What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[BlueTrain]

I'm terribly sentimental, sometimes at very inappropriate times. Yesterday I was watching a YouTube video that was a short film (not a professionally produced film) showing German soldiers returning from Czechoslovakia and heading home to Germany. Every manner of vehicle was coming down the highway, from horse-drawn wagons to full-tracked vehicles. They had obviously surrendered, technically, although there were weapons visible. American soldiers were much in evidence along the highway. As background music, Marlene Dietrich was singing, in German, Lili Marleen. That's one of those songs that for some reason will always bring tears to my eyes. The German soldiers looked happy, though. That would have been about the same time that my father would have been returning home after a year's captivity in Germany.

I'm probably mentioned this before but I enjoy old B-movies, especially ones like the Charlie Chan, Lash LaRue, Nancy Drew and a host of others that were produced as series up into the 1950s.

 

[totallyfrozen]

Masterminds (2016).
I don't remember any good hats, but there were some epic mullets and long denim shorts aplenty.


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[Joe50's]

Tea for two 1950. Like the humour they used/

And the smart talking secretary

 

[Doctor Strange]

Christine (2016), about the Florida newscaster who committed suicide on the air in 1974. Sad and very well done, with a tremendous performance by Rebecca Hall as the desperately unhappy and disturbed Christine Chubbuck.

 

[Fading Fast]

Christine (2016), about the Florida newscaster who committed suicide on the air in 1974. Sad and very well done, with a tremendous performance by Rebecca Hall as the desperately unhappy and disturbed Christine Chubbuck.

Haven't seen the movie and will now look for it, but have seen Hall in other things and she is an outstanding actress.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I've also long been impressed with her... but she REALLY tamps down her usual charm and grace in this part. This character is so miserable, conflicted, insecure, panicky, and unattractive that it's a huge stretch for Hall... and she's excellent. Entirely different from the other roles I've seen her play.

 

[Doctor Damage]

"The Sicilian Clan" which I watched last night. Great 60s stuff, very stylish and atmospheric. The only downside is the now-ridiculous caper/theft in the second half of the movie, but everything else, including the ending, is outstanding.

 

[Fading Fast]

"The Tarnished Angels" 1957 staring Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack

• Based on the William Faulkner novel "Pylon" and set in the '20s, it focuses on the life of a former WWI ace and current barnstorming pilot (Stack), his wife (Malone), son and the reporter (Hudson) who wants to tell their story

• And the story is one of a frustrated ex-ace addicted to flying - and risk - to the detriment of his lovesick wife and softly ignored son who live barnstorm to barnstorm toting along a dedicated mechanic pathetically and hopelessly in love with the wife
  • Hudson is there as a reporter who wants to tell the story of the human tragedy of these four that others don't see

• As with all Faulkner that I've read (which is far from all of Faulkner), we're dealing with broken people breaking themselves and each other a bit more

• Other than Malone at times, the acting is pretty wooden, but is, IMHO, as much a fault of the screenplay as the actors

• As a movie it's flat, but there's good time-travel / period details and also it's interesting as you can "feel" that this was suppose to be a "important" movie that doesn't work

 

[Benzadmiral]

"The Tarnished Angels" 1957 staring Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack

• Based on the William Faulkner novel "Pylon" and set in the '20s, it focuses on the life of a former WWI ace and current barnstorming pilot (Stack), his wife (Malone), son and the reporter (Hudson) who wants to tell their story

• And the story is one of a frustrated ex-ace addicted to flying - and risk - to the detriment of his lovesick wife and softly ignored son who live barnstorm to barnstorm toting along a dedicated mechanic pathetically and hopelessly in love with the wife
  • Hudson is there as a reporter who wants to tell the story of the human tragedy of these four that others don't see

• As with all Faulkner that I've read (which is far from all of Faulkner), we're dealing with broken people breaking themselves and each other a bit more

• Other than Malone at times, the acting is pretty wooden, but is, IMHO, as much a fault of the screenplay as the actors

• As a movie it's flat, but there's good time-travel / period details and also it's interesting as you can "feel" that this was suppose to be a "important" movie that doesn't work

Sounds like it might be the only Faulkner novel I would like. I've been immured and marooned in the South most of my life, and have never felt I belonged here. So Faulkner's usual material of (I'm guessing) Southern whites, poor farms, pellagra, and toothpaste-eating children doesn't sing with me.

Faulkner did write a series of short stories about a lawyer-detective, Gavin Knight, set in his unpronounceable mythical Miss. county. Those are pretty good, though only one has a dazzling revelatory surprise in it. But they're interesting.

 

[EngProf]

I'm terribly sentimental, sometimes at very inappropriate times. Yesterday I was watching a YouTube video that was a short film (not a professionally produced film) showing German soldiers returning from Czechoslovakia and heading home to Germany. Every manner of vehicle was coming down the highway, from horse-drawn wagons to full-tracked vehicles. They had obviously surrendered, technically, although there were weapons visible. American soldiers were much in evidence along the highway. As background music, Marlene Dietrich was singing, in German, Lili Marleen. That's one of those songs that for some reason will always bring tears to my eyes. The German soldiers looked happy, though. That would have been about the same time that my father would have been returning home after a year's captivity in Germany.

I'm probably mentioned this before but I enjoy old B-movies, especially ones like the Charlie Chan, Lash LaRue, Nancy Drew and a host of others that were produced as series up into the 1950s.

Can you provide the name of the YouTube video? I'd definitely like to see it.
My dad finished the war camped just outside Pilsen, Czechoslovakia after liberating the city.

"Every manner of vehicle was coming down the highway, from horse-drawn wagons to full-tracked vehicles. They had obviously surrendered, technically, although there were weapons visible. American soldiers were much in evidence along the highway."
That is an excellent description of what was happening at the end of the war.

My dad didn't say much about what he did during the war, but did describe the massive German surrenders at the end. He said that they were moving East as fast as possible and would encounter individual Germans or significant units coming their way. The Germans would wave a flag or their arms and the GI's would acknowledge that they had been seen and then point to the rear. The Germans would walk past the US forces fully armed since no one was stopping to disarm them or to take prisoners in the usual sense.
He said that everyone knew it was over and no one was going to do any shooting. (The Germans' number one priority was escaping the Russians.)

 

[Fading Fast]

Sounds like it might be the only Faulkner novel I would like. I've been immured and marooned in the South most of my life, and have never felt I belonged here. So Faulkner's usual material of (I'm guessing) Southern whites, poor farms, pellagra, and toothpaste-eating children doesn't sing with me.

Faulkner did write a series of short stories about a lawyer-detective, Gavin Knight, set in his unpronounceable mythical Miss. county. Those are pretty good, though only one has a dazzling revelatory surprise in it. But they're interesting.

I respect Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, etc. - all those talented 1st half of the 20th Century Southern writers who limned the decay of the South, the hardship of the South and poverty of the South in incredible heartbreaking detail - but I am done reading them as I get it and don't want to be depressed by it any more.

While this story (I've only seen the movie, haven't read the book) is less pure Southern bleeding, it is still a depressing as heck story about broken people crushed by life and their own limitations - got it, check / don't need to read it.

It was fun to see Malone again, and while still quite stunning, the dewy youth and light joy of her looks and personality in "The Big Sleep" has given way to a harder edge in this move which is only ten years later. It fit the role well, but jarred me a bit as I still had her character from the "Big Sleep" filed under "Dorothy Malone" in my mind.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Rogue One, the latest Star Wars film, the one that's not part of the numbered main series.

I didn't like it at all, and am glad I'd decided not to see it theatrically last year. The characters were way too sketchily explained, the digitally-raised-from-the-dead Peter Cushing was Uncanny Valley city, and honestly, I'm sick of the damn Death Star, the dogfights, the endless chasms within giant installations, the missing parents of the protagonist, all the fan service appearances of characters from the first trilogy. And while it's a notable attempt to make a more "serious" Star Wars film that plays like a war movie... I missed the fun parts. Seeing this actually raised my estimation of The Force Awakens.

(Disclaimer: Though I've seen all the SW films multiple times, I've never taken them seriously. I was already out of college in 1977, and I recognized everything Lucas synthesized to come up with the first film - WWII dogfights, Kurosawa samurai films, Flash Gordon serials, LOTR, pulpy space opera, Campbell's myth theories, etc. - so it never seemed earthshakingly new and brilliant to me the way it did to everyone a bit younger. I have always enjoyed the films, but I don't venerate them. They're fun, but they're not the great myth of my youth like they are to so many.)

 

[Fading Fast]

"Chance at Heaven" 1933 staring Ginger Rogers and Joel McCrea on TCM last night

• Short pre-code (75 minutes), but packs a bunch in

• Middle class (McCrea) is reluctant to marry long-term and of-the-same-social-status (and awesome) girlfriend (Rogers), but falls head over heals for society girl who looks at a sweaty McCrea (he owns a gas station) and gets an itch for slumming it

• McCrea marries society girl, they both (at first) make an honest effort to make a go of it (McCrea doesn't want her money or connections) and Rogers' character shows a maturity few have at that age to take it in stride and remain friendly (and, smartly, in the mix)

• (Spoiler alerts) Society girl gets pregnant / her mother who's been plotting to break them up (she wants her daughter in a "proper" marriage) uses this opportunity to "take care of" her daughter / then a very obliquely implied abortion happens to finish the marriage / rich girl goes back to rich world / McCrea is devastated (he really loved her) and falls back into the handled-it-really-well Rogers' arms

Not the best pre-code, but give 'em credit, they fly by and aren't shy about taking on a bunch of issues that would be verboten once the code was enforce a year later.

 

[2jakes]

Primrose Path (1940)
*** This review may contain spoilers ***

"Though made in 1940, PRIMROSE PATH has the distinct feeling of a pre-Code movie. Living in the slums of what seems to be Monterrey, a poor family survives by way of prostitution. The grandmother (Queenie Vassar), a nasty, crusty old soul, is long past that life but seems to remember it well and with no apologies to anyone. The mother (Marjorie Rambeau) is the active member, aided by her friend Thelma, a high class call girl rather than a street hooker, but the mother, basically kind and generous, is herself getting very long in the tooth for this sort of thing. On deck is a girl of about seventeen (Ginger Rogers) for whom grandma has high hopes, or one might say low hopes, of continuing the family tradition, but Ellie May seems resistant to the idea and shields herself by acting and dressing younger than she is, i.e., prepubescent. There are also a younger daughter, too young to fully understand what is going on but enthusiastically taking grandma as a role model, and a hopelessly drunk father, college-educated but only the more pathetic for it.
The movie expresses enormous compassion for its humble characters. Beyond La Cava's efforts, we have universally strong performances from its cast members, perhaps most flashily from Queenie Vassar and Oscar nominee Marjorie Rambeau, but the heart of the film are Joel McCrea, showing more emotional pain than usual, and especially Ginger Rogers in one of her finest dramatic effort. Her character passes from pseudo-childishness to emotional maturity to threatened spiritual callousness, and Ginger makes it seem natural all the way.”
Author vert001

 

[Doctor Strange]

The BFG. Spielberg does Disney. Okay, but too long.

 

[Touchofevil]

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Beautiful cinematography.
Entertaining story.
Good acting.
Worth multiple viewings.
On the MGM channel right now.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Split Second (1992) on VHS-cassette, now.

Self-recorded in 2000.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Beautiful cinematography.
Entertaining story.
Good acting.
Worth multiple viewings.

Burt Lancaster didn't just have screen presence, he had SCREEN PRESENCE.

 

[Doctor Damage]

Split Second (1992) on VHS-cassette, now.

Self-recorded in 2000.

Nice! old school to still be using VHS!

 

[Trenchfriend]

Nice! old school to still be using VHS!

I will never watch it on DVD. That would kill the atmosphere for me, on my 51" CRT-screen!