What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Doctor Strange]

Inherent Vice - Paul Thomas Anderson's films (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, The Master, etc.) are always worth seeing, and I watched the whole thing... but I didn't like it.

A very weird story set in 1970 CA with Joaquin Phoenix as a stoner private eye, it's kind of like a mashup of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Big Lebowski, Chinatown, etc. The plot was hard to follow, and I have no idea what we're supposed to come away from this film feeling or having learned. While it looks great and has some good actors, I can't recommend it.

 

[MisterCairo]

Hallowe'en parade continues. On the family side, Hotel Transylvania, always a favourite.

On the grown up side, the 1979 classic Phantasm, which I bought as a bargain as our last video store closed down last week (sniffle...). I had not seen it since renting the VHS tape (along with renting the VCR!) in about 1982. Not as gory as I recalled it, more of a cheesy suspense.

Also saw Hallowe'en, with Jamie Lee looking beyond young, and last night my wife and I watched Dark Shadows, the fun Johnny Depp romp based on the tv show (yes, yes, yes, I gather it is not at all like the show, blah, blah, blah, whatever...).

 

[Doctor Strange]

I was an everyday viewer of the original Dark Shadows spook opera in the sixties, and I think Tim Burton's film is loads of fun. Treating this crazy material dead seriously killed both (or was it three?) attempts at reviving the show, whereas Burton's comical fish-out-of-water treatment still manages to capture a lot of the original's charm. There's very palpable affection for the old show, and the impressive cast seems to be having a ball. I mean, Eva Green's Angelique alone is a total hoot.

I know this attitude is at odds with the feelings of most old-time Dark Shadows fans towards the film, but hey, I've always been a nonconformist and iconoclast!

 

[LizzieMaine]

We're in the middle of a two-week run of "Colette," the lavish costume-biopic of the prominent French novelist starring Keira Knightley. Has its moments, especially when exploring the exploitative nature of Colette's relationship with her husband, a man of no scruples whatever, but Knightley herself always looks to me like someone who's just been poked between the eyes with a sharp stick, and I've never been all that fond of her as an actress. Plus, the doings of the turn-of-the-century French literary bourgeoisie, no matter how airbrushed, are not a topic that particularly interests me.

There is, however, a very fine cat in the opening scene, and having a cat in a film is always a plus in my book.

 

[Fading Fast]

...There is, however, a very fine cat in the opening scene, and having a cat in a film is always a plus in my book.

We feel the same way about both cats and dogs - always takes a movie up a notch. Let's not kid ourselves, Asta carried a few of the weaker entries in "The Thin Man" series.

 

[MisterCairo]

As part of our Hallowe'en cavalcade, we watched Corpse Bride last night with the girls.

Helena Bonham-Carter even makes an animated corpse sexy...

 

[MissMittens]

There is, however, a very fine cat in the opening scene, and having a cat in a film is always a plus in my book.

I am so here for a thread on golden era movie cats!

 

[belfastboy]

We're in the middle of a two-week run of "Colette," the lavish costume-biopic of the prominent French novelist starring Keira Knightley. Has its moments, especially when exploring the exploitative nature of Colette's relationship with her husband, a man of no scruples whatever, but Knightley herself always looks to me like someone who's just been poked between the eyes with a sharp stick, and I've never been all that fond of her as an actress. Plus, the doings of the turn-of-the-century French literary bourgeoisie, no matter how airbrushed, are not a topic that particularly interests me.

There is, however, a very fine cat in the opening scene, and having a cat in a film is always a plus in my book.

If we are watching a movie that in the beginning looks to be a waste of time my wife and I will declare open season on it, continue to watch but out loud trash it scene by ugly scene. The default position is if it has an animal in it, preferably a cat(s), we will award the "best actor" award to the most deserving animal.

 

[belfastboy]

Netflix is offering the new Natalie Portman movie "Annihilation" and I made the mistake of wasting about two hours of my life (probably not the last time either). I like Portman and find her watchable and her "Tales of Love and Darkness" was a gem. Annihilation however is NOT gem like. In fact it is downright stupid or rather a whole lot of nonsense wrap up in a movie. And if I recollect it received rather good reviews partially for having a largely female cast in the heroic roles. However, stupid is as stupid does and yes the female leads spent the movie doing stupid shit.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Yeah, that movie was way overpraised, it's got a good cast... but it's inept and disappointing. There have been some good female-fronted SF films in recent years, like Arrival and Ex Machina, but this movie is NOT one of them.

 

[Zombie_61]

If we are watching a movie that in the beginning looks to be a waste of time my wife and I will declare open season on it, continue to watch but out loud trash it scene by ugly scene...

My "movie buff" friends and I have done this for as long as we can remember; specifically with the guy who has been my best friend for more than 40 years. Once we were watching a movie at home with a third friend, and we started cracking wise. It wasn't long before the third friend said, "Wait a minute. I thought you liked this movie." And that's the beauty of it--even our favorite movies have flaws, and we aren't shy about pointing them out; everything is fair game.

Netflix is offering the new Natalie Portman movie "Annihilation" and I made the mistake of wasting about two hours of my life (probably not the last time either). I like Portman and find her watchable...

I like Natalie Portman too, but I think she was a much better actress when she was younger. I don't know if someone somewhere along the way advised her to take acting lessons, or if a director or two "got in her head", but I found her performances far more believable in her early movies like Léon: The Professional (1994) and Heat (1995). Even as far back as V for Vendetta (2005) I could see the natural/organic qualities in her performances slipping away, and I haven't seen her more recent movies because of this. I did see Thor (2011), but not because she was in it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Actually had a night off, so I dug some change out from under my car seat and went to The Other Theatre In Town to see "First Man," the new film taking a behind the scenes look at the astronaut career of Neil Armstrong.

To those who grew up with the Space Race, Armstrong always seemed like the most remote figure among the astronauts. Other NASA folk might play golf on the moon or explain science to King Friday XIII or run for the Senate or sell stuff on QVC at 3 in the morning, but Armstrong was the J. D. Salinger of spacemen, and this film tries to explain why.

Here you see The First Man on the Moon as a quiet, withdrawn fellow who's been emotionally crushed by one profound loss after another -- starting with his young daughter's death from cancer, and followed by the accidental deaths of two close friends, fellow astronauts Elliot See and Ed White. Death hangs like a pall over the whole story, amd Armstrong is constantly faced with his own mortality, with the near-disaster of Gemini 8 followed by his near-immoliation in the crash of a training vehicle in 1968. With each loss, Armstrong buries his emotions ever deeper until he himself is merely a walking lump lost within a deep and impenetrable blanket of repression.

You wouldn't expect Ryan Gosling to be the man to play this role, but he's surprisingly good, as is Claire Foy as his far-more-patient-than-I-would-have-been wife. The other astronauts come and go thru the story for the most part as a bunch of interchangeable white guys with haircuts, but Jason Clarke is good as the doomed Ed White, Shea Whigam has a short but memorable turn as the equally doomed, ever-scowling Gus Grissom, and Corey Stoll plays Buzz Aldrin as a smirking know-it-all smartass, which, they say, isn't too far afield from the reality.

The pacing of this film is extremely slow -- going to great lengths to show the tedium of preparing for and eventually accomplishing space flight -- but it works. You do a lot of thinking during this film, and while it's slow, your attention won't wander. There are no political points to be made in the story, although scenes of the launch are intercut with scenes of protests questioning why the money couldn't be better spent on more earthly needs -- people forget that at the time, a majority of Americans thought the space program was a waste of money -- and there's very little rah-rah propaganda. Herr SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Von Braun does not appear in the film, although he gets a brief name drop, and Mr. Nixon is completely absent. The astronauts are presented as single-minded figures, operating on a plane completely insulated from worldly concerns, except when a disaster like the Apollo 1 fire forces them, also, to question whether it's really "worth it."

Period detail is very impressive, capturing that queasy shade of greenish-brown that was everywhere in the tract houses of the late sixties. I was pleased that someone did the research to find out what a party-line telephone ring actually sounded like in the sixties, but they do lose points for using a late-seventies table-top TV set with a click-detent UHF tuner in a scene set in 1965. That was the only gaffe I noticed, so on the whole, a pretty good job. (Although I don't think that Michael Collins actually had a pierced ear in 1969, but if he did, not that there's anything wrong with it.)

 

[MissMittens]

Watched "Fright Night" (1985), a' vampire-moves-next-door-and-murders-women-but-no-one-will-believe-me' romp with Roddy McDowall, Chris Sarandon, and a *very* young Amanda Bearse, known mostly for her later role as "Darcy" from the sitcom "Married With Children."

 

[Zombie_61]

^ I haven't seen Fright Night for a long time, but I think "romp" is a great way to describe it simply because it contains enough comedic moments to keep it from being a "straight" horror/thriller movie. Good performances, but the wardrobes and some of the visual effects "date" the movie.

The 2011 remake starring the late Anton Yelchin (Charley Brewster), David Tennant (Peter Vincent), and Colin Farrell (Jerry), wasn't nearly as well received among horror movie fans. It's not terrible and it's worth seeing for anyone who's a fan of the original, but in my opinion it's lacking the "charm" of the first movie.

 

[DavidJones]

Just finished "Treasure island" an HBO movie with Charlton Heston.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

All About Eve, for the monthly movie night with friends and family. Our family was familiar with it, but the other family had never seen it. Reactions were mixed but it's one of my favorites.

 

[Fading Fast]

All About Eve, for the monthly movie night with friends and family. Our family was familiar with it, but the other family had never seen it. Reactions were mixed but it's one of my favorites.

It's considered one of the classics in our house. Pretty much not a boring scene in it and you "discover" new things with each viewing. Plus Davis and Sanders are so insanely good in it.

 

[ChiTownScion]

".... and Corey Stoll plays Buzz Aldrin as a smirking know-it-all smartass, which, they say, isn't too far afield from the reality."

"There are no political points to be made in the story, although scenes of the launch are intercut with scenes of protests questioning why the money couldn't be better spent on more earthly needs -- people forget that at the time, a majority of Americans thought the space program was a waste of money -- and there's very little rah-rah propaganda. "

Saw the movie and loved it, to be honest. Viewed it with a Brit friend and his Canadian wife: it was interesting hearing what those from other nations experienced in July of 1969, when the major actors in the film were not even alive.


Aldrin is evidently one of those cheerleading disapproval of the film for its failure to portray the flag on the moon salute sequence. Perhaps that crowd can come up with their own $59 million in funding and produce a feature centering on Aldrin entitled, "Second Man," or alternatively, "First Man (To Piddle on the Moon)."

 

[LizzieMaine]

I hadn't even heard of that "controversy" when I saw the film, but I agree with the director that including that scene would not have worked in the context of how the moonwalk portrayal focused on Armstrong's inner thoughts. You didn't see them deploy the EASEP, either, an act which was far more siginficant to the mission than the planting of a flag.

You do see the flag on the surface of the moon, of course, which just shows to go how piffling these kinds of controversies are. You don't, however, see how said flag was knocked over by the exhaust blast as the LEM was lifting off for the return trip. Nor is a big deal made of the other thing they left on the moon:

Bunch of one-worlders.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Tunnel of Love" 1958 staring Doris Day, Richard Widmark and Gig Young

"No Down Payment" and "Sweet Smell of Success" were released a year earlier - hence, the code had been relaxed enough to allow dark, dystopian movies with (basically) honest, if brutal, views of love, sex, money and power portrayed. Thus, making a fluffy, battle-of-the-sexes movie was a choice, not a requirement.

And there's nothing wrong with some fluff - I like "Pillow Talk" for what it is - but if you're going to make fluff, commit and make good fluff. "Tunnel of Love" never fully commits to fluff but has nowhere near the guts to make the dour realism of "No Down Payment."

In "Tunnel of Love," a young couple in an upscale Connecticut suburb are trying to adopt a baby with all the usual stress and challenges that brings and that - along with the Fertile Myrtle neighbor couple, the usual house and job challenges and some silly misunderstandings - would probably have been enough for an okay silly movie.

Instead, the movie dips its toe into the real issue of marital infidelity with a serial philandering neighbor and (spoiler alert) a completely unbelievable series of events causing the husband of the wanting-to-adopt couple to think he slept with the adoption agency representative (yup, it's left unclear).

All this seems to be an attempt to bring some grit to the fluff, but the minute things get serious, the movie returns to fluff. It all climaxes as the confusion is ramped up before the happy, fluffy ending which, at that point, leaves you not silly happy - as in "Pillow Talk -" but a bit annoyed that you were played unfairly by the director.

The time travel to the '50s suburb is wonderful - clothes, cars, architecture are all Fedora Lounge fun - but what could have been an okay ninety minutes of light fun is undermined by the movie's hesitant attempts to make a more serious movie. As any decent English teacher will tell you - decide what kind of story you want to write before putting pen to paper. "Tunnel of Love" never fully knew what kind of movie it wanted to be.