What was the last movie you saw?

[REBerg]

Think Short Circuit, only with a big robotic dog. ​

 

[Foxbat]

Way Out West
Laurel and Hardy still make me laugh

 

[Toby Frost]

The Wild Bunch

A slightly different sort of Western story, made by Sam Peckinpah. It starts with botched violence, continues in a harsh and brutal fashion, and ends up in complete carnage.

I don't know what it is that strikes me so much about this film. After all, I've seen other violent movies. I think it's the fact that it looks and sounds as if it should be a much gentler film: the score, acting style, look and even the film quality suggest something like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (although the camerawork, especially the slow-motion style, is much more modern). That fits the film's theme of times changing, I suppose.

Anyway, if you've got the stomach for bleak, hopeless violence (with a lot of children uncomfortably, and unconvincingly, involved along the way), this is an excellent film. For all the mayhem, it feels sincere, the way that Tarantino's stuff doesn't. The "heroes" are all terrible people, but the director does make you care for them, and the very end is surprisingly elegiac.

 

[REBerg]

The Beyond
A film much smarter than its uninspired title suggests. Done in an surprisingly convincing documentary style.

 

[dask]

The Wild Bunch

A slightly different sort of Western story, made by Sam Peckinpah. It starts with botched violence, continues in a harsh and brutal fashion, and ends up in complete carnage.

I don't know what it is that strikes me so much about this film. After all, I've seen other violent movies. I think it's the fact that it looks and sounds as if it should be a much gentler film: the score, acting style, look and even the film quality suggest something like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (although the camerawork, especially the slow-motion style, is much more modern). That fits the film's theme of times changing, I suppose.

Anyway, if you've got the stomach for bleak, hopeless violence (with a lot of children uncomfortably, and unconvincingly, involved along the way), this is an excellent film. For all the mayhem, it feels sincere, the way that Tarantino's stuff doesn't. The "heroes" are all terrible people, but the director does make you care for them, and the very end is surprisingly elegiac.

If there were ever a movie where editing was just as important as cinematography, if not a little more so, The Wild Bunch would be it.

 

[Rodders]

Avengers: Infinity War.

It was okay. A well made movie, as you would expect from a Marvel Production. I do find that the spectacular end set piece with thousands of combatants is getting kind of dull, though.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)

Yet another cinematic adaptation of the familiar story, with no on-screen credit for Robert Louis Stevenson. In this version, Jekyll is a dour, heavily bearded, deep-voiced, obsessed scientist. Hyde is a clean-shaven, handsome, polite party animal with a higher voice, a rather charming libertine when he isn't killing somebody. The plot turns into a five-sided Eternal Triangle. Jekyll's wife is having an affair with his ne'er-do-well buddy (Christopher Lee, not playing the lead role in a Hammer film for once.) Lee also gets money from Jekyll from time to time to pay off his gambling debts. Hyde and Lee become great friends, painting the town red, carousing in cheap pubs, decadent nightspots full of scantily clad ladies of easy virtue, and opium dens. Hyde also pays off Lee's debts, and tries to use this to buy Mrs. Jekyll as his own mistress. Adding to the racy story is Hyde's affair with an exotic dancer whose stage act involves a deadly snake, which she puts in her mouth. Not much violence occurs until the last part of the film, although we do get to say Hyde beat up a very young, uncredited, but unmistakable Oliver Reed. It's more of a tragic melodrama than a horror movie.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Monster Club (1981)

Offbeat combination of comedy, New Wave music, and horror anthology, based on stories by R. Chetwynd-Hayes. John Carradine plays a completely fictional version of Chetwynd-Hayes. He runs into Vincent Price, playing a vampire who takes some blood from him, not doing any harm, and who invites him to the Monster Club. Folks in cheap Halloween costumes dance around to rock bands. Between songs, we get three stories. The first is about a young woman who gets a job as a secretary for an odd-looking, sad, lonely, gentle guy who lives alone in a fabulous mansion. Her boyfriend wants to get his hands on the guy's wealth, so the woman pretends to fall in love with the guy so she can get the combination to his safe and grab the huge pile of money inside. Suffice to say that the guy is a very strange being, and that something Very Bad happens when he whistles. The second story is played for laughs. A boy doesn't know that his father is a Dracula-style vampire, although it's obvious to the audience. A team of vampire hunters go after Dad. The leader of the Fearless Vampire Killers is Donald Pleasence, and things don't work out well for him. The third story is much more serious, as a movie director winds up in an isolated village inhabited by corpse-eating ghouls. We get the history of the place in a segment illustrated with nifty pen-and-ink drawings, straight out of a black-and-white horror comic book. The whole thing is pretty mild, often silly, but fun for anybody who used to read Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. Price and Carradine are enjoyable. Notable for a scene at the club where a stripper takes off her clothes, and then her flesh.

 

[Cathbad]

Born Romantic (2000)

Written and Directed by David Kane, this movie revolves around a would-be thief and two others (who are given much less on-camera time) as they pursue three women from a Salsa Club.

The club isn't important, and neither is much else.

Ridiculous dialogue mad the story hard to follow. Dark, dingy sets made it hard to see. Inept directing wasted some good talent. Andf where was the actual plot? I can only take so much... finished half of it.

Yeah, give this one a miss. It's made my Top 20 Worst Films list.

 

[dask]

The Monster Club (1981)

Offbeat combination of comedy, New Wave music, and horror anthology, based on stories by R. Chetwynd-Hayes. John Carradine plays a completely fictional version of Chetwynd-Hayes. He runs into Vincent Price, playing a vampire who takes some blood from him, not doing any harm, and who invites him to the Monster Club. Folks in cheap Halloween costumes dance around to rock bands. Between songs, we get three stories. The first is about a young woman who gets a job as a secretary for an odd-looking, sad, lonely, gentle guy who lives alone in a fabulous mansion. Her boyfriend wants to get his hands on the guy's wealth, so the woman pretends to fall in love with the guy so she can get the combination to his safe and grab the huge pile of money inside. Suffice to say that the guy is a very strange being, and that something Very Bad happens when he whistles. The second story is played for laughs. A boy doesn't know that his father is a Dracula-style vampire, although it's obvious to the audience. A team of vampire hunters go after Dad. The leader of the Fearless Vampire Killers is Donald Pleasence, and things don't work out well for him. The third story is much more serious, as a movie director winds up in an isolated village inhabited by corpse-eating ghouls. We get the history of the place in a segment illustrated with nifty pen-and-ink drawings, straight out of a black-and-white horror comic book. The whole thing is pretty mild, often silly, but fun for anybody who used to read Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. Price and Carradine are enjoyable. Notable for a scene at the club where a stripper takes off her clothes, and then her flesh.

Appreciate the review. Didn't know this was a movie or had completely forgotten. On my must see list now. Great book. R. Cheyenne-Hayes is a top notch writer.

 

[nixie]

Slaughterhouse Rulez, I love Simon Pegg films.

 

[Rodders]

Star awards Episode 2: Attack of the Clones.

The Prequel Trilogy is often slated, but I still find them entertaining enough, although I wouldn’t ever consider myself a fan.

 

[Mouse]

Toy Story 4. Really good, as you'd expect from a Toy Story film. I don't really get how or why Bo Peep comes alive seeing as she's technically not a toy, she's an ornament/lamp. But then, same for Hamm, I guess, as he's a money box. Also, I've seen all four of this films now and still cannot work out what Slinky's catchphrase is, can't understand what words he's saying at all.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Bloody Brood (1959)

Low budget Canadian crime flick. Opens in a beatnik coffeehouse. Peter Falk, in his first film role, is sort of the leader of the beats, although he dresses conservatively. He philosophizes a bit about the terrible state of the world. An old man comes in selling newspapers. Falk calls him Diogenes and gives him a dollar to buy a lantern. The old man collapses from a heart attack or something, and the beats watch him die, considering this to be a great kick. Falk decides to go a step further. He convinces another conservatively dressed beat to help him kill a delivery boy who shows up at a beatnik house party by feeding him a hamburger with ground glass in it. The rest of the film follows the victim's brother as he tracks down the killers. Falk also happens to be a drug dealer working with a couple of violent thugs, adding a subplot. Lots of beatniks playing bongos, reciting poetry, dancing, and such. A cheap little film that manages to create a great deal of tension.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Haunted House of Horror (1969)

A bunch of British young folks, along with token American star Frankie Avalon, have a party at a spooky old abandoned mansion. After thirty minutes of not much happening, one of them gets stabbed to death by an unseen killer. Figuring that one of them is the murderer, they agree to hide the body and not tell the police about it. (No, that didn't make sense to me either.) Not much happens for another half hour. We get the police investigating the victim's disappearance, and a subplot about a young woman (who actually left the party before the murder) and her much older married lover. She wants to break up with him, he stalks her, she lost an inscribed lighter that could reveal their affair, he goes to the house to look for it, he gets killed by the hidden murderer. The young folks decide to go back to the place in an "experiment" to see if they can find out who the killer might be. (No, that didn't make sense to me either.) One of them turns out to be the insane murderer and kills somebody else, the cops show up, tipped off by one of the young folks as to what was going on at the house, the killer runs off into the night, end of film. It's mostly a dull affair, with two very bloody murders and one which isn't shown at all. Notable for the Swinging London look of everything, with all the young people in ultra-Mod fashions and some groovy music.

 

[BigBadBob141]

Just re-watched " The Train " with Butt Lancaster, Paul Scofield & Janne Mreau 1964, directed by John Frankenheimer .
Very long but we'll paced over all, showed the cold blooded murder of hostages which the Germans were so good at in both world wars!
Two amazing shots in it, one of train steaming through a switching yard while it is being bombed, the other is it getting derailed, they set up six cameras for this shot and the train managed to run over five of them!
Very good film all round, especially if you like steam trains, but be warned am afraid it's in black & white.
It's interesting to contrast it with the modern and excellent " The Monuments Men " with George C!ooney who also wrote, produced and directed it plus Matt Damon, Bill Murray & John Goodman, good actors all, 2014.
Both very good films about the same subject!

 

[REBerg]

Yesterday
Loved it.

 

[IAmTR]

You'll Always Be My Maybe

I love this movie. I was already a fan of Randall Parks but now I like him even more because of his music in the movie. At first it's just funny and gimmicky but it's got a flow that mixes old school New York hip hop roots with more modern indie rock. The movie itself is very funny and I liked the chemistry between him and Ali Wong.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Legacy of Blood aka Blood Legacy aka Will to Die (1971)

Cheap, slow-moving murder movie that starts with a corny old plot device. It seems that a fabulously wealthy guy has just died, and left a will granting loads of money to his three servants and his four adult children. There's a catch, of course. Everybody has to stay for a full week in his mansion to earn the cash. By the way, if anybody just happens to die, the others get his or her share. Yes, it's an invitation to murder! That sure sounds to me like the kind of will a good lawyer could get thrown out, but what do I know. We learn all of this in a tape recording left behind by the dead man, played by the voice of John Carradine. Before we get our first killing, we get to know our potential victims and learn their various mental quirks and dark secrets. Notable among these are the brother and sister who apparently had an incestuous encounter sometime in the past, revealed in a series of extremely bizarre hallucinatory/psychedelic flashbacks. After a long time we get the first murder. Oddly, the initial victim is a cute little dog. The next is the local sheriff who is investigating the canine's demise. Things go on as you'd expect. The phone lines are cut, everybody's distributor caps are removed, more murders occur, although they come at a very leisurely pace. There's a triple twist ending, and the very last scene has the killer speaking directly to the audience: "I'll bet you thought it was the butler all the time." Then we get the credits, while circus music and cartoon sound effects play on the soundtrack, implying the whole thing was intended as a joke. There's a lot of bad acting, and you have to be patient with the dull parts in order to enjoy the weird parts.

 

[dask]

Appreciate the review. Didn't know this was a movie or had completely forgotten. On my must see list now. Great book. R. Cheyenne-Hayes is a top notch writer.

I wrote the above reply on my Amazon Fire Tablet. I did not mistakenly type in the word "Cheyenne" for Chetwynd. Sometimes the tablet substitutes another word for what I have actually typed, a feature I do not like. Some how this one slipped by without my noticing. Just wanted to clarify what must look like a silly and careless mistake.