What was the last movie you saw?

Kinds of Kindness (2024). An episodic movie with three different stories about very sick and extreme depictions of kindness.

Newest movie by Yorgos Lanthimos, certainly one the best auteurs in activity today, and probably the most successful with the exception of Tarantino. His two previous movies--The Favourite (2018) and Poor Things (2023)--weren’t original works. They were adaptations. That means we didn’t get to see the level of weirdness from his earlier work. Kinds of Kindness, being written and directed by Lanthimos, marks the return of that weirdness.

There are three different stories, with different characters, and not necessarily in a shared universe, but they feature the same actors: frequent collaborators Willem Dafoe and Emma Stone, with Jesse Plemons, Hong Chao, Margaret Qualley and Mamoudou Athie (and also some Greek actor that never says a word).

I’ve read a lot of negative reviews, and most people complained about it being weird and shocking. Well, when it comes to Lanthimos, those are qualities.

I strongly recommend it, but take my recommendation with a grain of salt: you may not enjoy the style of Yorgo’s art. But then again, you’ll only know if you try.
 
THE NIGHT STRANGLER 1973

JUST BEFORE DAWN - 1981 -It has a lot of spooky atmosphere. This is my second viewing. The twist surprise is quite good the first time around.
 
Men of the Fighting Lady (1954) Set during the Korean War, U.S. Navy Commander Harry A. Burns wrote the screenplay, which he based on a story he had written in the Saturday Evening Post about one pilot needing to direct another who had been blinded during combat to land on an aircraft carrier.

Commander Kent Dowling (Walter Pidgeon) is based upon the author, and retells that particular event, to James A. Michener (Louis Calhern). It is visually depicted by Lieutenant (jg) Howard Thayer (Van Johnson) & Lieutenant Commander Ted Dodson (Keenan Wynn), among others.

Intense bombing missions, in which pilots of fighter-bombers that must fly very low to even have a chance of dropping their bombs on the railroad tracks, which are their target. Ordered to remain above a certain altitude, in order to minimize the possibility of damage from enemy antiaircraft fire, but knowing that they cannot likely hit the target if doing so, some pilots violate that order, and although damaging the target, lose their aircraft, and must be rescued from the ice-cold ocean, before hypothermia.

8/10
 
DEAF SMITH AND JOHNNY EARS 1973 - Anthony Quinn is a deaf and mute mercenary with Franco Nero as his partner and hearing aid on a mission to prevent a Texas rebellion. Along the way, the latter meets a prostitute and she wants him to ditch the burden, telling him that Smith needs Johnny more than Johnny needs Smith but is that true? There's a particularly inventive scene where Quinn goes alone into an enemy fort despite being unable to hear--and he forgets that he has a jingling bracelet in his pocket as he attempts to sneak around undetected. The ending is another one of those abrupt freeze-frames but it does convey the point of who had the dependency on who.

 
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I started watching The Watched last night.

Those people in the forest certainly did NOT have the luck of the Irish on their side. :D
 
And continuing on in the series, we watched Mockingjay Part 1 last night. I don't think I had seen it since it first came out in 2014. We all enjoyed it, and we all agreed it was a good adaptation of the book.
 
Once Upon a Time in the Midlands

Early Shane Meadows films starring a wealth of British talent. Estranged boyfriend Jimmy returns from Scotland to disrupt the lives of his daughter, his ex girlfriend Shirley and her new fiancee Dek. Hot in pursuit are three inept gangsters, 'borrowing' any mode of transport to catch him.

Will Shirley choose Dek or Jimmy? Will Dek fight Jimmy to keep Shirley? Will Baby (Dek's beloved Ford Sierra XR4i Mk.1) stay in one piece for more than five minutes?

Very funny, very moving, very Shane Meadows. And the Scottish gangsters are hilarious.

Very highly recommended.
 
Running on Empty (2024): This movie stars Keir Gilchrist, so I had to see it. It's a soft sci-fi romcom whose central idea has probably been done to death: There is an algorithm that predicts when one will die. However, I found myself liking it. Keir plays a mortician who finds out he has a little over a year to live, so he subscribes to a dating service to be paired up with people who are either dying soon as well, or with people who just want a guilt-free fling. Though the second and third acts dragged on, I thought it was mostly well-done.
 
Streamed Dark City (dir. Alex Proyas) last night. Hard to believe I’d never seen earlier. Truly enjoyable. As you could guess from the title very “noir” tone. A sort of mystery set in a dystopia, amnesiac protagonist being framed for murder, but we know from the start that something bigger is at stake d/t opening narration.

The “Dark City” in question is a place where it perpetually the end of the day and trains don’t ever reach the end of the line. Everyone ‘s memory is just a bit fuzzy when pressed for detail. And at mid night cars slow to a halt and and people slump unconscious and unwakeable. At this midnight hour, a mysterious race of black-coated “others” psychically change to layout of the city and swap people into different lives with the help of a human psychiatrist who has perfected a means of injecting new memories via big, steampunk syringe through the forehead. Our protagonist was subjected to this treatment but apparently came to and lashed out, and since then not only does he NOT sleep through the midnight “tuning” like other humans, but he also has some power to “tune” his surroundings like telekinesis. Protag keeps trying to escape the city, to get back to sunny “Shell Beach” where his implanted memory says he grew up, but nit becomes clear there is no way out of the city, and when he and a companion break through the wall at a dead end they find themselves looking out into space. The entire city is some kind of environment created by the others, who have a collective mind, to conduct experiments on human individuality—as the psychiatrist puts it to figure out the “human soul.” After his years of collaboration with the other, though, the psychiatrist has an ace up his sleeve for his human subjects. When he is directed to overwrite the protagonist’s memories, he instead injects him with a knowledge serum training him on how to “tune” and how to take control of the city machinery. Protag takes over the machines, tilts the great disc of that world to make daylight again, rings the city with ocean and creates “Shell Beach” for real.

Visually stunning movie with an intriguing premise and intelligent exploration of ideas of personhood and free will. Keifer Sutherland is brilliantly off-putting as the morally complicated Dr. Schreber.
 
Suicide Fleet (1931) three guys who work on the boardwalk all have eyes for Sally (Ginger Rogers), and all three join the navy when America enters WWI, hoping to impress her.

Baltimore (Bill Boyd; who?), Dutch (Robert Armstrong), Skeets (James Gleason) find themselves pitted against what appears to be a civilian ship, but is spying on the Allied ships & reporting their positions to the enemy.

7/10
 
The Death Squad -1974 - Tv movie about a disgraced policeman (Robert Forster) who is recruited to find out about a company of rogue officers executing criminals who had escaped prosecution. Suspenseful variation on Magnum Force before a freezeframe ending to emphasize the point that being a cop sucks.

Eyeball - 1975 - underwhelming giallo.
 
I saw Deadpool and Wolverine last night. Very irreverant and it really tickled my funny bone. I'm a sucker for a happy ending too.

Loved the cameo appearances, too.
 
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"La Chimera"
I enjoyed this. Italian film with subtitles. A bunch of margin-dwellers make a living robbing Etruscan tombs in 1980s Italy.
One of those films you spend time musing about afterwards, partly because different interpretations are possible, partly because of a certain disconnected dream-like quality. This effect must be intentional because it's both scripted and directed by the same person, Alice Rohrwacher.
 
A RECENT BINGE

On PLEX
Jesse Stone Death in Paradise , Sea Change , Night Passage .

Thanks to @Randy M. for recommending these thrillers . They're a welcome respite from modern movies fast paced flashy direction . And , hey , Tom Selleck can act !

Also on PLEX
The Crow ( 1994 ) . An extended music video and definitely an influence on future TV shows such as Gotham.

Sergeant Kabukiman - dreadful

Rented on PRIME
The Brainiac and The Witches's Mirror . Enjoyable Mexican gothic .

SMILE ( Netflix )
Well made with an outstanding performance from Sosa Bacon . I did feel it had a nasty exploitation vibe with its portrayal of people enduring acute mental ill-health episodes .
 
High Treason (1929)

Early science fiction film exists in both silent and sound versions. I saw the talkie.

In the year 1940 -- the future! -- the world's superpowers are the Atlantic States (USA, Mexico, Central and South America, parts of East Asia) and the Federation of European States (UK, most of the continent, India, and, of all things, Canada. Interestingly, a map shows that Russia/the Soviet Union is, apparently, neutral.) There's an apparent Cold War between the two. A border between the superpowers (I presume Canada/USA) bursts into violence when bootleggers in a nifty retro-futuristic automobile try to sneak booze across the frontier. War looms.

The third major group involved is the Peace League. A commander of the European air force is in love with the daughter of the head of the Peace League, who is herself, if anything, more of a pacifist. An odd couple indeed. After scenes of the Metropolis-like London of the year 1940, and a swinging nightclub (a full automated jazz band controlled by one guy at a keyboard, the women in metallic flapper gowns, and, oddly, a fencing duel), full conscription of both men and women is announced. Our peacenik heroine goes on to make an impassioned speech that stirs up the female recruits. The President of Europe asks her Dad to make a speech agreeing that the nation must defend itself but, big surprise, he calls for peace and shoots the Prez dead. The film ends with the trial of Dad for (I suppose) High Treason, with a "you be the jury" conclusion.

A real oddity. Very old-fashioned acting combined with groovy futuristic touches (TV, videophones, etc. Even the Channel Tunnel!) The message of War Is Bad is as subtle as a brick thrown through a window. (War Fever is stirred up by terrorist incidents manufactured by Evil Arms Dealers.) Campy at times; we get a jazzy song over scenes of our heroine coyly taking a shower behind frosted glass, including use of a hot air blower.

Assignment K (1968)

British spy flick, but don't expect Bond. Stephen Boyd is a former race car driver, now executive of a toy company, who also has his own private organization supplying information to British intelligence when he's on business trips to East Germany. Microfilm hidden in a cigarette, itself hidden in a bag of coffee, etc. (Microfilm also gets hidden in the blouse of a Barbie-like doll, which happens to be wearing a brassiere.) He and a Swedish woman fall in love during a skiing trip, the bad guys kidnap her and force him to reveal his contact behind the Iron Curtain.

Boyd is no super-agent; an attempt to escape the bad guys by breaking a window ends in complete failure. He's also capable of feeling genuine emotions; anger and frustration as well as real love. Only one fancy gadget towards the end of the film, and it seems pretty realistic. Plot twists and a bittersweet ending.

Online reviews either hate or like this film; I thought it was pretty decent. It seems to contrast Boyd's ordinary life with the spy stuff. There's a scene where he gets petrol for his automobile, and that's all that happens; the attendant isn't a contact or anything. Worth a look.
 
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny [2023]
Entertaining enough but enough is enough.
For me, it was better than Crystal Skulls, but that isn't saying much.
I've read that it killed the franchise.
May it rest in peace.
 
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire

It seems I'm in the minority looking at all the good reviews of this movie. I thought it was pretty ho-hum. There was plenty of muckle monster action and SFX galore but it didn't really do anything for me. I think, in the end, there was too much anthropomorphising going on. I like my giant monsters to be unimaginably different from us, not the same. I want to be filled with awe and fear, not familiarity.

Exceedingly average and the weakest of the bunch.
 
Foxbat said:
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire

It seems I'm in the minority looking at all the good reviews of this movie. I thought it was pretty ho-hum. There was plenty of muckle monster action and SFX galore but it didn't really do anything for me. I think, in the end, there was too much anthropomorphising going on. I like my giant monsters to be unimaginably different from us, not the same. I want to be filled with awe and fear, not familiarity.

Exceedingly average and the weakest of the bunch.
Click to expand...
Have you seen Godzilla Minus One (2023)? It really seems to correspond to your likings, and it's an amazing movie.
 
The Killer (1989). Classic Hong Kong action movie, directed by John Woo. He released an English-language remake just recently, so I went on to see the original, of course. It’s a lot of fun!
 
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