What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

"Payment on Demand" 1951 with Bette Davis and Barry Sullivan

Maybe it's because, last year, I watched the TV series "Feud" about the combative relationship Bette Davis and Joan Crawford had while making "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" (and off and on throughout their long careers) that I immediately noticed the very similar stories in this movie and Crawford's 1950 "Harriet Craig."

At a high level, both movies are about social-climbing, materialistic women who drive their husbands to succeed so that they can have an impressive home, luxury goods and social position. Both also show wives - Davis and Crawford - who cared much more about those things and their position than their husbands or anyone else in their lives.

The moral of both is that this myopic drive for "stuff" and "status" eventually pushes everyone away from you - your family, your friends and, even, your household staff - and leaves you alone and sad in your big and well-appointed, but now cold and gloomy, house.

Both movies are pretty well done and both actresses are scary (no new news there), but I'd give the nod to Davis for bringing more nuance and humanity to the role; whereas, Crawford is more full-on b*tch who can crumble a person with a look. It's amazing how the careers of these two actresses paralleled.

 

[Fading Fast]

"The Age of Innocence" 1993

• I've often thought that Edith Wharton's and F. Scott Fitzgerald's books don't translate well to the screen because it's hard to capture the nuance of their writing about the subtleties of the insular, wealthy "society" they chose as subject matter

• Of those efforts, this '93 movie of Wharton's book is probably the best, but still suffers a bit from too much necessary, but interrupting, narration

• That said, it is beautiful to see (an early period piece where the details are impressive and rich) and, overall, engages you in the story of people abiding (or not) by prescriptive and unwritten rules where small indiscretions (she didn't invite so and so to the annual this-or-that lunch) are meaningful but hard to translate to the screen

• It's also helped by the acting talents of Daniel Day Lewis, Winona Ryder (playing a slightly nuts woman probably isn't that much of a stretch for her), Michelle Pfeiffer and Marian Margolyes giving an energized performance as the rich, eccentric family matriarch

 

[Doctor Strange]

Dude, how can you do a review like this and not mention that the film was directed by Martin Scorsese? It's one of the most interesting things about it: that a director largely known for movies about bottom-feeding gangsters and their worlds turns his attention to the old NYC aristocracy... and finds its hermetically sealed class system just as fascinating.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I've long thought it's a great film. But as much as this kind of film depends on acting and production design, it's the screenwriting and direction that are even more critical. Just sayin'...

Addendum: I don't mean to give you a hard time, and you know I nearly always agree with and enjoy your posts. I just think you should give more credit to the folks who have the most influence in the making a movie or TV show. Acting can surely make or break a project, but it starts with the script and the director's vision.

 

[Fading Fast]

Dude, how can you do a review like this and not mention that the film was directed by Martin Scorsese? It's one of the most interesting things about it: that a director largely known for movies about bottom-feeding gangsters and their worlds turns his attention to the old NYC aristocracy... and finds its hermetically sealed class system just as fascinating.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I've long thought it's a great film. But as much as this kind of film depends on acting and production design, it's the screenwriting and direction that are even more critical. Just sayin'...

Addendum: I don't mean to give you a hard time, and you know I nearly always agree with and enjoy your posts. I just think you should give more credit to the folks who have the most influence in the making a movie or TV show. Acting can surely make or break a project, but it starts with the script and the director's vision.

Very fair criticism. My girlfriend and I did note that it was an "odd" movie for him to make, but then remembered that he also made a Rolling Stone documentary years later and realized that he thinks outside the box / has eclectic tastes.

And yes, Wharton's incredible writing and Day-Lewis's et al. outstanding acting needed Scorsese's skilled directing (those overhead shots were incredible as was his editing that moved along a story that mainly takes place in people's heads) to complete the movie making continuum.

Somewhat as an aside, I have encountered two types of criticism on this forum. Thoughtful and ideas driven - hey, a director is an integral part of the success of movie, you should want to note that when relevant - that I respect and appreciate - thank you. And I've encountered snarky ad hominem attacks that are not about the ideas (seem angry about mine, but unable to intelligently counter them), but are condescending and personal. Those do not help the forum nor me and say much about the attacker.

Your criticism and any other like it is much appreciated.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Right, Marty has made lots of different kinds of movies since, but back then The Age of Innocence was a very surprising outlier.

Hey, I'm a frustrated would-be cinema professor with a tendency to pontificate: I know that! I really don't mean to be a hardcase. But there are some directors - in classic Hollywood, guys like Wyler, Ford, Wilder, Huston, Welles, etc. - whose personalities and views so overwhelm everything else that contributes to their films that you can't not credit them as the "auteurs". It applies now even more, with producers and studios not having their old "house style" influence. And it's one of the things I find endlessly fascinating about this artform, watching directors (as well as writers, DPs, composers, actors) as they move through their careers: the continuities and the variances.

 

[Worf]

"A Quiet Place" - Arrrgh Where to begin? MAJOR Spoilers ahead.

1. I hate, HATE.... HATE (did I mention the word hate?) movies with stupid kids. If children survive in countries and regions where animals literally stalk them for food and children actually survived the organized murder of genocide then WHY in the name of all that's holy do they literally do everything they can to kill themselves in the movies? I can't say a word because the monsters will eat me but I'm going to play with a toy that makes noise? I can't hear but I'm going to wander the countryside alone... till dark with mankillers lurking around EVERY corner.

2. Headlines say "sound attracts them" it's how they hunt and kill yet only off all the people in the world, all the scientists, all the soldiers only a pre-teen deaf girl can figure out that a creature with no eyes and big honking ears just might be susceptible to attack via sound waves?

3. Men and boys are worthless except as sacrifices or plot devices.

4. We're all doomed if we're NOT part of that one plucky family.

Gawd I'm so tired of this crap!

Worf

 

[Formeruser012523]

Bogie, for a fleeting moment looks directly at the camera
and appears to be annoyed that we are looking in on him.

Would you get onto Bogie for looking at the camera? I doubt it.

 

[Formeruser012523]

3. Men and boys are worthless except as sacrifices or plot devices.

I'd go see it for this alone, because women and girls are this in EVERY. MOVIE. EVER.

Just sayin.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Them! is one of those movies that could just as easily have been another hokey "atomic era produces giant creatures" story, but the performances by Whitmore, Arness, and the rest of the cast, really help to sell the premise. It's one of my favorites from that era.

Them! also benefits from a Dragnet-like police procedural flavor -- except that, instead of looking for human criminals, the investigators are hunting giant predators. And the investigators do it the smart way, too, by enlisting the aid of, and actually listening to, an ant specialist who extrapolates from standard ants' behavior to that of the giants.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Yep, that's a prime piece of quality Early Talkie. It feels stagey because it's a pretty literal transcription of the Broadway play of the same name, which was a big, big Pulitzer-winning hit in 1929, and which helped to inspire a lot of the edgy fire-escape drama that characterized the work of Clifford Odets, Sidney Kingsley, and the like. Elmer Rice was a fine progressive playwright whose works are too rarely revisited. His "We The People," written in 1933, goes even further down the the same sort of themes.

I thought that title seemed familiar -- the name "Elmer Rice" popped into my head right away. All I know about him is that he had several successful plays back then, and he and Dorothy Parker collaborated on a play (and possibly had an affair?) that didn't become a hit any more than the affair did. (The Ladies of the Corridor? No, I think that was later.)

ETA: had to look it up: Close Harmony. In the fading days of the run, Dottie sent a telegram to (probably) Robert Benchley: "Close Harmony did a cool $35 at the matinee. Ask the boys in the back room what they will have."

 

[scottyrocks]

• I am watching what could be the worst movie ever made (after Zardoz): Flipper (1963).

I'm getting diabetes looking at it. No wait, I already have diabetes. This must be something else.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hey, go easy on the fish. He was my hero when I was five. He couldn't help it that his co-stars were lousy, he didn't have cast refusal in his contract. That's what happens when your agent is a lobster -- he can't keep track of the clause.

 

[scottyrocks]

The TV show was probably better because it was in half hour doses.

 

[Formeruser012523]

Flipper must've been good. They brought it back in the '90's.

 

[Fading Fast]

Watching "Nothing Sacred" (1937) on TCM right now - Carol Lombard looks great, the Technicolor looks absolute horrible, absolutely simply horrible. It's so loud and forced, that it's killing the movie for me.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Last year's Woody Allen flick, Wonder Wheel.

While definitely a step up from his last few films (*), this is still a mixed bag. On the plus side is gorgeous photography and production design, and a committed lead performance by Kate Winslet. On the minus side is the overwhelming feeling of watching a play rather than a film, the fourth-wall breaking narrator - a frankly cheap trick that allows Allen his typical later-career narrative shortcuts - and a plot that's pretty much telegraphed and predictable throughout. Two stars, maybe two and a half.

(* I think his last actually good film was Blue Jasmine. The ones since have been especially lazy, a collection of plots/characters/locales he'd done better in earlier films, with good actors haphazardly directed. If you'd told me that two actors as appealing and charismatic as Colin Firth and Emma Stone would have not just zero chemistry, but negative chemistry in a film together, I wouldn't have believed it... until Magic In The Moonlight.)

 

[Fading Fast]

Last year's Woody Allen flick, Wonder Wheel.

While definitely a step up from his last few films (*), this is still a mixed bag. On the plus side is gorgeous photography and production design, and a committed lead performance by Kate Winslet. On the minus side is the overwhelming feeling of watching a play rather than a film, the fourth-wall breaking narrator - a frankly cheap trick that allows Allen his typical later-career narrative shortcuts - and a plot that's pretty much telegraphed and predictable throughout. Two stars, maybe two and a half.

(* I think his last actually good film was Blue Jasmine. The ones since have been especially lazy, a collection of plots/characters/locales he'd done better in earlier films, with good actors haphazardly directed. If you'd told me that two actors as appealing and charismatic as Colin Firth and Emma Stone would have not just zero chemistry, but negative chemistry in a film together, I wouldn't have believed it... until Magic In The Moonlight.)

While not a great movie, I did enjoy his "Cafe Society," thought "Blue Jasmine" okay, but might have to go all the way back to "Match Point" to find a WA movie that I could outright recommend to a non-WA fan.

But I am looking forward to "Wonder Wheel" just for the Coney Island time travel.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I was quite disappointed in Café Society, which struck me as a weak riff on (mostly) Bullets Over Broadway.

In the same way that I no longer fall down in amazement at visual effects (all modern films have excellent effects work), the gorgeous period trappings of Allen's set-in-the-past films just aren't enough for me anymore. Even some of his best recent films only work for me in pieces: for example, in Midnight In Paris, everything set in the past is great, but everything set in the present is typically lazy (like Gil and Inez, who are mismatched and unbelievable as a couple from the get-go, or Lea Seydoux as Gil's magically perfect next girlfriend in waiting.) I've been a staunch fan of Allen since around 1972, but his sequences of great/good films in the 70s-90s are now long past. He should retire already vs. just recombining his old ideas in ever less fruitful combinations.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was disappointed we didn't get Wonder Wheel, which was the first Allen picture we've skipped since 2005. Usually they show up on our screen every September like a bottle of milk on the doorstep, and they usually do a good business. But for whatever reason, Wonder Wheel didn't show up here, and from the reviews, I guess we didn't miss too much. But I'd still like to have seen it, both for the setting and for Kate Winslet, who I've been a fan of since "Heavenly Creatures." But I get the feeling that Woody is nearing the end of the line, and that there won't be too many more films forthcoming from him.

 

[Fading Fast]

I was quite disappointed in Café Society, which struck me as a weak riff on (mostly) Bullets Over Broadway.

In the same way that I no longer fall down in amazement at visual effects (all modern films have excellent effects work), the gorgeous period trappings of Allen's set-in-the-past films just aren't enough for me anymore. Even some of his best recent films only work for me in pieces: for example, in Midnight In Paris, everything set in the past is great, but everything set in the present is typically lazy (like Gil and Inez, who are mismatched and unbelievable as a couple from the get go, or Lea Seydoux as Gil's magically perfect next girlfriend in waiting.) I've been a staunch fan of Allen since around 1970, but his sequences of great/good films in the 70s-90s are now long past. He should retire already vs. just recombining his old ideas in ever less fruitful combinations.

I have no argument against any of this - basically, I agree, which is why I'd have to go back to 2005 to find a WA movie that I felt was outright good.

"Cafe Society" mainly had cardboard characters and rehashed story lines. Perhaps it was the mood I was in the day I saw it, but it felt comfortable - almost as if WA was parodying himself - and I just liked it.

As you note, there are many period beautiful movies, but that day, I felt like I time traveled to a romanticized perfect 1930s and it didn't hurt that Kristen Steward was wonderful and lighthearted (not, thankfully, brooding for a change).

As an aside, his "Crisis in Six Scenes" was unwatchable.