movies What's the last film you watched? And rate it!

Play While You Play directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien - 3/10
Hou Hsiao-hsien's second film is even worse than his debut because at least his debut was charming. Once again I'd say that a traditional musical would fit the plot better and make it more entertaining, but I actually enjoyed his debut a lot and this one, not so much. It's kind of hard to believe that Hou would go on to make some of contemporary cinema's greatest masterpieces after making this!

Vivacious Lady directed by George Stevens - 7/10
This is a fairly average Old Hollywood marriage film but it becomes above average due to the wonderful Jimmy Stewart and Ginger Rogers. There are some funny scenes in the film but it turned out to be more serious than I expected it. This is by no means a masterpiece but it is a very enjoyable film.

The 400 Blows directed by François Truffaut - 10/10
This is quite simply one of cinema's greatest masterpieces as it has some of the most honest storytelling with some of the best artistic techniques in cinema. I love the character of Antoine Doinel as he reminds me of a cousin of mine, and my cousin had very similar struggles. I broke out into tears during parts of the film because although the film treats its subject unsentimentally, it is when one looks at it objectively that one can see how horrible it is and yet still feel emotional. The final scene is one of the most powerful I have seen.
 
400 blows is great.. one of the few movies on time magazines top 100 that I've actually liked.

47 Ronin 3/5
I was NOT impressed .. only one good fight scene IMO and the story was kinda blah.
 
sfoster said:
400 blows is great.. one of the few movies on time magazines top 100 that I've actually liked.
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:yes:
Cool, I'll actually check that list out and see what I think.

EDIT: Eh, I find over half of that list to be gold. The lack of Japanese cinema (only one Ozu when there are at least four worth mentioning in every general list! and only one Mizoguchi!), the low amount of Godard, and the lack of films not made in in U.S./Europe makes this list lose a lot of value to me. Still, I find many of the films on the film to be enjoyable and many of them to be masterpieces. I guess we just have very different tastes! I'd say that the best list of them all is the They Shoot Pictures Don't They Top 1000 list, although of course it is not perfect and for those who are only into populist cinema then it is not useful.
 
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sfoster said:
Ah hell what was I saying, I took another look at the list and retract my statement. I think the problem was that I saw like 5 in a row that left me bamboozled
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Ah lol, yeah.
I'm curious, do you know which ones those were? I can imagine something like Aguirre leaving one bamboozled lol.

Unknown Child directed by Shunji Iwai - 7/10
I don't usually review (or even watch) TV shows but since this is by one of my favorite filmmakers I decided to watch it and review it here. It is a nice simple psychological horror story, in fact I think it works well as an individual short film. I love the way Iwai decides to mix dreams and reality, I think I'm going to try that with some of my short films. My usual objection to television is that the visuals are only competent and never artistic, this TV episode actually has some hints of Iwai's later stylistic development in cinema. I love the use of warm colors in some of the scenes, and the parallel compositions at the beginning and end of the show.
 
Sure.. movies that bamboozled me for being on the list

The Searchers (1/5)
Man with a movie camera (1/5)
It's a gift (1/5)
Sunrise (1/5) - A Place in the Sun is sooo much better and a very similar story
Tokyo Story (1/5) - Haha we've talked about this one before!
Camille (2/5)
Children of paradise (2/5) (although I must admit I have found myself pondering a few moments of this very long film.. so something stuck with me)
Persona (2/5)
Streetcar named desire (2/5)
Chinatown (3/5)
Goodfellas (3/5)
The Manchurian Candidate (3/5)
Ninotchka (3/5)
Notorious (3/5)
once upon a time in the west (3/5)
Singing in the rain (3/5)
Ugetsu (3/5)
Umberto D (3/5) - Cannot actually recall this film right now, but I have my rating written down :)
Unforgiven (3/5)
White Heat (3/5) - Angels with Dirty faces was the superior cagney film IMO

Loved: (in my top 40 films out of 2000+ seen)
charade, citizen kane, city lights, finding nemo, lawrence of arabia, on the waterfront, psycho, schindlers list (my #1 film of all time), Star Wars IV

Really Liked (4/5)
The awful truth, the lady eve, baby face, blade runner, bonnie and clyde, casablanca, city of god, double indemnity, dr strange love, drunken master, 400 blows, good bad and ugly, his girl friday, ikiru, it's a wonderful life, LOTR:TFOTR (two towers was superior IMO), pulp fiction, raging bull, shop around the corner, some like it hot


Damn I have made some good progress on this list from when I first looked it up :lol: I've seen some others from the list too, but they don't meet the aforementioned criteria.. such as The Godfather, which i personally didn't really enjoy. but i'm not at all confused as to why it's on their list. I probably have 40 left to watch
 
sfoster said:
Sure.. movies that bamboozled me for being on the list

The Searchers (1/5)
Man with a movie camera (1/5)
It's a gift (1/5)
Sunrise (1/5) - A Place in the Sun is sooo much better and a very similar story
Tokyo Story (1/5) - Haha we've talked about this one before!
Camille (2/5)
Children of paradise (2/5) (although I must admit I have found myself pondering a few moments of this very long film.. so something stuck with me)
Persona (2/5)
Streetcar named desire (2/5)
Chinatown (3/5)
Goodfellas (3/5)
The Manchurian Candidate (3/5)
Ninotchka (3/5)
Notorious (3/5)
once upon a time in the west (3/5)
Singing in the rain (3/5)
Ugetsu (3/5)
Umberto D (3/5) - Cannot actually recall this film right now, but I have my rating written down :)
Unforgiven (3/5)
White Heat (3/5) - Angels with Dirty faces was the superior cagney film IMO

Loved: (in my top 40 films out of 2000+ seen)
charade, citizen kane, city lights, finding nemo, lawrence of arabia, on the waterfront, psycho, schindlers list (my #1 film of all time), Star Wars IV

Really Liked (4/5)
The awful truth, the lady eve, baby face, blade runner, bonnie and clyde, casablanca, city of god, double indemnity, dr strange love, drunken master, 400 blows, good bad and ugly, his girl friday, ikiru, it's a wonderful life, LOTR:TFOTR (two towers was superior IMO), pulp fiction, raging bull, shop around the corner, some like it hot


Damn I have made some good progress on this list from when I first looked it up :lol: I've seen some others from the list too, but they don't meet the aforementioned criteria.. such as The Godfather, which i personally didn't really enjoy. but i'm not at all confused as to why it's on their list. I probably have 40 left to watch
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Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, I guess we have some different tastes as I feel like Tokyo Story and Ugetsu are two of the best films of all-time (they are both in my top three). And there are more of my favorites in that list that bamboozled you. I guess you can be bamboozled if you look at films only from your perspective, for example, I'm starting to see that there are films that are great at what they do even if they don't like what they do. In other words, there are films that do a perfect job at expressing what they are trying to express, but what they are expressing does not interest me. I think if you view these films in that way you could appreciate them (though not necessarily like or enjoy) more. Although there are some films like Amelie that I really just can't see it being a great film, but I'm probably wrong. I tend to believe that quality is something separate from my tastes, so maybe Amelie is a great film even though it's one of the few that I hate lol.

I personally didn't find any huge offenders on the list, my problem with most lists lies in the omissions rather than what they chose. The great thing about cinema is that there is so much great cinema that appeals to different people. If Mizoguchi and Ozu do not appeal to you then there is Kurosawa and the Japanese New Wave and hundreds of others in Japan alone let alone in different countries. But I think it is important to acknowledge talent even when it does not appeal to me.

On a completely different note, do you have a profile on some film social media site (like IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd, MUBI, etc.)? You have seen so many films lol, I'd like to see your opinions on different films (even when we disagree lol).
 
Akira directed by Katsuhiro Ôtomo - 10/10
Wow this was just an incredible cinematic experience, I enjoyed it from beginning to end. I think just about everything about it is perfect especially the visuals. The meaning of the story and several plot elements are pretty indecipherable on first viewing so I know this is one of those films that I'll have to watch more times to fully understand!
 
Morning's Tree-Lined Street directed by Mikio Naruse - 9/10
Wow this film just really surprised me and is now my favorite Naruse film (as I am going through his filmography in order there is a lot of mixed quality stuff). While the story of this film is not as good as the one in Wife! Be Like A Rose!, Naruse's directing here is much more eloquent. As I have noted, his visual style just gets better and better with each film and I think here Naruse achieves a poetic quality similar to that of Ozu or Mizoguchi, except with a different tone. The best way to describe the film is that it is filled with motion, when the characters or not moving or when there are still objects then the camera is moving, and when the camera is still then the characters are constantly moving. While the film's story is less substantial than at least three of Naruse's early films, the characters are really well developed and the manner in which the story is presented is just amazing. The ending has Naruse pull a completely unexpected twist that actually got me mad, but then Naruse saved the ending by adding one of the best final scenes I have ever seen. This is one of the few films that I ever found that captures the liberating feeling of moving on from romance so perfectly, and it is much more than that because it has so many more elements. Surprisingly this film is not rated highly, but then again so few people have even seen it. I'll take this film over Three Sisters With Maiden Hearts any day, and I'd rank it just above Wife! Be Like A Rose!. Those who want a unique story should look elsewhere but those who appreciate beautiful poetic cinema that uses melodrama as a tool to express universal ideas shouldn't miss this film, it is also worth mentioning that the film has a crazy mildly surrealistic side to it that was unexpected!

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956 Version) directed by Alfred Hitchcock - 9/10
Ah deciding which version of this film was better was pretty difficult, but I have to say that I prefer the original. This version of the film has better character development, better cast, and of course it has the benefit of a larger budget and the always wonderful VistaVision cinematography. However, the original version just had much more amazing scenes, for me the most obvious example is the ending, because the original had this awesome extended suspenseful ending while this version had a less impacting ending. The original also had the better villain with Peter Lorre's awesome performance! Also the original had small formalistic qualities that this one lacked. Still this version is very masterfully directed and there are things that I like better in this film, such as the twists in the film. So yup, I like this film a lot but I have to disagree with both Truffaut and Hitchcock, the original simply did a bit more with less (both in terms of length, budget, and star casting).
 
MiniJamesW said:
On a completely different note, do you have a profile on some film social media site (like IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd, MUBI, etc.)? You have seen so many films lol, I'd like to see your opinions on different films (even when we disagree lol).
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I wish I had used IMDB when I began logging all my ratings.. instead I have them on netflix :no:
Not publicly available and they become inaccessible if I stop paying for my account
 
Dark Star 3/5
Made by john carpenter while he was still in film school
Started off a little slow but I really enjoyed the second half :lol:

It might help that I'm a huge fan of the british show Red Dwarf, which is all about low budget sci fi humor. This was definitely in the same vein.
 
sfoster said:
I wish I had used IMDB when I began logging all my ratings.. instead I have them on netflix :no:
Not publicly available and they become inaccessible if I stop paying for my account
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Ah yeah! That's why I never rated on Netflix (also because other websites have much larger databases esp. IMDb). And not everyone has as much free time as me to transfer all ratings/favorites/reviews like I have to like four different websites already lol.
 
MiniJamesW said:
Ah yeah! That's why I never rated on Netflix (also because other websites have much larger databases esp. IMDb). And not everyone has as much free time as me to transfer all ratings/favorites/reviews like I have to like four different websites already lol.
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I'll make the time one day.. when I am forced to :lol: (i.e. the day i cancel netflix) It's easy to forget how I felt about some movies when I saw them long ago
 
sfoster said:
I'll make the time one day.. when I am forced to :lol: (i.e. the day i cancel netflix) It's easy to forget how I felt about some movies when I saw them long ago
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Haha yeah, I basically rate movies to remind myself which ones I liked a lot and which ones I feel are worth re-watching.

The Green, Green Grass Of Home directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien - 6/10
I finally completed my goal of watching Hou's trilogy of Kenny Bee mediocre "musicals." This is by far the most mature of the three films but that isn't saying much as the first one was a charming pseudo-musical romantic comedy with lots of silly scenes, the second one is an unbelievable melodrama (that was unfortunately boring to me), and now this one is kind of hard to describe. It has an underdeveloped (though more realistic) love story like Play While You Play did but that isn't the focus of the film. There is the love story, the story of a man moving from the city to the countryside, the story of a teacher working with his students, and the story of the teacher improving environmental awareness in his community. None of these stories are particularly compelling but there is some nice cinematography at points and the film is never really 'bad' in the way that Play While You Play was. What makes this film more mature than the other early Hou films is that it has a very great portrayal of the countryside in Taiwan (which actually reminds me of the countryside in the Dominican Republic where I live) and great use of child actors. Overall, after watching this little trilogy I feel like Lovable You was the most charming and fun to watch, Play While You Play is simply one of the worst and least engaging films I have seen, and The Green, Green Grass Of Home is the most promising and mature work of the 'trilogy.' I'd still say that none of these are worth watching unless you are a huge fan of Hou or if you are interested in commercial Taiwanese cinema. Although I could make a solid case for Lovable You being one of the great mediocrities of cinema because it's really fun to watch. In any case, anyone interested in Taiwanese cinema should start with the mature works of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, or Tsai Ming-liang before diving into the pre-80's commercial era (w/ some exceptions like King Hu's wonderful wuxia films).
 
I saw three of Martin Scorsese's early short films. I'd just say that they are all nice quirky films but none of them are great.

What's A Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This? directed by Martin Scorsese - 6/10
It's Not Just You, Murray directed by Martin Scorsese - 6/10 (I like this better than the previous film)
The Big Shave directed by Martin Scorsese - 4/10 (one of the most unsettling film experiences I've had, the problem is that if it wasn't pointed out to me that it was an allegory for the Vietnam War then I wouldn't find any value in this film)

The Wedding Banquet directed by Ang Lee - 8/10
Ang Lee's second film further explores family drama. I like this film better than Pushing Hands because all of its characters have something special, and the wonderful Sihung Lung is even more badass in this film. I like how the film deals comedy and drama with such heart, it always feels delicate. I have a lot of respect for very good craftsmen filmmakers like Ang Lee, sure he feels pedestrian compared to Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, or Edward Yang but his films have a lot of heart and they are very well made. I also like the way he explores multiple cultures in his films, I'm not sure of any major director that has done this as well as he has. I think if he were to make several films a year like the old studio directors did he'd become a master like an Ozu or a John Ford, but as it is his films are very good but he hasn't made a masterpiece yet IMO (maybe Eat Drink Man Woman will change my mind).
 
I watched ... literally over 70 films so far this year at cinema... The latest one was BAD NEIGHBOURS (US title: Neighbours) I would give it 3,5 out of 5

I also watched TRACKS with Mia Wasilowska and I would give it 4,5 out of 5

other films watched in the past month:
Spiderman: 2,5 out of 5
The Double: 4 out of 5
The Book Thief: 5 out of 5
Under The Skin: 4 out of 5

not in the past month but... A New York Winter's Tale: 4,5 out of 5


too many I watched lately lol
 
It's Kind of a Funny Story - 4/10 - Underwhelming, I was looking forward to a Thumbsucker/Wristercutters: A Love Story. It had plenty of romance, comedy, and drama, but the problem is that each of those aspects canceled each other out and it became an unsatisfying bland of each. A good story w/ a decent cast that had too many clashing styles and recurring tropes that ended in boredom and predictability.

Ace in the Hole - 8/10 - Underrated film w/ Kurt Douglas. We follow a journalist/writer who finds a man trapped in a caved in hole, and begins to manipulate the law and those around him to keep the man in the hole longer so that he can't get out, meaning the news story gets drawn out longer, meaning more success for him. The story takes unpredictable turns, the the constant shifts in tension and tone make for a successful suspenseful and satisfying story that leaves the audience with plenty to think about and decipher. The cinematographer is straightforward, although with a few great shots, particularly the last one. The score is fantastic, progressing and building with anguish, anger, tension, sadness, and an indescribable feeling of dread. Worth watching.
 
Eat Drink Man Woman directed by Ang Lee - 8/10
Ang Lee's final "Father Knows Best" film is the best of the trilogy, but it isn't really a great leap. In fact, I'd rank it just above The Wedding Banquet. Here, there are no weak links in terms of characters, they are all pretty interesting. I also like how Lee takes the well-known family drama style to throw in some completely unexpected plot twists. Still, as usual Lee's cinema is not transcendent in the way that his Taiwanese contemporaries are, his simple storytelling always has a lot of heart and warmth but I still find him short of genius. As usual with this trilogy Sihung Lung is simply brilliant, I've started to view him as the 90's version of Chishu Ryu.
 
Orochi directed by Buntaro Futagawa - 7/10
This is a pretty good morality tale on injustice and class struggles, but the film was disappointing for me as I expected more from a classic silent Japanese film. The benshi narration by Midori Sawato was excellent as usual but I prefer listening to her wonderful narration in a better film like The Water Magician. I also like how the narration serves to comment on the film as well. The film initially has a nice theatrical (and sometimes novelistic) feel, but at points it gets a bit over-theatrical for me. The film is also super pessimistic, even more than any Naruse I've seen, but this is actually done mostly well. My main problem with this film is its repetitive cyclical storytelling, its hard to pull off this kind of storytelling but unfortunately the film doesn't succeed. The ending of the film is magnificent and I'd say it's a must-watch for lovers of silent films. I know that fight scenes are described as being like dances, but this one feels even more like a dance than a real fight, and that's a good thing in this case. Overall this is a good but flawed film with inventive use of narration, a pretty good morality tale, and a great ending.
 
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