Last Movie You Watched

[Ken B]

A mini Hawks-a-thon with what I consider good but quite not top-tier Hawks

Red River
Only Angels Have Wings
Rio Bravo

[drogulus]

     Soon I'll again watch The Gambler, from 1974 with a masterful performance by James Caan.

     

     "Give me the three"

     Also it's the best use of Mahler in a movie, even counting Visconti.

[SonicMan46]

A mini Hawks-a-thon with what I consider good but quite not top-tier Hawks

Red River - Only Angels Have Wings - Rio Bravo

Ken - love & own those 3 films; Red River is probably one of my favorite 'westerns' - just looking at the films he directed HERE - have about 18 or so and have seen others - BUT, you're right, i.e. hard to pick the best, many are just so good!  Dave

[Ken B]

Ken - love & own those 3 films; Red River is probably one of my favorite 'westerns' - just looking at the films he directed HERE - have about 18 or so and have seen others - BUT, you're right, i.e. hard to pick the best, many are just so good!  Dave

My favourite is Ball of Fire, but the best are probably Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday. The two Bogart Bacall ones are great too. Next on my rewatch list is Sergeant York.

[SonicMan46]

My favourite is Ball of Fire, but the best are probably Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday. The two Bogart Bacall ones are great too. Next on my rewatch list is Sergeant York.

Boy, I own all of those films although 2 are DVD-Rs, i.e. Ball of Fire (a fav of mine also), and the remake A Song is Born - prefer the Cooper/Stanwyck film but Danny Kaye is good in the role, the film is in great color, and many Big Band musicians, including Benny Goodman are in the movie, a plus for me.  Dave

 

[Jaakko Keskinen]

A mini Hawks-a-thon with what I consider good but quite not top-tier Hawks

Red River
Only Angels Have Wings
Rio Bravo

Only Angels Have Wings is my favorite from Hawks, among with Bringing Up Baby, The Big Sleep and The Thing (if that counts). Red River is my favorite western from him. Didn't care much for Rio Bravo, to be honest.

[Ken B]

The Hawks-a-thon continues with

Sergeant York

Which I haven't seen in decades. In 1940 and 41 there were a lot of subtle high-end propaganda movies against isolationism. Warner Bros especially made quite a few. Warner's second biggest market was Germany but they withdrew from Germany in the late 30s. This was the glossiest and biggest budget one, and it was much criticized, pre Pearl Harbor, for it. Then it became a big hit.

So it's hard to fairly assess the movie. It has clumsy bits and good bits. Some of the clumsiness is in a good cause of course.

[André]

Denmark's entry into the 2016 Academy Awards for best foreign movie (lost to The Salesman).
A group of 14 teen german soldiers are forced by the danish army to remove thousands of land mines on Denmark's western coast in the summer of 1945. Few will survive.

[SimonNZ]

Brilliantly written, directed and acted, even if the ending doesn't really work. Intend to watch it again before I return it.

Hard to believe this was the debut work of the screenwriter - I actually had to check to see if it wasn't really someone like Aaron Sorkin writing under an alias.

[aligreto]

Stranded....





A not very good replica of the Alien franchise.

[LKB]

The last movie I watched was Tim Burton's " Mars Attacks ", just last night. I have the old DVD, which features the isolated score as a soundtrack option, affording the best opportunity to hear some of Danny Elfman's most entertaining work. Some lovely, subtle synth effects take place during the opening credits, and that theremin cracks me up every time.

Cheers,

LKB

[Ken B]

American Hustle

I was very disappointed in this. Too much of it is slack, too often the idea is that someone shouting will be funny. Could have been good with better editing -- bring some sharp scissors -- but as is 5/10. Amy Adams is the best thing in the movie, not a surprise.

[milk]

When I open iTunes all I see are super hero movies these days. What's happened in society to create this trend? These are the most predictable and childish genre of film. Why are they so popular just now?

[Ken B]

These are the most predictable and childish genre of film. Why are they so popular just now?

I think you answered the question before you asked it.

[Ken B]

How To Marry a Millionaire

Directed by Negulesco, and starring Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall. Alas, it's got a very weak script, and only sporadic patches of charm or humor.

[André]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5029608/

Frantz, by François Ozon (France, 2016).

The action is set in 1919 Germany and France. The film is spoken half in German, half in French, and shot half in colour, half in black and white. Lots of nominations and a few wins (in Paris and Venice). The basis for the story is familiar, the plot development ingenious and surprising. I enjoyed it. A remake from a 1932 Lubitsch film.

[aligreto]

Ice 2020....




Predictable plot, some poor acting and some poor execution of effects. Don't bother.

[Todd]

American Made.  Tom Cruise plays Barry Seal, pilot and smuggler extraordinaire, who worked for drug cartels and Uncle Sam, and was wrapped up in the Columbia-Contra thing.  (Turns out that director Doug Liman's father was chief counsel for the Senate for the later and obviously unrelated Iran-Contra debacle.)  The film has a Goodfellas structure married to Liman's kinetic style (lots of zooms and handheld shots, some POV shots) that works well enough.  The film is humorously done rather than dramatic, which is the better way to approach the subject.  Cruise is much better here than in The Mummy earlier in the year, comfortably in his element.  Domhnall Gleeson is enjoyable as his CIA handler.  The gorgeous Sarah Wright, obviously much younger in reality but not on screen, plays Cruise's wife, and she gets some good material and delivers.  Various fictionalized versions of political and historical personages from the 80s make their appearances, some indirectly by phone, some on film.  This marks Barry Seal's second recent appearance in pop culture, the other being in the first season of Narcos, where Pablo Escobar is the bad guy.  Escobar naturally shows up here, too.  Javier Bardem plays the drug lord in an upcoming flick.  And Pablo's brother filed that billion dollar lawsuit against Netflix.  Escobar is enjoying a mini pop culture resurgence, it seems.

[Karl Henning]

The only superhero films I like are Tim Burton's Batman

When that first came out, I was quite taken with the new dark-dark take on Batman.  However (while I do still rather enjoy the Burton Batman, notwithstanding its running on a bit), in time I went back to my first love . . . feeling at last that Adam West and Burt Ward had the right idea:  that campy is the best & truest way to approach the material.

[LKB]

When that first came out, I was quite taken with the new dark-dark take on Batman.  However (while I do still rather enjoy the Burton Batman, notwithstanding its running on a bit), in time I went back to my first love . . . feeling at last that Adam West and Burt Ward had the right idea:  that campy is the best & truest way to approach the material.

A few days ago l watched the 1966 Batman on bluray. Quite enjoyable with the West & Ward commentary track, and pretty good bonus material on the disc. Burton's film works for me as well, but mostly because of the set design, score and Nicholson's Joker. Fortunately, there is room for both iterations, and more.

Cheers,

LKB