What was the last movie you saw?

What confuses me is the new Thrawn book. Disney kinda cancelled the expanded universe and Heir to the Empire. Then there is a Thrawn book, but no Thrawn in the movies. How's that going? Have you read the new Thrawn book?

Thrawn is canon for a while now as he was in Rebels. But he will never be in the sequels because
pH
 
The Devil's Disciple 1959. Adapted from George Bernard Shaw novel. Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Lawrence Olivier and Janette Scott star. Looks wonderful. Some sharp dialogue. Shame about Scott's ultra-hysterical episodes and Lancaster's preoccupation with working out
Douglas and Olivier are excellent in court. Worth watching for that and G.B. Shaw's writing. Solid support from Major Swindon as the archetypically Harry Andrews.
 
Train to Busan (2016). This is a superb zombie action film from S Korea. Probably the best of its type. Ok its not as classic as Dawn of The Dead and it is sillier. But it is so entertaining. Some laughs, some scares. It just has a lot of excitement.

I am a Hero (2015) - We then moved onto Japanese Zombies... The Japanese are not generally into zombie stories and find them silly. This was a fairly silly movie but still quite entertaining. It is based on a Manga story. Definitely not up to Train to Busan levels. I liked the idea that the zombies (infected) had some memory of their lifetime work or obsession. Often repeating words or attempting actions they used to do. Actually they called the Zombies ZQN which was related to the infection somehow.

Mission Impossible Fallout (6) has received a lot of praise. I preferred it to 4 but thought 5 was better. I enjoyed the first half with various car chases and a good close fight scene. But it is a long movie and I thought it was dragged out. One of those where they make the plot more complicated than necessary for an action.
 
Spacehunter - Adventures in the Forbidden Zone!

On Amazon Prime - so much 80s, so much sci-fi western starwars fun! Sure they don't have Lucas Arts puppets but they have some great models and honestly its a good space-western-adventure that doesn't try to be anything its not.

Well worth a watch!
 
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) Steve McQueen masterminds a heist using 5 guys who are unknown to each other and who do not know him. Faye Dunaway is the insurance investigator who is out to recover the stolen money. Based upon his trip to Switzerland and a few other clues, she decides he is the guy who did it. She actually hangs out with him, and they laugh about her pursuit of him, etc.

Everything's Rosie (1931) Robert Woolsey who usually costars with Bert Wheeler in musical comedies, goes solo in a film about a con man who adopts a waif girl. She is now 17, and has a high class boyfriend. The rich people all believe RW is an aristocrat, but his inability to pass up an opportunity to fleece them using the shell game overcomes him, & he must take his leave and flee.

In the end, the boy & girl marry, despite his gambling. Not as good as the Wheeler & Woolsey musical comedies, but ok.
 
Holiday aircraft viewing:

Lego Batman Movie -- amusing but overlong.

Hidden Figures -- enjoyable feelgood movie, with less "bite" than it probably should have had.

Ready Player One -- entertaining but empty.

Isle of Dogs -- aargh! I caught only the first twenty minutes of this before landing, and wish I'd chosen it first. I might have to buy it on DVD. It's great.
 
ackchewly, I found isle of doggies a tad, just a bit uh dark.. lots of death, kill all the dogs, nazi dog camp.., but, ha ha anyways.
Mission Stardust, 1967, is Perry Rodan, co-stars Essy, a woman in a christmas ornament spaceship, who beats up on various military types till Perry saves the day, not sure what really went on but it was nice to look at.
 
Jacobs Ladder and this last viewing was second time that Id seen it in it entirety . The first time I saw it, I found it disturbing and hellish and dark. But this time around, beyond the dark and disturbing, there moments of love and light, hope and poignancy that I had quite missed. This is a truly great and remarkable film !
 
ackchewly, I found isle of doggies a tad, just a bit uh dark.. lots of death, kill all the dogs, nazi dog camp.., but, ha ha anyways.
Mission Stardust, 1967, is Perry Rodan, co-stars Essy, a woman in a christmas ornament spaceship, who beats up on various military types till Perry saves the day, not sure what really went on but it was nice to look at.
Where did you get a copy of Mission Stardust? I've only seen bits of it on youtube. I learned German just to read Perry Rhodan. No, really.
 
Where did you get a copy of Mission Stardust? I've only seen bits of it on youtube. I learned German just to read Perry Rhodan. No, really.

Mission Stardust ? egads what an awful film ! :eek:
 
Last edited:
Where did you get a copy of Mission Stardust? I've only seen bits of it on youtube. I learned German just to read Perry Rhodan. No, really.
I think Ace Books published a lot of Perry Rhodan in English. Not sure if they were translations of original German adventures or new ones written in English for the English speaking world.
Here's what happens if you disobey an order from Major Rhodan:

perry-rhodan-sos-aus-dem-weltall-perry-rhodan-sos-aus-dem-weltall-d22wha.jpg

Actually I don't know what movie this is from but it is supposed to be Essy Persson.
 
The Ace books were translations of the original German stories. They're grouped into arcs as a new novella is still published each week. The amount of detail in the PR universe is staggering. Not even Star Trek or Doctor Who can match it.
 
Secret Agent Fireball (1965) ...because that sounds like Thunderball. English dubbed version of Le spie uccidono a Beirut, or Spies Kill in Beirut...you'll never guess what it's about.

At one point, obnoxiously debonair American spy James Clarke squeezes info from a tatoo artist by threatening his face with the tatoo needle. His victim cries, "No, not that!" Later, he refuels his helicopter at a Mobil gas station.

So bad it's good, of course. Starring the lovely Dominique Boschero...

Just remember, you can spot the good movies because they have a star beside the title.
 
Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977)

Short and somewhat misleading description: Eraserhead plus The Creeping Terror.

This is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. The title describes the basic premise accurately; there's a demonic bed that eats people. That makes this sound like a silly parody of monster movies. There's a touch of that, to be sure. It's impossible to take seriously a scene in which the bed ingests Pepto-Bismol. However, for the most part this outrageous premise is treated seriously.

A rational synopsis is nearly impossible. Suffice to say that the film is divided into four acts: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Just Desserts. We start with a voice-over narration from an artist who has been trapped in a sort of limbo behind a drawing, in the room where the bed is located. A young couple wander into the abandoned place and get eaten (after the bed consumes their apples, wine, and fried chicken.) Throughout the film these scenes of consumption involve soapy yellow stuff coming out of the bed, then shots of whatever is being eaten in bubbling yellow liquid. Three women show up, and later the brother of one arrives in search of her. About halfway through the movie we get flashback sequences and learn the backstory behind the bed. It seems that a demon fell in love with a human women and created the bed for them. Their encounter sort-of-but-not-really killed her (it's hard to explain, or even understand) and gave the bed its evil powers, except when the demon falls asleep once every ten years. The bed eats some of the folks, and is eventually destroyed in a ritual which is even more bizarre than everything else in the movie.

Obviously filmed on a very low budget, with amateurish acting, this film manages to have scenes that are quite beautiful, as well as some genuinely eerie sequences. There are moments of surrealism worthy of Bunuel. There are goofy parts. Sometimes these all come together at once. (One that comes to mind is when a fellow has all the flesh eaten off his hands by the bed. He holds up the skeletal remains quite calmly, watching as the bones fall off one by one.)

This may be the most dream-like film I've ever seen, keeping in mind the fact that dreams can be ridiculous, illogical, frightening, and lovely all at the same time.
 
The House of the Dead (1978) AKA Alien Zone (for no reason at all)

Low budget horror anthology. A guy having an extramarital affair tries to take a taxi from the site of his messing around but winds up at a mortuary. The mortician shows him some folks in coffins and relates their fates.

1. Woman who doesn't like children is stalked in her home by unseen intruders. They turn out to be kids in Halloween masks. Special visual effects and fake fangs are used to make them look scary. Some small amount of tension created by the stalking sequences, but otherwise obvious and trivial.

2. Guy is arrested. Flashbacks show us the videotapes he made of himself killing three women. The mortician tells us he was executed. That's the entire story! No ironic fate, no revenge from beyond the grave, nothing. The murder scenes are played for light black comedy. This sequence is very short, and maybe something else was supposed to happen.

3. A great British detective comes to the States to observe the work of a great American detective. The American gets an anonymous note telling him that somebody close to him will be murdered in three days. The British fellow hangs around while he tries to solve the case. You'll probably see the triple twist ending of this sequence coming a mile away, but I won't spoil it here. Would have made a decent episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

4. Office worker is rude to a homeless guy on the street. He winds up trapped in an empty building. The building seems to have its own agenda. (Shades of Death Bed!) It forces him down an elevator shaft and into a tiny room, mentally tortures him by almost, but not quite, impaling him on a wall full of spikes, and eventually forces him to become the kind of person for whom he had contempt. It's an OK morality play (even though, like many of these things, the punishment is way out of proportion to the crime.) Would have made a decent episode of Tales From the Crypt.

5. Of course, the guy having an affair meets his own fate.

Overall, fair-to-middling. Two poor stories, two OK stories, and a minor wraparound story. A few very familiar character actors show up; the mortician and the two detectives. That adds some professionalism. Filmed entirely in Oklahoma.
 
mission starlust was on yotub, i thot....
also there is The Flesh Eaters 1964, with the supposedly deleted Nazi scene... and it is
a strange mess, with some skeletons and nudity thrown in, and a big tentacle beasty at the end.
 
The Hunt For Red October (1990). One of the few book adaptations I thought did a good job. I never really understood why Alec Baldwin didn't get to keep playing Jack Ryan. Hell, Gates McFadden was great as his wife as well. Anyway, it's a great film.
 
The Hunt For Red October (1990). One of the few book adaptations I thought did a good job. I never really understood why Alec Baldwin didn't get to keep playing Jack Ryan. Hell, Gates McFadden was great as his wife as well. Anyway, it's a great film.

I thought Baldwin was fine in the role.
 

Similar threads


Back
Top