What was the last movie you saw?

[Victoria Silverwolf]

A Fool There Was (1915)

A fool there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you and I!)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair
(We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair
(Even as you and I!)

Oh the years we waste and the tears we waste
And the work of our head and hand,
Belong to the woman who did not know
(And now we know that she never could know)
And did not understand.

A fool there was and his goods he spent
(Even as you and I!)
Honor and faith and a sure intent
But a fool must follow his natural bent
(And it wasn't the least what the lady meant),
(Even as you and I!)

Oh the toil we lost and the spoil we lost
And the excellent things we planned,
Belong to the woman who didn't know why
(And now we know she never knew why)
And did not understand.

The fool we stripped to his foolish hide
(Even as you and I!)
Which she might have seen when she threw him aside --
(But it isn't on record the lady tried)
So some of him lived but the most of him died --
(Even as you and I!)

And it isn't the shame and it isn't the blame
That stings like a white hot brand.
It's coming to know that she never knew why
(Seeing at last she could never know why)
And never could understand.

Rudyard Kipling's 1897 poem "The Vampire" was written to accompany the following monochrome painting, of the same title, by his cousin Edward Burne-Jones.

Theda Bara stars as a character known only as "the vampire" in this silent film adapted from a play inspired by the poem, which is often quoted in the title cards, and often looks just like the woman in the painting above. She's not a literal bloodsucker, however. She's simply a purely evil woman who deliberately seduces men to their doom, after draining them of their wealth and position. That pretty much sums up the plot of this melodrama, as she selects her next victim, a fellow of riches and social status, married and with a young daughter. He loses everything, up to and including his life, in his mad passion for her. Notable for popularizing the term "vamp," for making Bara into one of the screen's earliest sex symbols (stills from her lost film Cleopatra show her in remarkably revealing costumes), and for Bara's undisguised disdain for her victim, whom she openly bullies. Otherwise, it's not that great a movie.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Muthers (1976)

Filipino action flick that manages to combine Blaxploitation, martial arts, the Women in Prison genre, and pirates. Two African-American women are in command of a modern day pirate ship, with a bunch of Filipino guys as the crew. (The side of their ship actually says MUTHERS.) There's also a rival pirate gang to cause trouble. One woman's sister is being held prisoner by a sadistic guy and his private army. They enslave women for their coffee plantation, and sell some of them into prostitution. The government will ignore the women's criminal activities if they'll shut down the prison and bring the bad guy to justice. At the prison they recruit two other women, both also African-American. One of them is the bad guy's sex slave. It's pretty mild stuff, considering the potential for exploitation.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Man Who Finally Died (1963)

Convoluted British thriller. Man born in Germany, but living in England since he was a kid, gets a call to meet his father in Germany. This is a surprise, as he thought his father died twenty years ago. Even more surprising is the fact that his father really died, or so it seems, a few days before the call was made. The man encounters his father's young second wife, recently widowed (or was she?) and his friend (or is he?) played by Peter Cushing. Mysteries abound. Why was his Protestant father given a Catholic burial? Why were gloves belonging to a woman whose own father died recently, and was buried at a different place, found at the grave site of the man's father? It'll keep you guessing. Don't assume you know who the good guys and the bad guys are.

 

[Foxbat]

Le Mans 66 (I believe it’s called Ford Vs Ferrari in the USA). It tells the tale of the development of the Ford GT40 by Carrol Shelby and Ken Miles and the battle to wrench the crown of the world’s greatest endurance race from Enzo Ferrari.

I really enjoyed it

 

[Randy M.]

Book Club (2018)

Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergan, and Mary Steenburgen star as four long-time friends who have a 40-year long book club. Fonda, playing the most care-free of the four, offers up Fifty Shades of Grey for her month's choice and things spiral from there. Also in on this are Alicia Silverstone, Craig T. Nelson, Don Johnson, Richard Dreyfuss, Andy Garcia, Ed Begley Jr., Wallace Shawn. It's an implausible and sometimes silly geriatric rom-com, but frequently funny, giving several seasoned entertainers a platform for doing what they've done best for years, take something slight and make it work. As they used to say, if you like this sort of thing, it's the sort of thing you'll like.

Randy M.

 

[HareBrain]

Le Mans 66 (I believe it’s called Ford Vs Ferrari in the USA). It tells the tale of the development of the Ford GT40 by Carrol Shelby and Ken Miles and the battle to wrench the crown of the world’s greatest endurance race from Enzo Ferrari.

I really enjoyed it

Me too (saw it on a flight, back when there were such things). The only thing that annoyed me about it was the shots when they changed gear and the tachometer showed an impossible amount of movement related to the speed. (Much like Steve McQueen's car in Bullit upshifted about twenty times in a row.)

 

[Starbeast]

​

Border (Gräns). A combination of contemporary fantasy and thriller--a refreshing combination. I like its take on trolls.

Thanks for the mention. You've got me interested.

Elvira's Haunted Hills (2001)

It is a disappointing sequel. I enjoyed watching Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) last month. And I watched her host Night of the Living Dead (1968)

My Sister's Sister (2012)

Bit of a nothing movie

Thanks for the warning. I'm always happy to hear about any movie that was "so bad...", that it is worth mentioning to anyone who may be curious.

The Terminator (1984) Nice little s.f. film still holds up. Too bad it never became popular. (ahem)

Super 8 (2011)

The Terminator, always awesome to view, along with it's mighty sequel.

That "other film", I'll probably won't see it again.

Le Mans 66 (I believe it’s called Ford Vs Ferrari in the USA). It tells the tale of the development of the Ford GT40 by Carrol Shelby and Ken Miles and the battle to wrench the crown of the world’s greatest endurance race from Enzo Ferrari.

I really enjoyed it

For a film costing 97.6 million, I hope it's great.

Způsob startu v závodech Le Mans do roku 1970​

 

[Randy M.]

A Quiet Place (2018)

Very effective, reaffirming a point many producers forget (ignore?) that scary comes less from effects than from story, and story gives you characters you can understand and believe in.

Randy M.

 

[J Riff]

ghastly.

 

[Jeffbert]

White Zombie (1932) still creepy after nearly 90 years. Lugosi's hypnotic gaze that premiered in Dracula, is featured here, as well. His costume is also similar. Here, he is the master of men, drugged, presumed dead, buried alive, exhumed, revived and drugged into senseless obedience.

A young couple, about to be wed, comes to Haiti, where the guy Neil Parker (John Harron) will be employed as a representative of the plantation owner Charles Beaumont (Robert W. Frazer). But the owner, upon seeing the bride to be, Madeleine Short (Madge Bellamy), has in insatiable lust for her. he asks the man who keeps the workers working, Legendre (Bela Lugosi), to get the woman for him. But, there is only one way, that is to use the zombie drug on her.


Elevator to the Gallows (1958) NOIR ALLEY; another really good film, but somewhat strange. French film, thus, I am unfamiliar with the cast, with the exception of Police Commissaire Cherrier (Lino Ventura). Up until about an hour into the film, nothing resonated. Then, I saw the gull-wing Mercedes.

The plot: executive Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) & his bosses wife (Jeanne Moreau) plot to kill him Simon Carala (Jean Wall). JT's office is one floor below the boss' office. Using a rope & grappling hook, Tavernier ascends to the boss' floor, shoots him, carefully using the blade of his knife, closes the door behind him, thus making it near certain to be assumed a suicide. He descends the rope, but carelessly leaves it in place. It is Saturday, so the building closes early. he gets in his car, puts gun in glove box, starts the engine, looks up, sees the rope, leave the engine running, goes inside, into the elevator, just as the building maintenance guy switches off the electrical power! Tavernier is trapped between floors, and though able to open the door, cannot fit through the gap.

Some young punk & girlfriend, drives away in his car, witnesses assume Tavernier is at the wheel. Punk looks for what he can steal, oh, a pistol, guess I'll take that.

Spoiler

They drive around up and down the highway, rear end the gull-wing, who emerges, rather jovial and forgiving, invites them to dinner. Meanwhile, Tavernier is coolly attempting escape, his former life in the military has given him the patience and experience needed to find an escape, but it will come to naught, because the police have assumed he is the killer of the gull-wing guy; whom the punk had killed and then taken the Mercedes for a joyride. just as he is about to escape the elevator, the maintenance guy flips the power on, and the police enter the building.

The strange part, is that the murderer spends the bulk of the film trapped in the elevator. The punk & girlfriend, assume they will be caught, convicted, etc., and separated. So they take a drug, expecting to die in each other's arms, but they are rudely wakened by the boss' wife, who had figured out that her lover had not murdered to gull-wing guy, etc. There is a small camera involved that contains photos of Tavernier & the boss' wife in each other's arms, which the punk had dropped in the box for film at the motel where he, his girlfriend, and the gull-wing guy and his lady had all stayed. So, Tavernier is cleared of the murder of the gull-wing guy, but as soon as they find the boss dead, he is one the spot for that murder. Good show!

 

[hitmouse]

Grimsby. Very funny mismatched pair spy action thriller comedy, completely unsuitable for anyone who has the slightest chance of being offended by stuff in general.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

John Wick 2

I found it incredibly boring.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

A Fool There Was (1915)



Rudyard Kipling's 1897 poem "The Vampire" was written to accompany the following monochrome painting, of the same title, by his cousin Edward Burne-Jones.

View attachment 61786

The painting is actually by Philip Burne-Jones, Edward's son. And I would guess it was actually in color, but it seems to be lost, and all we have are monochrome reproductions of it. (I've actually found online what looks like a color print based on it, but it's not very good as a reproduction.)

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Just watched again (twice! Once straight and once with the excellent commentary by Australian critic Adrian Martin) Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974). I love this movie so much. It's a shaggy-dog female buddy movie/comedy wrapped around an eerie haunted house mystery. There is also a sequence that was a direct inspiration for a similar sequence in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. (Actually, there are many similarities too, it's just that the Rivette movie is goofier, sunnier, and much more optimistic.) Two friends stumble upon an eerie house, said to have been abandoned for years, in which the same drama seems to be enacted day after day, every day ending in the murder of the same young girl. Trying to enter the house, they leave it with total amnesia as to what they experienced in there, but then they discover some candies that allow them to re-experience their memories, then (after a midnight heist at the library on roller skates) a magic spell that allows them to do the same thing. Then they decide to act...

It's just a lovely film, much of it improvised by the actors together with the director, all set in sunny Montmartre in the summer (before it grew lousy with tourists). The chemistry between the two leads is a wonder, and the difference in style behind their '70s, natural acting, and the story in the building, which feels like a 1930s melodrama. You can also try to spot all the Marx Brothers references. And did I mention the cats? There are cats everywhere. It's a movie that takes its time, as Rivette liked to (it's 3 h and a quarter) but always feels light and never ponderous. Oh, and in case you wonder, it justifies its title in the last couple of minutes of screen time.

 

[Boneman]

Notting Hill

needed cheering up... always works.

 

[biodroid]

American Pie 7: The Book of Love. Terrible movie

 

[biodroid]

Notting Hill

needed cheering up... always works.

The only movie with Hugh Grant that I can watch. Can't stand him.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Having just watched the new Invisible Man, I’m at a total loss as to why it has received such positive reviews. It’s tight and well put together, clean and ‘professional’ (apart from the sfx which are, to put it lightly, ropey), but as soon as you realise what’s going to/is happened/ing, it’s a colour by numbers affair with predictable beats and turns.

Spoiler

It also manages to trivialise and fetishise spousal abuse at the same time.

Avoid.

pH

 

[Parson]

Covid time off spent watching First Peoples a documentary about how modern humans spread out over the globe, while stating the once controversial fact that they mated with "ancient kinds of humans." Interesting and well researched even if they stretched a bit for dramatic tension.

 

[Foxbat]

Hellraiser Clive Barker’s 1987 movie still stands the test of time