What was the last movie you saw?

Christine Wheelwright said:
I finally watched the new Dune on a flight last week. What a disappointment! Incredibly tedious. And can someone tell me why every action/drama movie these days must have those ridiculous choreographed martial-arts-style fight scenes? They destroy any gravitas that may have built up in the mean time. Honestly, I have no idea what people see in this stuff.
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I watched the first 45 minutes of it last night. At every point I was thinking 'that wasn't done as well/didn't look as impressive as in the original movie'. A movie made 40 years ago has no right to look better than one made with today's technology. The one thing that did impress me were the ornithopters, which looked pretty spectacular. I obviously need to watch the rest of the movie, as I'm sure that the story must be more coherent (without first having to read the book) in this version; but the first third or so hasn't impressed me much.
 
CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES 1972 (yep, came out 50 years ago this month)
"Ape management is in the hands of the apes!"
This movie has a lot of hokey charm. You have mobs of gorilla-masked, skinny red pajama-wearing hordes going nuts--and the poor man's Orson Welles, Severn Darden as a creepy government enforcer. "There are no chimpanzees in Borneo."
Ricardo Montalban explaining what happened to cats and dogs with a straight face. It's impressive that they could keep serious with some of the stuff here.
Don Murray is over the top as the ape-paranoid governor in futuristic 1991, but Roddy McDowall has some part to play--he has a lot of great little moments and expressive acting--when you think about how constricted he is in the mask--yet he's able to use his eyes and his hand gestures to great effect. I was a bit surprised that the HD version I watched did not have the theatrical ending--this has the killing of the governor. I have mixed feelings about it. I recall the original ending shown was sloppy due to the added voice over, and considering how violent the movie is--there are some gory moments that either I had forgotten or they added them in for this version-what difference does it make to add one more to the casualty list. On the other hand, the governor was voicing his hatred for apes and Caesar wanted to kill him on the spot and then restrained himself.
It seems to me if he had spared the governor or at least we don't see his fate, that he was undermining the governor's sense of self-importance.

I miss the McDowall line "tonight we have seen the birth of the Planet of the Apes."
The use of the building with the office lights as a background is picturesque in HD.
 
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Received the newest Fantastic creatures movie from Netflix yesterday Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore ... tried watching it but after hearing Dumbledore express "Love" for the villain at/near the beginning of the flick; I got disgusted and completely lost interest.
Even excessive use of the fast forward button couldn't get me through it.

Enjoy!
 
Happy Joe said:
Received the newest Fantastic creatures movie from Netflix yesterday Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore ... tried watching it but after hearing Dumbledore express "Love" for the villain at/near the beginning of the flick; I got disgusted and completely lost interest.
Even excessive use of the fast forward button couldn't get me through it.

Enjoy!
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I liked the Harry Potter movies. Not loved, but I enjoyed watching them. I adored the first Fantastic Beasts movie - I thought it was very funny and very inventive; however the second movie I didn't enjoy at all - I simply couldn't get into it. I definitely want to see the third in the series, so I suppose I will have to go back and try the second one again. But this is one series where I wished they'd stopped at 1 movie.
 
Frida (2002) - sometimes you watch a film and realise this is the role the actor had been born to play. Salma Hayek was born to play Frida Kahlo. She is wonderful. A lot of films about artists are painful to sit through as they oversell the tortured genius theme - leaving the audience thinking, 'oh just shut your whining and get a job'. Frida doesn't. Frida's torture is physical; the art is her way of coping. For a film about a famous and iconic woman artist, probably the most famous, or at least instantly recognised, in the world it really scores badly on the Bechdel test - nearly every conversation between two women in this film is about Diego Riviera.

I watched it with my Number Two Daughter* and only noticed the next day that I didn't suffer any bouts of the squirm when the sex scenes played. (Straight or same sex.) Any parent who has watched a film with 'naughty bits' in sat next to their kids will know what I mean by 'the squirm'.

This time? Nada.

Possible reasons:
A lot of the film dealt with Frida's body and her relationship with it. 'This Judas of a body' she calls it late in the film. The sex she has is important in showing that relationship rather than any relationship with the people she beds.

The film was directed by a woman. The film was totally lacking in male gaze.



*Who apparently, likes the paintings of that other Mexican painter, Leonora Carrington better - amazing what you find out about people you know really well when you watch films together.
 
MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS (1945) This woman (Nina Foch) who has no living relatives takes a job as a live-in secretary, becomes an unwilling pawn in an insurance fraud scheme. Moreover, she is knocked-out with chloroform, dressed in a dead woman's clothes, and called by her name. Thoroughly confused, she insists on her own identity, but they attempt to persuade her that she had suffered memory loss. Of course the house is fenced-in, & the gatekeeper is instructed that she is never to leave.

She is to be a substitute for a woman murdered by her husband Ralph Hughes (George Macready), who now needs to kill his wife in such a way as to make it seem accidental so he can collect the insurance. He had killed his wife inn a fit of rage, then, realizing with her corpse in that condition, he not only would not collect life insurance, but would be charged with her murder. So, now he needed a 'new' wife whom he could pass as his wife, so he can kill her while making it appear to be an accident.
I forgot what Muller said in the before & after comments, as it was several weeks since I saw this. But, as usual, he provided more than any other TCM host.
 
paranoid marvin said:
I liked the Harry Potter movies. Not loved, but I enjoyed watching them. I adored the first Fantastic Beasts movie - I thought it was very funny and very inventive; however the second movie I didn't enjoy at all - I simply couldn't get into it. I definitely want to see the third in the series, so I suppose I will have to go back and try the second one again. But this is one series where I wished they'd stopped at 1 movie.
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I believe that J.K.R, has once again; "lost the magic"... at least for me.

Enjoy!

Edit re-watched Guns Akimbo to raise my spirits ... no magic but its a fair to good action/shoot-'em-up comedy.

Enjoy!
 
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Arabian Adventure (1979)- pale imitation of The Thief of Baghdad directed by Kevin Connor (Warlords of Atlantis etc.) Some interesting filters and the odd nice moment but for the most part pretty dull stuff. Emma Samms' tummy was nice.
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SILENT RAGE 1982 - Chuck Norris in a sci-fi movie. He faces a Frankenstein killer created by Steven Keats--it's nice when you watch a variety of shows in one sitting and get interesting connections--just before this I watched a 70s tv show with Keats as the guest star and then he shows up in this.
 
The Beast Must Die

An interesting set up. A wealthy businessman invites 6 guests to his home, knowing that one is a werewolf. Once exposed, he will hunt it down and kill it.

An interesting premise for a movie, and some cracking actors including Peter Cushing and a very young looking Michael Gambon. The movie uniquely has a 'werewolf break' during which time the viewer is asked to consider the evidence presented so far and make a decision as to which guest is 'the beast'. The only problem with that is that there is (apparently) no way to have worked it out, and if there was we are not told what the giveaway clues were.

What disappoints for me though is that it has probably the least scary werewolf ever put in film.

It's a long time since I saw this movie last (I had pretty much forgotten everything about it apart from the 'werewolf break'). I doubt I shall bother with it again.
 
OUT OF THE PAST (1947) Muller says that this is tied with DOUBLE INDEMNITY for the ultimate example of NOIR.

Anyway, this has Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) an ex-private investigator, who currently runs a gas station, forcibly hired by Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) to locate Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) whom he claimed had been his girlfriend and made off with $40k. Sterling is not the kind of guy for whom Bailey would willingly work, but he does have methods of persuasion, etc.

The less said, the better. Great film!
 
paranoid marvin said:
The Beast Must Die



What disappoints for me though is that it has probably the least scary werewolf ever put in film.
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I like to call it the wagging tongue of death.
If they put a scary mask on the dog--it could have been pretty cool.
It has some interesting action parts--the helicopter scene.
Calvin Lockhart was ok in it-(Robert Shaw almost did the hunter part) some of his lines have a creepy theatrical manner--especially "he's coming for YOU Pavel!"
He was in Predator 2.

"You don't see the eyes of the de-mon, until he comes a-calling."
 
JunkMonkey said:
Revenge of the Pink Panther - nowhere near as funny as it used to be but Number One Son enjoyed it.
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The Sellers movies have aged very badly. The first two still work as period pieces, but the following ones just seem poor now. Loved them as a kid.

Perversely, the dreadful Steve Martin remakes seem to have improved over time.
 
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