What was the last movie you saw?

Foxbat said:
Parasite 2019 (Korean with English subtitles)
This movie follows the struggles of a Korean family to survive on the breadline while living in a semi-basement (called a banjiha) in Seoul. Through a stroke of good fortune, the son lands a position teaching English to the daughter of very wealthy Koreans and comes up with a plan to have his whole family employed within the household.

It's a dark comedy that has elements of a heist movie and is well worth watching. Four out of five from me:)
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I thought of this film as a modern " folk horror "
Foxbat said:
Parasite 2019 (Korean with English subtitles)
This movie follows the struggles of a Korean family to survive on the breadline while living in a semi-basement (called a banjiha) in Seoul. Through a stroke of good fortune, the son lands a position teaching English to the daughter of very wealthy Koreans and comes up with a plan to have his whole family employed within the household.

It's a dark comedy that has elements of a heist movie and is well worth watching. Four out of five from me:)
Click to expand...
 
PYTHON ALERT!! TCM will show Monty Python films from 8PM 11/29 through 5:30 AM 11/30


8:00pm EST​

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)​

1 hr 45 mins|adventure

9:45pm EST​

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982)​

1 hr 30 mins|comedy

11:15pm EST​

Monty Python's Life Of Brian (1979)​

1 hr 45 mins|comedy

1:00am EST​


Monty Python: The Meaning of Live (2015)​

1 hr 45 mins|documentary

2:45am EST​

The Meaning of Monty Python (2013)​

1 hr 15 mins

​

4:30am EST

Monty Python's Flying Circus: Live at Aspen (1998)​

1 hr
 
Force of Impulse (1961)

Obscure low budget Florida-based teen drama. Son (Tony Anthony, later a spaghetti Western star) of extremely Italian grocer (ubiquitous character actor J. Carrol Naish) gets mixed up with blonde daughter (Playboy's September 1958 Playmate of the Month) of rich guy (Robert Alda, father of Alan.) Not much happens. Pretty much a snoozer. Music by jazz legend Lionel Hampton, who also appears as himself at a nightclub. Joan Crawford's Mommy Dearest daughter is in there somewhere, too.
 
Gladiator (2000) -- This was a film where I felt the plot was choppy. I didn't feel there was much character development. And the moral of the story was "everything good is not going to last." I feel that the movie was seriously overrated but it did show tons of gore and killing if that's your thing. It's not mine.

Avoid --- Not Recommended --- Flawed --- Okay --- Good --- Recommended --- Shouldn’t be Missed
 
Parson said:
Gladiator (2000) -- This was a film where I felt the plot was choppy. I didn't feel there was much character development. And the moral of the story was "everything good is not going to last." I feel that the movie was seriously overrated but it did show tons of gore and killing if that's your thing. It's not mine.

Avoid --- Not Recommended --- Flawed --- Okay --- Good --- Recommended --- Shouldn’t be Missed
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I sort of agree... but there again I don't think Sir Ridley has made a really good film since Thelma & Louise.
 
Gladiator is a funny movie because as Russell Crowe said--the dialogue is terrible. It does have a rather depressing theme too. Male failure is a strong thematic concept in it. I don't think there is any character who is successful or achieves anything.You have to die to achieve happiness basically.
But it has style and an epic feeling and can be rewatched despite the flaws. I also dislike the cinematography--muting the colours to give it an unnatural orange or washed out feeling.
Style over substance.

SCREAM OF THE WOLF - 1974 - There is a link between this Dan Curtis tv-movie and another sword and sandal film--Ben-Hur. One might have noticed the bromance between Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd in there--although Heston was kept in the dark about the intended subtext. This story has something similar--Peter Graves is a hunting friend of Clint Walker, and there is some tension between the latter and Graves' girlfriend Jo Ann Pflug. If writer Richard Matheson had intended a Ben-Hur kind of message it is censored or lost on the actors except maybe Walker. And that's another thing that is interesting about it--all the male actors are at least 6'3. Phillip Carey and Walker are between 6'4 and 6'5. Graves is the shorty.

I don't think this story works despite some suspenseful scenes. It's kind of a cheat because we are led to believe the story is going in a certain direction and given other Dan Curtis productions, it's a disappointment for not taking that route.

The main philosophical idea is that technological man has too many comforts to be truly living, stress and adversity are better states for experiencing life. Much of Matheson's oeuvre involved protagonists who achieve a sort of epiphany from their encounter with the (supernatural) horror, so there is a thematic connection here. But usually his characters are neurotic or more urbanite. You don't feel as connected to the characters here. Graves is too wrinkly and etch-faced to show much emotional sensitivity, if it was intended. You could say this is part of the growing trend deconstruction of the macho man that you find in the 60s and 70s, and in that sense, Gladiator is what you get when you go so far down that road that you can't turn around.
It is next to impossible to find a story where you have a male character--someone naturally strong or tall, who is in adventure where success is achieved through individual effort. In Ben-Hur, the hero does make a lot of personal achievements and overcomes character-building adversity, but it also requires God to bring the rain to fix everything.
We had quite a journey with this review.
 
Interesting to see the criticism of Gladiator. It certainly has some action and gore, but far less than many films and I always found it an emotional story in places too. The atmosphere, including the music, just draws the watcher in (although not all watchers). You have to go back to the likes of Ben Hur to see a pre-industrial age based action/drama done to such a high level. For someone who is anti violence in movies though I can see I wouldn't be a top 10 hit.
Regarding the failure comment I think that is reflective of the decline of the Roman Empire, particularly with a "good" Emperor dying early in the film.
I'm somewhat looking forward to Gladiator 2 but it will for sure be worse, even if still entertaining.
 
The Big Combo (1955) Saw it about a year ago, but with the NOIR ALLEY treatment, just had to watch it again. Police Capt. Peterson (Robert Middleton) reminds Police Lt. Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde) that he has been spending too much money without positive results, trying to catch Mr. Brown (Richard Conte), the kingpin of local organized crime. In his opening comments, Muller suggested that Quentin Tarentino may have been influenced by this film, as it contains a very violent (for that time) torture scene.

Supporting characters/actors:
Mr. Brown's 2nd in command Joe McClure (Brian Donlevy), who had been the boss, but somehow Brown gained advantage over him. Brown's philosophy is that #1 is everything, & #2 is nothing. He occasionally rubs salt into McClure's open wound by reminding him of Brown's havins started working for him. Brown's two, count 'em, 2 henchmen Fante (Lee Van Cleef) & Mingo (Earl Holliman) apparently know each other VERY well. Nils Dreyer (John Hoyt) as a washed-up mob guy, lying low, hoping to die peacefully. Susan Lowell (Jean Wallace) Brown's girlfriend, though she is more like an abused slave. Alicia Brown (Helen Walker) has taken shelter in a mental institution, hoping to live her life there.

As far as noir goes, this is one of the very best!
 
JOURNEY TO SHILOH - 1968 - Seven friends from Texas head to Richmond to join the Confederacy but encounter various characters and incidents that seem to make their desire to fight less compelling. At times it borders on a black comedy. James Caan stars as the leader of the group, in an unflattering wig. He is joined by Michael Sarrazin, Don Stroud, Jan Michael Vincent, Michael Burns (who I have seen a few times, mainly in 60s westerns--he became a professor emeritus of history). And with the least amount of dialogue lines of the group, Harrison Ford.
 
Girl with an Itch (1958)

Our femme fatale is a curvaceous blonde hitchhiker who wears a tight, slinky, extremely low-cut dress for most of the film. She winds up at a squash farm. (This is probably the only film where you'll hear the line "You got squash in my shoe.") She sort of gets a job (bending over to pick squash in that same dress) but really spends most of the time stealing another woman's boyfriend (leading to a catfight that winds up in a pond, so that same dress gets soaking wet) and working her way into the household of the elderly guy who owns the farm. (Hey, it's Robert Armstrong of King Kong fame!) His adult son is extremely upset by this, winning the overacting award with his screaming. (Hey, it's Robert Clarke, writer/producer/director/star of The Hideous Sun Demon!) The film just reeks of sex, without going over the line into nudie or adults only territory. The Girl with an Itch eventually gets run out of the county, but the final scene implies she'll find another sugar daddy right away.

She Walks By Night AKA Love Now, Pay Later (Die Wahrheit über Rosemarie, "The Truth about Rosemarie," 1959)

West German drama based on the real-life murder of high-class prostitute Rosemarie Nitribitt in 1957. Striking British actress Belinda Lee (dead herself two years later at age 25, due to an automobile accident) stars as Nitribitt. She makes her way up from walking the streets to becoming a millionaire's fiancée. That doesn't stop her from continuing her profession to support a luxurious lifestyle. (Like the real Nitribitt, she solicits clients from her expensive sports car.) Various things happen on the way to her doom. (As in real life, the fictional murder remains unsolved.)
 
paranoid marvin said:
What did he think of the ending? And has he seen Spaceballs?
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He knew the ending already (and the "get your hands of me" line) it's pretty hard not to know the ending these days especially as most packaging uses that iconic twist ending shot as the main image on the front of the box - but he got to place them in context. He giggled at the thre wise monkeys gag, which I didn't think he knew about, and was very impressed by how expressive the actors could be under all that make up. "It hold up really well" he said.

He loved Spaceballs. "Moichendising!" is one of our in-jokes.
 
The Underwater City (1962)

Tepid science fiction film. Partly narrated in documentary style, as we see somebody in a diving suit get killed by a giant moray eel while scouting locations for the Underwater City (to be named Amphibia.)

Our nominal hero is an engineer who works on the project, although he's skeptical about it and would rather design space stations. Among the folks who'll spend time in Amphibia are the older oceanographer behind the scheme, a physician/psychologist (love interest Julie Adams of Creature from the Black Lagoon fame), some Navy guys (one of whom offers attempted comedy in his continuing effort to obtain booze), a dietician (who, because she's a woman, is really excited by Amphibia's kitchen) and a newly married Navy guy and his bride, who stay in the so-called honeymoon suite. (Amphibia is basically a series of underwater domes.)

Somebody gets killed by a shark, there's an attack by a giant octopus, etc. Ends with a bang, but it's pretty sedate stuff. Not terrible, but not too exciting either.
 
Alien: Romulus
Draws heavily from its predecesssors, especially the first two films. Lots of Xenomorph action; thin on plot and character development.
 
AE35Unit said:
I'm kinda jealous. My son isn't interested in any such films. He's autistic and has a very specific interest set. My daughter however would watch films with me in the past. But she's 20 now
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Join the club. Both daughters have diagnoses and have have left home, number one son is also on the spectrum. He's less interested in films but his obsessional watching of Futurama (he can quote from, and name, specific episodes) has left the field open for me to make the jokes and references in it better by showing him the original source material. He wasn't at all interested in films - didn't have the attention span even at the age where the daughters were arguing with me about the merits of Cronenburg's earlier works - but I eased him into them with episodes of Mystery Science 3000.
 
Scream Bloody Murder (1973)

Cheap, sleazy, and extremely Freudian psycho killer film. Boy runs over his father with a big farm machine, injuring his own hand in the process. Years later, he's released from a psychiatric facility with a hook replacing his hand. He goes home to find that Mom has remarried. You might expect this part of the plot to go on for a while, but the film wastes no time. He kills stepdad right away, and accidentally kills Mom when she understandably breaks down over this. Running away from home, he murders a young couple giving him a ride because the man dares to touch the woman (seen as Mom in hallucinations.)

The main plot begins when the psycho meets a prostitute. Just to make sure we get the point, she's played by the same actress who played Mom! Suffice to say that, after killing the stereotypical drunken sailor who makes use of her services, he kills an elderly woman and her maid so he can live in their fancy mansion and convince the prostitute that he's rich. The movie turns into a low budget, amateurish version of The Collector as he keeps her prisoner. Don't expect a happy ending.

Not a good film in any normal way, but it has a certain gritty, nasty, slimy power.
 
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