What was the last movie you saw?

[olive]

In the UK, if you walk out of a film within 15 minutes, because you don't like it, you can ask for your money back... Might actually be more than that, but worth looking into!

How neat! You can't do that where I live. But then here they won't sell tickets or take anyone in after the movie started either.

 

[Mouse]

I read "Call of the Wild" when I was a kid too, and was vaguely interested in the film until I saw the daft CGI dog. Why CGI a dog?

Anywho, last film I saw was the Downton Abbey one (for the second time). The whole Barrow storyline makes me very happy - he's so tragically unhappy in the whole of the TV series that it's nice to see him having a good time.

 

[Rodders]

Pacific Rim: Uprising.

bland Hollywood Movie.

 

[Jeffbert]

Touch of Evil (1998 release) Centered on the U.S.-Mexican border, a couple in a convertible just crossing into the USA is killed by a time bomb placed in the trunk. A Mexican cop Vargas (C. Heston) clashes with the U.S. cop police captain Quinlan (Orson Welles), over the investigation. Bad move. Quinlan has his way of solving cases that Vargas finds loathsome. Vargas sends his new wife Susie (Janet Leigh) to a small motel just north of the border, while he investigates the murder, unaware that one of the suspect's relatives owns it.

I wish this had been a NOIR ALLEY presentation, there is so much more than the film itself, & I did read the wiki page for it. For those who have not seen it, but intend to, the less said about it now, the better. Highly recommended!
Great supporting cast.

 

[biodroid]

Doctor Sleep which was very good despite the re-worked ending and some plot points here and there. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, if you liked the first movie then you will like this one, had a similar feel and plot as well. I enjoyed it. Terminator: Dark Fate - I love the Terminator franchise and this was as good as Genesys even with the hype of the Deadpool director. The story has been changed to suit a new canon possibly, watch it, it's no T2 but it's way better than T3: Rise of the Machines

 

[CupofJoe]

The African Queen [1951] I can't believe I'd never seen it before. Loved it, even if the copy I saw was a bit fuzzy. What a new full Technicolor print would have looked like new? I can only imagine.

 

[Jeffbert]

O' Henry's Full House (1952) 5 stories ending with the Gift of the Magi. The things I remembered were plot elements from "The Last Leaf" & "The Ransom of Red Chief". The latter was omitted from the film, as early audiences disliked it.So said the TCM woman, whose name I have forgotten. I thought it was really funny.

The 1st story, "The Cop and the Anthem" has Charles Laughton as a bum looking to get himself arrested so he can spend Winter in a nice, warm, jail. But, all his efforts are for naught. He grabs an umbrella right out of another guy's hands, and dares him to summon a cop. But, the other guy had stolen it, and presumed CL was the rightful owner!

John Steinbeck introduced each story, no sign of Lenny or George, though.

#2, "The Clarion Call" featured Richard Widmark in a role as a lowlife criminal who had been friends with a guy who was now a cop, and who was out to arrest him for murder. But the cop still owes him a big favor, $1,000 that he had borrowed to pay a gambling debt and cannot repay him, which he must do before his own honor allows him to arrest him. The ending seems similar to The Twilight Zone type of thing. The wiki page note that RW had taken inspiration from Batman comics character The Joker and Frank Gorshin had taken inspiration from this character in his own depiction of The Riddler.


Robotrix (1991) was, I guess a rip-off of Robocop, but had sufficient differences to make it its own film. The wiki page notes both sexes FFN, but, I saw none of it, much to my relief. I had no idea there would be FFN, so, I was surprised to see reference to it on wiki after seeing the film on PRIME. Anyway, A mad scientist believes that the only way a robot can be better than a human is with a human mind. So, he transfers his mind into a robot body via ritual suicide; and kidnaps a king's son, demanding the ransom of cooperation with his plan to build more human/robot hybrids (I guess Ghost In The Shell would call them full prosthetic) with which to conquer.

So, like Robocop, there is a mortally wounded cop, but this one is female; they transfer her mind into the robot that has been modified to bear her likeness, including her top-heavy attributes. Fairly good, perhaps, better than good special effects. Tons of hi-tech equipment in the lab that makes the robo woman. Not so many lame flashing or flickering lights, as I recall, but rather well done.

 

[dask]

Saturday matinee at the local art house cinema:

Sincere and well made attempt to scare the daylights out of you. Still pretty darn effective nearly a century later. Renfield creeping up on the fainted maid proves my point.

 

[Rodders]

I finally got around to watching Moon.

Excellent performance from Sam Rockwell. Great story and a decent soundtrack. I thought it was a great movie.

 

[Randy M.]

The Conjuring 2 - dir. James Wan; starring, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson

Good in parts. Production values good, nicely filmed, the too few moments of humor play well, and the film works all right with the horror aspect (the evil nun is one effective apparition), effective secondary characters, but Wilson and Farmiga struggle with a script and dialog saturated with sap. I appreciated what I think are nods to the original Poltergeist -- some camera usage and angles feel pulled from there; disturbing tree outside the house; a moving chair; confounded authorities -- but that movie worked in part because those characters were allowed to be awed and afraid, and later to reconnect with each other in somewhat natural ways. Forget the Warrens were real people for a moment, I'd be okay with the way they were portrayed if it was a 1940s movie, I'd expect that; but not in a current movie.

In summation: If you have nothing better to do. Usually you'll have something better to do. I suggest watching HBO's The Outsider.


Randy M.

 

[Rodders]

The Rover.

it’s been on my shelves for years now and I finally got to watching it last night. Good performances from both the leads. It was a pretty dark film.

 

[Rodders]

The Rover.

it’s been on my shelves for years now and I finally got to watching it last night. Good performances from both the leads. It was a pretty dark film.

 

[Vaz]

The Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix. Fantastic.

V

 

[Foxbat]

Joker. A critic in the Guardian called it the most disappointing movie of the year but I liked it. I think it’s strength lay not only in the performances but that fact that although it was a supervillain origin story, it needn’t have been. It would have stood perfectly well without the DC connection.

 

[Rodders]

Source Code. Great movie.

Attack The Block.

 

[Foxbat]

Saturday matinee at the local art house cinema:

Sincere and well made attempt to scare the daylights out of you. Still pretty darn effective nearly a century later. Renfield creeping up on the fainted maid proves my point.

You should watch this with with the Phillip Glass score. It really enhances the movie.

 

[J Riff]

Knives Out 2019 - a real whodunnit, with a stellar cast, and it twists and turns like a good whodunnit should.
Oh yes it twists... and, no spoilage, but, you can figure it out, by using a certain type of logic... before it's over, you can figure out who the bad guy(s) are... but it isn't for sure... so that's good. It's a bit complicated, maybe... but it has to be, in order to fool modren intelligible aundiences like us, right? But you should be able to figure it out, for one simple reason.

 

[Jeffbert]

Bright Lights (1935) Joe Wilson (Joe E. Brown) and wife Fay (Ann Dvorak) are stage performers, she sings and dances, while he feigns being a drunken heckler up on the balcony, who, eventually grabs a cord & swings down to the stage, taking his place beside her. Both dance and sing.

Claire Whitmore (Patricia Ellis) is a runaway heiress who had joined the troupe as a nobody, but whom Dan Wheeler (William Gargan) had exposed and thrust into the role formerly held by Fay. Now, they have been recognized as Broadway material, but the wife, no longer in the act, returns to the hometown to her old troupe. Joe falls for Claire, but does not realize that she has eyes for Dan.

I am not much for the song and dance stuff, but Brown had a comical dance that was very entertaining, even by my standards. I am a fan of Brown, anyway, so it was not much of a struggle to remain interested in the film during the S&D parts. Brown is probably best remembered for his role in Some Like it Hot, but he had leading roles in the '30s.

There was an acrobat group, Maxellos, that was also very entertaining. William Demarest as a Detective, was in one small scene, sadly, for him, as he usually has better roles.

 

[olive]

The Post. (2017) It was interesting to watch something positive done by a media organ.

 

[dask]

Mirage (1965) starring Gregory Peck and Diane Baker. Thriller of amnesia and military secrets based on Howard Fast's novel comes off like a movie length episode of Twilight Zone with Robert Ludlum substituting for Rod Serling. Jack Weston (believe it or not) convincing as gun toting thug. Superior score by Quincy Jones.