What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Fading Fast]

I do believe MST3K did their magic on this one.

Had to Google it (I'm not cool and never will be), but once I did, I had a good chuckle.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Lizzie, I was once a passionate fan of Wes Anderson's films... but he lost me a while ago.

Rushmore, The Royal Tennenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox - wacky, but sharply observed human drama. A couple of weaker ones didn't change my feeling that he was onto something interesting. But from Moonrise Kingdom onwards, the twee self-satisfaction of his over-designed, oh-so-precious little worlds has really annoyed me. I mean, I can handle artifice for making a point, but being super non-realistic to disguise minimal actual substance really bothers me (see also: Joe Wright's Anna Karenina). I didn't understand the lavish praise for The Grand Budapest Hotel at all - I found it interesting looking... but shallow and dramatically void. Though live action, I thought it was actually more cartoony than Fantastic Mr. Fox - but with less relatable human characters than those animated animals!

Anyway, I won't be rushing to see Isle of Dogs.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Knight Duty," a 1933 Educational Pictures short featuring Harry Langdon.

Langdon, the "fourth face on silent comedy's Mount Rushmore," was considered very much a has-been in 1933, five years after his last silent feature, and six years after his last money-making silent feature, but he was far from being a spent talent. The coming of talkies sent him back to two-reelers, and after a season of underrated shorts at Hal Roach, he freelanced a bit before tying up with independent comedy producer Arvid Gillstrom for a new two-reel series. Long unavailable for viewing, a selection of these shorts appeared on DVD a few years back, and revealed themselves to be far better than their reputation.

Langdon's comedy legacy has long been besmirched by vengeful attacks by Frank Capra, who had worked with Langdon at Mack Sennett in the 1920s, and had directed his first two feature comedies. The two clashed, and Langdon fired Capra -- who spent the rest of his life running down "the little ba***rd" at every opportunity, declaring that Langdon was esentially a simpleton who never understood the underpinnings of the character he played, and who was helpless without Capra's careful guidance. But the reemergence of Langdon's early talking shorts reveals quite another picture -- presenting a comedian who quickly came to terms with the challenges of sound and found a way to preserve the essence of his character's appeal.

In this film, Harry is still playing his traditional silent character -- a creature of indeterminate age, with a full-grown man's body and the motor reflexes of a four-year-old child -- and appears in his traditional costume of whiteface makeup, tight suit and deflating corduroy hat, augmented here, inexplicably, by a pair of fuzzy work gloves. He skitters about the screen with an odd, jittery gait, fussing and flapping his hands, falling in and out of scrapes that are never of his own making. In this short he's loafing in a park when he accidentally foils a purse snatcher, earning the gratitude of a young woman, and then, thru a chain of bizarre circumstances, ends up locked overnight in a wax museum -- where he gets caught up with a pair of jewel thieves who have entered the museum for their own purposes. Also on the job is Vernon Dent as a beefy and not-too-intelligent cop who's already had an unfavorable encounter with little Harry, and does not crave to deal with him again. The bulk of the film has these characters flitting thru the museum, hiding from one another by integrating themselves in the various displays.

That's all the plot there is, with most of the short just a showcase for Langdon's fluttering panic -- one of the best moments is his horrified reaction when he ends up in a clinch with the female jewel thief, which he interprets as a sexual advance. And yet he's also adult enough to appreciate the young woman he helped in the park and the kiss he receives from her at the end. He took this kid-not kid character to some rather astonishing extremes in silent pictures, and there's nothing quite on that level here, but Langdon does display enough of an awareness of who this being is to put the lie to Capra's claim that he was just a naive boob who needed to be told what to do on screen.

The most interesting aspect of this short is how "silent" it is in the way it sets up and executes its gags. Harry himself has very little dialogue in the film -- less even than he had in the earlier Hal Roach shorts -- allowing his movements to communicate his emotions and his intentions. There's one wonderful bit early in the film where Harry tries to rescue his blown-away hat from the clutches of a lawn sprinkler that's remarkable to see in a 1933 film -- everything just stops for the better part of three minutes to allow Langdon to perform this routine, which could have come out of one his silent shorts made a decade earlier, and his technique hasn't lost a step.

Harry never became a major star in features again, and spent the rest of his life shuttling between two-reelers and supporting roles in B features. His later shorts, ground out on Jules White's merciless production line at Columbia, ignored his traditional characterization and were for the most part not worth the effort -- which makes these Educational releases even more notable as the last time a great screen comic actually got to show what made him great. Not everybody likes Harry Langdon, but if you do, these are films worth seeing.

 

[green papaya]

FULL METAL JACKET (1987) in memory of R Lee Ermey

Born: March 24, 1944, Emporia, KS
Died: April 15, 2018, Santa Monica, CA

 

[1967Cougar390]

I was off work today so I watched The Final Countdown with Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen. It was a great vintage what if type of SCFI movie. I really enjoyed watching it again because it had been many years since I had seen it.

Steven

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Pacific Rim: Uprising, with Youngest Shellhammer. Too much fun!

 

[1967Cougar390]

I’m on a 1980’s Sifi movie kick the last couple of days. Last night my wife and I watched the 1984 version of The Philadelphia Experiment. A good movie in my opinion.

Steven

 

[1967Cougar390]

I ended my 1980’s movie weekend this evening with Clive Cussler’s movie Raise the Titanic. Being a fan of the Titanic story this is a great “what if” movie.

Steven

 

[Edward]

I'm in the middle of my first Beijing trip of the year, and so hits the annual film binge with the longhaul flights and more downtime than I've had in the last several working weeks. So far, I'e seen:

I, Tonya (if even the half of this is true, that woman was treated appallingly, not least by the IoC)

The Shape of Water Beautiful. Visually evocative not only of pre-Kennedy assassination America, but the way America likes to view itself, pre-Kennedy assassination. Yet also with significant depths that give away the superficial appeal of nostalgia for the period. The prejudices for which the creature is something of a metaphor are all present, if not dwelt on, and the subtlety of the allusion makes it all the more effective. Superb performances all round, not least from Sally Hawkins.

Murder on the Orient Express. Branagh makes a fine fist of this with his own take on the character. Vastly superior to the Ustinov version, suffers only slightly from not being the definitive portrayal (that honour will forever belong to David Suchet). Depp's cameo, though clearly underplayed in the marketing for obvious reasons at the time, is well done, not hammed up but played very deftly, in contrast to some of the criticisms of his recent work. Branagh brings some nice characterisations to the role, without making it silly.

Dunkirk Bit of a meh, this one. As a historical depiction it's okay, I suppose. The best bits are the (unfair) abuse the RAF get, and Tom Hardy's spitfire pilot being captured by the Wehrmacht at the end, presumably destined for a PoW camp. That scene makes up a little for the cheesiness of the n millionth quotation of that Churchill speech. I know they tried to downplay it by having a solider character read it in a naturalist style from the paper, but the film would still have been exponentially better without that. Overall, it's a story told well enough, but largely lacking in humanity. The 'local lad dies for his country, gets name in paper' is naff too. Entertaining enough, but all felt rather self-important, bombastic and yet shorn of the fun that the classic British 60s war films, for all they were self-serving propaganda for a "British" (English) nation trying to find its own sense of post-imperial identity, had in spades.

The Ones Below - a British film of the last couple of years where a couple expecting their first child discover that the odd couple who move into the downstairs flat are also expecting. Creepily believable thriller. I'm still chilled by what impliedly happens to the cat.

Bringing up Baby Never seen it before. Very amusing, and I loved the tame leopard.

I plan to continue not watching post-Connery and pre-Craig Bond films, but from memory, both Dalton and Brosnan Bond movies were a step up from aging-Moore ones.

I always felt it said a lot about the direction Bond took hen they hired Moore that Connery had given up the role in part because he felt he was getting too old for it - while Moore was three years his senior. Connery Bond was a dreadful misogynist, but ultimately a man of his time; Moore Bond was never more than sleazy - which I knew even as a young kid. I remember his 'new girl every five minutes' schtick being openly mocked in the playground, and we all got the joke in the Cannonball Run. Fair play to Moore, though: he seems to have known all too well what he was landed in, and he camped it up and played it for laughs. He wa also, by all accounts, a lovely guy off-screen - and that story about him 'being Bond' for the same guy on two occasions, decades apart....

Wes Anderson's "Isle of Dogs"

Obnoxious, offensive anti-cat propaganda, and insufferably selfsatisifed to boot. Anderson is fast becoming the twee Noah Baumbach.

That's a shame. I didn't pick that up from the trailer - I won't be so likely to bother with it, knowing that.

FULL METAL JACKET (1987) in memory of R Lee Ermey

Born: March 24, 1944, Emporia, KS
Died: April 15, 2018, Santa Monica, CA

My favourite of all the Vietnam pictures. The closing scene is such a great cinematic metaphor.

I was off work today so I watched The Final Countdown with Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen. It was a great vintage what if type of SCFI movie. I really enjoyed watching it again because it had been many years since I had seen it.

Steven

Is that the one where they go through a wormhole in time and have to decide whether to stop Pearl Harbour?

I ended my 1980’s movie weekend this evening with Clive Cussler’s movie Raise the Titanic. Being a fan of the Titanic story this is a great “what if” movie.

Steven

Interesting to rewatch now - of course at the time this was made (and the book it was based on written), the Titanic's sinking point was well known, but the location of the wreck remained a mystery until the Ballard expedition of 1985 (at which point it was first discovered that the ship had broken in two and all the funnels snapped off as it sank. Very different than how it was presented in this film). I believe it's this film which is obliquely referenced in Ghostbusters II when the Titanic in ghost form arrives in New York Harbour, looking exactly (or close to - iceberg hole and all) as it did in Raise the Titanic. Amusing story: I once saw this film screened on a Townsend THoreson ferry from Larne to Cairnryan (before the brand disappeared after the Herald of Free Enterprise event).

 

[belfastboy]

John Ford's opus "Fort Apache". It was a weird amalgam of comedy/slapstick layered over military folly, betrayal and massacre. A fun movie but far far from great.....except for the scenery.

 

[1967Cougar390]

Is that the one where they go through a wormhole in time and have to decide whether to stop Pearl Harbour?

Yes that’s the movie. They call off the attack on the Japanese armada at the last minute because of the storm/wormhole opens again.


Steven

 

[Benzadmiral]

Goodbye Christopher Robin, a neat little film for FL people, purporting to tell the story of how A.A. "Alan" Milne came home from WWI and was healed -- and helped England and the rest of the world heal -- by his creation of Winnie the Pooh to entertain his very young son. I enjoyed it (despite the fact someone needed to stick a comma between the first and second words of the title! C'mon, people!). It's charming, and the clothes and cars are a feast for the FL eye.

 

[AmateisGal]

I, Tonya. How much of this story is true and how much is fiction, I doubt we'll ever know as both Tonya and her awful husband, Jeff, had contrary stories. Still, Margot Robbie does an excellent job, as does Allison Janney as her horrible mother.

Darkest Hour. Okay, maybe I'm in a minority, but this movie was boring. Granted, Gary Oldman's performance of Churchill was incredibly well done and he deserved the Oscar. But the movie itself? Meh. I was expecting much more. Also, I was not happy with the whole Tube scene. Yes, it's cool to think of Churchill going to the people to find out their views on the war, but it didn't happen. Churchill never wavered in his belief that fighting Hitler and defeating him was the only way to go. There's a great book about Churchill's relationship with the King. Kenneth Weisbrode's Churchill and the King: The Wartime Alliance of Winston Churchill and George VI . I wrote a review of it here: http://bestofww2.blogspot.com/2014/01/churchill-and-king-by-kenneth-weisbrode.html

An Apartment for Peggy (1948) with Jeanne Crain and William Holden. Utterly delightful. Fluffy, yes, and a bit propagandist in post-WW2 America, but I loved it.

 

[Zombie_61]

Last Thursday TCM aired a mini marathon of "60s beach" movies and my wife asked me to record a few of them, so we finally watched them last night: Beach Party (1963), Muscle Beach Party (1964), and Beach Blanket Bingo (1965). Hoo boy. "Plot" and "story" only loosely apply to these movies as they're used as not much more than a reason to string together scenes of phony-baloney romance, music, and young (and sometimes not so young) people enjoying themselves on and around the beaches of southern California. I never saw anyone break into a campy spontaneous musical number on a beach while I was growing up here, but aside from that the passion for the "surf culture" in general isn't too overdone. Still, I can imagine a youngster in the 60s living in Neosho Falls, Kansas, seeing one or more of these movies, thinking, "That's the life for me!", moving west, and being disappointed when he attends his first beach party only to find it's not much more exciting than a picnic at a local park back home.

 

[KY Gentleman]

I watched The Exterminator tonight.
This was released in 1980 and it stars Robert Ginty, Steve James, Christopher George and Samantha Eggar. It has a cult following and over the years I have read or heard it referenced to in regards to “revenge movies.”

Returning Viet Nam veterans John Eastland (Ginty) and Michael Jefferson (James) are employees at a warehouse, and at the of a long hard day they foil a local gangs attempt to steal many cases of beer from their employer.
So the gang retaliates by following Jefferson home and beating him nearly to death and breaking his neck. This beating paralyzes him and leaves him comatose.
John Eastland then in very dramatic fashion kills the thugs in their clubhouse and Detective James Dalton (George) begins to investigate the whole affair.
The movie then kind of follows a similar plot to Death Wish released in 1974. John Eastland grows tired of witnessing the violent crimes taking place around him and decides to become a vigilante.
The movie is action packed with some very over the top situations and violence. But it keeps your interest and you root for Eastland throughout the movie.
I liked it then and I like it now because it portrays the vigilante as a guy trying to clean up “the city.”
The powers that be have their hands tied or are unable to bring the criminals to justice.
Just as the before mentioned Death Wish, or Rolling Thunder, Taxi Driver... they all have a flawed character trying to make things right by taking matters in their own hands. We are meant to be on their side though we know it’s not right to do such things.
The bad guys in this movie are all recognizable from their work as bad guys throughout the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. I watched the movie on DVD but it can be seen on streaming video. I recently discovered an interesting bit of trivia, Kurt Russell based his portrayal of Snake Plisskin from Escape From New York on The Exterminator.
Cool!

 

[Edward]

I, Tonya. How much of this story is true and how much is fiction, I doubt we'll ever know as both Tonya and her awful husband, Jeff, had contrary stories. Still, Margot Robbie does an excellent job, as does Allison Janney as her horrible mother.

It's a fantastic film. As I think I said above, if even an ounce of the story is true (if memory serves, it has been confirmed that the attack on Corrigan was all her husband's doing and she knew nothing of it until later on), she was treated abominably by all concerned - not least the IoC, who refused to recognise (and ultimately killed) her undoubted talent out of little more than snobbery. In any case, it really confirms Margot Robbie's acting talent - as well as, with her producer hat on, someone with a real eye for an entertaining, female-led story, which is great to see.

Darkest Hour

. Okay, maybe I'm in a minority, but this movie was boring. Granted, Gary Oldman's performance of Churchill was incredibly well done and he deserved the Oscar. But the movie itself? Meh. I was expecting much more.

Mn. I've avoided this one because I couldn't bear it if it turned out to be yet another hero-worshipping flogging of the Churchill myth rather than a decent character study. (So far, of all the Churchill's I've seen on screen, the only decent one of note was Brendan Gleeson in Into the Storm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Storm_(2009_film).) I've seen quite a few clips in trailers and with reviews. I'm reluctant to draw a conclusion from those alone, but I can't help but suspect that OLdman's Oscar was for hows convincing his impression of Churchill is, rather than acting per se. Maybe that's splitting hairs...

Also, I was not happy with the whole Tube scene. Yes, it's cool to think of Churchill going to the people to find out their views on the war, but it didn't happen.

Is it true - as I read in one review - that the man whose advice Churchill takes on the tube is black? If so, that's not only inaccurate, but an abominable act of revisionism. Churchill was a dreadful racist.

Churchill never wavered in his belief that fighting Hitler and defeating him was the only way to go.

That much is very true. Churchill was a warmonger, who on this occasion happened, in retrospect, to be right. He was neverf one to see a diplomatic solution where a military one was possible - hence his readiness to send the troops into Tonypandy.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Is that the one where they go through a wormhole in time and have to decide whether to stop Pearl Harbour?

Martin Sheen and Kirk Douglas together and ON THE TOP!! No further question. Great years for cinema.

I would say: Blueprints of acting!!

 

[Zombie_61]

I was off work today so I watched The Final Countdown with Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen. It was a great vintage what if type of SCFI movie. I really enjoyed watching it again because it had been many years since I had seen it.

Steven

I went to see it with a group of friends when it opened in 1980. I remember thinking it was neither great nor terrible, but what I remember most was the discussion on the drive home afterward about the number of things the writers got wrong with regards to time travel theories (as we understood them at the time) and the number of paradoxes they created.

 

[AmateisGal]

Romance on the High Seas with Doris Day and Jack Carson. A fun, frivolous piece in gorgeous Technicolor.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Noah's Ark - a 1928 part-talkie recently DVR'd from TCM.

Two-thirds of the film takes place before and during WWI, with most of the last act being a whacked-out version of the Bible story with the lead actors playing additional roles. About 80% silent with intertitles, with a few (obviously shot later) dialog scenes and some songs (not synchronized to the singers, but nobody noticed that then) and a musical score (mostly taken from Mozart and Beethoven classics and popular songs) with occasional sound effects. Written by Darryl Zanuck(!) and directed by Michael Curtiz (who was brilliant, but no De Mille), both the modern and ancient stories are essentially lousy, but the production design and effects work is impressive.

Three observations:

1 - The close friendship of the two American protagonist pals in the WWI story plays as totally gay now. Sure, one of them marries the heroine, but it's very clear that he loves his pal even more passionately.

2 - The invented aspects of the Noah story are just hilarious: King Nephilim(!) of Akkad brings on the Flood by leading the veneration of his god Jughuth(!), blinding Noah's son Japheth and enslaving him to turn a mill wheel right out of Conan the Barbarian... But "Jehovah" leads Japheth to free his girlfriend Miriam who'd been taken to be a virgin sacrifice(!)... and his sight is restored just before they get on the Ark (a shaft of light keeps them from drowning like everyone else).

3 - As impressive as all the glass shots and water-tank dumping effects are, the live action sequences of the animals heading to the ark two by two are especially remarkable... because they're not puppets or computer-animated like they'd be now.

Not exactly good, but worth seeing if you dig silent films.