What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Benzadmiral]

In the same genre, I just started "Double Indemnity" by James M. Cain. Based on Mildred Pierce, which I read last year, and the Stanwyck / MacMurray movie, I'm optimistic this is going to be a good read. I'm really excited to see the book version of the Keyes character.

My 1970 edition of Cain's three most famous novels has an intro by Tom Wolfe (he of the white suits, flowing/startling sentences, and Dickens-ish novels). He said that reading a book by Cain was like climbing into a stock racing car, and the driver (Cain) has already hit 60 before you can close the door. The hospital scene in the novel of Mildred Pierce which involves the little sister -- you don't want to continue reading it, but you have to.

 

[Zombie_61]

Chandler liked his tricky, convoluted plots. His Philip Marlowe stories always seemed more tangled, plot-wise, than Dashiell Hammett's -- at least when we compare Maltese Falcon (the novel, though the Bogart version is very faithful to it) and Big Sleep. A Chandler novel, or even shorter piece, would have something like "Persons A, C, and E are killed, but not all by the same person; B bumped off A, D took out E, but E shot C before he himself was offed."

(Hey, not a bad outline for a story --!)

According to IMDb, William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett were working on the script when they realized they couldn't figure out from the novel who killed one of the characters. They called Raymond Chandler, who angrily told them it was right there in the book. Chandler soon phoned back to say he had looked at the book and couldn't figure it out himself, so he left it up to Faulkner and Brackett to decide. Apparently Chandler's plots were occasionally so tricky and convoluted that he himself couldn't figure 'em out.

 

[2jakes]

I always liked the movie, but for decades never fully embraced it because I could never fully follow it.

Then I read the book and learned the plot, so now I thoroughly enjoy the movie as I can just appreciate its value as a film without being frustrated that I don't know what the heck is going on half the time.

That said, while I really like the movie and love the bookshop scene, I enjoy "The Maltese Falcon" as a movie more.

"The Big Sleep” followed by “To Have & Have Not” with “Dark Passage" in third place.

Reason: Bogie & Bacall chemistry.

I view "The Maltese Falcon” as a league of it’s own.

Same with “Chinatown” (Jack Nicholson)

There is no comparison with these gems.

 

[scotrace]

We tried to watch "The Ghost Story," but bailed a few minutes in. Too artsy for me, with a multi-minute single shot of Rooney Mara eating a pie. I get it. She's EATING. PIE. Move along.

 

[HanauMan]

Watched the 1949 film Shockproof this afternoon starring Patricia Knight and Cornel Wilde. Wilde plays a probation officer looking after a stunning Patricia Knight who plays a murderess just released from prison after 5 years for murder. In the course of the film he gets her to go straight, they fall in love and marry, she shots her former boy friend, then she and Wide go on the run. It all ends well, the guy she shot survived (and dropped the charges against her), we find out that she hadn't killed anyone to begin with and was a fall guy, as it were, and they all live happily after. Some very evocative period shots of California in the late 1940s and the usual sentimental family stories of the time (blind mother, much younger brother etc), the ending is a bit contrived but standard for the period. I believe that Wilde and Knight were a married couple in real life.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Fried Green Tomatoes" 1991

• All of the moderns scenes should have been removed to make it a better movie
• The story is basically cliches written to appeal to modern sensitivities
• But the movie captures a beautifully stylized version of the South in the '30s
• The diner in the movie is gorgeous, possibly the best looking diner ever
• Watch it for its 1930's idealized beauty, let the hackney, by-the-numbers, nothing-new story float by (and try not to cringe too much at the 1990s scenes)

 

[Bushman]

Trick R Treat, a freaky and unnerving number following 4 tales of Halloween horror. Really puts you in the mood for the season.

 

[Worf]

"Lord Jeff" - An interesting take on the British version of "Boys Town". Half-bad boys are sent to various campus' where they learn trades that will allow them to become productive members of society. However unlike Boys Town they don't rely on religion but love of country. Freddy Bartholomew is a pre-teen mixed up with a gang of grifters who steal a priceless necklace but leave him holding the bag. He lies his way out of hard time at a reformatory but they don't let him off scot free. Instead they send him to a campus that trains men for the Mercantile Marine (Merchant Marine). What happens after that is a carbon copy of Boy's Town, Freddy finds out the true meaning of loyalty and must choose between being loyal to his school or his old gang. As if this weren't already a carbon copy of sorts they even ring in Mickey Rooney as one of his classmates. Still despite the derivative nature of the film. I enjoyed it.

Worf

 

[Bushman]

Fright Night - creepy vampire classic from the 80s. Effects are dated, but the story is still fun nonetheless.

 

[AmateisGal]

The Berlin Express.

Not as good as I'd hoped, but still enjoyable.

 

[2jakes]

Hotel Berlin (1945)
Hoping it’s better than “Berlin Express”

 

[Zombie_61]

Fright Night - creepy vampire classic from the 80s. Effects are dated, but the story is still fun nonetheless.

Don't bother with the 2011 remake. Better effects and good performances, but it's completely lacking the camp values that made the original so much fun.

 

[fiftyforfifty]

Killers (Ashton Kutcher)

it was ok!

 

[AmateisGal]

Hotel Berlin (1945)
Hoping it’s better than “Berlin Express”

I really like Hotel Berlin! And yes, better than Berlin Express.

 

[Bushman]

Don't bother with the 2011 remake. Better effects and good performances, but it's completely lacking the camp values that made the original so much fun.

Yeah, I've heard. The movie is campy, but it really does a good job creating that "creepy abandoned house at the end of the street" trope that is so common in horror movies. It's not anything new, but it does a really good job with the already established. It's easy to go too "Scooby-Doo" with the abandoned creepy nieghborhood house, and while this one verges on it, it also does a good job keeping the interior itself restrained to where there's no "Disney's Haunted Mansion" level cobwebs littering the place, as fun as that would be.

 

[jacketjunkie]

I saw Blade Runner 2049 last night and to my pleasant surprise, they didn't mess it up. It's actually a decent sequel. They got the tone right, they got the music right, they got the themes right, and not in a exactly the same, repetetive unoriginal way, but with fresh ideas, perfectly weaving new and old. The storytelling I actually like better in this one than in the first one which I still remember watching the first time and and scratching my head afterwards. Cinematography is great, acting is good, sound editing.. mhm I felt it was too loud at first but I grew to like it. For anyone who liked the first one, I can recommend it. It's certainly not for everyone though, I watched it with a bunch of friends and not all liked it. If you're into easy entertainment and fast-paced action, you know, stereotypical hollywood movies for a fun night out, this won't be for you.

 

[Bushman]

Last movie was the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It was freaky, a tad unnerving, but most of all an exceptional example of German Expressionism.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Vera Cruz. Lancaster's smile is like a joyful shark, even more so when he smiles in reaction to differing plot points (betrayal, trapped, one-upped by Cooper, finding where the loot is). In my rotation along with The Magnificent 7 and Major Dundee.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Hotel Reserve" 1944 starring James Mason

• If you want to see how a Hitchcock movie turns out without Hitchcock at the helm, this is your chance
  • Innocent "regular guy" charged with a crime he didn't commit and now has to clear his own name
  • Pretty girl is kinda his partner but neither is sure of each other
  • A bunch of internal espionage intrigue going on / shady characters abound
  • A MacGuffin (a camera in this case) drives it forward
  • The people and their immediate plight matter, the MacGuffin isn't something you really care about

• But without Hitchcock at the helm, it is all a bit flat
  • Mason does an admirable job as the falsely accused innocent, but the script is awkward and dialogue uneven
  • The movie never jells and the tension doesn't build like it should
  • Most of the characters are two dimensional - only Mason and his pretty girl partner feel real

• That kid Hitchcock has a future directing - what he does might follow a formula but it isn't formulaic - it takes a director to bring it to life

• If Cary Grant's voice is already taken, then I'll take James Mason's for mine when I come back in my next life

 

[MisterCairo]

Dark Shadows (Johnny Depp), part of the Hallowe'en cavalcade o' films...