Last Movie You Watched

[NumberSix]

Casablanca

What have I rated this one before now? A million billion stars?

Double it. This movie is beyond perfect.

Aux armes, citoyens! (Formez)
Vos bataillons!
Marchons!

[NumberSix]

1979 Frank Sinatra Sings As Time Goes By to Ingrid Bergman

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

@Dry Brett Kavanaugh... I'll certainly scare up The Hidden Fortress. I'll approach my thoughts on Kurosawa's The Idiot indirectly. I'm thinking of Hamlet. First of all, everyone makes cuts to the play (Branagh's film being a magnificent exception.) Secondly, if you watch a community production of Hamlet, there will be all manner of local "warts," but one is l likely nevertheless to be impressed by Shakespeare's marvelous dramatic achievement. Hamlet doesn't fail to be worth experiencing, just because a given product is less than the very finest. So The Idiot isn't the film as Kurosawa intended or might have wished. I still found Dostoyevsky's story compellingly illustrated.

Interesting. Kurosawa was a big fan of Shakespeare and some of his movies were partly/substantially based on Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth.

His Idiot may not be a successful movie, but I remember it had a weird appeal. Again, I must buy the dvd!


https://www.hollywoodinsider.com/kurosawa-and-shakespeare-adaptations/

[AnotherSpin]

The title character (a little like Peter Sellers' character in Being There) is a beautiful innocent around whom an intense family (not his own) drama plays out. The Idiot is the novel in which Dostoyevsky wrote, "Beauty will save the world."

I don't think Dostoevsky's plots are that important. He doesn't tell stories, that's just for leads. He plunges the reader deep into the sticky, dense, and light-impenetrable depths of the Russian soul. I wasn't good at staying in it for long. I always wanted to surface and take a full breath. Perhaps reading translations (I read the originals) gives a different experience.

[Karl Henning]

Character is story. The famous example of "story line is just a framework" is Shakespeare: [young couple in love, but parents don't approve] becomes a comedy in the case of A Midsummer Night's Dream and a tragedy in the case of Romeo and Juliet.

[Karl Henning]

Bergman's The Touch (1971)

[Kalevala]

Casablanca

What have I rated this one before now? A million billion stars?

Double it. This movie is beyond perfect.

Aux armes, citoyens! (Formez)
Vos bataillons!
Marchons!

A gazillion years ago (Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I bought a VHS copy of it for my parents thinking that "Oh, this will be a nice Christmas present for them".  My dad loved it!  My mother:  well, that's when I found out that she was not a fan of the movie; i.e., she hated it. 

K

[Cato]

Bergman's The Touch (1971)

Since Halloween is coming, let me recommend Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf.


Recently, one of the best and biggest Western movies ever made, with a great score by Jerome Moross:




https://www.criterion.com/films/28876-hour-of-the-wolf

Charles Bickford should have been in the list of major stars on that poster: he is great as the implacable cattle baron following his hubris and hatred to their logical conclusions, matched by Burl Ives as the leader of a clan struggling to survive in the semi-arid country.

[Karl Henning]

Bergman's The Touch (1971)

Rather what I've been expecting, which is why I squirmed mentally at the banality of the descent into an affair.

Max von Sydow: "I've received some letters. It's a small town, you see, everyone knows everyone else."

[Karl Henning]

Since Halloween is coming, let me recommend Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf.

An excellent suggestion, and thank you again for sending the DVD. Another one I'll revisit for the season is Wm Shatner in Incubus. Also, The Night Stalker.

[NumberSix]

Bergman's The Touch (1971)

You've got the touch! You've got the powaaahhhhhhhh! Yeah!

[NumberSix]

An excellent suggestion, and thank you again for sending the DVD. Another one I'll revisit for the season is Wm Shatner in Incubus. Also, The Night Stalker.

Incubus - is that the one in Esperanto?

[Karl Henning]

You've got the touch! You've got the powaaahhhhhhhh! Yeah!

I was just thinking that I have not much idea of how Bergman's title fits.

[Karl Henning]

Incubus - is that the one in Esperanto?

Yes, indeed.

[Karl Henning]

Rather what I've been expecting, which is why I squirmed mentally at the banality of the descent into an affair.

Max von Sydow: "I've received some letters. It's a small town, you see, everyone knows everyone else."

The mystery at the heart of the story is David's being deficient in empathy, but Karin's attachment to him all the same.

[Karl Henning]

Early Woody Allen: Take the Money and Run.
The very first time I watched this, which was not very long ago, my overall impression was borderline grade-C. It was clearly inferior to his mature work (duh!), and I felt a very strong element of: "Yeah, these are jokes I would have found amusing when I was in high school." Watching it again last night I see it rather more favorably and really enjoyed it thoroughly.

[JBS]

Early Woody Allen: Take the Money and Run.
The very first time I watched this, which was not very long ago, my overall impression was borderline grade-C. It was clearly inferior to his mature work (duh!), and I felt a very strong element of: "Yeah, these are jokes I would have found amusing when I was in high school." Watching it again last night I see it rather more favorably and really enjoyed it thoroughly.

The robbery note might be one of his first great lines.
[Come to think of it, I did see that movie when I was in high school.]

[Karl Henning]

The robbery note might be one of his first great lines.

Yes! And he does bring "gub" back later! A friend told me about the marching cello in high school.

[Karl Henning]

Early Woody Allen: Take the Money and Run.
The very first time I watched this, which was not very long ago, my overall impression was borderline grade-C. It was clearly inferior to his mature work (duh!), and I felt a very strong element of: "Yeah, these are jokes I would have found amusing when I was in high school." Watching it again last night I see it rather more favorably and really enjoyed it thoroughly.

Oh, and I frequently thought, hearing Marvin Hamlisch's well-made score (a good score, too) that I was watching a Woody Allen movie with a Columbo score.

[SonicMan46]

Upgraded a few old DVD westerns to Amazon HD streamers (just $5 each on a price reduction) - both filmed on location in Mexico; enjoy Vera Cruz more BUT Senta Berger as Dundee's love interest get an extra star - 

Vera Cruz (1954) - synopsis below w/ a great cast; considered somewhat controversial back then somewhat bland considersations now after 70 years!

Major Dundee (1965) - short summary and cast quoted - as noted (see LINK for more) the film could have been better with Sam Peckinpah having more control - not my favorite western but worth a watch.  Dave

Vera Cruz is an American Western film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, featuring Cesar Romero, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson and Jack Elam. Set during the Franco-Mexican War, the film centers on a group of American mercenaries tasked with transporting a large shipment of Imperial gold to Veracruz, but begin to have second thoughts about their allegiances. The picture's amoral characters and cynical attitude towards violence were considered shocking at the time and influenced future Westerns such as The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Professionals (1966), Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), and the Spaghetti Western films of Sergio Leone, which often featured supporting cast members from Vera Cruz in similar roles. Its influence on Leone's work led some critics to label it "the proto-Spaghetti Western." (Source)

Major Dundee is an American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton, and James Coburn. Written by Harry Julian Fink, the film is about a Union cavalry officer who leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners, and Indian scouts on an expedition into Mexico during the American Civil War to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding United States bases and settlements in the New Mexico territory. Major Dundee was filmed in various locations in Mexico. Major Dundee became notorious for its difficult shoot and post production, which saw the movie greatly cut from Peckinpah's original vision. (Source)