What was the last movie you saw?

[Cathbad]

So, a few years ago, while searching to see if there was ever a movie made from Christie's last novel, I came across Curtains (1983), a horror flick with really, really bad reviews. Today, I found it on YouTube again. I'm watching it now.

Thirty minutes in, the most exciting thing has been an unknown person burning pictures (apparently actresses) in a fireplace.

Yeah... unlikely I'll finish this one..

 

[Rodders]

Brightburn.

I enjoyed it. Good cast and it was well acted. An interesting take on the Superhero trope.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Is there some sort of Hercules only channel where you live? I think we have something similar, only it's for Everybody Loves Raymond

On a whim, I just looked for all the so-called "Sons of Hercules" films on Youtube as a sort of marathon.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Is this the one where these dishes like "pheasants in wine stuffed with Dormice" on these huge platters are brought in on the backs of sweating slaves and the Emperor shakes a hanky whereupon they are hauled off? One ot the better scenes of wretched excess I remember.

I don't think so. Maybe some other "decadent Roman emperor" movie.

 

[Starbeast]

@Victoria Silverwolf - The Sons of Hercules film series (re-titled "sword and sandal" movies) were a huge hit in my area. I though those weird fantasy flicks were awesome when I was a kid. It's great to see one of the movies pop-up again, here-and-there. Fun memories.

 

[Foxbat]

Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz. Filled to bursting point with musician's musicians, this still stands up today as one of the best ever rockumentaries.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Is this the one where these dishes like "pheasants in wine stuffed with Dormice" on these huge platters are brought in on the backs of sweating slaves and the Emperor shakes a hanky whereupon they are hauled off? One ot the better scenes of wretched excess I remember.

That sounds rather line the banquet scene in Fellini Satyricon. But it's also generic enough that it could be in any number of other movies.

 

[Cathbad]

Mr. Wong Detective (1938)

No ancient wrappings, no hair suit, no knobs on the neck, but that is definitely Boris Karloff in the lead role as James Lee Wong, detective!

He's wearing the very minimum of make-up to hint he's oriental in this first send-up of Hugh Wiley's fictional Chinese-American detective. Mr. Wong first appeared in Colliers magazine as a series of short stories.

Karloff plays the role splendidly, of course, but maybe the soft-spoken character doesn't translate well into celluloid, especially in an age of hard-boiled noir films, exciting Sherlock Holmes movies and King Kong! The movie seemed slow and prodding, even if it was an intelligent flick.

Still. I liked it well enough. Now on to Charlie Chan!

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Karloff as a Chinese man is just about as odd as Lugosi as a Chinese man in The Mysterious Mr. Wong. (No relationship between the two characters.)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Tolkien the biopic that was in theaters awhile ago. Rented it to watch on my Kindle.

It was a little disappointing, kind of disjointed, but not actually bad.

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

Brightburn. It just came out on Shaw VOD. Kind of an anti-superhero movie. Very dark, and the ending kinda left me hanging.

It looks like it went straight to video, as I've never heard of it before. Pretty good, all in all.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Not Wanted (1949)

Surprisingly frank film about an unwed mother, produced, co-written, and partly directed by the great Ida Lupino. Starts with a young woman wandering the streets with a dazed look on her face. She sees a baby in a stroller, picks it up and cuddles it, and walks away. The mother comes out of a store and chases her down. She winds up in jail for kidnapping. Cue the flashback. It seems that, as a naive teenager, she fell hard for a piano player. He keeps moving away, eventually to South America. Meanwhile, she meets a wounded WWII vet who will be the movie's Nice Guy. Her heart is broken by the piano player, but the Nice Guy wants to marry her. Right after the proposal, she finds out she's pregnant by the piano player, so she runs off, winding up in a home for unwed mothers. She gives the baby up for adoption, but comes to regret her choice, leading to the opening scene. The Nice Guy tracks her down, and it seems likely that they'll wind up together. The romance with the Nice Guy is a little sappy, and sometimes it's melodramatic, but overall it's a pretty good little drama dealing with an important social issue.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Outrage (1950)

Another daring social drama directed and co-written by Ida Lupino. Starts off with a young woman getting engaged, in scenes that almost play like a romantic comedy. Walking home from work one night, she is raped. (Of course, the film is only going to say "attacked," but it's clear what happened.) Severely traumatized and feeling like everyone is always watching her, she leaves her intended and hops a bus to California. At a rest stop, she hears a radio report that the police are looking for her as a missing person. Unable to stand the attention, she starts walking nowhere in particular and collapses. The film's Nice Guy, a minister, rescues her, she gives a false name, and gets a job. A crisis occurs when some guy aggressively tries to kiss her, she gets a flashback to the attack, and she nearly kills him with a big metal wrench. The ensuing police investigation leads to the revelation of what happened to her, and the long process of emotional healing begins, with the sense that she'll go back home. Slows down a lot in the middle, but overall a powerful story about the effect such a crime can have on the victim.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Bigamist (1953)

Finishing up a trio of social dramas dealing with controversial subjects directed by Ida Lupino. She didn't co-write this one, but she stars in it. We start with Edmund O'Brien and Joan Fontaine as a married couple, unable to have children, applying for adoption. The guy investigating their situation is Edmund Gwenn. (There are a couple of in-jokes about Gwenn. Somebody says he looks like Santa Claus. Later, on a tour bus in Hollywood, the guide points out the home of Edmund Gwenn and reminds the tourists that he played in Miracle on 34th Street.) O'Brien flies to Los Angeles on a regular basis for business. Gwenn tracks him down there, and finds out he's got another wife (Lupino) and a baby. Flashback time. We find out how O'Brien met Lupino and their romance began. In an interesting touch, he phones Fontaine and tells her that he's cheating on her, but they both take it as a joke. In another example of Lupino testing the limits of how far she can go, her character becomes pregnant. Gwenn marries her, planning to divorce Fontaine after the adoption goes through. It all ends with O'Brien going to jail for bigamy, with the unsettled question of who will be waiting for him when he gets out. It's pretty much a classy soap opera. O'Brien isn't played as a scoundrel, but as a decent, flawed guy who gets himself into a mess. All three of the Lupino films in this trilogy have a film noir visual style that adds to things.

 

[CupofJoe]

Tomboy [2011 film]
A beautiful sensitive film about growing up.

Show Me Love [aka F***king Åmål ] [1998]
Probably my all-time favourite highschool romance.

 

[Cathbad]

Tomboy [2011 film]
A beautiful sensitive film about growing up.

I was surprised how good this movie was!

 

[Mouse]

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar

Only ever had it on VHS but just got it on blu-ray. Love this film, the three leads are excellent and the story's lovely.

 

[Jeffbert]

The Bigamist (1953)

Finishing up a trio of social dramas dealing with controversial subjects directed by Ida Lupino. She didn't co-write this one, but she stars in it. We start with Edmund O'Brien and Joan Fontaine as a married couple, unable to have children, applying for adoption. The guy investigating their situation is Edmund Gwenn. (There are a couple of in-jokes about Gwenn. Somebody says he looks like Santa Claus. Later, on a tour bus in Hollywood, the guide points out the home of Edmund Gwenn and reminds the tourists that he played in Miracle on 34th Street.) O'Brien flies to Los Angeles on a regular basis for business. Gwenn tracks him down there, and finds out he's got another wife (Lupino) and a baby. Flashback time. We find out how O'Brien met Lupino and their romance began. In an interesting touch, he phones Fontaine and tells her that he's cheating on her, but they both take it as a joke. In another example of Lupino testing the limits of how far she can go, her character becomes pregnant. Gwenn marries her, planning to divorce Fontaine after the adoption goes through. It all ends with O'Brien going to jail for bigamy, with the unsettled question of who will be waiting for him when he gets out. It's pretty much a classy soap opera. O'Brien isn't played as a scoundrel, but as a decent, flawed guy who gets himself into a mess. All three of the Lupino films in this trilogy have a film noir visual style that adds to things.

I might have seen this film, but I know I have seen a similar oh, he resembles that movie guy thing, but that was Karloff, not Gwenn.

Ninotchka (1939) as one of a days worth of films starring Melvyn Douglas, this was likely the best & most famous one. Here, he is Count Léon d'Algout, the love of Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire), whose confiscated jewels three Soviets had been sent to Paris to sell, so food can be supplied to hungry comrades back home. The three inept guys are Iranoff (Sig Ruman), Buljanoff (Felix Bressart), and Kopalski (Alexander Granach; the only one unfamiliar to me); they want to place the large suitcase containing the jewels in the hotel safe, but it is too small for such a large piece of luggage, so they end up in the royal suite, which has its own safe. MD overhears their telephone call to a jeweler, in which the jewels are mentioned. He gets a court order halting any sale, etc. Time passes, and these three guys have been living rather extravagantly for Soviets, dreading being sent to Siberia, for their failure, etc.

The USSR sends Nina Ivanovna "Ninotchka" Yakushova (Greta Garbo) to do what they failed to do, and MD begins seducing her, after they meet by chance, neither knowing who the other is. She is no nonsense straight to the point, much like a robot would be in contemporary films. She has no desire for nice things, wants to eat and drink the same dull things as back home. Once they realize one another's identity and role, GG wants nothing to do with MD, but MD is more interested in pursuing GG.

Once back in the USSR, Commissar Razinin (Bela Lugosi) is chewing out the three. Minor role, but Lugosi is cool!

Their 1st comedy together, though MD & GG had been in several others before this.

 

[Jeffbert]

The Naked Spur (1953) has Howard Kemp (James Stewart) pursuing Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan) , wanted for murder. The fugitive takes a stand on a rock encrusted mountain that is nearly impregnable from below, and drops rocks upon JS as he tries to shimmy along a narrow ledge that leads to the top. By himself, he cannot approach it. Along comes Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell; the ill-fated truck driver from THIEVES' HIGHWAY (1949) , which I wrote about a few pages ago.) JS offers MM a small fee (compared to the $5,000 reward for RR) and with MM firing at RR, JS is able to cross the narrow ledge, and reach the top. Captures RR, and is attacked by his girl, Lina Patch (Janet Leigh). After MM reaches the top, both RR & JL are subdued.

So, they start the return trip to claim the reward, whose amount is mentioned by RR, in an attempt to turn his captors against each other. Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker) an ex-Army officer comes along, and now three greedy men are working both together and against each other, trying to bring the fugitive to justice and claim the reward, each one hoping to have it all for himself. This had me thinking of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), with JS as the Fred C. Dobbs character. The group was attacked by Indians, and together, but mostly through the treachery of RM, repelled the attack. Made me think of the Banditos with that line about badges. Dobbs (Bogart) & co. had to work together to fight them, though there was a growing mistrust among them. Similar theme here. JL thought of RR as an honorable man, until she saw him for what he really was. Now her affection is turned to JS.

An interesting and satisfying end to this film, similar to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but without the old guy (Walter Huston) laughing about it.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Cover Girl Killer (1959)

Cheap but enjoyable British psycho killer flick. First we meet our hero, a fellow who has inherited ownership of the girlie magazine Wow!, and our heroine, his showgirl ladyfriend. Pretty quickly we see our murderer, disguised in a wig and super-thick glasses. He has already convinced another showgirl that he's supposed to photograph her swimming in the river in the middle of the night. Cut to her body in a leopard skin bikini, dead from a morphine overdose. Her abbreviated clothing matches what she was wearing on the cover of Wow! magazine. Pretty soon we find out that a couple of other women who were on the cover of the same publication were also found dead, some time ago. Next comes a pretty tense scene between the killer and his next victim at a rented studio, again with his elaborate cover story of a photography session. The murderer plays it very cool and soft-spoken throughout the film, and he's always several steps ahead of the police. In an outrageously audacious move, he even shows up at the police station, without the wig and glasses, and gives the cops false information to throw them off the trail. After four murders, it's not surprising that Wow! magazine has trouble finding cover models. The cops convince our heroine to pose for the magazine, to lure the killer into a trap. The murderer sees through this easily, and goes to a theatrical agency, claiming to be making a movie about the killings; an interesting self-referential touch. Anyway, an actor is hired to put on the same wig and glasses, so the cops grab him, giving the real killer a chance to get at his victim. The whole thing is only an hour long, so it's easy to be patient with the talky parts. Although there's talk of the women's nudity, what's on screen is limited to swimsuits, showgirl costumes, and lingerie, but that's enough to provide a healthy serving of cheesecake.