What was the last movie you saw?

Parson said:
ad more rounded characters and more believable social dynamics than some of the previous Bond movies.
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Social dynamics? We don't need no steenkin' social dynamics.
Parson said:
the Bond stories where Bond is absolutely the coolest cat in the kitchen and you just knew he was going to turn the tables in the coolest way and end up alone with the Bond Girl at the end.
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Now that's a Bond movie.

I haven't seen one since the one he cried in and, seriously, Bond movies are supposed to be somewhat outrageous dreams, not profound and approved social commentary with feeelings. There shouldn't be anything wrong with at least a thing or two on the face of the earth like that.

(And, despite my mockery in this context, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with emotional and social movies, either, of course - just that the universe should be big enough for some of both.)
 
Meatballs (1979): I've seen this film over a dozen times. It's mostly funny and endearing, but hasn't aged too well. My favorite scene is where Bill Murray tells the urban legend about the man with a hook.
 
pogopossum said:
Howl's Moving Castle.
If I were to recommend a Miyazaki movie this probably would not be my no. 1 suggestion.
Still the brilliant imagination, the hugely creative imagery, the depiction of the major characters - all hugely interesting. Plot? Well it was there but not the major attraction.
Watch Miyazaki. His imagination is not that of western filmmakers.
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I really like this film. It is based on a stupendous novel of the same name by Diana Wynn Jones. The characters and plot worked well for me.
 
Valdez is Coming - 1970 America post-Spaghetti/Paella Western in which blue-eyed blond Burt Lancaster played a Mexican...

Um... Okay....

Once I'd got over that hurdle it turned out to be pretty good there was lots of riding around very familiar bit of Almeria and one of those great endings that film-makers are too scared to do any more. Basically the film ends before the climactic shoot out between the hero and the villain. It just stops with them facing each other the villain finally abandoned by his goons and facing up to his adversary alone. Long shot freeze frame. End titles. Loved it.
 
The Face Behind the Mask (1941)

Another modestly budgeted B picture with an excellent performance from Peter Lorre. He stars as a Hungarian immigrant newly arrived in the USA. The first few minutes are almost a gentle comedy, as the eternally optimistic Lorre deals with living in a strange land. Tragedy strikes when his face is horribly mutilated during a fire. Unable to get even the lowliest kind of job, he's about to commit suicide when a small-time criminal befriends him. Soon Lorre is pulling off thefts with great success.

Along the way he acquires a sophisticated mask resembling his old face. This is shown by the use of makeup and tape on Lorre's real face, and it really looks both creepy and sad. He also begins a romance with a blind woman, eventually marrying her and intending to go straight. You know it's not going to be that easy.

His fellow crooks, thinking he's working with the cops, plot to kill him, but wind up killing his wife. He gets his revenge while simultaneously ending his miserable life by stranding himself and the crooks in the middle of the desert in a plane that is out of fuel.

It's one of Lorre's rare sympathetic leading roles, and he does a fine job.
 
The Tunnel (1934)
A British remake of a French/German movie from 1932.
An engineer’s dream of building a trans-Atlantic tunnel becomes an overwhelming obsession. Seemingly insurmountable obstacles and a devastating effect on his home life means the tunnel is his white whale and he is an ultimately redeemable Ahab.

It has Richard Dix in the lead role with a cameo from Walter Huston as the US President. British performances are with upper lips excessively stiff and dialogue done in that rigid BBC accent of the time.
Screenplay by Curt Siodmak.
Nothing startling.
 
CONTRABAND 1980 --speaking of Bond, if they did have an Italian for the role, Fabio Testi would have been a good choice. If you have never watched an Italian crime movie, this is probably not the one to check first because it is so extreme. The violence is very nasty and there's a rape scene that is difficult to watch. Hollywood wouldn't go as extreme as these films do. But the stakes are so high in these films because they are so explicit--the villain is a real SOB so you are completely invested in the drama and the suspense of it and what the main character has to deal with.
 
Top Gun: Maverick
For everyone who loved the original movie (and I did), here's more of the same. This one has the advantage of having the first to use in flashbacks.
 
JunkMonkey said:
Or Laurence Olivier as Othello... or Micky Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi... I know. Makes watching some older stuff really hard. Especially when you're not expecting it and don't have a chance to brace yourself.
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have you see James Mason--forgot the name of the movie-Genghis Khan maybe..
That is really something else.
It's not meant to be comical like Mickey Rooney so it is really jarring

I have never seen anything like that-Robert Morley plays the Chinese emperor in the same movie and he is totally different.
 
Don't Breathe (2016): One of the few horror movies out there that actually scares me. It helps that natural evil is scarier to me than the idea of supernatural threats.
 
Four Flies On Grey Velvet (1971)
Hailed as Dario Argento’s ‘lost masterpiece’, it tells the tale of Roberto, a drummer in a band who is tormented by a mysterious stranger over Roberto’s causing an accidental death.

The cinematography is typically Argentoesque and good quality. The plot, however, just plods on into more and more ridiculous depths. I’m normally a fan of Argento (Susperia, to me is a work of art), but this movie would have been better of staying ‘lost’.
 
I saw that in a theater when it first came out. (That was a movie house that showed somewhat odder things than most.) It wasn't my first experience with a giallo (that would be Blood and Black Lace, seen when I was far too young for its violent content) but it was long before I knew the genre existed. I agree that it's not up to the level of Deep Red or The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. (somehow I've never managed to see The Cat O' Nine Tails, among his early giallo films.) Even at the time, I thought the plot gimmick of shining a laser through the murder victim's detached eyeball in order to view the last thing seen was silly.
 
FIREFOX 1982 - Premiered 40 years ago today.
Some consider it slow but I like its pace and how it switches gears to an aerial dogfight. Freddie Jones really owns this movie. One review compared his eccentric acting to Charles Laughton. I forget John Ratzenberger shows up in this.

"Gant, can you fly that plane, really fly it?"
"Yeah, I can fly it. I am the best there is."

He may suffer from PTSD but he doesn't have a modesty problem. Then again since Eastwood starred, directed, and produced, he had a lot to do.
 
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The mother of all misunderstandings leads a pair of league bowlers on a search for the kidnapped wife of a rich businessman and a missing briefcase containing a million dollars eventually winding down to a resolution in near classic mystery fashion. Jeff Bridges well cast as the Dude and John Goodman as the vet who can’t quite let ‘Nam go but John Turturro darn near steals the show as emotionally charged bowler.
 
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The Batman [2022]
or as it seems to be written
THE BATMAN
Mostly enjoyable and watchable, but overlong and really [visually] dark.
But I am about done with brooding and moody Batmen.
So I am beginning to appreciate the Michael Keaton and Adam West versions.
 
J-Sun said:
Social dynamics? We don't need no steenkin' social dynamics.

Now that's a Bond movie.

I haven't seen one since the one he cried in and, seriously, Bond movies are supposed to be somewhat outrageous dreams, not profound and approved social commentary with feeelings. There shouldn't be anything wrong with at least a thing or two on the face of the earth like that.

(And, despite my mockery in this context, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with emotional and social movies, either, of course - just that the universe should be big enough for some of both.)
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Have to agree here, attempts to make Bond more humanly nuanced or relatable seem besides the point to me. I was outraged when Skyfall ended, not at some villain's technicolor underwater/space/volcano lair, but in... a little chapel in rural Scotland? Really? "But we're exploring Bond's childhood, what makes him tick, what dri-" No one cares buddy. It's James Bond. It's Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, not Mr. Reflect Introspect.
 
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