What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

Great review. I agree Olivier made the movie. One thought I had and not sure it would have worked but if I was the director I would have tried to make Olivier's character have some redeeming qualities.....just a little bit of something I could muster some sympathy for him. As it stood I found him such a reprehensible character that I wished him an ill fate throughout the movie and cared nothing for his demise.

Yes agreed, he got what he deserved. I think he's one of those guys who'll be nice to some (his family) if he's rolling in money, but even then, it's always going to be all about him.

 

[belfastboy]

Yes agreed, he got what he deserved. I think he's one of those guys who'll be nice to some (his family) if he's rolling in money, but even then, it's always going to be all about him.

It is interesting as my wife deals with the fall out of what she now realizes was a mother with strong narcissistic qualities we watch two movies centred around such characters and the damage it inflicts on the family.

 

[Fading Fast]

It is interesting as my wife deals with the fall out of what she now realizes was a mother with strong narcissistic qualities we watch two movies centred around such characters and the damage it inflicts on the family.

I'm sorry for her - not an easy way to start life. Another similarly themed movie, "All Fall Down" (comments here: #27260) is one you guys might enjoy.

 

[belfastboy]

View attachment 204263
All Fall Down from 1962 with Warren Beatty, Angela Lansbury, Karl Malden and Eva Marie Saint

The late '50s / early '60s saw movie after movie of broken families breaking some more as happens in All Fall Down, albeit, here with a little variation on the Oedipal Complex mixing in a touch of creepiness to the sadness of this family.

The Willart family - mother (Lansbury), father (Malden) and second son (Barndon de Wilde) - adore/idolize/blindly love handsome first-born son, Berry Berry (Beatty), who is mad at adult life in the way a wild horse is mad at being broken (or maybe he's just mad at his ridiculously horrible name).

Unable to live up to the expectation of his lionizing family, Berry Berry vagabonds around the country keeping alive doing odd jobs, getting money wired from home (for bail now and again when he gets drunk and does something stupid) and skating around the edges of being a gigolo.

Meanwhile, back at the homestead - a rundown old Victorian - the family pines away for their absent hero son, somewhat appeased by the appearance of cousin Echo (in what parallel universe do these names not seem insane?), a pretty, early '30s school teacher, played by Marie Saint, who the family feels is on a glide path to spinsterhood.

With all the pieces now in place, they can start falling down. Right when the sixteen-year-old second son is developing a hard puppy dog crush on Echo, in walks Berry Berry to steal her heart. Despite initial concern, matriarch Lansbury embraces the relationship as she and her enervated and alcoholic communist husband (Mauldin) thinks this might be the thing to settle their prodigal hero son down. Even though the second son still pines for Echo, he so idolizes his older brother that he, too, embraces the relationship because anything Berry Berry does is right.

From here, things really fall apart (and, alert, spoilers come fast and furious). While still just dating Berry Berry, we learn that, until-now, virgin Echo is pregnant with his child, which - of course - pushes away Berry Berry, who wants nothing to do with responsibility, while breaking Echo's heart (maybe) and her hold on life (for sure).

As all of this comes out, the scales fall from the eyes of the second son and the father who finally see Berry Berry for the wrecking ball that he is, which only pushes the mother into deeper denial and a deeper love with her son. To be sure, she was jealous of his potential marriage all along, which was just part of this family's variation on the Oedipal thing, which includes the second son plotting to kill Berry Berry to avenge the wrong he did to Echo.

At the end - I saved a little plot if you haven't seen it yet - nobody is left standing, least of all the viewer. Despite a feels-forced final-moment attempt to put a positive spin on all this breakage, the message - as with so many of this period's movies - is, as Berry Berry screams at some point, "I hate life." Hopefully you don't - I don't (except on that rare, really awful day) - but like wanting to almost touch a hot stove as a kid, sometimes it's cathartic to see your worst fears played out in a safe way. At least all these depressing movies argue the public, at that time, wanted this release.

N.B. I don't think Karl Malden has ever given a bad performance - or at least not one that I've seen. Usually, he's perfectly cast as a model of propriety as a cop, priest or some other person of authority keeping things grounded as the world spins into chaos around him, but here he's equally convincing being part of the spinning chaos.
View attachment 204264

Thank you, I will keep an eye out for it.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Journey from 1959 with Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner and Jason Robards

• Taking place in Hungary in 1956 as the USSR was crushing the Hungarian rebellion, several foreigners (mainly English) trying to get out of Hungary are held up in a hotel by a Russian Major (Brynner) suspicious that they are smuggling out Hungarian resistance fighters

• The foreigners, overall, aren't doing so, but one, Kerr, is trying to smuggle one resistance fighter out - a wounded Robards - which sets up a battle of wits and sexual tension between Kerr and Brynner

• A bunch of other stuff takes place around the core story - pockets of Hungarian resistance attack Brynner's Soviet headquarters, we see the Hungarian locals conflicted over joining the resistance and several of the British being held are forced to choose between exposing Kerr and Robards or helping them and, thus, risking imprisonment or death for themselves

• But most of the two-plus hours are spent with Kerr and Brynner not sleeping with each other as he continues to suspect Robards is not English (Robards' cover story), but a Hungarian resistance fighter (which we know he is)

• Not that it's bad in a melodramatic way, but it's hard to believe that Brynner wouldn't have figured out who Robards was in ten minutes and it's harder still to believe he'd risk his career and life by not immediately arresting him and Kerr

• Brynner is presented as a man conflicted with the moral issues of the Soviet suppression of the Hungarians - so much so, that he's willing to risk it all to let one Hungarian go, in truth, mainly because, let's just say it, he wants to bang Kerr - eh, not that believable

• All this is made harder still because Deborah Kerr, while pretty, has an expression and body English that read as if she'd shattered into little pieces if a man touched her, but I guess the subtext and country metaphor is the fiery Russian wanting to conquer the aloof Englishwoman - yawn

• Lastly, there's so much Russian and Hungarian spoken (without subtitles) that you feel left out of a third of the movie - maybe done to give the audience a sense of how the English captives felt, but still, you don't go to a movie to not know what the characters are saying

 

[Trenchfriend]

Amélie (2001)

Oh maaan...

 

[belfastboy]

Amélie (2001)

Oh maaan...

I still have a mad crush on Tautoo

 

[belfastboy]

A new Netflix offering "Hell on the Border". Both Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB give it 4 out of 10 but I am thinking that is too kind. Overall a terrible movie from just about every aspect. Terrible plot with huge implausability gaps, jarring modern sound track, clunky virtue signaling inserted, overall a waste of my 2 hours of life....oy vey....I will choose better next time

 

[Zombie_61]

The poor choice I made a couple of nights ago: The Last Stand from 2013 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ahnolt plays the Sheriff of Sommerton Junction, a fictional town somewhere near the U.S./Mexico border, and he and his inexperienced group of officers are tasked with preventing an escaped FBI prisoner/drug kingpin from crossing the border in his 200 mph capable Corvette. Everything belfastboy wrote above about Hell on the Border applies here. Just dumb.

Even worse was a poorer choice from earlier in the week, The Banana Splits Movie (2019). Yes, you read that right. For anyone who doesn't know, there was an American "family" television show called The Banana Splits Adventure Hour that aired from 1968 to 1970. Essentially, the show was four anthropomorphic animals (i.e., people in costumes) hosting cartoons, skits, and songs to keep children entertained for an hour. In this movie the television show was never cancelled, and little Harley (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) wins tickets to attend a taping of the show. In this version the four main characters aren't people in costumes, but robots who, after an upgrade-gone-wrong, begin killing people in the studio where the show is produced. Havoc ensues and, in the end, the characters we're supposed to like survive and the characters we're supposed to dislike don't; it just takes a long 90 minutes to get there because of a lot of completely unimportant dialogue intended to establish character and plot points that ultimately don't matter. The big question is why anyone would make this movie. People old enough to remember the television show won't like it because, except for four costumes and some soundbites, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the show. And people too young to remember the show won't care. So, if you must, wait for it to come on television/cable/satellite/streaming, then watch something else.

 

[steve u]

The banana Splits ...Yes, being born in 1957 I remember.
"It'll never work, were doomed" The Adventures of Gulliver

 

[Haversack]

Sid and Marty Krofft have a lot to answer for... especially their jingle writer.

 

[Zombie_61]

Sid and Marty Krofft have a lot to answer for... especially their jingle writer.

No kidding. Lidsville. You can't tell me there wasn't some form of substance abuse going on over at Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions.

 

[steve u]

Abuse? or "tool of the trade"?

 

[Fading Fast]

Hide-Out from 1934 with Robert Montgomery, Maureen O'Sullivan, Edward Arnold and Mickey Rooney

• Montgomery plays a New York City mob guy - an urbane "protection" racketeer - who runs away to a farm in upstate New York to hide out until a recent "issue" with the police can be "fixed"

• There, by movie-magic happenstance, he winds up living with a honest, hard-working American farm family who also happens to have a preternaturally beautiful daughter - O'Sullivan of Jane-from-Tarzan fame who proves here that she looks gorgeous even with her clothes on

• Since the family doesn't know he's a mobster hiding out, they think he's just recovering from an injury, there are a lot of jokes around and contretemps that occur from him concealing his true "career" from them - about half of the jokes/situations work

• Being a code-enforced movie, all goes as planned: Montgomery transforms from cynical mobster to enlightened man who sees the good in honest, hard work and decent living (especially when a pretty girl sits like a cherry on top of it)

• All that's left is for him to come clean to the family (and see if they reject him) and to pay his debt to society

• It's harmless fun - nothing great, but Montgomery and O'Sullivan, with an assist from Edward Arnold as the doggedly pursuing NYC detective, make it interesting enough

 

[Zombie_61]

Abuse? or "tool of the trade"?

Fair point.

 

[Worf]

The Baztan Trilogy - a Spanish/Basque Crime Trilogy over two days...

"The Invisible Guardian" - Introduces us to the main characters. Our protagonist is Amaia Salazar, youngest daughter to bakery magnate in the sleepy town of Baztan, she's awoken one day to a call from her superiors that a naked girl has been found murdered by the riverside. She is then forced to return to her hometown where she reconnects with her abusive older sister, doting but ineffective middle sister and Maiden Aunt who raised her. As the case ensues, Amaia, who was trained in Quantico and counts her FBI instructor as one of her few friends, begins to realize that her family, members of her immediate family, are involved with these murders....

In the second film, "The Legacy of Bones", we find out that a cave full of human remains found at the end of the first film are also tied to her family. We're also given clues that something far more serious than a serial killer is loose in Baztan and that the danger not only threatens Amaia but her new born child. All of this is filmed against the backdrop of a raging storm and rising flood waters.

Lastly in "Offering To The Storm", the full magnitude of the cult revealed in the second film is laid bare for the world to see. Even the Vatican is drawn into the battle between pre-Christian cultists and the modern day world.

Sorry to be so vague about the plots of these three films but all three are woven together so tightly as to give any threads away might spoil the film before hand. The cinematics are moody and amazing. Don't expect to see any sunlight for 7 hours while watching this. The plot, while laughable at times is engaging and despite the subtitles you're drawn in by the stellar performances and cast who leave nothing on the table. There are some serious twists in the trilogy, particularly in the last film but the final reveal in the end is nothing special and I guessed the "twist" when the person first appeared on the screen.

There's room for a fourth film and I can see where and how it could come about but I'll only answer PM's on the subject. If your'e out of things to watch... give this one a go... I think you'll be entertained.

Worf

 

[Worf]

The banana Splits ...Yes, being born in 1957 I remember.
"It'll never work, were doomed" The Adventures of Gulliver

Believe it or not... while throwing away '45s ruined in a basement flood I came across a single of the "Banana Splits Theme Song" that I acquired I know not where. Now consigned to that great landfill in the sky. Sad...

I wish we'd gotten more of their rivals "The Sour Persimmon Gang".

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

George Washington Slept Here from 1942 with Ann Sheridan, Jack Benny and Charles Coburn

• It turns out, 1948's well-known Mr. Blandings Builds his Dreamhouse was first made in 1942 as George Washington Slept Here. Not really, but the two movies all but share the same story

• An upper-middle-class New York City family, living in a cramped apartment (a typical New York story), on the wife's (Sheridan) whim and unbeknownst to the husband (Benny), buy an in-complete-disrepair Pennsylvania farmhouse

• After decamping to their "new" home and intent on "fixing it up," the story follows the usual arc of many fish-out-of-water stories as the local contractors and real estate agents take advantage of the "city slickers" as they spend all their money trying to make a run-down two-hundred-plus-year-old shack into a home

• The one-liners - the reason for the movie's existence - are good, but not great with Benny trying hard to make average material funnier than it is as he both needles his wife for buying this white elephant and all the locals for fleecing them

• Along the way, as troubles mount - no water from the always-being-drilled well, loss of the house's only access road, insanely leaky roofs, and on and on - the family also, naturally, fall in the love with the slowly-being-restored house and the warming-to-them locals

• The climax comes as the money runs out, the bank is about to foreclose and their rich uncle (Coburn) turns out not to be rich, necessitating a deus ex machina to save the day

• As noted, if this all sounds familiar to Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House, it's because it's, pretty much, the same story. Overall, the Blandings' version is a bit slicker, and Grant's more-subtle humor is more to my taste than Benny's "yak-yak" style, but both are reasonably enjoyable movie cognates

 

[Fading Fast]

Sweet Bird of Youth from 1962 starring Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, Shirley Knight and Ed Begley

You enter a Tennessee Williams world at your own risk as despair, shattered dreams, broken lives and crushed souls await. The only real differences from play to play are the particular human afflictions on display.

Compared to your run-of-the-mill movie, Sweet Bird of Youth is pretty good stuff, but in the Williams' plays-turned-into-movies oeuvre, Bird feels like a poor man's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Most of the same dysfunctional family pieces are there, just arranged a bit differently, but it's not as impactful (read, soul crushing) as Cat is.

In Sweet Bird of Youth, Newman plays an aging pretty boy returning to his home town with a "patroness" in tow. He claims he's on the brink of a movie career, but he's really a gigolo / gofer for this aging Hollywood star [Page] whose career is in a downturn. Newman has returned to "get his girl back -" the daughter (Knight) of the town's corrupt political boss (Begley) who, pretty much, forced Newman out of town when no-prospects Newman tried to marry his daughter some years ago.

Making things worse - as they always are in a Williams world - Newman's patroness is an alcoholic and drug user (smoking marijuana is surprisingly shown) who is alternately kind and viciously mean to Newman who returns the favor. The majority of the movie is watching these two - secluded in a suffocating hotel suite in town - tear each other down and, then, somewhat make up when they realize that all they have is each other. It's honest, but exhausting.

When we do get out of that oppressive hotel room, we see Newman trying to get in touch with his former girlfriend, whose father, the aforementioned political boss, is doing everything he can to thwart a reunion, even unleashing his mentally unstable son (that Williams' touch again) to threaten and rough up Newman. Newman and the former girlfriend meet a few times, old sparks fly, but old baggage weighs (spoiler alert) as their last pairing and parting resulted in an abortion, whose public revelation is now threatening her father's political career.

And on the dysfunction goes: Town-boss Begley mentally and physically abuses his tucked-away-at-the-hotel mistress, while playing the wholesome family man in public. And sitting in the middle of the simmering abortion scandal is the young doctor who performed the illegal procedure on Knight when Newman left town. He's been promoted, before his time, to head of surgery at the local hospital owing to Begley's influence. Furthermore, the doctor is now engaged to Knight who, by now, is all but numb to everything being thrown at her.

Okay, that might be a lot to follow in a brief summary, but it is a bit easier to keep up with all the human wreckage as it unfolds on screen in over two hours. The conclusion (no spoiler alert, you'll have to watch the movie) was, according to TCM, watered down from the play owing to the remaining influence of the movie production code. But the conclusion, ugly and unpleasant as it is, is not that important as Tennessee Williams' goal, as always, is to show broken people breaking some more. Mission accomplished.

 

[steve u]

Just finished Takashi Miike's
Hara-Kiri -- Death of a Samurai . A remake from the original Harakiri(1962) with the great actors,Tatsuya Nakadai and Tetsurô Tanba.
Takashi Miike held to the original until the very end. Miike's set design and use of color is stunning compared to the B/W 1962 version.
For $5.00 delivered it was a great deal and a good watch...But the original, well it's a CLASSIC!
steve