Last Movie You Watched

[Karl Henning]

I will say "never" to Never Say Never Again.

Rowan Atkinson.

Just saying.

[Karl Henning]

Connery is beginning to age out of the part, and today's Diamonds are Forever will conclude the Connery Bond-a-thon. 

"Alimentary, Doctor Leiter."

[Karl Henning]

"One of us smells like a tart's handkerchief. ...I'm afraid it's me.  Sorry, old boy."

[drogulus]

It doesn't get any better than this!

     .....says the suicide note.

     From Amazon non-Prime, I rented

     

     I'm a sucker for inaccurate historical movies and advanced lesbionics.

     

[aligreto]

Last night, Il Postino....

[aligreto]

Good one.  I should put it on the list to watch soon.

Yes indeed; it was wonderful to revisit it after a long time since my last viewing.

[James]

The Exterminating Angel
1962 ‧ Drama film/Fantasy ‧ 1h 35m

A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner and find themselves inexplicably unable to leave, in Luis Buñuel's daring masterpiece The Exterminating Angel (El ángel exterminador). Made just one year after the director's inter­na­tional sensation Viridiana, this film, full of eerie comic absurdity, continues Buñuel's wicked takedown of the rituals and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes.

[asin]B01LZT5R4X[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Last night I watched Terminator 3:  Rise of the Machines, and it was possibly the first time I had watched absolutely the whole thing, though I had seen substantially the whole thing some while before.

If you have not seen it, do not read on, as I cannot guarantee to avoid spoilers.

Some (probably not all, though some "in high cinematic places") like the second movie but not the third;  and Cameron (who directed the first two movies, and who together with his then wife created the character) seems to have said that one of the later flicks is "the true third movie," which is a backhanded dismissal of Rise of the Appliances.  Fresh from watching T2: Judgment Day, I wanted to watch T3 myself, and see what I felt.  And remembering that overall I enjoyed the movie, but felt a bit disappointed with the ending the first time.

First, I'll say that I have come around on the ending.  Did Alien³ help change my mind?  (My brother lent me his boxed Alien Anthology last year-ish.)  I could certainly see the third and fourth movies as a decline from Ridley Scott and Cameron (and I could not even stick out a second view of Alien Resurrection).  I do not contest the complaint that the prisoner population leaves the audience nearly no one to identify with positively (a weakness compared to either of the first two movies);  and while I see the "killing off" of Newt and Hicks as a kind of violence against fans' sympathies, it is consistent with what (I think) is ultimately the premise of the overall story:  that once Weyland-Yutani have gone back to colonize that moon, and the aliens are "engaged" (because W-Y are determined to use them for biological weapons research) there is no real victory over them/it.

Forgive that long parenthesis, the point of which is, scrap my initial dislike of the ending of T3 (I didn't think much of Tusk the first time I listened to it, either), I find the twist ending artistically satisfying and necessary.

Director Mastow has fun with (what were probably obligatory) the dual entrance of the T-X and the "guardian";  the sunglasses gag I found delightful.  The opening sequence of John living off the grid is good, and the ending is set up both by John's "I ought to feel safe but I don't" (which the first-time viewer is apt to take as foreshadowing the imminent entrance of the T-X), and by Kate's cell phone chat with her dad.

I enjoy the fact that, once the carousel ride has begun, John knows (as well as he may) what's going on, and Kate is the character learning it all for the first time, live and on stage.  I think both Cameron in T2 (perhaps, perhaps not so much in the first movie) and Mastow in T3 create fuller-than-average female protagonists in an action movie—and this, in spite of Kate's spending much of the first half as a kidnap victim.

The robots in T3 (and they did build robots) are spectacularly impressive.

It is just possible that I like T3 as much as I do T2.  Come on:  they're both just good fun, in a machine-apocalyptic sort of way.

[Todd]

It is just possible that I like T3 as much as I do T2.

Gasp!

[Karl Henning]

When I was done with T3, I watched this (and the subsequent Part II).  It feels so good to hear someone else excoriate Lucas for all the rubbish of the "prequel trilogy"!

https://www.youtube.com/v/m0TGcvtzjUs

[Karl Henning]

Gasp!

I ought to have warned you; sorry!

[Todd]

Rewatched Starship Troopers for the first time in a while.  No one does sci-fi satire quite like Paul Verhoeven.  The blurred out brain bug interrogation scene recalls the little bit in Total Recall where the newsreader states that the revolt was put down with minimal force while the footage shows an officer unloading a clip into a person.  I should probably revisit Robocop.

[James]

Rewatched Starship Troopers for the first time in a while.  No one does sci-fi satire quite like Paul Verhoeven.  The blurred out brain bug interrogation scene recalls the little bit in Total Recall where the newsreader states that the revolt was put down with minimal force while the footage shows an officer unloading a clip into a person.  I should probably revisit Robocop.

Love this one. Hilarious. Verhoeven's new movie Elle is supposed to be really good.

[Karl Henning]

Rewatched Starship Troopers for the first time in a while.  No one does sci-fi satire quite like Paul Verhoeven.  The blurred out brain bug interrogation scene recalls the little bit in Total Recall where the newsreader states that the revolt was put down with minimal force while the footage shows an officer unloading a clip into a person.  I should probably revisit Robocop.

Now that I have also watched Total Recall . . . it is time I watched Starship Troopers.

[James]

In a Lonely Place
1950 ‧ Mystery/Crime film ‧ 1h 34m

When a gifted but washed-up screenwriter with a hair-trigger temper—Humphrey Bogart, in a revelatory, vulnerable performance—becomes the prime suspect in a brutal Tinseltown murder, the only person who can supply an alibi for him is a seductive neighbor (Gloria Grahame) with her own troubled past. The emotionally charged In a Lonely Place, freely adapted from a Dorothy B. Hughes thriller, is a brilliant, turbulent mix of suspenseful noir and devastating melodrama, fueled by powerhouse performances. An uncompromising tale of two people desperate to love yet struggling with their demons and each other, this is one of the greatest films of the 1950s, and a benchmark in the career of the classic Hollywood auteur Nicholas Ray.

[asin]B01BUX7Z0I[/asin]

[drogulus]

     
     A few years back I was reprimanded by a prominent ignoramus here for calling Starship Troopers a masterpiece, which it soon will be if it isn't by now, on account of it was when I said so.

[listener]

Gritty modern day action from the Shaw Brothers, set in the Kowloon underworld
BROTHERS FROM THE WALLED CITY  (1982)
informative review deserves a link: http://www.sogoodreviews.com/reviews/brothersfromthewalledcity.htm

[James]

Black Christmas
1974 ‧ Thriller ‧ 1h 38m

As winter break begins, a group of sorority sisters, including Jess (Olivia Hussey) and the often inebriated Barb (Margot Kidder), begin to receive anonymous, lascivious phone calls. Initially, Barb eggs the caller on, but stops when he responds threateningly. Soon, Barb's friend Claire (Lynne Griffin) goes missing from the sorority house, and a local adolescent girl is murdered, leading the girls to suspect a serial killer is on the loose. But no one realizes just how near the culprit is.


[asin]B01LRCDYXE[/asin]

[SonicMan46]

While You Were Sleeping (1995) w/ Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman, Peter Gallagher, Peter Boyle, Jack Warden, & Glynis Johns - I own a bunch of holiday seasonal films, including the usual suspects, but am taking a break this year - 

But last night, Susan & I wanted to watch a 'holiday' movie, so we pick the one shown which I've enjoyed for years - Dave

[Todd]

That time of year again, so I rewatched A Christmas Story, all Darbee'd up for visuals and pumped through a new DAC for audio.  Not really a movie that needs those things, but the clarity of Schwartz's mother's voice over the phone as she freaks out, and the enhanced quasi-intelligibility of the old man's tirades made it worth it.