bergen looks and acts like a woman comfortable in her own shoes in the film.

But that was the whole point in the film. There are many ageing women out there who act like young women in heat trying to recapture their youth. I know many women who are like that.

[Big Magilla]

to the ludicrous take on old ladies called Book Club that to my horror I've discovered some little old ladies actually like.

Ludicrous? Yes, the plot certainly is. But where else can you see so many famous female stars together on screen? That's the reason why some have liked it.

So many older actresses, like many of their male counterparts, don't know how to play "old". Like Fonda, Keaton and Steenburgen in the film, they behave as though they were thirty or forty years younger, able to entice any man, older or younger. Only Candice Bergen looks and acts like a woman comfortable in her own shoes in the film.

On the male side, I don't know how good their films are because I haven't seen them but judging by the trailers of their films, Clint Eastwood in The Mule looks and acts like a man of his age would given his situation in real life. Robert Redford, however, in a similar role in The Old Man and the Gun looks like he thinks he's still the cool guy who got Fonda in Barefoot in the Park and Streisand in The Way We Were with just a smile.

[Reza]

to the ludicrous take on old ladies called Book Club that to my horror I've discovered some little old ladies actually like.

Ludicrous? Yes, the plot certainly is. But where else can you see so many famous female stars together on screen? That's the reason why some have liked it.

[ITALIANO]

I I still haven't seen the latest version of A Star Is Born.

.

Even now, I could tell you exactly the reaction each member of this board will have to that movie. Those who will love it, those who will basically like it, those who will hate it... It's like a Rorschach test on our attitude to today's movies.

[Big Magilla]

I still haven't brought myself to see Hereditary.

There are some good movies out there, but they are not necessarily the ones the critics are going gaga over (no pun intended - I still haven't seen the latest version of A Star Is Born.

Film horror isn't confined just to horror films. It runs the gamut from the smug middle-school "comedy" Eighth Grade to the ludicrous take on old ladies called Book Club that to my horror I've discovered some little old ladies actually like.

[ITALIANO]

The Insult (Ziad Doueiri, 2017) 8/10

Needless to say, the Americans on this board quickly rejected this movie and its subtle (though powerful) implications - but then I am not even sure they know where (or what) Lebanon is
They like Hereditary though

Which Americans? I loved it, thought it was the best of last year's Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Language Film, better than A Fantastic Woman and Loveless and eons better than The Sqaure. I haven't seen On Body and Soul.

Not you, of course, Big Magilla. But then you didn't even love Hereditary I hope

[Big Magilla]

The Insult (Ziad Doueiri, 2017) 8/10

Needless to say, the Americans on this board quickly rejected this movie and its subtle (though powerful) implications - but then I am not even sure they know where (or what) Lebanon is
They like Hereditary though

Which Americans? I loved it, thought it was the best of last year's Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Language Film, better than A Fantastic Woman and Loveless and eons better than The Sqaure. I haven't seen On Body and Soul.

[ITALIANO]

The Insult (Ziad Doueiri, 2017) 8/10

Powerful if heavy handed film, inspired by the Lebanese Civil War, speaks a universal truth about humans who, in the absence of a sense of closure, are unable to control their political hatred and prejudice which continues to grow and fester in their souls. The story, set in Beirut, could apply to any neighborhood of the globe dealing with prejudice and hatred. A minor altercation between two men - a Christian and a Palestinian refugee - escalates gradually from a single slur (the "insult") to a physical assault to more heated words involving racial prejudice which result in two heated court sessions. The matter then moves from physical skirmishes between people attending the trial to outright riots in the streets of Beirut. The high profile trial becomes less about the insult and bodily injury and more about a nation in the grip of a deep rooted morass gestating within like a festering wound which erupts time and again with violence. The film's pat ending may be too simplistic which implores to move on and find a way to make mutually respectable peace and not allow wounds to fester but it still manages to provide good drama and an important message nonetheless. The film also shows the positive and modern emergence of empowered womanhood in the mainly patriarchal Middle East. The film was nominated for an Oscar, the first from Lebanon.

Needless to say, the Americans on this board quickly rejected this movie and its subtle (though powerful) implications - but then I am not even sure they know where (or what) Lebanon is
They like Hereditary though

[Big Magilla]

Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018) 8/10

The film is also a walking talking advertisement for Facebook (one girl says "no one uses Facebook anymore - yeah right), Tumblr, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and Buzzfeed.

Every year lately there is at least one critically acclaimed movie I can't stand. This is this year's. The above quote is one of the reasons why. The 15-year-old actress's monotone as a 13-year-old and insertion of "like" into every sentence is condescendingly amateurish. The ghastly yuck-yuck commentary of the writer-director which I turned on in error while fiddling with my remote is even more appalling than his direction. This no Lady Bird for middle-schoolers as some here today-gone tomorrow critic suggested. It's bloody awful.

[Reza]

The Happy Prince (Rupert Everett, 2018). 8/10

The last destitute years of Oscar Wilde's life are presented with heartbreaking grimness along with flashes of his former life when he ruled London via the stage with his witty plays. His infatuation and affair with Alfred "Bosie" Douglas (Colin Morgan) followed by being accused of sodomy by his lover's angry father, the Marquise of Queensberry, results in a public trial and imprisonment. Class transgression was his downfall. Although it was still a crime to frolic with low class rent boys who could be bought off and paid but it was altogether an unforgiving offence if the upper classes were involved. After two years of hard labour he is released and exiled to France. He loses his shattered wife (Emily Watson), his sons and his country. The screenplay goes back and forth through different phases of his life as the decrepit old man hallucinates about his past life while on his deathbed in a seedy Paris hovel which passes for his room - his humiliation with a prison sentence and hard labour, his exile in France, support by two close friends (Colin Firth & Edwin Thomas), being spat upon and humiliated by British expats, the return of the duplicitous "Bosie" in his life followed by his wife's termination of his tiny allowance and final rejection of him after he attempts a reconciliation. The end is a lonely and painful death. Everett was born to play the part having honed his skills via starring in two film adaptations of the writer's plays ("An Ideal Husband" & "The Importance of Being Earnest") followed later by playing Wilde on stage in David Hare's "The Judas Cage". With his face covered in prosthetics and his body bloated up the actor brings to life one of the great literary giants showing him in the depths of despair but also manages to show flashes of the witty and charming man he once was. Superb film, photographed in burnished hues with a stately score by Gabriel Yared, is a fitting tribute to a genius by an actor-director who also manages to touch on points that strike an important chord in 2018.

[Reza]

Nowhere to Go (Seth Holt & Basil Dearden, 1958) 9/10

Bleak but stylish film noir from Ealing Studios is more in line with similar films from France (early Jules Dassin and the films of Jean-Pierre Melville come to mind) than with its American counterparts. The convoluted plot, co-written by Holt and film critic Kenneth Tynan (based on a novel by Donald MacKenzie), begins with a superbly shot prison break-out in silence using only natural sounds on the soundtrack. The escapee, a suave con-man (George Nader), recalls his past while in a bathtub after his escape. He charms an old widow (silent screen star Bessie Love) and steals her husband's coin collection, sells it and hides the money in a bank safe. Thinking he will get a minor prison term he gives himself up but the judge sentences him to a 10 year term thus forcing him to escape. Hiding out at an apartment arranged by his accomplice (Bernard Lee before he played "M" in the Bond films), he meets and befriends a lonely woman (Maggie Smith in her film debut). Things go from bad to worse when his accomplice double crosses him and later ends up dead with the police convinced he is the murderer. Refused help by the underworld he turns to the girl for help who hides him at her family home in Wales. Paranoia takes over when he thinks the girl has betrayed him leading to the film's climax on the icy heath. Shot mostly on location - damp London streets, dark alleys, derelict train stations, snow covered countryside, smoky clubs. The brilliant camerawork of Paul Beeson, using low angles and shadows, creates a sense of claustrophobic entrapment which the protagonist feels throughout. The memorable jazz score by Dizzy Reece adds to the atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion. Superbly acted by Nader, Smith and Lee, this forgotten masterpiece of British cinema easily holds its own with the best noirs out there. A must-see.

[Reza]

The Insult (Ziad Doueiri, 2017) 8/10

Powerful if heavy handed film, inspired by the Lebanese Civil War, speaks a universal truth about humans who, in the absence of a sense of closure, are unable to control their political hatred and prejudice which continues to grow and fester in their souls. The story, set in Beirut, could apply to any neighborhood of the globe dealing with prejudice and hatred. A minor altercation between two men - a Christian and a Palestinian refugee - escalates gradually from a single slur (the "insult") to a physical assault to more heated words involving racial prejudice which result in two heated court sessions. The matter then moves from physical skirmishes between people attending the trial to outright riots in the streets of Beirut. The high profile trial becomes less about the insult and bodily injury and more about a nation in the grip of a deep rooted morass gestating within like a festering wound which erupts time and again with violence. The film's pat ending may be too simplistic which implores to move on and find a way to make mutually respectable peace and not allow wounds to fester but it still manages to provide good drama and an important message nonetheless. The film also shows the positive and modern emergence of empowered womanhood in the mainly patriarchal Middle East. The film was nominated for an Oscar, the first from Lebanon.

[Reza]

Blood Money (Rowland Brown, 1933) 8/10

Fast moving Pre-Code that was deemed a lost film until found 40 years later. Highly racy in content the screenplay thumbs a nose at all propriety and celebrates crime, under-age sexual assault, nymphomania, kleptomania and masochism. Imagine the uproar a film like this would cause today. A slick bail bondsman (George Bancroft) works for a mob boss (Chick Chandler) whose sister (Judith Anderson) is his mistress and owner of a sleazy nightclub with a butch attendant in a top hat. He falls for a society dame (Frances Dee) who blatantly tells him, "What I need is someone to give me a good thrashing. I’d follow him around like a dog on a leash", and at the end when she finds that he has returned to his mistress she eagerly goes to meet a man who has sexually assaulted another woman. The audacity of the screenplay is hilarious with Dee cast against type as the masochistic nymphomaniac who is also a kleptomaniac on the side. The equally superb Anderson makes her film debut and slinks across the screen passing cynical comments alluringly dressed in a series of very revealing gowns - she would disappear from the screen immediately after this one re-emerging 7-years later as Mrs Danvers in Hitchcock's "Rebecca" which immediately jump started her career as a much in demand character star. This film is not to be missed despite a ho-hum main plot.

[Reza]

Cargo (Ben Howling & Yolanda Ramke, 2018) 6/10

In post-apocalyptic Australia a man (Martin Freeman) struggles to keep alive after he has been bitten by his zombie wife. With only 48 hours left before he also becomes one he needs to find a safe haven for his infant daughter. Helping him along the way is a young independent Aboriginal girl who is trying to save her father. Both find themselves allies with a common goal. The film is a celebration of the vast Australian outback along with the important theme of the strong bond between parent and child and the sacrifices one makes for a loved one. Freeman gives a moving performance as the kind loving man who has to make tough decisions all of which go against his gentle nature.