What was the last movie you saw?

LADY IN CEMENT 1968 - Frank Sinatra goes scuba diving to find a naked woman with her feet in cement. That's shocking enough--nudity was just coming into Hollywood with the easing of restrictions. But this was one brave actress because not only was she naked and underwater, but two big sharks are swimming around her. I am really surprised she could keep her eyes closed with this huge shark within inches of her arms dangling in the water. I am guessing it wasn't planned and what you don't know, doesn't hurt you.
 
I think that's a good summary! It moves very slowly, IIRC.
 
The irony with Edison's lawsuits is that now no Americans control American film studios. Is there any European American owner of a studio?
I think Europeans have been completely removed from the cultural stream and they invented the art form. So much for racial equality rhetoric. Some buys outs, some blackmail and who knows what else. The same thing happened to American theater in 1900. And publishing. Lovecraft and Capote were incensed about that-- greatly offended that some literary voices were prevented from exposure by so-called American book publishers.

The sorry state of film expression today--a big part of the blame does rest with the foreigner studios which came in and sought to take over. They did not want competitors. They had the money and contacts to squeeze out the natives.

I will give Laemmle credit for putting a note at the end of his earliest films asking people to write to him on their opinions of the films. I can't imagine a studio head doing that today.

But the big studios were too controlling. That is why Walt Disney, Orson Welles and others started SIMPP--so they could have more creative freedom than offered with Universal, MGM, Warner Bros, etc.
Hmmm. More stuff I did not know. Thanks, KGeo777.
 
LADY IN CEMENT 1968 - Frank Sinatra goes scuba diving to find a naked woman with her feet in cement. That's shocking enough--nudity was just coming into Hollywood with the easing of restrictions. But this was one brave actress because not only was she naked and underwater, but two big sharks are swimming around her. I am really surprised she could keep her eyes closed with this huge shark within inches of her arms dangling in the water. I am guessing it wasn't planned and what you don't know, doesn't hurt you.
So how was the scene of the nude blonde surrounded by sharks filmed? Ricou Browning aka The Creature From The Black Lagoon who directed the scene told me the following at a Wonderfest in Louisville, Kentucky. Sinatra talked a stripper at a local bar into doing the scene. The sharks were kept in cages until the filming started. There failure to be able to move kept them in a drowsy state. Divers watched the sharks and held them back by their tales to keep them in a drowsy state while they shot the scene. Their inability to move kept them in a trance type state. I am sure glad I was not one of those divers.

<i>Lady in Cement</i>, part 1
 
Bleeding Steel (2017) I always enjoy a Jackie Chan movie, but sadly, the actor is starting to show his age. The plot line is difficult to follow (I had to read the Wikipedia summary to fully understand it) and the fight choreography falls short of Jackie in his prime. Still, we see Jackie battle bad guys while swinging from curtains in the theater and then have a fight scene on the roof of the Sydney Opera House with Jackie escaping by cascading down the side of the building. The version I watched did not have Jackie's usual outtakes at the end, but that may have been removed for video-on-demand showings. One easter egg my son caught, in one scene Jackie plays a worker in a mall food court and the name badge he is wearing says 'Jackie Chan.' Good movie for mindless entertainment. Some violence, but no real gore.
 
CANNON 1967 - the pilot for the tv series about a large ex-cop who pushes his weight around. A kid stares at his gut and asks "how did you get so fat, mister?" and he replies, "it wasn't easy."

A Quinn Martin production.
 
The First Man 2018
Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong in this film about the events that led up to the moon landing. Not bad actually, and the actual landing scene still managed to make me feel excited, 50 odd years after the event! Got feels, as the young uns say
 
Jumanji 2: The Next Level - with the kids. Didn't enjoy it as much as I was expecting - too long since I had seen the first one and the film assumed a little more intimate knowledge of the backstory than I had readily to hand but there were some nice gags and Karen Gillan and Dwayne Johnson are both easy on the eye. Suffered from a real flapping-about not quite sure how to end the film ending which felt like it went on forever.
 
CANNON 1967 - the pilot for the tv series about a large ex-cop who pushes his weight around. A kid stares at his gut and asks "how did you get so fat, mister?" and he replies, "it wasn't easy."

A Quinn Martin production.
Interestingly, William Conrad (Cannon) starred in the radio version of Gunsmoke. He narrated Rocky & Bullwinkle and the TV version of The Fugitive. Great voice. But it took a while for such a -large- presence to be accepted on camera.
 
Interestingly, William Conrad (Cannon) starred in the radio version of Gunsmoke. He narrated Rocky & Bullwinkle and the TV version of The Fugitive. Great voice. But it took a while for such a -large- presence to be accepted on camera.
Yeah he did tons of radio work. And the Buck Rogers tv show narration. I never watched the Fugitive beyond the first and last shows--but his final narration was memorable. Something like "Tuesday..the day the running stopped."


He did Leiningen vs the Ants which was voted one of the three greatest radio drama stories (the other two being Sorry, Wrong Number and Three Skeleton Key). He was in the movie version the Naked Jungle but Charlton Heston had the role.

I keep saying this but what the hell happened to strong voices in acting?
They are so wimpy today. I hear stronger voices at the supermarket than I do in modern movies. They are mild now.
 
FEARLESS FUZZ 1978 - Maurizio Merli is a private investigator searching for leads on a missing girl which leads him to a teen prostitution racket orchestrated by Joan Collins. Is there any evil act she hasn't done? She even wanted to make friends with Hitler.
 

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