What was the last movie you saw?

[CupofJoe]

Robot Overlords [2014]
With a cast that includes Ben Kingsley and Gillian Anderson, being their usual effective actors and a plot that sounds interesting, it should be a good watch. But it isn't. It isn't bad, it just isn't good.
The plot is that robots have taken over the world and are scanning people to find something "new". All the humans are tagged with a tracker and have to remain indoors most of the time. Four kids find a way to turn off their trackers. Hijinks ensure.
I do wonder how the producers got Kingsley, Gillian, and a few other well-known names to sign on.
About the best I can say of it is that it feels like a filmic grown-up version of a Torchwood episode writ large and minus Captain Jack [which for me is usually a good thing]. There was some talk of a follow-on TV series. I could see that working, expanding on the hijinks.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Robot Overlords [2014]
With a cast that includes Ben Kingsley and Gillian Anderson, being their usual effective actors and a plot that sounds interesting, it should be a good watch. But it isn't. It isn't bad, it just isn't good.
The plot is that robots have taken over the world and are scanning people to find something "new". All the humans are tagged with a tracker and have to remain indoors most of the time. Four kids find a way to turn off their trackers. Hijinks ensure.
I do wonder how the producers got Kingsley, Gillian, and a few other well-known names to sign on.
About the best I can say of it is that it feels like a filmic grown-up version of a Torchwood episode writ large and minus Captain Jack [which for me is usually a good thing]. There was some talk of a follow-on TV series. I could see that working, expanding on the hijinks.

I must admit I quite liked Robot Overlords - ok it wasn't the greatest film ever but it had something that reminded me of the kind of British SF TV I grew up with as a kid during the 70s. The Tripods, The Changes, The Tomorrow People, that sort of thing.

I do wonder how the producers got Kingsley, Gillian, and a few other well-known names to sign on.

They paid them.
Ben Kingsley was in What Planet are you From?, Bloodrayne, and the bloody awful Thunderbirds live action film.
Gillian Anderson has the TV movie Robbie the Reindeer in Close Encounters of the Herd Kind on her credits as well as Johnny English Reborn.
These people are professional actors.

 

[Astro Pen]

Okay it was made for TV but I just, belatedly, watched Chernobyl (2019). I think it was one of the best drama docs I have ever seen.
Fiction writing struggles to compete such compelling and dreadful realities.
I expected it to be an attack on nuclear power, instead it was an attack on systems. Realism is hard to achieve in the days of cinematic hyperbole but this one carries it off with aplomb. One feels one is there and the dread is tangible.

▶️ Chernobyl - Official Trailer

Watch Trailer | 2:28

www.imdb.com

 

[Randy M.]

Winter's Bone (2010; dir. Debra Granki; starring Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Garret Dillahunt)

I see why the movie led to Lawrence's surge to stardom. Her fame kind of obscures how good an actor she is, though I think better than some give her credit for, but she has that movie star thing, whatever it is, that draws your eyes to her, and maybe never more than when she's playing a determined woman bucking the odds against her. And she's as good showing concern and caring for the children in this as she is when fighting the people trying to dissuade her from searching for the father that's either run out on them all or been murdered. If she doesn't find him, they lose their home. If she does find him, she'll have to persuade him to come home. If she finds he's dead, she'll have to prove it to save the home. The small stakes here are probably what make the movie gripping, since the family involved has nothing but small stakes.


And now, for something completely different,

Puppet Master (1989; dir. David Schmoeller; starring Paul Le Mat, William Hickey, Irene Miracle, Robin Frates)

Low budget horror that expends most of its inventiveness in the set-up: Four psychic investigators are certain of the death of a fifth, who had worked with and cheated them in the quest for the secrets of the last alchemist, the puppet master. Once that's established, the script starts knocking over the dominoes. Notable for it's opening, set in the 1920s, of two men arriving at a sea-side hotel high on a cliff, on their way to find Andre Toulon, played by the nearly inimitable William Hickey (voice of the evil scientist in The Nightmare Before Christmas), the last alchemist, hard at work finishing off his latest puppet when another puppet alerts him to the arrival of the men.

This may have had the best horror movie theme music -- linked above -- since Halloween. It has a carousel music feel that I'm not entirely sure is in keeping with the movie, and yet ends up fitting while also being infectious and menacing when appropriate.

About the cast, all are professional and capable, though the villain may be a bit more villainous than necessary -- if he had a mustache, he'd have twirled it -- and Miracle (really? an actress named Miracle?) adopts a Southern accent that occasionally makes her words indistinct. The psychic couple are sleazy and somewhat funny in a way 1980s movies got away with at the time, and would be unlikely to get away with now.

Just occurred to me to add, the stop-motion animation of the puppets holds up pretty well in conjunction with judicious use of camera angles. The puppets themselves are suitably macabre, and there are some scenes not be suitable for anyone easily made queasy. I wouldn't exactly call it gory, though.

 

[KGeo777]

THE TIGER OF THE SEVEN SEAS 1962

Similar plot to CUTTHROAT ISLAND except the male lead isn't a non-combatant and there's an amusing sub plot involving the governor's wife being the power behind the throne because he's a real idiot. There's gender politics discussion in it but it never feels like it is the sole reason it was made.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

We got these things from the folks at Mill Creek that are supposed to recreate 24 hours of old-time TV viewing, one set in black and white, the other in color. They have cartoons and kiddie shows for the early morning, game shows and such for the middle of the day, series for prime time, and old commercials in between. They also added three movies per set to simulate late night programming. We had already seen four of these, so we went ahead and watched the other two before viewing the other stuff.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Starts with an orphaned girl trying to run away from the coldhearted, filthy rich aunt she lives with. A streetwise boy tries to help her. She gets caught and goes back to the tyrannical aunt. In the movie's most shocking scene, the aunt beats the girl's kitten with her cane. (We don't actually see this, of course, but it's unnerving enough.) Enraged, the girl grabs the cane and beats the aunt, causing to fall down a flight of stairs to her death. The only witness is the young son of a guy who works for the aunt, although they both think the streetwise kid saw the killing as well.

Cut to twenty years later. The girl is now Barbara Stanwyck, and has inherited the aunt's wealth. The witness is now Kirk Douglas, married to Stanwyck. He seems to love her, but it's clear she married him only to keep him quiet about the killing, so he's become a drunk weakling. The streetwise kid, now Van Heflin, comes back to town. Since the other two think he knows about the killing, they think he's come home to blackmail them, although he really knows nothing about it. Complicating matters is the woman he meets who is fresh out of jail for theft, and who gets mixed up in the plotting of the other two. (She's played by the somewhat lesser known but striking actress Lizbeth Scott.) Don't expect a happy ending.

It's an effective melodrama, with a lot of sharp dialogue.

The Proud Rebel (1958)

Not long after the Civil War, a Confederate veteran (Alan Ladd) comes North in hopes of finding a cure for his mute son. He winds up working for an unmarried farm woman (Olivia de Havilland) and getting into trouble with some local sheepherders trying to force her off her land. Much of the plot involves the son's pet dog, which gets sold at one point to pay for an operation that may or may not help the boy. Expect some gunplay by the end. It's kind of like a so-so variation on Shane.

 

[KGeo777]

THE FLESH EATERS 1964 --- Such a great low budget horror film. So creative and industrious with limited resources and cast. The director only made this one movie. Very good characters and performances. Some say this was the inspiration for Gilligan's Island. You have a movie star, a Mary-Ann type, a professor, and a beatnik named Omar that reminds one a little of Gilligan.

Omar: "It took me three weeks to make those sandals. I mean, they had the love in every stitch."



$1000 On the Black 1966 -- While it has some Leone-style elements especially in the camera set ups--this is much more personal story--between two brothers and their dominating mother. She was a maid who became the most powerful in the town thanks to her murderous son--while the less violent one is returning from a stint in prison for a murder his brother committed.
There's a scene where the mother forces women in town to beg on their knees to her in order to stop her son's rampage. One of the more violent I have seen--a town is massacred.
The ending uses the image of a body being carried on a corpse into the distance--it's more tragic than the version in Once Upon A Time in the West.
It also has four prominent women characters which is unusual from what I have seen of these films-and none of them are technically prostitutes.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Fire - occasionally in my endless searching through the DVD shelves of my local charity shops, between the endless Harry Potters, and Pirates of the Caribbeans, and Jason Statham's entire back catalogue I'll spot something that I've never heard of before and know no one who appears in it. (I try not look at the back too much so I'll have as little idea about what I'm going to watch until I'm actually watching it.) Fire is the story of two Indian women ( Sisters in Law) who have dreadful husbands but find they love each other so leave them. A simple lesbian love story with a hopeful ending. Despite the heavy foreshadowing (and the title!) of the story within the story of innocent Sita coming unscathed from the trial by fire I was really upset that I was in for a bout of Dead Lesbian Syndrome at the climatic house fire. I guess a film that throws that much foreshadowing at you - the Sita Ram trial by fire story is played out twice on screen - once as a TV show, once as a live performance that takes up a LOT of screen time - and still has you guessing at the end must be doing something right.

 

[KGeo777]

MAROC 7 - 1967 It is not a good spy movie. Great locations but nothing of consequence happens. I had seen it before and forgot it all--that's how inconsequential it was.

 

[Parson]

The Poker House (2008). I rarely watch old movies but this one is based (loosely?) on the life of Lori Petty (a pretty busy TV actress who acted in Star Trek Voyager) who directed it, but what really drew me in was that it was about her life in Council Bluffs, Iowa and that it stared a young Jennifer Laurence (she was 18 when it came out) and so was playing close to her age in the movie, 14. I can't say that it was an excellent movie but it was mesmerizing. I felt the story probably painted Lori Petty too favorably, but likely was very near the truth of a hard early life with a druggie as a Mom and a house filled with pimps and such who often came there for Poker. It deserved the R rating for drug use and a rape scene, but I'm not going to forget it soon.

 

[Randy M.]

2008 is old??????

 

[senlac]

In the vein of "What Music are you listening to Right now?", I bring you this thread - I am kinda interested to know what you guys all like or hate... or at least what you are watching, so basically, the idea is, write the name of the movie then tell us whether you liked it or not!

I just watched Dogma - and I enjoyed it very much.

The last film I saw in a cinema was Mr Bean (where he was sent to the USA with the "Portrait of the Artists Mother" by Whistler) Recently watched all the Diehard series on disc

 

[Parson]

2008 is old??????

For a first viewing of a movie? I think so.

 

[JunkMonkey]

I suppose if you divide movies into 'new' films - i.e. still on release (whatever that means these days) and 'old' films i.e. those that the production companies have stopped spending money actively promoting then yes, a film made in 2008 is an 'old' film.

I think most of us would call something made in 2008 'recent' rather than 'old'.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

For me, anything made after, say, 1985 or so is "new."

 

[Randy M.]

For a first viewing of a movie? I think so.

I don't think that's a generally held view. Well, except among very young folk who would say The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is old. It was written and published within my lifetime so in terms of literature, it's not old -- in terms of me ... uh ... I plead the fifth.

I feel similarly about film, even though its history has been rather shorter.

 

[JunkMonkey]

To totally distract the thread from film for a second. A few years ago one of my kids mentioned, in passing, that the Victorian Age which she was 'doing' at primary school was in 'the olden days'. She was shocked to discover that if she marked the death of Victoria and the current day on a dateline - my birthday was almost exactly half way along that line.

'The Olden Days' were twice as old as dad.

Yesterday we were at my mum's house and I pointed out to my daughter a photograph of my grandmother as a little girl - aged 6 or so. The picture was taken about 1885(ish). So about 10 years before HG Wells wrote War of the Worlds which we had been talking about earlier in the day. I remember my grandmother, so I knew someone who was in their teens when HG Wells was inventing modern Science Fiction. The concept of 'old' changes as you... er... get older.

 

[non_author]

I just finished watching "How to get a murder". It has been a long time since I saw such a good series that I literally could not tear myself away from. I decided to myself that when the series came to an end, I would not start anything new for a long time. The series tells the story of a group of law students who, perhaps, accidentally get caught up in a murder. It sounds simple enough, but the way the series is recorded is pure poetry. First, they show us what happened, and then they move us back in time and we find out in turn what happened. In addition, over the course of 6 seasons, the heroes go through a lot of changes in themselves, at the beginning they make incomprehensible decisions, but when we watch further, then we see what drove them. What hadn't let me down yet and I was worried that this might happen is the end of the series. Brilliant!

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Music Box Kid (1960)

Not the musical or children's film you might expect from the title, but rather a gangster film. The title character is called that because of the small machine gun he uses. It's set in the Roaring Twenties, and is pretty much a low budget version of the rise-and-fall-of-a-mobster films of the 1930's. Our antihero rises from getting $150.00 for killings to running his own murder-for-hire organization at $10,000 per victim. Along the way, he hijacks the booze trucks of other gangland bosses. The guy is so arrogant that I'm surprised that the other crooks didn't rub him out right at the start. Anyway, his innocent wife, shocked when she discovers what he does for a living, eventually turns him to the authorities, at the prodding of a priest. The whole thing is sort of a pseudo-documentary, with a narrator who informs us at the end that the guy's son, still in his mother's womb when Dad gets shot to death (that's not really a spoiler, is it?), went on to become a priest himself. It's OK, nothing special.

 

[Jeffbert]

TWO Noir Alley films, both with Raymond Burr as the villain, but the 2nd one really surprised me with his character's early demise.


WALK A CROOKED MILE (1948) U. S. atomic scientists are infiltrated by Communists, intent on stealing secrets. FBI Agent Daniel F. O'Hara (Dennis O'Keefe; not familiar with him) is aided by Scotland Yard guy Philip Grayson (Louis Hayward). Krebs (Raymond Burr) as an obvious Communist, complete with a Lenin-style goatee is the villain, but he is one of more than a few. Interesting docu-drama style, with narration etc.

Oh! almost forgot: John Hamilton was in this, better known for his role in the 1950s SUPERMAN TV series as Perry White.



THE BLUE GARDENIA (1953) had George Reeves (Superman) in the role of a police Capt. But Muller mentioned neither. Anyway, in this film, Burr is a Wolf in pursuit of young women, who finding one Norah Larkin (Anne Baxter), who had just had her heart broken, & was looking for a distraction from her sadness, entices her, at the restaurant (in the title), tricks her into drinking very strong beverages, takes her to his apartment, where he tries to have his way with her. She is plastered, runs away, and when she reads the newspaper the next day, she concludes the it was she who did away with him, using a fireplace poker.

Casey Mayo (Richard Conte; only the 3rd maybe 4th time I have seen him), is a newspaper reporter who prints an open invitation to the Blue Gardenia woman, in which he says, in exchange for her story, he will provide 1st class defense attorney, etc.



Both films are well-worth watching. Though Burr's short role in the 2nd one is unusual, as he often is not killed until the end.