Last Movie You Watched

[Karl Henning]

Actually, no: I haven't watched this one yet.  But I've reserved a copy at the BPL.

http://www.youtube.com/v/tcJCzPB8FGQ

[Karl Henning]

http://www.youtube.com/v/wWD8gW9cbYQ

[SimonNZ]

Watched again last night, fourth or fifth viewing: Bringing Out The Dead.

Not my all-time favorite Scorsese, that would be After Hours, but a serious contender.

[SonicMan46]

Tonight, I've been watching some old films from the TCM channel recorded on my DVR - movies that I've seen before but has been a long while!

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) w/ Fredric March, Alexis Smith, Donald Crisp, and many others - a pretty traditional bio for the era, but March does quite well w/ a nice mixture of Twain's personal life, writings, and speeches - recommended if of interest.

Anna & the King of Siam (1946) w/ Rex Harrison, Irene Dunne, & Lee J. Cobb - now Harrison & Cobb playing natives of Siam might seem a little far-fetched, but seems to work fine w/ the make-up - Irene & Rex are excellent together - I don't much like the1956 musical although the R & H music is superb IMO - if you've not seen this film and want a different 'take' based more on the book, then highly recommended.  Dave

 

[listener]

from the Shaw Brothers (HK)  1983
USURPERS OF THE EMPEROR'S POWER    dir Hua Shan.
Liu Yung, Liu Hsueh-hua, Mok Siu-chung (Max Mok), Chao Kuo
Very fast story pacing, film cutting, warriors' reflexes keep the running time down to a breathlessn84 minutes.  Rape, beheading, impaling, impersonations and an occasional touch of humour put this high on the list of this genre.  The Archimedes principle and Burnham Wood are in the plot.

[Karl Henning]

^But the bit where the robot-guns do their thing is pretty amazing. I wish that was in the standard edition.

I'm going to retract this:

Presently: scenes deleted from Aliens. Interesting viewing, but they would have made the movie impossibly long. (Newt sees her dad smothered by a facehugger.)

Last night I saw most of the 1992 (?) edition of the movie, which restored the deleted scenes;  "most of" for my own time constraints, not because I found the experience too long    While I do surprise myself a little by finding the pacing of the "expanded" movie fine, I wonder if I do prefer the fact that in the theatrical release, the colony "starts out" as a ghost town, as it sets a certain tone for the arrival of, erm, Ripley and the Colonial Marines.

[Drasko]

There are more than occasional flashes of extraordinary visual beauty, as one would expect from Sorrentino, but the script is overly speechy and the dialogue is stiff in a manner showing Sorrentino the writer not being quite comfortable in English.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Actually, no: I haven't watched this one yet.  But I've reserved a copy at the BPL.

http://www.youtube.com/v/tcJCzPB8FGQ

Alien 3 is one of those guilty pleasures to me. I fully recognize it may not be a good movie but I am still unable to not enjoy much of it.

[SonicMan46]

Last night, I was in the mood for some African safari type films of old w/ a love twist - so watched the two below:

King Solomon's Mines (1950) w/ Stewart Granger & Deborah Kerr; "filming took place at the following locations in Africa: Murchison Falls in Uganda; Astrida, "the land of giant Watusis"; Volcano Country and Stanleyville in the Belgian Congo; Tanganyika; and Rumuruti and Machakos in Kenya (Wiki Source)."  These types of films w/ close contact to the animals are now by-gone history - Granger & Kerr (w/ her red hair!) are excellent together.

Mogambo (1953) w/ Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, & Grace Kelly; again much "filming was done on location in Okalataka, French Congo; Mount Kenya, Thika, Kenya — Mt Longonot and Lake Naivasha, both in the Kenyan Rift Valley and Fourteen Falls near Thika are seen as backdrops — Kagera River, Tanganyika; Isoila, Uganda (Wiki Source)."  Yet another excellent 'on location' film w/ plenty of African animals, plus a complicated love relationship w/ an aging Gable - if you like these African location films of yesteryear, then both highly recommended; of course, Bogart & Hepburn in The African Queen (1951) is yet another from that era - and all in great technicolor.  Dave

 

[Karl Henning]

Alien 3 is one of those guilty pleasures to me. I fully recognize it may not be a good movie but I am still unable to not enjoy much of it.

My brother got the "quadrilogy" (I guess nobody in marketing thought of the word tetralogy) because the price was right (or maybe it was the "quadrilogy"-plus-Prometheus...?) on Blu-ray, so he is going to lend me 3 and Rez.  When they land, I shall watch them for the first time.

I've really been surprised at how many times I've watched Aliens in the past two weeks.  I even know who Ferro and Spunkmeyer are! 

Thread Duty:

Last night I re-watched Braveheart . . . or we might say, watched for the first time, since I had never seen the opening 20 minutes.  I know it's bogus history in favor of sweet epic narration, but I do like it, and it doesn't feel like a three-hour movie.  I cannot help enjoying MacGoohan as "Longshanks" (gawd, was the Prince of Wales really such an utter cheese-straw?), especially when he invites his son's High Counselor to, erm, an early retirement.

[Karl Henning]

Bring on The Banana Splits!

Thread Duty:

Last night, the remake of Planet of the Apes.  I shouldn't have paid it any mind, except that a chap at the office (normally the sober sort) recommended it.  Well, I had to watch it, out of curiosity over the rec, if for no other reason.  I want to go back and watch "the original" (which itself was a scaling-back from Rod Serling's first adaptation of Pierre Boulle's La Planète des singes), but my initial impression is, that I enjoyed the re-make rather better.  It tickled me that Tim Burton teased out both a Deus ex machina and a twist ending, though I certainly saw the twist a-coming.

If I had to choose one reason for my possibly-heretical preference for the newer movie, it would be that (long ago though I saw it), my overwhelming impression is that what drove Heston's character for survival was hate.

Among my questions from recent viewing:

Helena Bonham Carter's visit to Thade in the camp is, arguably, plausible (though I do not find myself terribly convinced).  Why would Thade have a branding iron in the fire at the ready 24/7?  Even in an armed camp the eve before an assault?

The pod has a cruising range (and, power, generally) to take Mark Wahlberg from the apely planet, all the way to Earth?  Really?

I suppose it is possible that the apes could overcome their fear of fire, but not of bodies of water;  but again, it seems something of a scriptwriter's caprice.

I think I am re-gravitating a bit.  Not that I like the Burton remake any less (well, I haven't watched it again since), but my irrational enmity to the original is abating.  Checking out the DVD from the BPL helped, with Heston's first lines, which feel strongly like untampered-with Serling.  So I am planning to revisit Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

Dr. Zaius: I see you've brought the female of your species. I didn't realize that man could be monogamous.

George Taylor: On this planet, it's easy.

(Oh, those weren't Heston's first lines, of course.)

[NikF]

Het Meisje en de Dood/The Girl and Death. (2012) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_and_Death

It's that time again, when Toots watches this film with an increasingly serious face and eventually a trembling bottom lip, while I secretly pick at the calluses on my hands and consider the plot...

...where as told everywhere and many times before an earnest young man falls in love with a beautiful young woman, but despite wishing to return his affection she pushes him away, because she's spoken for in the form of being the property of an evil and powerful old dude. However the young man is blinded by love/inexperienced and so continues his pursuit, regardless. But as usual, these things always end in heartbreaking tragedy. Or do they?

Competently shot and edited with only minimal overuse of slash lights/Charlie bars. Features music by Chopin. Sergei Makovetsky was better in 'Duska' by the same director. I could bench press Sylvia Hoeks all day and not break sweat.












('Charlie bars' http://i.imgur.com/JwsRcKu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/QMq8iRv.jpg)

[SonicMan46]

Last night, one of my favorite westerns:

Red River (1948) w/ John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, and Walter Brennan - own the Criterion production and what a package, i.e. 2 DVDs & 2 BDs (and multiple booklets) - the Extras are worth the price of admission - blu-ray review HERE w/ the ratings shown below - Dave

 

[NikF]

Last night, one of my favorite westerns:

Red River (1948) w/ John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, and Walter Brennan - own the Criterion production and what a package, i.e. 2 DVDs & 2 BDs (and multiple booklets) - the Extras are worth the price of admission - blu-ray review HERE w/ the ratings shown below - Dave

 

Audio interview with Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich and an OTR radio dramatisation? Good stuff.

[bhodges]

Het Meisje en de Dood/The Girl and Death. (2012) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_and_Death
...

('Charlie bars' http://i.imgur.com/JwsRcKu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/QMq8iRv.jpg)

Thanks for the info on what sounds like an interesting little film, and equally, for educating me about "Charlie bars" - never heard that phrase!

--Bruce

[NikF]

Thanks for the info on what sounds like an interesting little film, and equally, for educating me about "Charlie bars" - never heard that phrase!

--Bruce

You're welcome, Bruce.
It's a nice little film, yes. But the other I mentioned is far more interesting - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duska_(film) - and probably more worthwhile.
Yeah, the term 'Charlie bars' isn't in common use so much now, I think. But I still call them that to differentiate between lighting the eyes that way as opposed to a background or something - and then they're 'flags'.

from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_on_the_Third_Floor

[Karl Henning]

Thanks for the info on what sounds like an interesting little film, and equally, for educating me about "Charlie bars" - never heard that phrase!

--Bruce

Parenthetically, I'm revisiting The Thing in a bluray edition this weekend.

[bhodges]

Parenthetically, I'm revisiting The Thing in a bluray edition this weekend.

Oooh, do report, please! (I assume you mean the remake.) Even considering some of Carpenter's other films (e.g., Halloween), I think The Thing remains one of his best.

--Bruce

[lisa needs braces]

Shakespeare in Love

I first saw this film upon its release back in 1998 as a preteen. I was undoubtedly too young for it and a lot of it went over my head. I saw the film again as a teenager and liked it a bit more.

Tonight, at age 30, I finally saw it a third time and utterly adored it and found the love story touching and Gweneth Paltrow's performance utterly captivating. I will be listing it among my favorite films from now on.

[Bogey]

Shakespeare in Love

I first saw this film upon its release back in 1998 as a preteen. I was undoubtedly too young for it and a lot of it went over my head. I saw the film again as a teenager and liked it a bit more.

Tonight, at age 30, I finally saw it a third time and utterly adored it and found the love story touching and Gweneth Paltrow's performance utterly captivating. I will be listing it among my favorite films from now on.

Yup!  Enjoyed it as well....and now can we have the pirates!