Last Movie You Watched

[SonicMan46]

Kind of in a rut w/ Netflix - just not that many 'new' films that interest me (i.e. topic & poor ratings), so our rental list has dwindled; however, the other day, I was just browsing their suggestions to me (based on my pass viewing & rating experience) - and started to stream a TV series called Jesse Stone......... w/ an older Tom Selleck - well I enjoyed the first one and over several nights have watched 5 of the 6 shown below (4 streamed from Netflix & 1 a $5 purchase on Amazon) - these were made from the mid-2000s into this decade - will certainly watch the reminder!  I probably should start looking for more TV series - there are probably plenty I would like! 

[Ataraxia]

Good stuff, at least early on.

[Drasko]

Hulu Plus recently added this in their Criterion section, so I'm going to check it out this morning. Has anyone seen it?

Oh, yeah. It's very much love or hate it kind of film-making, as Russell usually is.  Not very subtle.

[eyeresist]

Just watched a pretty good documentary about Woody Allen:

This was just shown on TV here, over two weekends - now preserved on my DVR. It was very good, but I couldn't help wishing for something even longer, with more discussion of each film, including all the ones there wasn't time to even mention.


Meanwhile I am watching Ghost Hound (anime), a low-key X files-style creep fest about fringe brain science, and 30 Rock season 5 in the breaks. Alec Baldwin is always a pleasure to watch here.

[Zizekian]

Oh, yeah. It's very much love or hate it kind of film-making, as Russell usually is.  Not very subtle.

Well, at least it had a good soundtrack! Outside of that, I guess I would fall in the "hate" category.

[Karl Henning]

Over the weekend: "Columbo Cries Wolf" (brilliant) and Cotton Club (somewhat mixed, although Gregory Hines, and the Hoofers Club scene, are well worth it).

[George]

Just got started with season one.

[DavidRoss]

Hulu Plus recently added this in their Criterion section, so I'm going to check it out this morning. Has anyone seen it?
[Ken Russell's Mahler]

I've not seen all of it. I've tried only twice, but it strains my capacity for boredom.

There are times I love Russell's excess. This is not one of them. This film is a crime against celluloid. It's just bad...dull...dumb...no more inspiring or engaging or relevant to Mahler than a bit of dried chewing gum stuck to the underside of a table in a fast food joint.

[Karl Henning]

Just now:

“Number 12 Is Just Like You” from season 5 of Twilight Zone

Exquisitely dystopian.

[val]

DAVID LYNCH:              Inland Empire

It is the second time I watch this movie and I still don't like it. The images are beautiful with exceptional moments (the transition between the scene with the prostitutes in LA to the one with the prostitutes in the Winter of Poland or the scene with the homeless in the streets of LA) and Laura Dern is amazing. But the fact is that the movie never touches me, it leaves me completely indifferent.
I love other movies of Lynch (Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive in special) but not this one.

[CaughtintheGaze]

I haven't seen this yet, but I hear it's the... uh... shizzle? Somehow, I got on a list of 'Sick Movies', and woo boy, talk about the underbelly of society.

Men Behind the Sun?

The Grifter


Snuff Films & Surgery,... hee haw!


I've never seen the chainsaw scene in Scarface. How is it?

It all depends. None of the films above are as rabid and visceral as A Serbian Film, but they also don't match up to it when it comes to aesthetics and artistic quality. The only film I've seen more extreme than this one is The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, which is also one of the most amazing films I've ever seen. Near pure nihilism.

[Karl Henning]

The 1949 movie of The Fountainhead with Gary Cooper as Howard Roark, and rather a heavy-handed Max Steiner score.  And Raymond Massey as Gail Wynand . . . watched this on request by (and with) the missus, who read the book, God bless her.  As interesting as the movie (and it was really good) was Maria's commentary on the departures/variations from the source novel . . . for, interestingly (or, possibly, predictably) Ayn Rand did the screenplay adaptation herself.

[Zizekian]

It all depends. None of the films above are as rabid and visceral as A Serbian Film, but they also don't match up to it when it comes to aesthetics and artistic quality. The only film I've seen more extreme than this one is The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, which is also one of the most amazing films I've ever seen. Near pure nihilism.

A Serbian Film is very extreme, but I think that Pasolini's Salo and Gaspar Noe's I Stand Alone might be even more bleak and nihilistic (although Salo's nihilism serves as a critique of fascism, so it isn't devoid of moral content).

[CaughtintheGaze]

A Serbian Film is very extreme, but I think that Pasolini's Salo and Gaspar Noe's I Stand Alone might be even more bleak and nihilistic (although Salo's nihilism serves as a critique of fascism, so it isn't devoid of moral content).

Well A Serbian Film has two scenes, basically, that make it more extreme. The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, puts all of these films to shame though. Nothing even close to it, that I've seen, yet. (Well outside actually snuff.)

[Zizekian]

Well A Serbian Film has two scenes, basically, that make it more extreme. The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, puts all of these films to shame though. Nothing even close to it, that I've seen, yet. (Well outside actually snuff.)

I haven't seen or heard of The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, and here it is I thought that I had seen the worst of the worst! I may track it down someday just out of morbid curiosity. After finding out that A Serbian Film was taken out of circulation on Netflix, I bought the "unrated" Blu-Ray, which is really false advertising because it is still missing a couple of minutes of footage from the original cut. I suppose that I couldn't make any definitive judgments on it because I haven't seen the film as it was originally intended. Still a disturbing flick, though!

[Karl Henning]

The 1949 movie of The Fountainhead with Gary Cooper as Howard Roark, and rather a heavy-handed Max Steiner score.  And Raymond Massey as Gail Wynand . . . .

Oh, meant to mention that Massey was Cary Grant's psychopath brother in Arsenic and Old Lace, which I've yet to lasso the missus into watching ....

[CaughtintheGaze]

I haven't seen or heard of The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, and here it is I thought that I had seen the worst of the worst! I may track it down someday just out of morbid curiosity. After finding out that A Serbian Film was taken out of circulation on Netflix, I bought the "unrated" Blu-Ray, which is really false advertising because it is still missing a couple of minutes of footage from the original cut. I suppose that I couldn't make any definitive judgments on it because I haven't seen the film as it was originally intended. Still a disturbing flick, though!

Here's the complete flick, A Serbian Film if you're interested.
http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v1521208671c

I'd highly suggest A Life and Death of a Porno Gang, it's definitely very avant garde, with amazing cinematography, and an amazing conclusion. Easily the most nihilistic thing I've ever seen. Quite beautiful, really.

[mahler10th]

Last night I watched a 1976 movie, Midway, about the battle of Midway.     Although he took part in one of the most memorable scenes in cinema history, I have never rated Charlton Heston.  In fact, I still think that he wasn't such a good actor, and by far a better activist for some of the most important causes in 50's - 60's USA.  Anyway, his role in this movie is a little better even than Ben Hur (which I will never understand what he won an Oscar for, he is like a corn toothed wooden hero throughout).  In Midway, big Charlton was clearly struggling with a not very good script (IMO) - his elevation of the japanese girlfriend of his son sub-plot was notable and most commendable.  Without him, that sub-plot would have been as useless as a dongle in a deep sea tunnel.  Some sloppy editing also...watch the opening scenes, and a building clearly built after 1942 flashes by from plane view.  Later, a cut of desperate firefighters in the bowels of an ailing ship is repeated in another scene.  Only about a two second cut, but it was repeated for different ships and events...poor!  Some of the original Midway footage was also repeated.  Still, it was watchable, despite having tacky 'in-flight' backdrops, and...hear this...a pilot looking out the window with his binoculars...and I mean WAY OUT the window, his binoculars were so far out the window supposedly on a plane travelling at speed and altitude that they should have been sucked away from his eyes and he should have been gasping for breath...but no, he was fine, coherent and perfectly normal.  As a visual feast (other than the original footage) the whole movie sucked, the script was terrible in it's father/son/japanese girl threads, and I would demand a remake in short order.  The only danger of THAT is the team that took on Pearl Harbour in 2001 would do the remake, and then it would be even worse.     Even John Williams's soundtrack seemed to send the movie back to a time before the events in it actually happpened....
BUT!!   REDEMPTION!!   0:) 0:) 0:) 0:) 0:) 0:) 0:) 0:)
What I really did admire in this movie was it's attention to the battle tactics of both sides in the conflict.  Anyone interested in Military Tactics should watch this movie.  Those who are not will, like me, become interested in the art of War after it!  There are plenty of scenes where the Admiral(s) et al are standing around the warmap tables, pointing uncertainly at the enemy ships placed on it, whilst facts and figures spew forth about the guts of the very battle itself.  Would they use planes with bombs or planes with torpedos, how many, how many are left,  where are the Carriers, how many planes are up there, how long will it take, how many fronts are there in this one battle, why are we battling over this rump of island at all and what will the bastards do next...all those questions and more are answered on both sides.  Further, the inter-spliced original footage of that battle are more gripping to look at than the entire rest of the movie.

For Visual Impact:  .002%
For Information on the battle:  85%  (I guess the other 15% is uncovered and unpublished papers on the matter.)   
As a movie:  18.5%

[Sergeant Rock]

...the script was terrible in it's father/son/japanese girl threads

They should have listened to Bogey and scrapped that whole sub-plot: "...but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that." But, no, Hollywood never understands that.

Midway, a terrible film. (I wish they had put the main focus on Commander Waldron's Torpedo Squadron 8, building the story around those men whose sacrifice won the battle.) For carrier action, and more realism, Tora Tora Tora is far superior (it's not without it's problems too but way better than Michael Bay's horrific Pearl Harbor).

Sarge

[Bogey]

They should have listened to Bogey and scrapped that whole sub-plot: "...but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that." Sarge