What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

after football did Chatterley, all of it and might have another go with Lawrence later. Take it.
Lawrence slammed the class chattering porcelain right. She's not the strumpet girl but intellectual reader
with the normal biologic tasks. Now the husband lordship is France and chaired for his duration sorry sadness
but handled by man well. She's to dalliance and the son will be raised together. She'll be his beard so to say.
Lady C. falls for gamekeeper. A fish, pheasant, hare poacher for his lordship's table. He's all gamecock for his
lord's wife so story pen quills them but gossip cooks goose. And she's preggers. The hired man was not what his
lordship intended for his Haggar. Not quite Abraham of the ruling class. Love it.

 

[EngProf]

Alright... alright... I'm not too vain to say it. I have absolute NO idea what you're on about. Perhaps I'm too old or too dense to "get" what you're aiming for but as my Dad used to say... "don't ask... can't git". In other words... a simpler answer please?

Worf

I don't get it either... I have given up trying to...

 

[Zombie_61]

Currently watching The Mummy Returns from 2001 starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Arnold Vosloo in the titular role. More fun than scary, I kinda' like this brief return to the franchise.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Killers from 1946 with Edmond O'Brien, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, William Conrad, Charles McGraw and Sam Levine


Film noir doesn't get much better than this.

The Killers' post-war noir-perfect style, story, substance and characters take you on a hundred-minute journey through a seedy world of back-stabbing gangsters, psychotic hitmen, an arresting femme fatale and a few weary heroes who slog through all the muck, only looking for the truth, as they've given up on justice.

The Killers opens with a ten-minute-long mob hit executed by two professionals, played with perfect cold detachment by Willian Conrad and Charles McGraw.

Their job has frighteningly become so mundane to them that they've developed an almost bored indifference, but still, quite methodical approach to their "work."

That opening scene - nighttime, a small peaceful-looking town, two professional killers, a few locals, a sleepy diner and, then, a ramshackled boarding house where the hit occurs - is one of the most-noir scenes ever filmed in movie history.

The movie then takes you through a flashback reveal of why that hit happened. Why was the hit man’s victim, a seemingly ordinary gas station attendant played by Burt Lancaster in his big-screen debut, rubbed out in this nondescript town?

Leading you on this journey is not a cop, but an insurance investigator, played by Edmond O'Brien (think Edward G. Robinson's character from Double Indemnity, but with looks and athleticism).

O'Brien is all but on his own in his investigation because his boss' only concern is the company's bottom line, not truth, justice or, God forbid, the American way, as almost everyone in this movie has given up on all of those beliefs.

The plot, which is a bit confusing in the slowly rolled-out and flashback way it's told, is about a heist gone wrong where, six-years later, some of the bad guys are still trying to even the score.

What makes the movie a classic, though, are the characters and atmosphere. It's O'Brien doggedly pursuing the truth, as almost any good noir hero does, for nothing more than the self satisfaction of getting the truth.

He does it even knowing the world doesn't care about truth or justice or anything, but money and sex: a succinct summary of one of noir's overarching themes.

It's also Albert Decker playing the smooth mastermind of the heist whom we meet six years later as a legitimate businessman, but who might have executed one of the most-brilliant double crosses in crime history.

It's Ava Gardner who is so ridiculously beautiful that you do believe smart men will do very stupid things for her. Even better, she uses her head and looks with such cold calculation that it would chill your average femme fatale right off the screen.

Finally, it's all the character actors; it's Sam Levene as the honest police lieutenant happy to swim in O'Brien's wake; it's Jack Lambert as "Dumb-Dumb" who, as one of the gang, proves to be not so dumb when he's chasing down the money and it’s Ann Staunton as O'Brien's cynical but pining-for-her-boss secretary whom she only refers to, sardonically, as "dream boy."

There's more, though, as Lancaster himself is enigmatic as the washed-up-early prize fighter who turns to the numbers racket only to end up in over his head with both a woman and a gangster, so he winds up dead in a nondescript boarding house (it's not a spoiler as his murder is in the opening scene).

He's an earlier version of Brando's character from On the Waterfront if Brando hadn't had a union-boss older brother to get him a job when his boxing career, too, ended prematurely (ironically though, for Brando’s character, his career ended early because of his brother's venality).

The Killers has several other notable players as this is a movie in which every scene and every character is engaging and layered.

Film historians can fight over the meaning and definition of noir, but whatever they decide, The Killers' atmosphere of menace, amorality, violence and foreboding, combined with its warped good and bad guys and its femme fatale for the ages, makes it one of the few iconic, must-see noir movies.


N.B. Of course it's debatable, but it's also arguable Ava Gardner never looked more beautiful than she did at twenty-four in The Killers.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

My good man give a lad some notice! Ava my love. I've never seen this. Gave Chatterley romp after match Saturday last still its Lawrence not Lancaster there. Miss Gardner is all fire and flame she is. Postwar quite best of Hollywood's stable by far so keen. And Lancaster get it first to finish the fight and all. Splendid. Ava's the shag whatever the reel.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

12 O'Clock High (1949) directed by Henry King, with Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe, Gary Merrill, and Dean Jagger. If you have seen it, you know how good it is. If you haven't seen it, it is well-acted, well-directed, and free of filler.
Peck takes over a bomber group in order to prove the effectiveness of precision daylight bombing. The strain air crews experience is dealt with plainly.
Director King gives us several long static shots as the actors present their dialogue. Additionally, he occasionally sets up the camera to include the ceiling which made me (frustrated film student) think it was to show the characters trapped in their obligations.

 

[PeterGunnLives]

Gattaca. Slick and stylish, with a smart story.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

It's the Lawrence Tierney festival at stately Shellhammer Manor.

First, Shakedown (1950) thanks to Fading Fast's review. Howard Duff's character makes you gasp with disbelief at his snaky-ness. For a fuller, richer look, see FF's exemplary essay. Keep an eye open for the doorman at the nightclub: it's an unbilled Rock Hudson. We rewound to make sure.

Then, Step by Step (1946) with Tierney as the good guy. Here's IMDB's succinct encapsulation: Johnny, an ex-Marine, and Evelyn, a chance acquaintance, find themselves caught up in a plot involving Nazi spies in California. Lots of familiar faces and a pace that moves briskly.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Road House (1948) with top-billed Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm, and Richard Widmark, directed by Jean Negulesco. The road house in this case is not a crummy side of the road dive, but a really nice nightclub-fishing and hunting-bowling alley thing run by hard-working Wilde and fun-loving Widmark, with Holm as office manager and bookkeeper. Lupino comes on board as a singer. She's world-weary, sultry, and takes no guff off nobody. (It looks like Lupino did her own singing.)

As you may have guessed already, we get a love triangle just waiting to ensnarl itself. Things get ugly, and tensions ratchet up pretty high. Stay 'til the end for the edge of the seat denouement.

Negulesco gives us interesting shots with foreground focus and fuzzy backgrounds, some high overhead shots of cars driving away, a long take of someone walking from way back towards a conversation, and dramatic screen filling close-ups, without appearing to be showing off. His stuff is good.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Currently watching The Mummy Returns from 2001 starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Arnold Vosloo in the titular role. More fun than scary, I kinda' like this brief return to the franchise.

The Whale trailer is out and Fraser is without doubt the Oscar done and won.

 

[MisterCairo]

Annual toss is Sim or Scott as Scrooge. I suppose Miss York wins for me in George C's go with it,
never less is Sim with deliberate slip and deft handle. Dickens deserves that and more and Scott always
china shop bull ruffian charge in more Bard ba***rd with it. Woodward's ghost. Again, right touch. Marley's man
whose name eludes. And Sim's take while not the yesterday isn't quite present day wine now vinegar either.
Hence thumb a shilling for Scrooge.

Sim. The only one close, believe it or not, is animated Jim Carrey.

 

[MisterCairo]

Cairo Cavalcade of Christmas - Christmas With the Cranks, Jingle All the Way, and, natch, Die Hard.

 

[MisterCairo]

Tonight, on my ownsome, Deadpool.

Do not watch and drink beer at the same time. Quite messy...

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Sim. The only one close, believe it or not, is animated Jim Carrey.

Perused your Christmas dance card, quite select ecumenical taste. I'll keep with Dickens. 'Bah humbug.'

 

[Doctor Strange]

On Netflix, the new stop-motion version of Pinnochio by Guillermo del Toro.



This is NOT like the Walt Disney version (which we should recall also made major changes to the original 1800s serialized story, so it's hardly "definitive") but a completely different take. If you've seen Pan's Labyrinth (etc.), you know what to expect from del Toro: a fantasy/horror story that's equally gorgeous and scary, set not in some mythical past, but in post-WWI Italy as fascism is on the rise. Pinnochio himself is just the latest in del Toro's ongoing parade of sympathetic monsters.

The stop motion animation is fantastic, the best I've seen since Coraline. It's old-school, handmade stop motion... but extended a bit with modern technology (for example, as shown in the behind-the-scenes doc, in many cases green braces hold up the puppets when they're in unbalanced positions, which are then green-screened out in postproduction.) The sets, costumes, and character designs are incredibly elaborate and detailed. The story has its ups and downs, but it's never less than fascinating.

Recommended because it's just so beautiful and bizarre.

(It may be too scary for little kids, but honestly, it's not any scarier than the Disney version, which has been freaking people out since 1939!)

 

[Fading Fast]

New Morals for Old from 1932 with Robert Young, Margaret Perry, Lewis Stone, Laura Hope Crews and Elizabeth Patterson


It's easy to understand why New Morals for Old has all but disappeared today as, even for a pre-code, it's stagey, early-talkie clunky and slow moving in parts, but if you can see past all that, it is a good "circle of life" story with some pre-code sexual naughtiness tucked in.

The parents, played by Lewis Stone and Laura Hope Crews, of a wealthy New York family are worried about their two partying-every-night adult children. The son, played by Robert Young, wants to leave the family business to study painting in Paris and the daughter has become distant.

"The kids" feel very modern as they like to sleep in, ignore their parents, be casual in their manners and not take life seriously. The parents feel their kids are disrespectful and spoiled, but in their own words, "being modern parents," they try to give the kids space. Despite being ninety years old, the family's problems, adjusted for style and period norms, have a very contemporary feel.

The daughter, played by Margaret Perry, has become distant because she's dating a married man whose wife won't give him a divorce. In a very pre-code manner, she moves in with her still-married boyfriend, which rocks her parents, but what can they do?

Young, after his father passes, leaves for Paris, but quickly learns he doesn't have the rare talent to make it as an elite painter. He stays on in Paris, though, driven by pride, trying to scratch out a living as an artist.

While there, he also has a quick affair with a Parisian played by, get ready for it, Myrna Loy - looking incredibly young but with not-yet-Hollywood-tamed frizzy hair. Even so, she lifts off the screen with star quality. The affair, which quickly fizzled, is handled with an incredibly modern nonchalance.

The rest of the movie is "the kids" maturing and settling into more conventional lives as we see "the circle of life" assert itself.

The end of the story has an almost "Hallmark" feel, but the real fun in this one is seeing Young and Loy at the beginning of their careers, plus the always enjoyable Lewis Stone (soon to become Andy Hardy's father for several movies), once again, play a stern, but underneath it, compassionate dad.

It's also enjoyable to see stage actress and Broadway director and producer Margaret Perry in one of her three movie roles, as well as, veteran performer Elizabeth Patterson as the disapproving, but not mean-spirited aunt tsk-tsking all the "bad" choices "the kids" make.

Today, most couples live together before they get married and one-night stands and brief sexual relationships are no big deal. While those were "big deals" back then, you can also see how the young adults of that era still engaged in those activities. Human nature has a way of asserting itself regardless of the "rules," "norms" and prevailing societal pressures of the times.

The value of pre-codes like New Morals for Old is the four-year peek they give us today into the actual morality and sexual behavior of America in the 1930s, before the Motion Picture Production Code snuffed out so much real life from the big screen.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I thought that was Myrna Loy. Always class and looks.

 

[belfastboy]

The newly released version of "All Quiet on the Western Front". This is a brilliant piece of film making. Visually stunning, emotionally taut, well acted etc etc. This, to me, is a must see film. Even my wife who has an aversion to war movies/death and destruction found it riveting.

 

[Bushman]

Last movie I watched was Devotion. Despite both my grandparents having served in the war (maternal in the 9th Infantry and paternal aboard the USS Norris) I actually know very little about this war. So few movies are made about it. This movie definitely punctured my cerebral virginity. My grandparents never talked much about their time in their service, and I never really asked. My mother recalled her father only ever saying how cold it always was (and he was from Chicago!) The aerial photography was incredible, and the the acting very compelling. Definitely go see this movie!

Currently watching The Mummy Returns from 2001 starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Arnold Vosloo in the titular role. More fun than scary, I kinda' like this brief return to the franchise.

Returns definitely leaned more into the action angle than the horror angle than the first movie did, but it's still a fun adventure.

The newly released version of "All Quiet on the Western Front". This is a brilliant piece of film making. Visually stunning, emotionally taut, well acted etc etc. This, to me, is a must see film. Even my wife who has an aversion to war movies/death and destruction found it riveting.

All Quiet was a masterpiece. What I did not realize was that it was to be all in German. I had to quickly scramble to turn to sub-titles back on as I wasn't expecting a sub-titled movie.

 

[AmateisGal]

Bullet Train with Brad Pitt is actually quite good. I enjoyed it.

And even though I'm not a big fan of musicals, I gave the new Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds Christmas movie, Spirited, a try and thought it was fun! A different take on the original Christmas carol story.

I've been watching all the Christmas movies lately - yesterday it was Bell, Book and Candle, White Christmas, Elf, and Home Alone 2.