What was the last movie you saw?

Triumph of the Son of Hercules (Il trionfo di Maciste, 1961)

Yes, once again it's Maciste and not the son of Hercules. This time he's in ancient Egypt. (You have to understand that the character is liable to show up anywhere at any time. In the truly bizarre The Witch's Curse, he's in 17th century Scotland.) Our helpful narrator explains that an evil queen has usurped the throne of Memphis, and has her soldiers kidnap young women and sacrifice them to a fire god. We start with the proper king and his loyal guardian consulting an oracle. She tells them that they must enlist the help of the mighty Maciste to win back the throne. Meanwhile, Maciste defeats a band of soldiers during their attack on a village. One young woman goes with him to his own people. The two folks we saw at the start show up, and talk to Maciste about how to free the people of Memphis. A silk merchant who happens to be around offers them help in entering the heavily guarded city. He betrays them, and Maciste is captured. He gets a team of horses and a chariot tied to each arm, designed to pull him apart then chop off the heads of his buddies, who are buried up to their necks in the ground. Maciste manages to hold back the horses, so the queen sets him free. It seems she has a magic scepter; one touch of it and Maciste is her loyal slave, forgetting all about his past. Eventually, the woman who went off with him at the start gets the cure for the enchantment from the oracle. She frees him, but gets captured herself, and is about to be sacrificed. Maciste returns to rescue her, and we suddenly get some footage recycled from, of all things, The Witch's Curse. You can tell because Maciste is wearing two very different costumes. The whole thing is pretty typical of its kind, not anywhere near as weird as many.
 
Venus Meets the Son of Hercules (Marte, dio della guerra, 1962)

In this one, the so-called "son of Hercules" is none other than Mars himself. The English dubbing gives him some other name, and when Jupiter shows up, it calls him Hercules. Well, forget about that. What's really going on is that Mars goes down to Earth to help a city under siege by invaders. The opening battle sequence is quite impressive, and overall this film looks a lot better than most sword-and-sandal flicks. Mars falls in love with a mortal woman, and gets Jupiter to make him a mortal. Jupiter, who isn't crazy about the idea, also gives him three solidified thunderbolts that will make Mars immortal again, I guess temporarily, when he breaks one. Meanwhile, palace intrigue once again raises its head. It seems that there's some guy who wants to marry the princess, so he can obtain the throne some day, but also wants to mess around with the woman Mars loves. The princess simultaneously despises and loves the guy, so she arranges to have the other woman locked away at a temple of Venus as a priestess. Mars sneaks into the temple, but Venus grabs him for herself, taking him into her cloudy realm, while disguising herself as the woman he loves. The woman is condemned for blasphemy for letting her lover into the temple. (I would have thought Venus wouldn't want virgin priestesses, but what do I know.) She manages to sneak out to visit an oracle, who shows her Mars and Venus making out. Mars eventually sees through the wiles of Venus, goes back to Earth, battles the scheming guy who, by this time, has wound up killing the princess. It all leads up to a fight with a giant plant monster! As you can see, a heck of a lot goes on. I haven't mentioned the avant-garde modern dance routine performed at the temple, the truly weird torture device used on a deaf-mute servant, the bizarre and often quite beautiful sets, the giant pyre used to burn the bodies of those dead in battle, and a bunch of other stuff. Not the typical film of its kind.
 
Well, I use Internet Archive and YouTube a lot. The latter is where I'm getting all these "son of Hercules" films (random Italian sword-and-sandal flicks given new titles for a syndicated American TV series.) Speaking of which:

The Medusa Against the Son of Hercules (Perseo l'invincibile, 1963)

This time, the person who is not really the son of Hercules is Perseus. The movie starts off with a bang, as a troop of soldiers on horseback are attacked by enemy soldiers, a dragon in a lake, and the medusa. This is not the usual woman with snake hair. This medusa is a completely inhuman monster, something like an ambulatory tree trunk covered with a huge number of tentacles. It has one glowing eye, with which it turns people into stone. After this wild opening scene, we get some exposition. It seems that a certain city-state can't get its products to market without paying large fees to a rival power, because they're blocked from going around by the monsters. A possible marriage between Princess Andromeda and the king of the rival city-state is in the works. An encounter between Perseus, who lives out in the wild, and the king leads to a formal tournament between the two for the hand of the princess. Eventually, Perseus finds out that he's the son of the widow of the former king, whom the new king killed and then married his wife. Perseus fights to regain the throne while war breaks out between the two city-states. Of course, this means he has to destroy the dragon and the medusa as well. The dragon is fake-looking but pretty cool, and the medusa is weird and very cool. Killing the medusa brings the soldiers it killed back to life. Worth a look just for the monsters.
 
This reminds me of a weird Australian film called Hercules Returns, which largely consists of a routine in which comedians comically dub an Italian (I think) film about some very muscular men of antiquity as it plays in a cinema. There's a framing story involving Bruce Spence from the Mad Max films, but it's largely the comedy routine.
 
"Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love" - a documentary by Nick Broomfield on the relationship between Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen after meeting on Hydra in 1960.
I found this disappointing as I was hoping for more about Marianne but I'm glad I've seen it. A problem is that there seem to be very few survivors from those days that are prepared to be interviewed and not many of those make good viewing. As a result the documentary tends to rely on old photos and rather too many clips of Leonard in concert. As Broomfield was an old friend of Marianne, I'm sure he did his best to provide a portrait of her and yes it's good to see this, but even so there are many gaps that I found frustrating. For me the last fifteen minutes or so were the most touching, particularly the clip of film when she's dying in hospital and a last telegram from Leonard is read out to her.
A couple of things:
I really wasn't aware just how much acid Cohen took when performing/ touring at one stage of his career.
I did know that for personal reasons he made a point of performing (without publicity) at psychiatric institutions, but I didn't know one of them was the Henderson Hospital (closed 2008) in the UK in 1970.
 
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First Man (2018) A historically accurate film about Neil Armstrong and his time at NASA. I watched the Apollo 11 moon landing live in 1969 (I was 9) and most if it again last month during the 50th Anniversary rebroadcast on CBS. Everything in First Man is period correct: clothing, hair, smoking, cars, interiors (especially the Armstrong's house) and the general vibe of the times.

But I don't know why Damian Chazelle made the film so moody. It doesn't need to be the happy-happy Disney version, but he overdid it in my opinion. The only upbeat moments were at the Mission Control Center when various events succeeded. The real Neil Armstrong was reserved, but he was quite joyous too. Just watch the actual broadcast when he's bouncing around on the moon. Chazelle depicts the moment quite melancholically. And really, omitting the flag raising? That was a proud moment when it happened.
 
The Tyrant of Lydia Against the Son of Hercules (Goliath e la schiava ribelle, 1963)

The hero, who is not the son of Hercules, nor even Goliath, is a Lydian military officer named Gordian, as in Knot. Amazingly, this sword-and-sandal adventure actually has something to do with real ancient history, albeit in a highly fictional way. It takes place just before Alexander the Great attacks the Persians. Lydia is neutral. A scheming merchant, working for the Persians, bribes the second-in-command of the ruler of Lydia, in an attempt to get Lydia to join Persia in the battle against Alexander. Meanwhile, the ruler has a secret tunnel concealing a bunch of treasure. He kills everybody who knows about it, with the exception of one huge, muscular slave, the only man strong enough to open the giant slab through which the ruler plans to exit if things go bad. At this point, the ruler seems the best candidate for the title of Tyrant of Lydia, but we'll see. This turns out to be a mistake, because the slave will eventually be our hero's best ally. (I guess he's the rebel slave of the Italian title.) Anyway, the ruler, already planning to join Persia, sends Gordian off on a diplomatic mission to Alexander, just to get him out of the way. He wipes out a bunch of robbers attacking a princess and her handmaidens, on their way to Alexander for his protection. It's love at first sight for Gordian and the princess. After a pleasant time with Alexander, including beating his best soldiers at wrestling, Gordian goes back to Lydia. Despite the plans of his second-in-command, the ruler accepts the arrival of Alexander on a peace mission. He's particularly taken with the princess, intending to marry her. The frustrated second-in-command poisons the ruler and takes over. Gordian and the princess are blamed for the murder. She escapes, he gets thrown in the dungeon, but of course he gets out, with a little help from sympathetic forces. She winds up captured by slave traders, and sold to the scheming merchant who started this whole mess. It all leads up to a big battle against the new ruler, our second candidate for the title of Tyrant of Lydia. Unlike many of these films, there are no supernatural elements. There's a lot more swordplay than muscle stuff, too. It's longer than usual for one of these things, with a lot of intrigue and political debate going on. Notable for the fact that Alexander the Great is depicted as 100% a Good Guy.
 
The Terror of Rome Against the Son of Hercules (Maciste, gladiatore di Sparta, 1964)

Once again our hero is Maciste, although the English dubbing calls him Poseidon. He's introduced as a gladiator, successfully fighting off four gladiators who have just defeated their opponents. The Roman Emperor is named Vitellius, so I guess it's supposed to be the year 69; that fellow ruled for only eight months that year. Anyway, the victorious Maciste wins the favor of the Emperor, the romantic interest of a lady of the court, and the enmity of the head of the Praetorian Guards, who is interested in the lady himself. The first battle between the two rivals is an odd blindfolded sword fight. They both survive that, although a nearby slave is accidentally killed; a death which is treated very casually. Maciste happens to save a Christian woman from being arrested by the Guards, and it's love at first sight. In an interesting twist for this genre, the lady of the court does not become his deadly enemy after her love is scorned. Instead, she does everything she can to help him and his true love. Well, Maciste goes on to fight a guy in a gorilla suit in the arena, in the movie's silliest scene. He also rescues a bunch of Christians from prison. The effort to rescue their leader, who is kept in the dungeon under the arena, leads to a bunch of rebellious gladiators also being freed, so we get a big fight scene with the Guards. It's all nicely filmed. It's not clear who the Terror of Rome might be, or it the title refers to the persecution of Christians. The Emperor is the most interesting character, casually ordering people killed or greatly rewarded whenever the whim takes him, and much more interested in food and drink than anything else.
 
The Son of Hercules in the Land of Darkness (Ercole l'invincibile, 1964)

The whole "sons of Hercules" thing gets really silly here, as the hero is actually Hercules himself. The English language version calls him something like "Argoles." Anyway, Hercules is wandering around when he rescues a young woman from a lion. Turns out she's the daughter of the local king. The king says they can get married if Hercules slays the local dragon and brings back one of its teeth. He goes to the local prophetess so he can find out where the dragon is. She tells him, and asks for the tooth herself; apparently it's got powerful magic. He says that he's already promised it to the king, so the prophetess tells him it can only be used once. Hercules slays the goofy-looking dragon, which resembles Godzilla. Meanwhile, the Bad Guys have raided the kingdom, which looks more like a very small village, destroyed everything, and taken folks prisoner. The one guy left in the ruins is our comedy relief. Surprisingly, despite all his silly behavior, he actually helps Hercules quite a bit. They wind up crossing a stone drawbridge over a river of lava into a mountain, which is where the Bad Guys live. I guess this is the Land of Darkness. Hercules get captured, and the queen has him tied to two elephants with chains, so they can tear him apart. He survives, of course, and suddenly he's the queen's favorite. The daughter of the queen's military commander murders the queen and takes the throne for herself. (Somewhere along the way she got the dragon's tooth, and thinks it will make her invincible.) The captured princess gets the blame, and is tied up so the Bad Guys can slowly bleed her to death. Hercules rescues people, the Land of Darkness gets flooded with lava, Hercules destroys the stone drawbridge, the whole mountain blows up. The special effects aren't too good for a movie with so much spectacle, but it's all goofy fun.
 
Devil of the Desert Against the Son of Hercules (Anthar l'invincibile, 1964)

Our hero is Anthar, as the original title indicates. This flick has a sort of Arabian Knights feel to it, rather than the usual Greco-Roman or some place that never existed feelings. The bad guy, presumably the Devil of the Desert, has his minions invade the king's palace, kill him and his guards, and take his daughter and son prisoner. (That should probably be sultan rather than king, given the whole Middle Eastern look of this thing, but everybody calls him king.) Son is locked up, the Devil tries to force himself on the daughter, she jumps out a window into a river and swims away. She's found by our hero and his young, mute sidekick. Almost right away, some slave traders show up. Anthar whips some of them, but others get away with the princess. She gets auctioned off to some guy for a huge amount of money, but of course Anthar rescues her. Off she goes to be safe with some mountain tribes, while Anthar sneaks into the Devil's city to stir up trouble. He finds the son of the dead king and helps him escape in an odd way. You see, if you dive into the pool of water in the harem, it leads to a way out. The son gets away, but Anthar is captured. The Devil tries to kill him by having him fight a rhinoceros, which I must admit is unique. Just then, the mountain tribes, led by the son, attack the Devil's city, aided by the ordinary folk of the place. Tons of fighting follows. In a scene directly stolen from The Lady From Shaghai, the Devil traps Anthar in a room of mirrors. We saw him stab another guy in this room earlier. Everybody in the movie acts like this room of mirrors is something terrifyingly magical, but it sure looks like just a room full of mirrors. Anyway, Anthar smashes the mirrors, which freaks the Devil out. The Devil falls out a window to his death. Location filming in Algeria adds a nice touch. Both the hero and the Devil are off screen for a considerable amount of time, with a lot of time wasted during the slave auction scene.
 
L'Atalante (1934) French film about a newlywed river barge captain his young village bride. They live on the barge with an old salt of a first mate and a young deckhand. The plot chronicles the first few months of their rocky relationship and a much anticipated port call in Paris. L'Atalante was filmed primarily on location although a few sets were built for the barge's interior cabins and the dance club scene.

This is one of those classic films that gets cited often as inspiration for other directors. I can see a lot of L'Atalante's realism and camera styles in French New Wave. Great film.
 
Ant-Man (2015) on Netflix. A pleasant way to while away a couple of hours - there's some scenes that had me laughing out loud (our hero versus the Falcon, for instance.) It's not too long , either - something that I wish a few other super-hero-movie makers would learn from. Goes well with a comfortable sofa and microwave popcorn...
 
pyan said:
Ant-Man (2015) on Netflix. A pleasant way to while away a couple of hours - there's some scenes that had me laughing out loud (our hero versus the Falcon, for instance.) It's not too long , either - something that I wish a few other super-hero-movie makers would learn from. Goes well with a comfortable sofa and microwave popcorn...
Click to expand...
It's my favourite Marvel superhero film to date.
 
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