Last Movie You Watched.

Bullitt - Steve McQueen. Robert Vaughn. Lalo Schifrin. And a car chase that spawned a thousand imitators.

AWWW YEAH .

A slight shame is that the City of San Francisco denied the film-makers permission to carry the chase on over the Golden Gate Bridge (thus, there's that seemingly sudden moment where they cross the Bay without actually being seen to do so). As great as the chase is (and Bullitt is a favourite film), the imagery of the bridge and the chase would've worked wonders.

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after the Noir classics D.O.A and the Hitch-Hiker, sort of went south with a film I first watched a year or so back...

Tony Rome

1967. The kind of film that has your thought patterns like that of a Rat Pack member. It ticks the private eye boxes from Sinatra's Rome to Jill St. John and so on. Indeed, JSJ is effectively playing a prequel version of Tiff Case. Tiff it seems has drifted to Miami Beach to try her luck but it's a deadend town. Last we see of her she even climbs into a red Mustang.

Of course the film wouldn't get far today, starting and ending with zoom-ins of a woman's backside (in JSJ's case, if only they were brains, ahem), the lesbian scene -apart from being utterly odd in its execution or acting, would surely rile people and generally it's very sixties. Not that I'm complaining, it's a blast of a film if you don't pay too much attention to it and go for the ride. There's that slightly weird if funny moment where Rome's cleaning lady is banging on about her pussy and Sinatra's face is much like ours would be if confronted with something so laced with such wording. "Your pussy...sings?
-Yes, yes it does!"
Well, that's some cat lady. As I say the lesbian scene is odd. In '67 it must've been a bit risque (such as say Victim, six years previously, dealt with homosexuality in Britain) and it's acted...I can't put say, just off. You have this attractive younger redhead who is a cross between Julie Newmar and Lee Merriwether (I've been watching Batman lately...) and an older woman, also redhead, a bit like a fatter Irma Bunt. They say they're roomies, Rome ain't buying it, he don't care. Young Redhead starts to undress (I say), Older Redhead gets narky, next thing she slaps Young and they sort of collapse on the bed screaming, grabbing. Sinatra's face says it all.

Film has a sprinkling of familiar faces including Richard Conte and Simon Oakland, the letter always worth his fee.

Soon...onto Lady in Cement.

The Deep - any film in which Jacqueline Bisset spends the first 10 minutes underwater in little more than a white tee and bikini bottoms can't be all bad. An adaptation of a Peter Benchley novel, this passable diving adventure has both sunken morphine ampules and treasure as its McGuffins, a touch of voodoo weirdness, Nick Nolte and (his experiences on previous watery Benchley adaptation Jaws obviously not having put him off) Robert Shaw. Oh, and a John Barry score.

Team America : World Police - Trey Parker and Matt Stone's 'War On Terror' satire, made with puppets (as you do, lol) ... consequently this can sometimes seem like the makers of the original Thunderbirds got drunk and decided to 'cut loose' one day. A decent amount of chuckles to be had as jihadists, over-zealous US military response and do-gooding celebs all get it in the neck. And in these global pandemic/race war times, the idea of a North Korean dictator threatening the world seems almost quaint.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

the idea of a North Korean dictator threatening the world seems almost quaint.  

Hehe I thought the same thing when I gave it a rewatch earlier this year. Like a child nagging adults for attention.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

The Deep - any film in which Jacqueline Bisset spends the first 10 minutes underwater in little more than a white tee and bikini bottoms can't be all bad. An adaptation of a Peter Benchley novel, this passable diving adventure has both sunken morphine ampules and treasure as its McGuffins, a touch of voodoo weirdness, Nick Nolte and (his experiences on previous watery Benchley adaptation Jaws obviously not having put him off) Robert Shaw. Oh, and a John Barry score.

   

I saw this only the once about 2-3 years ago and all I can remember is Bisset in a wet t-shirt.

Hard to imagine that Team America started out as an idea/hope to do a version of Thunderbirds but the mockers were put on it.

The first of three films I can think of that pissed off the Kim clan (try saying that twice, and sober).

There was also The Interview, and I must confess I'm struggling to think of the third.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

There was also The Interview, and I must confess I'm struggling to think of the third.

Die Another Day. I'm pretty sure The Supreme Youknowwho wasn't happy.

He should've been on KTBEU!

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Meteor

Another film I saw a few times in my younger days and seemed alright. I mean it fed into End of the World stuff, it had Connery and co...

...but now, well, sadly the effects are shall we say ropey and it veers in places to unintentional humour. However, I shall draw attention to the fact it has a half-decent cast. Sean Connery here had lines that were amongst my first Connery impersonations at school, when one line was "if you were under a blanket of shit", imagine how that went down. He's good for his paycheck here though I was drawn to his hair...surely by now, just dodge vanity -you're Sean Connery.
Then the scene-stealer is Brian Keith. I've come to like his films a lot in recent years (even his turn in Hooper say) but I read a little while ago, he was a fluent Russian speaker and if so, brilliant. (I was struck this time by the fact, he could've done his own translating but that would've eradicated Natalie Wood's role). Absolute dynamo of energy.
The other scene-stealer is Karl Malden. I think with mounting horror, Meteor was my first Malden film. He has this twinkle to the eye, the expressions and his outbursts (one was unintentionally funny) are not bad. Should've been in a Bond film with Connery.
Natalie Wood is good but feels largely pointless. In the book there's a translator but it doesn't feel she's there for more other than a faint love interest for Connery (which accomplishes more in the book).
Along for the ride are Martin Landau (suitably pissed), Joseph Campanella (perennial TV guest star in the likes of Ironside, Quincy etc), Henry Fonda (bone weary at another dire disaster flick) and Trevor Howard. Having watched Ryan's Daughter this week for the first time, I think he was wishing he was stuck in Ireland again.
It's on YouTube, as I viewed it, so...yeah. Good film score though.

Wrong Arm of the Law

Hundreds of viewings and still funny. Worth a few quotes imitations and a decent cast. Sellers, Cribbins (PC brigade would go ape at his Irish character), Jeffries and a dozen others. It features Michael Caine in a very brief shot as a copper.
Kind of film that makes you realise this industry will never come close again for talent.

He might've been keen on Zao, and Moon pre-transformation into Rik Maya ... erm, Toby Stephens.

Icarus surely would've turned Kim Jung-Un's head. Certainly his sister seems to be based on the ice queen who tortured Brozzer.

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The Yangtse Incident

A film if done today that would surely have the overbearing reps of the PRC scurrying to hector and hassle some unfortunate film distributor or some such. I've mentioned this film a few times before but what the hell.
In 1949 HMS Amethyst is supporting the Chinese forces of Chiang Kai-Shek and comes under unprovoked fire from the Red Chinese. Forced aground, much of her officers killed, she spends a few months upriver, there's negotiations and then in a daring move, escapes downriver to Woosung to re-join His Majesty's fleet.

Directed by Michael Anderson (Quiller, Dam Busters, er...Logan's Run) it is typical of films of the period. Documentary like feel to it and a solid, if not exactly starry cast. For me the film is technically superb. Aside from during the escape, there is next to no model-work -actual ships are used up on the Medway (which does a convincing enough job of the Yangtse) including the Amethyst herself. When a Sunderland flying boat lands to bring medical aid, you see from within its cockpit as it slides in past Amethyst. Other films would have used mock-ups and back projection or some such.
Amethyst was due to be scrapped (1957) and was saved for the film. As it is, they did enough damage to her that she needed to be scrapped and was not preserved. Sister ship Magpie did the moving shots and these are quite something.
Early in the film as she comes under fire and starts moving to get out of the shots, you have this piece without music from one bank as she inches along, you see crew moving about, the guns firing, columns of water erupting around her and flashes of explosions on her decks. That alone stands this film above others.

Richard Todd is the perfect embodiment of stiff-uppers (as the Navy Lark would say) as the real-life JS Kearns, sent from the British consulate to A) take charge and B) negotiate a way out of the situation. Swiftly he gets the ship working and takes William Hartnell's CPO to the negotiations. In his first negotiation he comes out bristling, "How dare they tell the British what to do?" kind of thing. For that aside, Todd was good in this role. Like Kenny More, the 50s would be his heyday, his kind of roles becoming pilloried by the sixties.

Hartnell was virtually typecast as a sergeant type by now, all the way from the Way Ahead (1944). However, he's bang for his buck in this film.

Bernard Cribbins, Barry Foster, Kenneth Cope, Ian Bannen and a handful of others round out things well.

One of the best scenes might well be the escape. It's preceded by a quiet montage, no dialogue or much sound, of the crew from ratings up to Kearns, waiting the moment at night. They've greased up the anchor chains for silent action, the crew knows what is expected. Then as the moon hides behind a cloud they slowly move off. A Chinese lighter sails ahead, the Reds start firing, the music slowly creeps in and triumphantly, carried by momentum almost. The moment Amethyst finally engages the Red guns as they're caught in the lights is decent and then, finally, come the dawn, they re-join the fleet with actual messages used in dialogue.

Of course the incident is all but forgotten now but there we go.

His typecasting as either military types or wrong 'uns was the main reason that Hartnell was delighted when Doctor Who came along, calling it 'a cross between The Wizard Of Oz and Father Christmas'.

He had some solid non-military roles like in Hell Drivers (Stanley Baker, McGoohan, Connery), he went out on a high.

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Battle of the River Plate

When you think Powell & Pressburger, this will not bubble to the top but it bears their mark and therefore, as war films go, is fairly accurate based on the time. Twenty years after the battle which itself happened three months into the war and during the Phoney War...it wasn't for the war at sea, it benefits from a few things. Chiefly that is uses ships of the period and indeed, two of them were at the battle itself (and rarely, the ships are credited on screen just after the actors).

Of a rich cast, Anthony Quayle seems possessed but in a good way. Enscapsulating the pain and angst as the battle starts but he can't support poor Exeter (shelled to ribbons then lost in the Pacific in 1942). When he does: "give her the lot!"

Bernard Lee gets the rub of the green for the first twenty, thirty minutes as a PoW whose ship is sunk by Graf Spee then the Royal Navy takes over largely and then it becomes the realm of the intel men (incl. Michael Goodliffe) and American reporter. The tricky bit is the battle, it looks good with the ships (and no models), but you hear the sounds of gunfire but don't see it, so it feels disjointed.

And lastly, Finch is an interesting choice as Captain Langsdorff but does a credible accent and plays Langsdorff with quiet dignity. Like many of the famous naval commanders, Langsdorff was no Nazi and ultimately shot himself after scuttling the Graf Spee. Certainly, you imagine had he returned to Germany, he would have paid some kind of penalty.

As First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill seized upon this, held a banquet at Mansion House for some of the men from Harewood's ships and that was it really, until the invasion of Norway four months later.

Zodiac - gripping, superbly paced David Fincher-directed 'true crime' thriller about the hunt for the titular serial killer who terrorised the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 60s and early 70s (he was an influence on the creation of 'Scorpio' for Dirty Harry).

With Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gyllenhaal and Anthony Edwards all on good-to-great form.

As I lay drowning in this heat, sought out...

The Doomsday Flight

Utterly useless TV-movie in its way but it was the cast that drew me. Chiefly the great Edmond O'Brien, then there's Jack Lord, Van Johnson, Ed Asner, Greg Morris and John Saxon. It's a bit hokey, effects are a bare minimum, it's ripe for parody (a bomb onboard, then it transpires it could go off at 4000ft, hang on, there's an airport at 5200ft!) but the cast as I say kept me watching. I think I first saw O'Brien in Longest Day but since his roles in Liberty Valance, Seven Days in May and recently, DOA, have made him a favourite. Just sunk his teeth into a role, not in a hammy way.

As for others, Jack Lord seemed to exude cool just by being there. Steven McQueen is the King of Cool they say, maybe Lord was the pretender to the throne. The hair, the way he walked, he just seemed cool. I got thinking if only he played JFK in a film, there's a look at least. Be it an episode of Ironside, James Bond or whatever, Lord was it.

Van Johnson I like but sometimes in this he just went full ham. Also, pronouncing "Los An-ge-lees...".

And supposedly, according to wiki, it spurned a rash of copycat calls...for the bomb was a hoax.

Onto serious fare in comparison.

The Magnificent Seven

From the off it is epic. Elmer Bernstein's theme kicking into life, the spacious open landscape and it goes from there. I heard in a documentary that the script was economical in places and on the quiet there's not much dialogue say to other films. I believe someone said Coburn had eleven lines. Brynner gestures in response to questions ("Where did you come from?/Where are you going?") and it doesn't matter.
A favourite scene is early on, the funeral. The preamble with Whit Bissell (one of my favourite guest actors in things) and then Chris and Vin taking it upon themselves to ride the coffin up to Boot's Hill. Bernstein's music steadily but quietly builds it up, the crowd following, the shouts and dialogue ("You elected?"/"Nope, but I got nominated.") and then the score flairs into life triumphantly.
The marshalling of the seven is great (Coburn does so much without saying much) and the rest of the film does the job. Villains are a bit stupid giving the Seven back their guns thinking, well they're out of the village now so they won't return. The climatic fight does the job.

The shame is that years and years ago when I was about 14, they showed Return of the Seven the week after this. By then I had seen the film a few times, it was a classic in my mind. So I sat down excited, Brynner! But wait, there's Vin but it's not McQueen...there's whathisface but it's not Buchholz. Somehow it tainted the first. Not seen Return since and so the first is the only.

I've not seen the latest version. I know it's done things it's own way but sometimes, the originals are so firmly etched in my mind (like Mission Impossible, Star Trek, or whatever) that it feels sacrilegious to even try.

Desperado - Antonio Banderas' vengeful wandering mariachi arrives in a small Mexican town, looking for the scumbag who killed the woman he loved. Hugely enjoyable actioner with Steve Buscemi, Cheech Marin, a cameoing Tarantino and a smokin' hot Salma Hayek.

Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter - one of America's most notable Presidents was a hunter of the bloodthirsty undead on the side? lol, mmmkay then. Ridiculous-but-passable action-horror with Benjamin Walker, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Dominic Cooper.

Old school:

Scott of the Antarctic- still a classic, made so haunting by the Vaughn-Williams score. Something about colour in those days (1948), maybe the blu-ray player (it's a DVD but some of my DVD's look sharper...) made it more-so but you look at Matter of Life and Death or Colonel Blimp say and the colour looks rich and vivid. Story goes that John Mills sort of made sure Kenny More didn't get much screen time. How true that is (as it's a story that resurfaces on another film) I don't know but good to see Kenny pre-stardom and for once not chasing skirt!
Christopher Lee sneaks in virtually unnoticed, there's a host of other familiar faces and that last moment as the camera pans out from the doomed trio still stirs.

The Way Ahead

Propaganda film but not too shabby. There's a bit of flag waving but it feels subtle. Niv leads a motley bunch of misfits, it's virtually a serious Dad's Army as these chaps are in their forties at least (and it includes Dad's Army's John Laurie) as they train to go to war. Each chap has their story, each chap doesn't seem likely in this man's Army but they pull through and Niv is there. The ship scene remains a highpoint. Torpedo strikes, everyone goes nutty until Niv opens the door and snaps at them to be calm and calm they get. Trevor Howard cameo here. Then they're off to Libya (ah those innocent days when the biggest threat was Mussolini) and that man Peter Ustinov. Ends with them walking off to meet the Hun. (Dad's Army parodied this for the end credits).
Do they die or do? Well, you assume they achieved glory one way or the other judging by the pleased expressions of the unit's veterans at the Chelsea Hospital.

When World's Collide

Solid b-movie fare. Terrifying to a child, the idea of a planet colliding with and destroying Earth but now somehow quaint. There's a lot of matte paintings, slightly off SFX in places and thus the focus is firmly on the human story. Next thing you know, the planet is on the horizon and that's that once they reach safety. A film in a way that could benefit from a remake.

Logan - it's a pity in a way that the only decent Wolverine 'solo' movie was the last of them, but such is life. The box-office success of Deadpool convinced Marvel Studios to have a movie with stronger language, more graphic violence and more mature story themes than their usual outings for their heroes and it works brilliantly.

John Wick 3 - I'll just say it, THIS (rather than the increasingly pretentious and confusing Matrix; remains to be seen what the 4th instalment will bring, but after the second and third ... hmm) is the action franchise Keanu Reeves should be remembered for. Exhilarating action choreography, funny, exists in its own 'heightened' version of the world ... an absolute blast.

The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (1974) - cracking thriller in which an NY subway train is hijacked and a ransom of a million dollars is demanded with an hour for delivery, otherwise the hijackers will start killing passengers. The shortness of the ransom delivery 'window' lends this a nice urgency, and it's shot through with that fantastically sardonic 'Noo Yoik' humour.

With Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Hector Elizondo, Martin Balsam and Jerry Stiller.

The Untouchables - seemed appropriate to watch something scored by Morricone last night. Directed by De Palma, written by David Mamet, 'suited' by Armani, Costner as the unwavering Eliot Ness, De Niro as Capone, Connery on Oscar-winning form ... and of course the score.

A belter.

It's truly a masterpiece. I was thinking of giving The Untouchables a rewatch myself for the very reason you did. I probably will soon.

Not seen it for ages but brilliant film. Though I did pick up on Connery's accent at one point: "Can you keep a say-cret!"

Any film with Connery is always value for money. Well, sometimes.

Connery's accent is in-and-out, but what the hell ... the movie's not a 100% accurate depiction of events (for example Frank Nitti met his end by self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 1943, not by being shoved off the Chicago courthouse roof by an enraged Ness).

Mamet's 'revenge' for Nitti's involvement in attempted extortion of the film industry, in a similar fashion to Tarantino's re-imagining of Sharon Tate's fate in OUATIH? Possibly ...

Gave Suburbicon a watch. Everything is there except the script, culminating in a messy film. Characters' actions are very convenient to the story. It's a shame because Clooney gives some very interesting visuals and draws excellent performances from Damon and Moore.

Very disappointing effort from the Cohen brothers.

Well done in getting through it ... I lasted half-an-hour then bailed, figured having smiled once in that time was not promising for something billed as a comedy.

As you say, the talent behind the camera should've resulted in something much better in front of it.

I was very restless. Kept checking how long the damn movie had left.

Yeah, I was very surprised to find that the Cohen brothers wrote it. What a dampener on their CV!

So far the films that the Coens have wrote but didn't direct have been relatively disappointing. That's probably why they didn't even bother directing them, they were just handing off leftover scripts to other filmmakers to make something out of them. The one exception was BRIDGE OF SPIES, but it probably helped that Spielberg directed that one.

Funnily, they rewrote BAD SANTA but didn't get credit, only their names appearing as producers. That's probably my favorite non-directed Coen film.