What was the last movie you saw?
- Thread starter Tabitha
- Start date
I thought of that movie while watching it. I haven't seen it but remembered your description.
AE35Unit
]==[]===O °
The Old Ways
Mexico-based horror flick that's a bit of a yawn fest
Mexico-based horror flick that's a bit of a yawn fest
Just been to the cinema to see Downton Abbey: A New Era. Just noticed it's had some bad reviews but I loved it. Thought it was really funny and nicely finished. All the characters got happy endings (more or less). First time I've been to the cinema since before covid.
JunkMonkey
Lord High Vizier of Nowt
The Mummy - The 2017 damp squib kickstart to Universal's 'Dark Universe'. And it was AWFUL! I am so glad I didn't have a drink in my hand or a mouthful of popcorn when the underwater zombie chase happened.
Victoria Silverwolf
Vegetarian Werewolf
The Bamboo Prison (1954)
Korean War melodrama. One of the American captives in a Chinese prison camp gets special privileges by becoming a "progressive" (co-operating with the captors by broadcasting propaganda radio messages, etc.) He's really using his position to get information for the good guys. This leads to smooching with the beautiful Russian wife of an American journalist turned Soviet propagandist. (Oddly, he has a British accent, maybe to make him sound more sinister.) Lots of familiar actors in the crowd, particularly E. G. Marshall as a phony priest working for the Reds. There's a fair amount of prison camp comedy among the wisecracking GI's, in the tradition of Stalag 17. Not a bad film.
Korean War melodrama. One of the American captives in a Chinese prison camp gets special privileges by becoming a "progressive" (co-operating with the captors by broadcasting propaganda radio messages, etc.) He's really using his position to get information for the good guys. This leads to smooching with the beautiful Russian wife of an American journalist turned Soviet propagandist. (Oddly, he has a British accent, maybe to make him sound more sinister.) Lots of familiar actors in the crowd, particularly E. G. Marshall as a phony priest working for the Reds. There's a fair amount of prison camp comedy among the wisecracking GI's, in the tradition of Stalag 17. Not a bad film.
dask
dark and stormy knight
We watched this at the local art house cinema. Great way to spend Saturday afternoon.
Mr Turner
- very good indeed.
- very good indeed.
Le Panda du Mal
Well-Known Member
I can't bring myself to watch anything from Downton Abbey after Branson sold out
Victoria Silverwolf
Vegetarian Werewolf
Motorpsycho! (1965)
Surprisingly serious Russ Meyer film, with a minimum of the campiness of things like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, although you do get some of the familiar odd dialogue and, of course, many voluptuous women. Soon-to-be respected character actor Alex Rocco has his first role as a veterinarian whose wife is raped by a trio of cycle thugs. The same three kill a guy and try to kill his Cajun wife (Haji, from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, putting on a thick French accent) but she survives. Rocco and Haji join forces to track down the hoods, leading to a final confrontation in the desert. Sure, it's a cheap sex-and-violence exploitation film, but it's very nicely filmed, has a lot of intense scenes, and even some character development. (The leader of the cycle gang is a Vietnam veteran and goes completely insane at the end, suffering from the delusion that he's back in the war. Haji has a decent scene where she shares her poignant backstory with Rocco, although it's not as memorable as the scene in which Rocco is bitten by a rattlesnake and screams at her to suck the poison out.)
Surprisingly serious Russ Meyer film, with a minimum of the campiness of things like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, although you do get some of the familiar odd dialogue and, of course, many voluptuous women. Soon-to-be respected character actor Alex Rocco has his first role as a veterinarian whose wife is raped by a trio of cycle thugs. The same three kill a guy and try to kill his Cajun wife (Haji, from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, putting on a thick French accent) but she survives. Rocco and Haji join forces to track down the hoods, leading to a final confrontation in the desert. Sure, it's a cheap sex-and-violence exploitation film, but it's very nicely filmed, has a lot of intense scenes, and even some character development. (The leader of the cycle gang is a Vietnam veteran and goes completely insane at the end, suffering from the delusion that he's back in the war. Haji has a decent scene where she shares her poignant backstory with Rocco, although it's not as memorable as the scene in which Rocco is bitten by a rattlesnake and screams at her to suck the poison out.)
Last Knights (2015)
Clive Owen & Morgan Freeman in a old-fashioned tale of knights, honour, and rising up against corruption. Filmed in the Czech republic, it's a Euro / Korean production which lends it a refreshing look and feel that is slightly otherworldly - the cinematography is superb, as is the script, with an international cast. Story-wise, It's nothing new, but it's very well done, with a slow-burn mid-section that earns it's pay-off (at least in my opinion).
Criminally underrated and unfairly scorned by critics.
Clive Owen & Morgan Freeman in a old-fashioned tale of knights, honour, and rising up against corruption. Filmed in the Czech republic, it's a Euro / Korean production which lends it a refreshing look and feel that is slightly otherworldly - the cinematography is superb, as is the script, with an international cast. Story-wise, It's nothing new, but it's very well done, with a slow-burn mid-section that earns it's pay-off (at least in my opinion).
Criminally underrated and unfairly scorned by critics.
DEADFALL 1968 -- All I could remember about this from the first viewing was the heist-music concert scene made more interesting by the fact that John Barry has a role as the conductor. So that is the James Bond guy. The film is well-made but overly indulgent with a story that is just too niche market. Michael Caine is a jewel-thief who gets hired by a gay employer and his wife to rob mansions for them and then a love affair results and the guy has a Nazi past and a guilt trip about his gay lover and blah blah blah, lots of cuts to seagulls flying around. It's pretty to look at but the story is just not that appealing. Of course it ends on a downer for no real purpose. It isn't a shock ending but the question is--why? Why bother? Fox sure blew away the money in the late 60s.
Victoria Silverwolf
Vegetarian Werewolf
The Bellboy and the Playgirls (1962)
Eccentric nudie-cutie frankensteined together from a black-and-white German sex comedy (Mit Eva fing die Sünde an, "With Eve Sin Began," 1958) and new American footage directed by an unknown film student by the name of Francis Ford Coppola. The German stuff involves a pure-minded stage actress (krimi star and Bond girl Karin Dor) who refuses to do a mildly sexy scene in her new play. The director tells her that the good old days weren't as chaste as she thinks, which leads us into a series of historical fantasy sequences. Meanwhile, in the black-and-white part of the American stuff, the bellboy is supposedly spying on the stage play. This turns into color when he goes back to the hotel and becomes involved in slapstick antics with a room full of lingerie models, providing the PG-rated nudity required by the genre. It's all extremely silly stuff, with some amusing bits. Supposedly some scenes were originally shown in 3-D.
Eccentric nudie-cutie frankensteined together from a black-and-white German sex comedy (Mit Eva fing die Sünde an, "With Eve Sin Began," 1958) and new American footage directed by an unknown film student by the name of Francis Ford Coppola. The German stuff involves a pure-minded stage actress (krimi star and Bond girl Karin Dor) who refuses to do a mildly sexy scene in her new play. The director tells her that the good old days weren't as chaste as she thinks, which leads us into a series of historical fantasy sequences. Meanwhile, in the black-and-white part of the American stuff, the bellboy is supposedly spying on the stage play. This turns into color when he goes back to the hotel and becomes involved in slapstick antics with a room full of lingerie models, providing the PG-rated nudity required by the genre. It's all extremely silly stuff, with some amusing bits. Supposedly some scenes were originally shown in 3-D.
Double Bill: '60s-'70s Paranoia
How do you know a movie comes from the late 1960s, early 1970s? The big, male star and box office draw is likely to die. In case you haven't seen these, I won't tell you which one ends that way.
THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974) (dir. Alan Pakula; starring Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, William Daniels, Hume Cronyn)
A bit early for Watergate paranoia, this one springs from questioning the Warren Commission investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy, as well as distrust of the investigation into the assassination of Bobby Kennedy; I associate Beatty with RFK but I think he also rubbed elbows with JFK.
A senator running for president is assassinated. The assassin is caught, except we see the real one get away. Several witnesses of the assassination die mysteriously in the next few years, including a friend of Beatty's small time reporter, Frady. This prompts Frady to dig in. He's a bit of a rebel -- this was Beatty post-Bonnie and Clyde, the slick outsider dressed up and coiffed to the max schtick -- and his make it up as you go along style starts hitting pay dirt. Cronyn plays his indulgent editor, and does a nice job of balancing Beatty's rebel pose. Daniels and Prentiss are their usual reliable professional selves, bringing some depth to pawns in the conspiracy behind a private corporation, Parallax.
I do think Beatty gives Robert Redford a run for blandest big name, big box office star ever. Speaking of whom ...
THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975) (dir. Sydney Pollack; starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, John Houseman, Max Von Sydow)
Apparently they only had half the budget the novel this is based on, Six Days of the Condor by James Grady, had.
Excellent cast in a taut political thriller involving the CIA, a section of which is assassinated -- sense a theme? -- because of something one of its members, Turner (Redford) known in trade as Condor, tripped over. Turner's section reads books, manuals, whatever is printed here and abroad to determine if its coded, to pick up ideas, to check if it inadvertently or otherwise exposes operations of the Company. While Turner is away getting lunch for his team, the assassins arrive, wipe them out, and move on. From there it's a cat-and-mouse game as Turner tries to figure out why, evade the assassins and try to find someone he can trust. Enter Dunaway.
I recall a review at the time saying Redford and Dunaway had no chemistry together, and I'm not quite sure that was right. There's an awkwardness between them that seems appropriate for the situation.
Redford exudes a kind of straight-forward charm that makes this work. Even so, I still think he's bland.
Both of these are worth watching, and both seem somewhat like relics of an earlier time. Not that concern and even fear of government and corporate intrigue is no longer called for, just that the stakes and issues have altered somewhat.
How do you know a movie comes from the late 1960s, early 1970s? The big, male star and box office draw is likely to die. In case you haven't seen these, I won't tell you which one ends that way.
THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974) (dir. Alan Pakula; starring Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, William Daniels, Hume Cronyn)
A bit early for Watergate paranoia, this one springs from questioning the Warren Commission investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy, as well as distrust of the investigation into the assassination of Bobby Kennedy; I associate Beatty with RFK but I think he also rubbed elbows with JFK.
A senator running for president is assassinated. The assassin is caught, except we see the real one get away. Several witnesses of the assassination die mysteriously in the next few years, including a friend of Beatty's small time reporter, Frady. This prompts Frady to dig in. He's a bit of a rebel -- this was Beatty post-Bonnie and Clyde, the slick outsider dressed up and coiffed to the max schtick -- and his make it up as you go along style starts hitting pay dirt. Cronyn plays his indulgent editor, and does a nice job of balancing Beatty's rebel pose. Daniels and Prentiss are their usual reliable professional selves, bringing some depth to pawns in the conspiracy behind a private corporation, Parallax.
I do think Beatty gives Robert Redford a run for blandest big name, big box office star ever. Speaking of whom ...
THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975) (dir. Sydney Pollack; starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, John Houseman, Max Von Sydow)
Apparently they only had half the budget the novel this is based on, Six Days of the Condor by James Grady, had.
Excellent cast in a taut political thriller involving the CIA, a section of which is assassinated -- sense a theme? -- because of something one of its members, Turner (Redford) known in trade as Condor, tripped over. Turner's section reads books, manuals, whatever is printed here and abroad to determine if its coded, to pick up ideas, to check if it inadvertently or otherwise exposes operations of the Company. While Turner is away getting lunch for his team, the assassins arrive, wipe them out, and move on. From there it's a cat-and-mouse game as Turner tries to figure out why, evade the assassins and try to find someone he can trust. Enter Dunaway.
I recall a review at the time saying Redford and Dunaway had no chemistry together, and I'm not quite sure that was right. There's an awkwardness between them that seems appropriate for the situation.
Redford exudes a kind of straight-forward charm that makes this work. Even so, I still think he's bland.
Both of these are worth watching, and both seem somewhat like relics of an earlier time. Not that concern and even fear of government and corporate intrigue is no longer called for, just that the stakes and issues have altered somewhat.
Dave Vicks
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2020
- Messages
- 1,691
THE DEPARTED .
Horror Double-Bill: Family Time
THE QUIET PLACE PART 2 (2020) (dir. John Krasinski; starring Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmons)
I enjoyed this. Some horror fans don't like these two movies, but there's a nightmarish quality to the premise that works for me, though it's undercut somewhat by the rather logical, even methodical ways in which the characters respond to the situation. This could almost have been titled, The Quiet Place: The Daughter's Story as it mainly follows the daughter, Regan's, attempt to follow up her father's investigation into what might stop the creatures who are drawn by sound. This is especially difficult for her since she's deaf (as is the actress, who is terrific in this movie) and the answer is the creature's vulnerability to certain sounds. Well-developed, and anchored by solid performances from Blunt and Murphy.
THE HOUSE ON THE BAYOU (2020) (dir. Alex McAuley; starring Angela Sarafyan, Paul Schneider, Lia McHugh)
Husband cheats on wife and is caught. She seems controlling -- implication that she has the money in the marriage -- and he seems weaselly. To save the marriage she demands they go on a vacation to a mansion on a Louisiana bayou she knows about because of her job as a real estate agent. A young man and his grandpa meet them and even cook them dinner. But the young man and grandpa aren't exactly who they appear to be. For that matter, neither are the husband and wife.
Horror movies aren't often associated with subtlety -- there are subtle horror movies, but it's not that common -- and here's one that could have used some subtlety. The direction is adequate and the acting almost saves a script that makes everything too obvious. I've seen worse horror movies, but this one shows not every Blumhouse movie is a winner.
THE QUIET PLACE PART 2 (2020) (dir. John Krasinski; starring Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmons)
I enjoyed this. Some horror fans don't like these two movies, but there's a nightmarish quality to the premise that works for me, though it's undercut somewhat by the rather logical, even methodical ways in which the characters respond to the situation. This could almost have been titled, The Quiet Place: The Daughter's Story as it mainly follows the daughter, Regan's, attempt to follow up her father's investigation into what might stop the creatures who are drawn by sound. This is especially difficult for her since she's deaf (as is the actress, who is terrific in this movie) and the answer is the creature's vulnerability to certain sounds. Well-developed, and anchored by solid performances from Blunt and Murphy.
THE HOUSE ON THE BAYOU (2020) (dir. Alex McAuley; starring Angela Sarafyan, Paul Schneider, Lia McHugh)
Husband cheats on wife and is caught. She seems controlling -- implication that she has the money in the marriage -- and he seems weaselly. To save the marriage she demands they go on a vacation to a mansion on a Louisiana bayou she knows about because of her job as a real estate agent. A young man and his grandpa meet them and even cook them dinner. But the young man and grandpa aren't exactly who they appear to be. For that matter, neither are the husband and wife.
Horror movies aren't often associated with subtlety -- there are subtle horror movies, but it's not that common -- and here's one that could have used some subtlety. The direction is adequate and the acting almost saves a script that makes everything too obvious. I've seen worse horror movies, but this one shows not every Blumhouse movie is a winner.
JunkMonkey
Lord High Vizier of Nowt
Outpost 37 aka Alien Outpost aka Mankind's Last Stand - Men. Guns. Lots of explosions. More guns. Lots of swearing. Guns. "Go! Go! Go! Go!" Low budget (most of it went on Kaboom!) American vs Aliens 'found footagey' pseudo-documentary that had a paper thin plot but really floundered by relying on characters being 'interviewed' to tell us all the backstory stuff. The backstory stuff that would have been such common knowledge it wouldn't have needed explaining in the world the film was pretending to be a part of.
Victoria Silverwolf
Vegetarian Werewolf
A Bay of Blood AKA Carnage AKA Twitch of the Death Nerve AKA a bunch of other English language titles (Ecologia del delitto, "Ecology of Crime" or Reazione a catena, "Chain Reaction," 1971)
I finally got around to Mario Bava's infamous and highly influential shocker. The plot can best be described as people kill people, many of whom are then killed by other people. It all has something to do with inheriting a valuable piece of bayside property, but the details of the multiple schemes upon schemes don't become clear until near the end, requiring multiple flashbacks. The gruesome murders are way ahead of their time in the level of gore, and the film pretty much started the "body count" genre of blood-soaked slashers. There's an outrageously ironic twist ending, that convinces me the whole thing is an extremely dark joke. Beautifully filmed and with some interesting characters, it's worth a look for those with a reasonable level of tolerance for violence.
I finally got around to Mario Bava's infamous and highly influential shocker. The plot can best be described as people kill people, many of whom are then killed by other people. It all has something to do with inheriting a valuable piece of bayside property, but the details of the multiple schemes upon schemes don't become clear until near the end, requiring multiple flashbacks. The gruesome murders are way ahead of their time in the level of gore, and the film pretty much started the "body count" genre of blood-soaked slashers. There's an outrageously ironic twist ending, that convinces me the whole thing is an extremely dark joke. Beautifully filmed and with some interesting characters, it's worth a look for those with a reasonable level of tolerance for violence.
I have yet to see A Bay of Blood. There's always something that gets left behind.
I did finally watch BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE 1958 - been wanting to see this Vertigo cast reunion for a while. Kim Novak's hair looks great in this. A much better hairstyle than the ones she had in Vertigo. I was expecting more of a Bewitched-type plot but it was a good counterpoint for the previous film since she is the one obsessed with James Stewart. He does seem a little old for her--that wasn't an issue in Vertigo but I guess that was because it was a doomed relationship from the start.
As a comedy there's not much to it (the guy playing the writer was muted and underplaying while everyone else was on a more energetic tempo than him).
Novak gets the best line when he asks her if she is into unAmerican activities and she says "they are very American....early American."
It's quaint and the cat is cute..
I did finally watch BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE 1958 - been wanting to see this Vertigo cast reunion for a while. Kim Novak's hair looks great in this. A much better hairstyle than the ones she had in Vertigo. I was expecting more of a Bewitched-type plot but it was a good counterpoint for the previous film since she is the one obsessed with James Stewart. He does seem a little old for her--that wasn't an issue in Vertigo but I guess that was because it was a doomed relationship from the start.
As a comedy there's not much to it (the guy playing the writer was muted and underplaying while everyone else was on a more energetic tempo than him).
Novak gets the best line when he asks her if she is into unAmerican activities and she says "they are very American....early American."
It's quaint and the cat is cute..
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