The Most Recent Movie You've Seen on Streaming, Broadcast TV, or Movie Theater?

A subject or character may be classic when Disney decides to take it on but then it transforms to Disney and becomes a recycled forever mediocre film.

There are exceptions. Snow White is great. Many Disney short films are wonderful. I still like some of the live action.

At Eternity's Gate

Willem Dafoe as Van Gogh is believable as any Van Gogh portrayer I've seen. He's got the suffering face. The movie starts just before he moves to Arles, France and ends after he is accidentally shot by a boy. Still, 2 hours is not long enough to dedicate to Van Gogh's life.

Streamed free on Movie HD app.

Chico & Rita (2010), 8/10. Great music. But the all too quick pace of the first half of the film (in terms of mere months) didn't seem to be too realistic - romance and fame wise for the two title characters. Not fatal flaws but flaws nevertheless.

Lily - A Mayra
Music by Bebo Valdés
Lyrics by Juanito Márquez and Nat Chediak
Performed by Freddy Cole and Estrella Morente

Should have gotten nominated for original song in 2012. WTH were only two songs nominated that year? This category is by far the most arbitrarily goofy one.

AND

¡Vampiros en La Habana! (1985). The whole bloody thing is on YouTube. Kind an odd coincidence that both movies are animated movies about jazz musicians in Cuba.

I stumbled onto this one by a freak of an IMDb advanced search. I expected to absolutely hate it and ... well, I was expecting it to be a target for Rifftrax. Nope.

Be warned that there are questionable (possibly) racist character designs.

I'm giving this surprise animated comedy about vampires in Havana, an 8/10.

I finally watched all 57 Disney Animated Canon films that are available to watch.

The quality of the films between 1980 and 2019 is like a rollercoaster: 80s were decent to mediocre, 90s are great, 2000s, were decent to mediocre, 10s were very good.

The 90s Renaissance films still hold up pretty well for the most part. The 2000s films are very experimental, to say the the least, though 2004's Home on the Range was very forgettable. 2011's Winnie the Pooh was OK, though it is barely an hour long and clearly aimed at younger audiences. I did like the two Frozen films, though I liked the first film's story while the second film has a better soundtrack overall.

Watched The Wrong Missy (Netflix) last night. I enjoyed it, worth watching to see Missy (Lauren Lapkus) alone.
She's an absolute head case.

Tim thinks he's invited the woman of his dreams on a work retreat to Hawaii, realizing too late he mistakenly texted someone from a nightmare blind date.

I've got that on my list. Thanks for the endorsement.

I think Chico & Rita was indeed very realistic, even if stylized.
Some of the scenes of the movie are historic, like the killing of Chano Pozo.
Loved how it pictured Havana in the forties, my mother’s youth.
It does have flaws and I gave it 8/10.

I'd bet you'd wallpaper half your house with that list Chai.

Ha! Actually I usually keep between 10 and 30 items in my list.
If I feel I’ve given something a fair chance and I’m not feeling it, off it goes.

Just last night I started this movie, and just from the music in the beginning I thought it was going to be dreadful.
I gave it 10 minutes of my time then deleted it. I think I deleted some series also that I realized was going to be some teen drama.
Life’s too short to watch things like Tiger King.

Couldn't agree more.


Just finished watching Parks and Recreation. I've been watching it over the last few months.

A pity it had to end. A brilliant show.

I watched the 2018 comedy movie Holmes and Watson. The critics didn't care for it too much, but I thought it was a riot and a welcome change from the overdone Sherlock Holmes genre. There are some ridiculously funny sight gags that combine 20th century ideas with 19th century realities. For instance, Queen Victoria hires Holmes and Watson to investigate a death threat letter. Watson falls in love with Queen Victoria's beauty and insists that they take a selfie with an old format camera on a tripod. ( there's an inadvertent hand on the camera that doesn't belong there.)

The Trip to Greece (2020). Debuted to streaming today: Amazon, Vudu, Google Play, etc....
A fitting end to the decade's running quadrilogy.



Seen the other films at the movie theater. Shame I couldn't do that here.
The Trip to Spain (2017)
The Trip to Italy (2014)
and The Trip (2010).

As per the usual, a great source for food porn (though much of what they eat is a bit too Haute cuisine for my taste. Hysterically funny and the banter and chemistry between Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan ... so perfect. Not a documentary but they loosely play themselves.... They don't skimp on the bittersweet.

Not seen that one yet, loved the others.

The Vast of Night (2019)

Just watched this charming, clever and creepy indie throwback to 50's science fiction and the Twilight Zone. 9/10.

Streaming free on Amazon Prime.



The chemistry between the two leads Sierra McCormick's Fay Crocker and Jake Horowitz's Everett is the best part.

The Vast of Night Makes Retro Sci-Fi Feel Startlingly Fresh

I'm watching Gangs of London, very violent, probably a bit too gratuitous, but the story and characters are very good. It's a nine parter and I've only seen the first four episodes.

Saw the 1967 version of Casino Royale, which is very loosely based on the James Bond book and is a spoof of the official 007 films. It is available on HBO.

It is terrible. The story is all over the place, as it is bound to happen when 5 directors and a dozen writers are involved. It is pretty obvious that the scenes with Peter Sellers is detached from the rest of the film, almost none of the other characters interact with him.

The ending, though, is completely over the top.

It has a similar feel to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, with some of the same actors.

I was surprised to see Ronnie Corbett in it, he didn’t tend to do films like that.

Watched "da 5 Bloods".(2020, Netflix streaming)
Spike Lee an, like every Spike Lee movie, its made for a black audience (Not that theres anything wrong with that).
It was a bit helter skelter becuse he tried to do homages to many other movies (Another Spike Lee affectation). Ill give you just one "Treasure of the Sierra Madre".
Lotsa loose ends because Lee also likes to be preachy to white folks.
Ill give it a B- because the movie is really a fuckin great idea. It just lost a bit in the disconnected story telling.(IMHO). Flash back to 50 years ago, used the same actors as kids and, of course , it was easy to see and ifficult to figure why.
You need a speech pattern recognition program, just to count the number of "muthafuckas" used in the script. Also, I think the actors were freeballing it a lot and that hurt the continuity a bit.

Other than that, its kind long. But I do like BAR and AK 47 duels. (BARs are just sledge hammers doing a staplers job).

Guns are characters in this movie. Just like the 45-70 in "Wind River" except not as artistically done and often "OVER" done.