What was the last movie you saw?

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Hmmm. I've greatly enjoyed some very slow movies. Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (and many other Kubrick films) moves very slowly indeed, but is sheer delight.

 

[Peter]

La Dolce Vita - a bit of inspiration for my own modern fantasy writing, and fun to watch Fellini blend a dissipated anti-hero with scathing social commentary and a sea monster in the final scene.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Don't Look in the Basement (1973)

Extremely low budget but surprisingly effective scare flick. All of the action takes place at a house where mental patients are allowed to move about as they please, based on a doctor's theories. Not a good idea, because right at the start one of the patients kills him with an ax. A pretty young nurse arrives as a new employee after this tragedy. After we meet all the patients -- a woman who thinks her doll is her baby, a soldier and a judge obsessed with their professions, a nymphomaniac, a withdrawn woman, a man with the mind of a child, and so on -- things go from bad to worse. Almost unrelievedly grim and claustrophobic, although there's a bit of dark comedy with a telephone repair man. Pretty good acting from a cast of unknowns. Bloody but not extremely explicit gore. Creates the same kind of uncomfortable feeling as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so not for all tastes.

 

[Jeffbert]

I'm not sure of your definition of a slow movie.

When I hear that, I think of a non-stress-filled movie - laid back, like "On Golden Pond".

Slow makes me bored and or sleepy. It makes me wonder why I began watching it. I do not know if there is a better way to describe my concept of a slow movie, so I will say it is one in which very little interesting (again, my own concept of 'interesting', sorry ) occurs. Some films start slow, only to catch the viewers off-guard when the action finally begins.

I should say that I think the action genre is just about the dumbest of all genres, as each new film does its best to outdo the most recent action film. over the top, ridiculous car chases, first fights, shoot-outs, etc. Before there even was (as far as I know) an Action genre, films like Bullit, The French Connection, & The Seven-Ups all had car chase scenes. Very intense car chase scenes, I might add. In fact, they may have become what people think of when those films are mentioned. Yet, there was drama that was the cake, upon which the icing of the chase scenes was laid. I think a slow film lacks such icing.

A good adventure film might have some or even all of these, but the emphasis is elsewhere. Likewise, a mystery, a suspense, comedy, horror, etc. How Jaws would have sucked & been part of MST3K if the shark attacks occurred too frequently. There ought to be a balance. Some of the worst films I have seen had the most interesting pictures on their boxes. Good ol' VHS! They had cool props, vehicles, characters, etc., but lacked the ingredients of good films.

 

[Cathbad]

Yeah - to me, a good movie doesn't require heart-pounding action. I love good characterizations and stories, and great acting.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Keep My Grave Open (1976)

Made by the director of Don't Look in the Basement. Same minimal budget, same dark, brooding atmosphere. This one is like an inexpensive, small town Texas version of Repulsion. Woman lives alone but imagines she lives with her brother/lover. She becomes her brother in her mind and kills people with a sword. Much more of a slow psychological drama than a slasher. Features a genuinely surprising, and pretty much inexplicable, twist ending.

 

[Danny Creasy]

Dunkirk, I really enjoyed it. It was intense, cleverly presented, and compelling. My favorite character was the Supermarine Spitfire; I'm a sucker for WWII fighter planes.

 

[Starbeast]

D.C. Cab (1983) - For me, this movie is an outrageously funny, cult classic, featuring a truckload of talented actors that make this movie rock. I haven't seen this in years, and still highly enjoy this terrific flick. I don't have to talk about the story, because this film unfolds itself perfectly.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) - Not a bad reboot (but he seems to be more like Spider-Boy). Pretty good story and nice to see a super-villain played well by a veteran actor. I especially like the "blinking eyes" on the mask, which is a great homage to the 1960's Spider-Man cartoon series, which I still enjoy watching now-and-then.

Walking Tall (2004) - One of actor Dwayne Johnson's best films. This movie is a great tribute to the real-life man who walked tall with justice, Sheriff Buford Pusser. God bless him. I've seen this film before, and the original movie trilogy (a few times).

Stranger Things (series 1 & 2) - This was freaking awesome, well-crafted, tremendous drama, creepy cool and astonishingly retro. I really enjoyed both seasons, and looking forward to the 3rd series in 2018.

 

[Steve S]

Finally saw Ex Machina - I liked it a lot, thought-provoking, well-written and well acted.

 

[Jeffbert]

I saw Ex Machina a year ago, interesting story. A bit frightening, though.

I just watched Chappie, it had some elements that reminded me of Robocop

Spoiler

such as a sentient humanoid robot and the baddie that resembled ED209.

 

[Rodders]

I really enjoyed Chappie.

 

[Allegra]

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009)

Powerful documentary, a must see. Received Oscar nomination, apparently too good for the Academy Awards standard. "The most dangerous Man in America" is a title given by Henry Kissinger to Ellsberg.

 

[Caledfwlch]

I really enjoyed Chappie.

Wonderful film!! The "Actors" playing "Mummy and Daddy" are "Ninja" (Watkin Tudor Jones) and Yolande Visser, the main force of the South African Zef band, Die Antwoord, who are fantastic.

Last night I did my best to watch Atomic Blonde, a "British Spy Movie" set in 1989, one of MI6's best agents is sent to Berlin to recover a list. The Atomic Blonde herself was played by Charlize Theron, who's attempt at a British Accent is the Home Counties version of Dick Van Dyke's Cockney, it is truly dreadful, like she had never actually heard any British accent before. And I don't know what the CIA pay their Field Agents, but I am extremely doubtful that MI6 pay theirs so much that they can afford huge flats with views of the Thames, and Big Ben.
And her contact in Berlin, appeared to be doing his best to be a more upper class John Simm, was very odd.
It has also very nearly ruined the wonderful German anti war song 99 Luftballoons (Red Balloons) by Neneh, for me. By having it play during a very brutal scene.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Lost in the Stars (1974)

The American Film Theatre series presents this adaptation of the musical drama by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, itself based on Alan Paton's novel Cry, the Beloved Country. In South Africa in "the recent past" (as a title informs us), a black minister from the countryside goes to Johannesburg to find his adult son. It turns out that the son lives in a shantytown with his pregnant lover, and that he shot and killed a white man during a botched robbery. Filmed in a realistic (as opposed to stagy) manner, so it's odd when folks break into song during this grim story. Very well acted.

 

[Randy M.]

Anatomy of a Murder (1959): dir. Otto Preminger; starring Jimmy Stewart, Ben Gazarra, Lee Remick, Arthur O'Connell, Eve Arden, George C. Scott

An example of a 3 hour movie that doesn't drag. Army lieutenant with impeccable war record in Korea, tracks down his wife's rapist and kills him. The movie follows Stewart, his attorney, building a defense but as viewers we're not sure if the lieutenant and his wife are telling the truth. This has probably one of the best courtroom scenes in cinema, a battle of wits and legal savvy between Stewart and Scott as the prosecutor that I found riveting in no small part because of the contrast of Stewart's folksiness and Scott's city-slick, well-enunciated sentences. Stewart was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and rightly so, and so were O'Connell and Scott. (Charlton Heston won for Ben-Hur.)

Side notes: In 1959 you just didn't talk about rape, sexual violence and women's underwear, at least not in movies, so this movie cracked, if not broke, the conventions of the time. It was also so successful at the box office it set a precedent for Stewart as a lawyer which probably led to his 1970s TV show, Hawkins.


Randy M.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Second Woman (1950)

So-so low budget psychological thriller. Starts off exactly like Rebecca, with the female lead in voiceover thinking of a fancy house that no longer exists, leading us into the story as a flashback. Robert Young is a guy who tries to kill himself after the woman he was supposed to marry was killed in a car accident the day before the wedding. A romance begins between the female lead and the guy. A series of mysterious acts of vandalism and violence follow; the guy's prize roses are poisoned, a painting is ruined, his horse and dog are attacked, and his modernistic home is destroyed. Plot twists follow. It's rather sedate and talky, but not without interest.

 

[Cathbad]

Just tried watching Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Might go back to it... but thinking not. With all the good reviews I'd seen, I thought there would be something here - but so far, it just looks like a child's flick...

 

[Jeffbert]

Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
I intend to watch this soon, as it is available streaming from NF. I expect Merle will be in it!

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Vampire (1957)

Science fiction variation on the title creature. Mad scientist dies after having developed a tablet from some kind of extract from vampire bats. Medical doctor fails to save his life, pockets the tablets. Later he has a headache and tells his young daughter to fetch his migraine medicine from his jacket. Oops. She gives him the wrong one, and he becomes addicted to the stuff, which has the side effect of turning him into a monster who leaves the typical marks on the throats of his victims. Other than that, the guy is much more of a Mister Hyde than a vampire. The plot is pretty much by the numbers, but it's decently done on a low budget. The big exception is the monster makeup, which just makes the guy look like he has a lumpy face. Notable for a fairly convincing relationship between the guy (who apparently is a widower) and his daughter. One pretty good shock scene: The corpse of one victim is unearthed and revealed to be nothing but a skeleton, except her eyeballs! (The monster's victims get some kind of disease which causes their flesh to dissolve.) Interesting also for a fascinating character who doesn't get to do much. The assistant to the researcher who comes to replace the mad scientist is a guy who always wears sunglasses, due to hypersensitivity to light. He is also emotionally withdrawn, because he saw his mother burnt to death when he was a child. It's disappointing that all of this back story goes to waste, since the guy simply serves as another victim.

 

[Rodders]

Bad Moms.

Predictable, but Quite funny. Katherine Hahn was her usual excellent self. (Why she’s not more famous, I don’t know.)