What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Babydoll]

"Wonder". Had a box of Kleenex next to me and Lily on my lap. Was grateful for both!

 

[Woodsrunner79]

Manhunter. It was intriguing to see Brian Cox as Hannibal Lector.

 

[Doctor Strange]

It's intriguing to see Brian Cox as anyone! He's always great: Troy, 25th Hour, Match Point, Running With Scissors, X2...

Re O Brother Where Art Thou?, it's my second-favorite Coen Bros. film, and one of the many earlier films for which Roger Deakins should really have won Best Cinematography. Agreed that it's endlessly quotable ("Well ain't this place a geographical oddity, two weeks from everywhere!") and has wonderful music.

All The King's Men is a classic, and much better than its recent remake. Back in the seventies when I ran a movie club in college, a gorgeous 16mm print of it was sent to me by accident (because my return address was on the shipping case from an earlier rental)... so we invited some Poly Sci major friends and ran it in my dorm room! I mailed it back to the rental house the next day.

I watched The Space Between Us, a young adult SF romance about the first kid secretly born at a Mars colony coming to Earth for a visit. Meh. I don't recommend it.

 

[Fading Fast]

...All The King's Men is a classic, and much better than its recent remake. Back in the seventies when I ran a movie club in college, a gorgeous 16mm print of it was sent to me by accident (because my return address was on the shipping case from an earlier rental)... so we invited some Poly Sci major friends and ran it in my dorm room! I mailed it back to the rental house the next day....

I note this all the time (and Lizzie has explained the technology behind it), but I am still amazed at how incredibly crisp and clear these '40s - '60s (dates need refining and exceptions exist) movie are. There's a richness - a depth and definition - to the film quality that is just beautiful to these movies.

I did notice a "Citizen Kane" echo in "All the King's Men" in some of the camera angles and montages to show Crawford's character's rise to power which, I guess, is why "Kane" is noted for being one of the most groundbreaking and influential movies of all time.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Continuing my two-reeler odyssey with Clark and McCullough's 1935 RKO short "Odor In The Court."

RKO had an excellent short-subject department in the 1930s -- one that was greatly enhanced by the arrival of quite a few Hal Roach personnel cut loose by a budget purge at that studio in 1931-32. But it also recruited comics from Broadway -- most notably Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough, one of the theatre's legendary comedy teams of the 1920s. Veteran performers whose careers went back to the circuses of the early 1900s, Clark and McCullough were probably the most raucous comedy team of their generation -- the Marx Brothers not excepted. Bobby Clark was a loud-mouthed, aggressive, disruptive character, usually wearing a shabby Edwardian frock coat, a squashed pork-pie hat, and glasses crudely sketched on his face with greasepaint, with a cigar in one hand and an aggressively wagging cane in the other, while Paul McCullough was a pop-eyed, buck-toothed cackling stooge with a goony moustache, most often seen in an enormous, mangy raccoon coat and a variety of headgear ranging from straw boaters and derbies to a gigantic Tom Mix style cowboy hat. Needless to say when these two appear on the screen you do not settle down in anticipation of nuanced character comedy.

In all their films the comics diisrupt some occupational field -- in "Odor in The Court" they're lawyers named "Blackstone and Blodgett" (McCullough's character is always named 'Blodgett," while Clark's character name changes to suit whatever occupation is involved.) These are the sort of hack counselors who drum up business by handing out flyers on a street corner while bellowing "NO CASE TOO SMALL NO FEE TOO LARGE." And once they get involved in a seamy divorce/alimony case, they turn the courtroom into a literal circus. Clark marches in at the head of a full-sized, uniformed marching band, which is then seated in the gallery, the better to blast out dramatic chords to punctuate "Blackstone's" remarks to the jury. Meanwhile "Blodgett" sits at the counsel table incessantly eating walnuts, which he cracks by shoving them under his partner's fist as "Blackstone" pounds the table. Plot is basically meaningless in these films, and "Odor" is no different, with the proceedings rapidly degenerating under a constant barrage of jokes, puns, one-liners, and insults which Clark bellows at the top of his lungs pretty much all thru the picture. Compared to this, the Three Stooges' "Disorder In The Court" was "Inherit The Wind."

Clark and McCullough were the epitome of Broadway comedy in that they were completely unsympathetic characters -- they don't sing or dance well, they don't get involved in romantic subplots, they exist only to disrupt whatever world they get dropped into. And they do this with a sociopathic energy that is sometimes too much to bear, because they don't confine their attacks to deserving targets. When a rival lawyer, harangued beyond endurance by Clark's incessant sales pitch, tears up his flyer and forcefully shoves the pieces into the comic's ever-flapping mouth you can't help but empathize with him.

Clark and McCullough worked together for almost forty years, until the day Paul McCullough grabbed a barber's razor and fatally slashed his own throat. Clark worked as a single from then on, right up until his own death, and even became one of the world's leading authorites on Restoration-era comedy. Moliere performed by a guy with painted-on glasses I'd like to see.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Manhunter. It was intriguing to see Brian Cox as Hannibal Lector.

I like Manhunter; it's a very good adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel (Red Dragon, which the later filmmakers restored for the Anthony Hopkins/Edward Norton version -- which, full disclosure, I have not seen). It's colorful and vivid, with great performances from Cox (even if his Lecter comes across as a bit more of an educated thug than does Hopkins' Lecter), William Petersen, and Tom Noonan as serial killer "Tooth Fairy" Dolarhyde.

 

[ton312]

With Casino and Goodfellas both on Netflix I've seen quite a bit of these two over the past couple evenings. Now I need to re-watch Heat

 

[Woodsrunner79]

I like Manhunter; it's a very good adaptation of the Thomas Harris novel (Red Dragon, which the later filmmakers restored for the Anthony Hopkins/Edward Norton version -- which, full disclosure, I have not seen). It's colorful and vivid, with great performances from Cox (even if his Lecter comes across as a bit more of an educated thug than does Hopkins' Lecter), William Petersen, and Tom Noonan as serial killer "Tooth Fairy" Dolarhyde.

I haven't seen the updated version either. It's been close to 10 years since I screened "silence of the lambs". Now I feel like it deserves a reviewing.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I haven't seen the updated version either. It's been close to 10 years since I screened "silence of the lambs". Now I feel like it deserves a reviewing.

Silence deserved its Best Picture Oscar, and Thomas Harris's novel is (dare I say it? Yes!) of literary quality. Rereading it and Red Dragon, you realize the tremendous writing skill behind them. Harris knows the "rules," but he knows when to break them. Several times in both novels he changes abruptly from past tense to present while writing about Dr. Lecter: "Doctor Lecter's eyes are maroon . . ." It makes the scene so much more immediate, and Lecter so much more shivery-real.

Both novels are very visual too, which is why they translated so well to film.

 

[Trenchfriend]

@ton312
Yeah, Heat! Do you prefer De Niro or Pacino?

I'm honest. De Niro bored me, but Pacino was f....n' god!

 

[2jakes]

TCM uses parts of this haunting soundtrack prior
to showing their films.
Watching it a second time, I got a different perspective
on a movie that has been labeled a "forgotten film".
Like viewing a lost scrapbook of long ago, I quite enjoyed it.

 

[Doctor Strange]

TCM uses parts of this haunting soundtrack prior to showing their films.
Watching it a second time, I got
a different perspective on a movie that
has been labeled a "forgotten film".
Like viewing my lost scrapbook of long ago, I quite enjoyed it.

I love this film, but think it sags a bit in the middle. Beautifully written and performed.
Another one that Roger Deakins should won Best Cinematography for... That soft focus edge effect (he used it again in A Serious Man) brilliantly enhances the period look.

 

[Zombie_61]

I love this film, but think it sags a bit in the middle. Beautifully written and performed.
Another one that Roger Deakins should won Best Cinematography for... That soft focus edge effect (he used it again in A Serious Man) brilliantly enhances the period look.

I describe the pacing of The Assassination of Jesse James... as "deliberate", but someone once commented that it "moves as slow as molasses in winter". As much as I like the movie, it does seem much longer than it's 2 hour and 40 minute run time. I absolutely agree about Roger Deakins--this is one of the most beautifully photographed movies I've ever seen. Even scenes of relatively low importance to the overall story are lit and framed perfectly, and show the care and attention to detail that were Deakins' trademark.

 

[Bushman]

Last movie was the new version of "Stephen King's It." It's somehow even more terrifying than the 1990s TV movie with Tim Curry, which scared me away from open drains as a child, and left me permanently creeped out by Tim Curry.

With Casino and Goodfellas both on Netflix I've seen quite a bit of these two over the past couple evenings. Now I need to re-watch Heat

My Dad's two favorite movies!

 

[ton312]

@ton312
Yeah, Heat! Do you prefer De Niro or Pacino?

I'm honest. De Niro bored me, but Pacino was f....n' god!

Love them both. Pacino really won me over in Carlito's way.

 

[Bamaboots]

Enjoyed the hell out of heat. Thought Deniro was great as well as Pacino at times but he was a little over the top at times as well. Too much gum smacking.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Watching it a second time, I got a different perspective
on a movie that has been labeled a "forgotten film".

I love this film, but think it sags a bit in the middle.

I describe the pacing of The Assassination of Jesse James... as "deliberate", but someone once commented that it "moves as slow as molasses in winter".

If you know the actual history then you understand what was really going on. Jesse had returned to MO after living in Nashville for a couple of yrs; Frank had gone on to Baltimore. Jesse couldn't find his favorite cousin Woodson "Wood" Hite & come to suspect Wood had been killed. He sent for Wood's brother Clarence back in TN, then set to killing those he suspected had killed Wood even though Wood's body had not been found. Jesse first suspected Ed Miller, younger brother to Clell, & killed him. Ed Miller's body was never found. Jesse next suspected his life-long friend Jim Cummins was involved but couldn't find Cummins because he had left the area. Robert Ford & Dick Liddil were the real killers of Wood Hite. They knew it was only a matter of time before Jesse came for them so a deal was struck with the Governor & the Sheriff to kill Jesse first.

Edward O'Kelley hated Robert Ford. Ford was accused of stealing a diamond ring that belonged to O'Kelley when he & Ford had shared a room together in a boarding house/hotel the previous winter in Pueblo. That likely was the real reason O'Kelley killed Ford to settle the score & he became somewhat of a folk hero for doing it.

That is likely more than you wanted to know but a short version to explain what was really going on during the movie.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I didn't say I didn't understand the plot. I just think the film as written/edited has pacing problems and would play better if it was fifteen minutes shorter.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

I didn't say I didn't understand the plot. I just think the film as written/edited has pacing problems and would play better if it was fifteen minutes shorter.

Dealing with just the intricacies of the plot to assassinate & why it had to be done then, the movie could have gone on another hr.

 

[AmateisGal]

"Wonder". Had a box of Kleenex next to me and Lily on my lap. Was grateful for both!

This looks like a wonderful, sweet movie. Anxious to see it.