Last Movie You Watched

[Draško]

Excellent! Polanski in top form, after quite a while.

A play based two-hander directed so smoothly that never feels like just a filmed play, even though it is leaden with dialogue and entirely takes place on a theater stage.

Playwright/director after long day of auditions for his adaptation of the Sacher-Masoch's title novel bemoans lack of quality actors when this rather crass actress appears late, but turns out to be quite good, rehearsal becomes more and more intense and roles begin to shift ... 

Both actors are quite good. Seigner in shifting swiftly between two very different characters and Amalric, a Polanski stand-in, in slowly but inexorably becoming Trelkovsky.

[Karl Henning]

And excellent use of "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" in one powerful scene.

I'm sure it's true.  I don't know why its use in the trailer rubbed me the wrong way.

[Karl Henning]

Thread Duty:  Last night, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.  Not a black comedy, but a comedy of marriage errors (most of them, unforced), ending expertly with a heckuva self-made dilemma for a writer, and an affirming message from Beyond.

[Karl Henning]

Thread Duty:  Last night, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.  Not a black comedy, but a comedy of marriage errors (most of them, unforced), ending expertly with a heckuva self-made dilemma for a writer, and an affirming message from Beyond.

Roger Ebert's review is warm and insightful, and (as I've done, myself) I advise viewing the film before reading his review. (No spoilers, per se, just ... so.)

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[aligreto]

Dartmoor Killing....





Reasonably entertaining.

[Karl Henning]

Last night I watched Bananas, and it was a revelation.  I expected it to be a series of set-piece jokes, expected the story to have an overall shape, though not the emotional roots of the later work, expected it to be reliably entertaining throughout.  Beyond these, it exceeded good expectations.  Never had I seen so much physical comedy on Allen's part;  his facial acting on the subway car especially must have set Cary Grant himself to beaming with pleasure.  I was not expecting that scenes from this early effort would slot themselves among my favorite Woody Allen scenes, but they did.  To name but two instances:  the 'break-up' scene – how they managed to play this without 'corpsing,' I'll never know;  and Fielding saying good-bye to his parents in the OR.  I think that part of the reason I was not expecting to be nearly so impressed with Bananas, is (e.g.) Allen's participation in What's New, Pussycat? – but, I might have guessed from how well Allen's work toward the end of Casino Royale helped out that . . . curious endeavor.

An even wider-eye-opening element was Marvin Hamlisch's music.  One of my first girlfriends was a GREAT fan of A Chorus Line, so I hope I may be forgiven for saying that at an early point, I grew passionately bored with that music.  The score for Bananas is expertly wrought, and expertly witty – a work (I do not much hesitate to suggest) of genius.  Who knew?

And on Wikipedia, the nominee for the We are not amused Award is . . .

The verdict in Mellish's legal case is portrayed as the headline story of a Roger Grimsby newscast. Included in the scene is a parody television advertisement for New Testament cigarettes with a Catholic priest (Dan Frazer) promoting the fictitious brand while performing the sacrament of the Eucharist. The movie received a C (condemned) classification from the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures because of the spoof.

[Karl Henning]

I mean, that there even is (was?) a National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures . . . .

[Madiel]

I mean, that there even is (was?) a National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures . . . .

There are people who like being told what to watch. There are other Christian groups who will rate movies, music etc for its moral values. It's interesting to see the extent to which they wrestle with artistic ones - some more successfully than others.

[James]

Night Moves
1975 ‧ Mystery/Crime film ‧ 1h 40m

Hard-nosed private investigator Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman), to distract himself from a rapidly deteriorating marriage, takes a case from an aging B-movie queen (Janet Ward) to locate her runaway daughter, Delly (Melanie Griffith). His search takes him to the Florida Keys, where the girl has been hiding out with her stepfather, Tom (John Crawford), and Tom's lover, Paula (Jennifer Warren). Harry initiates an affair with Paula and soon learns the case is more complex than he first assessed it.

[asin]B074525PF2[/asin]

[Ken B]

Night Moves
1975 ‧ Mystery/Crime film ‧ 1h 40m

Hard-nosed private investigator Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman), to distract himself from a rapidly deteriorating marriage, takes a case from an aging B-movie queen (Janet Ward) to locate her runaway daughter, Delly (Melanie Griffith). His search takes him to the Florida Keys, where the girl has been hiding out with her stepfather, Tom (John Crawford), and Tom's lover, Paula (Jennifer Warren). Harry initiates an affair with Paula and soon learns the case is more complex than he first assessed it.

[asin]B074525PF2[/asin]

A winner.

[George]

working on mysteries without any clues

[aligreto]

Gritty enough to keep one's interest.

[Draško]

Quite decent, perfectly watchable. Not great though, most of characterizations are done by cliche shorthand, some of its ideas are force-fed via some clunky dialogue, and I'm not sure at this point if I buy the ending. But it's wonderfully atmospheric, beautiful visually, and quite suspenseful, the narrative easily held my attention even though it's pretty slow moving. Some reviews described it as 'brainy' but it seemed pretty straightforward to me.

[Artem]

Have you read the book that movie is based on?

[Madiel]

Forgot to mention French film Number One. (There's a French film festival going on here right now)



About a woman trying to go for a job as CEO at a top company (backed by a woman's organisation), and encountering both casual and brutally direct misogyny. Well written with a lot of texture to the characters and situations, though it did perhaps pull its punches just a little - things never did quite as nasty as it was suggested they might. And ultimately the resolution still depended on the whims of a man. I'm not sure whether this was deliberately ironic.

[Draško]

Have you read the book that movie is based on?

No, I haven't.

[anothername]

Just finished watching.  First rate in all aspects. 

[Mahlerian]

Caught a screening of Vertigo yesterday for its 60th anniversary.

[Karl Henning]

Caught a screening of Vertigo yesterday for its 60th anniversary.

Nice!

[Mahlerian]

Nice!

It looked and sounded great on the big screen too, complete with that wonderful Bernard Herrmann score.