What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Edward]

John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone--they're part of a long list of actors who managed to create their own on-screen personas that were/are worth their weight in gold. People didn't/don't go to see their movies because they want to watch great performances, they go because they want to watch Wayne, Eastwood, et al, do what they do best. It's not much of a "problem" when they and the studios are making the kind of money those movies pull in.

I've never been convinced by John Wayne, though my maternal grandmother was a big fan. I remember when I was very young, one of my earliest memories of her place was a picture of John Wayne overlaid on a grained faux-wood type thing (similar to a gloriously tacky image of Elvis I keep in my toilet as part of a shrine of sorts) that hung above her chair by the fire in her house at the time. As a small child I believed it was a picture of my grandfather, who did bear sometihng of a resemblence to 'the Duke'.

If you think Cobra is Stallone's worst movie, it's pretty clear you've never seen Rhinestone, Over the Top, or Oscar. I've heard Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is truly terrible as well, but I could never bring myself to watch it.

I've never seen In Harms Way, but the other three are probably my favorite John Wayne movies.

Rhinestone - is that the one where he works in the family fuyneral parlour, and for a bet Dolly Parton turns him into a country and western star? I remember watching that, really late one night right after Aliens in TV... I'd have been about fifteen, I think. It was hilarious in a quite likely unintentional way.

Stop or my mom will shoot is not the worst mainstream family comedy I've ever seen.... I saw itg with parents in the cinema, and it's an unchallenging watch youj could imagine having on at that pointg during Christmas week when all you want to do is sit by the fire and not think while the looking box is on. Stallone in that is really just playing the straight man to Estelle Getty.

There are elements of the original Judge Dredd film that weren't so bad in the way they realise a live action portayal of the souce material. Alas, Stallone was not one of those elements. Quibbles about the uniform aside, the character he played bore even less relation to the comic-book page than did Adam West's Batman. Which was, to be fair, not entirely Stallone's fault as a performer (he was much stronger in similar fare in Demolition Man). Eastwood would have been a superior fit for the role - not least because Judge Dredd, who is ultimately a brutal representative of a fascist regime and has been involved in, even directed, many repressions of pro-democracy protests, over the years is an anti-hero who was not a little directly inspired by Harry Callaghan himself.

 

[steve u]

Youth of the Beast -(1963) Criterion Collection
Directed by Seijun Suzuki
Good Yakuza movie with a GREAT plot twist at the end.
Next..
A Beautiful Day in The Neighborhood (2019)
Director:Marielle Heller
Stars: Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Chris Cooper
Good Movie...Loved the documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018)

 

[Fading Fast]

Cornered from 1945 with Dick Powell, Walter Slezak and Micheline Cheirel

There's a lot to like in this post-war noir, but the sum is less than its parts. Dick Powell plays a just-demobilized WWII Canadian airman single-mindedly on the hunt for the killer of his member-of-the-French-resistance wife. Okay, that's a fine plot that leads to a lot of neat stuff, but Powell's obtuse approach to his search fueled by his all-consuming anger comes off more as if he's dead inside than passionately revenge driven; maybe a reflection of reality, but it makes it hard to relate to him for almost two hours.

Powell's investigative techniques are all "bull in the china shop," all the time. After, effectively, sneaking into France (from England), he pushes around some officials until he finds the name of his wife's probable killer: a French collaborator. From there, it's off to Argentina as the few documents he found indicate his wife's killer fled with other escaping French collaborators and Nazis to South America.

Once there, a surface-friendly but shady "tour guide" (Slezak) meets Powell, as he's deplaning, with an offer to help. Slezak does an admirable job in the Sydney Greenstreet noir-template role of the fat, pleasant but dangerous foil to the hero as he brings more personality and life to the effort than does Powell.

The rest of the movie, like it's been so far, is Powell angrily blundering forward in a hunt for his wife's killer, but now in the locus of what's left of the true-believing Nazis and their French collaborators. So his search has him bouncing around from sinister parties, to police stations (maybe protecting the ex-pat Nazis - not clear), to women's bedrooms (it's noir), to bars (it's noir) and, finally, to a waterfront hideout (it's noir). And it's a final confrontation in that hideout where many loose ends come together in an almost comic series of "who has the gun," "who bonked whom over the head," "who's double dealing whom" turnarounds.

With a little brain power, you can untangle the convoluted plot, but you almost feel cheated as there was a lot of buildup to a pretty by-the-numbers conclusion. The big flaw, as noted, is Powell's one-note portrayal of a man on the hunt for his wife's killer. Right or wrong, we like our heroes to be relatable (and likable) even when their cause is just. So, despite a lot of good stuff - exotic settings, some interesting characters (hating Nazis is evergreen) and a noirishly twisting plot and atmosphere - you still come away a little disappointed owing to Powell's blunt approach to his character.

 

[Worf]

I never cared for the Sly macho-man persona and, as a consequence, don't think I've seen many of his films. However I think Rocky is a terrific movie and I saw Rambo and Judge Dredd - both left me cold - and I don't recall many others. As for Westerns, I love the sheer exuberant artistry of some of the Leone films. But the classic era John Ford films don't hold my attention. I just watched the opening of Once Upon a Time in the West for the 15th time and I found it exhilarating.

That opening is one for the ages... I particularly loved the inclusion of Woody Strode and Jack Elam, two Iconic Western film stars as two of Bronson's welcoming committee. It sets the stage for the rest of the film perfectly. And I love how it's echoed in the end as well. What a masterful tale of vengeance deferred.

Worf

 

[Zombie_61]

...Rhinestone - is that the one where he works in the family fuyneral parlour, and for a bet Dolly Parton turns him into a country and western star? I remember watching that, really late one night right after Aliens in TV... I'd have been about fifteen, I think. It was hilarious in a quite likely unintentional way...

I've only seen Rhinestone once, so I had to look it up to see if I remembered it correctly. Stallone's character is a New York cab driver, but, yes, in order to get out of her contract with a sleazy nightclub owner Miss Parton's character makes a bet that she can teach anyone to sing. Enter Stallone's character, and failed attempts at humor ensue.

 

[MisterCairo]

So, my wife and I watched The Hangover for the umpteenth time, and one thing I love is the wedding band, with the over the top swearing singer. Bottle of wine - one.

I pop in Old School with Luke Wilson and Will Farrell just to see the first appearance of said band and singer. And we see the whole film. Bottle of wine two.

After the bottle we had had at supper.

The next morning was not productive.

 

[MisterCairo]

Just did some research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dan_Band

The Dan Band is a real thing, has been for years, and singer/songwriter/actor Dan Finnerty is married to Kathy Najimi. They were married by Gloria Steinem, naturally...

So, my wife and I watched The Hangover for the umpteenth time, and one thing I love is the wedding band, with the over the top swearing singer. Bottle of wine - one.

I pop in Old School with Luke Wilson and Will Farrell just to see the first appearance of said band and singer. And we see the whole film. Bottle of wine two.

After the bottle we had had at supper.

The next morning was not productive.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Design for Scandal (1941) with Rosalind Russell, Walter Pidgeon, Edward Arnold, and a host of others. Magnate Arnold wants news reporter Pidgeon to fabricate a scandal about judge Russell. Part rom-com and part screwball comedy; an MGM production, it's glossy, well-produced, and gives us familiar characters in a comfortable story with nary a drag in the momentum.

 

[Fading Fast]

Too Late for Tears from 1949 with Lizabeth Scott, Arthur Kennedy, Dan Duryea and Dom DeFore

There are the great noirs - The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Out of the Past and others - but there are also a lot of really good noirs like Too Late for Tears.

A middle-class couple, stopped for a moment on the side of a highway one night, have a bag full of money, literally, tossed into their open-topped car from a passing vehicle (it's rationally explained much later), setting off a series of, well, disasters.

The husband (Kennedy) is content with their life and wants to turn the money over to the police; the wife (Scott) is not content (at all) and wants to keep it. He sees their middle-class life as successful and fortunate; she - openly showing contempt for him - expresses disgust at their "meager" existence as she wants more - more money, things, status.

After contentiously agreeing to keep, but not touch, the money for a week, Kennedy trots off to work while Scott stays home losing her mind thinking about all that money. From here, the movie is about one thing: Scott's all-consuming passion to get the money (presently, in a train-station locker with the claim check in her husband's coat - she thinks) as one obstacle after another pops up between her and the bag 'o cash.

First up is Scott's sister-in-law who quickly sees that Scott is up to no good, but being a normal human being, she doesn't have the capacity to quickly jump to the conclusion that Scott would commit murder (more in a moment) for money. Instead, she shadows Scott, stumbles upon clues and makes Scott squirm. At one point, I thought Scott would shoot the sister-in-law just to shut her up, despite the sister-in-law not being close to figuring things out. Even though the sister-in-law was in the right, she was so annoying about it, I almost wanted Scott to shoot her too.

Next up, and much more effective in his pursuit of Scott, is Dan Duryea, the intended recipient of the tossed bag of money, which was the product of an insurance fraud Duryea stumbled upon and cut himself in on. He and Scott engage in a wonderful game of cat-and-mouse as they vie for the money and the upper hand against an ever shifting dynamic of "we need each other, but can't trust each other one bit" (think The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but in '49 LA). Even when they have sex - oh yeah, they flirt, they hate, they sleep together - you know each one is half plotting to kill the other. It's a good, healthy noir relationship.

(Minor spoiler alert as it comes along pretty early on) Scott and Duryea kill Scott's husband as the husband's moral stance - the money should go to the police - is untenable to Scott or Duryea. Scott's husband seemed like a good guy, but he did not understand, one bit, the woman he married.

Right after the murder, another obstacle comes along: a putative old war buddy (DeFore) of Scott's husband, apparently, just in town for a short visit. DeFore plays the innocent good guy only trying to help, but he is better than the sister-in-law at connecting dots and seeing Scott for who she is.

As if this wasn't enough, Scott has to report her murdered husband to the police as missing. The sister-in-law would have gotten even more suspicious if Scott just went about her day (hunting feverishly for the now missing claim-check ticket) without even showing a thought for her husband who, in theory, just disappeared.

So, for those keeping score, standing between Scott and the money are the missing claim-check ticket, the guy who originally stole the money (whom she's having hate-sex with), her murdered husband's sister-in-law, her murdered husband's supposed old war buddy and the police (oddly, the least of her worries). But a woman after money's gotta do what a woman after money's gotta do.

To avoid giving the rest away (you really want to see it), Scott tries to plow through one obstacle after another and does an admirable job even getting a brief moment in the sun to luxuriate with her ill-gotten dough. But this is noir and this is Hollywood under the code, so you know how it's going to end. And credit to the writers for tying a lot of loose ends together in the climactic scene.

The funny thing is that, while this is Scott's movie - she's an obsessed ball of 5'3" blonde greed - her acting is wooden in this one (she's better in some other movies). However, she's gorgeous in a cold, aloof, calculating way that works so well for the character that she carries the movie despite her stolid performance. And being short helps as, if she was a tall gorgeous blonde, you'd be like, "come on" she already has everything she needs. But, here, her shortness seems to fit her psychotic obsessing and pathetic social bounding.

It's not up there with the great noirs, but it's a fine workingman's noir with a lot of good stuff going on, especially Lizabeth Scott as the lost-her-mind-over-a-bag-of-money femme fatale who smashes up everybody in her orbit, including herself.


Ms. "I want the bag 'o money" femme fatale.

 

[Trenchfriend]

The Mambo Kings (1992)

 

[Bushman]

Inspector Gadget (1998) with Matthew Broderick. It's stupid, cartoonish fun, but it's entirely self aware that it's stupid and that's what makes it enjoyable. Forgettable cast outside of Broderick, the jokes that were funny as a kid just come across as lame now, and it barely has any semblance to the original cartoon from which it's derived, but it's still fun. Stupid, cartoonish fun.

And I'll take it over the abortion of a sequel that was put out any day. Beyond just the cast (which was recasted entirely from the first movie), the entire thing was terrible, and I remember turning it off about 20 minutes in just because it was so terrible.

 

[Fading Fast]

For some addicts, it's drugs, others booze, others TCM - what? As I sit watching, right now, "The Petrified Forest" for probably the tenth time or more, despite having promised myself I wouldn't, I realized my smug "I don't have an addictive personality" was selective denial. Away from all that blah, blah, blah, it's a darn good movie.

 

[belfastboy]

Zorba the Greek last night. It has been cold rainy and grey here for a few weeks so my wife and I declared yesterday Greek Day. We cooked a mess of Greek appies, got hammered on a litre of Retsina and settled in to watch Zorba. I had forgotten what a great movie it is and Anthony Quinn is a marvel and Bates the perfectly understated performance as counterpoint. We are thinking of red wine and Italian for tonight....."The Italian Job" perhaps? Or vodka, cabbage and sausage and War & Peace for a Russian night?

 

[Touchofevil]

"I AHM DA LAW!!!!!" (Done in my best mumble)

What you don't dig dat fine acting? Mumbles WORST movie is "Cobra", what a stinkin' pile of dreck that was. Thank God I didn't pay to watch that trash! The Dredd remake was much better, amazing all around!

Worf

I sadly did pay to see this pile at the theater way back when. Where do you start with the bad?

 

[Touchofevil]

Gun Crazy on TCM while eating breakfast number two for the day. I may count it as lunch (breakfast for lunch), but we shall see. Anyway, I have seen bits and pieces of this movie in the past but never stuck with it to the end. It is entertaining and worth a viewing from beginning to end.

 

[Fading Fast]

Gun Crazy on TCM while eating breakfast number two for the day. I may count it as lunch (breakfast for lunch), but we shall see. Anyway, I have seen bits and pieces of this movie in the past but never stuck with it to the end. It is entertaining and worth a viewing from beginning to end.

Funny, I came in about thirty minutes in, liked it, so hit record (since I had had TCM on, it will capture the full movie) and plan to watch it from beginning to end soon.

 

[MisterCairo]

Rope! the Hitchcock drama from 1948. We had seen it a number of years ago, rented it, we now own the blu ray disk as we expand our collection.

Two "superior intellects", following through on their former school master's ideas on how commiting murder could be a privilege afforded to those of higher intellect, kill a friend deemed inferior, and is hidden in plain view during a dinner party.

Loosely based on real events and a stage play based on same you can look up, it also had a strong gay subtext, which was referred to simply as "it" during production.

Oddly, a criticism of the film even then was that Jimmy Stewart did not play the role of school master with sufficient "subtext".

A classic which should be better known.

It also gave Hitch a chance to essentially film a play, with a look as if the film is one continuous shot. 1917 recently did the same.

 

[MisterCairo]

Gun Crazy on TCM while eating breakfast number two for the day. I may count it as lunch (breakfast for lunch), but we shall see. Anyway, I have seen bits and pieces of this movie in the past but never stuck with it to the end. It is entertaining and worth a viewing from beginning to end.

Nothing wrong with second breakfasts, as any hobbit will tell you...

 

[Zombie_61]

Gun Crazy on TCM while eating breakfast number two for the day. I may count it as lunch (breakfast for lunch), but we shall see. Anyway, I have seen bits and pieces of this movie in the past but never stuck with it to the end. It is entertaining and worth a viewing from beginning to end.

Maybe this one needs to be seen from the beginning? 'Cause I came in about 1/3rd of the way in, and only kinda' sorta' half watched it because there was nothing better on until North By Northwest started. Didn't really care for it.

 

[steve u]

Fires on the Plain (1959)-The Criterion collection
Directed by Kon Ichikawa
About Japanese solder(s) in the Philippines late in WWII doing ANYTHING to survive.
NEXT UP...
Shadow Hunters (1972)
Pulp Fiction Chambura film from The Manga by Saito Takao (Golgo-13)
Samurai ,ninja, double-agents, and sexy female assassins....What more could you ask for?
Shadow Hunters II : Echo of Destiny....tomorrow!