What was the last movie you saw?

[Droflet]

Thanks for the warning, JM.

 

[CupofJoe]

Maybe they threw the wrong half of the films away? And we will never get to see the taut action-packed Evil Brain From Outer Space.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Doomsday Machine another of those films (like Plan 9 From Outer Space) which makes you feel like it's 3 am - whatever time of day you watch it. Another timeless classic of incoherence in the Mill Creek 50 movie Nightmare Worlds collection box set I just rediscovered on the shelves behind the television. (Sandwiched between a 19 movie Russ Meyer DVD box set and the first season of the Muppets on VHS).
Doomsday Machine started filming in 1967... then the producers ran out of money. It took them another five years to scape up a few shekels to finish the job - by which time none of the original actors were available. Luckily they seem to have been shooting in sequence so the central section of the film kind of makes narrative sense. Two of the actors they couldn't get back were playing characters wearing space suits when shooting had to stop. This gave the new director a way of cobbling together an ending. A couple of people (they may have been actors) were made to to wear almost matching space suits, stand around in a very dark interior and flip switches while wearing firmly closed, face-coving space helmets. This footage, this very long boring dark and uninteresting footage, was intercut with a few bits of film of the other characters. Voice mismatches both ways were disguised by radio 'distortion' from spacesuit radios. Then, having run out of ways to stretch what they had out to a decent running time, and seeing no other way out of having to actually shoot something interesting to end the film, a sudden out-of-nowhere Godlike Voice Over Character announces that one of the sets of characters has ceased to exist! and the others are about to go on a voyage of discovery into the unknown.... hold freeze-frame of badly-painted star-field with planets for as long as is humanly possible before people start screaming then End Title credit. After that it was go back through the film adding a random selection of bits of cheap stock footage of spaceships from Soviet Block SF films of the 1960s and at least one Al Adamson flick.

Life lessons to be learned from this movie: Never attempt to sexually molest someone in a badly-designed airlock:

 

[Jeffbert]

Evil Brain From Outer Space 1964 - an utterly bewildering short (78 minute) film edited down from three other films with a total running time of 159 minutes (according, that is, to my friend Mr Wikipedia). Fever dream stuff. It's full of characters who appear from nowhere, disappear from the story without having done anything, and are then replaced by near-identical characters who don't do anything either while delivering lines like: "The suitcase contained nothing of importance... just a diseased guinea pig." They might have been able to retain some semblance of a story if they had cut out more of the establishing stuff - one sequence near the end a shows yet another a voice-over introduced ("Who the hell is THIS?!) character arriving to deliver something. It takes several shots of him walking through trees, walking up a garden path, ringing a doorbell, entering a laboratory before he hands over some documents to yet another ("Who the hell is THIS?!) character we've never met before who says he doesn't need them. Well that was a pointless minute of screen time. Somewhere else in the film our hero infiltrates the villains' lair in a jump cut.

I am sure I have seen this travesty! It cobbled together several other films, including STARMAN.



PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1957) A few months ago, I said that I had seen the "PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE table read", which was amusing in its own way. This was shown immediately after that (on TCM), but I knew I needed a few weeks at the least, before I could enjoy it. What to say about it? It is for certain people, but not most.


JAMBOREE! (1957) tells of a boy-girl duet each of whose mangers decide to try the solo act; but when the girl finds the boy has shut her out, she goes on a solo act of her own. The boy realizes his manager had manipulated him, and really loves the girl, desperately tries to regain her trust, etc.

Anyway, I, having been an oldies fan for years, never head of many of the performers on this film. The wiki page has most of the cast listed as himself or herself, but other than Dick Clark, Alan Freed, Fats Domino, & Jerry Lee Lewis, most of the others (there are at least 20) are unfamiliar to me. Some of the songs, maybe most were just boring! Such low tempos; they call that rock & roll?



DON'T KNOCK THE ROCK (1956) Way back in the days when rock & roll had a bad reputation among parents, this film depicted that situation. Nice to see the original guys in the original style performances, even if the plot was boring. Still, one group was unknown to me; far fewer than the above film, but music more familiar, etc.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Rewatched: The Mystery of Rampo (1994) The setting is late 1920s Japan. A writer has his latest work censored before publication. As he burns his manuscript his publisher shows him the newspaper with a story mirroring the one he's burning.

Is that about Edogawa Rampo?

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Carry on at your convenience - erm...

 

[AllanR]

It is (though fictionalized)

Is that about Edogawa Rampo?

 

[Guttersnipe]

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017). I've got to say, it really didn't impress me.

 

[JunkMonkey]

2001: A Space Odyssey - for the umpteenth time. Still incredibly impressive and wonderful.

 

[alexvss]

Mulholland Drive. A David Lynch movie.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Mulholland Drive. A David Lynch movie.

His best, in my opinion.

 

[alexvss]

His best, in my opinion.

I only watched this one and Dune. I've seen Youtube videos about Eraserhead, Blue Velvet is pretty famous among cinephiles, and many people talk about The Elephant Man being the saddest thing they ever saw, but I haven't watched them myself.

Fun Fact: Mulholland Drive has been titled "City of Dreams" in Brazil. Interesting.

 

[CupofJoe]

Watch The Straight Story for what else David Lynch can do. I think it is his best if most normal film.

 

[Droflet]

Normal??? David Lynch??? I will check it out, Joe.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Elephant Man is probably the only Lynch film I haven't seen. I'd suggest leaving Eraserhead till you've had kids if you haven't already. I watched it three times and just didn't 'get ' it. Watched it again after my first child was born and realised it was a comedy. Watched it a few years later with said child when she was 18 or so and she was terrified. This kid happily watches gory zombie movies that turn my stomach but was genuinely terrified by Eraserhead.

Tonight I watched Dead of Night with daughter number two who has never seen any horror movies (or really shown any desire to) and she loved it.

 

[Jeffbert]

THE WHISTLE AT EATON FALLS (1951) A plastic manufacturing plant is behind the times, and is on the verge of bankruptcy. In a desperate attempt to stay afloat, the owner begins installing new equipment that will reduce the labor force by half. Brad Adams (Lloyd Bridges) is the union leader, and upon the death of the owner etc., he becomes the new white collar guy. Bill Street (Ernest Borgnine; whose name was in the credits, but difficult to spot!) becomes the new union leader. Difficulties ensue, the union hates the new boss, etc. Interesting view of the modernization process.

supporting cast includes Arthur O'Connell (AKA the CREST toothpaste guy).

 

[REBerg]

The Suicide Squad (2021)
Super heroes just the way I like them -- anti.
I enjoyed Suicide Squad, but loved The Suicide Squad. Sylvester Stallone makes an excellent King Shark.

 

[Droflet]

Thanks, REB. I was wondering about that movie. I'll check it out.

 

[KGeo777]

MANIAC 1980 I finally watched this film. For about 40 years I knew it featured Caroline Munro and that made me curious but after seeing it---well, ehh. I didn't care for it. First time I heard her speaking in a movie with her actual voice.

It has that gritty early 80s New York atmosphere which is really ugly at times--but compared to a NIGHTHAWKS or MS. 45 it feels a lot cheaper and nastier.
I never cared for gore FX and I do not understand the fascination of watching a woman be scalped. It's a bit inconsistent since I watch a number of giallos or Blind Dead movies and they are not squeamish about showing women being mutilated-but I guess they do it with more style so that makes it ok?

I suppose even the Hammer films were delving into this--showing them being bitten by vampires and bloody necks.
Joe Spinell is a good actor but this is like a version of a Vincent Price madman story on skid row.

As an exasperated Roddy McDowall says in Fright Night:

I have just been fired because nobody wants to see vampire killers any more, or vampires either. Apparently all they want are demented madmen, running around in ski masks hacking up young virgins.

 

[Rodders]

I went to see Blade Runner (the Final Cut) and BR2049 double bill at the cinema last night and was really taken aback by how great both these movies are.