What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Julian Shellhammer]

Last night, Every Girl Should be Married (1948) with Cary Grant. Betsy Drake was third on the billing, after Franchot Tone and Diana Lynn; after filming she became Cary's wife. Sort of a screw-ball comedy, with exaggerated personality quirks and goofy situations. Lots of laughs and a couple of stop-and-rewind-to-see-that-agains.
This was for our movie night get-together with another family who shares our affinity for old movie culture.

...and a couple of days ago, Miracle on 34th Street, featuring the original Julian Shellhammer. Wowsers, we love this movie!

 

[Bushman]

...and a couple of days ago, Miracle on 34th Street, featuring the original Julian Shellhammer. Wowsers, we love this movie!

Watching it right now! I never got to it before Christmas, but it's one of my Christmas time favorites.

 

[Doctor Strange]

The Music Never Stopped on Netflix.

An indie film from a few years ago that I've been on the lookout for, about a father (the great J.K. Simmons) and son who fall out in 1970 when the son leaves home to be a rock musician rather than go to college. Sixteen years later, they're reunited after the son's had brain surgery to remove a giant tumor and is institutionalized... he's only barely responsive, and can no longer form new memories, and he believes it's still 1972. A music therapist (Julia Ormand) discovers that playing the sixties music he loves - Beatles, Stones, Dead, etc. - allows the son to become briefly, completely lucid and express all his old thoughts and feelings. He can even kind of form new memories if there's music involved. The father must break through his prejudice against rock (being an old-school big band and jazz fan) to reconnect with the son, and it climaxes when they attend a Dead concert together.

An interesting story, based on an essay by Oliver Sacks, so apparently there's some truth behind it. Not everything in it works, but I liked it.

Okay... I'm a reformed Deadhead, and there were a number of mistakes I noticed. For example, not only did the Dead never play the Hammerstein Ballroom, but by 1986 they were no longer playing general admission shows and only played in arenas and stadiums. And the actors(!) playing the 1986 Dead in the concert sequence were a hoot. But by far the film's biggest musical mistake has nothing to do with the Grateful Dead: Flashbacks establish that the father and mother's special song from their first date was "Till There Was You"... which must have been back in the forties, as the son was born in 1951. But of course, that song was written for the score of The Music Man in 1957!

 

[scottyrocks]

Watching After the Thin Man (1938) now.

 

[Just Jim]

Nothing planned for the day, and too cold to be outside messing about, so I spent the day watching Tremors, 1-5. Good fun, much like spending the day playing with Legos!

 

[Fading Fast]

Yesterday, we had a bit of a New Year's Eve Day TCM (live and DVR) marathon. Since they are all movies I've seen a bunch - and hope to see a bunch more over time - and that most of us know, just a quick comment or two on each:

"To Sir, With Love*"

• Sure it's dated both in look and with its over-optimistic '60s social idealism, but what a great time capsule and, if you just go with it, it's a ton of fun / it's Sidney Poitier's movie - he owns it, drives it and lifts it up throughout

"Holiday**"

• My vote for most underrated Hepburn / Grant movie with its one negative being the obnoxious "money doesn't matter to me" attitude of Hepburn's to-the-manner-born character who gives great speeches about the wonders of living poor and "free" as she floats around her father's mansion with servants, custom-made clothes and money to smooth every bump - a true limousine liberal from the '30s

"Roberta"

• An early entry in the Astaire movie formula that works, kinda, okay with his final dance scene with Rogers and every scene with Irene Dunne (she glows and was in stronger control of her acting talents at this point than either Astaire or Rogers) being the highlights

"The Bells of St. Mary's"

• I enjoyed it, but it is and feels like a sequel to the superior "Going My Way" / That said, the scene where Bergman watches her boxing protege fight while Crosby watches her is dialogue-free movie magic

* Best line in TSWL is when one of the East-End girls expresses her confusion about Poitier's character - educated and articulate but up from poverty and struggle: "Oh, I don't understand you a bit Sir. I mean, you're a toff, and you ain't."

** Hepburn is at the peak of her youth and beauty / Grant is still growing into his looks, still yet to fully become "Cary Grant"

 

[HanauMan]

Watched an old favorite of mine, David Lynch's Eraserhead.

Still digging the Radiator Lady. "In Heaven everything is fine, you've got your good things and I have mine."

First saw it more than thirty years ago and the film has become one of my annual 'wintertime' viewing choices.

In my late teens and early twenties I wore my suit much the same way Jack Nance did, including the white socks worn with high water trousers.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I woke up to the ugly New Year's news today that my cable system dropped half my movie channels! A carriage dispute between Optimum's new owner, Altice, and Starz has meant the loss of around 18 Starz and Starz Encore channels, to be replaced with dreck like another Hallmark all-sappy-romance-all-the-time channel and "the Cowboy Channel".

Okay, Starz was never as important as HBO or Showtime, but some notable films showed up there exclusively now and then. And since nearly my favorite new series of last years was American Gods, I wonder how I'm going to see the next season... D'oh!

 

[scottyrocks]

Fios.

 

[Bushman]

I had a movie marathon last night before catching the countdown.

First up was Dunkirk. I loved how tension based it was. It's not your typical war film in any sense, and I think that in a world of movies trying to emulate Saving Private Ryan, a movie that's more emotional based is really neat to see.

Then I watched Kingsman: The Golden Circle. It was a lot of fun, but not as much the first one. Some of the plot points and jokes were too predictable. It was still a lot of fun.

Finally, I watched Moana. It was really cute, with some gorgeous animation. I definitely would buy this one for myself.

 

[Fading Fast]

Currently watching "His Gal Friday" and am remembering that the smartness and speed of dialogue in this movie is world class. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are pinging off each other as good as it's ever been done. And great '30s newsroom Fedora Lounge eye candy - I call dibs on the roll top desk.

 

[AmateisGal]

My daughter and I had a New Year's Eve Marvel movie marathon and ate junk food - we watched Spiderman: Homecoming, the first and second Avengers movies, and Captain America: Civil War. So much fun!

 

[Worf]

Fios.

Yeah if you have that choice! I been waitin' on their slow, worthless asses for almost 10 years now! I live on top of the campus of one of the greatest engineering schools in the world, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and due to ignorance or collusion with Time Warner, Fios has NEVER come within spitting distance of me. Bastiches!

Worf

 

[Just Jim]

I managed to watch The Ballad of Cable Hogue today. Not what I'd call a great movie, but an old favorite.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Currently watching "His Gal Friday" and am remembering that the smartness and speed of dialogue in this movie is world class. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are pinging off each other as good as it's ever been done. And great '30s newsroom Fedora Lounge eye candy - I call dibs on the roll top desk.

An outstanding screwball movie. His Gal Friday is in a three-way tie for favorite high-speed dialogue movie, along with Libeled Lady and Arsenic and Old Lace. In a photo-finish, Friday wins by a "You've got the brains of a pancake!"

 

[HistoryCopper]

Currently watching Allied. Tomorrow night I plan on watched Dunkirk.

 

[Fading Fast]

An outstanding screwball movie. His Gal Friday is in a three-way tie for favorite high-speed dialogue movie, along with Libeled Lady and Arsenic and Old Lace. In a photo-finish, Friday wins by a "You've got the brains of a pancake!"

"His Gal Friday" is chockablock with one liners. I picked this one up on my New Year's Day viewing:

Grant's character is trying to get Russell's character - his former wife from their combustable but, clearly, passionate marriage - to write a story for his newspaper so he offers to buy an insurance policy from her fiancee as payment / inducement (what a different era - all three of them would end up in jail today for that move) but Russell doesn't trust Grant will follow through on the bargain so she wants Grant's check for the policy to be certified.

Grant: All right, the check will be certified. [sarcastically adding] Want my fingerprints?

Russell: No thanks, I've still got those.
​

I'm surprised that one made it past the censors.

Have you seen "One, Two, Three" form '61 starring James Cagney? He puts on a one-man speed-dialogue tour de force.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Holiday Inn" on New Year's Day (and that concludes the Fading Fasts' Christmas-movie watching for the season)

• Basically, it's a Fred Astaire formula movie that makes room for the star power of Bing Crosby, but like all Astaire movies, the plot's a mess, misunderstandings in romance abound and everything is just a setup for the next song-and-dance number

• Crosby's charm and powerful voice make this one special with songs like "White Christmas" and "Easter Parade" amping up the hit quotient while Astaire's dance number with firecrackers is the showstopper

• There's a fun, almost-breaking-the-fourth-wall moment when the titular Inn's "story -" opened only on holidays is its hook - is sold to Hollywood and we see the "real" Inn recreated on a movie set

• You watch it for the music (Bing), dancing (Astaire) and fake, but fun, scenery (including a wonderful woodie wagon)

 

[Harp]

Yesterday, we had a bit of a New Year's Eve Day TCM (live and DVR) marathon.
"The Bells of St. Mary's"

• I enjoyed it, but it is and feels like a sequel to the superior "Going My Way" / That said, the scene where Bergman watches her boxing protege fight while Crosby watches her is dialogue-free movie magic

Ingrid Bergman even as a nun conjures magical spells; almost witchcraft.

 

[Fading Fast]

Ingrid Bergman even as a nun conjures magical spells; almost witchcraft.

I hear ya. And she can act - the boxing scene was fantastic.