What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[MisterCairo]

I saw The Lincoln Lawyer at my brother's. Quite entertaining...

 

[PeterGunnLives]

The DVD of John Ford's "Cheyenne Autumn" that I ordered hasn't arrived yet, so I watched Broken Arrow and White Feather. It's interesting how Hollywood used plenty of actual Native Americans as background extras, but for the NA characters with prominent speaking roles, they used Caucasian actors in makeup.

 

[2jakes]

The DVD of John Ford's "Cheyenne Autumn" that I ordered hasn't arrived yet, so I watched Broken Arrow and White Feather. It's interesting how Hollywood used plenty of actual Native Americans as background extras, but for the NA characters with prominent speaking roles, they used Caucasian actors in makeup.

I tried hard not to think of Sal Mineo as "Plato" and Ricardo Montalbán
promoting "corinthian leather seats".

 

[AmateisGal]

Casablanca was on the same time as the Super Bowl, so naturally, I watched Casablanca. Again.

 

[Harp]

... so naturally, I watched Casablanca. Again.

Ya gotta read Aljean Harmetz's The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II.
...oatmeal raisin cookies and hot chocolate absolutely required with this reading.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Casablanca was on the same time as the Super Bowl, so naturally, I watched Casablanca. Again.

If I'd flicked back and forth between them while dealing with the flu, I'd have gotten them all mixed up, and would have expected Captain Renault to be the coach of one team, and Major Strasser of the other -- and Rick as the winning quarterback!

 

[Benzadmiral]

Arrival - a surprisingly intelligent SF film about first contact with non-humanoid aliens, with Amy Adams as the linguist tasked with communicating with them. Very well done, and its big plot twist totally threw me.

I'll have to see this. Not often you have a linguist or a philologist (see the original Outer Limits episode "Soldier") as the central character in anything.

 

[PeterGunnLives]

Was the plot twist something like "It's a cookbook!"
Just kidding, don't tell me. I haven't seen Arrival yet.

 

[basbol13]

I tried hard not to think of Sal Mineo as "Plato" and Ricardo Montalbán
promoting "corinthian leather seats".

I know sometimes the actor can ruin the flick. But in this instance, Sal had bullets. Something positive. And wasn't that a Corinthian Leather Pouch he had?

 

[basbol13]

Funny ... might have had something to do with Flubber. The program was pretty advanced -- they have turn signals not seen until the '60s on civilian models.

Yeah, but you got to remember, it's a flying machine and don't they have lights on the wing tips? Red on the right and green on the left? And since this advanced aircraft doesn't have wings it stands to reason that the only logical place would be on the fenders?

 

[AmateisGal]

If I'd flicked back and forth between them while dealing with the flu, I'd have gotten them all mixed up, and would have expected Captain Renault to be the coach of one team, and Major Strasser of the other -- and Rick as the winning quarterback!

Haha!

 

[2jakes]

Haha!

Major Strasser must've been coaching the Falcons!

I'm sick with cold/allergy and
missed "Casablanca".
So I watched it on a download
I made years ago,
Forgot that it was a colorized
version compliments of Ted
Turner.
And here I thought things couldn't
get any worse!

 

[Fading Fast]

"Indignation"

Based on a Phillip Roth novel. While I did not read this one, I have read several Roth novels and am comfortable in saying that the day a young Phillip Roth discovered that his penis had additional functionality defined him forever.

You can even think of him as a more phallic-centric and darker Woody Allen. I know (!), how could you be more phallic-centric than Woody Allen? Hard to believe, but Roth is.

And where Allen and Roth both have the "overbearing Jewish family / guilt / responsibility hanging over some young son" thing down - Allen's has a bit of humor to it, a bit of "yea, so what, everybody's upbringing screwed them up a little." Not Roth; for him, it is a more oppressive, darker force.

In "Indignation," this all plays out in a movie that echoes and then departs from "School Ties" as both are set in the '50s at Christian schools where a Jewish boy is an outsider. But where "School Ties" focused on a boy passively denying his Jewish identity, "Indignation" amps it up with the Jewish boy - Marcus - acknowledging his Jewish birth but then publicly renouncing it and all religion as he declares himself an avid atheist.

Not surprisingly, this leaves Marcus socially alienated at the conservative school. But then he meets a Woody-Allen-like-on-the-surface protestant girl who proceeds to go to town on Roth's favorite body part, repeatedly. We soon learn, though, that this seemingly "perfect" blonde is not simply a bit kooky like Annie Hall, but is full-on, slit-the-wrists (literally) disturbed.

Again, this isn't Allen humor, it's serous human pathos that gets darker and more brutal - Marcus' mother basically uses the threat of divorce from his fragile father to break up Marcus' relationship with the girl. Also, playing on in the not-that background is a passive-aggressive dean who maybe has some good intent, but is also trying to push every emotionally disturbing button he can find on Marcus.

The climax ups the darkness again and, then, again. In the end, I was just exhausted. Maybe we grow and learn through these depressing, oppressive, emotional-disturbing windows into broken lives, dysfunctional families and human tragedy. But then, maybe, they just rake us through the coals for the author's catharsis. I don't know. Roth can tell a story and keep you engaged - if it's all worth it is a harder call for me.

 

[Fading Fast]

Major Strasser must've been coaching the Falcons!

I'm sick with cold/allergy and
missed "Casablanca".
So I watched it on a download
I made years ago,
Forgot that it was a colorized
version compliments of Ted
Turner.
And here I thought things couldn't
get any worse!

Hope you are feeling better.

I can't imagine how anyone ever thought colorizing "Casablanca" or any movie for that matter was a good idea. These movies made great use of their black and whiteness, just as "Gone With the Wind" did with color and "The Wizard of Oz" did by switching back and forth. The director knew he was shooting in black and white and designed the shots, lighting, cuts, etc. - as well as the editing - with that in mind. It's crazy to think you could just slap color on that and make it better.

The irony is, IMHO, it does less artistic harm to a movie to take away its color than to add in color to a B&W movie. I grew up watching most things on an old B&W TV and, other than the momentary shock when you see something in color that was in B&W your entire life, I can't say this or that movie was made dramatically better by color. Sure, "The Wizard of Oz's" wow moment of Dorothy coming out of the house is more impactful, but again, I was still wowed and scared by that movie when I saw it in all B&W for years as a kid.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Hope you are feeling better.

I can't imagine how anyone ever thought colorizing "Casablanca" or any movie for that matter was a good idea. These movies made great use of their black and whiteness, just as "Gone With the Wind" did with color and "The Wizard of Oz" did by switching back and forth. The director knew he was shooting in black and white and designed the shots, lighting, cuts, etc. - as well as the editing - with that in mind. It's crazy to think you could just slap color on that and make it better.

The irony is, IMHO, it does less artistic harm to a movie to take away its color than to add in color to a B&W movie. I grew up watching most things on an old B&W TV and, other than the momentary shock when you see something in color that was in B&W your entire life, I can't say this or that movie was made dramatically better by color. Sure, "The Wizard of Oz's" wow moment of Dorothy coming out of the house is more impactful, but again, I was still wowed and scared by that movie when I saw it in all B&W for years as a kid.

I first saw Body Heat, that 1981 counterpart to Double Indemnity, in B & W. It works even better that way.

 

[Benzadmiral]

"Indignation"

Based on a Phillip Roth novel. While I did not read this one, I have read several Roth novels and am comfortable in saying that the day a young Phillip Roth discovered that his penis had additional functionality defined him forever.

You can even think of him as a more phallic-centric and darker Woody Allen. I know (!), how could you be more phallic-centric than Woody Allen? Hard to believe, but Roth is.

And where Allen and Roth both have the "overbearing Jewish family / guilt / responsibility hanging over some young son" thing down - Allen's has a bit of humor to it, a bit of "yea, so what, everybody's upbringing screwed them up a little." Not Roth; for him, it is a more oppressive, darker force.

In "Indignation," this all plays out in a movie that echoes and then departs from "School Ties" as both are set in the '50s at Christian schools where a Jewish boy is an outsider. But where "School Ties" focused on a boy passively denying his Jewish identity, "Indignation" amps it up with the Jewish boy - Marcus - acknowledging his Jewish birth but then publicly renouncing it and all religion as he declares himself an avid atheist.

Not surprisingly, this leaves Marcus socially alienated at the conservative school. But then he meets a Woody-Allen-like-on-the-surface protestant girl who proceeds to go to town on Roth's favorite body part, repeatedly. We soon learn, though, that this seemingly "perfect" blonde is not simply a bit kooky like Annie Hall, but is full-on, slit-the-wrists (literally) disturbed.

Again, this isn't Allen humor, it's serous human pathos that gets darker and more brutal - Marcus' mother basically uses the threat of divorce from his fragile father to break up Marcus' relationship with the girl. Also, playing on in the not-that background is a passive-aggressive dean who maybe has some good intent, but is also trying to push every emotionally disturbing button he can find on Marcus.

The climax ups the darkness again and, then, again. In the end, I was just exhausted. Maybe we grow and learn through these depressing, oppressive, emotional-disturbing windows into broken lives, dysfunctional families and human tragedy. But then, maybe, they just rake us through the coals for the author's catharsis. I don't know. Roth can tell a story and keep you engaged - if it's all worth it is a harder call for me.

One of these days I need to watch the entirety of The Human Stain w/ Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins. The DVD I had was scratched or something, and it kept freezing up about 2/3 of the way through it. I know how it ends, but I don't know how the characters got there.

There are certainly some dark themes in that.

 

[Fading Fast]

I first saw Body Heat, that 1981 counterpart to Double Indemnity, in B & W. It works even better that way.

I'm comfortable I'm going to get pushback on this, but the original "Star Trek" series works, IMHO, as I first experienced it, better in B&W because it takes out a lot of the late '60s camp that the colors of everything from the uniforms to the planets they visited reflected. It makes the show more serious and, as a viewer, focuses you on the stories not the, I'm just going to say it, cheesy colors and sets.

 

[Doctor Strange]

My family didn't get a color set until just when Trek started running in syndication in 1970 (when I was 15), so I also originally saw most of it in b/w, and am tempted to agree with you.

But this means I also watched every other TV series of the sixties in b/w, including popular fantasy comedies like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. Do/did I take them more "seriously" because of it? Nope.

And conversely, having the excuse to rewatch Trek religiously because I was now seeing it in color, I found - back then - that the far-out colors definitely increased the sense of really not being on Earth, as its makers intended. Of course, this was long before anything about Trek was deemed "cheesy". You have to remember that Trek's futuristic look and effects work was pretty much as good as any SF feature film of the sixties... except for the towering exception of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which STILL looks better than 90% of the SF movies ever made.

(Aside: I've gone on record here for HATING the CGI effects that replaced the original models and opticals in the show's "remastering" of a decade ago. Sure, they redid the "cheesy" effects for something "modern" [and utterly undistinguished compared to the unique look of the originals] because younger viewers wouldn't watch it. Tell me, don't these same younger viewers find the other "dated" aspects of the show - the supersaturated colors, overwrought music cues, the sledgehammer symbolism, the Shatnerian bombast, etc. - render it just as difficult to watch? You don't have to answer: my own 26-year-old son, who I raised as a dedicated second-generation Trekker, won't watch the series anymore for those reasons.)

So I have to recuse myself from this discussion: back in 1970, the crazy colors did NOT detract from the drama. They successfully provided an out-of-this-world look that helped the show. You may be right that watching the show in b/w now might increase the drama quotient to Twilight Zone levels, but that's really a function of the viewer's age and experience when exposed to the show.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ Big picture, which I tried to emphasize in my first post, this stuff is pretty personal opinion based. To some extent, my experience with Trek was almost lab perfect. I was about 8 or so when I "discovered it" and we had two TVs.

A color one that I rarely got to use and a very old black and white one where I watched almost everything. I can't say I specifically remember the first time I saw Trek in color, but it was in the early '70s when I had an opportunity to see it on the color set.

There definitely was a wow moment, but my best efforts at isolating my kid memory of the time (from what I think now) is that I found my focus on the story better and the show felt more serous in B&W. But I'll emphasize, I don't truly know how much my experiences since then are effecting my memory.

I remember - or believe I do - having the same feeling about "Hogan's Heroes" where the show felt sillier to me as a kid when I saw it in color. In B&W, the prison camp and war felt more real, less goofy. This one, I think is a more accurate memory as it has only been recently that I've seen "Hogan's Heroes" again - for decades after being a kid, I never saw the show.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I never watched Hogan's Heroes. When it first aired, it was the height of never-again-Holocaust thinking in the Jewish community in which I was raised, and the overwhelming feeling was that there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING funny about a German POW camp, so my folks wouldn't watch it. (*) When I encountered it later as an adult, I thought it was just too idiotic, so I didn't find it worth watching.

(* Ironically, they had loved Stalag 17 a decade-plus earlier... but that was before they were parents or congregation members.)

But yes: these are all VERY personal feelings based on individual age/experience/exposure.