Last Movie You Watched

[Artem]

I saw this movie some time ago. Some very funny parts and enjoyable overall.

[Drasko]

60s psychedelic silliness.

[SonicMan46]

Beautifully shot, but for a Gothic romance/horror it severely lacks in atmosphere and suspense. Quite boring for most of the time actually. Jessica Chastain has few brilliant moments but that's about it.

One of the best films I've seen. I saw it in IMAX .. breath-taking composition throughout the entire thing and very strong performances. Wonderful dark tale/romance. A masterpiece imo.

Well All, I just streamed the film above off Amazon and wasted $4 - I completely agree w/ Milos, the filming was beautiful but the murdering blood bath at the end seem senseless - NOW, this was on my 'to see' list (3* in our local paper & 69% on Rotten Tomatoes), so had to watch, but have NO interest in repeating the experience, sorry - this is likely to be one of those 'love or hate' future cult classics.  Dave

[listener]

LOVE AND HONOUR   Japan 2006    dir. Yoji Yamada
one in the "Blind Swordsman" trilogy
highly recommended.

[NikF]

La Dame dans l'auto avec des lunettes et un fusil/The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (2015) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_in_the_Car_with_Glasses_and_a_Gun

Iain, who is my assistant/best friend/arch nemesis gave us this DVD and an evil grin while telling me "You really should watch this".
A remake of a 1960s(?) film that starred Oliver Reed, although here it is set in the 1970s. It's a mystery of type that's just as well served by TV production values due to having a story that's simple and easy to tell in less than one hour. But in the form of a feature it isn't bad at all and there are a few fairly tasteful nods to the past in some of the cinematic conventions employed.

An aside: this is the closest I get to name dropping. The star of this film was born in Glasgow and also modelled there, and although I haven't worked with her I knew her for a while. Wow. Och aye the noo, jings, crivens, help ma boab, michty me etc.

[Karl Henning]

Mostly, I was musical this weekend (as chronicled over at the HQ). But I did watch Alien³ for the first time (over two evenings). **SPOILER ALERT** Perhaps it was owing to reduced expectations, but I enjoyed it all right (I do not need to own it).  I get the disappointment over Newt and Hicks being killed off, but given where the story is going, that makes a kind of sense;  and Newt's autopsy has a kind of awful, dehumanizing inevitability to it.  (Maybe I'm dense, but there having been an egg on the Sulaco, and Ripley surviving as long as she did, as a host, raises all manner of questions.  Sort of comes at you like, Is there anything these critturs cannot manage to do?)  The saddest thing about the enterprise for me is, not merely is Ripley defeated (and past any defense), but she was (in retrospect) doomed from the moment she elected to go back to the colony with Burke and the Marines.  She is terribly vulnerable throughout, only just saved from a gang-rape, e.g.  The population of the prison do not become characters you much care about, on the whole;  I don't know that I would have managed any connection with Morse, if I did not recognize the actor, and created that bond on my own impulse.  The hopeless strategy for trapping the creature feels like a chaotic, aimless, breathless set piece.  The final Is there anything these critturs cannot manage to do? moment is the emergence out of the molten lead; and the water-dousing which results in the explosion feels quizzical, rather than like the payoff.  I knew Ripley's end from commentaries, so it is impossible for me to judge what it might have meant to me emotionally if I had received it unspoilt;  but of course, one knew from the neuroscan that she was for it.  Bishop's "reappearance" was a very nice touch.  I think I am not merely parroting the commentaries, in agreeing that it is flawed;  but I think it much less of a disaster than it "ought to have been."  I may watch it again before returning the disc.

Also over the same two evenings, I re-watched "John Carpenter's The Thing," this time on Bluray which, more than any other comparison I have yet had occasion to view myself, is an amazing improvement upon even the DVD.  (In other curious ways, this Bluray is strangely primitive, always starting from the disc menu, never "remembering" my place.)  I suppose you could say I fetched the Bluray on spec, counting on it to look better than the DVD (not so much the SFX, which are arguably 'of their day').  Overall, the arc of the story is much like Alien; and even if Carpenter is no Ridley Scott, I find The Thing curiously agreeable to the eye (not so much the SFX, to be sure).  And the Morricone score is a huge plus.  It is not, by and large, "my genre," but this movie, somehow, I find very rewarding to watch, nevertheless.

Two other titles (which, if you had asked me a year ago if I would own on DVD – let alone Bluray – I should have laughed it off breezily) came in yesterday:  Planet of the Apes and Beneath the P. of the A.  Last night I watched about half of the two-hour documentary about "the franchise," hosted by Roddy McDowall.  Fair disclosure, I am not much of a fan of Heston, which of course is a change from when I was a teenager, and thrilled to his Moses in The Ten Commandments.  So some months ago, when I watched the first movie on DVD (not the first time I had seen the movie), I was prepared to dislike the principal actor;  but I quickly got over that.  Some of my takeaways from last night's viewing/research.  The "twist ending" (which really is worthy of The Twilight Zone) seems indeed to have originated in one of Serling's draught treatments (and if my ear caught it correctly, Serling prepared some 30 different draughts).  Zanuck at Fox was hesitant about the whole project until they had a test to see if the makeup could be made dramatically plausible, and not merely comic – and the test featured E.G. Robinson in orangutang guise.  Zanuck's squeeze (who later played Nova in the movies) was in that screen test, as well, as Zira.  Heston tried to shrug off the idea of a sequel ("That's like The Hardy Boys.")  But Fox was going to have to shoot a sequel, and Zanuck told Heston he could not make the movie without him;  and Heston replied that the first movie would not have been made without Zanuck, so that he (Heston) owed him.  Heston did insist that his character get killed off in the first scene (and he would donate his fee to a charitable cause);  as the script developed, Zanuck rang Heston and said, What if your character disappears after the first scene, comes back in only at the end, and then dies? – and Heston consented.  I hit pause on the documentary just as McDowall was setting us up with "The sequel which was just made, blew the planet up, so that there should be no more sequels . . . ."

[Karl Henning]

http://www.youtube.com/v/Px4YGrL5fJg

[aligreto]

Gwyneth Paltrow in Proof....





....in which she gives a very strong performance.

[SonicMan46]

For the last week or so, I've been viewing one of my Great Courses, i.e. The Medieval World w/ Dorsey Armstrong (36 half hour lectures) - tonight I was watching her talk on King John and the Magna Carta - well, as a follow-up, I decided to watch my BD of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) w/ Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, & Claude Rains (among many others) - excellent video restoration and good sound, the latter great w/ the Erich Korngold score.

The extras are many and excellent, including some extended documentaries - the discussion on Howard Hill, the greatest archer of his time and responsible for many of the great shots of arrows entering the torsos of the men shot - a great production at a bargain price!  Dave

P.S. Olivia was born in July 1916 and is still alive at nearly 100 years old; her sister, Joan Fontaine, died in 2013 at the age of 96 years old - two beautiful actresses in their youth.

 

[Karl Henning]

Mostly, I was musical this weekend (as chronicled over at the HQ). But I did watch Alien³ for the first time (over two evenings). **SPOILER ALERT** Perhaps it was owing to reduced expectations, but I enjoyed it all right (I do not need to own it).  I get the disappointment over Newt and Hicks being killed off, but given where the story is going, that makes a kind of sense;  and Newt's autopsy has a kind of awful, dehumanizing inevitability to it.  (Maybe I'm dense, but there having been an egg on the Sulaco, and Ripley surviving as long as she did, as a host, raises all manner of questions.  Sort of comes at you like, Is there anything these critturs cannot manage to do?)  The saddest thing about the enterprise for me is, not merely is Ripley defeated (and past any defense), but she was (in retrospect) doomed from the moment she elected to go back to the colony with Burke and the Marines.  She is terribly vulnerable throughout, only just saved from a gang-rape, e.g.  The population of the prison do not become characters you much care about, on the whole;  I don't know that I would have managed any connection with Morse, if I did not recognize the actor, and created that bond on my own impulse.  The hopeless strategy for trapping the creature feels like a chaotic, aimless, breathless set piece.  The final Is there anything these critturs cannot manage to do? moment is the emergence out of the molten lead; and the water-dousing which results in the explosion feels quizzical, rather than like the payoff.  I knew Ripley's end from commentaries, so it is impossible for me to judge what it might have meant to me emotionally if I had received it unspoilt;  but of course, one knew from the neuroscan that she was for it.  Bishop's "reappearance" was a very nice touch.  I think I am not merely parroting the commentaries, in agreeing that it is flawed;  but I think it much less of a disaster than it "ought to have been."  I may watch it again before returning the disc.

All the views of "the guest at table," while arguably not overdone, strike me as ultimately gratuitous, as a class.

One scene which, whether it's an actual flaw, or unnecessary padding, or what, might be excised entire with no injury to the movie, is Ripley going to the basement, Dr Doolittle-like, to chat with the alien.  Unless I missed something, she doesn't learn anything that is new. (It's an occasion for the soliloquy which Ebert artfully & archly repeats, not remembering a time when the franchise was not part of our cinematic life.) She comes back to say that the alien won't harm her, but she knew that—she wasn't going to that interview with any expectation of self-destruction. There is no suspense in the actual situation, the suspense is all in manipulation of the camera and the cutting. We get that the director can subvert the viewer's reason by the visceral engagement of the screen—reason, and even morality, such as the famous example of "implicating the audience" when our breath catches, seeing the car sink out of sight in Psycho. Offhand, I don't think Ripley's embassage to the alien is any "Hitchcock moment."

[André]

S. Ray: The World of Apu. Ray's usual team (Subrata Mitra at the camera and Ravi Shankar for the music) works magic here. Not a word or camera sequence is wasted. Soumitra Chatterjee works for Ray for the first time here and presents a shy, vulnerable, manly portrayal of the hero. The ending is one of the great cinematic catharsis.





Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring (1949) is another case of B&W magic, with the director casting a patient spell upon the attentive listener. Made up of ordinary life gestures and other non-events, the film works its way into the character's inner motivations with exemplary modesty.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

"What's this "eighty-five" thing?"

"A couple of us sneaked a look at his personnel file the day he arrived. It's his IQ."

Always liked that exchange in Alien 3. Helped by Pete Postlethwaite's flawless delivery. If it were not for Charles Dance's character, Postlethwaite's character would probably be my favorite in the film. By coincidence, Pete also played my favorite Jurassic park character in The Lost World.

[Karl Henning]

"What's this "eighty-five" thing?"

"A couple of us sneaked a look at his personnel file the day he arrived. It's his IQ."

Always liked that exchange in Alien 3. Helped by Pete Postlethwaite's flawless delivery. If it were not for Charles Dance's character, Postlethwaite's character would probably be my favorite in the film. By coincidence, Pete also played my favorite Jurassic park character in The Lost World.

I did not enjoy hearing that clean on first viewing, because had I read it beforehand.  As it was, I heard a number of characters call him that, and I kept thinking, "When does the explanation come in?" 

[SonicMan46]

After watching Flynn in Robin Hood, had to put on another one of his swashbuckling films:

The Sea Hawk (1940) w/ Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Flora Robson, Claude Rains, Alan Hale; director, Michael Curtiz; musical score, Erich Korngold - Flynn had improved as a 'fencer' - the sepia scenes while crossing the Panama Isthmus were meant to reflect the sweltering heat & humidity - and the beautiful Brenda Marshall, not a great actress (often better known as Mrs. William Holden) - an excellent documentary.  Dave

[Brian]

CRITERION COLLECTION FLASH SALE! 50% off everything in stock through noon tomorrow (Feb 24) if you order directly from Criterion.

I just bought the following Blu-Rays:



Have only seen The Graduate of these four, and that I saw just once five years ago.

[(poco) Sforzando]

CRITERION COLLECTION FLASH SALE! 50% off everything in stock through noon tomorrow (Feb 24) if you order directly from Criterion.

I just bought the following Blu-Rays:



Have only seen The Graduate of these four, and that I saw just once five years ago.

Oh, yum! Thank you for this info; I will have to buy out my wish list. The Graduate is of course the film that launched Dustin Hoffman's career, and Mike Nichols still considers it his best film. Olivier's Richard is pure high camp these days, but is one of the great Shakespeare films all the same. Highly recommend also the Apu Trilogy quoted a few posts above. And Babette's Feast is also the favorite film of Pope Francis, but don't hold that against it: it is one of the great food films, an exquisite parable about creativity and the artist, with a beautiful starring performance by Stephane Audran.

[SonicMan46]

CRITERION COLLECTION FLASH SALE! 50% off everything in stock through noon tomorrow (Feb 24) if you order directly from Criterion.

I just bought the following Blu-Rays:

Have only seen The Graduate of these four, and that I saw just once five years ago.

Hi Brian - just received the Criterion email about the 'sale' this morning - put in an order for the 4 films below (averaged $20 each!) - I have all either as commercial DVDs or burned DVD-Rs off the TCM channel - the BD ratings HERE are all excellent, as expected from this label - Dave

[(poco) Sforzando]

Hi Brian - just received the Criterion email about the 'sale' this morning - put in an order for the 4 films below (averaged $20 each!) - I have all either as commercial DVDs or burned DVD-Rs off the TCM channel - the BD ratings HERE are all excellent, as expected from this label - Dave

That Night of the Hunter is a great B+W transfer from Criterion, and I think a great film too with Robert Mitchum in a memorable role as the villain.

[SonicMan46]

That Night of the Hunter is a great B+W transfer from Criterion, and I think a great film too with Robert Mitchum in a memorable role as the villain.

Looking forward to its arrival - excellent movie w/ Mitchum & Lillian Gish superb - some great B&W cinematography as you state - Dave

 

 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Looking forward to its arrival - excellent movie w/ Mitchum & Lillian Gish superb - some great B&W cinematography as you state - Dave

I'm sure you'll enjoy it, with the creepiest kids ever. I just ordered: All That Jazz, Graduate, the Qatsi Trilogy, Red Shoes, On the Waterfront, The Emigrants/The New Land, and Inside Llewyn Davis. Who knows, maybe more tomorrow!