Last Movie You Watched

[SonicMan46]

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) w/ Lana Turner and John Garfield - film noir with some twists - wife thought the film 'dated' - I enjoyed being an old B&W movie fan -     Remade in 1981 with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange - not sure that I've seen the remake but apparently not as sexually 'sanitized' as the '46 version. As to comparative ratings - 1946 vs. 1981, 7.4 & 6.6, IMDB and 89% vs. 79% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Dave

The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1946 American film noir directed by Tay Garnett and starring Lana Turner, John Garfield, and Cecil Kellaway. It is based on the 1934 novel of the same name by James M. Cain. This adaptation of the novel also features Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames and Audrey Totter. The musical score was written by George Bassman and Erich Zeisl. This version was the third filming of the book, but the first under the novel's original title and the first in English. Previously, the novel had been filmed as Le Dernier Tournant (The Last Turning) in France in 1939 and as Ossessione (Obsession) in Italy in 1943. Postman 46 - 7.4 (6.6); RT - 89% vs. 79%(Source)

 

[T. D.]

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) w/ Lana Turner and John Garfield - film noir with some twists - wife thought the film 'dated' - I enjoyed being an old B&W movie fan -    Remade in 1981 with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange - not sure that I've seen the remake but apparently not as sexually 'sanitized' as the '46 version. As to comparative ratings - 1946 vs. 1981, 7.4 & 6.6, IMDB and 89% vs. 79% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Dave

 

Interesting, surprised the Turner/Garfield seemed "dated". The Cain novel (which I've read) is really famous/notorious as an extremely hard-boiled crime story and the original 1946 film is also regarded as a classic. But given the date, some of the hard-boiledness might have been treated subtly (if at all) in the film.
I'm generally not interested in remakes a la the 1981. I don't think I've seen the 1946 straight through, just some random excerpts on TV long ago.

[Karl Henning]

Interesting, surprised the Turner/Garfield seemed "dated". The Cain novel (which I've read) is really famous/notorious as an extremely hard-boiled crime story and the original 1946 film is also regarded as a classic. But given the date, some of the hard-boiledness might have been treated subtly (if at all) in the film.
I'm generally not interested in remakes a la the 1981. I don't think I've seen the 1946 straight through, just some random excerpts on TV long ago.

It's time I watched that 'un, too.

[T. D.]

Speaking of which, I also need to see Double Indemnity again! I have seen that classic before on B/W TV.
It was based on another infamously hard-boiled James M. Cain novel.

I often mentally conflate (to some degree) Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

[Cato]

Spoilers in this satire!

Ryan George has made a career mocking the awful movies being produced in Hollywood these days!


This is his latest!

[SonicMan46]

Interesting, surprised the Turner/Garfield seemed "dated". The Cain novel (which I've read) is really famous/notorious as an extremely hard-boiled crime story and the original 1946 film is also regarded as a classic. But given the date, some of the hard-boiledness might have been treated subtly (if at all) in the film.
I'm generally not interested in remakes a la the 1981. I don't think I've seen the 1946 straight through, just some random excerpts on TV long ago.

Well, wife is the 'dated' culprit, her general reaction to old B&W movies - I enjoyed the film    Dave

[Cato]

Spoilers in this satire!

Ryan George has made a career mocking the awful movies being produced in Hollywood these days!


This is his latest!

There is a joke about "5 Gum" which left us mystified, but which was considered one of the top jokes in the comments!

We are apparently too old to understand it! 


"5 Gum" is the favorite gum of teenagers and 20-something gamers!


https://www.5gum.com/respawn


And I swear that I am not inventing the following: it is from the "5 Gum" website!

WE'RE HERE FOR THE MOMENT OF CHOICE

5 Gum is about the exhilaration we feel when we choose to explore beyond the familiar. To step into the unknown. The sense that something is about to change. It's the combination of hesitation and anticipation that gets your heart beating a bit quicker. You know you're going to give it a go, and yet, you can't say yes without pausing just for a moment. We live in that moment, and beyond.

O.M.G.!!!  Guys!  It's just GUM!!!


It is difficult to know whether the company is slyly satirizing its own customers with such patent nonsense...or if they are serious in thinking that this pitch will attract customers!


Even Ryan George would have trouble satirizing that little paragraph!  😇

[SimonNZ]

Spoilers in this satire!

Ryan George has made a career mocking the awful movies being produced in Hollywood these days!


This is his latest!

This is another one where I keep expecting a callback to the Tenet pitch, when the producer got a nosebleed from trying to make sense of the plot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t23ZEKqGHzs

[Cato]

This is another one where I keep expecting a callback to the Tenet pitch, when the producer got a nosebleed from trying to make sense of the plot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t23ZEKqGHzs

YES!  The Pitch Meeting for Tenet was....






....   TIGHT!

[SimonNZ]

Last night: a rewatch of the film

Today: Pennebaker's commentary track, which was just okay. He seemed to be over-careful about not "telling tales out of school".

[SimonNZ]

Commentary track double feature.

The one for Blow Up done by Peter Brunette, who wrote a book on the films of Antonioni. The one for The Passenger done by the film's scriptwriter Mark Peploe.

[ultralinear]

Couldn't bear to read the papers today so watched this instead:


 

[Cato]

Couldn't bear to read the papers today so watched this instead:


 

We have no Buster Keaton's today!  Although in his earlier years,Johnny Depp might have been a candidate.

In recent days:



In 1959, I saw this on the BIG screen for the 70mm film with my mother: the theater was almost empty, maybe 5 to 10 people at the most.  Such a low turn-out was incomprehensible for a Disney movie: lines stretched around the block to see things like The Absent-Minded Professor.

I was thrilled by the colors, the humorous grandmotherly fairies, and, of course, the Tchaikovsky score.

The Peter Tchaikovsky Story came out around the same time:

Also:




Billy Bob Thornton does the Orson Welles trifecta (writes, directs, and stars) in a brutal tale of melancholy.


And also...




Great fun in one scene watching Diane Keaton cry so ridiculously it will make you laugh!




 

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Couldn't bear to read the papers today so watched this instead:


 

Sometimes it's best to put the newspaper down (or however you get your news) and go outside and just go for a walk.

PD

[relm1]

Yesterday, I watched Mississippi Burning (1988) with Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman.  A very good film based on the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers just trying to get black Mississippian's registered to vote.  It was a fictionalized version of what happened after the murders but the main take away I had is how incredibly cruel and unfair to live under such conditions where those local law enforcement who are supposed to protect you are either responsible for the violence or complicit.  Ultimately, they were brought to justice by other law enforcement but you get a sense of how hopeless it can be where you are victimized by those in power and powerless to respond when repeatedly treated so unjustly. 

[Todd]

Blackberry.  Who would have thought that a pulse-pounding, probing, deeply thoughtful yet eminently entertaining film about cellphones could be made?  I did not, and this is not that movie.  It is a modestly entertaining flick about the short-lived Crackberry, once a major status symbol for some corporate execs.  While watching, I remembered with a chuckle how one former boss bought every new iteration as one display of dominance.  Then Apple came along, streamlined existing smartphone tech, added typical hollow Apple marketing slop – and poof! – Blackberry done did die.  The tech parts of the film are flimsy, the financing parts flimsier yet, and the characters are shoddily drawn.  Glenn Howerton plays the aggressive second CEO as a harder charging, more intense Dennis.  (Really, for being Juilliard trained, his range thus far has been very limited.)  Jay Baruchel does not come off as a tech type.   Only the smaller characters shine.  A physically unrecognizable Michael Ironside (evidently due to health issues) plays a fine corporate heavy.  Saul Rubinek is the highlight of the cast as a Bell Atlantic exec.  That is a sentence I would never have dreamt up on my own.  This is basically a 70s/80s movie of the week with profanity, and a decent way to kill some time on a lazy evening.