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Recently viewed movie thread - Rental Edition (2 Viewers)

I too found the zither music in The Third Man to be very distracting and frankly annoying.

Notorious rules. Top shelf Hitchcock.

@jamny I have a growing list of classic movies I could recommend! :excited:
I love the zither. It is repetitive but it adds something unique to the movie that a traditional dramatic orchestra score wouldn’t have. Keeps everything little off kilter just like the Dutch angles.
 
@jamny I have a growing list of classic movies I could recommend! :excited:
Sure! I'm only early in compiling a list.
That's why I love the Youtube.tv unlimited DVR. I have over 100 movies on it after skimming through TCM for the last year or so for anything that looks interesting.
TCM is amazing. Maybe 8 years ago I set out to catch up on a lot of classics and got through hundreds and hundreds all for (sort of) free from TCM.

My recommendation is anything Billy Wilder. To me his movies hold up better than anyone and are perfect entry point to classic Hollywood. Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, Ace in the Hole, Witness for the Prosecution. Romantic comedy, noir, court room mystery, screwball comedy, he’s covering it all.
 
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Anyone else an AMC+ member? I finally got one last week. $25/mo for 3 movies a week. Any movies: any time any format. You cannot cancel for 3 months.

Watched Nickel Boys yesterday. Brilliant. First person camerawork really ended up working well, despite being initially distracting/confusing.
I’ve been skeptical of it because that. I really don’t like Lady of the Lake (Phillip Marlowe movie that’s all 1st person). But I do want to give this a shot.

Soderbergh uses a similar gimmick to play the ghost in his new movie Presence.
 
Anyone else an AMC+ member? I finally got one last week. $25/mo for 3 movies a week. Any movies: any time any format. You cannot cancel for 3 months.

Watched Nickel Boys yesterday. Brilliant. First person camerawork really ended up working well, despite being initially distracting/confusing.
I’ve been skeptical of it because that. I really don’t like Lady of the Lake (Phillip Marlowe movie that’s all 1st person). But I do want to give this a shot.

Soderbergh uses a similar gimmick to play the ghost in his new movie Presence.
I didn’t even realize he had a new movie. He’s prodigious. I respect that.
 
Brutalist best movie I've seen in a long time. Its 3.5 hour runtime seemed much quicker than most 100 min movies
That run time has given wife and I pause about seeing it.

Agree here with GB cos - this didn't seem like as long a movie as it was. Definitely seemed to go by faster than Oppenheimer, for instance.
Is there really an intermission? My buddy said there is one but I can't trust him as he'd likely tell me there is one just to **** with me knowing I can't hold it for 3 hours
 
Brutalist best movie I've seen in a long time. Its 3.5 hour runtime seemed much quicker than most 100 min movies
That run time has given wife and I pause about seeing it.

Agree here with GB cos - this didn't seem like as long a movie as it was. Definitely seemed to go by faster than Oppenheimer, for instance.
Is there really an intermission? My buddy said there is one but I can't trust him as he'd likely tell me there is one just to **** with me knowing I can't hold it for 3 hours
I've been told there's an intermission.
 
Brutalist best movie I've seen in a long time. Its 3.5 hour runtime seemed much quicker than most 100 min movies
That run time has given wife and I pause about seeing it.

Agree here with GB cos - this didn't seem like as long a movie as it was. Definitely seemed to go by faster than Oppenheimer, for instance.
Is there really an intermission? My buddy said there is one but I can't trust him as he'd likely tell me there is one just to **** with me knowing I can't hold it for 3 hours
Yes, there was.
 
Brutalist best movie I've seen in a long time. Its 3.5 hour runtime seemed much quicker than most 100 min movies
That run time has given wife and I pause about seeing it.

Agree here with GB cos - this didn't seem like as long a movie as it was. Definitely seemed to go by faster than Oppenheimer, for instance.
Is there really an intermission? My buddy said there is one but I can't trust him as he'd likely tell me there is one just to **** with me knowing I can't hold it for 3 hours
Yes, there was.
she's just trying to **** with you.
 
Brutalist best movie I've seen in a long time. Its 3.5 hour runtime seemed much quicker than most 100 min movies
That run time has given wife and I pause about seeing it.

Agree here with GB cos - this didn't seem like as long a movie as it was. Definitely seemed to go by faster than Oppenheimer, for instance.
Is there really an intermission? My buddy said there is one but I can't trust him as he'd likely tell me there is one just to **** with me knowing I can't hold it for 3 hours
Yes, there was.
she's just trying to **** with you.
There was an intermission and like all intermissions, it was glorious.
 
Well, that's 3 and a half hours of my life I wasted.

I watched Beans. A coming of age story set upon the backdrop of the Oka Crisis. Never heard of it so I enjoyed the history and liked that they added in some archival footage. It was ok. 5.5/10

I also watched Spencer an artsy "biodoc" about Princess Di. I turned it off after the first 30 minutes. I did go back later with the hope it would get better and I feel like it did get a tad better...then the last 40 minutes of the movie happened. So over dramatized. Yuck. I think the intention was to make her look very sympathetic but I think it sort of has the opposite affect. 4/10
 
Kneecap on Netflix is really freaking good. A pair of North of Ireland drug fueled hoodlums start a rap group with a Irish language activist and teacher. Their music is just about doing drugs and telling the cops to f off but it's fueling a political fight to save the Irish language. Really stylish, fun, funny.
 
Lapsis (Kanopy): 2020 movie, IMDB 6.2. This one kept me off balance for the first half, just as confused as the main character about what to expect next. It’s a (barely) scifi take on gig economy. There were a few things I didn’t understand between a father and daughter, but I can be dense. The acting wasn’t award winning, but it was adequate. This was low budget but it fit the story. I recommend it - 6.2 seems a little low to me.
 
Dog Man in the theatre last night. My 8 year old relayed that the books were better; so, yeah, he might be related to me. Anyway, fine movie for what it is. No reason to see it unless going with a kid in the right age bracket for it. Some references to 80s cop/action movies to keep parents somewhat entertained.
 
I didn’t realize that Kneecap is an actual Irish rap group and they were all playing themselves. That’s pretty astonishing because they are excellent and hold the screen next to real actors like Michael Fassbender. I haven’t seen too many 2024 movies yet but this and Dune 2 are easily the best yet.
 
You can watch most Sundance Film Festival movies online this weekend (for a hefty fee), so I decided to check out "The Things You Kill." I'm not sure I got the best cinematic experience - I couldn't get the sound to work when I tried to watch on the TV, so had to watch on my computer. But I still thought this was good. There's a sensibility from most Iranian filmmakers that scratches my cinematic itch, which is why I chose this one. It had that same feel as many of my favorite Iranian directors' movies, but it was pretty jarring in terms of plot. I don't mean that necessarily as a bad thing, but different than I'd expected. Great lead performance. Not a must-see, but very good.
 
Lapsis (Kanopy): 2020 movie, IMDB 6.2. This one kept me off balance for the first half, just as confused as the main character about what to expect next. It’s a (barely) scifi take on gig economy. There were a few things I didn’t understand between a father and daughter, but I can be dense. The acting wasn’t award winning, but it was adequate. This was low budget but it fit the story. I recommend it - 6.2 seems a little low to me.
Echo what you said pretty much. Worth a watch
 
Movies I watched in January

The Rules of the Game (1939 - J. Renoir)
Argylle (2024 - M. Vaughn)
Blitz (2024 - S. McQueen)
Soldier of Orange (1977 - P. Verhoeven)
Bringing Up Baby (1938 - H. Hawks)
Total Recall (1990 - P. Verhoeven)
The Six Triple Eight (2024 - T. Perry)
Madea Goes to Jail (2009 - T. Perry)
Benedetta (2021 - P. Verhoeven)
Punch Drunk Love (2002 - P.T. Anderson)
One Nation, One King (2018 - P. Schoeller)
Return of the Secaucus 7 (1979 - J. Sayles)
Reign of Terror aka The Black Book (1949 - A. Mann)
Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001 - C. Gans)
Blithe Spirit (1945 - D. Lean)
Roy Wood Jr.: Lonely Flowers (2025 - C.C. Patterson)
Patrick Melrose - series (2018 - E. Berger)
La Marseillaise (1938 - J. Renoir)

Kind of a light month because I pivoted to television shows late in the month to bone up for Scoresman's top 70 thing.

Started off with The Rules of the Game because I'd never seen it. It was much zanier than I expected with plot lines reminiscent of a Shakespeare comedy. Renoir did things with composing scenes in depth that must have been really innovative in the late 30s. Argylle was terrible and Blitz was just OK but I think I've written them up already. I know I wrote up the three Paul Verhoeven films (Soldier of Orange, Total Recall, Benedetta) but I liked them all and still plan to watch Black Book when I get a chance. I also watched two Tyler Perry films; The Six Triple Eight is his latest and you can read about it upthread if you care but Madea Goes to Jail is much more typical of the movies that earned Perry his fortune. The scenes with Madea, Mr. Brown and the other comedic characters are hilarious in a low brow sort of way while the main story with the young romantic leads are there to pass the time until Madea comes on screen again.

Rewatched Bringing Up Baby and it never disappoints. It's so fast, funny and timeless. Sandler's performance was very good but I just didn't bond with Punch Drunk Love but I can cross it off my PTA list. Blithe Spirit was probably my favorite first watch of the month. It's a rare comedy from David Lean shot in gorgeous three-strip Technicolor. Rex Harrison's interactions with his dead wives are as funny and a little sexier as the greatest Hollywood screwball comedies of similar era. We liked Roy Wood Jr's new standup show Lonely Flowers on Hulu but it probably belongs in a different thread as does Patrick Melrose, a five episode black comedy series directed by Edward Berger who's done Conclave and All Quiet on the Western Front. It's on Netflix and it's an excellent show about horrible upper class people.

My other project this month was four films set during the French Revolution because I'm currently reading a book about the subject. One Nation, One King was a big budget French feature that covered the period between the Bastille and the execution of Louis XVI. I thought it tried to cover too much with a mostly neutral political tone using the device of a middle class family who always seemed to turn up when big historical events were happening. Reign of Terror was a Hollywood version of the revolution shot in a Film Noir style. It began with the execution of Danton and concluded with the fall of Robespierre. It was very entertaining with lots of chases and swordfights as the protagonists fought for control of Robespierre's enemies list. It was kind of a silly Macguffin that turned out to be inconsequential in the end. Brotherhood of the Wolf took place some time before the revolution but was bookended by scenes of the narrator awaiting his execution. It's basically a monster movie with artsy historical pretensions and a rather sad looking CGI monster. I finished the month as it began with a film directed by Jean Renoir. La Marseillaise was a very old fashioned heroic tale centered on the republic's battle against foreign enemies. It was technically proficient for its time but the patriotic melodrama dated it from the years in the run-up to WWII and the characters were straight from central casting. All things considered, Reign of Terror was the best of the four by far.
 
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Reign of Terror was a Hollywood version of the revolution shot in a Film Noir style. It began with the execution of Danton and concluded with the fall of Robespierre. It was very entertaining with lots of chases and swordfights as the protagonists fought for control of Robespierre's enemies list. It was kind of a silly Macguffin that turned out to be inconsequential in the end.
This sounds interesting, I see Anthony Mann directed too. That's never a bad thing. Charles McGraw in 18th century France is pretty hard to wrap my mind around though.
 
Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose
Interesting yet boring. Based on true events
In a nutshell- what does the mongoose have to say?
Lot of existential stuff about what happens after we die…quotes some Yeats and stuff like that

It’s well acted, there’s just A LOT of talking without much actually happening, feels like I’m watching a book being read for half of it

Oh and the mongoose is voiced by Neil Gaiman. Fodor is Simon Pegg doing his best Ole Munch impersonation
 
A Real Pain on Hulu, Kiernan Culkin looks he will win an Oscar for this and it's well deserved. Really good 90 minute character study of two cousins on a Holocaust tour in Poland. Jesse Eisenberg plays the OCD introverted but very put together succesful cousin and Culkin is manic bouncing from charming and playful to angry and confrontational. One of the best movies I've seen this year. It's very funny but also full of, well as the title says, pain.
 
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Open Water (Tubi): 2003 movie, IMDB 5.8. Two divers get accidentally left behind by a diving charter, based on a true story.

This movie is so poorly made. It’s not a bad idea to watch a movie like this from time to time to appreciate how much good work is done on even bad movies. The sound is bad, the camera work is bad, the scene transitions are weird. Lots of shots from a bobbing cameraman 15 feet away through waves. No real soundtrack or music cues. Tons of B roll. No need for a mechanical shark when you can just film random shots of far-off sharks of varying sizes. It affects the story, too - the point of this should be to make the audience feel the isolation and despair of the situation, make them feel the cold seeping in. Maybe some Force Majeur stuff with one partner failing to come through. Thankfully, it was only an 80 minute movie (60 without the B roll).

The one thing I’ll give it is that the actors’ reactions to the situation seemed reasonable.

I can’t remember how this got on my list, and I can’t justify why I watched a 5.8 movie. I should know better, and this is a good reminder to remove the other sub-6 movies from my queue.

(Moved here from the TV thread, I screw that up pretty regularly).

I thought about this a little more since I initially posted this... watching this movie makes me realize that the weird cinematography in It Follows must have been intentional, not incompetent. I should rewatch that sometime through that lens and see if I like it more.
 
Shimmer Lake (Netflix): 2017 crime/police movie, IMDB 6.3. It goes in reverse by day. This was a Coen Brothers style story. I thought the pair of twists were pretty obvious. Ron Livingston and Rob Corddry were amusing as the feds, the acting was fine - Benjamin Walker (Gil-Galad from Rings of Power), Rainn Wilson, Wyatt Russell, a couple other familiar faces. 6.3 seems about right.
 
Reign of Terror was a Hollywood version of the revolution shot in a Film Noir style. It began with the execution of Danton and concluded with the fall of Robespierre. It was very entertaining with lots of chases and swordfights as the protagonists fought for control of Robespierre's enemies list. It was kind of a silly Macguffin that turned out to be inconsequential in the end.
This sounds interesting, I see Anthony Mann directed too. That's never a bad thing. Charles McGraw in 18th century France is pretty hard to wrap my mind around though.

The crew is very distinguished for a B movie. The screenwriter and cinematographer both are Oscar winners and the movie was produced and designed by Hollywood legend William Cameron Menzies.

The print on YouTube is better than the one on Tubi.

 
Reign of Terror was a Hollywood version of the revolution shot in a Film Noir style. It began with the execution of Danton and concluded with the fall of Robespierre. It was very entertaining with lots of chases and swordfights as the protagonists fought for control of Robespierre's enemies list. It was kind of a silly Macguffin that turned out to be inconsequential in the end.
This sounds interesting, I see Anthony Mann directed too. That's never a bad thing. Charles McGraw in 18th century France is pretty hard to wrap my mind around though.

The crew is very distinguished for a B movie. The screenwriter and cinematographer both are Oscar winners and the movie was produced and designed by Hollywood legend William Cameron Menzies.

The print on YouTube is better than the one on Tubi.

Interesting. I see it we produced by Walter Wanger Productions who did a lot a big A list stuff like Ingrid Bergman’s Joan of Arc, Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent and Stagecoach. It was also produced by Eagle Lion Studios who specialized in B noirs like Raw Deal and Trapped. I guess that explains how it ends up as a B styled noir period piece with an all star cast and crew.
 
I thought I had seen The Road but I never did. Damn, that movie is bleak af. Great performances and incredible visuals.
Does the book ever get into how the world collapsed?
Reason wasn't given but I think the main character became aware of some type of bright light/explosion and immediately began filling the bathtub with water. In my mind I imagined some type of asteroid strike.
 
Key Largo - The big story at the time must have been a Bogart Bacall reunion but Edward G. Robinson flat out steals the show. He's got such an expressive face. From menacing to being scared of the storm to practically being a kid when Ziggy finally shows up. Bogart was very cool and laid back, which I guess is how he plays it in most of his movies. My favorite part, and it actually got a lol from me, was when he said "your welcome" after being slapped in the face by EGR. I'm sure I'm not the only one that gets an Anthony Bourdain vibe from him. The ending was excellent. The Indian brothers and group outside was a little off to me.
I usually prefer seeing bigger cinematography in these old movies, like getting a look at old NY or LA, so that was the only negative for me.

I found this to be an interesting story on the filming, talking about Claire Trevor's song in the movie:
Trevor was nervous about the scene and assumed that she would be lip-syncing to someone else's voice. She kept after director Huston to rehearse the song, but he put her off: "There's plenty of time." One afternoon, he told her that they would shoot the scene right then, without any rehearsal. She was given her starting note from a piano, and then sang in front of the rest of the cast and the crew. It was this raw take that was used in the film
 
Started Goodrich last night and wasn't feeling it. Succumbed to sleep instead. Came across a little too slap-sticky for me early on....am I being too harsh? The reviews were decent and I like the premise of the movie, so maybe I'll see if my wife wants to watch it with me. I do really like Michael Keaton.
 
I miss Siskel and Ebert. Those guys were my cinematic North Stars. Used to record their show on my VCR each week. Refused to go to a movie that wasn't 2 thumbs up (unless one made a compelling case for their thumb up). Had a couple of Ebert's books. Roeper was pretty good too, though I missed the magic of the OGs together. They were special.

In 1999, Ebert reviewed a movie I'd never even heard of and said it was one of the best he'd seen that year, so that was enough for my wife and I to see "Sixth Sense" on opening weekend. I loved Ebert's reviews.

(We didn't guess the twist. Years later we watched it with our daughter, who was probably 13-14 at the time, and she guessed it less than halfway through.)
 
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Excellent drama about a family set during the 1979 revolution. The family/country dysfunction was brilliantly illustrated, but in a tone that seemed empathic to both sides (but no too far on the wrong side). The art direction was outstanding and some of the camera techniques would have been downright flashy if so elegantly framed and executed. The best part of the film for me was the narrative and all the other stuff was just frosting on the cake. enjoy. 4.9/5
 
For anyone that likes movies about real people and their triumphs over adversity. Or likes to root for the USA in competition. This one was decent, sad, and gritty (and true to the vocabulary words/patterns of the poor that is usually re-written in most movies) :

The Fire Inside

Claressa Shields
Female boxer. Movie is about her poverty and upbringing in Flint Michigan - some pretty rough childhood issues to overcome.
The story is about her rise to become the first USA and youngest female boxer to win a Gold medal at the Olympics (2012). And then to become the only USA boxer, male or female, to win back-to-back Golds (2016).

Got equal pay for female Olympic Athletes.

----
Not in the movie of course:
Undefeated Record: 16-0 (Amateur record 77-1 avenged the loss in the pros)
Nickname: T-Rex (has short arms) and recently GWOAT (Greatest Woman Of All Time)
Gold Medals in all competitions: 15


Last weekend (FEB 2, 2025), she fought with a torn labrum and unable to lift her left arm for 2 days prior thru the fight and still won.
"With the win, she became the first boxer, male or female, in the four-belt era to become the undisputed champion in three different weight classes (junior middle, middle and heavyweight).

The 4-belt era means the 4 major world titles in boxing - the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO titles.

Shields, 29, is ESPN's No. 1-ranked heavyweight and No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter"

2015 - USA Boxing Female of the Year
2018 - inducted into the USA Boxing Alumni Association's Hall of Fame

2020 - Started an MMA career - record 2-1

---
Impressive career to look up and not look 'back' in history as she's making history currently.
 
Tried watching Get Away with Nick Frost. 1/2 hour in and not really grabbing me.
I watched it all the way through and I give it big ol' meh. Never went full bore silly and while there were a few moments offering a laugh most of the movie was just people playing roles in a movie and speaking words from a script. Not clever enough to overcome just being blasé.
 
North by Northwest - I saw this probably 40+ years ago so it's basically like seeing it the first time. I'm a big fan of art history and I liken a movie like this to people who ask what the big deal was about Impressionism or stuff like Rothko or Pollock. You have to consider when it was released. I imagine this being quite a big departure from what people were used to at the time. It's a big fun sprawling adventure with excellent cinematography for its time. Yes, it's a bit long and has some silly moments meant to move the story forward but it must have been a blast in the theater when it was released. I mean...crop duster? That's the plan? Could've just driven by and shot him....lol. I had to look it up and the ending scene was exactly what it was meant to mean. That was funny.
I doubt I'll ever watch it again but I'm glad I did.
 
I didn’t care for John Wick so not sure why I bothered with JW2 but still don’t like it. Feels too much like I’m watching a video game. It’s got a lot of shades of movies I do like (John Woo especially) but it’s missing some kind of charm those movie have.
 
I didn’t care for John Wick so not sure why I bothered with JW2 but still don’t like it. Feels too much like I’m watching a video game. It’s got a lot of shades of movies I do like (John Woo especially) but it’s missing some kind of charm those movie have.
I really liked John Wick for much of what you're describing- felt fresh enough that I found it all interesting. I couldn't get through part 2.
 
I didn’t care for John Wick so not sure why I bothered with JW2 but still don’t like it. Feels too much like I’m watching a video game. It’s got a lot of shades of movies I do like (John Woo especially) but it’s missing some kind of charm those movie have.
I really liked John Wick for much of what you're describing- felt fresh enough that I found it all interesting. I couldn't get through part 2.
Watched all and enjoyed them for what they are. Kick bleep, live through situations that no one should live through fun.
If you go in expecting something other than :popcorn:fun, then don't bother. Just enjoy the ride.
 
I didn’t care for John Wick so not sure why I bothered with JW2 but still don’t like it. Feels too much like I’m watching a video game. It’s got a lot of shades of movies I do like (John Woo especially) but it’s missing some kind of charm those movie have.
I really liked John Wick for much of what you're describing- felt fresh enough that I found it all interesting. I couldn't get through part 2.
Watched all and enjoyed them for what they are. Kick bleep, live through situations that no one should live through fun.
If you go in expecting something other than :popcorn:fun, then don't bother. Just enjoy the ride.
Two was the worst one
 
I didn’t care for John Wick so not sure why I bothered with JW2 but still don’t like it. Feels too much like I’m watching a video game. It’s got a lot of shades of movies I do like (John Woo especially) but it’s missing some kind of charm those movie have.
I tried, and only got about 1/2 way through. I figured it was just me - like Airplane! ;) Just not my type of movie.
 

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