Last Movie You Watched

[Karl Henning]

Last night, for the heck of it, The Terminator.  It's decades since I saw it, and both times I had seen it before was on the big screen.  Watching it again last night, I realized just why my high school buddy (whose ambition has been to be a filmmaker) was so enthusiastic:  it is a marvelously assured bravura performance by a rookie director, on a budget.  There are, of course, several scenes where one "sees the budget" (and this experience is underscored by how smooth the raised production values are in Terminator 2) but my reaction last night was never "ooh, that looks cheap" but rather, "for what he had in the coffers, that looks amazing."  Partly for sentimental reasons, I will soon revisit Terminator 3, but (and maybe this is depriving myself) I have no interest in an any of the later movies.  I suppose I am "invested" in these first three movies as an artifact of the time, and not in Terminator:  The Franchise.

[Monsieur Croche]

It may be a bonafide masterpiece . . . .

Well, for a space-oater, anyway ;-)

[SonicMan46]

At our local independent theater, a new film likely to receive a number of Oscar nominations:

Manchester by the Sea (2016) w/ Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, & Kyle Chandler - short synopsis below; ratings: 8.5/10, IMDB; 97%, Rotten Tomatoes; 4/5*, Amazon w/ several 1-2* ratings - the film can be slow and often depressing - I'd probably do a 4* on Amazon, but not really interested in seeing the film again - recommended to those who like to watch the Oscars.    Dave

Lee Chandler is a brooding, irritable loner who works as a handyman for a Boston apartment block. One damp winter day he gets a call summoning him to his hometown, north of the city. His brother's heart has given out suddenly, and he's been named guardian to his 16-year-old nephew. As if losing his only sibling and doubts about raising a teenager weren't enough, his return to the past re-opens an unspeakable tragedy.

[Karl Henning]

Thunderball



Fun.  Been decades since last saw it.  First in what will be a Bond-a-thon - just the early Connery movies, though.

"Wait until you get to my teeth."

[Ken B]

Thunderball



Fun.  Been decades since last saw it.  First in what will be a Bond-a-thon - just the early Connery movies, though.

That's the one with Lucianna Paluzzi, for those who notice such things! Not the most memorable of the "Bond girls" but the first one I became aware of ...

The best of course was Diana Rigg. But amongst the Connerys ... Jill St John would be my pick.

[SimonNZ]

The best of course was Diana Rigg. But amongst the Connerys ... Jill St John would be my pick.

Daniela Bianchi and Eva Green for me.

[Drasko]

[listener]

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA - Marx Brothers
seen twice, with and without the Leonard Maltin commentary
comes with 2 shorts, How to Sleep with Robert Benchley and a musical 2-reeler Saturday Night at the Trocadero

[pjme]

Yesterday, with my godchild David(10) - we loved it.



P.

[Karl Henning]

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA - Marx Brothers
seen twice, with and without the Leonard Maltin commentary
comes with 2 shorts, How to Sleep with Robert Benchley and a musical 2-reeler Saturday Night at the Trocadero

It doesn't get any better than this!

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Thunderball



Fun.  Been decades since last saw it.  First in what will be a Bond-a-thon - just the early Connery movies, though.

I really recall liking this but the first memory that pops in my head when talking about this movie is always how ridiculously fast Largo's boat sails during the climax of the movie.

[Karl Henning]

I will say "never" to Never Say Never Again.

Rowan Atkinson.

Just saying.

[Karl Henning]

Connery is beginning to age out of the part, and today's Diamonds are Forever will conclude the Connery Bond-a-thon. 

"Alimentary, Doctor Leiter."

[Karl Henning]

"One of us smells like a tart's handkerchief. ...I'm afraid it's me.  Sorry, old boy."

[drogulus]

It doesn't get any better than this!

     .....says the suicide note.

     From Amazon non-Prime, I rented

     

     I'm a sucker for inaccurate historical movies and advanced lesbionics.

     

[aligreto]

Last night, Il Postino....

[aligreto]

Good one.  I should put it on the list to watch soon.

Yes indeed; it was wonderful to revisit it after a long time since my last viewing.

[James]

The Exterminating Angel
1962 ‧ Drama film/Fantasy ‧ 1h 35m

A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and find themselves inexplicably unable to leave, in Luis Buñuel's daring masterpiece The Exterminating Angel (El ángel exterminador). Made just one year after the director's inter­na­tional sensation Viridiana, this film, full of eerie comic absurdity, continues Buñuel's wicked takedown of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes.

[asin]B01LZT5R4X[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Last night I watched Terminator 3:  Rise of the Machines, and it was possibly the first time I had watched absolutely the whole thing, though I had seen substantially the whole thing some while before.

If you have not seen it, do not read on, as I cannot guarantee to avoid spoilers.

Some (probably not all, though some "in high cinematic places") like the second movie but not the third;  and Cameron (who directed the first two movies, and who together with his then wife created the character) seems to have said that one of the later flicks is "the true third movie," which is a backhanded dismissal of Rise of the Appliances.  Fresh from watching T2: Judgment Day, I wanted to watch T3 myself, and see what I felt.  And remembering that overall I enjoyed the movie, but felt a bit disappointed with the ending the first time.

First, I'll say that I have come around on the ending.  Did Alien³ help change my mind?  (My brother lent me his boxed Alien Anthology last year-ish.)  I could certainly see the third and fourth movies as a decline from Ridley Scott and Cameron (and I could not even stick out a second view of Alien Resurrection).  I do not contest the complaint that the prisoner population leaves the audience nearly no one to identify with positively (a weakness compared to either of the first two movies);  and while I see the "killing off" of Newt and Hicks as a kind of violence against fans' sympathies, it is consistent with what (I think) is ultimately the premise of the overall story:  that once Weyland-Yutani have gone back to colonize that moon, and the aliens are "engaged" (because W-Y are determined to use them for biological weapons research) there is no real victory over them/it.

Forgive that long parenthesis, the point of which is, scrap my initial dislike of the ending of T3 (I didn't think much of Tusk the first time I listened to it, either), I find the twist ending artistically satisfying and necessary.

Director Mastow has fun with (what were probably obligatory) the dual entrance of the T-X and the "guardian";  the sunglasses gag I found delightful.  The opening sequence of John living off the grid is good, and the ending is set up both by John's "I ought to feel safe but I don't" (which the first-time viewer is apt to take as foreshadowing the imminent entrance of the T-X), and by Kate's cell phone chat with her dad.

I enjoy the fact that, once the carousel ride has begun, John knows (as well as he may) what's going on, and Kate is the character learning it all for the first time, live and on stage.  I think both Cameron in T2 (perhaps, perhaps not so much in the first movie) and Mastow in T3 create fuller-than-average female protagonists in an action movie—and this, in spite of Kate's spending much of the first half as a kidnap victim.

The robots in T3 (and they did build robots) are spectacularly impressive.

It is just possible that I like T3 as much as I do T2.  Come on:  they're both just good fun, in a machine-apocalyptic sort of way.

[Todd]

It is just possible that I like T3 as much as I do T2.

Gasp!