What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[AmateisGal]

Suicide Squad. Better than I expected.

 

[Fading Fast]

I watched the first half hour of this before I left yesterday, and liked what I saw. Unfortunately, I forgot to hit the "record" button. ...

It will be on again, and, in truth, you can probably imagine what happens, but seeing Loretta Young hold the movie together is worth it.

I love that the woman - Young - in this one is the smart one, the one who you trust to do the right thing, to figure out the problem, to hold "it" (work, family) together. Enforcing of the code ('34 on) forced movies like these out and brought in the movie's formula / construct of men's role being one of work and the head of the family and women's role being one of trying to get married, supporting the husband, etc. (I've ridiculously oversimplified this, but you get the point).

Here's a question, did the enforcement of the code and its circumscribed representation of gender roles change society / cause it to expect men and women to conform to these roles or was society moving that way based on other trends and institutions?

Worded another way, did the code's representation of American gender roles drive society or was it just a sideshow to what was happening?

If the code truly impacted society, that is a shame as, based on pre-code movies, we would have had a lot of the social / cultural changes - women in the workplace, women free to choose work, family, marriage, both, etc., more casual attitudes toward sex, etc. - that the '60s brought about thirty years earlier.

 

[basbol13]

The Duellists (1977) It won the Best Debut Film of 1977 at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a Ridley Scott film based on a Joseph Conrad short story The Duel ( Point of Honor in the US). Acting is great Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel and the photography superb. A story set during the Napoleonic Wars about a long standing duel. I would consider a must watch.

 

[Stearmen]

Oz The Great And Powerful (2013)

 

[DNO]

The Duellists (1977) It won the Best Debut Film of 1977 at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a Ridley Scott film based on a Joseph Conrad short story The Duel ( Point of Honor in the US). Acting is great Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel and the photography superb. A story set during the Napoleonic Wars about a long standing duel. I would consider a must watch.

Excellent movie, and a must watch as you say. Keitel was excellent. I think it was Scott's first full production and quite the debut.

I usually like Ridley Scott's work and I usually enjoy Christian Bale's acting but I just watched Exodus and was pretty disappointed. Quite a dull, plodding film. Ah well, we all have our off days...of course mine don't cost 140 million dollars.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Midnight Special, in which the parents of a very special child kidnap him from an insular religious community and try and outrun the FBI. Has a great cast - Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver, etc. - and some exciting sequences... but I just couldn't buy it. Not recommended.

 

[MisterCairo]

We watched Arthur Christmas again. What a lovely, funny film, definitely a "classic" in our home!

 

[Otter]

Suicide Squad. Better than I expected.

We bought my daughter the steel book extended version as part of her Christmas, so that will be our Christmas day viewing !

 

[Worf]

The Duellists (1977) It won the Best Debut Film of 1977 at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a Ridley Scott film based on a Joseph Conrad short story The Duel ( Point of Honor in the US). Acting is great Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel and the photography superb. A story set during the Napoleonic Wars about a long standing duel. I would consider a must watch.

I loved this movie, seen it several times over the years... I was deep into the Napoleonic era for a while. Talk about holding a grudge.. sheeeya!

Worf

 

[AmateisGal]

The Santa Clause with Tim Allen and then The Incredibles. The sequel, The Incredibles 2, will be out in 2018. They're keeping the plot a secret!

 

[2jakes]

Recorded earlier to enjoy it tonight!

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

The Duellists (1977) It won the Best Debut Film of 1977 at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a Ridley Scott film based on a Joseph Conrad short story The Duel ( Point of Honor in the US). Acting is great Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel and the photography superb. A story set during the Napoleonic Wars about a long standing duel. I would consider a must watch.

I saw this when it debuted in London. It was our first glimpse of what Ridley Scott was capable of. It was shot on an amazingly small budget. Having seen it, you'd swear that it was a big-budget movie. Scott just made you remember it that way. A full half of the budget went to the soldiers' elaborate uniforms, some of them made by the same companies that made the Napoleonic originals.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Miles Ahead - the second disappointing new musician biopic I've watched in a week (besides I Saw The Light).

Don Cheadle does fine as Miles Davis... but with such an interesting life, the film's having to invent a British music reporter who assists in the stealing and recovering of an alleged master tape of Davis' long overdue new record, and have the bulk of the film's running time be taken up with such never-happened nonsense, is an awful waste. There's plenty shown in the film that actually did happen, and it certainly has its moments for Davis fans.

But if you don't especially dig Miles' music, this film isn't really going to help clue you into what the fuss was about. It does a fine job showing what a difficult cat Miles was, but as to why he's a towering figure in jazz... not so much.

 

[Benzadmiral]

The final 40 minutes or so of Billy Wilder's The Apartment from 1960. Noticed 3 little details. Late in the film, when C.C. "Bud" Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is helping Fran Kubelik (Shirley Maclaine) recover from her suicide attempt in the early hours of Christmas Day, he's still wearing the shirt he wore to the office on Christmas Eve. His collar is unbuttoned and his tie undone, and his collar pin is still dangling from the right side of his collar.

A little later, he takes his safety razor from the medicine cabinet, and we see it's a butterfly type, where you unscrew the bottom of the shaft and the doors open for the blade to be removed or inserted. No idea if it's an adjustable, but otherwise it could well be a twin for the one I use. Bud seems to prefer shave foam in a can, though.

All of these things add to the realism of the scenes.

(Early this year I had fun writing a fan fiction crossover with The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and these two characters, married, 4 years later.)

 

[Fading Fast]

The final 40 minutes or so of Billy Wilder's The Apartment from 1960. Noticed 3 little details. Late in the film, when C.C. "Bud" Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is helping Fran Kubelik (Shirley Maclaine) recover from her suicide attempt in the early hours of Christmas Day, he's still wearing the shirt he wore to the office on Christmas Eve. His collar is unbuttoned and his tie undone, and his collar pin is still dangling from the right side of his collar.

A little later, he takes his safety razor from the medicine cabinet, and we see it's a butterfly type, where you unscrew the bottom of the shaft and the doors open for the blade to be removed or inserted. No idea if it's an adjustable, but otherwise it could well be a twin for the one I use. Bud seems to prefer shave foam in a can, though.

All of these things add to the realism of the scenes.

(Early this year I had fun writing a fan fiction crossover with The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and these two characters, married, 4 years later.)

I know the exact detail you mentioned about the collar - it is, for some reason, poignant - that, or we are both oddballs who notice those things.

But kidding aside, I think it is smart directing that highlights the exhaustion of it all at that point and the insignificance / superficiality of a "buttoned-up / pinned-collar smartness" in a world of shabby affairs and inequality amidst the hardships and struggles of life.

 

[2jakes]

Cape Fear. (1962) The original.

Much as I like De Niro's work.

No one defines "bad" like the Mitchum look.

That smile & eyes spoke volumes.

 

[Bigger Don]

Roaring Twenties...on TCM. Cagney. Bogart. Hats galore!!!!

 

[Touchofevil]

The final 40 minutes or so of Billy Wilder's The Apartment from 1960. Noticed 3 little details. Late in the film, when C.C. "Bud" Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is helping Fran Kubelik (Shirley Maclaine) recover from her suicide attempt in the early hours of Christmas Day, he's still wearing the shirt he wore to the office on Christmas Eve. His collar is unbuttoned and his tie undone, and his collar pin is still dangling from the right side of his collar.

A little later, he takes his safety razor from the medicine cabinet, and we see it's a butterfly type, where you unscrew the bottom of the shaft and the doors open for the blade to be removed or inserted. No idea if it's an adjustable, but otherwise it could well be a twin for the one I use. Bud seems to prefer shave foam in a can, though.

All of these things add to the realism of the scenes.

(Early this year I had fun writing a fan fiction crossover with The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and these two characters, married, 4 years later.)

Such a nice movie. Good story. Very good acting. And really nice cinematography.

 

[Doctor Strange]

The Apartment is my favorite Billy Wilder film, which if you know how many great movies he made, is quite a strong statement. It's just brilliant in every way.

And 2jakes, Mitchum is downright TERRIFYING in the original Cape Fear! It's tied with The Night of the Hunter for his scariest performance.

I watched the new DC Animated adaptation of Batman: The Killing Joke. I had read Alan Moore's graphic novel back when it was new (1988) and thought it brilliant, and it's clearly a HUGE influence on every interpretation of the Joker since, starting with Jack Nicholson in the Tim Burton Batman and Mark Hamill in B:TAS. But despite excellent designs and animation, and the always welcome voice performances of the B:TAS actors (Hamill as the Joker, Kevin Conroy as Batman, Tara Strong as Batgirl)... I thought it was badly paced, overlong, and didn't have anywhere near the emotional power I expected. Recommended only for Batman completists.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I know the exact detail you mentioned about the collar - it is, for some reason, poignant - that, or we are both oddballs who notice those things.

But kidding aside, I think it is smart directing that highlights the exhaustion of it all at that point and the insignificance / superficiality of a "buttoned-up / pinned-collar smartness" in a world of shabby affairs and inequality amidst the hardships and struggles of life.

I must admit I never noticed this detail in all the previous times, dating back to the early '70s, that I've watched this film. You're probably right about the highlight it provides. Always I wonder, though, if a creative person, writer or director, actually has such interpretations, or any "subsurface" meaning, consciously in mind at the moment of writing of filming -- or if he merely goes with what his instinct tells him works.

(I've done it both ways in my writing. It seems I usually have more out-and-out fun if I go with the "This works" feeling.)