What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Touchofevil]

Grace Kelly is in that one, right?

Amazing how intense the movie is even after you've seen it (like some people) ten or more times at least. Also, great that so much story is built into what almost feels like a set from a theater production.

Great to see you posting again - you've been missed.

Thank you. You and the Loungers have been missed as well. Insanely busy the past few months with work, family issues, and a nasty flu.

I have seen Rear Window (Grace Kelly is in this one) so many times, but still thoroughly enjoy the story. The set and the cinematography are huge parts of what makes it so entertaining. For me, it is magic.

 

[Doctor Strange]

It's my favorite Hitchcock film, period.

Both a technical and storytelling masterwork, and with an interestingly voyeuristic aspect that reflects back on the audience watching it. That is, we are manipulated by our interpretation of what Jeff is looking at, and he's manipulated by what shots Hitch chooses to intercut each time he looks through his camera or binocs. It's like a masterclass in film editing theory!

https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/1000_Frames_of_Rear_Window_(1954)

 

[Touchofevil]

It's my favorite Hitchcock film, period.

Both a technical and storytelling masterwork, and with an interestingly voyeuristic aspect that reflects back on the audience watching it. That is, we are manipulated by our interpretation of what Jeff is looking at, and he's manipulated by what shots Hitch chooses to intercut each time he looks through his camera or binocs. It's like a masterclass in film editing theory!

https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/1000_Frames_of_Rear_Window_(1954)

My favorite Hitchcock film as well. The pacing is top notch adding to the viewer’s anxiety not Fast and Furious like too many flicks of today.

Nice link, thank you, Doctor.

 

[Worf]

"Rogues March" - An early 50's affair starring Peter Lawford pre-Rat Pack. Standard tale of an English Officer framed for passing secrets to the enemy. He's drummed out of the service to the tune of the Rogues March. His one chance to clear his name seemingly goes up in smoke so after a daring escape he joins the Army as an enlisted man in a unit heading to Singapore... unfortunately plans get changed and he winds up headed to India where his old unit is hard pressed to hold the Khyber Pass (yes that one). No need to bore you.. it has a happy ending. The only thing of note was that the film's battle scenes were filmed ON LOCATION! Holy Moley what rugged, unforgiving country.... no wonder it remains unconquerable to this day. Decent India/Afghan revolt tale... shot in glorious Black and White. Something to kill an afternoon.

Worf

 

[Worf]

"Raintree County" - Poor man's "Gone With the Wind" with a twist. 3 hours with a mid film break. Eh... How Liz Taylor got nominated for her sickly sweet Southern accent, I'll never know. Monty Clift pre and post accident, you can tell he's hurting. Interesting back story of race in South from an unusual angle. Well at least I've seen it.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

"Rogues March" - An early 50's affair starring Peter Lawford pre-Rat Pack. Standard tale of an English Officer framed for passing secrets to the enemy. He's drummed out of the service to the tune of the Rogues March. His one chance to clear his name seemingly goes up in smoke so after a daring escape he joins the Army as an enlisted man in a unit heading to Singapore... unfortunately plans get changed and he winds up headed to India where his old unit is hard pressed to hold the Khyber Pass (yes that one). No need to bore you.. it has a happy ending. The only thing of note was that the film's battle scenes were filmed ON LOCATION! Holy Moley what rugged, unforgiving country.... no wonder it remains unconquerable to this day. Decent India/Afghan revolt tale... shot in glorious Black and White. Something to kill an afternoon.

Worf

Haven't seen it, but more than an echo of "The Four Feathers" there in your summary.

 

[Worf]

Haven't seen it, but more than an echo of "The Four Feathers" there in your summary.

As Ed McMahon would say... "You are correct sir!"

Worf

 

[Doctor Strange]

Trumbo - well done, and with an outstanding cast. Put it on the Hollywood Blacklist shelf alongside Good Night and Good Luck, The Front, etc.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Bryan Cranston had a lot of guts in that picture -- not just in the acting, but in the way he put his entire self into it. The scene where he's being checked into prison, and stands there naked in all his pasty, flabby glory without shedding a bit of his dignity was one of the most impressive scenes I'd seen in a long time.

The guy who played J. Parnell Thomas, one of the most egregious figures of the period, was also very good -- capturing the very essence of the real Thomas's smarmy weaselry.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Queen of the Desert, Werner Herzog's chronicle of the adult life of Gertrude Bell, a self-described traveler in the Arab lands just before and during World War One. Nicole Kidman is charming and steely by turns, playing a woman who finds purpose in her life after the death of her first lover (James Franco) by learning Farsi, traveling on camelback throughout Arabia, Iran, and Syria, making friends with the Bedouin tribes, and becoming at last the acknowledged Queen of the Desert. Not sure I can buy Robert Pattinson of the Twilight films as Lawrence of Arabia (with whom Gertrude does not have an affair); but otherwise the casting is excellent. Nobody could embody queenliness better than Nicole.

(Also watch for a small role by Jenny Agutter of the Logan's Run film.)

 

[Fading Fast]

"Tea and Sympathy" 1956 with Deborah Kerr, John Kerr and Leif Ericsson

• Probably the third time I've seen it in twenty years and, while I've always liked it, it wasn't until this viewing that I truly appreciated how well the story is developed, the characters flushed out and how ahead of its time the entire movie is

• Without giving too much away, it's the story of a shy, withdrawn boy at college in the '50s who is picked on for being different from the "other guys" and for not being "manly" enough / not helping things, he forms a close friendship with his housemaster's wife (in the culture of the college - that, too, is suspect)

• Considering it's the 1950s, the movie is boldly anti-bullying, boldly anti-stereotyping and boldly anti-conforming

• What is also impressive is that some of the bullies - including the housemaster and the boys father (who wants his son to "be a man") - are not caricatures, but real human beings whose points of view are treated fairly and who are shown to be conflicted when confronted with opposing views - they don't rise above, but you see and feel the struggle
  • Today, they would be smugly written as two-dimensional, mindless and stupid - which might make the writers feel "smart" or "courageous," but that's the cheap and easy route - showing the grey of the world and of people is where true writing talent lies
  • The boy's roommate is also a complex and struggling character who sincerely tries to help the boy, but he is also pulled by his friends and father (!) to drop his roommate as a friend so as to improve his overall "standing" at the college

• Equally engaging and complex is the housemaster and his wife's relationship which has its own 1950s struggles of conformity versus real-life emotions / these are not "Father Knows Best" husband and wife roles

• The climax of the movie is quietly dramatic and powerful (also something that would be destroyed today in our need to explicitly show everything and scream every point loudly)

• While based on a play by Robert Anderson, for those of you familiar with his work, this has the feel and emotional depth of a Terence Rattigan play (calling my friend - and fellow Rattigan fan - Worf)

• Maybe it takes more than one viewing to take it all in, but it is a powerful, emotionally engaging and challenging movie that is impressively ahead of its time

 

[Doctor Strange]

I have always liked that film. But I don't know that it's all that ahead of its time - let's remember that there was a lot more social progressiveness and exploration of new subjects in writing/etc. in the fifties than our post-sitcom faux "nostalgia for a simpler time" view of the era suggests. It's a very sensitive piece, with fine performances by Deborah Kerr (no surprise) and John Kerr (no relation). And I agree that a modern treatment of this story would probably go for sledgehammer symbolism overkill, rather than the nuanced subtlety of this play/film.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"In The Dough," a 1933 two-reeler starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.

After more than a decade off the screen, silent-comedy legend Arbuckle got his chance at a comeback in a series of comedies shot on the cheap at the Vitaphone studio in Brooklyn -- and while not on the level of his best work from the silent era, these films come across today as breezy and likeable, if a bit derivative.

Part of this is the weakness that ran thru all the Vitaphone comedies -- the studio was better known for musical and variety shorts, and never quite managed to rise to the level of the Hollywood-based comedy studios, despite the presence of some talented performers. Arbuckle is supported in this film by Lionel Stander and Shemp Howard, both regulars in other "Big V Comedies," and both playing their usual characterizations -- Stander is the raspy-voiced take-charge guy, and Shemp is clearly and forever Shemp. Arbuckle himself doesn't appear until the film is a quarter of the way over, and that points up another weakness that ran thru the entire Big V line: they're usually much too plotty.

The plot here is a typical thirties gangster bit -- Stander and Shemp are hoods running a protection racket against a little neighborhood bakery, where Arbuckle gets a job as a cake baker. While he's trying to deal with a prissy, demanding customer the hoods show up and try to shake him down by planting a fake cake containing a bomb. Arbuckle then sells this cake to a tough-talking dame who's throwing a birthday party for her fella, who of course is Lionel Stander. You can imagine the rest.

The real fun in this film is not the gooey, doughy climax -- it's the way in which for most of the picture, Arbuckle manages to *avoid* dropping an increasingly large series of cakes -- he artfully avoids swinging doors, collisions with co-workers, and just when you think he's about to drop the cake he makes a deft move to prevent disaster. This business could have been build up more than it was -- I'd have made the cakes more elaborate and ridiculous than they were with every increase in size -- but budgets being budgets, I imagine they were limited with what they could do here. But give the man credit -- he knows that the real gag is not in dropping the cake, it's in finding clever ways not to drop it.

Arbuckle handles dialogue just fine -- he has a pleasant voice that matches his physique, and makes the most of the lines he's given -- and in general doesn't seem overly hamstrung by working in a sound picture. This isn't the best two-reeler I've ever seen, but it's an enjoyable way to kill twenty minutes, and that's more than can be said for most Vitaphone comedies.

On the strength of this series of shorts, Arbuckle was signed to a feature contract with Warner Brothers. He died of a heart attack a few hours after signing.

 

[ton312]

Finally saw Black Panther. Took my daughter and we loved it! The female warriors surrounding T'challah were my favorite characters in the movie. My dream is that my little girl grows up to be that bad-ass!

 

[Barnwell]

Addicted now to bingeing Un Village Francais on Hulu and Amazon, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_village_français
Great writing, casting, and the leather jackets/coats the Resistance guys wear are to die for (and they sometimes do.)

 

[KY Gentleman]

I’m watching Sharkey’s Machine starring Burt Reynolds tonight. A great example of ‘70’s cop movies and it sports a very good cast.
Burt Reynolds, Bernie Casy, Brian Keith, Charles Durning, Earl Holimann and the film introduced us to Rachel Ward.
Burt plays Det. Tom Sharkey, a narcotics Detective that gets busted to the Vice Squad following a disastrous narcotics sting gone bad.
He becomes the hero and ringleader to a group of Vice Detectives who have given up on trying to make a difference in the city of Atlanta.
Then a lead on a dalliance involving an up and coming politician becomes a major case when a high priced call girl is brutally murdered and the newly formed “Sharkey’s Machine” wants to solve the case.
It has a lot of humor and action, and Burt was at his peak when he made this picture.
I couldn’t help but see shades of the film “Laura” in this but I can’t say more without giving away a part of the movie.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Fly My Kite," the final "Our Gang" comedy of the 1930-31 season, and one of the most memorable shorts in the entire series.

One of the most interesting things about the Roach studio's early-thirties output was its matter-of-fact depiction of the harshness of the Depression, and the Gang, in particular, was notable for this -- especially during the first couple of years of talkies, where melodrama was as much a part of the series as comedy. Margaret Mann returns in this film as "Grandma," last seen eking out a living with a little neighborhood grocery, and now living, apparently, on the proceeds of selling that store. But her good-for-nothing son-in-law has cheated her out of her money, and now wants to throw her out of her house, the better to move in with his cheap, brassy girlfriend -- played in a malevolent cameo by The Ever-Popular Mae Busch. It's up to the Gang to take charge and save the day.

And that they do, but not without a bit of fun first with Grandma. Margaret Mann had spent her career in silent pictures as just such a "kindly old lady" as she's playing for laughs here, and she comes across as a fiesty old biddy who reads the kids wild-west stories out of a pulp magazine and engages in impromptu boxing matches in her living room. But when the son-in-law shows up, she wilts into oppressed weepy helplessnes that comes across as an outright parody of all her other "meek old lady" roles. The tongue, at least in Mann's performance, is very much in cheek.

But that doesn't stop the Gang from dishing out the most outrageous, hilarious revenge ever seen in a two-reeler. When Son-In-Law tries to grab some valuable bonds that have ended up tied to the tail of Chubby's kite, the kids charge into action. Jackie Cooper has left the Gang at this point, and this is the last call for Chubby, Mary Ann, and Farina -- but they go out with a bang, teaming up with the younger kids to absolutely beat the snot out of Son-In-Law. After kicking, biting, pounding, and punching him, ripping his clothes, and pulling his nose with hot fireplace tongs, they tie a rope around his ankle and drag him over a bed of broken glass and a nail-studded plank, and then run him up an electrical pole where they repeatedly zap him with high voltage. When he doesn't fall off the pole, they grab saws and proceed to cut the pole down, dumping the hapless crook in a stagnant, muddy pond. The day is saved, and Grandma gets to keep her house. And Son-In-Law, presuming he survives his wounds, will never, ever mess with a gang of feral little street kids again.

The "Our Gang" films are often discussed today as portraying the kind of "wholesome old-fashioned fun" that kids just don't get to have anymore. But they also had plenty of vicarious wish-fullfillment for the audiences of their time -- it's not hard to see this particular film as a Depression parable against those who, it was believed, were responsbile for the situation. The portrayal of Son-in-Law is unbelievably harsh for a "kids' comedy" -- at one point he brandishes a bat at the kids, and sneers at Grandma, "You're broke, you're old, and you're worthless!" -- and he comes across at every turn as the worst kind of money-grubbing parasite. The punishment meted out by the kids doesn't just attack him, but also the symbols of his wealth - there's an otherwise gratuitous scene of one of the kids grabbing his ornate pocket watch, and deliberately smashing it to bits with a rock that's hard to read in any other sense.

The Gang has gone off on adult adversaries before, but never before and never again with quite the desperate fury displayed in "Fly My Kite." It's a film with a lot of laughs and a lot of heart -- and it also has a lot to say about the moment in time when it was made.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Tulip Fever, the recent set-in-seventeenth-century-Holland flick with Alicia Vikander, Dane DeHaan, and Christoph Waltz on Netflix. It started off promisingly, like another Girl With A Pearl Earring... then went way, WAY off the rails. Not recommended!

 

[Fading Fast]

...-- but they go out with a bang, teaming up with the younger kids to absolutely beat the snot out of Son-In-Law. After kicking, biting, pounding, and punching him, ripping his clothes, and pulling his nose with hot fireplace tongs, they tie a rope around his ankle and drag him over a bed of broken glass and a nail-studded plank, and then run him up an electrical pole where they repeatedly zap him with high voltage. When he doesn't fall off the pole, they grab saws and proceed to cut the pole down, dumping the hapless crook in a stagnant, muddy pond......

Holy smoke, you normally don't see that level of detailed and aggressive violence in a kids' program other than in cartoons.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I recall watching these films on local TV as a kid, and while most of the racially-questionable bits had been cut out, they seemed to leave all the violence alone. There's another early-talkie Gang short, "The First Seven Years," where Jackie Cooper and Donald Haines fight a duel in the backyard with actual sharp-looking swords, using nothing but garbage-can lids and bird cages for protection, and slashing all the neighborhood clotheslines to shreds in the process. I remember watching this one and wondering exactly what kind of household it was that had actual swords right at hand for the kids to play with. On top of that, there's this exchange:

Wheezer: "If you get killed, can I have your knife?"

Jackie: "Yeah, sure, if I get killed you can have my knife."

Wheezer: "Then I hope you get killed!"

And then there's wee little four-year-old Spanky's line in "Birthday Blues," suggesting that his older brother buy their mother a gun for her birthday. "What's she gonna do with a gun?" asks big brother. "SHOOT PAPA!" enthuses li'l Spank, in a line that always brings down the house.

Ah, the Good Old Days.