What was the last movie you saw?

[Rodders]

I saw a 3 star Amazon movie called Project Ithaca.

an alien abduction movies that tried to do something a little different, but didn’t quite manage to pull it off. Enjoyable for what it was, but I’ll be adding it to Baylor’s list of B movies.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Mayday (2021). A woman is mysteriously transported to another world where she finds a group of women who lure male soldiers to their deaths via radio in a submarine. It received poor ratings, but I didn't think it was too bad--only a bit drawn-out.

 

[pogopossum]

Hogfather.
I consider any three hour production a movie. I have a friend who makes viewing this an annual holiday event.
Just the second time through for me.

Brilliant, but pays perhaps too much attention to the foibles and eccentricities of wizards and various thugs.
Such detail works better in Pratchett's written work.
Still, every moment of the film is lovely to watch.
Mr. Teatime "Te-ah-tim-eh," remains perhaps the most joyously evil character in fiction.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Howling IV: The Original Nightmare - Straight to video fourquel. Set in California, shot in South Africa, and dubbed who knows where - the whole film was shot without sound and totally dubbed in post production - this cheapo mess managed to end up looking Italian. There were moments when I felt really sorry for the production designer. The number of times he must have sat watching the rushes cringing thinking: "Christ! if I'd known they were going to shoot it from that angle I would have made the back of it look like a real roof / wall / ceiling / stairs / whatever".

 

[Jeffbert]

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984) I had no idea about the controversy with this film, but that was almost 40 years ago. Parents did not approve of the slasher dressed as Santa.

Anyway, this guy in a Santa suit murders a little boys parents in front of him. He is traumatized, but next year the head nun at the orphanage forces him onto the knee of another guy in a Santa suit. Bad idea. He hits the guy; nun punishes him 'naughty!' <-- the key word of the entire film. So, he grows up, works in local toy store, then, when the toy store's Santa is sick on Xmas Eve, he has to wear the suit. sees his coworkers making love, & recalling a similar incident at the orphanage, he snaps, & goes on a killing spree.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Special effects! Action! Incoherent storytelling!

 

[Extollager]

The Bedford Incident

Good Cold War movie with an ending not likely to make for big box office receipts.

 

[Droflet]

Just resaw the Bedford Incident. Terrific movie. I first saw it in the 60's and at that time it was very, very scary.

 

[dask]

 

[alexvss]

Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop (2021). Nice slice-of-life anime. It doesn't have a great start as it takes a while to care about the main couple--about 20 minutes or so--, but the animation style keeps you going until then (the colors reminded me of Idaten Deities, but it's a completely different narrative tone). After that, I was hooked (the fact that the movie is so short helped too).

For shorters, it's cute; it has the meet-cute; and it ends kinda cute.

 

[KGeo777]

I am sure I have seen Rich Little's Christmas Carol--maybe even the Freddy the Freeloader one. Not in decades though.


DE SADE 1969--AIP's biggest flop--it is a dud despite good moments from Lilli Palmer--however I assume that while writing this, Richard Matheson got the idea to do Hell House. There's a sequence with a midget sado-masochist and the story of Hell House is about a De Sade-type character who seeks immortality despite imprisonment.

 

[Starbeast]

I am sure I have seen Rich Little's Christmas Carol--maybe even the Freddy the Freeloader one. Not in decades though.

I've been thinking about those specials for a while and finally got around to seeing them. You can check them out on YouTube.

 

[New]

Joanna D Arc
The first half is great - almost like Braveheart - while the second half is boring and long, the whole movie is 2:40 - which is too long

 

[JunkMonkey]

Special effects! Action! Incoherent storytelling!

Just like every other iteration of Star Trek then.

 

[KGeo777]

Seven Pistols for a Massacre 1967 - I haven't seen many Craig Hill westerns--this one is very old-fashioned for an Italian one. Not every spaghetti western was influenced by Leone and friends. This feels much more like an American western.

 

[Jeffbert]

NOIR ALLEY's year-end film:

REPEAT PERFORMANCE (1947) I know I have seen this before, & suspect then too, it was on NOIR ALLEY. But anyway, definitely not the typical noir. No heist, no prison break, etc. In fact, this has fantasy elements.

So, An actress who gained fame after marriage to a playwright loses his love to another woman. Shoots him dead on New Year's Eve, and wishes she could live the entire year over again, while avoiding the errors, etc.

Barney Page (Louis Hayward) is the playwright who is frustrated by his reliance on his wife Sheila Page (Joan Leslie) for money, seeing as how when they married, only he had money / fame. Since then, her career has blossomed, while his has withered. So, he begins loathing his wife, and dating another woman.

Well done, indeed! Esp. Muller's comments.

 

[Toby Frost]

The Return of the King (2003)

The third part of the trilogy is another very good film indeed. I remembered it as being full of huge battles, but the smaller drama impresses me just as much, especially that between Frodo and Sam (in a strong field, Sean Astin is particularly good). John Noble's Denethor is perfectly decent, but doesn't get much screen time, so his jump from depression to madness seems a bit quick. As ever, Peter Jackson deserves credit for organising the story into a satisfying film, especially given the amount of special effects involved.

Thus concludes an excellent series of films. Two particular things strike me. First, the maturity and grown-up feel of the story: not just in terms of violence, but in seriousness. At the end, Frodo observes that time doesn't heal all wounds: there's a sense that things have consequences, and that in winning, he has become a broken man. Second is the depiction of male friendship and emotion: not just the friendship between Frodo and Sam, but between Legolas and Gimli, Aragorn and the Fellowship, and so on. Many of the male characters weep (when not hacking their way through countless orcs). I suppose both of these points suggest that the characterisation here is extremely strong, unlike many fantasy films.

So, anyway, a few tiny issues aside, these films are superb and everyone should watch them.

[Oh, and just one more thing: Jackson was right to leave out the Scouring of the Shire. It would have required an extra 45 minutes at least, and its themes are well-addressed in the Isengard scenes and the departure of Frodo for the Grey Havens.]

 

[CoriSCapnSkip]

There was a court case over Poltergeist. A screenwriter (son of Eleanor Parker) said he sent a screenplay to Spielberg's office and elements of it turned up in the film. The court case was going to have Ray Bradbury as an expert witness on ghost stories for the plaintiff and Richard Matheson on the defense but they settled out of court. Spielberg never put his name on a screenplay again. His producers were blamed for the borrowing of the concepts (the clown and the tree attack).

There was a tv movie made around that time which was pulled from showing because it had a child being sucked into a tv--I dont know if they filmed it and shelved it or it was cancelled because they didn't want to take an idea that was going to be used in the feature film.

Why on earth would Richard Matheson have been on the defense? He should have been the plaintiff! The whole middle of the film was ripped off from his episode of The Twilight Zone, "Little Girl Lost."

 

[KGeo777]

I think they mentioned that in the article---that Matheson's TZ story was more directly an inspiration for it--but certain specific elements from the submitted script like the tree and clown were what was the point of dispute. Matheson had a project with Spielberg so maybe that was a factor in his involvement as well.


ALONG CAME A SPIDER 1970 -- This is a like a noirish kind of story--some parts of it feels like a 1940s or 50s movie- some Vertigo ideas thrown in--a woman scientist gets to know a physicist who we learn she suspects of killing her husband. She frames him for her murder so he gets tried and sent to prison--but when a letter from El Salvador comes, she has to make a dramatic decision. It has a lot of twists--I had seen it before and forgot them. Someone says this line without tongue in cheek: "I want to speak to Detective Sam Howard. He is at a tear gas convention in the walmart room. Yes it is an emergency!"

FIREBIRD 2015 AD - 1981 The president has banned personal vehicles and oil production but Darren McGavin runs a secret car and gas station. His naive law-abiding son tells him he is breaking the law and wasting limited resources, to which his father replies, "Limited resources? If I had to, I could make fuel out of bullsh** and there's no scarcity of that in this world!"
McGavin has an attitude that is refreshing--he has to educate his son about his trust in media, "that's just government bullsh** boy!"

Mary Beth Rubens has an uncanny resemblance to Ida Lupino.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963)

Ray Milland plays James Xavier a scientist looking to extend the range of human vision in this Roger Corman Sci-fi horror. Great use of sfx and first person perspective. Fantastic sixties dancing. "If thine eye offends thee... pluck it out!"

Enjoyed this and looking for recommendations of more like it...