I had a good week movie wise, because don't et me wrong, I love being home with my family but outside my door, the world is going nuts. Especially here in Quebec. I mean, did any of you guys heard of us on the news lately? We were worldwide gossip material.
My good week:
A nightmare on Elm street (1984 DVD): I have to say this movie was foggy in my mind but one thing’s for sure, it was not as great as I remembered it. First of all, what’s up with those guys walking bare feet in the street? That was weird but I won’t deduct points for that. No, but I will because there’s honestly not that much going on and in the ending, the Nancy girl goes Home Alone on Freddy’s ass and he’s just being ridiculed. I felt bad for the poor guy. Then that part where she breaks the window and screams for the police to come over but they just stare at her and say « everything will be fine.”, that was highly frustrating to watch. When they finally go to help her she still has to do all the dirty job herself because they are too slow and pathetic. But still, this is the one that started it all and at the time it came out I can understand the hype it got. It lost of its shine over the years I’d say. And there is only a total of four kills…you can do better than that Freddy, c’mon man. My rating: 6.5/10
A nightmare on Elm Street 2: Even sillier, with another very low kill count and with less going on in it than the first one, this is a true joke. At least this time Freddy got wiser. Since he couldn’t defeat a young teenage girl the first time now he decided to befriend a young teenage boy to make him his ally. By the way if someone can explain to me how this teenage boy makes friend and girlfriend so easily I would appreciate it because he was a freak who he screamed like a girl. Eck, she just met him and the girl is willing to kiss Kruger on the mouth in order to help him. Even Freddy wants to be his fiend but he got a plan though, he wants to kill more teenagers through his new friend, unfortunately it all came at a cost: The maggots inside his chest were replaced by a bleeding heart so he just couldn’t pull it. Once again the teenage girl wins. What a fucking joke. 5/10
A nightmare on Elm Street 3: dream Warriors: This is the one with huge Freddy, tiny Freddy, super-giant Freddy, television Freddy. This is the one that should’ve been the sequel, this is the one with an Oscar winner and an Oscar nominee in the cast (take that young Johnny!) , this is the one with the best one-liners, this is the one where Nancy didn’t grow up at all but dresses like a grown-up woman so it makes a big difference, this is the one with “the group”, the sister, the wizard master, and this is the one with the boobies so this is my rating: 7.5/10
The dead don’t die (2019 Netflix): A few months ago I came close to buying this one for nine bucks but the reviews we’re not good and Jarmush is a hit and miss with me so I picked another movie. I regret it now because I really enjoyed it a lot and wish it was in my collection right now. My rating: 8/10
The rock (1996 DVD): I had seen this back in the days but only remember major scenes. I can now say that I’m totally up to date with Bay’s filmography and this sure is no exception from the rest of his work; bonkers and entertaining as can be. It reminds me of my good Call of Duty days, for some reason. Solid action flick. My rating: 7.5/10
The bouncer (2018 DVD): I bought this months ago when the video club closed its doors because I’m a JCVD fan but from the cover I expected some sort of silly action movie about a guard hired to protect a young girl but I was very wrong. I will even go as far as to say this movie was as good as JCVD. Highly recommended for any fan of the the Muscles from Bruxelles. Oh and, if you want a good chuckle read the IMDb storyline for this movie (by peter-Patrick). My rating: 7/10
I watched one time A nightmare on Elm street as a kid but today I don't remember anything about the movie. I am kind of sick with horror movies nowadays, most of them feel childish for me.
The Small One (1978 short 30min) - 10/10. Disney masterpiece. Perfect in every aspect: lovable characters, great songs (some of them the best Disney songs of all time), positive messages, a great combination of entertaining and heartbreaking scenes. It is impossible not to shed a tear during the movie. https://moviechat.org/tt0078281/The-Small-One
A League of Their Own (1992) - 6.8/10. A fun movie, especially if you looking for good feeling movie. A little childish for my taste but the cast do a great job.
Yeah, the soundtrack is great, you're right about that.
I saw A league of their own not too long ago. Here was my review:
Aah, it was so nice seeing this movie again for the first time since the good’ol 90’s. I liked it back then and with that nostalgia factor I just love it now. There is something about a good looking gal who’s not scared to get dirty to get to third base that just gets to me, I guess. The last 10 minutes were so-so though. 7.5/10
I think this was a good modern western with good’Ol Kurt Russel. It was not always fun to watch a cowboy with a cast on his leg and a crutch travel the desert for days but the characters, the dialogue and the atmosphere made this a good experience. Plus, this movie offers some useful everyday life advices. Ex: If you want to read a book in the bath, keep a towel nearby so you can dry your fingers before turning the pages. 7/10
A Patch of Blue (1965) - watched this in honor of Sidney Poiter who is great in this but never got a Oscar nomination. Great supporting cast with Shelley Winters getting the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. 8/10
The Last Duel (2021)- a medieval soap opera. I wanted to see more action. It was a a bit long and drawn out. They seemed to ignore a major plot point with the mother's motivation. 6.5/10
Mad Max 2 (1982) - much better than the first one. One of the better chase scenes you will ever see in a movie. 7.5/10
The Nightingale (2019) - a very violent movie (there are no less than three rape scenes). A very good revenge movie set in the colonial Tasmanian wilderness. A bit of a gem that needs more attention. 7.5/10
What really brought down The Last Duel was that it should have taken the Rashomon approach to depicting the same events from multiple points of view. Instead it showed more or less the same series of flashbacks three times over.
And yes, it needed more action. We get you wanted to do a medieval chamber drama, Ridley, but you dance with who brung ya.
Afterlife was better than what I thought it would be. Surprisingly well made. I expected less.
However, it's rather slow in the middle. We already know there're ghosts, we already shown the secret cave and statues etc., we already get that the villain is inside the mine, but the movie took too frickin' long to just reveal the big bad villain (my kid already bailed out before that.) And then after she comes out, everything is rushed and basically racing to end the movie.
all good movies. i really don't like freddy too much as a character - a bit too silly, too many jokes - but those first three films are all solid stuff.
my week:
DAYS (2020) 3.5 87% on metacritic, 98% rt score.
i don't have any talents that would make anyone jealous.
so when all the smart people declare something to be great and i don't like it, i'm willing to accept that i just didn't get it, and there's something lacking in me, something that they have that makes them perceive things i can't. fine.
but i don't get what there is in this movie that provokes the kinds of ululating that you'll see in some of the reviews on metacritic. it is an openly boring, static 2 hour film where nothing happens, where the camera holds shots on static scenes with no movement, no sound.
i could shoot scenes on the street outside my apartment and of me staring out the window & it would be much the same as this movie. i could do this.
except for that scene in the middle where two asian men get naked and one massages the other for 17 minutes.
anyway, i'm giving this a 3.5 cuz i don't know what else to give it. i guess i respect it for being so unrepentantly dull and refusing to do anything that would make you want to watch it.
maybe it's a the film equivalent of a meditation app?
CAPE FEAR (1962) 4 great, but maybe a bit meandering in the middle. mitchum's character is one of the all-time great creeps
A RECORD OF SWEET MURDER (2014) 4 very fun, very bloody and brutal, and (ymmv on this, of course) at times enjoyably sleazy single room found footage.
did everyone in the world besides me know about this? seems like it should have a massive cult following.
WEXFORD PLAZA (2016) 3.5 terrific. a bit of a downer, in a way that feels very real & has a bit of a bite. whoever did this should make more.
INTERIOR (20140 2.5 another movie that was sold to me as found footage that is no such thing. grrr!
it does have some 'in camera' moments, so i can kiiiinda understand how it wound up on the list. but still. come on!
it's pretty mediocre stuff, regardless of style/genre. has a few jump scares and a pretty bizarre sequence near the end, but it really lacks any kind of atmosphere and tension through most of its running time.
ATLANTIS (2019) 3.5 a film depicting ukraine in the near future after a war with russia, showing us people trying to navigate their lives in tough circumstances sounds like it should be really interesting, no?
it is interesting in spots, has little interactions that do suck you in, make you want to know more about where they are & what they're doing.
but it's also another film that wants to test your patience. lots of long long long scenes with no camera movement and nobody doing anything or saying anything.
maybe i've seen one too many films recently that were meant more as challenges than entertainment. see that days film i watched sunday for a good eg.
there's great stuff in here. if you haven't seen it, i'd say give it a try. but i am a bit tired of films that play like endurance tests rather than things to be made for normal, average people to watch and understand.
EYES OF FIRE (1983) 3.5 my first dip into the pretty generous pile of folk horror stuff added to shudder today.
as a story, i found this to be a pretty dreary slog, tbh. i fell out of its grip fairly early, and its languid pace never drew me back in.
but full credit for having some very neat effects and visuals. they're completely cheap and of their time, but they have a crude charm and sometimes a real dreamlike weirdness that i still think you can only get with in camera real effects.
i found it to be a bit of a bore overall, but as an effects reel it's undeniably pretty cool. so much so that, even though i really only want to give it a 3, or even a 2.5 because i was so disinterested in most of it, i feel like i can't give it anything less than a 3.5 because it's so distinctive looking.
HEIDI (2014) 3.5 for a silly no budget movie about a killer doll, this is pretty fun and reliably entertaining.
found footage
minimal gore
no real sustained tension, but there are a few decent jumps, and it's pacey & interesting all the way through.
1 cute girl who's not goth and doesn't get naked, but does wear a nicely revealing dancing costume at the end.
a very pleasant surprise.
PAPER MOON (1973) 5 this was just great.
CRONE WOOD (2016) 4 all the people on letterboxd who collectively have given this a 2.7 must have been shrooming when they watched this. it's great.
found footage
generous amount of night vision camera shots
cute girls. no goths, but they're all nice looking.
no nudity, but there's some sex and girls in skimpy clothing
takes some twists and turns in a way that i really enjoyed.
has a few good creepy moments and a few scares.
and it's very pacey & keeps its momentum all the way through.
STE ANNE (2021) 3.5 i honestly could not tell what this movie was about. i gather from the description, it's about a woman re-entering her daughter's life. i guess that kinda lines up with some of the stuff i picked up.
but this is definitely one of those very vague, ambiguous movies. you know the type - the ones they play at the art theatre, where hipsters will applaud and smoke a joint afterwards and talk about what it meant.
not to sound snippy or anything. i actually really enjoyed this for the most part. it has a grainy, tactile feel. almost like a 70s b-movie in the way it looks. it has a very lived in style that i really enjoyed looking at. and it's not a billion hours long. 80m. good length. more short movies, please.
local production. they crossed the arlington bridge at one point. didn't recognize any other sights, though.
A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING (1988) 4 great, no doubt. won't put a skip in your step. not a good time.
THE HOUSE WITH 100 EYES (2012) 2.5 am i getting old? soft?
i used to crave extremism in my horror, but i've gotta say i found a lot of this made me feel bad. bad about myself for having watched it, mostly.
it's 25% too sadistic for me to watch comfortably, i think.
the guy is really awful. & he looks a lot like mark prindle, for the 10 people on letterboxd who might happen to know who that is.
with all that said, it's still a found footage movie, & the gore effects are very well done. gruesome in parts. have to give them 2 stars minimum for that.
& the girl is nice looking. we briefly get to see her naked. extra 1/2 star for that.
THE GHOST IN THE DARKNESS (2019) 3 honestly, if this can get made and posted on tubi and get some moderately decent reviews on letterboxd, then i 100% can make my own found footage movie.
there's not a lot to this. i'm not a particularly gifted writer & i'm not bursting with original plot ideas, but i could come up with something at least equal to this.
i mostly enjoyed it though. wish it would have stuck with the ff format all the way through. i would have dropped the score too, maybe. but...it's fun. mostly. and short.
UMBERTO D (1952) 5 90 minutes
excellent dog performance.
terrific.
a downer, but good.
but when are they gong to make a movie telling the landlord's side of the story?
landlords have a really hard time of it. they have to deal with all kinds of horrible regulations, recalcitrant tenants, property damage. i wouldn't want to do that.
someone should make an umberto d for all the struggling property owners who rent out to difficult, ungrateful people who damage their suites and don't pay on time.
THE DEMON (1963) 4 very neat, fun 'is she a witch or is everyone a religious maniac' affair. not particularly violent or transgressive, really, but it looks absolutely smashing, it has a very involving, winding plot that i greatly enjoyed, and the lead actress is very very nice looking. she has the style of a slightly less crazy looking & more conventionally beautiful barbara steele, perhaps.
PENNHURST (2012) 2.5 you might have thought james gunn's sense of trashy fun would have rubbed off a little more on michael rooker, but this is mostly very grey and sadly a bit dull. bummer.
it does have nice looking women. though once again there's not a goth or punk-rock girl to be found. everyone prattles on about diversity and representation these days, but where's the representation of emotionally crippled goths?
it does have a bit of nudity, and a pretty dangerous looking sex scene that must have been a bit tricky to shoot.
the cutest girl has some pretty cool tattoos. i liked that.
but otherwise it's disappointingly bland.
SHAME (1968) 4 this is absolutely not the bergman i knew.
don't come here if you're looking for fanny & alexander, safe to say.
really liked it a lot though. super bleak.
ALISON'S BIRTHDAY (1981) 3 arses around a bit too much.
the girl is cute, but she disappears from the film in the last 1/3.
has good things in it - almost worth watching for the scene where the hero pole-vaults a fence with a pitch-fork.
but jeez, i did find myself wishing it would perk up a bit. a bit more energy, please and thanks.
it's still a passable watch, but it's definitely a cut below the folk horror films i've watched out of the batch added to shudder this week.
FOLLOWED (2015) 4 actually kinda great, maybe? it's certainly interestingly restrained, in the way it keeps threatening to do something through most of its running time and never quite does it. they never quite get to the fireworks factory, so to speak.
until the end, when it did something that actually really surprised me (maybe i'm easily fooled) and made me pretty happy.
YOU WILL DIE AT 20 (2019) 3 my first sudanese film. i don't approach film watching in a 'check the box' way, or at least i hope i don't, but i am trying to catch films from countries whose movies i haven't seen at all. so that's one down.
certainly a very interesting idea, and scattered moments of this really worked. & it's always good to expose yourself to different places & different ways of seeing the world. & i don't mean that in a pandering pc woke messaging sense. it's just good to see new things.
but as a narrative film that told a story from beginning to end, i found it disappointingly trite and not all that compelling, unfortunately. i'm a simple person, and i judge films by very simple rules. do i wanna watch it, or do i feel like browsing through twitter? i really felt like browsing through twitter while this was playing, for the most part.
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (1961) 5 short.
minimalist.
filled with crushing morosity & characters on the verge of mental collapse.
made just for me.
WHAT KILLED MICHAEL BROWN (2020) 4.5 a great doc, only marred imo by a slightly unfocused middle section.
PVT CHAT (2021) 4.5 i love this.
i like this guy's taste in women.
CAM-GIRL (2016) 1.5 once again, the found footage list i've been using on letterboxd has led me to watch a movie that's not found footage at all.
& even though she's a cam girl, she never gets nude.
it's pretty dull stuff, really. if you grade it on the gentlest of curves, i guess you can give it a bit of credit for trying to create a bit of tension. but it doesn't really pull anything off well.
we've all seen lots of low budget, shoe-string movies that create real tension and atmosphere out of a good script, good acting, all the things that make stuff like that work. this doesn't do that.
PIECES (1982) 5 experienced police detective reviewing a crime scene: (points to dismembered body) 'could that have been done with a chainsaw...' (points to bloody chainsaw by body) '...like that one over there?'
i love this movie.
honestly, i think if i watched that tennis scene high (if i still smoked pot) i might laugh myself into having a stroke.
I don't remember if you ever saw and rated Troll Hunter (2010) or Trollhunter aka Trolljegeren. I used it in Stonekeeper Guessing game #1959 tonight, a found footage film. Three student filmmakers have trouble investigating reports of illegal poaching of bears. Free streaming on Pluto, Vudu, available On Demand on HBO/Max. PG-13 1 hr 43 min, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller; IMDB 7.0, Metascore Green 61, Rotten Tomatoes: Tomatometer 82%, AUDIENCE SCORE 72%.
i finally caught up with troll hunter last year & enjoyed it quite a bit. perhaps my expectations were a bit too elevated, because i recall coming away thinking it was ok, but a touch underwhelmed. i'd heard so many great things about it, and walked away thinking it was a solidly better than average movie. good fun though, no question.
« i could shoot scenes on the street outside my apartment and of me staring out the window & it would be much the same as this movie. i could do this » Do it and I’ll watch it.
I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy record of Sweet murder.
Wexford plaza looks fun.
Question: if i already keep a document with all the movies I watched, if I rate them on IMDb, can you give me one or two reasons why I should get on leterboxd?
St-Anne was shot near you? Where do you live again? It just says Canada.
i never really used imdb to rate/review movies, so i'm not the best person to ask. i know i like the interface a lot more with letterboxd, & it's much more clean and simple. it really is there as a rating/review/list making site, and it's not cluttered up with tons of news articles and ads and such stuff.
& my feeling, & this is based on nothing other than my impressions, is that letterboxd is a home for more 'serious' film snobs. for better and worse, i suppose. there's a lot of people there who seem to see every movie through the prism of social justice, whose every review is their platform to decry the patriarchy or whatever. but there are also tons of fun people who have interesting tastes, & it's fun to see what they're watching and writing.
ultimately as a simple way of cataloging what you watch, both work.
but i think you should join letterboxd and post all your reviews of french films on there. just because.
i'm in winnipeg! the artlington bridge they shot that scene on is pretty close to where i live. back when i had my old job, i'd regularly cross it when i wanted to take a longer walk home at the end of the day to get some extra exercise steps in.
pieces is streaming on tubitv. it's also on shudder, but i'm pretty sure you don't have a shudder subscription, right?
But how do you check other peoples movies? Does it work like a forum where you click on the name to see his lists/reviews or it’s like IMDb where you can read reviews and click on name?
Another question; let’s say a movie has 90,000 votes and 200 reviews on IMDb, do you think this site has close to the same amounts or is it way lower?
you can follow people, add people as friends. for eg, i always stalk allaby's account to see what he's watching.
& you absolutely can click on each user's profile to see what they've watched, what their favourite movies are, what kind of lists they have, etc...
& every movie has both a 'popular' reviews section, where they group the most liked reviews, and then a section where you can see the most recent reviews.
i would guess that there's much less activity overall at letterboxd.
but let's test that.
i just watched some polish thing called 'a short film about love.' pretty good!
it has 19308 ratings on lb. i'm not sure if there's a way to tell how many reviews it has.
it looks like it has 22k ratings on imdb. i'm actually a bit surprised by that. i thought there would be way more activity there.
but just checking that reminded me why i don't like using imdb. that home page is so cluttered with ads and promotions and ton of links for series that i will never watch.
letterboxd is so much cleaner & easier to navigate to me.
No Time to Die (2021) - 6/10
The French Dispatch (2021) - 6/10
The Tender Bar (2021) - 7/10
Lost Bullet (2020) - 8/10
About Time (2013) - 7/10
Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse (2004) - 7/10
Enemy of the State (1998) - 8/10 - A rewatch
And out of the ones you watched
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - 8/10
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) - 6/10
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) - 8/10
The Dead Don't Die (2019) - 6/10
The Rock (1996) - 7/10
Poltergeist: 7/10
Brawl in Cell Block 99: 8/10
A Nightmare on Elm Street: 7/10
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: 7/10
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: 8/10
The Dead Don’t Die: 6/10
Lamb (2021) - I wish this could have been better, but it just didn’t really get off the ground. (6/10)
Warning (2021) - I watched this for Kylie Bunbury. It was a fairly ambitious movie that didn’t quite turn out. (6/10)
God’s Not Dead: We the People (2021) - It was weak. The script basically seemed like it was written by middle schoolers. There was one part where the people are all going around saying stuff that was just so eye-rolling. (5/10)
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021) - Good, but not the kind of movie that would make an impact. (7/10)
The Beta Test (2021) - I didn’t understand what was supposed to be good about this movie. It was just bad. I don’t know what it was trying to do. The main character was such an asshole that I wanted every bad thing to happen to him. (5/10)
Being the Ricardos (2021) - I felt strangely about this movie. I liked it, but there was just something that felt off. I liked it less after watching it than when I was. (7/10)
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) - I didn’t really expect anything from this. And it was basically nothing. (6/10)
Benedetta (2021) - It was good. I wish I had understood it. Then it probably would have been even better. (7/10)
The Killing (1956) - It was good, but I was disappointed by it. It felt like all the pieces were there to make a great movie, but the finished product wasn’t as satisfying as it should have been. (7/10)
Last Train to Christmas (2021) - I didn’t like this movie. The story just didn’t work and Nathalie Emmanuel barely had anything to do. (5/10)
Harold and Maude (1971) - I found this to be quite unpleasant. Thinking about it just gives me a bad feeling. I didn’t like Harold or Maude. Especially Harold. I just didn’t get it. (6/10)
Marty (1955) - I liked it. Although at the beginning I thought I was going to like it better than I ultimately did. (7/10)
Lolita (1962) - After being in a slump, this was the best movie I had seen in over a month and a half, until three days later. I’m not totally sure what it was, but there was something about it that made it really good. (8/10)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) (7/10)
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) - This was my second best movie of a (for me) disappointing year. Some parts of it were really cool and it was cool to see certain people. However, as much as I liked it, I was hoping to like it even more. I felt its runtime, which I didn’t expect. I’m not saying it was unsatisfying. In fact, it was definitely satisfying. But the overall plot didn’t enable it to be an absolute top echelon movie. (8/10)
Nightmare Alley (2021) - It was good, but I really didn’t enjoy watching it all that much. It may have been because I wasn’t in the right mood seeing this right after Spider-Man: No Way Home, or saw it too soon after the original, but it was a bit flat. I may try watching it again another time. (7/10)
I'm not at all a fan of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy is a creepy looking killer and the idea of him killing you in your dreams is eerie, but that's the only good thing I can say about it.
Two of my favourite movies (Reservoir Dogs and The Usual Suspects) were shown back to back on tv, but I was too busy washing my hair and other stuff, I only saw parts of them.
TV Series
-Burke's Law (1994 revival) - Episode S2E10+ S2E11
-The Bold and the Beautiful - marathon of very old episodes