What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Julian Shellhammer]

711 Ocean Drive (1950) with Edmond O'Brien, Joanne Dry, and Otto Krueger, dir. by Joseph Newman.
Did someone review this a little while back?
If not, O'Brien is a telephone installer and electronics pro who joins up with a bookie operation to modernize their racket. But O'Brien is ambitious, a virtue in any other field except crime, and his climb to the top is fraught with danger.
It drives to the climatic denouement at Boulder Dam, maybe not as gripping as Mount Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty, but interesting nonetheless.
Cry Vengeance (1954) directed by and starring Mark Stevens, with Martha Hyer and former child radio actor Skip Homeier, who looks for all the world like Billy Idol. Railroaded cop Stevens tracks down those who framed him into a San Quentin sentence, tracing the leads to Ketchikan, Alaska, still a territory at the time. Those who confront Stevens get a rapid and vicious beat-down, which happens about four times in less than an hour and a half. When he finally connects with the bad guys, does he reap vengeance? We won't tell.
Sunset Boulevard (1950) co-written and directed by Billy Wilder, with William Holden, Gloria Swanson, and Erich von Stroheim. We watched this after viewing Remember WENN's spoof, The Sunset Also Rises. The Missus did not recall ever having seen the movie, so we tracked it down.
How in the world did Hollywood let this be made? The core of the story is septic delusion, working an angle, clawing out of the role of a peripheral cog in the dream factory assembly line, ethical and moral fluidity, and on and on.
Struggling screenplay writer Holden connects with once-great screen star Swanson, who wants him to re-write her script for a comeback. Real movie personalities mix with Wilder's characters, swirling together verisimilitude with caricature in a peek into the movie world.
I am assuming almost all regular FL'ers have seen this, so I won't go on. Breath-taking film-making.

 

[AmateisGal]

I watched the fun murder mystery See How They Run set in 1950s London.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

^ Miss Melissa, do see my last film The Pale Blue Eye. Set at West Point circa 1830 and lead by Christian Bale based on a literary foundation. An excellent murder whodiditz with cadet Edgar A Poe.!!! He's worth the ticket alone. Also lots there are of clues with inferences and whatnot but a Gordian knot tied package be warned. To unwrap this box some reason is required and then some. Netflix.

 

[PatinaPen]

The Outfit (2022), a one location thriller with Mark Rylance, now streaming on Amazon Prime. An English tailor, settled in Chicago, falls in with gangsters. It all takes place in the tailor's shop, but there is good use of different rooms within the location. It turned out to be a real hidden gem.
Writing with true suspense and good acting.

Added bonus for members here; Fedoras do make an appearance.

 

[AmateisGal]

I'l

^ Miss Melissa, do see my last film The Pale Blue Eye. Set at West Point circa 1830 and lead by Christian Bale based on a literary foundation. An excellent murder whodiditz with cadet Edgar A Poe.!!! He's worth the ticket alone. Also lots there are of clues with inferences and whatnot but a Gordian knot tied package be warned. To unwrap this box some reason is required and then some. Netflix.

l'll put it on my list!

 

[AmateisGal]

Tonight's movie: Amsterdam with Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington. It's set mostly in 1930s New York City.

I...don't know what to make of this movie. The pacing felt off, the dialogue was choppy, and the story was convoluted. I think it could and should have been much better than it was. Still, I enjoyed it if only because the costumes were beautiful and the performances fantastic. Christian Bale delivers a stellar performance, as usual.

 

[belfastboy]

"Dead for a Dollar"...IMDB gives it 5 out of 10. I think that fair. Not a good movie but not a real bad one either. Filled with cartoon characters and artifice it is a flawed style over little substance.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Tonight's movie: Amsterdam with Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington. It's set mostly in 1930s New York City.

I...don't know what to make of this movie. The pacing felt off, the dialogue was choppy, and the story was convoluted. I think it could and should have been much better than it was. Still, I enjoyed it if only because the costumes were beautiful and the performances fantastic. Christian Bale delivers a stellar performance, as usual.

View attachment 482174

Right out box its trailer bit. Bale always first class performance but script a slim jim and top name cameo marquee more than tad short substance. Margo and Ms Swift together with Bobbie Deeneerdowell fine yet not quite the mark.

 

[ton312]

It was absurd and I loved it.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Mask of Dimitrios from 1944 with Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott and Faye Emerson


Movies tell stories. Done well, they tell good stories that entertain. While it's nice if they also have some morally uplifting ideology or shine a cleansing light on dirty behavior, they exist to entertain first.

The Mask of Dimitrios tells a good story. Yes, there are several small homilies about greed and honesty tucked inside, but this Warner Bros. war-time picture's reason for being is to entertain.

Employing one of Hollywood's all-time oddest and best acting pairings - Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet - and set mainly in the intriguing east-meets-west Istanbul (as imagined on Warner's backlots and soundstages), The Mask of Dimitrios is an engaging tale of a nefarious crook, swindler and spy-for-hire.

Lorre, playing a writer of detective stories, after seeing the now putatively dead body of that famous crook, swindler, etc., in a police morgue and smelling a story, delves into Dimitrios' past.

Lorre's search takes him to various parts of Europe where he meets people who have known Dimitrios. Dimitrios, himself, is played here admirably, albeit a bit blandly by Zachary Scott.

Lorre learns that Dimitrios drove a meek government official to suicide after he bankrupted him in a scheme to have the clerk use his official access to get critical maps of Yugoslavia's defense, which Dimitrios sells twice as he swindled the first buyer.

We also see that Dimitrios has been involved in an assassination attempt of a high government official, uses women, like the clerk's greedy wife, played by Faye Emerson, for money and sex and has cheated too many people to keep track of, yet each time he's slipped away without being captured.

These scenes are shown in engaging, short flashbacks that, afterward, return us to the present day where an increasingly intrigued and amazed Lorre digs deeper into the story. Then, Lorre meets a former "partner" of Dimitrios, played by Sydney Greenstreet.

Having been swindled by Dimitrios and, even worse, having done jail time as a result, Greenstreet is on a revenge mission to get the money Dimitrios stole from him. Presenting himself to Lorre as an honorable man trying to right a wrong, the Greenstreet-Lorre pairing is the heart and soul of the movie.

Greenstreet, as usual, plays an amusing charmer who can outtalk anyone, but who also, underneath his mirthful surface equanimity, is a man driven by greed and passion. Lorre, as is his wont in these pairings, is the too-trusting little man who finally gets fed up after Greenstreet fools him one-too-many times.

It's a dynamic these two perfected in their movies and it's as fun as ever in this one. You can't help liking Greenstreet even when you know he is lying, but you also can't help feeling sorry for Lorre as Greenstreet twists him into knots. Without these two, The Mask of Dimitrios is just an okay fictional biopic of a mildly interesting scoundrel.

But with Lorre and Greenstreet, The Mask of Dimitrios is a fun trip through some dark corners of Europe as this oddball pair, each for his own reasons, team up to track the movements of a sinister international provocateur. It turns what could have been an off-the-shelf story into a truly entertaining picture.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Has anyone seen Tar? I've an October New York Times just now reading and read Michelle Goldberg's film review.

 

[AmateisGal]

Thanks to @FOXTROT LAMONT 's recommendation, we watched The Pale Blue Eye last night. Wow. Incredibly well done. Really enjoyed it.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I watched it too. I thought it was pretty good, had a great cast, solid production values. I don't know that that final plot revelation makes much sense, though it was an enjoyable surprise.

The actor who played Poe is Harry Melling. For those who can't place him, he was Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films, and more recently was in The Queen's Gambit, The Old Guard, and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

I live close to West Point and was interested to see how the film, which was shot in PA, not NY, used background plates shot in the Hudson Valley in its effects shots. The suicide cliff would be on Storm King Mountain, though there isn't any cliff like that near the standard hiking trails. In any case, the spectacular view across is the famous Breakneck Ridge and Bull Hill. The only digital retouching they did was to remove the road and railroad tracks that run though the Breakneck tunnel... apart from that, the whole area is wooded, protected state park, and pretty much looks the same as it did in 1830.

 

[Worf]

Has anyone seen Tar? I've an October New York Times just now reading and read Michelle Goldberg's film review.

I'd also like to know where I can find this film!

Worf

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I'd also like to know where I can find this film!

Worf

Tar is currently not available in the UK. Reel will notice whenev. A nice shove off to back burner.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We ran it in November. Todd Field, the director, is an acquaintance of mine, and we're sort of his unofficial home base away from Hollywood. It did very well for us, and I hope he doesn't wait sixteen years to turn out another picture.

 

[Edward]

View attachment 482273
It was absurd and I loved it.

Yes, watched that on streaming a couple of months ago. Big, dumb, silly fun. I do enjoy a good vampire picture. I also enjoy more nuanced vamps who are "only (sort of) human" as distinct from this more traditional good/ evil binary, but both can be very entertaining when done well - and this does it very well.

I watched it too. I thought it was pretty good, had a great cast, solid production values. I don't know that final plot revelation makes much sense, though it was an enjoyable surprise.

The actor who played Poe is Harry Melling. For those who can't place him, he was Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films, and more recently was in The Queen's Gambit, The Old Guard, and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

I live close to West Point and was interested to see how the film, which was shot in PA, not NY, used background plates shot in the Hudson Valley in its effects shots. The suicide cliff would be on Storm King Mountain, though there isn't any cliff like that near the standard hiking trails. In any case, the spectacular view across is the famous Breakneck Ridge and Bull Hill. The only digital retouching they did was to remove the road and railroad tracks that run though the Breakneck tunnel... apart from that, the whole area is wooded, protected state park, and pretty much looks the same as it did in 1830.

Harry Melling is a great performer. A very distinctive look, but I always forget his name and/or where I saw him because he commits, and disappears into, the character so well. Extremely expressive face, which he worked very well in Buster Scruggs (for all the obvious reasons). He was great as Poe; I think he'd be very interesting to see as a Charles Dexter Ward. I'm still hopeful that Lovecraft's works will get the big-budget, streaming treatment they deserve. I mean, if we can (and we can) enjoy Wagner nowadays....

 

[Doctor Strange]

Lizzie (2018), yet another film about the 1892 Lizzie Borden murders, with Chloe Sevigny, Kristen Stewart, and Jamey Sheridan.

Meh. Very, very slow moving, and with an extra-comatose performance by Stewart. (I've liked her performances on occasion, but here she doubles down on her internalized, sullen, placid mode almost to the point of being a non-character.)

Sevigny is good as Lizzie, and Sheridan is terrifying as her a-hole father; so is Dennis O'Hare as her even scarier uncle. But there's no "revelation" here about the murders, other than Stewart's maid "Maggie" (actually named Bridget) - who also provides some softcore comfort and affection for Lizzie - was sort of involved in the plan. Does that even matter?

Not recommended.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Thanks to @FOXTROT LAMONT 's recommendation, we watched The Pale Blue Eye last night. Wow. Incredibly well done. Really enjoyed it.

Catch any clues sprinkled out? I missed them all completely. A film that shakes me awake and makes me think about it and the world is best. Poe could have scratched out this and haunts me yet weeks past.

 

[AmateisGal]

Catch any clues sprinkled out? I missed them all completely. A film that shakes me awake and makes me think about it and the world is best. Poe could have scratched out this and haunts me yet weeks past.

Nope, I missed all the clues, too!