What was the last movie you saw?

[Alex The G and T]

Har! I couldn't find it either and I could not figure where I had misspelled it; until I skimmed a hard-copy Webster's unabridged, ex- by ex- by ex.

Try "Excrescense."

(A favorite term PG Wodehouse likes to use describe annoying persons. )

 

[JunkMonkey]

Flash Gordon is certainly campy but OMG do I love that movie. Timothy Dalton as a Peter Pan lookalike? Soundtrack by Queen? Plus the costumes and sets are to die for. You have to love it when people try that hard on something that cheesy. I kept waiting for everyone to break into song and dance. They should make it into a stage musical.

Noooo! I love Flash Gordon turning it into a musical would just....


...just ...


...actually that is a bloody good idea!

 

[J Riff]

That's inexcrescable.
Anyway - Marauders 2016. Bank-heisters turn out to be ex-soldiers, Bruce Willis is a bad zillionaire. They shoot and stab each other graphically to death whilst FBI closes in. There's blackmail, guns, bad one-liners, knives, the usual mix, but at the end... I can't quite remember but the badguy Senator is... or wait, was it the corporation that... and of course the corrupt cop... and his brother..who was part of the rogue military group, which.. or did they... anyway: Feh.

 

[J Riff]

BTW the Marauders flik has a Lovecraft reference - Willis has a first ed. copy of At the Mountains of Madness, mixed in with what looks like common thrift sale hardcovers... and the FBI guys picks it up carefully and makes a remark about how his wife liked it - then names The Lurking Fear... which Willis has a safety deposit box in the name of one of the characters in the story... and that's it. No reason to watch it, nothing to see here, move along. )

 

[JunkMonkey]

1. Bride of Frankenstein - at the request of Daughter Number One (Aged 14) who had never seen it, but was aware of it via The Rocky Horror Picture Show and has had a picture of Elsa Lanchester up on her bedroom wall for a few months. Halfway through, she turned to me and said "This is a brilliant film!". And it is. Even watched on a crappy old taped off the telly 25 years ago VHS with rubbish sound. (It is now in the bin and a DVD copy is being purchased).
   
2. The Wolfman - which was a bit of a let down after glorious campness of BoF.

 

[Droflet]

Before I Wake (2016)
If you like a good creepy movie, this is for you. If you like a touching tale of loss and redemption, this is for you. If you like a wonderful script, superb acting and insightful direction, this is for you. Honestly folks, if you like a superior adult drama with a side order of spooky then do yourselves a favor and see this wonderful movie. Highly recommended.

 

[REBerg]

Free State of Jones
A somber look at American racism. I had no idea that anyone was revolting against the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Matthew McConaughey delivers his customary intense performance as Newton Knight, a farmer serving as a medic in the Confederate Army. McConaughey deserts to return the body of his nephew to his family and becomes the Swamp Fox of Jones County, Mississippi.
Engaging and disturbing.

 

[Vince W]

The Legend of Tarzan. I did not have high hopes for this film to be honest, but I actually quite enjoyed it. I'm not saying run out and see it, but if you liked Tarzan in the past, you will probably enjoy this film as well.

 

[BAYLOR]

Independence Day Resurgence. It just wasn't worth the 20 year wait.

 

[J Riff]

Carnage Park 2016. One more crazed ex-soldier, and of course his brother the cop, run about killing folks in a desert area, all fenced off it is, and there's tunnels and people being tortured, and its all because of the darned battalion that got sold out and killed by their own side... except one guy, who yaddadada killing people in tunnels and the girl who wanders all the way through it getting bashed and shot and lots of blood and screaming, based on a true story that's never really named. Gory and borey. *

 

[Vaz]

The Aquatic life of Steve Zissou

Wonderful Wes Anderson movie. Sort of like his own take on Jaws or Moby Dick. Bill Murray and Jeff Goldblum are fantastic and and like the rest of Anderson's films this is a beauty and filled with charm from start to finish.


Batman Vs Superman

Zack Snyder oversees Ben Afflecks first outing as the Gotham Bat as he takes on the Man of Steel.

Affleck does a good job in the cowl. And visually the film is a stunner, especially the fight scenes and chase scenes in the Batmobile.

Plot is pretty weak. Basically a very creepy Jesse Eisenberg pits the two hero's against each other, but in the end they have to fight something much worse.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Just watched Selma - superb film. Great cast, great acting, and fantastic directing/cinematography on the protest scenes, too.

Also, was glad that it was focused on a specific series of events, rather than a general bio to end on his death - meaning the film got to celebrate his life and achievements.

 

[ratsy]

I watched The Boy this past week. A movie about a woman (Maggie from Walking Dead, hold the zombie guts on her face) who moves to the UK to care for a couple's child. She quickly finds out their child is a doll they treat like a real kid...highly unlikely storyline with an ending that left me going,,,whyyyyyyy bother!!!!!

Also watched The Forest which didn't really do much for me either, though I liked the concept.

 

[Randy M.]

Flash Gordon is certainly campy but OMG do I love that movie. Timothy Dalton as a Peter Pan lookalike? Soundtrack by Queen? Plus the costumes and sets are to die for. You have to love it when people try that hard on something that cheesy. I kept waiting for everyone to break into song and dance. They should make it into a stage musical.

I think Dalton was made to look like Errol Flynn from The Adventures of Robin Hood (see also, The Rocketeer, in which he looks a lot like Flynn and plays an actor who seems a lot like Flynn). But, even so, you're right all the same. (Kevin Kline is another who, in his younger days, seemed to be an Errol Flynn substitute -- see The Pirates of Penzance.)

Last movie seen: The Legend of Tarzan. Not bad. Savvy even, in incorporating Samuel Jackson as 2nd lead, playing a former soldier in the American Civil War (as opposed to the Marvel Civil War, I guess) with a stake in stopping the slave trade in the Congo. Skarsgard is solid in the title role, which I'm not sure I expected from watching him on True Blood -- the look is right, in a Ron Ely sort of way (look him up, youngsters), but I wasn't sure he could command a big screen. I was wrong. And Margot Robbie is the "It" girl of the moment and I think earns it -- she's not called on to do a lot, but she does it well, and her scenes with Skarsgard have a spark because they both are quite good; I think she can act, which isn't always a feature of the "It" girl.


Randy M.

 

[2DaveWixon]

Free State of Jones
A somber look at American racism. I had no idea that anyone was revolting against the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Matthew McConaughey delivers his customary intense performance as Newton Knight, a farmer serving as a medic in the Confederate Army. McConaughey deserts to return the body of his nephew to his family and becomes the Swamp Fox of Jones County, Mississippi.
Engaging and disturbing.

I've heard about some other revolts, but they generally got squelched quickly...
What I found most interesting about this is the alliance between the rebellious whites and the runaway slaves -- and in Mississippi, yet!
And there was a provocative extra layer, as the film cut back and forth to a descendant of Newton being tried in 1960's Mississippi for marrying a white woman when the State claimed that he had enough African-American blood in him to qualify as black...
It was clear that the racist power structure in the state maintained power a century after Newt. But I left the theater wondering if there were not people living quietly in that (and other) states, not agreeing with the powerful ones...
Something I need to keep in mind; it's too easy for me to let myself fall into that trap of stereotyping a whole state on the basis of what I can easily see.
-- Call me out if you see me doing that!

 

[2DaveWixon]

Independence Day Resurgence. It just wasn't worth the 20 year wait.

Amen!

 

[BAYLOR]

Amen!

Those are two hours of my life I wish I could have back .

 

[Brian G Turner]

Felt like watching an old John Wayne film, so checked whether any were available on Amazon Prime Video. Only one available was Rio Lobo, so starting that up on my Fire tablet. Was pleasantly surprised to see Leigh Brackett on the writing credits.

Decent film - was good to see the gentlemanly conduct between John Wayne and Jorge Rivero, after so much knee-jerk sadism in most fiction with prisoner situations. Jennifer O'Neill played a feisty character who retained a lot of control, no doubt due to Leigh Brackett. Some good quirky humour about John Wayne being old.

Old-fashioned fun storytelling, that didn't actually come across as that dated to me.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Clearing out a pile of 'I am never going to watch this stuff I taped of the telly 30 years ago' VHS tapes I found (sandwiched between such delights a sepisodes of The Alex Sayle Show and Gilbert's Fridge) Contraband (aka Blackout) - a 1940 piece from Powell and Pressburger which, with their usual odd slant on WW2 propaganda cast German Conrad Veidt as the (Danish) hero - my second Valerie Hobson film of the month.

 

[Randy M.]

Felt like watching an old John Wayne film, so checked whether any were available on Amazon Prime Video. Only one available was Rio Lobo, so starting that up on my Fire tablet. Was pleasantly surprised to see Leigh Brackett on the writing credits.

Decent film - was good to see the gentlemanly conduct between John Wayne and Jorge Rivero, after so much knee-jerk sadism in most fiction with prisoner situations. Jennifer O'Neill played a feisty character who retained a lot of control, no doubt due to Leigh Brackett. Some good quirky humour about John Wayne being old.

Old-fashioned fun storytelling, that didn't actually come across as that dated to me.

Oh, man, you're taking me back. My dad took me to that one when it first came out.

I believe Rio Lobo was director Howard Hawks' last movie and was, essentially, a remake of El Dorado (Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Michelle Carey), itself a remake of the earlier Rio Bravo (Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson), all scripted in whole or part by Leigh Brackett and starring John Wayne. The feisty, competent woman was a hallmark of Hawks movies and, for that matter, Leigh Brackett seemed to script quite a few of his later movies including the Bogart-Bacall The Big Sleep (that one along with William Faulkner, and I'd have loved to be in the same room listening to story discussions between those two).


Randy M.