What was the last movie you saw?

Or for Simpsons fans

ITCHY RUNS AFOUL OF AN IRISHMAN



I watched NIGHT OF THE EAGLE aka BURN WITCH BURN, based on the novel Conjure Wife--which I read, and it was a really good quick read.
The screenwriters Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson divided the book in half and one did the first half and the other wrote the second-and then another writer came in.
The movie adds a subplot-it wasn't an eagle in the novel, but I notice it is very similar to Night of the Demon -where the skeptical protagonist turns the tables on the magic user. They would make a good pairing --there's even an actor who appears in both.
 
Sometimes I have the weirdest synchronicity in movie selections.
I randomly picked two movies that somehow had thematic connections.

THE BABYSITTER 1969 is a weird convergence of Lolita, a bikersploitaion, and a Leave It to Beaver episode. A middle-aged deputy DA has an affair with Candy, a teenager, after she notices his marital problems with a frigid wife (that's because she got drunk and they ended up with a baby---they already have a lesbian daughter). Candy is a free spirit and makes a play for him and when he says: "I am old enough to be.." she completes his thoughts with: "to be anything you want to be!" The actor who plays the guy also wrote the script so he penned a few naked montages with her on screen. Yet there's something non-sleazy about their relationship because he reminds one of Ward Cleaver--Candy is rather innocently charming despite the soft porn nudity and her scheme to help him evade blackmail by threatening the blackmailer with torturous death and a marijuana frameup.

NIGHT SLASHER 1969 -- should be more of a sleazefest yet because it is a UK film the acting style makes it less amateur than the previous. It's set in London and they did guerrilla filming--shooting around non-actors in the city. But the story is once again about a legal professional who is having marital problems--except this time he is the one who is repressed--to the point of taking out his frustrations by sending defendants to prison for long duration. They set up two red herrings so we don't know who the slasher killer is until later in the story. None of the cast are people I know from anything beyond bit parts but it feels more realistic because they are not familiar.
 
The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) - stupendously unfunny Doris Day romantic comedy with slight SFish flavour; the male in the romantic pair (played by Rod Taylor) has invented a kind of electronic anti-gravity and the Russians want 'the formula'. The one vaguely funny joke in the whole sad 90+ minutes was, of all people, delivered by Dom De Luise .

"Two questions!"
(Looks at folded piece of paper in his hand)
"Who are you? and Who are you?"
(Turns over piece of paper)
"...working for?"

Dreadful music. Everything was Micky Moused to death including a brief snippet of the Man From Uncle theme to reassure the less attentive members of the audience that yes, that really is Robert Vaughn (in Napoleon Solo mode) propping up the bar for a few wordless, "is that...?" gag frames.

The only time Ms Day came alive was during a short scene (which looks like it may well not have been scripted but added during the shoot) in which she, and her on screen dad sit around and sing a couple of songs. They fluff lines and pick up and carry on. It has an improvisational feel totally at odds with the rest of the film. For a few minutes the people on screen look they are actually having fun.

Avoid.
 
SILVER STREAK (1976) George Caldwell (Gene Wilder) is taking the train from L.A. to Chicago, when he becomes involved in intrigue, etc. Drama mixed with comedy; my 1st time watching this. Thoroughly enjoyed it!

Caldwell finds himself tossed from the train several times, wanted for murder, & meets car thief Grover T. Muldoon (Richard Pryor) while escaping from a country sheriff, & the two become friends, etc.

Supporting cast includes Richard Kiel, who parodies his role of Jaws, complete with chrome teeth.
 
DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON (1931) Is that villain Fu Manchu (Warner Oland) really dead? Apparently not. So, he charges is daughter Princess Ling Moy (Anna May Wong) to avenge him by killing his enemy's last male descendant. The daughter is an exotic dancer but now she becomes the weapon of veangance, but having just recently learned papa's identity, she is already in love with the man she is to kill.
 
Skyline. What a pile of poo. Seriously not good. When people spoke they spoke in short sentences. The dialogue was all in very short sentences. With gaps in between. The thing the previous person said was often not responded to in any meaningful way. If at all. Then jumbling them up. As if the dialogue had been written by cutting lines from other films.

It was sh*t. There was a sequel. It will be sh*t too. I will watch the sequel.
 
Dave Vicks said:
Watched THE IRISHMAN.
Click to expand...


Great Netflix movie. It's pretty long, but it's that good that I don't mind it. Very similar in style to Goodfellas and Casino, and although the 'youngification' of the actors is pretty unconvincing, the overall movie itself is terrific.

Anyone who likes Goodfellas and hasn't seen this film really ought to.
 
paranoid marvin said:
Great Netflix movie. It's pretty long, but it's that good that I don't mind it. Very similar in style to Goodfellas and Casino, and although the 'youngification' of the actors is pretty unconvincing, the overall movie itself is terrific.

Anyone who likes Goodfellas and hasn't seen this film really ought to.
Click to expand...
I think he should have done a Godfather 2 and find younger actors to do the roles but that means renewing the acting pool and I don't think they are thinking about the future much these days.
Someone on Youtube did a DeepFakes makeover of the footage it looked better actually.
 
I just saw a 3 star movie called Deep Space.

one star too many in my opinion.
 
Lonely Wives (1931)

Pre-Code bedroom farce. Edward Everett Horton has a double role as a lawyer and a professional impersonator. Oddly, at exactly 8 pm each night the no-nonsense lawyer turns into a ladies' man, making a date with his new secretary. A woman who wants a divorce goes to see him, and he gets a date with her the same night. Meanwhile, he has the impersonator pretend to be him so he can get out of his house under the eye of his mother-in-law. The complications begin when the lawyer's wife returns from vacation unexpectedly. It's very much a stage play, with most of the scenes taking place on a single set. Shots of the two Hortons together are very well done for 1931. The plot is, of course, outrageously contrived, but it's quite amusing, with some witty dialogue.
 
Skyfire (2019) a good, chinese (with English soundtrack, at least on the DVD that I watched,) volcano movie Its good enough that I will, likely, add it to the movie/DVD library.
About the only criticism that I can give (other than the standard; characters make stupid decisions) is that the English voice acting (dub) is occasionally less than good.

This one is worth watching/streaming, especially if you can find it on a free site.

Enjoy!
 
The Sea Beast (2022). Lovely animation (including some convincing sailing ship behaviour), pretty good character work, chintzy but unobjectionable message. Starts out a lot stronger than it ends, partly because of some odd plot developments along the way. The enormous monster they're hunting turns out to look very much like Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, and with seemingly polyvinyl skin. Overall: fun, but immediately forgettable.


Withnail and I (1987). One of the finest films known to humanity.
 
Crossplot (1969)

Between playing the Saint on television and James Bond in the movies, Roger Moore offered us this lighthearted thriller, which seems a little bit like a farewell to the first character and a dress rehearsal for the latter. He's an advertising guy/ladies' man. The Bad Guys exchange a photograph of the woman who's going to appear in his next ad campaign with a photo of our proto-Bond Girl. Their motive is to have him track her down; she's a Hungarian who knows too much (although she doesn't know she knows too much, if you see what I mean) about the planned assassination of the President of a fictional African nation. Complications ensue. Lots of comedy verging on slapstick, chase scenes, etc. There's a clue left in a crossword puzzle. It looks like a made-for-TV film. A so-so way to pass the time.
 
Last Embrace (1979)

Hitchcockian thriller. Roy Scheider stars as a government agent whose wife is killed in a shootout. After three months in a sanitarium, he thinks he's ready to go back to work. The unnamed agency doesn't agree; understandably, because he's obviously on the edge of paranoia, has screaming nightmares, and fits where his hands tremble uncontrollably. Meanwhile, they've rented out his apartment to a woman who will become involved in what develops. That's the least of his worries, because the agency has decided to kill him. Besides that, somebody left him a threatening message in Aramaic, with the mysterious initials ZM. It turns out several other men got the same note over the last couple of years, and they are all dead. Hitchcockian elements include an old-fashioned, lush musical score and a climax at a famous landmark (Niagara Falls.) There's a huge plot twist a little more than an hour into the film, which turns it from a mystery into a suspense film. Very nicely filmed, with a powerful performance from Scheider.
 
Guns Girls and Gangsters (1959)

Great title for an efficient little B heist film. Crook fresh out of the pen has a plan to rob an armored car carrying a ton of dough out of Las Vegas by shooting out one of its tires, forcing it to stop at a roadside garage/diner/motel. To launder the money, he has to enlist the aid of a guy with connections to the black market. This guy also happens to employee a nightclub singer (Mamie Van Doren!) who also gets involved in the plot. Things start to go sour when Van Doren's husband (Lee Van Cleef!) busts out of prison. He's a total sociopath who makes the other crooks look like Boy Scouts. After killing a couple of guys (including the money launderer) out of insane jealousy over his wife, he joins the heist. He already knows she plans to divorce him and run off to Mexico with the guy who planned the robbery, so you know things aren't going to work out well. The heist stuff is done in semi-documentary style, with a helpful narrator explaining the plan. The two people with "Van" in their names steal the picture, Mamie as the tough, sultry dame with a heart of gold, Lee as a genuinely terrifying killer.
 
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