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Which movie did you watch today and how would you rate it?

Letter From Iwo Jima

I'd seen this one before and it's still as powerful and touching as it was the first time I saw it.

It's about the battle of Iwo Jima told from the Japanese perspective, which we don't get enough of. I once read a book called The Forgotten Soldier,*** which was an Alsatian soldier's story from WW2 who fought for Germany. It was fascinating in both instances to see the humanity of the other side rather than the heroics and sacrifices from the American perspective.

If you haven't seen this one, see it. It has unnecessary expository dialogue and sometimes the pacing is off, but overall, it's a great movie.

9/10

***The Forgotten Soldier is often accused of being fiction. However, the story is no less true even if it is a fictionalized account (if that makes sense).
 
Gone Baby Gone, 7/10; Ben Affleck's directorial debut and starring his brother Casey Aflfeck. In a run down Boston neighborhood a four year old girl goes missing. Frustrated with the lack of progress from the Boston PD the girl's aunt and uncle hire a local private investigator to try to help find the girl. The PI and his girl friend start making enquiries around the area and start putting together the real story of what was going on with the mother. The movie is entertaining and suspenseful and hold together pretty well but there are a couple of glaring holes but so what, it's a movie! Great performances from the cast and the Boston vernacular is always entertaining. did ya pahk the cah in the yahd?
 
Death Wish, 6/10; 1974 thriller directed by Michael Winner and starring Charles Bronson and an brief appearance by Jeff Goldblum which I think was his movie debut. Set in 1970s crime ridden New York Bronson's wife and daughter are brutally attacked in a home invasion and the wife dies and the daughter is mentally scarred. After a business trip to Arizona Branson is gifted a gun and ammunition by a business associate. He carries the gun with him and uses it to kill muggers. His killings become the talk of New York and police start closing in on him. This is not an action movie or a righteous revenge movie but a moral tale about vigilantism. There are a few more Death Wish movies which may be more entertaining but this one is not particularly engrossing. There are some good scenes in it where Bronson's character reacts to his first killing but the movie doesn't have much going for it, very dated but it is interesting to see old times.
 
TSwizzle said:
Death Wish, 6/10; 1974 thriller directed by Michael Winner and starring Charles Bronson and an brief appearance by Jeff Goldblum which I think was his movie debut. Set in 1970s crime ridden New York Bronson's wife and daughter are brutally attacked in a home invasion and the wife dies and the daughter is mentally scarred. After a business trip to Arizona Branson is gifted a gun and ammunition by a business associate. He carries the gun with him and uses it to kill muggers. His killings become the talk of New York and police start closing in on him. This is not an action movie or a righteous revenge movie but a moral tale about vigilantism. There are a few more Death Wish movies which may be more entertaining but this one is not particularly engrossing. There are some good scenes in it where Bronson's character reacts to his first killing but the movie doesn't have much going for it, very dated but it is interesting to see old times.
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The Death Wish from 2018 with Bruce Willis is pretty much the same but it amps up the gore content with Eli Roth at the helm of it.
 
Have I mentioned that I have a Fetish for Lists? I just clicked to the List of the 101 best screenplays (according to a Writers Guild in April 2006).

There is VERY strong overlap between this list and my own personal favorite-movies list. Of the 101 movies, there are only about 15 I've not seen. I think I'll make watching those a priority (along with several on the list I've seen only once long ago and didn't appreciate properly).

Of course my fetish means I can't see two related lists without comparing them! Here are some of my top (pre-2006) favorites which do NOT appear on the Screenwriters' List. (In most cases it's because I liked the film for reasons other than the writing.)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly​
Crash (2004)​
Lord of the Rings​
Mystic River​
The Big Sleep​
Snatch​
 
Thief, 5/10; stars James Caan as an elite jewel thief Frank, who gets suckered into doing a job for a Chicago criminal, Leo. The job is successful but Leo keeps most of Frank’s payoff saying he invested it. He also insists Frank keep working for him. Directed by Michael Mann, the movie is stylishly filmed but the movie itself is rather flat. Some good scenes in it but few and far between.
 
TSwizzle said:
Thief, 5/10; stars James Caan as an elite jewel thief Frank, who gets suckered into doing a job for a Chicago criminal, Leo. The job is successful but Leo keeps most of Frank’s payoff saying he invested it. He also insists Frank keep working for him. Directed by Michael Mann, the movie is stylishly filmed but the movie itself is rather flat. Some good scenes in it but few and far between.
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I thought it was lame.

"We need another guy on our crew."
"How about Frank?"
"Sure, he's good."
"What do we know about him?"
"He believes in honor among thieves. He'll never cheat you, and he'll never forgive you if you cheat him."
"Tell you what, why don't we hire him and then cheat him?"
"Well, it would make for a simplistic plot, but, sure, let's do that."
 
Clear and Present Danger, 8/10; Stars Harrison Ford as CIA analyst Jack Ryan. US coastguards board a yacht to discover the bodies of a US family and arrest the sketchy Columbians on board. The dead family are personal friends of the US president. It seems the Columbian drug cartels are involved and the dead US guy is involved in laundering money for them. A fairly action packed movie filled with intrigue and sketchy US government involvement. Entertaining, well worth a watch.
 
Birth.

Not sure how to feel about the film but I have always discounted Nicole Kidman as an actress and I think I may have been wrong.
 
The Passenger, 6/10; A 2023 thriller. The film opening sequence show a young boy about eight years old and he is watching a screaming woman holding her hand over her eye as blood pours out from a wound. This then snaps to a young man, Randy from his nightmare. Randy works in a rural fast food joint along with similar aged disinterested staff and a middle aged manager. One of the employees bullies Randy into eating a day old burger. A colleague, Brandon tries to intervene but is stared down. Brandon snaps, goes out to his car and returns with a shotgun and kills everyone except Randy. The story/plot revolves around how Brandon is going to help Randy overcome an earlier trauma and take control of his life by kidnapping him and going on an odyssey to confront previous unsatisfactory events in his life. This movie started off good with lots of promise but it turned artsy and gets really deep. The acting performances are really good from a young main cast but the story plods along slowly, interspersed with a few good scenes that build tension but it was a helluva boring for the most part.
 
Men

If you've ever wanted to be repeatedly smashed in the face with an issue you agree with to the point you're compelled to begin to take the opposite point of view, and at the same time wanted to see your gender used as toilet paper in a music festival porta-potty, then you will love this movie.

It's too bad, really. It's a well shot, well acted, and very atmospheric flick. I revisited to see if it my initial disappointment was misplaced, but sadly, it was placed.

Aaaaanyway: Woman is abused by boyfriend. Woman seeks solace by vacationing in a small town in the UK. Throughout the movie she interacts with various men, all of whom are played by the same actor, all of which are creepy assholes.

From a technical point of view, the movie's excellent and a lot of the writing is good, so I'll give it a recommend because it's a better than average watch. I think most movies aren't that good, so take that for what it's worth.

6/10
 
Room for rent, 5/10; 2019 thriller starring Lin Shaye as Joyce a late sixties/early seventies woman who has just lost her husband. She is horrified to find that her husband had borrowed money, about $6k and has cash of about $2k. In order to make extra money she decides to rent out a room in her large house. Joyce is a bit of an odd duck. She tells little white lies to get the sympathy of a female guest who befriends her. She then dupes a young man into renting the room and becomes possessive of the man. Not a great movie but Lin Shaye is bloody magnificent as the main character.
 
The Giants (2022)

The story of the Tasmanian conservation protests interspersed with Bob brown's story and with general information about the natural world.

I loved it.
 
A Real Pain

A comedy/drama about a pair of cousins who travel to Poland to vist their Jewish grandmother's homeland who survived the Nazi occupation.

It was somewhat of a difficult watch. Frankly I found very little comedy but overall it was an excellent movie exploring the relationship between two cousins and their shared history. The exploration of the concentration/extermination camp was particularly disturbing.

The film has received worldwide accolades so who am I to disagree. 10/10.
 
The Ugly Stepsister

This is a film with a bizarre take on the Cinderella fairy tale; not that the bizarre take is bad, it's actually pretty interesting--and very German. It's graphic in its depiction of forced and self harm as well as sex. It's an intense drama with considerable body horror thrown in. Overall, I consider it an arthouse horror flick, but film fans will find it interesting regardless of genre.

Oh, it suffers badly from inconsistency, pacing issues, and is a good half hour too long. OTOH, it's beautiful looking and the actors are all really good.

I give it a recommend.

6.5/10
 
It was kind of bizarre to watch "Dune: Part 2" and "A Complete Unknown" on consecutive nights, seeing the same actor portray Paul Atreides and Bob Dylan. Although I guess there are people who consider both to be a Messiah.

Anyway:

"Dune: Part 2" - 6/10, not as good as part 1.

"A Complete Unknown" - 8/10. The usual liberties taken with condensing events to fit the 2+ hour window, but pretty well told, with convincing performances, including the musical pieces.
 
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