Last Movie You Watched

[TheGSMoeller]

^What did you make of that? I watched about ten minutes before deciding it wasn't what I wanted whatever night that was, and keep forgetting to get back to it.

Sorry for the late reply, Simon. I loved Uncle Boonmee, its tone is mesmerizing, the narrative is not necessarily plot-driven but rather moments of present time, or memories of the characters past lives, and the ghosts that surround them, but it's all beautifully told.
It is a very slow-paced film, so I could see needing to be in the right mood to be able to complete it.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

My favourites are Thunderball, You Only Live Twice (best theme song) , Goldfinger and From Russia with Love.

You Only Live Twice, really? I suppose I might have seen it only once but I remember cringing at Bond trying to look Japanese even as a young teenager, well removed from any idea of what political correctness might be. (Perhaps I bristled at the bad make-up department's job, more than anything.) Might have to re-watch it to see if I can get more out of it, watching in a benevolent mood.

The book is interesting here -- as it is a history lesson in the unabashed British-centric view of a culture, trying to be sensitive to it and adapting to it... but really not getting over its subtle and unsubtle presumptions. In the end, it's about all about the suicide garden and not spacecrafts.

[SimonNZ]

I read the books when I was in high school but remember YOLT having a memorable opening scene where Bond attempts to kill M.

edt: just checked my unreliable memory, and its the events of YOLT that set Bond up for an assassination attempt on M at the start of Man With The Golden Gun.

[SimonNZ]

Sorry for the late reply, Simon. I loved Uncle Boonmee, its tone is mesmerizing, the narrative is not necessarily plot-driven but rather moments of present time, or memories of the characters past lives, and the ghosts that surround them, but it's all beautifully told.
It is a very slow-paced film, so I could see needing to be in the right mood to be able to complete it.

Thanks for that. Will definitely give it another try.

[SimonNZ]

I was going to say this has aged really well after 20 years, but its much better than that. The script is so good and the direction so assured that its now amazing that writer/director Rod Lurie didn't go on to be a celebrated auteur.

[Karl Henning]

I was going to say this has aged really well after 20 years, but its much better than that. The script is so good and the direction so assured that its now amazing that writer/director Rod Lurie didn't go on to be a celebrated auteur.

Most interesting, thanks.

[AlberichUndHagen]

Nobody mentioned the most cringeworthy decision to ever appear in a Bond film: the adding of a slide whistle during one of the greatest real-life car stunts ever done in The Man with the Golden Gun. How could Hamilton, who directed the masterpiece that is Goldfinger, lapse in judgment so severely?

[Karl Henning]

Even Homer nods

[SimonNZ]

Why has this not generated more interest and discussion out in the world and especially in America? While its not trying for cheap controversy it would nevertheless have been protested just a few decades back.

Taking head on the church's neglect in aligning themselves with the environmental cause and the stewardship of creation, in showing community churches subservient to mega-churches and mega-churches subservient to the polluters who underwright their expenses while advertising their support of the church to improve their corporate image and dictate church policy on political issues.

And its so well made and structured it should have gotten more buzz among cinefiles. Multiple clear references to Bresson's Diary Of A Country Priest and Bergman's Winter Light with somw Dreyer and Tarkovsky thrown in ties together with the narrative structure of Taxi Driver, and exquisitely slowly shot besides. Probably Ethan Hawke's finest performance.

If Schrader intended to make a film that you'd keep turning over long after it had finished and with implications you couldn't easily turn away from, then he certainly succeeded, whether or not you would care to call it a masterpiece.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Inspired by this thread and Karl's watching, I watched Octopussy last night. And it really is a great Bond film... wonderfully paced. Plenty silly, thanks to Moore and Vijay Amritraj, but lovingly so.

[Karl Henning]

Inspired by this thread and Karl's watching, I watched Octopussy last night. And it really is a great Bond film... wonderfully paced. Plenty silly, thanks to Moore and Vijay Amritraj, but lovingly so.

You know, I agree.

[Karl Henning]

"How these girls must have hated me, with cigar breath"
--Sir Roger Moore, in the commentary upon The Man With the Golden Gun

[SimonNZ]

Fourth viewing. Fourth viewing. And there will be a fifth.

If this were a fifties film and I were a Cahiers du Cinema critic I'd identify this as as genre classic that revealed the vision of its writer/directer while operating within the straightjacket requirements of its studio dictates.

[Karl Henning]

Last night: On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  I love this one, somehow.

[Brian]

Karl, I just watched Columbo's cruise vacation (that he won in a raffle) yesterday. A good one! Although that has to be the world's longest performance of "Volare"

[Karl Henning]

Karl, I just watched Columbo's cruise vacation (that he won in a raffle) yesterday. A good one! Although that has to be the world's longest performance of "Volare"

Hah!

Patrick MacNee

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Last night: On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  I love this one, somehow.

Oh, it's sneakily terrific!!! And really different. Too bad Lazenby was being a bit of a diva; he'd have made a good Bond. There were -- apparently unfounded -- rumors that homosexuality was an issue on not re-casting it, but that appears to be unfounded entirely... and he had, in fact, been offered three more Bonds but turned them down. Although it must be said that Timothy Dalton was actually also a worthy, underrated successor. Am watching the outside-the-franchise version again; Never say Never Again.

[SonicMan46]

Notorious (1946) w/ Gary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains; Alfred Hitchcock, director - short synopsis below (first quote) - the Criterion 4K digital restoration is excellent, as expected.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) from the Coen bros (see second quoted synopsis) - crazy film but always a fun watch and for me, the sound track is a major attraction (last quote below).  Dave

Notorious is a 1946 American spy film noir directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation. Notorious is considered by critics and scholars to mark a watershed for Hitchcock artistically, and to represent a heightened thematic maturity. His biographer, Donald Spoto, writes that "Notorious is in fact Alfred Hitchcock's first attempt—at the age of forty-six—to bring his talents to the creation of a serious love story, and its story of two men in love with Ingrid Bergman could only have been made at this stage of his life." (Source)

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 crime comedy-drama film written, produced, co-edited and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning in supporting roles. The film is set in 1937 rural Mississippi during the Great Depression. Its story is a modern satire loosely based on Homer's epic Greek poem The Odyssey that incorporates mythology from the American South. The title of the film is a reference to the Preston Sturges 1941 film Sullivan's Travels, in which the protagonist is a director who wants to film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a fictional book about the Great Depression. (Source)

Much of the music used in the film is period folk music, including that of Virginia bluegrass singer Ralph Stanley. The film received positive reviews, and the soundtrack won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002 using American folk music. The country and folk musicians who were dubbed into the film included John Hartford, Alison Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Chris Sharp, Patty Loveless, and others. (Source same)

   

[milk]

The seven-course menu in the film consisted of:

"Potage à la Tortue" (turtle soup) served with Amontillado sherry
"Blinis Demidoff" (buckwheat pancakes with caviar and sour cream) served with Veuve Cliquot Champagne
"Cailles en Sarcophage" (quail in puff pastry shell with foie gras and truffle sauce) served with Clos de Vougeot Pinot Noir
an endive salad
"Savarin au Rhum avec des Figues et Fruit Glacée" (rum sponge cake with figs and candied cherries) served with Champagne
assorted cheeses and fruits served with Sauternes
coffee with vieux marc Grande Champagne cognac.[14]

[Christo]

I was going to say this has aged really well after 20 years, but its much better than that. The script is so good and the direction so assured that its now amazing that writer/director Rod Lurie didn't go on to be a celebrated auteur.

Great tip, many thanks.