What was the last movie you saw?

[JunkMonkey]

Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure - Well that was a bloody chore. I spent the whole film wishing the heroes would get eaten and wondering how anyone could written so thin and uninteresting a script even one from a 'Story by George Lucas'. Though he had some chutzpah to claim a story credit for ripping three random pages out of The Brothers Grimm and saying "Film that!" I think the best thing I can say about this film is; I didn't pay for it. I found it (and the sequel) in our village free swap shop shed.

I watched the first five minutes of The Battle for Endor too and had the satisfaction of watching three of the heroes of the previous film get killed off, but realised it would probably all be downhill from there on in, and, though the prospect of watching Siân Phillips hamming it up in full Disney Wicked Witch mode was tempting, I gave up.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Soylent Green (1973): I just revisited this movie today. The last time I saw it, I was in my mid-teens. I forgot a lot of it, but there's that twist in the end that I'll always remember (one that the original author of the novel on which the movie's based didn't use). I noticed Celia Lovsky, not by name, but recognized her from the Twilight Zone episode "Queen of the Nile" and I saw her in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode or two. This is her last role, as it is for Edward G. Robinson. Heston isn't my favorite person as of late, but he did a pretty good job of playing the surly detective main character imho.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Soylent Green (1973): I just revisited this movie today. The last time I saw it, I was in my mid-teens. I forgot a lot of it, but there's that twist in the end that I'll always remember (one that the original author of the novel on which the movie's based didn't use). I noticed Celia Lovsky, not by name, but recognized her from the Twilight Zone episode "Queen of the Nile" and I saw her in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode or two. This is her last role, as it is for Edward G. Robinson. Heston isn't my favorite person as of late, but he did a pretty good job of playing the surly detective main character imho.

It's a great movie, and I'll say it again; Edward G Robinson was one if the most underrated actors in Hollywood. He was always remembered for his gangster-era films, but he was so much more than that.

This is perhaps one of his greatest roles, and is poignant when you realise that he was dying when he starred in it.

Another great movie of his (and one that has been almost entirely forgotten is 'The Old Man Who Cried Wolf' (available to watch on YouTube). It shows the full range of his acting skills, which only seemed to enhance as he reached old age.

He also seems to have been a genuinely nice guy, and helped support anti-Nazism and anti-discrimination in America.

 

[AE35Unit]

Stir of Echoes(1999)
Kevin Bacon as a guy who, after being hynoptised, starts seeing things.
Based on a book by Richard Matheson. There's a scene where one of the actresses is sat reading The Shrinking Man...

 

[KGeo777]

ACES HIGH - 1976 - Exploits of a British flying squadron led by Malcolm McDowell who is a shell-shocked pilot and national hero who is tired of the ol up and down. Christopher Plummer is his understanding colleague and Colin Firth is an eager new recruit. Flying sequences are impressive and bloody-they don't shy away from the dangers as well as the absurdities (while they kill each other, if an enemy pilot is captured they treat him to a party), and the Royal command (led by Trevor Howard, Richard Johnson, and Ray Milland) find excuses for why they can't issue parachutes.

 

[Toby Frost]

I enjoyed that film. It's based on a play called Journey's End: we studied it when I was at school.

 

[hitmouse]

ACES HIGH - 1976 - Exploits of a British flying squadron led by Malcolm McDowell who is a shell-shocked pilot and national hero who is tired of the ol up and down. Christopher Plummer is his understanding colleague and Colin Firth is an eager new recruit. Flying sequences are impressive and bloody-they don't shy away from the dangers as well as the absurdities (while they kill each other, if an enemy pilot is captured they treat him to a party), and the Royal command (led by Trevor Howard, Richard Johnson, and Ray Milland) find excuses for why they can't issue parachutes.

Peter Firth, not Colin Firth, who was still at school in 1976.

 

[KGeo777]

Peter Firth, not Colin Firth, who was still at school in 1976.

I had a feeling I got the names wrong but it was midnight...

 

[J Riff]

The Beast Must Die 1974
One of a raft of recent B flix, this one has a great 'Can u guess who is the Werewolf' moment, when the movie stops and you get 30 sec. to guess.
Our rich MC has assembled the cast, inc. P. Cushing, and informed them that: "One of you, in this room, is a Werewolf!" This supposedly gives us a reason to watch carefully. There's a bit of a twist, but mainly what we get is a dog, playing the Werewolf, a cool black dog which can really run fast ! and we see it dodging machine gun fire from a helicopter and elsewhere. I guessed right, based on the character sterotypes, but it's still a bit of fun.

 

[Jeffbert]

ACES HIGH - 1976 - Exploits of a British flying squadron led by Malcolm McDowell who is a shell-shocked pilot and national hero who is tired of the ol up and down. Christopher Plummer is his understanding colleague and Colin Firth is an eager new recruit. Flying sequences are impressive and bloody-they don't shy away from the dangers as well as the absurdities (while they kill each other, if an enemy pilot is captured they treat him to a party), and the Royal command (led by Trevor Howard, Richard Johnson, and Ray Milland) find excuses for why they can't issue parachutes.

I have seen several films in which captured fliers are treated very well, so long as they are officers. I believe one had Erich von Stroheim t, as one of the captors, must have been WWI films. I think it was La Grande Illusion.

 

[KGeo777]

I have seen several films in which captured fliers are treated very well, so long as they are officers. I believe one had Erich von Stroheim t, as one of the captors, must have been WWI films. I think it was La Grande Illusion.

I think in this case it is more about the contrast between how the infantry are treated--they are shown with injuries and misery while the pilots act like it is a game (until they get shot or burned to death in the air). Maybe it is a little unfair because by the 70s flying wasn't a big deal but was more dangerous in the 1910s. It's not like anyone was going up in a plane--you had to have a certain bravery or craziness to do it.
When I see Peter Firth I think of Lifeforce, after Steve Railsback warns him that he may not want to watch as he smacks around a prisoner who he knows to be masochist, and the former says, because he's a government agent, "I'm a natural voyeur."

 

[Matteo]

A few evenings back, the wife chose  Babylon from Netflix (essentially about the change from silent films to talkies). I had the feeling that it was trying too hard to be an epic. It certainly did not achieve that, nor did it decide what it wanted to be. Some good acting but ultimately disappointing.

And last night she picked  Unfrosted (about the rivalry between Kellogs and Post (who I'd never heard of) and how Pop Tarts were invented). It was dumb - though to be fair, it didn't try to be anything else. And actually quite funny in parts with one or two clever bits - though mostly just dumb.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I think in this case it is more about the contrast between how the infantry are treated--they are shown with injuries and misery while the pilots act like it is a game (until they get shot or burned to death in the air). Maybe it is a little unfair because by the 70s flying wasn't a big deal but was more dangerous in the 1910s. It's not like anyone was going up in a plane--you had to have a certain bravery or craziness to do it.
When I see Peter Firth I think of Lifeforce, after Steve Railsback warns him that he may not want to watch as he smacks around a prisoner who he knows to be masochist, and the former says, because he's a government agent, "I'm a natural voyeur."

It was also a contrast in the class system, which was gradually coming to an end with WWI.

Most (all?) pilots were officers, and mostly public school, middle class gentlemen (as opposed to the 'working-class' Tommies in the trenches).

 

[Randy M.]

The Beast Must Die 1974
One of a raft of recent B flix, this one has a great 'Can u guess who is the Werewolf' moment, when the movie stops and you get 30 sec. to guess.
Our rich MC has assembled the cast, inc. P. Cushing, and informed them that: "One of you, in this room, is a Werewolf!" This supposedly gives us a reason to watch carefully. There's a bit of a twist, but mainly what we get is a dog, playing the Werewolf, a cool black dog which can really run fast ! and we see it dodging machine gun fire from a helicopter and elsewhere. I guessed right, based on the character sterotypes, but it's still a bit of fun.

Look closely and you'll see the second Dumbledore in the cast, too.

It's based, mostly, on James Blish's "There Shall Be No Darkness."

 

[KGeo777]

It was also a contrast in the class system, which was gradually coming to an end with WWI.

Most (all?) pilots were officers, and mostly public school, middle class gentlemen (as opposed to the 'working-class' Tommies in the trenches).

Yeah they mentioned that actually since Firth was fraternizing with the mechanics (one of whom has an uncanny resemblance to Lee Van Cleef) and McDowell was telling him that he was disgracing the officers with his behavior.
I don't think Flashman would have been so upset.

 

[Jeffbert]

The North Star (1943) a film that contains pro-Soviet propaganda depicting peasants working together for the greater good, when the German aircraft begin attacking with bombs and machine guns. 2, count em, two Walters, Brennen & Huston, as villagers. Huston is Dr. Pavel Grigorich Kurin, while Brennan is simply called Karp, and leads the guerrilla force in opposing the German occupiers. Dr. von Harden (Erich von Stroheim) is a skilled surgeon working on wounded German soldiers, and taking blood, often fatal quantities from the village's children, to use in surgeries. He coldly justifies using children because they are weak, and easily manipulated, etc., while unwilling adult donors would be much more difficult to handle. Von Harden believes Dr. Kurin, is not capable of killing, because of the oath physicians take, but it turns out, he had misjudged him.

While propaganda, it also serves as a depiction of the dehumanizing of the Soviet people by the Third Reich.

My 2nd time seeing it.

8/10

 

[paranoid marvin]

Yeah they mentioned that actually since Firth was fraternizing with the mechanics (one of whom has an uncanny resemblance to Lee Van Cleef) and McDowell was telling him that he was disgracing the officers with his behavior.
I don't think Flashman would have been so upset.

There's a very good series from 1977 (available on YouTube) about a working class lad tring to make it as a pilot. In some respects it feels loke a serialised version of Aces High. Quite a while since I watched it, but I do remember it being very good.

WWI aviation is very interesting, as in many respects it was almost chivalric in nature, yhe 'knights' swapping their chargers for aeroplanes.


From the trenches the aerial duels must have seemed a world away from the mud and gas, but it was an almost certain death sentence, often with a grisly end. Which is why pilots would carry a pistol.


And it was almost criminal that they were initially sent up without parachutes.

 

[Jeffbert]

Wind Across the Everglades (1958) Walt Murdock (Christopher Plummer? if I ever even heard of this guy, his face is just not one that I can remember) goes to Florida, and ends up working for the Audubon Society, in opposing the mass slaughter of tropical birds so their feathers can adorn ladies' hats. Cottonmouth (Burl Ives) is the boss of the guys who fire shotguns into the masses of birds in flight.

Peter Falk has a supporting role, but I do not recall noticing him.

Interesting film, though I am not interested in such birds.

8/10

 

[Jeffbert]

The Big Knife (1955) Charlie Castle (Jack Palance? Palance as leading man?) is a movie actor, who has simply had enough of the studio system, and its domineering boss, Stanley Shriner Hoff (Rod Steiger). His marriage is on the rocks, and wife Marion (Ida Lupino) is separated from him. The film depicts his attempt to rekindle his relationship with his wife, Vs. the studio Boss' demand that he sign a five year contract, which is the one thing his wife demands he does not do.

Intense! Intense, even without hoodlums, bank robbers, or kidnappers.

8/10

 

[HareBrain]

There's a very good series from 1977 (available on YouTube) about a working class lad tring to make it as a pilot. In some respects it feels loke a serialised version of Aces High. Quite a while since I watched it, but I do remember it being very good.

You didn't give the name, but I'm assuming this is Wings (which I just about remember from when it aired).