What was the last movie you saw?

[Stephen Palmer]

What We Do In The Shadows.
- very funny.

 

[Randy M.]

The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe on the trail of a serial killer who has kidnapped Poe's fiance and, using Poe's stories as inspiration, is leaving a complex series of clues (and corpses) to her whereabouts. As stupendously crap as that sounds... the movie was even worse. (Though Luke Evans is a bit of all right, isn't he?)

Saw that when it first came out, largely at my family's instigation, and didn't have high hopes since Poe was maybe 5'4" or so and John Cusack, who plays Poe, is probably closer to 6'4". At that point, it seemed unlikely any of it would be plausible.


Body of Deceit (2017) dir. Alessandro Capone; starring Kristanna Loken, Sarai Givaty, Antonio Cupo

Neo-noir, erotic thriller in the tradition of The Postman Always Rings Twice and Body Heat, though not that accomplished. The plot is familiar so the movie keeps afloat through the acting and cinematography. Loken is good as Alice, a ghost writer for a famous, albeit drunk and ailing, writer. Unfortunately, she's also an amnesiac -- one of the great tropes of noir -- after a car crash while she was driving and which killed her passenger. Alice wavers between assertive and unsure, between latching onto her old self and falling apart with vague guilt, wracked by halucinations of the accident and no longer able to write, to tap into her intuitive imitation of the famous writer. Givaty is also good as Sara, the maid Alice doesn't remember, wavering between subservient and dominant as the two women develop a close relationship while Alice's husband is in L.A. attending to business; he's also Alice's agent and concerned the famous writer will croak before Alice can finish the next novel.

The movie doesn't stick the landing, needing something to jazz up the formulaic plot and not finding it as shortly before the end information is revealed confirming the viewer's suspicions, then the reveal to Alice so she catches up to the viewer, then a twist (not unexpected), then another twist (less expected, but not really surprising and I'm not really sure necessary). The movie switches between L.A. -- a mansion that makes you wonder just how much a ghost writer earns and where you can sign up -- and an unnamed beautiful Mediterranean town with gorgeous scenery and again, where can I sign up? I'll copy any damn writer you name if it means I can afford such a place.

 

[KGeo777]

Saw that when it first came out, largely at my family's instigation, and didn't have high hopes since Poe was maybe 5'4" or so and John Cusack, who plays Poe, is probably closer to 6'4". At that point, it seemed unlikely any of it would be plausible.

That's funny about height because I would never have guessed he was 6'2. I would have said 5'10.
Some people don't seem tall, while others who are shorter, can seem taller.

 

[GeorgeL]

I re watched “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” with my 19 years old cousin because he hadn’t see any movie of the franchise.

I enjoyed it a little less at
this re-watch because i am way older than the last time i saw it. I know the movie is targeted toward kids (although it has its dark elements).
But i have to confess that the last thirty minutes hooked me again after all those years, because of the raw sense of endangerment i felt the characters are going through at this point of the movie, until the end.
Harry Potter is one of my favourite franchises and some of the first books i red when i was a kid.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Saw that when it first came out, largely at my family's instigation, and didn't have high hopes since Poe was maybe 5'4" or so and John Cusack, who plays Poe, is probably closer to 6'4". At that point, it seemed unlikely any of it would be plausible.

That was the least of my problems with it. (After all, short American actors play tall all the time. Why not the other way round?) What really annoyed me about the physical portrayal was Cusack's beard. Poe in real life had a chunky moustache but no beard. Certainly not the raffish dark goatee that Cusack sported. I guess the production didn't pay him enough to shave it off. But there were all sorts of other howlingly WTF? awfulnesses in it. That pet racoon that appeared for one scene - presumably it was there because it would look good in the trailer?* Poe denying he had ever written about a sailor when his only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym is about a boy who stows away aboard a whaler and becomes.... a sailor. A script that lurches awkwardly between modern Americanisms and 'period' dialogue. But the worst. THE worst moment for me was when Poe rails against our methodical, procedural police inspector who is diligently searching for clues in ships' records after a sailor is murdered to provide one of the clues. That's all well and good. Plodding policework solves more crime than daring rooftop chases - but all that scene did was raise the question where was the plodding procedural policework after the second murder which emulated the famous descending blade from the Pit and the Pendulum? Not a SINGLE second of screen time was spent on asking, "Who actually owns or rents this vast empty four storey warehouse?", "Who constructed the bloody big, cast iron gear-wheeled device?" Some of those huge gear wheels must have weighed close on to half a ton. Someone must have cast them, transported them, assembled them. All good solid potential leads to follow up I would have thought. Not in this stupid movie. I think we are, at the end, supposed to imagine that the whole thing was whittled up on his weekends by a weedy printers clerk.

And I still can't work out how Emily could see the wall, desks and books the other side of the cellar from where she was buried in the floor when she poked the hole trough the 'coffin'.

And wasn't it convenient that there was a hammer lying around every time anyone needed to smash something open? Baltimore casually discarded hammer capitol of the world.

It wasn't even so bad it was funny. Just bad.

*Not that the racoon made it. I went and checked.

 

[Jeffbert]

PATTY HEARST (1988) A group of radical hippie terrorists kidnap PH, and give her the choice of joining them, or what she interprets as being killed. So, she joins the group, participates in robberies, which the group's leader claims is rightfully their, and therefore, they are not thieves, etc.

RAN DURING A BLOCK OF true crime on TCM

 

[KGeo777]

The Door With Seven Locks - 1962 krimi involving a hidden fortune and murder about an inheritance but it goes into mad scientist territory in the last act. Better than I expected since the dubbing for these Edgar Wallace films are sometimes terrible. This was decent.

Queen of Blood -- 1966 I need to check out the Soviet films that space footage was taken from because it looked pretty cool-the footage they pasted in. Impressive rocket ship fx. I had seen this before and remembered the ending and the weird alien woman who reminds me of Roy Batty.

 

[REBerg]

The Naked Gun (1988): Extremely silly and still very funny police comedy. Leslie Nielsen is great and some of the jokes are truly inspired.

Have you watched the two sequels -- The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult? The 6-episode TV series. POLICE SQUAD! IN COLOR, that preceded the trilogy was equally hilarious.
I couldn't get enough of the Zucker brothers back in the day, including The Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane! and Top Secret! All loaded with sight gags and puns.

 

[dask]

From Russia With Love. Needs no introduction. My favorite Bond movie.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Bring Me the Vampire (Échenme al vampiro, 1963)

Mexican horror comedy without thrills or laughs. I assume the editing and lousy dubbing of the English-language version have something to do with the lack of quality, but the constant mugging of the comic actors offers proof that the original wasn't a lot better. The nearly incomprehensible plot has something to do with seven folks who will inherit some rich guy's money if they stay in his scary mansion. Yes, it's yet another Old Dark House comedy. Random "funny" and "scary" stuff happens, including, very briefly, a fake vampire that justifies the title. The oddest scene may be the song performed by one of the seven, which remains in Spanish, and has something to do with sneezing.

 

[dask]

Fred Astaire joins the army to escape the complications of his boss’s philandering only to find said complications following him right into the guardhouse. Rita Hayworth keeps up step for step in unusually energetic dance routines and Fred getting caught impersonating an officer flat out hilarious.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Rita Hayworth keeps up step for step in unusually energetic dance routines

"Keeps up"????

She was a fecking brilliant dancer! To misquote Ginger Rogers "everything Fred Astaire did - but backwards! In heels."

 

[dask]

Not too unusual as Hayworth and Rogers were cousins.

 

[Jeffbert]

STAGECOACH (1939) An assortment of passengers is pursued by Apaches and learns to overcome their prejudices about each other.

The one woman was pregnant, but, was not visibly so. When the coach reaches a certain outpost, she delivers. I wondered about the fact that she was not obviously great with child, & if the Hayes Code forbade such a depiction.

John Wayne is an escaped prisoner, out for revenge on the guys who murdered his brothers or whoever. His horse had a flat tire, so, he had to hitch a ride on the already overcrowded stagecoach, and this adds tension as the lawman who was aboard as security, arrested him. But, all men would soon be needed to fight the attackers, including the Ringo Kid.

 

[JunkMonkey]

STAGECOACH (1939) An assortment of passengers is pursued by Apaches and learns to overcome their prejudices about each other.

The one woman was pregnant, but, was not visibly so. When the coach reaches a certain outpost, she delivers. I wondered about the fact that she was not obviously great with child, & if the Hayes Code forbade such a depiction.

By an odd, happy coincidence I just happened to have a copy of the 1930 Production Code readily to hand - so read it all the way through. Not the most exciting thing I have ever read in the bath but it is pretty short. The only mention of pregnancy and childbirth comes in Section 2: item 8
"Scenes of actual childbirth, in fact or in silhouette, are never to be presented."

And that's it. So no, baby bumps weren't explicitly banned under the code but probably fell under one of the various exhortations to "good taste and decency" that litter the thing.

I've never actually read it through before. It's fascinating stuff.


Section XII Repellent Subjects

The following subjects should be treated within the careful limits of good taste.

1. Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishments for crimes.
2. Third-degree methods.
3. Brutality and possible gruesomeness.


Took me ages to work out that "Third degree methods" almost certainly meant police officers beating the crap out of suspects to get a confession. but "possible gruesomeness"?

 

[KGeo777]

SALT IN THE WOUND 1969 -- pretty bad macaroni war movie that starts with a reading of Genesis over nature footage and then gets to the story about two condemned GIs (Klaus Kinski is one) who are spared from execution by the ineptitude of the commanding officer (George Hilton) which causes a German ambush that massacres the firing squad. He and the two prisoners end up in an Italian village being treated like saviors until more Germans arrive. War is hell, in case you didn't know.

 

[AE35Unit]

"Horse had a flat tyre" brilliant @Jeffbert

 

[Jeffbert]

By an odd, happy coincidence I just happened to have a copy of the 1930 Production Code readily to hand - so read it all the way through. Not the most exciting thing I have ever read in the bath but it is pretty short. The only mention of pregnancy and childbirth comes in Section 2: item 8
"Scenes of actual childbirth, in fact or in silhouette, are never to be presented."

And that's it. So no, baby bumps weren't explicitly banned under the code but probably fell under one of the various exhortations to "good taste and decency" that litter the thing.

I've never actually read it through before. It's fascinating stuff.


Section XII Repellent Subjects

The following subjects should be treated within the careful limits of good taste.

1. Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishments for crimes.
2. Third-degree methods.
3. Brutality and possible gruesomeness.


Took me ages to work out that "Third degree methods" almost certainly meant police officers beating the crap out of suspects to get a confession. but "possible gruesomeness"?

They did depict brutality in some old films. but mostly in shadows or off-screen, with just the sound.

"Horse had a flat tyre" brilliant @Jeffbert

It seemed more easy to relate to such a situation.


Another B&W western:


THE WESTERNER (1940) Cole Harden (Gary Cooper) is a cowboy - type, dragged into Judge Roy Bean (Walter Brennan)'s saloon/courtroom, on a charge of having stolen a horse. Bean is thoroughly corrupt, and after a very brief trial in which the jury, entirely composed of Bean's customers, retires to the other room, to play cards, and returns with a guilty verdict. Harden thinking quickly, notices photos of Lillie Langtry (Lilian Bond) on the wall, and says that he had met her, & even had a lock of her hair. Bean's eye enlarged, and he suspended sentence, pending Harden bringing the lock of hair.

Light humor, and very entertaining; though there was some very serious content, when Bean's associates burned down the homesteaders' homes.


Some names in the supporting cast, whose faces or voices I failed to recognize:

Wade Harper (Forrest Tucker; anyone remember F-Troop?) & Hod Johnson (Dana Andrews) .

 

[dask]

They did depict brutality in some old films. but mostly in shadows or off-screen, with just the sound.

Sometimes that's more than enough.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Sexmission (1984) - I finally found the answer to a question that occasionally occurs to me (usually half way through some masochistic watching of godawful 1970s British Sex comedy.) "Is there," I ask myself, "anything less erotic or funny than British sex comedies?" The answer is Yes, Polish sex comedies. Sexmission is a Polish, science fiction, political satire, sex comedy and it misses of every count. Apart from the Polish bit. I they got that right. They might have got some of the satire bit right too, thinking about it, but I suspect you would have to be a serious student of 1980's Polish history to even recognise any of the jokes as jokes - let alone find them funny.

Two men get themselves cryogenically frozen and wake up in a post-nuclear war, underground world, populated entirely by women. Many of whom take their clothes off.

Possibly the only film to end with a massive close up, freeze frame of a newborn baby's penis. Somewhere in Poland there is a 38 year old man whose greatest claim to fame is that his penis filled the screen of what turned out to be a very successful (in Poland) film while the end credits rolled. I wonder if he's on the Polish talkshow circuit?