Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Dr. Whom]

Trying not to give spoilers, I thought it was fairly obvious that the person who would be elected Pope eventually was, and the suspense was in how he would get there. I suppose you are referring to the final twist, which was sort of meaningless, ultimately, but still thought-provoking. A very good movie overall.

Exactly. I liked it, but I can understand people who say it is just one twist too many.

[RCMerchant]

IRON RIDGE (2008)

Ok. This movie is bad. And I don't mean in a good way.

A confused 30 something, going threw early male menopause or some such trauma, goes on a hunting trip with his beer soaked buddy up in the middle of Buttf**k, Nowhere and gets lost. So the pinhead wanders around in the snow for the rest of the movie, tracked by a guy with a heart condition who acts like he's in a school play.
So the very end the guy gets jumped by a grizzly bear (not shown) and somehow he just walks away. That's not explained either.
As a finale, the old tracker drops dead of  heart attack.
"He died doing what he loved."
The End. Thank God.

The bear (who is billed as 'Brutus') is plastered all over the poster and ads has a screen time of all of maybe 2 minutes.

I looked it up on IMDB to insert a quote- but there are none. It's about as exciting as a loooong TV commercial about life insurance without even Henry Winkler. (Who's a Titan of Cinema compared to the cast of this.)
Seems it could have premiered on the DOVE channel, except it didn't have enough of that edge- of-your- seat drama.

[Trevor]

Final Cut: the docco about the making of HEAVEN'S GATE. In full on YouTube.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Flipside" (2023)
New Jersey filmmaker Chris Wilcha made "The Target Shoots First," a very funny late 90s documentary about a punk rock kid working in the corporate music world. He eventually left documentary films behind as he raised a family and paid the bills by directing hundreds of TV commercials, but as he approaches mid-life, he feels like a sell-out. A return visit to Flipside Records, a hole-in-the-wall record store where he worked as a teenager, inspires him to start a new documentary about the shop in the hopes of "saving" it, but the project ends up going in a totally different, more personal direction.

I was particularly interested in checking this doc out because I've been to Flipside Records (which is, to put it bluntly, a dump) and I'm also a regular at Station 1 Books & Vinyl, a competing store in the same town. However, the movie is less about two dueling record stores, and more about realizing that too much nostalgia can keep you from progressing in life, and that it's important to know when to let certain things go. I really enjoyed this flick and I think many of my fellow aging Generation X-ers will feel the same.

[Rev. Powell]

I AM CUBA (1964): A portrait of Cuba just before the revolution, with a series vignettes of following a prostitute, a sugar cane sharecropper, and two revolutionaries (a student and a poor farmer). Historically important Soviet propaganda, but nowadays mostly watched by film students studying the astounding camerawork, with bravura tracking sequences that make you wonder how in the world they were accomplished. 4/5.

[indianasmith]

CRACKCOON (2024) -
(I already put this in the bad movie version of this thread, but this film is so wild it deserves double billing!)

A wild raccoon ingests some souped-up crack cocaine mixed with bath salts and goes on a rampage, killing a dozen or so people - from the gay drug dealer to a pair of bumbling hunters to some obnoxious college guys to three naked women.  The raccoon is a very badly animated puppet, periodically swapped out with an equally bad CGI raccoon.  This thing is pure, glorious B-movie badness from start to finish. Absolute exploitive trash!  This movie is the kind of movie this site was made to treasure!  Throw away your Rembrandts, CRACKCOON is the only art you will ever need!

 5/5 on the bad movie scale

[FatFreddysCat]

"Stan & Ollie" (2018)
In the early 1950s, the legendary comedy duo tries to re-ignite their stalled career by embarking on a grueling tour of live theater shows across England, in the hopes of drumming up enough notoriety to bankroll a new movie. However, while the shows go well, their partnership begins to fray behind the scenes.
This very well done period piece is based on actual events and features fantastic performances by the great John C. Reilly as Hardy and Steve Coogan as Laurel.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Man From Hong Kong"  (aka "The Dragon Flies," 1975)
A Chinese cop (Jimmy Wang Yu) travels to Australia to bring a suspect back home for trial, and gets caught up in a one man war against Sydney's biggest crime lord (former 007 George Lazenby!) in the process. Cars crash, stuff blows up, and a lot of ass is kicked in this action packed Aussie/Hong Kong co-production that juices up the globe-trotting James Bond formula with a ton of martial-arts mayhem. Crazy, chaotic, ultra-violent fun.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Scavenger Hunt" (1979)
An eccentric millionaire (Vincent Price) passes away, and to determine who inherits his $200 million fortune, three teams of potential heirs are sent on a city-wide winner-takes-all scavenger hunt. Needless to say, mayhem and chaos ensues.
This silly "race and chase" slapstick comedy in the vein of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" has a few laughs here and there, but it mostly gets by on the likeability of its large, impressive cast, which includes Roddy McDowall, Cleavon Little, Cloris Leachman, Tony Randall, Dirk Benedict, Willie Aames, Avery Schreiber, and many more (there's even a cameo by a young Arnold Schwarzenegger!)
Not a must-see but an OK time waster.

[M.10rda]

I had a very skewed perspective on SCAVENGER HUNT as a kid. Tried to revisit it a few years ago but didn't get far into it. I will finish it eventually and write it up here. Suffice to say, my small child brain processed a very different movie than the one you watched and reviewed... 

[Rev. Powell]

I AM CUBA: THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH (2004): A documentary relating the creation of the Soviet/Cuban co-production "I Am Cuba" in 1964, through archival footage and interviews of many of the surviving Cubans who worked on the film. Does its job and earns its place as a Criterion Collection supplement to the main film; the major surprise is that most of the Cubans didn't appreciate the finished product, concluding that the Soviet director completely failed to capture the Cuba they knew. 3/5.

[M.10rda]

I AM CUBA: THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH (2004):
...the major surprise is that most of the Cubans didn't appreciate the finished product, concluding that the Soviet director completely failed to capture the Cuba they knew. 3/5.

  .......I AM NOT CUBA! 

[RCMerchant]

DONNIE DARKO (2001)

Some teen with serious angst issues falls of his bike (?) and starts hanging out with a big ugly version of HARVEY (1950).
I don't really know what's going on. I DO know that it irritated the f**k outta me, for some reason. Maybe because the  emo punk brat . I wanted to slap my TV. I changed the channel.
This thing was some kinda cult hit? Among who? Whiney shoe-gazers?
I feel asleep, so maybe if I try watching it again.......NO.

[Trevor]

DONNIE DARKO (2001)

Some teen with serious angst issues falls of his bike (?) and starts hanging out with a big ugly version of HARVEY (1950).
I don't really know what's going on. I DO know that it irritated the f**k outta me, for some reason. Maybe because the  emo punk brat . I wanted to slap my TV. I changed the channel.
This thing was some kinda cult hit? Among who? Whiney shoe-gazers?
I feel asleep, so maybe if I try watching it again.......NO.

That is a very strange film indeed. Film students back in 2001 raved about it but I saw it and went 😳🥴🙄

[Rev. Powell]

I like DONNIE DARKO but I get the dislike.

QUERELLE (1982): Sailor Querelle ports in Brest, where all the men are secretly (and obviously) gay, and starts doing crimes. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder from a 1947 Jean Genet novel, it's both the gayest and the yellowest art movie you'll ever see. 3.5/5.