What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[rocketeer]

WWII Propaganda Week continued at the Fading Fasts with 1942's "Spitfire" staring Leslie Howard and David Niven

• A propaganda biopic of the inventor - R.J. Mitchell - of the "England-saving" Spitfire fighter plane

• Combining a '40s biopic with WWII propaganda film results in double hagiography as this Mitchell is a cross between Ayn Rand's Howard Roark (won't compromise his design one inch for money or fame) and every hero who died trying to take a hill (Howard's doctor tells him he'll die if he doesn't stop working on the Spitfire, but he "soldiers on" as he knows England will need his plane)

• Just guessing. This is the renamed American release of British flag waver The first of the Few.

 

[rocketeer]

Just watching:
King Solomon's Mines, the 1937 British adventure film directed by Robert Stevenson on Talking Pictures TV, a UK vintage film sky channel.
As it was on in the afternoon rather than the post 9pm watershed, all the native women in their natural surroundings have their naked breasts blurred out. Do TV executives honestly believe seeing this sort of thing will corrupt young people, but when 'Gagool'(the witch Doctor) orders the killing of a number of tribesman with spears, we see it in almost full detail.
Long live National Geographic.

 

[Fading Fast]

• Just guessing. This is the renamed American release of British flag waver The first of the Few.

Yes, the TCM host mentioned that fact.

 

[Doctor Strange]

The Sense of an Ending, a recent drama about an elderly Englishman trying to find closure for events that have haunted him since his youth in the 1960s.

A deep cast of solid pros - including Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter, Emily Mortimer, Charlotte Rampling, Michelle Dockery, and fine young actors in the flashbacks portraying some of the same characters - keep it eminently watchable... but it doesn't amount to much in the end. Recommended if you like dramas about people trying to make peace with their past... just know that it's not a Wild Strawberries-level masterpiece.

 

[rocketeer]

Yes, the TCM host mentioned that fact.

We do not have a dedicated TCM channel, usually go to Talking Pictures or Retro Movies(for mainly US stuff) plus lots of other channels showing old time films

 

[Fading Fast]

"The Feminine Touch" 1941 with Rosalind Russell, Don Ameche, Kay Francis and Van Heflin

• Under the code, the studios kept coming up with variations of husbands and wives who loved each other, but for some silly misunderstanding or another, thought the other one didn't love them or loved someone else or was having an affair or...

• There's only so much you can do with this formula until it becomes ridiculous as it does in this movie which forces mature actors and actresses into nonsense roles saying nonsense things

• In particular, here it results in Russell and Heflin acting well below their skill sets / that said, they still are the best thing in this movie (no one does sarcasm better than Russell)

• With the other really good thing being some great Fedora Lounge time travel like seeing this advertisement in the background of a subway scene:
• 

• As a fan of trains, I've seen this ad hundreds of times in books and documentaries, but there's still a frisson to seeing it by chance in the background of an old movie

 

[Fading Fast]

Watched the last hour of 1940's "Pride and Prejudice" on TCM. Once you get over the ridiculous costumes and the mother's incessant cackling, the outstanding acting of and chemistry between Greer Garson and Edmund Gwenn and Austen's writing make this movie feel modern and fast paced.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I finally saw Justice League in its HBO premiere. Boy am I glad I didn't spring to see it when it was in theaters, it's a total train wreck. It really stunk up the place. I consider Man of Steel a two-star effort and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Dreck a one-star; Justice League is just maybe worth a half-star... or perhaps zero.

Diana and Flash are the only characters that come off vaguely well. The writing and acting is way sub-par: Affleck is okay, but the writing on Bats/Bruce is unbelievably 180 degrees the opposite of in BvS; when he's finally revived, Henry Cavill's performance as Supes is entirely phoned in; Amy Adams' Lois and Diane Lane's Martha are so badly written they come off as embarrassed to be in the film.

Aquaman and Cyborg are non-characters, though all-CGI villain Steppenwolf is the worst offender. He's such a generic villain he made me long for the likes of underwritten-but-not-quite-AS-underwritten supervillains like Ronan the Accuser, Ares, and Maleketh. His plot - in which Steppenwolf must retrieve the three mother boxes hidden on Earth to prepare for Thanos-like big bad Darkseid's conquest - is a total infinity stones ripoff. There's even a sequence where the Amazons fight his parademons and lose that's awfully similar to the Wakanda part of Infinity War. Even the action sequences and comics tableaux - usually Zack Snyder's one dependable strength - are lacking.

As bad as I expected to be, it was worse! How the mighty are fallen...

 

[Edward]

Just watching:
King Solomon's Mines, the 1937 British adventure film directed by Robert Stevenson on Talking Pictures TV, a UK vintage film sky channel.
As it was on in the afternoon rather than the post 9pm watershed, all the native women in their natural surroundings have their naked breasts blurred out. Do TV executives honestly believe seeing this sort of thing will corrupt young people, but when 'Gagool'(the witch Doctor) orders the killing of a number of tribesman with spears, we see it in almost full detail.
Long live National Geographic.

Sounds like somebody left Mark Zuckerberg in charge of the editing booth...

I finally saw Justice League in its HBO premiere. Boy am I glad I didn't spring to see it when it was in theaters, it's a total train wreck. It really stunk up the place. I consider Man of Steel a two-star effort and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Dreck a one-star; Justice League is just maybe worth a half-star... or perhaps zero.

Diana and Flash are the only characters that come off vaguely well. The writing and acting is way sub-par: Affleck is okay, but the writing on Bats/Bruce is unbelievably 180 degrees the opposite of in BvS; when he's finally revived, Henry Cavill's performance as Supes is entirely phoned in; Amy Adams' Lois and Diane Lane's Martha are so badly written they come off as embarrassed to be in the film.

Aquaman and Cyborg are non-characters, though all-CGI villain Steppenwolf is the worst offender. He's such a generic villain he made me long for the likes of underwritten-but-not-quite-AS-underwritten supervillains like Ronan the Accuser, Ares, and Maleketh. His plot - in which Steppenwolf must retrieve the three mother boxes hidden on Earth to prepare for Thanos-like big bad Darkseid's conquest - is a total infinity stones ripoff. There's even a sequence where the Amazons fight his parademons and lose that's awfully similar to the Wakanda part of Infinity War. Even the action sequences and comics tableaux - usually Zack Snyder's one dependable strength - are lacking.

As bad as I expected to be, it was worse! How the mighty are fallen...

Indeed. I saw it recently on a plane, and it was dreadful. Aquaman was, to be fair, a vast improvement on the source material. Wonder Woman I liked (yet to see her own flick). Affleck has the feeling of being a decent Batman if they gave him something good to work with (see his beautiful, deadpan response when asked "What's your superpower?") - unfortunately, the whole thing is just dreadfully po-faced. While I'm not familiar with the Flash in print, I really took a dislike to this version of him on screen, much preferring the character as presented in the eponymous TV show. As you say, the whole thing just felt lacklustre. Terribly worthy, terribly full of its own importance. none of the humour and light touch that has made the MCU what it is. Such a shame.

FWIW, on the same journey I also watched (rewatched, though I only realised that about halfway through) Man of Steel. I quite like it still; I like that version of Superman, though it tried to cram too much into one film, and I did not like Lois being aware of his secret identity at the end. I liked the idea of him being initially keen to stay under the radar until forced out by Zod. That feels much more realistic to me.

The Superman film I still want to see made is a cinematic version of the What if? one-shot in which Kal El crashes elsewhere, and is found as a baby and raised by Thomas and Martha Wayne - i.e. Batman with Superman's powers. It's not unthinkable now in the context of the (sort-of) confirmation from DC that they are working on multiple Joker pictures in multiple different 'universes'.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Edward, you have to watch Wonder Woman. It's the only DC film that really knows what it's doing. The only one that I think deserves the three stars I give most of the MCU films. And for everything it gets right, it still has some of the classic failings (e.g., the too-big third act CGI battle). Anyway, Diana (nobody has actually called her Wonder Woman at any point thus far) is good in JL and BvS largely because she's so well conceived and played in her own film.

As I keep saying, Affleck is just fine as an older, fed-up Batman. But I have no desire to see an older, fed-up Batman.

Agreed that the TV Flash is a much better treatment than the kid in this film - I was just saying I thought they did a reasonably good job with his character exposition (though as a disaffected kid living off the grid he is similar to Marvel speedster Quicksilver - not the Age of Ultron version, the X-films version)… as opposed to Cyborg, who may as well have been entirely CGI. But since DC insists that its TV and film projects are separate, let me then say that I prefer Tyler Hochelin's much too rarely seen Superman on the Supergirl series. He's not a brooding emo Supes, he (like Kara) actually embodies the optimism and goodness that makes the character the yin to Batman's yang. I liked much in Man of Steel, including Cavill's performance, but it's been seriously downhill for Cavill ever since. And Amy Adams could/should be the greatest Lois Lane ever... but the material they give her, oy!

And Aquaman… was acting more like that bastiche Lobo than the noble lord of Atlantis. I didn't care for Khal Drogo/Ronen Dex Jason Momoa in this part, so it's partially casting, but mostly conception/writing.

But really, all of these characters were so better handled in the animated series: B:TAS, S:TAS, and JL/JLU. If DC had a clue, they'd let folks like Paul Dini write these films, instead of just stealing his ideas from the animated shows (like Batman settling into his role as the quippy leader of the League, and its funding source). There's no way that the "live action" Darkseid will be better than Michael Ironside in JL/JLU when he finally shows up... and he's going to be perceived as an ersatz Thanos. And that will be the case no matter how often it's pointed out that Jack Kirby's comics with Darkseid preceded, and were an admitted inspiration for, Jim Starlin's comics with Thanos. He's hitting the movies second, full stop.

And I'm sure you're gonna get that What If? story eventually. Maybe animated rather than live action... but that's probably preferable!

 

[AmateisGal]

I finally saw Justice League in its HBO premiere. Boy am I glad I didn't spring to see it when it was in theaters, it's a total train wreck. It really stunk up the place. I consider Man of Steel a two-star effort and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Dreck a one-star; Justice League is just maybe worth a half-star... or perhaps zero.

Diana and Flash are the only characters that come off vaguely well. The writing and acting is way sub-par: Affleck is okay, but the writing on Bats/Bruce is unbelievably 180 degrees the opposite of in BvS; when he's finally revived, Henry Cavill's performance as Supes is entirely phoned in; Amy Adams' Lois and Diane Lane's Martha are so badly written they come off as embarrassed to be in the film.

Aquaman and Cyborg are non-characters, though all-CGI villain Steppenwolf is the worst offender. He's such a generic villain he made me long for the likes of underwritten-but-not-quite-AS-underwritten supervillains like Ronan the Accuser, Ares, and Maleketh. His plot - in which Steppenwolf must retrieve the three mother boxes hidden on Earth to prepare for Thanos-like big bad Darkseid's conquest - is a total infinity stones ripoff. There's even a sequence where the Amazons fight his parademons and lose that's awfully similar to the Wakanda part of Infinity War. Even the action sequences and comics tableaux - usually Zack Snyder's one dependable strength - are lacking.

As bad as I expected to be, it was worse! How the mighty are fallen...

I just watched this last night, as well. And I thought the same, that the three mother boxes was an Infinity Stones rip-off from Marvel.

And I DESPISE Ben Affleck as Batman. Who ever thought it was a good idea to put him in that role?

I will watch Aquaman just because I love Jason Momoa. And I'm looking forward to seeing the Wonder Woman sequel.

DC really should just quit trying to keep up with Marvel because they are falling way, way behind. They'll never get to Marvel's level.

 

[AmateisGal]

Daughter and I continued our tradition of seeing new Marvel films in the theater by going to watch Ant-Man and the Wasp. Loved it! Really well done. I don't know if I like it better than the first one or not - I'd say they're about equal. Marvel continues to impress.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Melissa, I didn't rush to Ant-Man and the Wasp this weekend, but I will probably go with my son on a future weekend. I had skipped the first one theatrically and didn't consider it a bad decision at the time... but I haven't missed an MCU film in theaters since. (The only other ones I had skipped were the lame early ones, Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk. I feared the MCU would die in its crib... before both Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor proved to me they absolutely knew what they were doing.)

And of course, the mother boxes were an important part of Kirby's New Gods mythos, where they were semi-sentient pocket-sized supercomputers that allowed the characters access to infinite amounts of information... a really way-out idea in 1970! And of course, they do all kinds of other stuff like open the boom tubes which allow instantaneous transport across the galaxy. (But they were nearly always shown opening horizontally: yet another of my petty annoyances with Justice League is that they always opened vertically and were accessed from below.) But they were never a single-purpose raw power source like the infinity stones. (And here again, Kirby's mother boxes predate the introduction of the infinity gems/stones [*] by several years.)

[* In Starlin's Captain Marvel comics of the mid-seventies that introduced Thanos, it was the single Cosmic Cube that he was after. Later adventures based around the character of Warlock introduced the idea of multiple infinity gems beyond just the Cosmic Cube and the Soul Gem in Warlock's forehead. Of course, this animating-gem-in-the-forehead idea found its way into the MCU version of the Vision.]

I am looking forward to the Wonder Woman film too, but I already have two concerns given the very small amount of info that's been revealed. It's set in 1984: see my endless comments about how Stranger Things left me cold because I don't have childhood nostalgia for that period. Why the eighties? And Steve Trevor returns? His sacrifice was the biggest act of heroism in the first WW - why cheapen it with a return?!? I hope they know what they're doing, but given the DC films track record... there's ample cause for concern.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Heading back to short subjects with the newly-released four-DVD set of Thelma Todd-Patsy Kelly comedies from ClassicFlix.

The Todd-Kelly series was a continuation of the Todd-Zasu Pitts two-reelers of the early thirties, a series which ended when Pitts couldn't come to contract terms with Hal Roach and went back to freelancing in features. The dynamic is entirely different -- where Thelma was naive Zasu's protector from a hostile world, she's now the one trying to protect herself and everyone else from Patsy's rollicking rowdiness.

Kelly, an old vaudeville hand, was the most physical female screen comic of the 1930s -- she could dance, in a flat-footed Ruby Keeler sort of way, she could sing comedy songs with a sort of wry detachment, but she does neither of those things to any great extent in the Todd-Kelly series. Instead, she yells at authority figures, falls down a lot, and breaks anything that happens to be breakable -- all the while loudly promising to get Thelma out of her latest dilemma, whether it's a job problem or a boyfriend issue, even as Thelma gets more and more frustrated with her friend's antics.

The undercurrent of mutual affection found in the Todd-Pitts films is still here, but it's different in tone. Kelly was the 1930s version of an "out lesbian," -- which meant her orientation was never any secret to those she worked with, even if it wasn't known to the general public -- and there are occasional scenes which seem to sort of play with that reality without ever coming out and making it obvious, something which obviously couldn't have been done during the post-code era in which most of these films were made. It's especially noticeable in "Backs To Nature," a 1933 film in which Thelma and Patsy head for the woods for a camping trip, and they come across as an old, bickering married couple more than anything else, one in which the dim, overconfident husband constantly frustrates the wife with his inept antics. You could remake "Backs to Nature" with Edgar Kennedy and Florence Rice without having to change much of anything, and that sort of tone runs along in the background thruout the Todd-Kelly series.

Thelma Todd's sudden and mysterious death in December 1935 didn't end the series -- Roach teamed Kelly up with, first, Pert Kelton, and second with Lyda Roberti to finish out the 1935-36 season, and these films are also included in the set. Kelly and Kelton don't work as a team because Pert Kelton was the same type of loud, aggressive performer, and they only made one film together before Roach brought in Roberti. This was a pairing with real potential -- Lyda was basically Thelma Todd with a goofy Polish accent, which she used to great effect in both features and shorts thruout the first half of the thirties, and the Kelly-Roberti films, while loosely constructed, are fun to watch just to see these two oddball women bouncing off each other. Patsy and Lyda made one feature together -- unfortunately not included on this set -- but any hope of them continuing as a team from there came to an abrupt end when Lyda bent down to tie her shoe one day and fell over dead from a massive heart attack at the age of 32.

The Todd-Kelly films have never gotten their due from comedy fans -- perhaps because the overwhelmingly-male world of comedy fandom has never been all that comfortable with female comics -- but having all these shorts available in one source ought to lead to a reevaluation of Thelma and Patsy's place within the two-reeler hierarchy. (And a complete set of the Todd-Pitts films is expected later this year from another distributor!)

 

[Worf]

"It" - I never saw the original mini-series or read the book so I was going into this one cold as a week old mackerel. I really didn't care for it. I usually love King's tales featuring ensemble casts of adolescent youths fighting/bonding and finding themselves but this rang hollow to me. Pennywise was scary as hell but that was about it. I found the motivations of the youths involved suspect at best. What rational teen would willingly fight a known child killing entity? "Hey lets rush off to Dracula's Castle with no cross, no holy water, no plan and hey let's do this minutes before nightfall!" That's about as much sense as this dreck made. I also dislike films that presume a sequel even before the first film is in the can. Hubris... complete hubris. It made some decent coin so I suppose they're smarter than I am but ask the folks behind "The Dark Tower" how wrong WRONG can be.

Worf

 

[AmateisGal]

Melissa, I didn't rush to Ant-Man and the Wasp this weekend, but I will probably go with my son on a future weekend. I had skipped the first one theatrically and didn't consider it a bad decision at the time... but I haven't missed an MCU film in theaters since. (The only other ones I had skipped were the lame early ones, Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk. I feared the MCU would die in its crib... before both Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor proved to me they absolutely knew what they were doing.)

And of course, the mother boxes were an important part of Kirby's New Gods mythos, where they were semi-sentient pocket-sized supercomputers that allowed the characters access to infinite amounts of information... a really way-out idea in 1970! And of course, they do all kinds of other stuff like open the boom tubes which allow instantaneous transport across the galaxy. (But they were nearly always shown opening horizontally: yet another of my petty annoyances with Justice League is that they always opened vertically and were accessed from below.) But they were never a single-purpose raw power source like the infinity stones. (And here again, Kirby's mother boxes predate the introduction of the infinity gems/stones [*] by several years.)

[* In Starlin's Captain Marvel comics of the mid-seventies that introduced Thanos, it was the single Cosmic Cube that he was after. Later adventures based around the character of Warlock introduced the idea of multiple infinity gems beyond just the Cosmic Cube and the Soul Gem in Warlock's forehead. Of course, this animating-gem-in-the-forehead idea found its way into the MCU version of the Vision.]

I am looking forward to the Wonder Woman film too, but I already have two concerns given the very small amount of info that's been revealed. It's set in 1984: see my endless comments about how Stranger Things left me cold because I don't have childhood nostalgia for that period. Why the eighties? And Steve Trevor returns? His sacrifice was the biggest act of heroism in the first WW - why cheapen it with a return?!? I hope they know what they're doing, but given the DC films track record... there's ample cause for concern.

RE: Steve Trevor's return, I don't think it is THE Steve Trevor; I think it's his grandson or something. Not sure. But I guess we'll see!

 

[Fading Fast]

"Illicit" 1930 with Barbara Stanwyck

• Very early pre-code-talkie still finding its production-and-technical way / feels very "stagey"

• Fully pre-code story - set in NYC society, Stanwyck’s character, Anne, doesn't want to marry her lover (it's pre-code, they're "lovers" and, also, being precode, Anne is wealthy but can't afford undergarments) and get stuck in a humdrum marriage, but he wants to marry her / the rest is watching society "force" her into it and watching her prediction come true

• Anne's father-in-law is pre-code subtle in that he has a human and nuanced understanding of Anne’s position but is also pulled by tradition (and gets that she’s smarter than his son)/ this morally complex character would all but disappear when the code was enforced

• Prohibition is on but fully ignored as drinking is ubiquitous

• Another example of Depression-ravaged America (apparently) wanting to watch movies about the "problems" of the super wealthy

• Klunky but enjoyable for its very early “pre-code-ness”

 

[Doctor Strange]

Marshall. A true-story film from last year about future supreme court justice Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman) when he was the NAACP's young traveling lawyer, taking on cases all over the country where racial prejudice was an issue.

In 1940, he's called to Bridgeport, CT to defend a chauffeur (Sterling K. Brown) accused of rape and attempted murder by the Greenwich socialite (Kate Hudson) employing him. A local lawyer, an insurance specialist, not a trial lawyer (Josh Gad), is set as defense counsel to allow Marshall to join him as out-of-state adjunct, but the judge (James Cromwell) won't even allow Marshall to speak in the courtroom, so he has to handhold Gad throughout. Gad himself is a Jew, also a persecuted minority in that place and time, and the judge is chummy with the prosecutor (Dan Stevens) and the entire upper-crust WASP community they represent. Everything about the trial is... difficult.

I didn't know anything about Marshall's early career or this case, and I enjoyed the film. Recommended.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We have a live-orchestra-accompanied screening of Douglas Fairbanks' "Robin Hood" this coming Sunday, and I'm pre-screening the film now. They supplied a public-domain DVD, which comes with a ridiculous needle-drop piano score, which will fortunately be muted during the actual show. The recorded music ranges from tedious to wildly inappropriate. The schemings of Prince John were never meant to be accompanied by "The Entertainer."

Where's Victor Schertzinger when you need him?

 

[Fading Fast]

We have a live-orchestra-accompanied screening of Douglas Fairbanks' "Robin Hood" this coming Sunday, and I'm pre-screening the film now. They supplied a public-domain DVD, which comes with a ridiculous needle-drop piano score, which will fortunately be muted during the actual show. The recorded music ranges from tedious to wildly inappropriate. The schemings of Prince John were never meant to be accompanied by "The Entertainer."

Where's Victor Schertzinger when you need him?

Sounds very neat. Will the orchestra be playing form the original score?