What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

Every morning with my second cup of coffee, I do a scan of all movies on my cable system for the next 24 hours. It's time-consuming to page through, but I frequently find stuff playing at odd hours or on off-my-radar channels that I'm interested in, and set the DVR.

Even so, I find that I still miss stuff - there's just too much "content" out there these days...

So true. I do a variety of things - scan the cable's on-line "guide" like you do and, also, I'll check TCM's schedule on line a lot. Additionally, I've signed up for emails from some of the streaming services we get - Amazon and Netflix. But like you, we still miss stuff.

 

[scottyrocks]

I wish I'd known this was on yesterday. By the time my wife and I settled in after dinner and walking our dog TCM was airing Carry on Cabby (1963) which we both found okay, but lacking. After that was Taxi Driver (1976), which I've never cared for, and Night on Earth (1991), a Jim Jarmusch movie that's essentially a collection of five vignettes involving cab drivers and their passengers in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki, during the same night. It's worth seeing at least once, unless you dislike Jim Jarmusch movies.

I had seen both Taxi Driver and Night on Earth many years ago. TD was good for one viewing for me, and that was it. I can only so much De Niro, especially when he is the lead character. Too generally obnoxious tough guy for me.

Night on Earth I found fascinating. I'm really fuzzy on the specifics (as I am with many things these days), but I know I was very moved by the whole thing. I missed it yesterday, but would like to see it again.

 

[scottyrocks]

Kong, Skull Island (Yay!), Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (YAY!!) and the new Fantastic 4 (Boo Hiss)

I saw Kong: Skull Island on TV recently with my daughter. I'm just glad I didn't pay movie ticket prices to see it.

 

[Zombie_61]

I had seen both Taxi Driver and Night on Earth many years ago. TD was good for one viewing for me, and that was it. I can only so much De Niro, especially when he is the lead character. Too generally obnoxious tough guy for me...

I like De Niro, it's Scorsese (or rather the movies he has directed) I don't care for. I saw Taxi Driver the first time only because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about; I'm still trying to figure it out. The first movie he directed that I saw and actually appreciated was Goodfellas, and it wasn't until Gangs of New York 12 years later that I could begin to say I saw some value in his work. I'm still not a fan, but I have seen and liked The Aviator, and The Departed.

...Night on Earth I found fascinating. I'm really fuzzy on the specifics (as I am with many things these days), but I know I was very moved by the whole thing. I missed it yesterday, but would like to see it again.

I've been a fan of Jim Jarmusch's movies ever since a friend convinced me to see Down By Law back in 1986. I can't say I've seen all of them, but I've enjoyed all of the ones I have seen.

 

[scotrace]

Stephen King's IT.

As my friend said "That was what they call a MISTAKE." Not cause it was bad, but because it scared the bujeebers out of us!

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Watched Kansas City Confidential again, for the I-can't-rememberth time. John Payne gets to cover all the emotional bases (regular joe framed, bitter against the system, driven to find out who pulled the job that dragged him into the crime, tough guy when the going gets tough), and Preston Foster is solid, but the co-stars, wow-- Neville Brand, Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef. Great noir combined with heist film.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Werner Herzog's documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about the cave in France with the 32,000-year-old cave paintings. Very interesting, and the paintings themselves - photographed with much brighter lighting than the torchlight and firelight of our ancestors - are remarkable, coming to us across the millennia, stirring something still central in our humanity.

 

[Fading Fast]

"A Hole in the Head -" 1959 staring Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Edward G. Robinson and Thelma Ritter

• You never know what you're in for with a Frank Sinatra movie or a Frank Sinatra performance - you can get anything from mailed-in garbage to an Oscar worthy movie and acting

• This one sits firmly in the middle - just when it's getting a little too cute / a little too Disney, some grit comes along to save the day

• Frank is a small-time, all but-failed, Miami hotelier trying to keep his hotel while also promoting a way-over-his-head land development deal to, finally, hit it big and put him and his son (Frank's a widower) on easy street

• He reaches out to his successful, pragmatic and a bit-jealous-of-Frank brother (Robinson) and his wife (Ritter - who can really act and had one heck of a career despite being all but unknown today) for a loan, but since this dance has happened a few too many times before, the brother is against it while the wife just wants to help everyone

• The brother and wife offer a loan if Frank will "settle down" and marry a nice woman (enter widow Eleanor Parker) and drop his kooky, free-spirit girlfriend played passionately by a young Carolyne Jones

• With all those pieces in place, the movie pivots around Frank's need for money, his desire for freedom (sexual and every other kind), his pull to be practical and keep his son and his dreams to hit it big

• It all takes place in super Rat-Pack cool, late-'50s Miami with Art Deco, tail-fins and bright-colored suits everywhere

• Uneven, but a solid movie that surprised me by having more true human emotion to it than the cheesy, Rock-Husdon / Doris Day opening credits lead you to believe - the characters become three dimensional and their struggles real

 

[Fading Fast]

"Suspicion"

• Great example of how the journey is more important than the destination in Hitchcock movies - you care about the characters and enjoy seeing them respond to changing situations throughout the movie and, even if you are rightly disappointed by the ridiculous ending forced on Hitchcock by the studios, you don't care because the rest of the movie is just that good

• This and "Rebecca" our Joan Fontaine's best movies by far - how did she not end up with a longer list of great movies?

• Cary Grant's wardrobe is unbelievable in this one - the man could wear Golden Era clothes better than almost anyone

"People Will Talk"

• My third or fourth time seeing it and it is more enjoyable each time as it's a movie of faith, philosophy and whimsey that works better when you have the plot down and can focus more on the personalities, the magic, the wonder

• Grant - as he also does in "The Bishop's Wife -" can convey an angel-on-earth mien in a convincing and enjoyable way

• And once again, his wardrobe is outstanding Golden Era perfect

• One of the best model train scenes in any movie

"The Princess Comes Across"

• Sloppy movie with a janky plot and uneven pacing that is only somewhat saved by Fred MacMurray and William Frawley
  • Frawley looked old when young, when middle aged and when old, but it worked for him
  • Normally he does a good job in a bit role; here, he's more the glue to this unnecessarily confusing plot

• I like Carole Lombard, but like Joan Fontaine, I wish she had made more good movies and less nonsense like this

 

[Touchofevil]

I like that 10am on Sunday is "Noir Alley." Sadly, it shows you how susceptible to marketing I am. I now check what's on at 10am on Sunday on TCM and, more often than not, watch or record it. I am not that way with all channels, but TCM does own me.

It would be nice if it (Noir Alley) started a little later than 7 am. I try to sleep in on Sunday mornings, but N.A. Makes it difficult to do so.

 

[Fading Fast]

It would be nice if it (Noir Alley) started a little later than 7 am. I try to sleep in on Sunday mornings, but N.A. Makes it difficult to do so.

It's a perfect 10am here on the East Coast - but with a DVR, I record half of them and watch them at a later time anyway. You got the good weather out there / we got the better N.A. time here.

 

[Touchofevil]

It's a perfect 10am here on the East Coast - but with a DVR, I record half of them and watch them at a later time anyway. You got the good weather out there / we got the better N.A. time here.

I don't know that anyone is getting the good weather. It is either too hot or (the past two years) too wet. If that is considered the good weather, your weather really sucks.

I complain and yet the weather has been nice the past few days with more forecasted for the following week. And the heat is nice for the pool temperature and I benefit nicely from that. So I guess we are even.

 

[Touchofevil]

In A Lonely Place on TCM's Noir Alley.

 

[Doctor Strange]

La La Land on HBO last night. I didn't out and out hate it as I feared I would, but I found plenty of cringeworthy and unoriginal (as in ripped off from older/better films) things in it. However, it displays a lot of excellent craft, and Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling have enormous charm, and they clearly worked very hard on it (e.g., Gosling learned to play killer piano.) And I'm impressed that it was shot on film and real locations. But I wish the music was better, and that there was a bit less overwrought overkill in the production design and plot melodrama.

Two other thoughts: 1 - OF COURSE it won a ton of awards, it's yet another self-aggrandizing entertainment-biz piece of the type that Hollywood always honors out of all proportion (see Best Picture winners The Artist, Argo, Birdman). 2 - I predict that vast numbers of current middle-school girls and gay kids are going to have rougher lives because of this film: the idealization of the love story that reaches epic proportions in the Griffith Park Observatory planetarium sequence is going to create a lot of even-more-than-usual starry eyed romantic idealists!

 

[Fading Fast]

In A Lonely Place on TCM's Noir Alley.

The movie's grown on me over the years.

 

[Doctor Strange]

It's my favorite Bogart film.

 

[Fading Fast]

La La Land on HBO last night. I didn't out and out hate it as I feared I would, but I found plenty of cringeworthy and unoriginal (as in ripped off from older/better films) things in it. However, it displays a lot of excellent craft, and Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling have enormous charm, and they clearly worked very hard on it (e.g., Gosling learned to play killer piano.) And I'm impressed that it was shot on film and real locations. But I wish the music was better, and that there was a bit less overwrought overkill in the production design and plot melodrama.

Two other thoughts: 1 - OF COURSE it won a ton of awards, it's yet another self-aggrandizing entertainment-biz piece of the type that Hollywood always honors out of all proportion (see Best Picture winners The Artist, Argo, Birdman). 2 - I predict that vast numbers of current middle-school girls and gay kids are going to have rougher lives because of this film: the idealization of the love story that reaches epic proportions in the Griffith Park Observatory planetarium sequence is going to create a lot of even-more-than-usual starry eyed romantic idealists!

Good point about Hollywood, um, er, um, making itself happy over a movie about how special Hollywood is. And, like point one, Hollywood has been selling an over-the-top romanticized version of love forever. My girlfriend and I marvel at how many '30s movies have the two stars fall in deep love after having only met once or twice. We are always like, "what?" you've spent ten minutes together, give me a break.

ICYC, here's my comments on "La La Land:" http://www.thefedoralounge.com/thre...ovie-you-watched.20830/page-1168#post-2244981

 

[Fading Fast]

It's my favorite Bogart film.

Bold call, but I respect it - the entire movie is carried on his thin and stooping shoulders.

 

[robrinay]

Galaxy Quest - very funny glad I missed it first time round cos I needed it to cheer me up last night

 

[Doctor Strange]

ICYC, here's my comments on "La La Land:" http://www.thefedoralounge.com/thre...ovie-you-watched.20830/page-1168#post-2244981

Well said, sir! I felt very similarly.

As (very) uneven and (overly) familiar as most aspects of this film are, I give it credit for having a vision and working very hard to realize it. I always prefer to see something overly creative vs. the pedestrian, even when the creativity is too much and/or doesn't have the expected impact.

I agree that it would likely fail and be nearly forgotten as just a vaguely interesting experiment... but Stone and Gosling have the sheer charisma, dazzling attractiveness, palpable romantic chemistry, and solid acting chops to keep it from sinking into its too-precious production.

Better than I was expecting, if still kind of a mess.