The Last Film You Watched

Great idea for a thread! Should we cover any films we've watched, or just relatively recent releases?

Last night I watched The Boogeyman (2023), an adaptation of the Stephen King short story. I went in with low expectations and found it to be quite enjoyable - it's a simple horror story playing on our basic fears of things that hide in the dark, and it makes a decent attempt to elevate into Badabook territory with its treatment of grief. Nicely shot, decent performances, a few silly jump scares but tempered by a fair few proper scares too.

3.5/5

I'm looking forward to seeing Talk to Me, glad you enjoyed it so much.

Saw Barbie last night, I lasted an hour and turned it off. Dire...1/5

Watched The Boogeyman too, it was fairly generic Blumhouse fare... 2.5/5.

Saw Tokyo Story for the first time a few days ago and my first by Ozu. Very interesting to see his technique of filming actors head on, looking directly into the camera, which obviously breaks usual modern, western conventions of cinema but was very effective in allowing you to feel included in the conversation and also really notice all the nuance in the performances since so often characters' real feelings and motivations are hidden behind layers and layers of niceties/etiquette/formalities.

The film follows an elderly couple who go to visit their children in Tokyo. Their children, however, find that they cannot make time for their parents due to their busy lives and so pawn them off on other people at every opportunity. Despite piling up a number of reasons for you to find certain characters selfish/unlikeable etc. the film also seems unexpectedly understanding of those children's perspectives seeing it more as an unfortunate reality of modern society rather than a personal failing. Noriko, the angelic daughter-in-law of the elderly couple's dead son, is the one pure-hearted, loving, selfless character who makes time for her elderly relatives and seems to genuinely love them and appreciate their company. Yet she too admits to being a disappointment in some ways and believes that she too will end up like their more self-concerned children. She understands them and finds their callous and cruel behaviour to be a sort of inevitability of their station in modern life. Whether this is supposed to be understood as true by the audience or just another example of the perfect Noriko's incredible humility and capacity for seeing the best in everyone is up to the audience but I think the film seems to take a similarly non-judgemental view on the whole thing. The elderly couple even encourage her to live a more fulfilling life and find a new partner, even if it means not being as available to spend time with them.

It seems to me more a comment on the state of modern society rather than a didactic admonishment of a certain kind of people or behaviour. I think the fact there isn't a whiff of melodrama to the film - and indeed it seemingly goes out of its way to skip past any moments which might lend themselves to wallowing in sadness and instead moves straight to the immediate aftermath - supports what I interpreted as a very neutral view on the proceedings. It was refreshingly humane if emotionally unsatisfying but again I took that to be the point. I don't think it's totally hopeless and nihilistic though. I do think it's supposed to inspire change and a new perspective on how to live your life. It just does so without passing judgement on those who maybe share certain qualities with the various children.

I think ‘Barbie’ was my last cinema trip. Ghastly girls but loved the Kens.

Or ‘Theatre Camp’ 90 mins of not much leading to a beautiful finale.

Like @pixelhysteria I went to see Tokyo Story for the first time. It is doing the rounds as part of the Sight and Sound top ten. I hadn't seen it before but it really is beautiful. Seventy years on its themes of negotiating new relationships with adult children hasn't got old (I have three children in their 20s and so know the territory!) Only about a dozen people in the screening I attended - I always wonder if the Picturehouse even covers the cost of the electricity bill with the cinema so empty. My daughter went to see The Lesson at the same cinema on Friday night and there were eight people there.

Watched 2 gooduns over the weekend.

A Man Called Otto with Tom Hanks. Very sweet and sad in a nice way.

Bros (not the boyband). Some very funny lines.

I watched The Bicycle Theives from 1948 last weekend. One of imdbs top 240 films. Brilliant and sad film. The two leads were excellent. And the crowd scenes around Rome were very well done.

The last film I saw at the cinema was Ant Man; Quantum mania 🙈

I enjoyed The Old Oak too, but it doesn't really wrap up quite satisfactorily. Other four-star fare were Dumb Money and Fair Play, simply because they are good yarns, engagingly told.

Best new film for me last week was The Creator, which has a very similar vibe to Blade Runner. If you can overlook some plot contrivances, it's excellent with stunning cinematography.

Started to watch 63 last night but only got about 30 mins into it. Not my kind of film.
So I then tried 80 for Brady on the basis of the cast. It was really rubbish and very cheesy but it was fun so sat through it and at the end quite enjoyed it.

Saw Postcard From Earth at Sphere in Las Vegas yesterday:the images are outstanding - the first five minutes or so are IMAX sized but then the camera zooms in on Earth and keeps going until it fills the whole screen (the biggest on the planet) but there is no storyline, basically it’s 50 minutes of babble about what lives on this planet and what we’ve done the world. David Attenborough has been doing the same thing much better for the last 60 years or so and on a far smaller budget. The two ‘actors’ don’t get any lines and gormlessly grin like they’re auditioning for a chewing gum advert: if Sphere bankrolls any future films to be out on here they need to find someone who will at least try to use a storyline that utilises the visual specs of the venue (I liked Pi, Requiem For A Dream and Black Swan but I’m not sure Darren Aronofsky was a great choice for director)

I first saw Mean Streets in a double bill with Taxi Driver in the early 80s, and thought both movies considerably over-rated even though they were instrumental in launching the illustrious careers of director Martin Scorsese and star Robert de Niro.

A chance to reappraise Taxi Driver on the big screen in 2021 found me far more appreciative of its merits with the benefit of 40 more years of life experience.

I had hoped to say the same of Mean Streets on its 50th anniversary outing this week, but sadly left the cinema as disappointed as on my previous viewing.

The problem is that scenes feel like standalone vignettes with no driving narrative arc to hold them together. Each scene seems to have the cast improvise at length, and Scorsese self-indulgently saddles the viewer with the lot. At this stage in his career, he has not discovered the power of judicious editing.

What should be a fascinating peek into mafia/hoodlum life in Little Italy in the early 60s fails because you don't care enough about the characters to be interested in what happens next. The only exception is in watching Harvey Keitel as Charlie Cappa, simply because Keitel's performance is masterly, arguably one of his best.

Mean Streets is worth seeing, but only for its historical significance in shaping the careers of those involved and the style of mafia movies that followed.

Two stars.

I too saw The Miracle Club. I didn't love it (I see the director has directed some episodes of Call The Midwife and it very much had that feel, only longer). But I did think it very much captured the complications of Irish Catholic family life. At 60 I have Irish Catholic aunties who cut off their own children for transgressions against church moral teaching. The priest was written well, I thought. The screening I went to only had five customers but I would think there should be an audience for this.

Foe - worst film of the year for me. I know it sounds harsh but what a complete waste of two absolutely outstanding actors. I never thought a film that starred Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal would result in this mundane mess. A few good scenes from Mescal but overall this is slow, predictable and I really didn’t care for these characters at all.

I didn't fancy either of the above films, ie Foe and Killers (etc). I'm no particular fan of Paul Mescal (& Aftersun was not the way to impress me), whilst I loathe westerns and Leonardo di Caprio. Shame there's no way of avoiding the trailers, too!