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

[DrZoidberg]

My best friend Kinski (10/10)
Warner Herzog

The genius director pretty much made Klaus Kinskis late career. This is the story. It's interesting because it's Werner Herzog talking about their dynamic, which to me comes across as a kind of masochistic relationship on Herzog's part. Kinki is portrayed as a complete psychopath. A boundless narcissist and just pure evil man. The film is just a summation of all the insane crazy shit Kinski did. In spite of this Herzog loved the man. A fascinating documentary. Not a boring moment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Best_Fiend

 

[bradw]

2010 (1984)

Sequel to 2001.

If I were unaware of it being a sequel, I might enjoy it as a mildly entertaining sci-fi movie from the 80s.

But I really like 2001, and 2010 has none of the qualities that I enjoy in the original.

5/10

 

[Horatio Parker]

My best friend Kinski (10/10)
Warner Herzog

The genius director pretty much made Klaus Kinskis late career. This is the story. It's interesting because it's Werner Herzog talking about their dynamic, which to me comes across as a kind of masochistic relationship on Herzog's part. Kinki is portrayed as a complete psychopath. A boundless narcissist and just pure evil man. The film is just a summation of all the insane crazy shit Kinski did. In spite of this Herzog loved the man. A fascinating documentary. Not a boring moment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Best_Fiend

A must see for all Werner/Kinski fans, especially fans of Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, or Werners remake of Nosferatu.

One note: Werner says that he considered Kinski's idea for a movie about Paganini impossible to make; I thought it was a good movie.

 

[DrZoidberg]

My best friend Kinski (10/10)
Warner Herzog

The genius director pretty much made Klaus Kinskis late career. This is the story. It's interesting because it's Werner Herzog talking about their dynamic, which to me comes across as a kind of masochistic relationship on Herzog's part. Kinki is portrayed as a complete psychopath. A boundless narcissist and just pure evil man. The film is just a summation of all the insane crazy shit Kinski did. In spite of this Herzog loved the man. A fascinating documentary. Not a boring moment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Best_Fiend

A must see for all Werner/Kinski fans, especially fans of Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, or Werners remake of Nosferatu.

One note: Werner says that he considered Kinski's idea for a movie about Paganini impossible to make; I thought it was a good movie.

Herzog also had delusions of grandeur. He saw himself as a rare genius. I'm sure he thought Paganini was a bad movie. BTW, I didn't like Fitzcarraldo. I thought it was mostly boring and pointless. I like other stuff by Herzog more.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Starcrash (10/10)

This is a cheap Italian knock-off of Star Wars. It was rushed into production right after Star Wars came out to cash in on the space craze. It's ridiculous in every way. But it's also camp. Where Star Wars takes itself seriously, Starcrash doesn't. The plot is incoherent, but if you've seen Star Wars you know the drill. The count (the Empire) is building a super weapon that the Galactic Emperor (the Rebels) must destroy before it's too late. Luke Solo... sorry... I mean Akton, the smuggler turned saviour of the universe, uses the force... sorry.. I mean magical powers to conveniently fix gaping plot holes. At his side he has princess Leia... sorry I mean Stella Star. The robot side kick C3PO, I mean Elle says funny one-liners.

Even though it's an obvious Star Wars knock-off story-wise, it compares better to Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers in how nudge nudge win wink retarded it is. Lots of hot girls in skimpy underwear. Why would anyone expect anything else from an Italian production? The planet of Amazons!!! Total camp. The special effects are laughably cheap and just down-right stupid. Christoffer Plumber plays the galactic emperor who first is portrayed as a bad guy, and then as a good guy. No explanation! Just weird.

It has David Hasselhof in it, which is cool. Maybe his worst acting job ever. Oh yeah,... the dialogue and acting in this is terrible. Almost every scene has an actor explaining what has just happened because the director has been able to convey the same information through how it is shot. This is all tell, don't show. It's also funny how the segments where they explain shit, is completely out of character, as if they literally are reading from a piece of paper in front of them, and then when it's done they go back to actual acting. So much fun.

I had a lot of fun watching this. For best viewing pleasure bring beer and/or weed

 

[Horatio Parker]

A must see for all Werner/Kinski fans, especially fans of Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, or Werners remake of Nosferatu.

One note: Werner says that he considered Kinski's idea for a movie about Paganini impossible to make; I thought it was a good movie.

Herzog also had delusions of grandeur. He saw himself as a rare genius. I'm sure he thought Paganini was a bad movie. BTW, I didn't like Fitzcarraldo. I thought it was mostly boring and pointless. I like other stuff by Herzog more.

I love Fitzcarraldo. Zuh Oh-purr-ah een zuh Zchungul...

The inspired craziness of his idea, then his cheerful acceptance of that beautiful disaster, topped by his grand futile gesture, it appeals to the kid in me. Using African drumming to represent supposedly Amazon tribes stuck out grotesquely. Also it makes no sense for the good matrons of Iquitos to adopt his opera house idea and stand vigil. Claudia Cardinelli was delicious.

Aguirre is the one that bores me. Pacing up and down that raft looking fierce in his conquistador outfit...all it lacked was a mirror for Kinski to admire himself.

But as a movie, I wouldn't

 

[Bacillus anthracis]

Starcrash (10/10)

This is a cheap Italian knock-off of Star Wars. It was rushed into production right after Star Wars came out to cash in on the space craze. It's ridiculous in every way. But it's also camp. Where Star Wars takes itself seriously, Starcrash doesn't. The plot is incoherent, but if you've seen Star Wars you know the drill. The count (the Empire) is building a super weapon that the Galactic Emperor (the Rebels) must destroy before it's too late. Luke Solo... sorry... I mean Akton, the smuggler turned saviour of the universe, uses the force... sorry.. I mean magical powers to conveniently fix gaping plot holes. At his side he has princess Leia... sorry I mean Stella Star. The robot side kick C3PO, I mean Elle says funny one-liners.

Even though it's an obvious Star Wars knock-off story-wise, it compares better to Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers in how nudge nudge win wink retarded it is. Lots of hot girls in skimpy underwear. Why would anyone expect anything else from an Italian production? The planet of Amazons!!! Total camp. The special effects are laughably cheap and just down-right stupid. Christoffer Plumber plays the galactic emperor who first is portrayed as a bad guy, and then as a good guy. No explanation! Just weird.

It has David Hasselhof in it, which is cool. Maybe his worst acting job ever. Oh yeah,... the dialogue and acting in this is terrible. Almost every scene has an actor explaining what has just happened because the director has been able to convey the same information through how it is shot. This is all tell, don't show. It's also funny how the segments where they explain shit, is completely out of character, as if they literally are reading from a piece of paper in front of them, and then when it's done they go back to actual acting. So much fun.

I had a lot of fun watching this. For best viewing pleasure bring beer and/or weed

This movie is awesome. From the "bwooop-bweeep" sounds constantly in the background to the actors forgetting their lines mid-sentence, to the frikkin' everything.

It really is a so bad it's good movie. Once it begins it's hard to stop watching.

 

[Bacillus anthracis]

VHS and VHS Viral

These two movies can be reviewed at the same time because they're part of the same franchise. They consist of horror shorts that are done really well. The shorts often deal with the supernatural, occasionally do not, but with few exceptions these are worth watching if you're a horror fan. Think of Twilight Zone but much more violent and certainly more gory.

If you like to see assholes getting their comeuppance, want to cringe at the innocent being brutalized, see unexpected twists, and laugh all in the same movie, these are worth watching.

Maybe this is the future of horror since so few films ever do it well.

8/10

 

[MarkW]

Enigma

8/10

There's quite a body of mystery/thriller literature set during the World War 2 years, but this adaptation of Robert Harris's novel, set at the Bletchley Park codebreaking facility, is one of the few film thrillers set in that period. Overall it's a good intellectual thriller. Tom Stoppard wrote the intelligent screenplay, while Jeremy Northam, playing an MI-5 agent who is the master of understated snark, stands out in the strong cast. The film version somewhat Hollywoodizes Harris's novel, adding a couple of action sequences (which work reasonably well), and building up the romance between lead actors Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet (which doesn't work so well). It's worth a look.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Enigma

8/10

There's quite a body of mystery/thriller literature set during the World War 2 years, but this adaptation of Robert Harris's novel, set at the Bletchley Park codebreaking facility, is one of the few film thrillers set in that period. Overall it's a good intellectual thriller. Tom Stoppard wrote the intelligent screenplay, while Jeremy Northam, playing an MI-5 agent who is the master of understated snark, stands out in the strong cast. The film version somewhat Hollywoodizes Harris's novel, adding a couple of action sequences (which work reasonably well), and building up the romance between lead actors Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet (which doesn't work so well). It's worth a look.

Don't forget that that film is an insult to all that is pure and virtuous. Tom Jericho is very loosely based on Alan Turing. A gay man who got horribly persecuted for his homosexuality, and in spite of, not only building the first ever workable computer, (ever!!!) help crack the enigma-code got nothing for it, other than being chemically castrated. He committed suicide because of it. This man is one of the world's greatest heroes and was treated horrendously.

Having him be straight and have the film centre around a straight love interest is like making a movie about Martin Luther King using only white actors, and pretending that this is ok somehow. I can't think of making a film more overtly offensive than what they did in Enigma. When I saw it I just sat in chock the entire time. It was a bizarre experience. I'm a computer engineer and I've done research in computers. Turning is one of my greatest heroes thanks to what he did for the computer industry.

I'm not saying that a director shouldn't be given creative freedom. But in this case it's impossibly to eject the gayness out of the film without getting people to react. I did, and I'm not even gay.

 

[MarkW]

Enigma

8/10

There's quite a body of mystery/thriller literature set during the World War 2 years, but this adaptation of Robert Harris's novel, set at the Bletchley Park codebreaking facility, is one of the few film thrillers set in that period. Overall it's a good intellectual thriller. Tom Stoppard wrote the intelligent screenplay, while Jeremy Northam, playing an MI-5 agent who is the master of understated snark, stands out in the strong cast. The film version somewhat Hollywoodizes Harris's novel, adding a couple of action sequences (which work reasonably well), and building up the romance between lead actors Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet (which doesn't work so well). It's worth a look.

Don't forget that that film is an insult to all that is pure and virtuous. Tom Jericho is very loosely based on Alan Turing. A gay man who got horribly persecuted for his homosexuality, and in spite of, not only building the first ever workable computer, (ever!!!) help crack the enigma-code got nothing for it, other than being chemically castrated. He committed suicide because of it. This man is one of the world's greatest heroes and was treated horrendously.

But the thing is, when you read Robert Harris's source novel, you find that Tom Jericho is not really "based on Alan Turing," loosely or otherwise. Turing is explicitly identified as a separate individual in the novel, with Jericho having been a student of Turing's at Cambridge prior to the war. In the film, that relationship is simply a part of the novel that is "adapted out," as happens in adapting any novel to the screen. Frankly, I think that for the kind of film that Stoppard and Michael Apted (director) were making, or the kind of novel Harris was writing, it makes much more sense to use fictitious characters rather than try to insert real-world denizens of Bletchley into the story.

I do find the romance element to be by far the weakest element of the film, but I can't share your sense of shock or offense at it.

 

[MarkW]

The Decoy Bride

9/10

A very charming romantic comedy that gets a bonus from me for taking place in the innately romantic setting of Scotland (better yet, in the Isles). It further benefits from the talents of my very favorite Scottish actress, Kelly Macdonald, as the "decoy" of the title, and also one of my favorite English actresses, Alice Eve, in what could have easily been a thankless role.

 

[laughing dog]

Woman In Gold 6/10

Interesting story. Helen Mirren is goods as are all the actors in the remembrance scenes. The scenery in Austria is wonderful. The other lead - Ryan Reynolds - always comes across to me as dumb, whiney and generally unlikable. I really do not understand his appeal at all.

 

[MarkW]

The Longest Day

7.5/10

Based on Cornelius Ryan's book of the same title, and telling the story of the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944, this film holds up reasonably well over 50 years after it came out, although it's not a classic. Where the film succeeds is in giving a true sense of how epic an undertaking the Normandy invasion really was. There are also a number of effective combat scenes. Where it falls short of the best war films is in the lack of a real human element. In trying to tell too many stories, the film ends up slighting almost all of them. The cast is enormous, and filled with famous names, but only a small number of them manage to make a real impression on a viewer. Probably the most successful is Robert Mitchum, who has a commanding presence as Brigadier General Norman Cota, one of the heroes of Omaha Beach (even though Mitchum doesn't get to deliver Cota's most famous D-Day utterance: "Goddamn it, if you're Rangers, lead the way!").

 

[laughing dog]

The Longest Day

7.5/10

Based on Cornelius Ryan's book of the same title, and telling the story of the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944, this film holds up reasonably well over 50 years after it came out, although it's not a classic. Where the film succeeds is in giving a true sense of how epic an undertaking the Normandy invasion really was. There are also a number of effective combat scenes. Where it falls short of the best war films is in the lack of a real human element. In trying to tell too many stories, the film ends up slighting almost all of them. The cast is enormous, and filled with famous names, but only a small number of them manage to make a real impression on a viewer. Probably the most successful is Robert Mitchum, who has a commanding presence as Brigadier General Norman Cota, one of the heroes of Omaha Beach (even though Mitchum doesn't get to deliver Cota's most famous D-Day utterance: "Goddamn it, if you're Rangers, lead the way!").

My favorite part is when the Plushkat (the German in the bunker who sees the invasion) calls up his superior, and when asked "Where are those ships heading", he replies "Straight for me".

 

[MarkW]

Hollywood Boulevard

6.5/10

A parody of independent, ultra-low budget films like those made by Roger Corman--made by a bunch of people who worked for Roger Corman (most prominently, co-director Joe Dante). While it doesn't always hold up well today and betrays its low-budget origins more than once, it is often quite funny and entertaining. Paul Bartel, as pompous, pretentious, and self-centered director Eric Von Leppe, steals the movie (if such a thing is possible in a film like this).

 

[Bacillus anthracis]

American Mary

This is a movie about an super-smart female med student who, in order to make money, tries out as a stripper, but ends up becoming an underground surgeon right then and there.

It could have been really good, but the transitions are jarring and take the viewer out of the movie on a consistent basis.

One minute she's a meek and intimidated would-be stripper. A couple of scenes later she's a badass and famous underground surgeon. She goes from meek to torturous and murderous so fast that it's simply not believable. And the characters, most of whom could have been good, end up as caricatures--but that's partly by design. Still, you just don't give a damn about any of them.

The movie also tries to be super-hip. I'm not hip so I don't know if it fails or succeeds at that. I think it fails.

In the right hands this could have been a really cool movie. But it wasn't in the right hands.

5/10

 

[credoconsolans]

American Mary

This is a movie about an super-smart female med student who, in order to make money, tries out as a stripper, but ends up becoming an underground surgeon right then and there.

It could have been really good, but the transitions are jarring and take the viewer out of the movie on a consistent basis.

One minute she's a meek and intimidated would-be stripper. A couple of scenes later she's a badass and famous underground surgeon. She goes from meek to torturous and murderous so fast that it's simply not believable. And the characters, most of whom could have been good, end up as caricatures--but that's partly by design. Still, you just don't give a damn about any of them.

The movie also tries to be super-hip. I'm not hip so I don't know if it fails or succeeds at that. I think it fails.

In the right hands this could have been a really cool movie. But it wasn't in the right hands.

5/10

I haven't seen the movie. So why does she have to go 'underground' to be a surgeon when surgeons are highly respected and well paid doctors?

Is it because she didn't finish medical school?

 

[angelo]

DRIVE HE SAID. A 1971 drama and Jack Nicholson's directional debut. "A college basketball star is worried about his best friend who is feigning madness to avoid being drafted in Vietnam.
I'm not sure if Nicholson directed any other movies, but this one was poorly executed.
4/10

 

[MarkW]

A Little Romance

6/10

I really wanted to like this one better and rate it higher. It starts out very promisingly as a tale of two high-IQ 13-year-olds who are, of course, the parties in the romance of the title. But things take a serious wrong turn right from the first appearance of Laurence Olivier as elderly pickpocket Julius; from that moment director George Roy Hill and a shamelessly hammy Olivier seem to take every opportunity to shift the focus to Julius and highlight how "lovable" and "delightfully eccentric" he is. Well, he isn't--he's irritating and distracting and weighs the last hour or so of the film down to the point of almost sinking it. However, only a sourpuss could avoid being taken with Diane Lane (in her debut) and Thelonious Bernard (in one of his only two films) as Lauren and Daniel, the young romantics. As a nice bonus, both were about 13-14 years old when this was filmed; if this one was remade today (and face it, almost anything ever made is a remake candidate these days), Lauren and Daniel would doubtless be played by 19-year-olds.