What was the last movie you saw?

[Toby Frost]

The Two Towers (2002): slightly less good than Fellowship, but still very strong and a decent adaptation of the source material. It does feel like a lot of talking followed by a lot of fighting, but it looks amazing. Bernard Hill as Theoden is very good, and Miranda Otto as Eowyn is surprisingly good too. The struggle in Rohan is interesting, but the elf bits really drag. I still have the feeling that Middle Earth (presumably meant to be the size of Europe) is about as big as Wales. Andy Serkis is excellent as Gollum.

I do wonder what the candidates who failed the interview for Chancellor of Rohan were like, given what Grima Wormtongue is like.

 

[hitmouse]

Rear Window. I do like a bit of Hitchcock now and then, and this has possibly the greatest screen kiss ever. Must be the 10th time I have seen this. More to the point, it was the first time my 17 year old has watched it, and he thought it was brilliant.

 

[Rodders]

I saw the new Power Rangers movie earlier in the week. It actually started out pretty well. A typical origin story, but then robot dinosaurs came into it and ruined it. Big time. (I actually found myself rather embarrassed to be watching it at this point.)

Elizabeth Banks looked like she really enjoyed hamming up the bad guy role.

 

[biodroid]

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I loved it, don't know why it's getting so much hate, it was easily the best of the latest trilogy for me.

 

[dask]

Recently watched Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old which was a very impressive and innovative bit of documentary storytelling, Ron Howard's Eight Days A Week which was just plain cool, and the new Little Women at the local art house cinema. The place was packed and I was one of about four or five males which made me feel surrounded by a couple of hundred lesbians who had the hots for Saoirse Ronan just like me.

 

[CupofJoe]

Rear Window. I do like a bit of Hitchcock now and then, and this has possibly the greatest screen kiss ever. Must be the 10th time I have seen this. More to the point, it was the first time my 17 year old has watched it, and he thought it was brilliant.

Many years ago I got to see a 70 mm print shown on a huge screen. Each of those little windows becomes a story all on its own.
As for me, it's New Year's Day and I'm hungover, so I'm rewatching old war films.
The Longest Day
Went The Day Well
In Which We Serve
The Dambusters

 

[Toby Frost]

They're all good, but Went The Day Well is an excellent film.

 

[Jeffbert]

The Longest Day: "Gert" Fröbe before / other than Goldfinger was actually occasionally comic-relief. Not that he was only that, but, here he is a bicycle courier who is blown over a hedgerow and lands on his ass, otherwise unhurt. I had no idea, until I saw this very serious film that it would have such content.


Evil Brain From Outer Space (1957/1958) A truly weird, awful , but for some, such as myself, rather funny film / films from Japan. I had no idea that 3 films had been chopped-up, and cobbled together to make this.

Starman, whose tight-fitting costume is just a bit too revealing for my tastes, has come to destroy the brain that is leading the attempt to conquer the Earth.


Attack of the Monsters / Gamera vs. Guiron (1969) two naughty little boys find a flying saucer, and board it. They are flown to the far side of the sun, where they meet two young women on a devastated planet, who want to eat their brains. Yet, it is not revealed to the boys that they are on the menu, until later.

Guiron has a meat cleaver-shaped head, and is controlled by the cannibals. Pure kiddy film, but, I did enjoy it. As usual, Gamera saves the day.

 

[Rodders]

The Sound of Music. I’ve not watched it before. What a lovely film.

 

[Starbeast]

War Pigs (2015) - A little gem of a World War 2 movie. This film does well with a tiny budget. I like these "secret mission" flicks.

 

[Foxbat]

I watched Hammer's Countess Dracula last night. It's not one of Hammer's best but it got me interested in finding out more about Elizabeth Bathory (on which it was based).

It seems she was possibly history's most prolific female serial killer.

Elizabeth Báthory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Guttersnipe]

@Victoria Silverwolf Nice! I've just started watching giallo films and I love them. One I like especially is The Bird With Crystal Plumage.

The last film I saw was Border (Gäns in the native Swedish), which, without spoiling it, is about a supposedly deformed woman who possesses the ability to smell guilt. One day she meets a male who deformities resembles hers...

 

[Jeffbert]

War Pigs' tanks do not seem from WWII. At least in that poster.


Cash on Demand (1961) Hammer's contribution to Noir; at least Muller says so. Also says that it is somewhat based on Dickens' (or is it Dicken's?) A Christmas Carol. Peter Cushing as the Scrooge guy, Andre Morell as the G of XMas whatever. I don't know if it really qualifies as Noir, but it was very good. Sad story about its publishing, Hammer shelved it, then chopped it, and put it as the 'B' picture along with an 'A'.

So, Cushing is a business only during business time, and Morell comes in to the bank, identifies himself as an insurance inspector or some such thing, gain's Cushing's confidence, then, once the two are alone, tells him he is a bank robber, & his friends have Cushing's wife & kid as hostages. Along with ordering Cushing's cooperation, Morell also rebukes him for being a skinflint, and cruel to his subordinates. Very entertaining!

 

[Starbeast]

War Pigs' tanks do not seem from WWII. At least in that poster.

I think it's the company that creates movie posters. Using a computer to slap images together. And perhaps the individual who created this poster, didn't think about small details. I've seen B-movie posters that have the same images used in other posters.



Gallery of Horror (1967) Not a bad old anthology film. The late, great John Carradine is the narrator. Plus, the late, great Lon Chaney Jr. is also in this creepy cool movie.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1986) Wonderful version of Edgar Allan Poe's mystery tale. Actors, George C. Scott & Val Kilmer are the stars in this eerie flick.

Little Big Top (2006) Outstanding drama with actor, Sid Haig starring as a retired clown, who discovers a little circus in town. I was stunned to discover this gem.

 

[Soran]

Coupla nights ago I watched "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood".

And I have to say... I was mesmerized and moved. In case you're holding your nose and thinking it must be sentimental schmaltz, let me say that it manages not to be. Legendary kids' TV show host Mr. Rogers is not even really the film's protagonist, instead it's the inwardly broken and cynical magazine jounalist played by Matthew Rhys, (if like me you were wowed by him in The Americans, you 'll know what a great performer he is.) He is a man who hates his own father, (portrayed by the magnificent Chris Cooper) because of the way he failed him and his dead mother. The way this is explored and resolved is, for my money, something both beautiful and painful. I guess I may be responding to it because I myself have two sons from whom I am estranged. One I haven't seen for 17 years, one I had to leave behind in China when I could no longer get a visa to live there.

It could certainly be described as an old-fashioned kind of film, because the focus is on a belief in genuine human goodness and the possibility of redemption. It kind of put me in mind of the kind of film-making Terry Gilliam was aiming at in The Fisher King, (there is a magical scene on a New York subway train where Mr. Rogers is serenaded by everyone in the carriage with an impromptu performance of the title song. One of those things that could have been toe-curlingly awful, yet manages to be transcendant, just like the railway station dance scene in Gilliam's movie.)

If you're up for a movie that genuinely makes you want to be a better person, I recommend it.

 

[Parson]

@Soran, I wholeheartedly agree. It is a great movie.

 

[hitmouse]

Holiday Inn (1942, I think). This is a musical/ dance number starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astair. My goodness, time has not been kind to this film. Viewed through contemporary eyes, certain scenes and some of the characterisations are pretty jaw-dropping and really quite difficult to watch, except as a piece of history with a clear divide from 21st century mainstream attitudes. Apart from that it is just a piece of wartime Hollywood fluff with one very famous song.

 

[Vince W]

The Thing (1982). A classic and a masterpiece.

Now is the time for a sequel. MacReady is found living in the arctic far away from people and is forced to help explain and destroy the alien after another body is found in Antarctica.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I saw Little Women, which I thought was excellent and very moving, but a little too long, and The Gentlemen, the best and funniest gangster film I've seen in years. It's like Tarantino without the self-indulgence.

 

[J Riff]

The Thing (1982). A classic and a masterpiece.

Now is the time for a sequel. MacReady is found living in the arctic far away from people and is forced to help explain and destroy the alien after another body is found in Antarctica.

it's complicated with that huge spaceship there... maybe there's still thing-stuff in there... but MacReady and pal are still alive... rescue party finds the ship, and... hmmmm, uhh... cut to older MacReady... I don't see it yet.