What was the last movie you saw?

[KGeo777]

BLAST OF SILENCE 1961 --The lead really resembles Robert DeNiro at times.

BLACK CHRISTMAS 1974 -This is one of the first movies I ever saw--I saw it at the same time as the Exorcist--I was too young to watch it but in those days...for years I had remembered the creepy attic scenes without knowing what it was from.
I think they made a goof in the scene where they are tracing the call--it would have been more effective by far if they did not let the audience know that the call was coming from the house until the cop tells her. There were already a few movies with the "call was traced to the house," idea. The Severed Arm 1973 used the idea with a radio station.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

The new Spiderman.
Really didn't understand it at all.
Perhaps I'm too old.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Predestination - Knew nothing about this when I picked it up - apart from the fact that the directors' previous film, Daybreakers had been an interestingly ambitious, and well worked piece of world-building let down by an unsatisfactory story. About five minutes in I realised I knew the source material and knew exactly what was going to happen for the next 90 minutes. Having said that I enjoyed watching it played and expanded out. Design was great. Sarah Snook, who I had never heard of before, did a wonderful job with what must have been a hell of an interesting part to play. Ethan Hawke was solid and held the show together. Better than most time travel movies.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The First Great Train Robbery

I have much less tolerance for films nowadays. I'm very much more likely that if it doesn't grab me after the first 20 minutes to dump it, or fast forward to the end to see what happened.

Thankfully this isn't the case with older films, when I know it will be entertaining before I sit down to watch it. This is a great movie played for laughs as much as the action, and with Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland it fine form, it couldn't fail to please. Quite some years since I last watched it, and whilst it's not the best train robbery film (that accolade goes to the BBC 2-parter currently showing on Netflix) it still passes an entertaining 1 hour 45 mins.

 

[JunkMonkey]

The First Great Train Robbery
... if it doesn't grab me after the first 20 minutes to dump it, or fast forward to the end to see what happened.

And risk miss Lesley-Anne Down in Basque and stockings? Are you quite mad, man?

 

[JunkMonkey]

Independence Day - for the first time and it was pretty much as I expected, a 1970's disaster movie with aliens. And, because it was a Roland Emmerich flick, a by-the-numbers improbable aircraft chase through a narrow canyon. One thing I was impressed by was the slick transitions. Getting from the end of one scene to the start of another in a movie (a 'transition') is always problematic; getting somewhere else in the narrative without leaving the audience too far behind is a skill and many a director and editor has floundered and fudged their way through by fading to black at the end of every scene or drifting the camera away from the actors and fading into an establishing shot somewhere else but here it was pretty much seamless. For instance, the president orders the military to "go to Def Con 3" : cut to yellow flashing light : pull back to reveal the flashing light is on a microwave from which Dave the science guy pulls a mug of coffee in his office in New York. I spent most of the movie watching stuff like that. The way the show moved from scene to scene was good.

 

[Toby Frost]

The Two Towers (2002)

The war in Middle Earth broadens and deepens, and Frodo, Sam and Gollum move closer to Mordor. This isn't quite as good a film as The Fellowship of the Ring, as it has to cover several threads, none of which ends entirely. However, all the new elements are good and once again Peter Jackson deserves great credit for not only making a functional film, but a very good one. The first half is a bit slow, and there's quite a lot of elves moping to Enya, but the battle of Helm's Deep is excellent and the ents are very well presented. The new cast are good and Bernard Hill is great as Theoden, a decent man struggling to cope with the crisis in which he's awoken. Andy Serkis does amazing work as Gollum.

Also, it's got Eowyn.

 

[JunkMonkey]

The Two Towers (2002)
and there's quite a lot of elves moping to Enya,

If there was anything that would put me off watching these again you just succeeded.

 

[KGeo777]

The First Great Train Robbery is pretty good--and Michael Crichton's best film. His other ones--I find his direction kind of dull but this works great thanks to the three leads. It's a funny thing with Leslie Anne-Down because she did many supporting roles--and she did one lead role--The Sphinx--and she was terrible in that. She was totally lost--like she wasn't getting direction or something. But the story itself was not good.

An intriguing with TFGTR is that they wanted to show the difference in moral custom--so they show extreme poverty and public execution and rat terrier fights--without making a comment on it.
The sequence where Sean Connery is on the train looks very dangerous--if he had slipped he would have been in big trouble.

"No! Oh, no! You pick me clean, you put me in a coffin with a rotten, stinking cat, and now you strip me bollock naked."

 

[KGeo777]

THE DEATH OF ME YET 1971 - Doug McClure is a Soviet agent trained to infiltrate the US but he decides to go AWOL and is hunted down by his handlers--and reluctantly turns to US agent Darren McGavin for help.

WHO SAW HER DIE? 1972 -- Pretty good giallo with a skinny-looking George Lazenby (at times he resembles Dennis Weaver) as a sculptor who seeks the killer of his daughter in Venice. At one point he confronts a pedophile philanthropist for information: "listen you pervert!" They are so matter of fact about such things in these films.

 

[Jeffbert]

MST3K: WOMEN OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET (1966) A most deceptive title, as no such characters ever appear, though half a dozen primitive men do appear. O.k., 1st, I am not a fan of MST3K, I just want to see the movie, & can enjoy it, no matter how awful it might be without the MST3K treatment. When I was young, there was a late Saturday night horror program called CREATURE FEATURE, that, despite going up against SNL, was fairly high in the ratings. Like MST3K, this program showed old films, horror ones, & had the host Count Gore DeVol (the same guy who was both BOZO the clown & Capt. 20 showing kid's cartoons weekday afternoons) doing his thing as the Vampire host as the program cut to commercials, etc. But, I just wanted to see the movies!

WOMEN OF THE PREHISTORIC PLANET
So, anyway, these space travelers crash upon this planet whereupon 18 year pass while their other spaceship is going at near light speed. This guy is born & becomes a teenager during this time. The 2nd spaceship arrives, & while knowing the time difference, still expects to find the crew alive, etc.
There was one really 'horrific' part, in which the explorers were crossing a pool of apparently boiling water, or perhaps acid, upon a convenient log. The one guy was too nervous and, fell in. Totally lame! El-cheapo, etc. I have seen pathetic 'quicksand' more convincing than this! They had strung a rope above the log, for added support, as an aid to balance, but the guy was too fearful. So, he dips one leg in, and cannot pull it out. R.I. P. that guy! Reminded me of that scene from KUNG FU so long ago, when Master Po (Keye Luke) tells the boy that the pool is filled with acid, & the fear itself causes him to fall in.

Not the worst excuse for sci fi I have seen, but close enough to the bottom. So, the young woman fromm the spaceship decides she must go outside, and eventually meets the guy who grew-up there, & they become Adam & Eve.

 

[Rodders]

Don’t Look Up.

A Netflix comedy about the end of the world with some heavy handed commentary on people and social media. It was entertaining enough but I wouldn’t watch it again.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Eskimo Nell 1975 - one of my occasional, calibrating the critical faculties, watch of a British Sex comedy (It's like a setting a benchmark. Everything, no matter how shoddily-made, badly-acted, and underfunded, looks infinity better afterwards.) Unfortunately for my recalibration exercise Eskimo Nell turned out to be quite a funny film. For one thing it has a story (which is rare for this genre), a pretentious, fresh out of filmschool director is given a chance by a porno producer to direct. But first they have to raise the money; which they do from three different backers... promising each of them a different version. The writer of the film is a shy, penguin-obsessed virgin:

"I can't do it! Look I am not capable of writing the first all-British, pornographic, Kung-fu, musical western - especially when three different girls and a drag queen all seem to think they are all playing the same part!"

And that's before the producer absconds with all the money, leading the hapless heroes to have to find yet another source of funding - this time from a Moral Majority organisation which means they now have to make a fourth family-friendly version.

There is some seriously funny writing here with the scriptwriter obviously taking deeply felt swipes at the absurdities of the film business.

The tyro director earnestly telling the black actress chained faced-down to the top of a canvas igloo:
"Now... I want you to remember your motivation - psychologically you're about to suffer the rigours of sexual and conceptual imperialism.... and so forth..." before waving over the guy with the vegetable marrow....

Everyone on screen is having great fun hamming everything up in several different directions at once it's hard not to like it.

And it's got Beth Porter in leather. I've had a crush on Beth Porter ever since Rock Follies.

The film runs out of steam in the last few minutes when, because of the inevitable moment of mistaken identity, the Family Friendly version (which is due to get a royal charity premier) and the Hard Core porn version get swapped. The final reel could have come from any unfunny British running around in a panic film from the era with our heroes arriving just too late to stop the first lines of dialogue playing on the screen in front of the queen:

"Hello, Eskimo Nell. Want to f*ck?"

 

[worldofmutes]

Hey all.
First, I watched There Will Be Blood (2007)
Cinematically, it is brilliant. Excellent visuals and great soundtrack too. Johnny Greenwood did the soundtrack, and adds quite an eerie ambience to the movie. The acting too, is superb… Daniel Day Lewis made this movie his own, without a doubt. The screenwriting was just a bit cheesy, but with good actors they make it work. The epilogue is by far the most memorable part of this movie.

And then afterward I watched Excalibur (1981)
Now, I was never a movie guy at all. There are tons of movies I just haven’t seen. This is because growing up, I always wanted to play outside instead of sit inside and watch a movie. My dad tried to watch these movies with me, but I never paid attention. It is a resolution for me this year to watch more movies.

I’ve never even seen Excalibur, or Knights of the Round Table. Sad, huh? Yeah… well, it was funny. So bad it’s good, etc. Now I know a little about what I’m missing, and that not all knowledge is to be obtained just from books… I always kinda thought, hey, movies are cathartic- but kind of useless to me. But because of this I never did really fit in with people, because movies are a huge medium for the majority of people. I could never quote a movie or even name the quote where it’s from. But I certainly recognized some of them in Excalibur.

 

[Phyrebrat]

One Cut Of The Dead A Japanese zombie comedy with a fantastic ending. I was watching for about 10 minutes and it struck me that I hadn't seen a cut, so I rewound (is that the correct verb for a digital offering?) and sure enough, there hadn't been. In fact, the first 30 minutes or so was done in one take. The rest of the film is a flashback to the run-up to the first part.
I won't give any spoilers, and if anyone decides to watch it, I recommend avoiding any spoilers

However, here's the top review on IMDB, which sums it up nicely

I just have to second this. I rented it in Prime and immediately bought it afterwards.

Don’t find ANYTHING out about this film before you watch it…

 

[Rodders]

a rewatch of Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

Very enjoyable and a great way to kill two hours.

 

[CupofJoe]

Downtown Abbey [2019]
I never watched the TV series but I was prepared to give the film a go.
Because I had not watched the series, I may have missed a lot along the way, but I can't tell, if it was supposed to be a parody or not.
There were so many clichés I started a drinking game [okay I was probably going to be drinking watching it any way, this just paced me a bit]. All the surprises and great reveals were so well telegraphed someone should get an award for clear communication. The Plot was really short stories sewn together [The King Visits!, a Servants revolt, Someone save the king, someone or rather two people are not who they seem to be, an unusual romance...]. It felt episodic and would have probably worked on TV with the Ad breaks to let you move on but in a film, it didn't quiet flow right for me.
That said, each individual actor was pretty much on fine form, especially Dame Maggie Smith chewing the scenery to perfection. And the scenery and setting did look pretty.
And I've just Read that DA: A New Age is due out in a few months. Sorry, but I won't be in the queue.

 

[KGeo777]

THE HUNTER OF THE GOLDEN COBRA 1982 -- Indiana Jones-inspired Italian adventure film--some dialogue is taken directly from Raiders of the Lost Ark for lame effect. It has very good good miniature set effects which add a lot of production value. Although a golden cobra is much prized, real cobras aren't so precious here--one appears to get shot and others get torches dropped on them!

 

[J Riff]

Train to Busan 2, S. Korea - There's no train, and no mention of Busan, but- same zombies, same plague, and now we have some guys sent into the infested city to try to recoup a truck full of American dollars. There are so many zombies wandering around that even if you drive fast, you can run into a big enough swarm of them to stop the car. The trick is to drive really fast, then hit the brakes and turn the wheel so you slam into them sideways and knock them outa the way, and our little kid driver is expert at this, while his even littler sis uses radio controlled cars and a virtual headset to further confuse the milling hordes. Our MC is trying to save everyone and he takes on a gang of demented survivors and, this time around, not everyone is killed, which is nice, but, there is still plenty of heartwrenching stuff and sad ominous music.
Really, these zombies, ya gotta figure the army could wipe them out if they really tried... where are the flamethrowers and helicopters?.. but then there wouldn't be work for all the makeup artists, and extras who run around in large packs looking to chomp down on anything that moves.

 

[Starbeast]

Frosty the Snowman (1969) - Pleasant animated tale with an excellent ending.

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970) - Very good stop-motion animated story about the origin of Mr Kringle.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) - My favorite stop-motion animated holiday film. I always feel like a kid when I watch it. Wonderful.

Rich Little's Christmas Carol (1978) - Comedian Rich Little does a one-man performance with his impressions of famous actors and celebrities for all of the characters in Charles Dickens marvelous tale. I especially enjoyed his impressions of Jack Benny, James Mason, Jimmy Stewart, and Richard Nixon. A bit dated, but still amusing.

Freddy the Freeloader's Christmas Dinner (1981) - Comedian Red Skelton performs as my favorite character creation of his, Freddy the Freeloader. A hobo with a heart of gold and a quick-wit sense of humor. Actor Vincent Price portrays his best friend. This holiday special has a few cheerful songs, heart-warming and fun.

Merry Christmas, Mr Bean (1992) - Outstanding performance by Rowan Atkinson as Mr Bean enjoying the holiday season.