What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

"Anna Christie" with Greta Garbo on TCM. It's 1930 and, apparently, they've invented the automobile, airplane and steam engine, but have yet to invent the bra. I decided to self-edit and not present a picture in support of my observation.

 

[belfastboy]

Adam Sandler's newest "Uncut Gems" showed up on Netflix. Not a fan of his at all but as the movie appeared on many 'best of' 2019 lists and was reviewed positively (although I read as many reviews that hated it). I thought for free I should make up my own mind.
Well, we managed 10 minutes of viewing then turned it off. Not so much the acting, plot, writing etc but it was the camera work and the background music. The Sandler character is a man out of control, living a manic life and I am guessing the directors wanted the tone to match so the movie had a matching manic, jangling, disorienting feel to it that we found totally off putting. We turned it off not just because of dislike but the watching of it was making us feel jangling and disoriented and overall scratchy. Def not the effect we were after last night....if ever! I would love to hear from anyone tha
t has watched to the end.

 

[Brettafett]

Not the last, but recently watched ol' Jimmy Stewart's You Gotta Stay Happy again. What a classic! Plus, some great footage of Jimmy wearing his original WW2 Roughwear 1401 A-2 in the film.

 

[Bushman]

Midsommar - this movie was a complete mind twist. It just messed with your head both visually and storywise throughout the entire thing. It felt more disjointed than Hereditary did, but to say it was any less quality is a disservice. Ari Aster's directing continues to be unique and interesting enough to both keep your eyes glued to the screen, and covered in terror.

 

[Héctor Fernández]

In The Heat of The Night.

 

[Worf]

"Ready or Not" - This 2019 thriller/slasher/comedy was a romp through and through. More comedy than anything else I loved the ridiculous family shenanigans and the "twist" at the end. Set your bar low and enjoy it. Remember... NEVER trust your in-laws!

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Five Star Final from 1931 staring Edward G. Robinson

Tabloid journalism in the '30s - when the newspapers were that generation's Silicon Valley / internet stocks - captured Hollywood's attention in a way that Silicon Valley hasn't today because newsrooms, especially back then, had a visual and palpable dynamism that a tech start up simply doesn't. Heck, everyone knows what a newspaper does; whereas, how many people really understand coding and, even if one does, who wants to see a movie about it?

But '30s newsrooms and the newspaper business were alive with a febrile energy to "get the story" that was kept somewhat respectable by a facade of a public service to "inform the people," which, in the tabloids in particular, masks a greedy, amoral drive to sell the muck of society - its dirty underwear - to a willingly paying customer. While this movie genre hit its apotheosis with 1939's His Gal Friday (my dark horse for one of the top-ten movies of all time), Five Star Final is an outstanding entry, especially considering its '31 date when Hollywood was still figuring out "the talkies."

Five Star Final is an unabashed morality tale with Robinson at its center as the conscience-conflicted editor who knows every lever to pull to get and sell a sleazy story, but seems at the end of his moral tether as the paper's circulation-obsessed owner pushes him to "stop going highbrow and just hawk the 'human interest' stories our readers want." To comply, Robinson - a man born to be an actor - stirs up a decades-old wife-kills-husband story that sets in motion a series of life-destroying events for a nice, minding-its-own-business family.

As he unleashes his hatchet reporters (both men and woman because, before we discovered today that women were locked out of all jobs in the '30s, it appears many women worked as newspaper reporters), Robinson's secretary plays the part of the angel on his shoulder to, almost, everyone else's devil.

To drive circulation, newsboys report "obstinate" newsstand owners who get roughed up by some sort of mob, discretely, paid for - off the books - by the paper; reporters pose as ministers to get sources to talk or they just break into houses; and innuendo, slander and threats are all in the mix. It's an ugly business that thrives on everything we'd like to think civilization refutes, but those things were there back then and are still with us today.

As in the recent housing crisis, while we'd like to fob it all off on corrupt business or politics - both certainly share a lot of the blame - the public owns its share too, as - be it the liar loans many willingly signed their names to or nickels spent on "extras" to read the latest salacious detail about this or that scandal - there'd be no money in this ugliness if the public simply said "no" and closed its pocketbook.

Director Mervyn LeRoy isn't subtle here, as he isn't in many of his movies, but he is effective in a punch-you-in-the-face kind of way. Right up to the closing speeches - which are all but sermons or, at least, editorials - the good and the bad, the right and the wrong are labelled clearly for you. To wit, every time Robinson's character does something sleazy, he goes into his office's private sink closet and scrubs and scrubs his hand with soap - you almost expect him to put on a hair shirt - it's not subtle, but you get the point.

There's some '31 clunkiness to Five Star Final as a few of the actors haven't learned to adjust their theater-trained heavy gesticulating for movies' subtler needs, camera angles can be off and transitions, awkward, but it's easy to see past all that for a fast-paced movie with Robinson - who had already perfectly adjusted his acting style to films - powering it forward. And beyond that, it is incredible time travel to the 1930s where that period's clothes, cars, architecture and the newsroom itself - with typewriters pinging, phones ringing, reporters screaming and chaos only somewhat controlled - feel very much alive to us today.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's a great, great movie. It's based on the real life "New York Evening Graphic," the sleaziest daily paper ever published in the United States, and it spares no punches.

 

[Héctor Fernández]

Watch Midnight Cowboy for the very first time. Voight and Hoffman were amazing in their roles.

Today's Hollyweirdos couldn't make a movie like it today. It requires real acting.

 

[belfastboy]

Watch Midnight Cowboy for the very first time. Voight and Hoffman were amazing in their roles.

Today's Hollyweirdos couldn't make a movie like it today. It requires real acting.

I love this movie!

 

[Trenchfriend]

No further questions.

 

[Zombie_61]

No further questions.

"Moshhht thingshhh in here don't react too well to bulletshhhhh."

 

[Trenchfriend]

I feel like the movie gets better from year to year.

German synchro is outstanding here, too.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Moshhht thingshhh in here don't react too well to bulletshhhhh."

Slightly off the exact quote, but in my girlfriend and my shorthand, for the last 20+ years, when one of us is asking the other person to follow instructions exactly, we will say, "Give me one ping and one ping only" (usually in a horrible Scottish accent).

 

[Fading Fast]

The Entertainer from 1960 with Laurence Olivier, Albert Finney and Joan Plowright

Until this outstanding movie, I knew Laurence Olivier was an major talent because (1) his reputation said his was, (2) Rebecca and Wuthering Heights (he was fine in both, but no more) and (3) with a name like Laurence Olivier, you have to be a major talent - there are no Laurence Oliviers flipping burgers in this world.

But now I get it. Playing an all-but-failed second-rate performer in the dying music hall business (think vaudeville) of early '60s England - and a drunk - and a womanizer - and a cheater - and a check kiter - Olivier embodies this sad charlatan trying to keep all the deflating balls of his checkered life in the air by dint of personality and fear - if he stops, he knows whatever is left of him dies.

Drawn into his circle of failure is his second wife - whom he originally bedded while his first wife was giving birth to his daughter. Wife number two is now an alcoholic, in part, over fear that another woman will do to her what she did to the first wife (which seems like karmically fair, but brutal, punishment). Also in this circle is the aforementioned daughter (now a young woman with a preternatural ability to forgive her father), a couple of sons - one in the army, another Olivieir's factotum - and Olivier's father, a retired but more-successful version of Olivier, which eats away at the son.

Yes, it's a version of a kitchen sink movie with the family disfunction painfully limned in too much drinking - which starts early in the day and with the parents encouraging their just-adult children to join in - violent outbursts, fear of bill collectors, recriminations and general anger toward each other and life. But this one is broader as Olivier's failed career, life and family symbolizes England's post-war ennui and slide - highlighted by the aforementioned army son being mobilized to Egypt to fight for the embers of the Empire, but really for nothing anyone can explain.

Kudos to director Tony Richardson as we see Olivier's hackneyed performance of old material given to a sparse and disinterested crowd in a formerly impressive, but now torn and frayed, dance hall "palace," as the perfect metaphor for the British Empire in the early '60s: the signs of past glory are all around, but it can't be maintained and nobody really knows what to do but keep on keeping on even when that doesn't work. It isn't subtle, but it packs a punch.

While Oliviers' on-screen daughter played by Joan Plowright centers the story and the fragile family (sometimes parents get more from their children than they deserve), it is Oliviers' loud but nuanced performance (not an easy thing to do) that powers the movie forward. Be it an old dance-hall singer breaking down, a former Empire stumbling to find its footing, a factory job replaced by a robot or a desk job eliminated by computer code, our struggles today might be different in facts and circumstances from those before, but they don't really change in substance as we can all see a part of our lives in something as removed from our day to day as an old performer in 1960s London forced to face his professional obsolescence and personal failings. In the end, one thing you come away with is that Sir Laurence Olivier deserves his reputation.


P.S. Have to ask @LizzieMaine if she's seen this one as the parallel to vaudeville's decline in the US would, I think, be right up her alley?

 

[belfastboy]

I broke down and rented "Parasite" from our local cable provider tonight. At the end I turned to my wife and asked...."Well?" She replied that if it were a first effort or say a film by a Senior at UCLA film school it would get an okay from her.....not a bad effort for a beginner. But damn, an academy award for such a terrible movie? Unbelievable. I know I can't get my 2 hours of life back but damn I want the $7 back. Spoiler alert....it sucked!

 

[Lean'n'mean]

' Gunfight At The O.K. Corral' (1957) in honor of Kirk. He made a surprisingly good Doc Holliday & Burt Lancaster made an excellent Burt Lancaster.
Something I hadn't noticed in previous viewings, is the complexity of the relationship between Doc & Wyatt & the film is really about that relationship more than the infamous showdown, which, when it came like an add on to justify the title, was both underwhelming & unsatisfying.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Winter's Bone, right now.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Nora Prentiss (1947) with Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, and Bruce Bennett. The story is far-fetched, about a prominent, highly-esteemed doctor in NYC, who happens to help an injured chanteuse who's hard as nails. Romantic complications follow (he's married and it's 1947), but the plot points are extreme and, for the Missus and myself, the story got silly.

Noah's Ark (1928) with Dolores Costello, George O'Brien, Noah Beery, Sr., and a large cast of antediluvian proto-Babylonians. Screenplay and some direction by Darryl Zanuck, with Michael Curtiz helming the story. A partial talkie, it presents parallel stories of The Great War and the flood of Noah's time. A spectacular along the lines of Intolerance, but it jumbles up OT events, with a burning bush guiding Noah to a mountain top, where instructions for building the ark are delivered in graven letter on gigantic rock slabs that turn like pages. Surprisingly, the sound sequences feature some low key naturalistic acting, in juxtaposition with the silent film style of emoting.

Morning Glory (1933) with Katherine Hepburn, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Adolphe Menjou. What a great movie. If you've seen it, you know how good it is. Hepburn steals the movie, and Fairbanks is stylish and elegant and shows a superb touch for comedy. If you haven't had a chance to see it, catch it and watch Katherine on her way to her first Oscar.

Dolittle (2019) with Robert Downey, Jr. as the titular veterinarian who learns animal communication. We enjoyed it, but it somehow lacked the charm offered by the premise. Also, it sounds like Downey's voice was dubbed throughout. The animal CGI was very good.

 

[Bushman]

Caught John Wick 3: Parabellum on HBO today, and it's wall to wall action. There's probably one or two short scenes that allow the audience to catch their breath, but then it quickly gets back to the action. I agree with the critics on this one: not as good as the first two. While the first is probably the most well written of the three movies, I think I enjoyed the second one the best.