What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Doctor Strange]

wtf??

I thought I expressed myself pretty clearly. Care to amplify your wtf into something I can respond to?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think what you're seeing right now is just the first death throes of the "I'm rich and powerful and famous and talented and charismatic so I can get away with anything I want" culture that has prevailed, not just in show business but in all of American society, for a very long time. Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby are going to go down in history as the beginnings of a revolution. The chickens are coming home to roost.

 

[3fingers]

I think what you're seeing right now is just the first death throes of the "I'm rich and powerful and famous and talented and charismatic so I can get away with anything I want" culture that has prevailed, not just in show business but in all of American society, for a very long time. Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby are going to go down in history as the beginnings of a revolution. The chickens are coming home to roost.

It has been a long time coming. A side observation though is the decline in public behavior and decency of the common citizen. Demanding and hissy pitching foolishness over the tiniest of inconvenience and outrage over being told no. It is not limited to any age group or social class. A substantial portion of folks need a swift kick in the pants.

 

[Worf]

I think what you're seeing right now is just the first death throes of the "I'm rich and powerful and famous and talented and charismatic so I can get away with anything I want" culture that has prevailed, not just in show business but in all of American society, for a very long time. Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby are going to go down in history as the beginnings of a revolution. The chickens are coming home to roost.

I'd like to agree with you but I can't... guess I've read too much history or seen too much in my life. The rich and powerful have ALWAYS preyed on the weak and poor. If you've the talent of a Betty Davis or Streep but no resume or influence... sooner or later you're going to run up on someone that can give you what you want/need/maybe even DESERVE but will not do it unless you pay a price. I'd hate to say it's human nature but it certainly how things have always been. Once the dust settles do you think it'll truly change... for good? Hell I never thought I'd see Nazi's marching in American streets again or openly running for office but they are!

True I'd like to think that recent events may cause those in power to "clean up their act" at least as far as sexual assault is concerned and maybe this is a real sea change we're going through BUT I've seen sea changes come and just as quickly reverse. Americans are traditionally an amnesiatic (sp) people. We forgive easily and forget quickly. That's MY fear.

Worf

 

[Worf]

Blade Runner 2049 - I must admit... I made a BIG mistake.. I should've seen this one on the big screen. Even on my 50 incher though I looked and sounded fabulous. Like its forebear it will find it's audience 10 or 15 years from now. What a moving, emotive visual feast. I never had much use for Gosling but he was damn good in this one and "Ole Mumbles" strapped it up and played well also. Fantastic Film, can't give it justice here. I'll have to watch it again and again...

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Woody Allen's 2017 "Wonder Wheel"

The good are the period details - an attractively stylized version of '50s era Coney Island - and the individual actors' performances. In particular, Kate Winslet brings her A-game as a moody and dispirited wife whose second husband, played well by Jim Belushi, is a modern version of Ralph Kramden. Winslet's character has an affair with the too-old-to-be-a-summer lifeguard poet / dreamer played, too stylized for my taste, by Justin Timberlake.

Throw in a pyromaniac pre-teen son from her first marriage and a daughter estranged from and chased by her mob husband from his first marriage and you have the typical Allen dysfunctional family involved in cheating, recriminations, regrets and outside pressures. Here, the dysfunctionals all live and work in the surreal world of Coney Island (yes, live in a run-down fishbowl apartment right on the pier) which would make even normal people dysfunctional.

But it simply doesn't work. It all feels fake and scripted from bits and pieces of old Allen movies. Allen's recent "Cafe Society" had a lot of retread characters and ideas, but that one felt like an intentional wink-and-a-nod parody by Allen of his own work that came across as a light-hearted movie with easy charm and an optimistic lilt. "Wonder Wheel," is heavy, angry, depressing and plodding, which makes the forced dialogue, fake story and stale material much harder to take.

If you are an Allen fan, you might enjoy the period details and the strong acting, but the rest is all too flat and unoriginal to make it a satisfying experience.

 

[Doctor Strange]

As I indicated a couple of days ago, I felt very similarly.

He did a lot better channeling Tennessee Williams in Blue Jasmine than he does with Eugene O'Neill in this film. Cate Blanchett unraveled movingly a la Blanche DuBois, but Winslet's beaten-down wife is no Mary Tyrone. And he's really got to stop using first-person narration, it's such a cheap shot.. and it's not helped by Timberlake's performance, which seems beamed in from a different movie. In fact, nothing in this story comes together: the characters are all spinning their wheels in seemingly different plays/films, with wildly variable acting styles.

It looks good, and Winslet works heroically to elevate the project... but those are about the only good things about it. I keep hoping the Woodman has another masterpiece in him, but maybe not.

 

[Fading Fast]

As I indicated a couple of days ago, I felt very similarly.

He did a lot better channeling Tennessee Williams in Blue Jasmine than he does with Eugene O'Neill in this film. Cate Blanchett unraveled movingly a la Blanche DuBois, but Winslet's beaten-down wife is no Mary Tyrone. And he's really got to stop using first-person narration, it's such a cheap shot.. and it's not helped by Timberlake's performance, which seems beamed in from a different movie. In fact, nothing in this story comes together: the characters are all spinning their wheels in seemingly different plays/films, with wildly variable acting styles.

It looks good, and Winslet works heroically to elevate the project... but those are about the only good things about it. I keep hoping the Woodman has another masterpiece in him, but maybe not.

"And he's really got to stop using first-person narration, it's such a cheap shot.. and it's not helped by Timberlake's performance, which seems beamed in from a different movie. In fact, nothing in this story comes together: the characters are all spinning their wheels in seemingly different plays/films, with wildly variable acting styles."

Yes, yes and yes - all spot on.

 

[OldStrummer]

Solo. Yesterday.

I'm probably in the minority, but I liked it! I've said elsewhere that the Star Wars franchise was built around the story of the Skywalker family, but very early on we're introduced to this rogue/smuggler and his furry sidekick, and we know nothing about them. Yet, they become central figures in the space opera that is Star Wars, and all we ever get are oblique references to a past we're not privy to.

Solo changes that. I'm not going to post spoilers, but to me, the whole purpose of the movie is to fill in the background of a key Star Wars character that we've never really known. I think it does that very well.

Oh sure, I think some of the action scenes were too long; they could have cut 15-20 minutes from the movie and not lost any of the effect. And although the first appearance by Woody Harrelson gave me an "uh-oh" moment, his acting was sufficient to make me forget it was he.

I give a lot of credit to Ron Howard, who gets the directing credit. Pre-release reports had the movie circling the drain prior to his getting the reins. There is no question that "little Opie" has earned his place in the pantheon of great Hollywood directors, and I think his hand in making this movie a winner is well-deserved.

There are some for whom the Star Wars exercise is over and done. They won't go see this movie. There are also those -- like me -- who have followed the Star Wars story from A New Hope on, who will go regardless of the rotten tomatoes ratings and hearsay, and I hope they too, find this a great addition.

 

[Zombie_61]

...I'm not going to post spoilers, but to me, the whole purpose of the movie is to fill in the background of a key Star Wars character that we've never really known. I think it does that very well...

I haven't seen Solo yet so I can't comment directly, but as a generalization I think some characters simply work better within the confines/context of the overall story if they retain that "we've never really known" mystique. For example, one rumor says Disney/Lucasfilm is working on a "Boba Fett backstory" movie. That's a movie I don't really want or need to see because I think the mystery of not knowing his story helps the character--he should be enigmatic. Once you start explaining how and why he is who he is, he loses that power.

That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing Solo despite the mostly negative reviews and lackluster box office performance. Unlike Boba Fett, Han Solo is a character we've gotten to know somewhat so he's not so mysterious, and I've heard the one thing this movie does well is showing how he became the rogue smuggler we all know.

 

[crawlinkingsnake]

After our visit to Dublin, VA last week searching for my distant relatives final resting place; I purchased the dvd of The Battle of Cloyd's Mountain. Outstanding video done on the 150th anniversary of the battle. Well worth the purchase for anyone interested in history, especially the Civil War.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Solo. Yesterday.

I'm probably in the minority, but I liked it! I've said elsewhere that the Star Wars franchise was built around the story of the Skywalker family, but very early on we're introduced to this rogue/smuggler and his furry sidekick, and we know nothing about them. Yet, they become central figures in the space opera that is Star Wars, and all we ever get are oblique references to a past we're not privy to.

Solo changes that. I'm not going to post spoilers, but to me, the whole purpose of the movie is to fill in the background of a key Star Wars character that we've never really known. I think it does that very well.

Oh sure, I think some of the action scenes were too long; they could have cut 15-20 minutes from the movie and not lost any of the effect. And although the first appearance by Woody Harrelson gave me an "uh-oh" moment, his acting was sufficient to make me forget it was he.

I give a lot of credit to Ron Howard, who gets the directing credit. Pre-release reports had the movie circling the drain prior to his getting the reins. There is no question that "little Opie" has earned his place in the pantheon of great Hollywood directors, and I think his hand in making this movie a winner is well-deserved.

There are some for whom the Star Wars exercise is over and done. They won't go see this movie. There are also those -- like me -- who have followed the Star Wars story from A New Hope on, who will go regardless of the rotten tomatoes ratings and hearsay, and I hope they too, find this a great addition.

We saw it, too, and liked it for what it is, a sidebar to the main Star Wars story. Ron Howard did a fine job of direction. And I know this is just plain wrong, but the Woody Harrelson character reminded me of Michael Rooker's character in Guardians of the Galaxy, minus the blue skin.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

I'll Get You (1952) with George Raft in a made-in-England sort of mystery story. It's billed as a noir by the VCI company who put it out on dvd. Nuclear experts are disappearing around the world, and Raft is tracking them down with the help of an English intelligence organization. It's not really noir at all.
Double-billed with Fingerprints Don't Lie (1951) with stalwart Richard Travis as a two-fisted pistol-packing police department scientific investigator, aided by Sheila Ryan whose boyfriend was convicted of a murder charge on the basis of Travis' fingerprint work. Sid Melton provides comic relief as a hapless press photographer. Again, not really noir.
It clocks in at 57 minutes, with lots of static camera set-ups in which the characters explain what's going on. I would bet money that the courthouse hallway set was canvas stretched over two by four frames.

 

[Formeruser012523]

We saw it, too, and liked it for what it is, a sidebar to the main Star Wars story. Ron Howard did a fine job of direction. And I know this is just plain wrong, but the Woody Harrelson character reminded me of Michael Rooker's character in Guardians of the Galaxy, minus the blue skin.

That was Ron Howard? Really? Haven't seen it, but I can already tell ya, I like Michael Rooker a whole lot more. Even when he's not blue.

 

[Fading Fast]

Yesterday I caught one and a half scenes from "His Gal Friday." It was when Cary Grant meets Rosalind Russell's fiancee Ralph Bellamy and then takes them to lunch. There are more funny one liners, snide asides and perfectly timed looks from Grant and Russell in that (give or take) ten minutes than you get in your average three other movies in total. Grant and Russell have a chemistry that felt incredibly real and genuine - only long-term couples who know each other intimately can give off that kind of vibe. Acting at its best.

 

[Edward]

"Dunkirk"
It's a movie, IMHO, that could only have been made after all the other WWII movies that came before it were already made so that a "movie in a different mold" would be interesting and acceptable.

Saw it recently. It was.... okay. I liked that it didn't try to hide that Dunkirk was a massive defeat and probably the darkest point in the war for the Allies, but yet what was managed was remarkable. Nice to see the French and the RAF both get some credit for what they did. I can see what Nolan was trying to achieve, or at least avoid, by having Churchill's words referenced by a solider rather than a Churchill imitation at the end, but they were still unbearably cheesy and the film would have been the better without them at all.

Solo. Yesterday.

Just back from seeing it this evening.

I'm probably in the minority, but I liked it!

Seems so. Herself still likes the originals; I've been an ex-Star Wars fan since 1999. She gave it a resounding F, while I'm a little kinder. For me it's a D-, on a par with La La Land.

I've said elsewhere that the Star Wars franchise was built around the story of the Skywalker family, but very early on we're introduced to this rogue/smuggler and his furry sidekick, and we know nothing about them. Yet, they become central figures in the space opera that is Star Wars, and all we ever get are oblique references to a past we're not privy to.

Solo changes that. I'm not going to post spoilers, but to me, the whole purpose of the movie is to fill in the background of a key Star Wars character that we've never really known. I think it does that very well.

I couldn't disagree more; they robbed him of his mystique in favour of the safest of safe retreads, with nothing of any note therein that we didn't already know. I can't help but feel (hence my generous D- - the '-' being for the appearance of Darth Maul at the end - the only character in the entire franchise that was more of a let-down than Jar Jar Binks) that there was a vastly superior picture in there trying to get out, one that the Mouse didn't have the nerve to let out, and so we got a watered-down, family friendly, reheat from that hack Ron Howard, the unthinking man's Steven Spielberg.

Oh sure, I think some of the action scenes were too long; they could have cut 15-20 minutes from the movie and not lost any of the effect. And although the first appearance by Woody Harrelson gave me an "uh-oh" moment, his acting was sufficient to make me forget it was he.

Harrelson was great, a good cast and a good character. I liked the droid, and Lando was great. Sadly, the two leads lacked both chemistry and charisma. She is clearly a one-note player, and only good in GoT. He was weak, an unconvincing stand-in for a young Ford. (Granted, he at least made a better fist of that than Ford himself's phoned-in non-effort in The Force Awakens.) The biggest problem, however, is that the story is simply wrong. It needed to be Solo's journey from happy go lucky, it'll be alright to the weather-beaten cynic we see in Star Wars. Far too much foreshadowing and thus undermining of his narrative journey in the original film, especially given that the nascent rebellion are a bunch of kids that, rather laughably, look like they got lost on their way to a Mad Max Thunderdome theme party.

There was the potential for a great film about Solo to be made, but this wasn't it. Ultimately it seems they were simply too afraid to tarnish their hero by making the story which they should have done. They'd have been better off canning the whole deal when they fired the original directors.

I give a lot of credit to Ron Howard, who gets the directing credit. Pre-release reports had the movie circling the drain prior to his getting the reins. There is no question that "little Opie" has earned his place in the pantheon of great Hollywood directors, and I think his hand in making this movie a winner is well-deserved.

YMMV (and clearly does), but I have the strong sense that Howard's involvement was the kiss of death to an already ill-fated project. To be fair, even a competent director couldn't have done much with those two leads.

There are some for whom the Star Wars exercise is over and done. They won't go see this movie. There are also those -- like me -- who have followed the Star Wars story from A New Hope on, who will go regardless of the rotten tomatoes ratings and hearsay, and I hope they too, find this a great addition.

I'm an ex-fan. The whole deal died for me with the advent of the prequels. This has meant that I came to the Disney versions with an open mind and low to zero expectations. Thus far, I've enjoyed them all (for me, Rogue One was a vastly superior film to any other in the entire franchise), but this is undeniably a clunker.

Oh.... and there is no such film as "A New Hope". It's only name is Star Wars. This "A New Hope" is post-creative, George Lucas, revisionist, Han shot second nonsense and I will have no truck with it.

At least, with this having been something of a flop, we're not going to have to suffer that guy as Indiana Jones. I've long suspected that had he been accepted and celebrated as Solo, he'd have been a shoo-in for NuIndy, but I don't see that happening now.

I haven't seen Solo yet so I can't comment directly, but as a generalization I think some characters simply work better within the confines/context of the overall story if they retain that "we've never really known" mystique.

Completely. Solo is solid proof of that.

For example, one rumor says Disney/Lucasfilm is working on a "Boba Fett backstory" movie. That's a movie I don't really want or need to see because I think the mystery of not knowing his story helps the character--he should be enigmatic. Once you start explaining how and why he is who he is, he loses that power.

They'd have been on safer ground making the Boba Fett story, I think. We have no beloved actor or portrayal of Fett - he had little more than two lines in the entire original trilogy, rarely did much more than stand around - essentially, he was a very cool costume and not much else. Little to compete with if they'd hired a competent actor, whereas with Solo they had to try and replicate the charisma of a young Harrison Ford, which not even Ford himself was able to do in The Force Awakens.

That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing Solo despite the mostly negative reviews and lackluster box office performance. Unlike Boba Fett, Han Solo is a character we've gotten to know somewhat so he's not so mysterious, and I've heard the one thing this movie does well is showing how he became the rogue smuggler we all know.

Believe me - it does almost nothing well. YMMV, of course, but...

 

[Bushman]

As big of a Star Wars fan as I am, I have yet to see Solo. I'm going tomorrow, but have allowed myself to be immersed in the spoilers just because I've been trying to get interested in seeing it, which is so wrong. I love Han Solo. I cried like a baby when they killed off his character in The Force Awakens, but I my interest in this movie is nearly nonexistent. I have a piqued curiosity, not much else. I should be hyped as Hell for this movie, but I'm not.

 

[MondoFW]

TCM was having a military movie marathon in honor of Memorial Day, so I got to see No Time for Sergeants and The Best Years of Our Lives. The former was a charming and hilarious comedy. I would definitely be open to other movies that are similar in humor, perhaps other Andy Griffith movies. The latter movie was phenomenal, and definitely tugged at my heartstrings. The only other Golden Era movie that's really done that was On the Waterfront.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Couldn't sleep, so I watched the last two-thirds of "42nd Street," which happened to be on TCM last nite.

I've seen this picture dozens of times going back nearly fifty years, but it always works for me. Yes, it's the definitive backstage musical, and yes, it features every backstage musical cliche that ever was -- but it was also, as they say, the "trope namer" for just about every one of these cliches, and it does them in such a way that they stand right up and dare you not to take them seriously. You get the sense that everyone in this picture believes in every word of the script, and it's done with such absolute sincerity that it transcends all the hundreds of cheap imitations that would follow.

This is also one of the definitive "Warner Brothers Stock Company" movies, with so many of the Old Favorites showing up in their usual roles -- Dick Powell as the snappy juvenile, Ruby Keeler as the wide-eyed ingenue, Guy Kibbee as the goofy old sugar daddy, Ned Sparks as the sour-bellied producer, Allen Jenkins as the creepy stagehand, Una Merkel and Ginger Rogers as the wisecracking comedy relief, and on and on. (You keep waiting for Frank McHugh and Hugh Herbert to show up, but that's another movie.)

The real star of the film is Bebe Daniels, who is outstanding as the bitchy Broadway diva whose personal life is in a shambles as she pushes on with the show. She was a veteran of the first wave of early-talkie musicals and this was her farewell to the genre -- and she puts it over like the trouper she was. Not so hot is her love partner for the occasion, George Brent, whose acting offers all the expressiveness of a slab of beaverboard in a double-breasted suit, but his sappiness does fit his role, the sad-sack vaudeville hoofer who just can't catch a break. (Ronald Reagan would have done better in this part, but he was still a few years down the pipe.) One must also note the fine performance from Warner Baxter as the suffering director of the show -- there is no trace of camp or irony in his performance, and the scene of him sinking alone onto the fire escape in the darkness at the very end of the picture as the audience emerges raving about the show is a superb bit of acting.

The music is sublime, one of the best of the Dubin-Warren scores of the period, and while the Big Production Numbers a la Berkeley are exactly as advertised, the musical highlight of the picture for me has always been Bebe Daniels' wonderful performance of "You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me," where she prances around the stage in fabulous satin pajamas with a group of inanely-grinning chorus boys, only to dump them all and skip off arm-in-arm with Gandhi at the end. It makes no sense at all, and it doesn't have to.

It's a great musical and a great example of pre-code filmmaking -- the gamy dialogue comes thick and fast, and I always snicker when Una Merkel, sitting on a leering chorus boy's lap, makes a comment about "sitting on a flagpole" that would have sent Joseph Ignatius Breen into a spasm. No matter how many times you've seen it, it's always worth another watch.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I noticed they were showing it, along with other great Warners/Berkeley musicals like Dames and Gold Diggers of 1933. I can't argue with anything you said, Lizzie, it's a classic I've loved since I was a kid. I'm glad you mentioned Warner Baxter, whose dying director Julian Marsh adds an ironic note of gravitas those other films don't have.

I watched last year's critical darling Lady Bird. I thought it was okay, but no better or worse than a dozen other coming-of-age films made in the last decade or two. Definitely well acted and written/directed, but it didn't strike me as some kind of deeply moving masterwork. And while she's very good, I've found Saoirse Ronan more effective and engaging in several other roles, like Brooklyn and Byzantium.

Another way-hyped film from last year that I found underwhelming, along with Dunkirk, Mudbound, Logan, Get Out, etc. Yeah, I'm a tough room...