What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Zombie_61]

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Good to hear I'm wrong on this and they went old school. Had another look. Still mostly looks like CG to me but it must be the blue glow.

Johnson felt a CG Yoda wouldn't work for the movie, and Mark Hamill's somewhat emotional reaction to seeing the puppet the first time probably helped him believe he was right.

 

[MisterCairo]

Christmas Cavalcade in Canada continues, tonight after much baking and chocolate melting (Nanaimo bars* and peanut butter balls, anyone?), we watched Jingle All the Way. Maligned by many, we love it!

"It makes me wonder - what did you get ME"?!


* http://www.kraftcanada.com/recipes/nanaimo-bars-89644

 

[1967Cougar390]

I watched Christmas Getaway on the Halmark Channel last night. It was a great romantic comedy. Good story and the acting was very natural. Bridget Reagan and Travis Van Winkle had very good on screen chemistry. The story revolves around a widowed father and his daughter getting double booked in a log cabin vacation rental at Christmas with a beautiful travel writer. The rest of the story is how a mishap makes love possible.

Steven

 

[Zombie_61]

Last night my wife and I watched Carol for Another Christmas, a 1964 TV movie that aired once in 1964 and wasn't seen again until TCM aired it in 2012. Written by Rod Serling, it's an updated (circa 1964) version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" starring Sterling Hayden as Daniel Grudge whose miserly ways are not motivated by money or goods, but by the loss of his son Marley who was killed in action on Christmas Eve in 1944. Co-starring Eva Marie Saint, Ben Gazzara, and Steve Lawrence, Pat Hingle, and Robert Shaw as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future (respectively), it's an interesting take on Dickens' story featuring solid performances. I'd recommend seeing it at least once if you have the opportunity.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Johnson felt a CG Yoda wouldn't work for the movie, and Mark Hamill's somewhat emotional reaction to seeing the puppet the first time probably helped him believe he was right.

That's fantastic. Better than the actual scene in the film... But I feel bad I was so critical about it. And wrong.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Re A Carol for Another Christmas, I saw it on TCM a couple of years ago. I thought it was a very interesting Cold War era artifact... but not an especially successful variant of the story. I agree that it's worth watching once just for its historic value and bizarre approach, but it's far from writer Rod Serling and/or director Joe Mankiewicz's best work.

 

[Zombie_61]

That's fantastic. Better than the actual scene in the film... But I feel bad I was so critical about it. And wrong.

I really wasn't sure the first time I saw the movie, but leaned towards Yoda being a puppet simply because I recognized some little movements Frank Oz uses to make the puppets he's controlling seem a little more "alive". Oz himself said that when they first contacted him about being in the movie he thought he would be a voice actor, and was pleasantly surprised when he found out they were re-creating the Yoda puppet.

Re A Carol for Another Christmas, I saw it on TCM a couple of years ago. I thought it was a very interesting Cold War era artifact... but not an especially successful variant of the story. I agree that it's worth watching once just for its historic value and bizarre approach, but it's far from writer Rod Serling and/or director Joe Mankiewicz's best work.

I can't disagree, and have to admit I found Serling's adaptation a bit lacking myself. I knew nothing about it when we started watching it, and it wasn't until Steve Lawrence appeared as the Ghost of Christmas Past that I realized it was an alternate version of the Dickens story. But it was the performances, not the story, that held my interest.

 

[HanauMan]

I watched both the Home Alone I & II films as they were on over the Christmas period, just out of nostalgia. The plot lines are a tad dumb but the slapstick comedy still holds up. I still wince every time Daniel Stern gets an iron dropped on his face, or several bricks from the third floor! And Tim Curry is pretty good in Home Alone II.

Another film I caught earlier today was a 1969 South African film, Lost in the Desert. It also starred a eight year old kid, this time as the lone survivor from a 'plane crash. The kid, named Dirkie, and his dog survive in the Namibian desert for three weeks before their eventual rescue. I don't recall ever seeing this film (I would have loved seeing it as a child) and, despite the 'young hero with dog' plotline, it isn't really a children's film due to some of the situations encountered (the dead pilot is reduced to bones by scavengers, the dog gives birth to puppies who all die, etc). Much like the Australian film Walkabout, this film deals with the clash of a stranded western child in a hostile environment and being aided, then abandoned, by a 'native', in this case a Namibian Kalahari Bushman.

 

[MisterCairo]

Boxing Day film fest as we relax from a wonderful but busy Christmas day, Christmas Vacation to start. Cannot say enough about this wonderful film! Just finished a game of WhovilleOpoly (my daughter and I tied!), nap time, then perhaps It's a Wonderful Life!

 

[MissMittens]

A Muppet Christmas Carol. Jim Henson's now infamous puppets, with the added benefit of Michael Caine as Scrooge. Childhood nostalgia at its best.

 

[belfastboy]

I have been working my way through a long list of the critics "Best of 2018" films.....at least the ones available on Netflix or on rental. So far in my books it is a tie for my Best of......"The Rider" and "Leave No Trace" both wonderful, touching, human stories coincidentally both by female directors. Both these movies kick the crap out of "Roma". As my wife said; both my picks have more heart, more humanity in the first 5 minutes than the entire Roma derivative, indulgent, pretentious wasteland

 

[MissMittens]

Boxing Day film fest as we relax from a wonderful but busy Christmas day, Christmas Vacation to start. Cannot say enough about this wonderful film! Just finished a game of WhovilleOpoly (my daughter and I tied!), nap time, then perhaps It's a Wonderful Life!

Another one we watched over the holiday was "Christmas in Handcuffs." No, it's NOT a "50 Shades' type movie, it's a Lifetime movie with Melissa Joan Hart, but it's entertaining and very watchable. If you're not familiar with it, I recommend it for light-hearted viewing fare

 

[MisterCairo]

Finished off Boxing Day with Christmas With the Kranks, based on John Grisham's work Skipping Christmas, which should have remained the title, though the characters do use the phrase on occasion!

Another much maligned film that we thoroughly enjoy!

"And another thing, an Irish pub serving fish tacos?"

 

[Bushman]

Watched "Something the Lord Made" starring Mos Def and Alan Rickman last night. It's a beautiful story about the partnership of Vivian Thomas and Alfred Blalock in the '30s and '40s and their cardiac research breakthroughs at John Hopkins.

 

[Harp]

The Catcher Was a Spy (2018)

• Based on the true story of professional baseball player Morris (Moe) Berg - The dialogue is crisp and smart, the pace quick but not frantic and the tension comes from characters you care about and a story that did the work to build to its climax (really, anti-climax, I'll say no more). Add in beautiful cinematography, a few well-earned and organic-to-the-story action scenes and wonderful period details and the movie reminds me of a well-done Warner Brothers WWII-era spy drama (think "Watch on the Rhine") - just the type of movie I wish they made more of today

This escaped my notice. I've read what is available on Berg, an amazingly complex fellow chock full of idiosyncrasies,
and seemingly caught within his own personal vortex that Second World War OSS service failed resolve and only
worsened. A cipher whose life ideally would make a splendid film.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The documentary filmmaker Aviva Kempner, who seems to specialize in fine, insightful films about Jewish pop-culture figures of the Era, is doing a picture on the real-life Moe Berg, for release next spring.

 

[Worf]

Last night my wife and I watched Carol for Another Christmas, a 1964 TV movie that aired once in 1964 and wasn't seen again until TCM aired it in 2012. Written by Rod Serling, it's an updated (circa 1964) version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" starring Sterling Hayden as Daniel Grudge whose miserly ways are not motivated by money or goods, but by the loss of his son Marley who was killed in action on Christmas Eve in 1944. Co-starring Eva Marie Saint, Ben Gazzara, and Steve Lawrence, Pat Hingle, and Robert Shaw as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future (respectively), it's an interesting take on Dickens' story featuring solid performances. I'd recommend seeing it at least once if you have the opportunity.

I saw it several years back on TCM as well. I enjoyed it for what it was but it didn't overwhelm me. Sterling Hayden still had it when he made this one. Still I've seen worse and spent more.

Worf

 

[Worf]

"Struggle! - The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski" - Saw this documentary on the Flix and took a flyer. An interesting story of a Polish immigrant who had a unique and death defying style of art and sculpturing. He became famous in America then went back to his Polish homeland only to be disregarded and ridiculed. He returned to America did some work in Hollywood.... "I did some design drawings on some film with a big monkey" he recalled in later years. When Poland became more "nationalistic" in the mid to late 30's he returned there to national acclaim and controversy. He was in Poland just long enough to watch all his life's work get blowed up by the Luftwaffe when Germany invaded in '39. He somehow got out of there with 3 suitcases and his wife.

He lived in California in relative obscurity until he was found by the underground comics scene in the 70's. There's much more to his fascinating life, too much to say here. But his life would've been amazing with just what I've mentioned here BUT there's one more twist to this man's life that I won't spoil here. Worth seeing if you've the time.

Worf

 

[Bushman]

"It Happened One Night". I was shocked when I learned my father had never seen this classic, and because I already had it recorded for my own sake, we sat down tonight and watched it together. He thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[MissMittens]

"It Happened One Night". I was shocked when I learned my father had never seen this classic, and because I already had it recorded for my own sake, we sat down tonight and watched it together. He thoroughly enjoyed it.

Claudette Colbert was at her absolute best!