Last Movie you Watched?

Obsession (1976)

....................................................It did nothing for me. I love Zsigmond's work, but the film didn't really elicit any excitement from me. I'll certainly give it another watch some time soon, and maybe it'll grow on me. But right now, it just left me cold. Comparing De Palma to Hitchcock, I think Hitchcock seemed to take a lot more care with the scripts before he tried to shoot it. De Palma had Schrader and it helps here, but the movie doesn't move in the slightest. I honestly don't give a **** about anything that I saw.

And I guessed the twist about two minutes into the movie. As soon as they came down the stairs I called it.

EDIT ADDON: I wanna read the original DEJA VU script that came with the Blu-ray.

Bernard Herrmann had a hand in the script IIRC. Not personally, but he ordered re-writes and made suggestions.

LONDON. Partly a laid-back, almost dreamy, yet unapologetically intellectual and fiercely anti-Tory travelogue through a decaying contemporary London, and partly an elegy for a long-lost glorious capital that perhaps never really existed, Patrick Keiller's film (released in 1994) nowadays also serves as a fascinating visual record of the city in 1992, the year it was shot. Disappointingly, it never really enters the realm of the ethereal, but it's still a bizarre and beguiling piece of prime British arthouse fare.

I preferred the Jason Statham film.

Harry Brown - gritty urban vigilante thriller which plays out very much like a British version of Gran Torino. Pensioner ex-Marine Harry (an excellent Michael Caine) decides 'enough is enough' and takes the law into his own hands when the gang of feral, drug-abusing 'hoodies' terrorising his London estate kill his best friend Len when he stands up to them. The issue of vigilantism is undoubtedly a 'squirmy' one, but you're left in no doubt as to whose side the film comes down on.

Charley Varrick (1973)

A movie I'm glad to own as I watch it at least once a year now. Just wish there was a soundtrack out there.

I wish I could have been around during the 70s.

But, then again, I don't, because I'd be old now.

Mr. Brown wrote:

I wish I could have been around during the 70s.

But, then again, I don't, because I'd be old now.

Nah, we have DVDs now, so we can appreciate all of the older stuff.

Still would want to be in the 70s. Music, women, movies.

Too much information? Possibly.

As long as get a crack at Jacqueline Bisset, Jenny Agutter, and few others, I'm there.

This leaves Erin Gray that I can think off. To the time machine.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Mr. Brown wrote:

I wish I could have been around during the 70s.

But, then again, I don't, because I'd be old now.

Nah, we have DVDs now, so we can appreciate all of the older stuff.

It would have been nice to see all of the great films of the 70s in the theater, though, during their initial release.

DVDs and Blu-Rays are a totally different experience.

Yeah, but you're crazy if you think you would have had unfettered access to all of the films you treasure. There was a lot of good stuff to originate in the 70s--and earlier--but access to that material has never been better than it is in the present.

Harmsway wrote:

Yeah, but you're crazy if you think you would have had unfettered access to all of the films you treasure. There was a lot of good stuff to originate in the 70s--and earlier--but access to that material has never been better than it is in the present.

Yeah, that was the days before wide release. If you didn't live in a major centre, you were only getting the big shows, and even then months and months down the line.

And you'd have to deal a crap economy, high gas prices, unpopular Presidents, a nation reeling from a pointless war.

Ya know, people talk crap about the internets, but I wouldn't be the filmfan I am without them.

Fuck you guys. When I make a time machine, I'm not inviting you to come along.

First stop: dirty old Times Square to find hookers.

Hugo (2011)

Watched it in 3D, of all the films I saw in that format this is probably the one I found most engaging. Color me surprised as I didn't expect it to be that good. I found it to be a very beautiful film and the performances were just right. Plus, a nice little score by Howard Shore.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Charley Varrick (1973)

.

excellent choice!!

:cheers:

j7wild wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Charley Varrick (1973)

.

excellent choice!!

:cheers:

Again, I wish FSM would do a 70's Schifrin boxset release of his lesser known scores.

Unfortunately, FSM's label is just about finished:
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/daily/article.cfm/articleID/6706/

Intrada or Varese could release some Schifrin down the line, though.

Sweet Smell of Success

Good story with fine dialogue. I'm surprised to see Curtis acting very well. I liked the jazz score as well.
A dark journey through the big city at night, full of intrigue and lies. Falco is a master at lying, though in the end the truth gets him into serious trouble.
Fine work, I do think it will please even more on further viewings.

Went the Day Well? (Ealing 80th Anniversary Restoration)

Surely of course a piece of propaganda summed up by the forces of good (Britain) and the forces of evil (the dastardly Hun). At times, early on, a pastiche of the quaint, largely upper class, tea drinking, churchgoing British villagers and shortly the mean, child slapping, vicar murdering Nazi swine. (Reinforced late on when the Germans threaten to kill the children in an act of retaliation).
Bramley End, May 1942. The Germans are planning their invasion for the Monday morning, on the Saturday in the village a group of Royal Engineers turn up and are welcomed by the charming folk of the village from the lady at the manor to the nosy postmistress to the seemingly innocent gentleman Leslie Banks. It all looks decent but then the Engineers in a couple of scenes are revealed actually to be German paratroopers laying the way for the advancing armies that will come. And zut alors, Leslie Banks is a traitor helping them along.
The villagers see those tell-tale signs we all look for. The corporal who gets rough with the young lad for snooping, the continental 7 (with a line through and the elongated 5s, they MUST be Germans!) and then the clincher, a bar of chocolate spelt the German fashion.
It soon moves downhill, the Germans reveal themselves rounding the villagers up in the church hall. The dark edge of the film begins with the shooting of the Vicar as he rings the bells (wartime warning for invasion) then the merciless gunning down of the Home Guard patrol as they come home. The postmistress bludgeoning her Nazi guard before, as she tries to phone for help, she is bayonetted by a returning Nazi.
Gradually the plucky villagers spearheaded by Frank Lawton (later to play cowardly Bruce Ismay in Night to Remember) fight back initially hindered by traitor Banks. Sometime silly moments in the film like how the villagers find German hints are overshadowed by the greater meat. The Lady of the Manor valiantly sacrifices herself when picking up a grenade that otherwise would've killed the children (slightly comical looking on it with a modern sense). Good ol' Nora realises boyfriend Leslie Banks is a traitor, kills him and finally liberation is at hand. The battle between the cavarly like British soldiers and the Nazis is brutal, almost more so than the one in Eagle Has Landed.
The invasion is foiled late on, we win the war, pip pip and the rest. Typically British yet not. Dark with odd splashes of humour. One of the better films produced during the war.

Mr. Brown wrote:

Unfortunately, FSM's label is just about finished:
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/daily/article.cfm/articleID/6706/

Intrada or Varese could release some Schifrin down the line, though.

Oh damn. :(

Well, I'm still not sure about that Vol. 1 of Schifrin. It's his 70's stuff that I really want.

Speaking of 70's.

The Towering Inferno (1974)

I live in my old room in the attic at my dad's place (moving back to Cali this year), and this one is a nice movie to have on while cleaning up the room. The king if 70's disaster movies. If it just needed George Kennedy as Joe Petroni to fly a water-filled 747 over the tower and save the day.


"Crossover, bitches! And if Susan Blakely needs a husband now, I'll take her."

War Horse (2011)

It's nice, didn't rock my socks off but it's got plenty going for it to make it a very good trip to the cinema. I'd say it's got the best cinematography this year, this fucker was shot gorgeously.

The Help (2011)

Not quite as bad as I was expecting. The script is so-so, but some of the performances make up for it. They're all very earnest performances, but some are just better than others. Viola Davis is, without a doubt, the single best thing about this film. She's reason enough to recommend it. And I wish there was a 60's civil rights era film that starred and was about her, not about a pretty rich white girl played by Emma Stone. And while I haven't seen THE IRON LADY, Davis was robbed at the Globes. How many has Streep won?

Octavia Spencer was good. Emma Stone was good. She's got a funny way of moving her face. Just saying. Bryce Dallas Howard does nothing to rise above her role, which was written as being a cartoonish bitch. Her character is basically the villain of the story, and that's just dull to me.

Jessica Chastain.



Oh my God, that woman. In that red dress. Holy FUCK! Quite the talent, too. Though she seemed a little stagey and mannered, and I prefer the from the gut kind of acting of Viola Davis.

I dunno. The performances make this watchable, but it's too damn long. I checked the time twice and was shocked both times by how much movie was left. It's just not a very sophisticated treatment of such a huge issue. That time in the South could offer so many films. An oppressed minority, with outside help too, changed an entire culture and way of life in a decade. It wasn't all neatly wrapped up by any means, and it still isn't. But this film isn't telling a particularly interesting story to me. What the hell do I care about whites gaining respect and sympathy for blacks in the South. Viola Davis didn't need to be anyone's co-star in the kind of story. The film references the assassination of Medgar Evers, and all I could think of was, "Gee, I wish this would turn into THAT movie."

I'd still prefer a film about the bombing of a Bapist church in Birmingham that killed four children.

EDIT ADDON: If this wins Best Picture, and I'd say it's got as good a chance as any film I can think of, it won't bother me nearly as much as THE K-K-KING'S SPEECH, SLUMLORD MILLIONAIRE, CRASH, or MILLION DOLLAR BABY.

And it'll be interesting to hear what Newman does on SKYFALL. I can't hear this kind of music in a Bond film.