What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[LizzieMaine]

And the "Columbia Favorites," even though they were probably nobody's favorite.

 

[Fading Fast]

...This practice is the reason movie credit titles usually listed copyright dates in Roman numerals -- the studios wanted to obscure the fact that not all the product they were releasing each year was up to date.....

And I always assumed they used Roman numerals to "class-up" the feel of movies.

....Poverty Row studios would reissue their stuff on the states-rights market ad infinitum to squeeze every possible dollar out of it.....

What does "states-rights market" mean?

...The Breen Office often required recertification even if a film had already gotten a certificate on its original release.

And, I'd guess, a new fee for the Breen Office (I assume movies paid to have their movies certified)?

 

[LizzieMaine]

States-rights was the way most Poverty Row/independent films were distributed in the Era. Rather than working thru a national network of film exchanges which they controlled, as the Big Studios did, or thru an operation like United Artists, as the major independent producers of the Era did, a states-rights producer would sell the rights to a film or a package of films on a territorial basis, usually state-by-state, to a regional exchange operator who would then book the film, usually into neighborhood-type independent theatres. Those rights would be valid for a certain period of time, but in practice a lot of these pictures were produced by fly-by-night companies that ended up abandoning the prints, leaving the local exchange operator to do with them as he pleased.

In the silent era a lot of quality films were distributed states-rights, but by the consolidation of studio power that came with the talkie age, most sound-era states rights films tended to be low-budget westerns, cheap melodramas, and various types of exploitation films. A disproportionate number of public-domain sound features were originally distributed on the states-rights market, and became the overwhelming majority of films shown on television before 1955. All those cut-up pieces of Grade Z westerns dropped randomly into episodes of "Captain Video" were 1930s states-rights pictures enduring one final indignity before vanishing into oblivion.

 

[Edward]

@Edward, the wife and I went to see TLJ on Dec 23rd.
I agree with everything that you wrote about Luke; he's never had so much to say, nor an opinion of his own before. Isolation seems to have made him a regular chatterbox!
I also agree that the 3 'prequels' would give anyone the impression that Luke was severely mislead by Obi Wan and Yoda as to the exact nature of The Force (there's some parasite thing in your blood, what? No one told Luke that!).
I didn't notice the gender thing (perhaps because gender roles seem so 'forced' in the new films to me- possibly due to the old Family Guy criticism about the original films that Leia was 'the only woman in the galaxy' in the original trilogy), but I think that's true.
I couldn't help but watch Laura Dern's final sacrifice and think, 'Gee, given the dozens of fighter pilots that died attacking that Star Destroyer at the start, why haven't the rebellion been using this tactic all along?', since it's clear by the end of the film that staffing levels in the Rebellion are pretty low.

I have to admit that I liked Rogue One much more. I felt that it was more grown up and darker. It made those points about terrorism/freeedom fighters much better. After all (as the old joke goes), when everyone cheers when the Death Star gets blown up, no one thinks about the cleaning guy on minimum wage, or the ladies in the cafeteria who just got blown up with it. RO was a much more nuanced film IMHO.

Completely agree on the darker nature of Rogue One: I think they were able to do a lot more there in part because of the liberating effect of not having to keep anyone around for the next instalment, with it being a one-shot and none of the characters being in Star Wars (as it's properly called).

 

[Fading Fast]

States-rights was the way most Poverty Row/independent films were distributed in the Era. Rather than working thru a national network of film exchanges which they controlled, as the Big Studios did, or thru an operation like United Artists, as the major independent producers of the Era did, a states-rights producer would sell the rights to a film or a package of films on a territorial basis, usually state-by-state, to a regional exchange operator who would then book the film, usually into neighborhood-type independent theatres. Those rights would be valid for a certain period of time, but in practice a lot of these pictures were produced by fly-by-night companies that ended up abandoning the prints, leaving the local exchange operator to do with them as he pleased.

In the silent era a lot of quality films were distributed states-rights, but by the consolidation of studio power that came with the talkie age, most sound-era states rights films tended to be low-budget westerns, cheap melodramas, and various types of exploitation films. A disproportionate number of public-domain sound features were originally distributed on the states-rights market, and became the overwhelming majority of films shown on television before 1955. All those cut-up pieces of Grade Z westerns dropped randomly into episodes of "Captain Video" were 1930s states-rights pictures enduring one final indignity before vanishing into oblivion.

Thank you (great info as always) ⇧

And thoughts on this ⇩

...And, I'd guess, a new fee for the Breen Office (I assume movies paid to have their movies certified)?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Indirectly, you could say that. The producers financed the MPPDA as sort of a "self regulatory" organization, and had to pay a thousand-dollar-a-yar membership fee for the privilege of submitting their films for certification, but it wasn't an individual-per-film fee.

 

[Fading Fast]

Indirectly, you could say that. The producers financed the MPPDA as sort of a "self regulatory" organization, and had to pay a thousand-dollar-a-yar membership fee for the privilege of submitting their films for certification, but it wasn't an individual-per-film fee.

So the recertification wasn't a money grab - I'd of lost that bet. My field of finance has a lot of self regulatory agencies. And while nothing is perfect, some have real (and sharp) teeth. I've heard more than one compliance officer complain about having to pay for the privilege to be fined when the regulator finds - as they do on almost every single exam - some small violation (I'm talking about the nitpicking stuff, not the truly bad stuff some firms do).

 

[LizzieMaine]

Brother Breen wasn't so much in it for the money -- he was paid well, but not Louis B. Mayer well -- as he was for ideological reasons. He was closely connected to Catholic ecclesiastical authorites, whose connections in turn went directly to Rome. For as much as the crypto-Fascists of 1930s America complained that "the Jews control the movies," in fact, what Americans were allowed to see on screen during the Era was dictated by the Vatican.

 

[Fading Fast]

Brother Breen wasn't so much in it for the money -- he was paid well, but not Louis B. Mayer well -- as he was for ideological reasons. He was closely connected to Catholic ecclesiastical authorites, whose connections in turn went directly to Rome. For as much as the crypto-Fascists of 1930s America complained that "the Jews control the movies," in fact, what Americans were allowed to see on screen during the Era was dictated by the Vatican.

Possibly the only thing worse than somebody who can be bought by money is an ideologue that can't. Kinda kidding, but not completely.

 

[Fading Fast]

Brother Breen wasn't so much in it for the money -- he was paid well, but not Louis B. Mayer well -- as he was for ideological reasons. He was closely connected to Catholic ecclesiastical authorites, whose connections in turn went directly to Rome. For as much as the crypto-Fascists of 1930s America complained that "the Jews control the movies," in fact, what Americans were allowed to see on screen during the Era was dictated by the Vatican.

All you had to do was watch a bunch of code-enforced '30s movies to feel the Christianity behind them. I say that with no scorn (sincerely), but it would be crazy not to see that Christianity (with a solid Catholic bent) - as understood in America at that time - was the overarching philosophy of the movies.

Edit Add: There's a funny - and I'm sure exaggerated - scene in "Hail, Caesar" where the studio head gets representatives of the major religions in the room to review a script for their implied sign off. Again, it's played for humor not realism, but a good scene none the less and - as good parody does - shows that movies at that time ('50s not '30s) were still hewing to either a code or the generally accepted values of the culture (the out-loud ones anyway).

 

[LizzieMaine]

More "churchianity" than actual Christianity, if you ask me, but otherwise agreed. Ideological purity was as absolute and as strictly enforced on the American screen as it was on the Soviet screen. The main difference was that the Soviets never pretended otherwise.

 

[Doctor Strange]

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Okay, I have hated nearly all of Guy Ritchie's films, but this is a contender for one of the worst films I've ever forced myself to watch to the end. It makes other recent "reimaginings" like Dracula Untold and Victor Frankenstein look like Shakespeare. It's got young Arthur - who grows up in a brothel - as a typical Ritchie underworld tough with a heart of gold, surrounded by the usual gang of colorful criminal oddballs... and Jude Law slumming for a paycheck as the under-explained villain... amidst an avalanche of incomprehensible CGI garbage portraying Camelot a la Game of Thrones/Lord of the Rings.

Only worth watching to marvel at just how enormous a trainwreck it is.

 

[Zombie_61]

The Maltese Falcon. No, not that one, the 1931 version (a.k.a. Dangerous Female) with Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade, Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderly (Brigid O'Shaughnessy in the '41 version), Dudley Digges as Casper Gutman, and Otto Matieson as Dr. Joel Cairo. Cortez' version of Spade is too glib and smug, and with the overall "cheesy stage acting" it's easy to see why this movie isn't as well-remembered as the 1941 version.

 

[Big J]

@Edward, for me, the real take away from RO was the depiction of the Force.
Because 'we' have seen Luke, Obi Wan, Darth (to his chums) actually using the force in the original trilogy, 'we' as viewers, have absolutely no doubt at all the the Force is real. I never even really thought about it as magic. It was just a given that a small number of people in the SW universe had this power.
In RO there is only Darth who has Force powers, and he hardly turns up (although he does use his powers when he does), but all of the other characters don't have any powers, don't know any Jedi (I don't think they've even seen a Jedi), and the Force is something they just believe in without proof, just like religious faith.
When Jen gets in the transport with her rebel group to go steal the Death Star plans, she says 'May the Force be with us'. She could just as easily be saying 'Allahu Akbar'. She is radicalized.
It's quite clever film-making, and definitely a product of our times.

 

[AmateisGal]

The Tender Trap with Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds and Celeste Holm.

Favorite part, of course, was when Frank was singing the song, "The Tender Trap" at the piano while Debbie Reynolds looked on. Man, he had a voice. Which is why they called him The Voice, I suppose.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Tender Trap with Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds and Celeste Holm.

Favorite part, of course, was when Frank was singing the song, "The Tender Trap" at the piano while Debbie Reynolds looked on. Man, he had a voice. Which is why they called him The Voice, I suppose.

You are spot on and "The Voice" prompted this from Bing:



Also, while I couldn't find it in a quick web search, I'm pretty sure Sinatra's "bachelor pad" from "The Tender Trap" was at 45 Sutton Place South in NYC and that he lived in it for awhile. When it went on sale years ago, the listing still referenced its connection to Frank and the movie even though, of course, Frank hadn't owned it for many years by that time.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Just previewed "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri," starring Frances MacDormand as a hard-bitten working-class woman consumed with rage over the unsolved rape/murder of her daughter, Woody Harrelson as the good-ole-boy small-town police chief who hasn't solved the case, and Sam Rockwell as a dumb, violent, comic-book-reading cop who may not be all he seems on the surface. This is, believe it or not, something of a black comedy, or so the reviews say -- but it came across to me as one of the best Westerns I've ever seen. There is no prairie, no sagebrush, the only horses only make cameo appearances, and it's set in the present day -- but it is, nevertheless, a Western in mood, in point of view, and in spirit. Highly recommended.

 

[Harp]

The Tender Trap with Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds and Celeste Holm.

Favorite part, of course, was when Frank was singing... Man, he had a voice. Which is why they called him The Voice, I suppose.

Old blue eyes notwithstanding, Billy Eckstine gets my vote as the best voice to emerge from the Big Band era. And later Vic Damone.
Frank's ok though....

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Sinatra has a voice that comes once in a lifetime. But why does it have to be *my* lifetime?"
-- Bing Crosby

 

[Bushman]

Crimson Peak - Del Toro's expressive use of color continues to make this one of my favorite spooky horror movies. The fact that it happens to take place in a creepy, decaying English manor adds to the movie heavily.