Last Movie You Watched

[Bogey]

And it looks as though Ridley is up for a sequal, as is Ford:

http://www.bladerunner2-movie.com/news/1239

[Cato]

I was prepared to dislike this, given my memory of a preview last summer, in which Tom Hanks portrayed Disney as a Southern hayseed:



Apparently something was done to correct the accent: the movie shows two stories, one of the author doing everything to sabotage Disney's musical version of her books, the other of the author's childhood marked by an alcoholic father.  The story gives us a pop-psychology analysis of the Mary Poppins story, which analysis some people will dislike.

Emma Thompson, however, is always worth watching!  I thought the movie was fine: Colin Farrell and Paul Giamatti are also excellent in supporting roles.

[Bogey]

I was prepared to dislike this, given my memory of a preview last summer, in which Tom Hanks portrayed Disney as a Southern hayseed:



Apparently something was done to correct the accent: the movie shows two stories, one of the author doing everything to sabotage Disney's musical version of her books, the other of the author's childhood marked by an alcoholic father.  The story gives us a pop-psychology analysis of the Mary Poppins story, which analysis some people will dislike.

Emma Thompson, however, is always worth watching!  I thought the movie was fine: Colin Farrell and Paul Giamatti are also excellent in supporting roles.

Would you say that the previews were a bit misleading?

[TheGSMoeller]

Iron Man 3....I think I liked it more than most did, especially considering the negative remarks I've seen here on GMG. I will say it didn't feel much like an Iron Man film, and the Mandarin twist was a bit of garbage. But still a fun movie.

[Bogey]

Iron Man 3....I think I liked it more than most did, especially considering the negative remarks I've seen here on GMG. I will say it didn't feel much like an Iron Man film, and the Mandarin twist was a bit of garbage. But still a fun movie.

So you're saying: It was not really an Iron Man film....though it was Iron Man 3 and the villain was a bust?  And you enjoyed it? You crack me up, Greg. 

[TheGSMoeller]

So you're saying: It was not really an Iron Man film....though it was Iron Man 3 and the villain was a bust?  And you enjoyed it? You crack me up, Greg. 

It has all the ingredients for a bad film to enjoy, 

[Bogey]

It has all the ingredients for a bad film to enjoy, 

[Octave]

THE ORDER OF MYTHS (Margaret Brown, 2008)
A documentary about supposedly the oldest (?) Mardi Gras celebration in the United States....in Mobile, Alabama.  I was streaming it to help me fall asleep, but it ended up being really interesting.  I am trying remember a better portrait (including narrative fiction films) of persistent, overt, ritualized U.S.-Southern black/white apartheid.  All the more praise to the documentary for not lecturing; in fact it's almost poignantly full of hope.  Inspiringly and almost depressingly full of hope.

The filmmaker (who I later found out was the one who made the Townes Van Zandt doc BE HERE TO LOVE ME) does not selfishly clutter up the proceedings with a bunch of style (like the admittedly deft Errol Morris); nor does she 'apologize' for her hometown or unduly shoehorn the celebrants (even the moneyed white celebrants) into places where they can be ridiculed easily.  In fact, the closest thing that the film has to a 'goat' is a young woman, a former Mobile Mardi Gras queen, who apparently has gotten her education from elsewhere and makes a painful point of ridiculing the poor dumb hicks all around her, with their offensive lack of grammar and garbled ways of speaking and silly rituals.  Her brief scenes are both telling and merciless; it's clear that "education" is no escape.  (Her visiting French [?] boyfriend is even more contemptuous and caustic....and proceeds to come across as the most overtly racist person in the film.)  In this sense, Brown/NYU-educated Margaret Brown seems to be picking up the lessons of the last several decades of anthropology....I don't think I mind it, even if it is the "new hip", i.e. once subjects of documentary were punished for 'not knowing' the camera was there; now, perhaps, they are punished for knowing too well that it is there.

I don't know if non-Southerners would be as interested in this film....perhaps they would be much more interested?  I wonder if GMG's Wendell knows this celebration at all?  He might disagree with the film's portrayal.  I found it to be a refreshingly light and subtle piece of backyard ethnography.

[Octave]

SIGHTSEERS (Ben Wheatley, 2012)

I'm pretty sure I basically hate this guy's work, but Edgar Wright helped produce this, so I tried again.  I just wanted to mention that there is a murder scene suddenly interrupted by the most sarcastic possible use of Elgar's "Nimrod" with a 'dramatic' Wm. Blake reading in voiceover, and it is absolutely hilarious.  I had to rewind the thing twice, I couldn't stop laughing.  And it's so offensive, I love Blake and Elgar.  But there you go.  Just as punk as the obsessive 'faked' Boccherini in THE LADYKILLERS.  Thanks, Ben Wheatley! 

Still not sure it's all that funny, nor worth seeing the film for.  Maybe a good double feature with PUNCH DRUNK LOVE or THE FISHER KING?

Steve Oram and Alice Lowe starred as the psycho couple and co-wrote the film; they are both in Wright's HOT FUZZ and THE WORLD'S END.  (Oram was a motorcycle cop in TWE, a very small part.)

[Cato]

Would you say that the previews were a bit misleading?

I believe so: however, I was so taken aback by the bizarre Southern accent used by Hanks for Disney's voice that I did not focus on the preview's slant much!  I think they were trying to sell it as a comedy, which it really is not.  There are some humorous moments, as the Disney people try to deal with this cranky and eccentric author, but the movie is not really a comedy.

I am reminded of a preview for the dreadful Grudge Match which tried to sell it as a high-powered drama: later on television, another preview tried to sell it as a comedy!   

Does anyone really want to see a movie about a fight between two nearly 70-year old boxers?  Is there a market for geezer fisticuffs?

Anyway, Saving Mr. Banks is worthwhile.

[Bogey]

I believe so: however, I was so taken aback by the bizarre Southern accent used by Hanks for Disney's voice that I did not focus on the preview's slant much!  I think they were trying to sell it as a comedy, which it really is not.  There are some humorous moments, as the Disney people try to deal with this cranky and eccentric author, but the movie is not really a comedy.

I am reminded of a preview for the dreadful Grudge Match which tried to sell it as a high-powered drama: later on television, another preview tried to sell it as a comedy!   

Does anyone really want to see a movie about a fight between two nearly 70-year old boxers?  Is there a market for geezer fisticuffs?

Anyway, Saving Mr. Banks is worthwhile.

Thanks!

[Bogey]

From 1939, The Oklahoma Kid starring Jimmy Cagney and Bogey.  Definitely in the B mode, but hey, when two of my favorite stars hit the screen together I am in!



Dave (Sonic) you must have caught this on TCM.

[Karl Henning]

Last night, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, "Door to Death" & "Christmas Party."

[Cato]

Last night, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, "Door to Death" & "Christmas Party."

Hi Karl!  Are you watching the William Conrad version or the one with Timothy Hutton?

[Karl Henning]

Hoy, Cato!
Timothy Hutton & Maury Chaykin.

[AndyD.]

I only realized when watching The Jerk on Andy's suggestion (as 'twere) that "Bryant" (M. Emmet Walsh) is the sniper who found Navin's name at random in the phone book . . . .

"He HATES these oil cans!!!"

[Karl Henning]

"He HATES these oil cans!!!"

In a zig where the other guy zags way, one of the brightest moments of American cinematic comedy, Andy! 

[SonicMan46]

From 1939, The Oklahoma Kid starring Jimmy Cagney and Bogey.  Definitely in the B mode, but hey, when two of my favorite stars hit the screen together I am in!



Dave (Sonic) you must have caught this on TCM.

Yep - can't be w/o seeing those two as gunslingers!    

Believe that I burned it to DVD from the TCM a couple of years ago - Dave

[North Star]

Excellent acting, drama & visuals
LOS ABRAZOS ROTOS (Broken Embraces)
Written & Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar

Penélope Cruz    
Lluís Homar    
Blanca Portillo
José Luis Gómez    
Rubén Ochandiano
Tamar Novas

[Karl Henning]

Just now, had to: A Nero Wolfe Mystery, "Over My Dead Body."