hulk 3/5 i think this film in some ways came closer to capturing the actual feel of a comic book world than any film until spider-verse came along. but there's some things that don't work in it. & the cgi just wasn't there yet.
knives out 4/5 - loved it, thought it was complete fun, perfect entertainment. and it surprised me. hats off to you for knwing what was coming, but i thought it was chock-full of surprises.
north by northwest - can't give it a rating, cuz it's been so long since i've seen it and i barely remember it...but i remember feeling like it would never end, that i wanted it to finish about a half hour before it actually did.
my week
y tu mama tambien 4/5 yay for this rare perfect combination of raunch & emotion.
mysterious skin 4.5/5 gregg araki made 'doom generation.'
that may be the biggest gap in quality between a director's worst & best film.
very tough to watch at times, but very powerful & unforgettable.
'71 (2014) 4 reading 'say nothing' earlier this year finally gave me a smidgen of context for northern island & what it is those people were fighting about.
& it helps a bit to have a base level of knowledge with this film. that said, you don't need even that to appreciate most of what it does. it's a tense run & chase movie about a guy in a dangerous situation. it's appropriately dour & grim & realistic. my only beef with it is the opening action sequence where they go way overboard on shaking cameras.
lake mungo (2008) 4 i know i'm very, very late in getting with the program on this, but this film has been annoyingly difficult to track down, at least for me.
but i'm now happy to join in with the chorus in declaring this not just to be a great found footage film, but a really great film. creepy, well thought out, lots of interesting shots & good acting, and all the better for not going for a simple resolution.
looking for mr. goodbar (1977) 3.5 the book was a bit of a formative experience for me, in that it was saucy & dark & dirty, and reading it in my early teens was a bit of a soft sex introduction for me.
too long and too rambling and unfocused, but filled with great moments and a truly disturbing ending.
news from home (1977) 2 even thought this was half as long as her 3hr+ epic film 'jeanne dielmann...', if found this much more tedious and hard to get through. loved by many, it seems, but i found it to be a droning bore.
three colors: white (1994) 3 the least of the three colors trilogy, i think. it still has interesting qualities, but it has some plot elements that i just couldn't buy.
z (2019) 3 has quite a bit in common with the director's previous film, particularly in the way the main characters are mothers seemingly on the verge of madness.
this isn't quite as satisfying as still/born - lacks that films occasionally manic & almost campy sense of fun - and there are a notable lack of scares, but as a horror drama it chugs along very nicely and is perfectly watchable.
vera drake (2004) 4 every mike leigh film is the same to me.
for the first ten minutes, i think 'do i really have to spend two hours with these people?'
& by the end i'm very glad that i did spend time with them.
the void (2016) 3 every time someone's watching an old movie in the middle of a horror film, i'd say there's an 83% chance it will be night of the living dead.
there was a rights thing with night... that put it in the public domain, right? that's probably why it shows up so often.
the girl from scott pilgrim ended up pretty bloody foxy.
very fun in its look and style. starts out in a way that feels a bit horror movie conventional, but goes in spacey, head movie directions that i really enjoyed. at points, it almost seemed like a more coherent beyond the black rainbow.
didn't seem like there was a lot of sense-making going on, but it has a visual style that i loved spending time with. i could see myself coming back to this a bunch of times. parking my rating at a relatively low level now, but...i wouldn't be shocked if this became a film i returned to again & again, & each time i did i kicked that rating up a bit.
the iron giant (1999) 5 made me cry like a 6 year old who just dropped his ice cream a few times, if i'm being honest.
hacksaw ridge (2016) 4.5 i'm sure all the cool kids sneered at the melodrama & a few of the more over the top action elements of this.
i am not one of those people. i loved it. brutal & powerful.
secrets & lies (1996) 4 i kinda feel like these people all told me way too much about themselves.
this has the rep of being leigh's best film, but i found the ending laid the emotions on just a bit too heavily. i think i would have liked it more if it had pulled back a bit.
vfw (2019) 3 carpenter/hill homage that is fairly enjoyable, though it wish it had a bit more action & violence. & less red. i got a little tired of all the red light after a while. definitely worth a look for anyone who enjoyed the bottom of the rack selections from the vhs days.
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[deleted]
5 years ago
the dark tapes (2016() 3.5 solidly above average horror/found footage/anthology. all four segments have their flaws, none of them are absolute triumphs or anything, but all of them show real investment & effort & a fair bit of imagination.
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StoneKeeper (28333)
5 years ago
Hey partner!
Y tu mama tambien: 9/10
Mysterious Skin: When I first got netflix it was one of the first movies I added to my list but they took it off and I been trying to find it since.
The iron Giant: saw it only once, as an adult and I enjoyed it. 7/10
Hawcksaw ridge: I think this is better than Dunkirk. 8/10
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