What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

VON RYAN'S EXPRESS starring Frank Sinatra (1965)


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How bumpy, how insanely up and down, how inconsistent was Sinatra's acting career? He did quality work in some quality movies and mailed-in-performances in some absolutely stupid movies.

 

[Benzadmiral]

How bumpy, how insanely up and down, how inconsistent was Sinatra's acting career? He did quality work in some quality movies and mailed-in-performances in some absolutely stupid movies.

And one quality performance in a very slow dull 1961 film, The Devil at Four O'Clock. It had a situation (an island volcano is about to explode) made for tension, plus Spencer Tracy -- and yet the end result is sort of meh. (I need to find and read the novel by Max Catto, though.)

 

[Fading Fast]

And one quality performance in a very slow dull 1961 film, The Devil at Four O'Clock. It had a situation (an island volcano is about to explode) made for tension, plus Spencer Tracy -- and yet the end result is sort of meh. (I need to find and read the novel by Max Catto, though.)

I'll keep an eye out for that one - I've never seen it. My favorite Sinatra can act and in a quality movie is "Some Came Running." A movie that also shows that Dean Martin can act and not just ham it up - when he wants to. This is one of the better movies about a soldier not being able to adjust to civilian life and it also takes on the theme of the false facade of the "happy" '50s (that would be a dog whistle to Lizzie). I wish this one was better known.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I'll keep an eye out for that one - I've never seen it. My favorite Sinatra can act and in a quality movie is "Some Came Running." A movie that also shows that Dean Martin can act and not just ham it up - when he wants to. This is one of the better movies about a soldier not be able to adjust to civilian life and it also takes on the theme of the false facade of the "happy" '50s (that would be a dog whistle to Lizzie). I wish this one was better known.

Haven't seen that film, but I think I read the novel (James Jones?) on a trip once. Can't recall much about it.

 

[2jakes]

I caught parts of this movie yesterday on TCM:
Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

This is a Boeing or B-52 bomber with eight Pratt & Whitney
engines.
We referred to these bombers affectionately as “pigs”.
Everyone was assigned one of these long range, subsonic,
jet powered strategic bomber or “stratofortress”.

That item under the magnifying glass is a “drop tank”.
One on each end of the wings. They could be discarded
during flight when empty if needed.

I was under the fuselage doing safety checks on the wheels.
We used an MD-3 generator to power or activate the aircraft
while on the ground.
Unknown to us, a 2nd lt. in the cock-pit activated
one drop tank without realizing it.
The drop tank has a capacity of 3,000 lbs of jet fuel.
It plummeted to the ground spilling fuel.

The MD-3 generator being used on a daily basis had a tendency
to back-fire all the time.

I stood there frozen as the trickle of fuel went heading towards
the generator that was sparking away like the 4th of July.

It was the quick thinking of the staff sgt. who kicked the electrical
connection of the generator from the B-52 and hauled it away
from the spreading fuel.
Within minutes, the fire trucks sprayed some white foam.

I never told the folks back home or anyone.

Ahhh... the good ole days with my Uncle Sam.

 

[Stearmen]

I remember back in the late 80s, telling a newly minted 2nd Louie that he was an idiot for getting into BUFFs, F-111s are the way of the future! Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the retirement of the Aardvark. I truly believe the story, when the last B-2 lands at Davis-Monthan to be mothballed, an active duty B-52 will fly over!

 

[PADDY]

About Time - a lovely little light comedy film that the British do so well. Bill Nighy... need I say more!

 

[Fading Fast]

About Time - a lovely little light comedy film that the British do so well. Bill Nighy... need I say more!

Looks good - added to our Netflix queue - will report back when we see it. Thanks for the heads up, we are big Bill Nighy fans.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Eh, I didn't think much of it. And Rachel McAdams should stop doing movies about time travel-challenged romances: you'd think she'd have passed on this one after The Time Traveler's Wife and Midnight in Paris.

 

[Zombie_61]

Key to the City (1950) starring Clark Gable and Loretta Young, and featuring Frank Morgan, Marilyn Maxwell, Raymond Burr, and James Gleason. A bit of a screwball comedy; I can think of worse ways to spend an hour and forty minutes.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" 1944

It's a propaganda movie - it's 1944 and the country had already lost hundreds of thousands of its young men--try making a war picture then that isn't a propaganda piece. That said, this one has more going for it than the usual prop film.

The basic story is the preparation, bombing run and aftermath of Doolittle's raid on Tokyo. Since the raid was famous and the movie was only a few years later, it assumes the audience has a pretty good working knowledge of the details of it all. And, as noted early on, the propaganda machine is in high gear - happy volunteers for a dangerous mission kissing pretty and supportive wives goodbye while making jokes about the upcoming risks - but as it progresses, the movie rises above its propaganda construct.

That starts with the B25 bombers themselves which look beat to hell, so, I'm guessing, they were ones that had done their duty and the army could spare. Hence, very cool that they used real-deal planes; it gave the movie a gritty verisimilitude as you can see and "feel" the actual WWII battle scars.

And Spencer Tracy lifts every scene he's in and lifts this propaganda material up - especially in his (unintentional) scene-stealing moment in his final one-on-one with Van Johnson. More broadly on Tracey, he could easily shove all that exaggerated method-acting angst down the throats of those too-precious thespians with his low-key natural skills and camera comfortability - he can, with a flash of his eyes, show more real emotion than any two-handed ripping of a T-shirt ever did.

But back to the movie, when Van Johnson's B25 approaches the coast of Tokyo, flies over the Japanese fishing trawlers and farmlands, makes its bombing run and then its escape to, and crash landing in, China - all propaganda slips away and the intensity and risk of what they were doing feels very real. And (spoiler alert) if that didn't kick your emotional engagement up, Johnson's amputation surgery was anything but propaganda - it was real, visceral and excruciating. Sure, how everyone dealt with it later was "messaging," but the director got his point in - it's war, it's hell and these men are heroes - some of whom are paying a horrific price.

Yes, it's still propaganda, but this one rises above the genre's normal limits.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Previewed "The Lovers" this morning, in preparation for a run next week, and found it surprisingly enjoyable. We seldom seem to get any kind of comedies these days, and this one is only a comedy in the sense that nobody dies in it. Debra Winger -- unrecognizably gaunt and haggard -- and Tracy Letts play a couple of emptied-out California bourgies with a joyless marriage and soul-crushing jobs who are having affairs -- she with a douchey would-be writer and he with a strung-out strip-mall ballet teacher. They are both planning to leave each other, but accidentally end up falling back in love with each other, and find themselves in the position of having to cheat on their lovers with each other. The resulting web of deception carries on for an hour and a half, drags in the couple's whiny college-boy son and his girlfriend -- who is by far the only sympathetic character in the picture -- before reaching a rather hilarious twist ending. The end result is if Hitchcock directed a romantic comedy from a script by a drunken Tennessee Williams. Great date movie -- be sure to see it with someone you love!

 

[Worf]

"Becoming Bond" - A neat little documentary on HULU detailing the life, loves and regrets of the walking "trivia" question that is George Lazenby. The aussie born actor who played Bond only once and walked away from a 6 picture deal and a million dollar bonus because he didn't want to be "All Bond All The Time". He paid a high price for sure personally and financially BUT he did alright and comes across like many an Aussie I've met both there and here over the years. Worth an hour 45 of my time.

Worf

 

[Doctor Strange]

The Dressmaker, Australian "revenge comedy" with Kate Winslet. It was well reviewed, but I thought it was a mess. It didn't work for me at all.

 

[AmateisGal]

The Dressmaker, Australian "revenge comedy" with Kate Winslet. It was well reviewed, but I thought it was a mess. It didn't work for me at all.

I enjoyed it. It was definitely a different movie.

 

[AmateisGal]

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Such a wonderful movie. I still get chills when she's in the kitchen and the lights go out, and the Captain shows up! And Gene Tierney was so utterly gorgeous!

 

[Fading Fast]

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Such a wonderful movie. I still get chills when she's in the kitchen and the lights go out, and the Captain shows up! And Gene Tierney was so utterly gorgeous!

This is one of my girlfriend's favorite movies and has become one of mine. And, IMHO, it's Tierney's best movie - she often comes across as cold, but in this one she shows a warmer side and more range than just her death stare or come-hither look (which is how she got through all of "The Razor's Edge").

Additionally, Rex Harrison is on fire as the cantankerous, but secretly big-hearted, ghost barking orders while fretting about Tierney (he's one of my favorite actors). But the two things that really make it a home run movie is the chemistry between Tierney and Harrison - she sees through his bluster, he's touched and impressed by her surprising gumption - and that the movie is basically a love story with a ghost angle, not a ghost movie for the ghost's sake.

I rank it just a teeny tiny bit below "The Uninvited" as my favorite ghost movie.

P.S., the scene you reference is incredibly well done (also, I love that kitchen and love that entire house).

 

[AmateisGal]

This is one of my girlfriend's favorite movies and has become one of mine. And, IMHO, it's Tierney's best movie - she often comes across as cold, but in this one she shows a warmer side and more range than just her death stare or come-hither look (which is how she got through all of "The Razor's Edge").

Additionally, Rex Harrison is on fire as the cantankerous, but secretly big-hearted, ghost barking orders while fretting about Tierney (he's one of my favorite actors). But the two things that really make it a home run movie is the chemistry between Tierney and Harrison - she sees through his bluster, he's touched and impressed by her surprising gumption - and that the movie is basically a love story with a ghost angle, not a ghost movie for the ghost's sake.

I rank it just a teeny tiny bit below "The Uninvited" as my favorite ghost movie.

P.S., the scene you reference is incredibly well done (also, I love that kitchen and love that entire house).

Wonderful review of this film, FF. The music, the sets, the costumes, the actors...everything is just brilliantly done. And I love Rex Harrison's portrayal of the captain. I also love how Gene's character starts using those "awful" words - blast, blazes - etc. So much fun!

I'd love that house, too, though to be honest, if I knew it was haunted I definitely wouldn't live there! Mrs. Muir has more guts than me.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Great film, a longtime favorite. But along with Harrison and Tierney, two key figures haven't been mentioned: director Joseph L. Mankiewicz and composer Bernard Herrmann.

Anyone remember the sixties TV series based on the film with Edward Mulhare (who always seemed to be the poor man's Rex Harrison) and Hope Lange? It reduced the ghostly love story to standard sitcom shenanigans, but it was my first exposure to the story.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Albuquerque (1948) with Randolph Scott, Barbra Britton, Gabby Hayes, and Lon Chaney without the "Jr." Filmed at the Iverson Ranch and in the rugged hill country of Arizona. Presented in Cinecolor. Bad guys want to eliminate in the most literal terms competitors in the ore-hauling business. Scott gets involved, Britton tries to run the business with her brother, Hayes gets the best one-liners, and Chaney is a feral hulk of a goon for the snake of a businessman who masterminds lethal plots from a tidy office.