What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Julian Shellhammer]

The other night, Heroes for Sale (1933) dir. William Wellman, starring Richard Barthelmess, Aline MacMahon, and Loretta Young.
Last night, A Quiet Place, co-written, directed, and starring John Krasinkski. Very well done: we all liked it.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Last night I watched my second favourite film, Big Night, with Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub and Minnie Driver, among many other greats. I watched it in the company of a bottle of red wine...

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That film is a masterpiece - it says everything about out culture.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I love Big Night, and coincidentally one of my friends recently cooked a timpano!

I've been catching up on recent films with Woody Harrelson:

LBJ - good, but doesn't add much to earlier portrayals by Bryan Cranston and many others. Since it's focused on his experience as vice president and JFK's assassination, it could make a good double feature with Jackie.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri - for a change, an Oscar-winner that lives up to the hype. An unique, interesting, moving film with outstanding performances by the entire cast.

 

[MisterCairo]

Initially The Beatles themselves wanted nothing to do with the movie, and only agreed to it's production as an easy way for them to complete their movie contract by providing pre-recorded and four hastily-produced new songs for it (for anyone who doesn't know, voice actors provided the voices throughout the movie). It was only after they had seen the near-finished movie, and liked it well enough, that they agreed to do the short live-action bit tacked on at the end.

I love this movie. And as a fan of Coronation Street, Heartbeat and Keeping Up Appearances, was thrilled to find out that Paul was voiced by Geoffrey Hughes:

 

[MisterCairo]

Having celebrated a certain milestone birthday last year, my remaining friend-from-high-school-I-remain-in-touch-with bought me the latest special creation from Lego:

 

[ChiTownScion]

I love this movie. And as a fan of Coronation Street, Heartbeat and Keeping Up Appearances, was thrilled to find out that Paul was voiced by Geoffrey Hughes:


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I've always regarded Jeremy Hillary Boob as a kindred spirit. I think that he'd fit right in here at the FL.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Baby Driver. Not my usual kind of flick, but given its stellar reviews I had to check it out... Of course, I didn't like it.

I'm really getting tired of dumb action movies getting rave reviews and four-star ratings, though this one didn't annoy me nearly as much as some other recent examples.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Fail-Safe" 1964

• Another early '60s example of a "what if we make a 'Twilight Zone' TV episode into a full-length" movie

• The premise is that a technology error in the United States' nuclear-defense protocols leads to a real attack on the USSR despite hours of effort by the US and USSR, working in cooperation, to stop it
  • Most / all of the "hawks" are portrayed as mentally unglued, immoral obsessives while the "doves" are shown as intelligent, principled and thoughtful
  • The entire long-and-bleak movie pushes you to fear the inevitability of some version of this happening / the counter view shows up after the movie in a brief written statement by the Department of Defense and Air Force saying (paraphrasing) there are rigorous controls and safeguards in place that would prevent this type of scenario from ever happening
    • Methinks, at the time, that message was not able to overcome the arrant fear the movie was selling, but here we are, fifty four years later, and that, almost bland, statement - not the harrowing movie - has, so far, been proven correct

• Walter Matthau plays a gov't advisor and uber-hawk (echoing Robert McNamara to me) in the only movie I remember him playing a role without even a modest smirk - and he pulled it off if his goal was to appear brilliant and maniacal

• Larry Hagman - whom I could never take particularly seriously as an actor after "I Dream of Jeanie" and "Dallas -" shows real acting chops as a young translator forced to remain calm as he conveys apocalyptic news to the President

 

[LizzieMaine]

There was a TV adaptation of that picture some years ago, performed live in a 1950s-early 60s style, featuring Richard Dreyfuss, Harvey Keitel, and George Clooney, and hosted by no less than Walter Cronkite. As I remember it, it was much tighter and even more intense than the movie version. Well worth looking it up.

 

[Fading Fast]

There was a TV adaptation of that picture some years ago, performed live in a 1950s-early 60s style, featuring Richard Dreyfuss, Harvey Keitel, and George Clooney, and hosted by no less than Walter Cronkite. As I remember it, it was much tighter and even more intense than the movie version. Well worth looking it up.

Thank you, will do. Knowing the politics of the cast you note, I'm not surprised they'd want to do a remake.

The budget for the original movie felt pretty small as the movie's special effects and sets seemed not much better than an average TZ TV episode.

Also, it was interesting that there was no significant female role / no real romantic subplot (the pilot's wife wouldn't qualify IMO) as it's rare that Hollywood puts out a movie that doesn't have one or hasn't shoehorned one in even if it doesn't fit.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Considering that Sidney Lumet's previous big picture hit was "Twelve Angry Men," I suspect he was simply working familiar ground there. I've never been all that impressed with his female characters -- Faye Dunaway's part in "Network" was a caricature. Granted, everybody in that film was a caricature, that was the whole point of it, but whether it was her acting or his direction, she seemed almost like a caricature of a caricature.

 

[Fading Fast]

Considering that Sidney Lumet's previous big picture hit was "Twelve Angry Men," I suspect he was simply working familiar ground there. I've never been all that impressed with his female characters -- Faye Dunaway's part in "Network" was a caricature. Granted, everybody in that film was a caricature, that was the whole point of it, but whether it was her acting or his direction, she seemed almost like a caricature of a caricature.

Especially for the time, having the Secretary of Defense disabled and using metal crutches was - as was everything in the movie - not subtle, but provoking.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Darkest Hour on HBO.

Gary Oldman deserved the Oscar, but I don't think he especially stood out from the many other actors who've taken on Churchill over the years, most recently Brian Cox in Churchill and John Lithgow in The Crown. (Also Albert Finney a few years back in a couple of good TV films.) And according to the Wiki article, the screenplay depicts several things that never happened (like my favorite scene, where Churchill rides the Underground and gets the opinion of the common folk about fighting on vs. capitulating). I wasn't crazy about Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine - I kept recalling Janet McTeer in one of those other films. I did like Lily James in "the Keira Knightley role"... as opposed to her role in Baby Driver (which I watched a couple of nights ago), in which I thought she was rather spectacularly miscast.

And for the record, I mostly don't like director Joe Wright's films. While he's obviously skilled with actors, he tends to go for overwrought, calling-attention-to-itself staging that pulls me right out of the story (the long single-take Dunkirk sequence in Atonement; everything in Anna Karenina). In this one, it's the too-often-used pullbacks to infinity from close-ups, which are obviously mostly CGI and don't really add anything dramatically.

 

[AmateisGal]

Darkest Hour on HBO.

Gary Oldman deserved the Oscar, but I don't think he especially stood out from the many other actors who've taken on Churchill over the years, most recently Brian Cox in Churchill and John Lithgow in The Crown. (Also Albert Finney a few years back in a couple of good TV films.) And according to the Wiki article, the screenplay depicts several things that never happened (like my favorite scene, where Churchill rides the Underground and gets the opinion of the common folk about fighting on vs. capitulating). I wasn't crazy about Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine - I kept recalling Janet McTeer in one of those other films. I did like Lily James in "the Keira Knightley role"... as opposed to her role in Baby Driver (which I watched a couple of nights ago), in which I thought she was rather spectacularly miscast.

And for the record, I mostly don't like director Joe Wright's films. While he's obviously skilled with actors, he tends to go for overwrought, calling-attention-to-itself staging that pulls me right out of the story (the long single-take Dunkirk sequence in Atonement; everything in Anna Karenina). In this one, it's the too-often-used pullbacks to infinity from close-ups, which are obviously mostly CGI and don't really add anything dramatically.

I was disappointed in this film. Gary Oldman did a great job, but the historical inaccuracies really annoyed me.

 

[AmateisGal]

Watched Avengers: Infinity War again. Saw some things I missed last time. It's going to be a LONG wait until Part 2!

Now watching The Prisoner of Zenda on TCM (the Stewart Granger version). I love this movie.

 

[MikeKardec]

Joe Wright

Yeah, I'm kind of middling on the guy ... except for Hannah. I like that one.

I just got back from Mile 22, bad title. A so-so action flick when it comes to it's minimal story, but one that is quite intense and where everything is delivered in a top notch way. Peter Berg films ALWAYS look like they should be very popular with chiropractors; the guy does action very well. He recreates his 'too many people trying to kill one another in a tiny room' gag from The Kingdom and it looks just as painful (both in the fictional reality and for the actors) this time around.

Something it got very right, however, was (after a prologue) starting deep in a tension filled situation and doubling back only when it absolutely had to. That and it's short running time are lessons quite a few other productions could learn. I like three hour movies but we are forgetting how to make the 90 minute variety very quickly!

 

[Old Soul 427]

Watching Dune as we speak.

 

[GHT]

Malta Story. It's a 1953 British war film, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, and is based on the heroic air defence during the Siege of Malta in the Second World War. The film uses real and unique footage of the locations at which the battles were fought and includes a love story between a RAF pilot and a Maltese girl, as well as the anticipated execution of her brother, caught as an Italian spy. The character of "Peter Ross" is loosely based on Adrian Warburton.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

'Wondor Woman' (2017) ......Let's face it, super hero movies are pretty ridiculous at the best of times & this one was no exception. It's a shame that this film didn't stand on it's own two feet instead of 'borrowing' far too many scenes from other movies but even though the script, acting & special effects were nothing to write home about, Gal Gadot's charisma was sufficient to keep me watching. I'd certainly go back & see her again in this role & hopefully a W.W. 2 will be more ambitious & original.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" from 1949 with Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly and Ester Williams

This is definitely not the first movie to show to someone you are trying to introduce to the wonders of old movies. It's not that it's bad - it isn't - it's just that it's very, very dated in style (maybe even dated when it came out as it feels like a 1930s musical grafted onto a 1950s Technicolor production) and is, certainly to a modern view, an acquired taste.

Maybe it pushed a nostalgia button or two in '49, but no one alive today is nostalgic for a musical of a scrubbed-up version of a turn-of-the-century baseball club trying to win a pennant with a ("oh my God!") woman owner, vaudeville-distracted shortstop and second baseman and a too-clumsy-to-believe gambler trying to fix the games.

I didn't fully get there myself, but appreciated some of the numbers (that kid Kelly sure can dance ) and some of the lighthearted banter. Even in their day, these movies had to be seen as fluffy, star-driven vehicles for a public that still went to the movies regularly. Like Fred-and-Ginger movies, the plot is silly and the conflicts are not even taken seriously by the actors because the movie works or doesn't only if you want to see the stars ham it up a bit as they kill time between the song-and-dance numbers.

Three more things. One, since Ester Williams was in it, they found a way to put her in a bathing suit and drop her in a swimming pool, but this might be the most forced effort to do so in all her movies. Two, Edward Arnold had to be on every director's short list of "I need someone the audience will immediately recognize as a rapscallion businessman" list for about twenty years. And, three, the baseball uniforms in the movie are outstanding: