What was the last movie you saw?

[Ed Lake]

I watched a sci-fi movie called "Pi." Pi (1998) - IMDb

In August 2007 I bought the DVD somewhere for $3.99. I watched it once, and hadn't watched it since. It's in black and white, it was made in 1998, and it's about "A paranoid mathematician [who] searches for a key number that will unlock the universal patterns found in nature."

It's really weird and hard to follow, since it's about mathematicians who seem to have problems that no one else in the world cares about. But, for some reason, I kind of enjoyed it. Or, more accurately, I didn't dislike it. I plan to watch it again sometime in 2015.

Oops. I mean to write 2035, not 2015. There's nothing worse than screwing up a joke with no way to correct it.

 

[Jeffbert]

THE COLOSSUS OF NEW YORK I haven't seen it in ages but wow it really holds up great (except for some funny editing in the last scene). When Robocop came out I thought of this movie since it has some of the similar elements. The musical score is unusual-entirely piano yet it's very effective. The shot of the colossus going underwater is rather creepy.
The ending could have had a Rod Serling or Controller narration. It's kind of the ultimate Twilight Zone-Outer Limits episode in a way.

Funny how the cyborg was equipped with death-ray eyes, but the creator was taken by surprise when he saw them.



NATIVE SON (1951) NOIR ALLEY; A young black man is hired as the chauffeur of a prominent white family. On his 1st day, the daughter has him drive her around in the family convertible, and going to a bar, she invites him to go with her, and her boyfriend, who has radical (for the time, 1940s) ideas about racial equality, & enjoy the show. He is very uneasy about this, and after she is very drunk, he has to carry her into her house and even into her bedroom. He is seriously thinking, "they're gonna kill me" and this fear drives him to make very a serious series of errors.

Muller's discussion afterward was really enlightening. !st., the film was made in South America, & any versions of it shown outside its country of origin, were so heavily edited/censored, as to be cut in half.

 

[Randy M.]

NATIVE SON (1951) NOIR ALLEY; A young black man is hired as the chauffeur of a prominent white family. On his 1st day, the daughter has him drive her around in the family convertible, and going to a bar, she invites him to go with her, and her boyfriend, who has radical (for the time, 1940s) ideas about racial equality, & enjoy the show. He is very uneasy about this, and after she is very drunk, he has to carry her into her house and even into her bedroom. He is seriously thinking, "they're gonna kill me" and this fear drives him to make very a serious series of errors.

Muller's discussion afterward was really enlightening. !st., the film was made in South America, & any versions of it shown outside its country of origin, were so heavily edited/censored, as to be cut in half.

I missed this. I finally read the book maybe 10 years ago. I thought Richard Wright didn't trust his audience to "get it" from the way he intermittantly pounded his point home; probably a not unreasonable supposition for the audience at the time. But in those other moments, and there are several of them, he wrote with camera-ready clarity in tones that felt very noir, rather as if Cornell Woolrich had been Black and had a more poetic sensibility.

 

[Paxtrytion]

For a Few Dollars More Good picture, great visual imagery (Leone must have seen a few John Ford westerns, though he developed a style all his own, and his use of facial close-ups on the amazing cast of bit-players he found to fill out the film is breathtaking...what wonderful faces he chose for his films!) Eastwood and Van Cleef work wonderfully together, and Gian-Maria Volonté is very good as the baddie (but oh, how I miss Wallach from TGTBATU). I really need to track down Once Upon a Time in the West!

 

[KGeo777]

Funny how the cyborg was equipped with death-ray eyes, but the creator was taken by surprise when he saw them.

Ha. I am assuming he was able to do something that they never expected-like magically taking over the electrical systems in his eyes. He destroyed the control box they built for him. And he was able to hypnotize or mind control people as well.
The ending was choppy. There's a shot of someone lying on the ground and then a moment later they aren't, then they are again---unless it was a problem with the version I watched--it was a glaringly obvious editing error.

 

[svalbard]

Greenland

New on Amazon and ok end of the world movie. Comet Charlie, an extinction level event, is heading for Earth and everyone is doomed. Apart from a chosen few who are to be airlifted to bunkers in Greenland. The story follows the adventures of a family as they try to reach the safe haven. As I said it is ok and watchable. But you will have forgotten about it by the end of the next day. Hence this post before I do forget.

 

[Randy M.]

Tintorera (1977)

Don't.

I could complain about the usual things like script, dialog, acting (not everyone, but the leads are deadly dull), but what's appalling is that the special effects aren't special effects: When they kill a shark, it's an actual shark being killed, and they kill a lot of them. Hadn't realized it going in and probably wouldn't have watched it if I'd known. If you'd like a more detailed description of how appalling the movie is, and you call yourself a scientist.

 

[Toby Frost]

Overlord (2018)

A group of American GIs parachute into occupied France just before D-Day, to destroy a radio transmitter. They discover a secret base where Nazis have been making zombies, and have to destroy that, too.

This is an odd film that is almost several things. It's almost a convincing war film at points, despite its apparently desegregated military and very 21st-century soldiers. It's almost in bad taste. It's almost a full-on horror film, but it doesn't feel especially scary. And it never seems to quite have the nerve to unleash the vast horde of mutant zombie Nazis that it promises to have stashed away. The cast do a decent job, but it fails to embrace the pulpy craziness of its concept.

 

[Judderman]

Sounds a bit like Outpost (2008). Soldiers fighting with zombies in and around a bunker (in eastern Europe) which had been occupied by nazi soldiers.

 

[J Riff]

The Color Out of Space 2020 :warning:>>> blow by blow realtime spoilage alert* <<<
... half an hour in, all character development so far and this is not cutting it. What will they come up with to scare us... ah, our MC, a hydrologist young black guy, of course, who is gonna get involved with the young Wiccan daughter... cos it's 'Lovecraft... of course...well his car starts up for no reason... but no real scares yet. The meteor has landed and some really stupid stuff has gone on... like dad, Nic Cage, going on TV and being ridiculed as a 'UFO witness' even after cops have been there and its obviously uhhh a meteorite... until... at 37 min. geez, mom cuts a couple fingers off for no reason, graphically, while slicing carrots as the little kid stands there... * Off to the hospital with her. What else will they come up with... its high budget so... yech. Cage looks like he's not acting as he gags ... what am I doing in this movie...
Now.. the little kid, of course, is being talked to by 'it' ... and the well is getting consistent scary music... and the phones aren't working right... as the kid paints a monster while staring at the well. In the well we get purple colors, and a huge purple bug crawls up outa there...we see the kid through its bug* vision... and it flies off. Same purple color now showing on the TV...
Now the daughter sees the sink fill with blood... her phone acts up again, so she throws up. Now our MC figures out the water is contaminated.. and the little kid is playing with his invisible 'friend' in the well.
Next, the crusty hippy character in the woodsy shed is recording sounds from below the ground... 'the aliens' ... 'up is down, fast is slow'... whoa, finally a jump scare as Cage and wife drive back from surgery on her hand... some kind of monster runs crost the road. Purple light pours from the well and the dog freaks out but the kid just sits there. More phone nonsense as daughter and pothead son get together with dad Cage, Mom and kid... and Cage is angry as he sees the Alpaca llamas are out of their cage.
Lots swearing now as dad insists nothing is going on... he takes a shower and a glob of jelly stuff is plugging the drain, it grabs at his hand but he shrugs it off. Now there's a bad smell and the dog has vanished. Morning, and Cage picks giant weird tomatoes, up a month early. The phone acts up some more. Cage freaks out, smashing fruit... his skin goes all reptilian but he rubs whiskey on it and it goes away ... the TV acts up more... shots of the scary house.
The daughter is gonna do a ritual... she pulls out her copy of the necronomicon,, she drips blood on it. Oh gosh now shes cutting herself up pretty bad...
Son and little kid go into the barn but run right back out because the llamas have mutated into monsters radiating purple light. Mom and kid get zapped by a what looks like a million volts, from the barn. They take them inside and they are smoking and kinda fused together...daughter, bleeding everywhere, walks in and screams.. phone dead, car won't start, Cage freaks out.
Suddenly at one hour fifteen, son and daughter figure out the meteor is to blame. Mom and kid are now a hellish fused mess on the couch, they take them up to the attic. Cage gets his shotgun and goes to the barn where the alpacas look really a lot like the dogs did in The Thing, and he blasts them to bits. Next Cage is gonna blast the wife and kid, like the alpacas, but he doesnt, he goes down and watches TV.
Meanwhile our MC water inspector and some cops have found some mutated fused critters near town. The son and daughter are gonna try and ride out on horseback, but horsie's eyes turn purple and he runs off. Uh oh, the missing dog is in the well... son goes down there and yes purple protoplasm does him in. Cage freaks again and locks daughter in with fused Mom and kid. Here comes our MC with a cop, as Cage rants and converses with the TV.
Upstairs, the mom/kid monster arises and menaces daughter. MC and cop enter the house and Cage is nuts, they race upstairs and blow the mom/kid monsters head off. The little kid thing is still alive so Cage blasts him too.
MC carries daughter out, purple monster light comes from the well, Cage is gonna shoot at it, cop assumes he's gonna shoot MC so he shoots Cage.
Now the old woodsy prospector has to be saved, so MC and cop go to his shed, he's dead with purple light in his head, a tape is playing in a crazy voice, explaining what the thing in the meteor is, how it 'sucks...and it burrrrns... ' MC and cop leave, but a monster bug thing swoops down.. no wait, it's a branch of a tree.. and grabs and squishes the cop. MC finds daughter back at the well, she goes all purple and our MC gets a very small glimpse of a purple worm world of some kind, and he falls down. The grass grabs at him as daughter turns into a purple vortex, but he manages to run back into the house, where Cage is sitting , speaking in a womans voice... and they battle, but MC escapes, down into the cellar, and everything is totally purple now, aaand FoosH, everything disappears.
We see MC crawl out and walk over to the well, in black and white, all color is gone now, and after a slow fade we get a voiceover... from the story! Then we get more of same as we see MV smoking a cig or is it a reefer and staring out across the land. .. the voiceover gets the title in, and a bit more about 'the messenger from realms whos existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.'
We see MC's cig butt floating in water as he walks off.
So, just like the book.
Ridiculous derivatory 'horror' movie, not tense or scary just kinda blecchh, and the most interesting bit, for me, wuz that the old hippy in the shed was listening to Ultimate Spinach's 1st LP, from 1968.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

A bunch of documentaries while I was away from the computer, mostly delving into nostalgia for the 1970's (and maybe other times):

Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President (2020) -- Details the connection between the politician and music (not just rock, despite the title, but also country and gospel.)

Desert One (2019) -- A discussion of and, through animation, a recreation of the attempt to rescue the hostages held by Iran during the Carter administration, in an operation that went horribly wrong before they got anywhere near the prisoners.

Creem: America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine (2019) -- All about the publication that was something like the bratty little brother of Rolling Stone.

Three biographies of noted popular musicians:

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (2019) -- Notable for her ability to succeed in a variety of genres.

Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind (2019) -- Notable for longevity and for putting Canada on the popular music map.

Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something (2020) -- Notable for his charity work against hunger and an early death in a traffic accident.

 

[KGeo777]

CASTLE OF BLOOD 1964 - This story about a writer who meets Poe and agrees to a bet to stay in a haunted house until morning has the concept that a person is split into three parts--the body, the spirit, and the senses. If a death is violent, the senses will carry on and keep the individual from truly dying. This is demonstrated by cutting a snake in half--the remake from 1971 by the same director has the same exact demonstration. But it the film is kind of creepy beyond that all too realistic bit of morbidity.

 

[Foxbat]

The Color Out of Space 2020 :warning:>>> blow by blow realtime spoilage alert* <<<
... half an hour in, all character development so far and this is not cutting it. What will they come up with to scare us... ah, our MC, a hydrologist young black guy, of course, who is gonna get involved with the young Wiccan daughter... cos it's 'Lovecraft... of course...well his car starts up for no reason... but no real scares yet. The meteor has landed and some really stupid stuff has gone on... like dad, Nic Cage, going on TV and being ridiculed as a 'UFO witness' even after cops have been there and its obviously uhhh a meteorite... until... at 37 min. geez, mom cuts a couple fingers off for no reason, graphically, while slicing carrots as the little kid stands there... * Off to the hospital with her. What else will they come up with... its high budget so... yech. Cage looks like he's not acting as he gags ... what am I doing in this movie...
Now.. the little kid, of course, is being talked to by 'it' ... and the well is getting consistent scary music... and the phones aren't working right... as the kid paints a monster while staring at the well. In the well we get purple colors, and a huge purple bug crawls up outa there...we see the kid through its bug* vision... and it flies off. Same purple color now showing on the TV...
Now the daughter sees the sink fill with blood... her phone acts up again, so she throws up. Now our MC figures out the water is contaminated.. and the little kid is playing with his invisible 'friend' in the well.
Next, the crusty hippy character in the woodsy shed is recording sounds from below the ground... 'the aliens' ... 'up is down, fast is slow'... whoa, finally a jump scare as Cage and wife drive back from surgery on her hand... some kind of monster runs crost the road. Purple light pours from the well and the dog freaks out but the kid just sits there. More phone nonsense as daughter and pothead son get together with dad Cage, Mom and kid... and Cage is angry as he sees the Alpaca llamas are out of their cage.
Lots swearing now as dad insists nothing is going on... he takes a shower and a glob of jelly stuff is plugging the drain, it grabs at his hand but he shrugs it off. Now there's a bad smell and the dog has vanished. Morning, and Cage picks giant weird tomatoes, up a month early. The phone acts up some more. Cage freaks out, smashing fruit... his skin goes all reptilian but he rubs whiskey on it and it goes away ... the TV acts up more... shots of the scary house.
The daughter is gonna do a ritual... she pulls out her copy of the necronomicon,, she drips blood on it. Oh gosh now shes cutting herself up pretty bad...
Son and little kid go into the barn but run right back out because the llamas have mutated into monsters radiating purple light. Mom and kid get zapped by a what looks like a million volts, from the barn. They take them inside and they are smoking and kinda fused together...daughter, bleeding everywhere, walks in and screams.. phone dead, car won't start, Cage freaks out.
Suddenly at one hour fifteen, son and daughter figure out the meteor is to blame. Mom and kid are now a hellish fused mess on the couch, they take them up to the attic. Cage gets his shotgun and goes to the barn where the alpacas look really a lot like the dogs did in The Thing, and he blasts them to bits. Next Cage is gonna blast the wife and kid, like the alpacas, but he doesnt, he goes down and watches TV.
Meanwhile our MC water inspector and some cops have found some mutated fused critters near town. The son and daughter are gonna try and ride out on horseback, but horsie's eyes turn purple and he runs off. Uh oh, the missing dog is in the well... son goes down there and yes purple protoplasm does him in. Cage freaks again and locks daughter in with fused Mom and kid. Here comes our MC with a cop, as Cage rants and converses with the TV.
Upstairs, the mom/kid monster arises and menaces daughter. MC and cop enter the house and Cage is nuts, they race upstairs and blow the mom/kid monsters head off. The little kid thing is still alive so Cage blasts him too.
MC carries daughter out, purple monster light comes from the well, Cage is gonna shoot at it, cop assumes he's gonna shoot MC so he shoots Cage.
Now the old woodsy prospector has to be saved, so MC and cop go to his shed, he's dead with purple light in his head, a tape is playing in a crazy voice, explaining what the thing in the meteor is, how it 'sucks...and it burrrrns... ' MC and cop leave, but a monster bug thing swoops down.. no wait, it's a branch of a tree.. and grabs and squishes the cop. MC finds daughter back at the well, she goes all purple and our MC gets a very small glimpse of a purple worm world of some kind, and he falls down. The grass grabs at him as daughter turns into a purple vortex, but he manages to run back into the house, where Cage is sitting , speaking in a womans voice... and they battle, but MC escapes, down into the cellar, and everything is totally purple now, aaand FoosH, everything disappears.
We see MC crawl out and walk over to the well, in black and white, all color is gone now, and after a slow fade we get a voiceover... from the story! Then we get more of same as we see MV smoking a cig or is it a reefer and staring out across the land. .. the voiceover gets the title in, and a bit more about 'the messenger from realms whos existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.'
We see MC's cig butt floating in water as he walks off.
So, just like the book.
Ridiculous derivatory 'horror' movie, not tense or scary just kinda blecchh, and the most interesting bit, for me, wuz that the old hippy in the shed was listening to Ultimate Spinach's 1st LP, from 1968.

I have a copy of a German version of this story from 2010. I thought it was pretty decent. You may like this one better. Here's the IMDB page for it.

The Color Out of Space (2010) ⭐ 6.2 | Drama, Horror, Mystery

1h 26m | Not Rated

www.imdb.com

 

[Randy M.]

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (2019) -- Notable for her ability to succeed in a variety of genres.

Saw that last year and thought it was excellent. Her interactions with other musicians was also new to me. Didn't realize she'd spent some time with the Laurel Canyon crowd, or her impact on Don Henley and Glenn Fry and the Eagles, though I was aware of her cover of "Desperado."

 

[Rodders]

Arrival as on telly last night and this was the first time I’ve watched it.

A beautiful movie, but the Idea of language unwrapping time just didn’t do it for me and it just left me with too many questions. I will watch it again though.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Just watched The King of Comedy for the first time in years, and I have to consider it as DeNiro's finest performance. At times it is painful to watch the pitfalls of fan worship and the to make it to the top in showbiz. It's brilliant, it's funny and it's tragic in equal measures.

 

[Jeffbert]

Flight Command (1940) Ensign Alan Drake (Robert Taylor) is the new guy in the Hellcats, to replace the member who was killed. He gets off to a bad start, when he defies orders from Squadron Commander Billy Gary (Walter Pidgeon) and rather than bailing out, attempts to land his aircraft in the fog. Not impressed by his attempt, the others nickname him Pensacola, after the city where the training academy was.

As the U.S. had not yet entered WWII, the activity was all training and such. But, after the failed attempt to land in the fog, he eventually bailed-out and ended up in the surf. Coming ashore, the first house he found was the Squadron Commander's though he was met by his wife (Ruth Hussey), as the C.O. was at the base. Unaware of the woman's marital status, he is attracted to her, & this will lead to drama, later.

Supporting cast includes Red Skelton as Lt. Mugger Martin, in a presumed rare dramatic role. Two from the crime drama genre are Lt. Dusty Rhodes (Paul Kelly) & C.P.O. Spike Knowles (Nat Pendleton). None of the other actors' names are familiar.



BOMBERS B-52 (1957) Sgt. Chuck Brennan (Karl Malden) is an airplane mechanic for the Air Force during the Korean War. Lt. Col. (later promoted to) Jim Herlihy (Efrem Zimbalist Jr) is a fighter pilot who requires nighttime maintenance on his plane; but this needs the lights turned on, & that will make their base a target for enemy bombers. Brennan, mistakenly assumes Herlihy merely wants to go to Tokyo to meet girls, and resents him for it. Years later, Brennan is the lead mechanic on a Stateside Air Force Base, when preparations begin to accommodate the much larger & massively heavier B-52. He is being instructed on the maintenance for the B-52, & is excited about working on it, until Herlihy arrives as the guy in-charge. Moreover, Brennan now has a young adult daughter named Lois (Natalie Wood), whom he much prefers to keep away from wolves such as he assumes Herlihy to be.




Battle Beneath the Earth (1967) I was searching TCM's streaming page, hoping to find Odds Against Tomorrow, which I must have forgotten to record. Not finding it, I found this odd film. A rogue Chinese general is burrowing beneath the Pacific ocean and branching-out under the USA, in the attempt to place atom bombs under major cities. He really wants to destroy the nation. The good guys, by sheer chance, discover the scheme, & foil it. The one guy, has his ear to the sidewalk, and says something about them moving about like ants. He ends up in the rubber room, until the hero, has suspicion that he may be talking about enemy armies.

This had some impressive sci-fi elements, but overall, must have been judged a poor film. It had an a-bomb detonating undersea, but the hero & his girl, at the other end of the tunnel, safe & sound, rather than being blown away by the gun barrel-like blast.

They had a transport between North America and Asia that I believe can best be likened to the way banks send objects to and from the drive-in tellers
& the cars outside. Apparently, travel between the continents takes only a matter of minutes, as the passenger is in a rather cramped container.

 

[AlexH]

I've not seen any more Ghibli films but I'm planning on watching several more. Both Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away look very good.

They're the best two in my opinion, and I love them both (I think Spirited Away is pretty much perfect), though Nausicaa is my absolute favourite.

 

[AlexH]

8/10:
Fighting with My Family (2019)
Fighting with My Family had its downbeat moments, but it was a funny heartwarming drama about a wrestling family, mostly a brother and sister from Norwich, UK who dream of making it to World Wrestling Entertainment. I thought Fighting with My Family was going to be big, American and glitzy, but maybe I was fooled by The Rock/Dwayne Johnson being in it. It was actually very British (including the humour). Based on a true story, which I didn't realise until the end. I looked up truth vs fiction, and this is one of the truest true stories I've seen, which made it all the more amazing. I only watched it for research given it's related to a story I wrote a few years ago and plan to follow up, and it turned out to be one of my favourite films I've seen this year.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
I didn't realise I hadn't seen so many of the Tom Cruise M:I films. I saw the first around release time and thought it was good, and enjoyed the most recent at the cinema wondering why I didn't know the characters. Because I hadn't seen the films! So I've been working my way back. Ghost Protocol is the most fun of the M:I films I've seen so far, with plenty of laughs. Brilliant entertainment.

7/10:
The Babadook (2014)
Pretty good for a horror film (I'm not horror's biggest fan), though I preferred the earlier parts where the horror seemed more psychological.

Angel Face (1953)
Good film noir about the crazy (or is she just sweet?) Diane Tremayne.

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
Another good film noir about a cop with a temper.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)
A crime thriller in three parts, each a continuation of the previous part. The first part was compelling, the other parts not so much, where the characters weren't as interesting and there wasn't as much action.

The Land Before Time (1988)
An 80s animation classic that didn't quite have the magic of some of my favourites.

All the President's Men (1976)
I think in terms of newsroom investigations, the closest comparison I have is Spotlight, and All the President's Men and Watergate was good, but nowhere near as compelling as Spotlight.

6/10:
eXistenZ (1999)
Sci-fi with an interesting premise (game designer having to play her latest VR game to see if it's damaged) that didn't live up to its promise.

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
A mother doesn't seem to love her newborn son - is the way he turns out her fault? Good performances from the leads, but I didn't get into the film. I think partly because I wasn't sure whether the mother was meant to have postnatal depression (I thought not as the film progressed).

Clue (1985)
Comedy thriller based on the board game (Cluedo in the UK). I thought most of the jokes fell flat. Maybe it showed its age.

Fisherman's Friends (2019)
Another feelgood true story about some singing fishermen who are signed to a record label, but it dragged on too long for me and some of the characters weren't all that likeable.

4/10:
Sånger från andra våningen/Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
Highly-rated Swedish comedy set at the turn of the new millennium. Despite it starting intriguingly, I found it difficult to get into, as it ended up being a series of vignettes of different characters with nothing for me to latch on to.

 

[hitmouse]

Devil’s Express (1976) A curious potpurri of blaxploitation spiritual martial arts gang warfare mismatched cop team zombie subway movie. Terrible acting, rotten fight choreography, awful script, and laughable plot, and yet it is quite entertaining. Decent street filming of 1970s New York is always a bonus, as is the lead actor Warhawk Tanzania, who does his moves in gold velvet flared dungarees.
On Amazon. Quite good fun.