Last Movie You Watched.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Die Hard + Die Hard 2 ... my annual festive season rewatch, on BluRay for the first time (thought it was about time for an upgrade, boxset of 1 - 4 was £12.95 inc. postage from eBay so not too bad).

Because sometimes Xmas movies are better with gunfights, explosions and copious swearing.  

If you enjoy copious swearing i can recommend Bad santa with Billy bob thornton...it's hilarious

Yeah, it's a good laugh. Second one apparently isn't, I've heard.

after a while and thanks to the Beeb Beeb Ceeb, The Hill

funny to think that this is the same year as Thunderball and the two of coursre poles apart beyond having Sir Sean. Nice little cast -Jack Watson (for once not playing a sergeant type as in Wild Geese etc), Roy Kinnear, Harry Andrews (another sergeant type, a RSM in this case) and Ian Bannen.

Watching it made me wonder of a Sidney Lumet Bond if that had been possible. Somewhere between 1958 and 1961. Black and white, Casino Royale perhaps or even TSWLM, the close-ups, the relative lack of score (like say China Syndrome, you forget there is no music such is the pull of the film). Even with Connery in it.

As with Sir Roger and even Brosnan, I like seeing films of Bond actors during their tenure and of course by now, Connery had done four and was probably wearing thin by now. The Hill might not be for what he's remembered for but it's not a bad performance. He looks real for one thing, no toupee by the looks, a tache etc. His acting's real too.

on the other end last night A Christmas Carol

Pray, what version? Yet another one's out this year, every year we get a new one. If you throw in all the versions like say Carry On, various TV shows doing their bit, and so on...well, 100+ probably.

As it is, this one is 1984. It's my favourite and one huge reason is George C. Scott. Inhabits the role, brings the book to live by each word. That first scene in the office is enough to seal the deal. How he icily puts down Cratchit for applauding his nephew. You feel, unlike some actors, he was once this happy chap who in the end sold his heart really to make money in a misguided attempt to keep his lady happy.
Production wise, small, but as true to the book as it can be. Filmed in Shrewsbury, it feels a largely confined affair all the same. Apparently the fake Scrooge gravestone is still in the cemetery in Shrewsbury.

Sometimes I'll watch the Finney Scrooge but for Kenneth More (singing was something Noel Coward suggested he stayed away from) or Alistair Sim but Scott is where it is for myself.

Yeah, alistair sim is my Scrooge of choice, no mention of Caine here i notice

A Lumet Bond would have worked and been a great story but EON would have probably nixed a big director coming in in a heartbeat. It's much the same with the idea of Frankenheimer doing Bond in the late 80's with Dalton.
My lord both would have been beautiful. Maibaum would have probably done somersaults if Lumet had come on board.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - you know the drill ... the Griswold clan gathers, and chaos ensues. Randy Quaid's slobbish 'cousin Eddie' pretty much steals the show.

hegottheboot wrote:

A Lumet Bond would have worked and been a great story but EON would have probably nixed a big director coming in in a heartbeat. It's much the same with the idea of Frankenheimer doing Bond in the late 80's with Dalton.
My lord both would have been beautiful. Maibaum would have probably done somersaults if Lumet had come on board.

Valid points Boots. I didn't know about Frankenheimer, that would have be a kicker I'm sure. Dalton's kind of director methinks.

Oh what might have been...

Ian Fleming's CASINO ROYALE starring SEAN CONNERY...SCREENPLAY by Richard Maibum, Directed by Sidney Lumet

...another excuse for a time machine.

Elf - 'tis the season. An amiable, sweetly-natured festive comedy ... and there's nothing wrong with that.

Indeed not, I've seen it the once. For some reason I never go to seek it out every year. Guess I deluge myself with the two Miracles (or the third too) on 34th Street, Holiday Inn, White Christmas, Wonderful Life, etc. Ha.

Forgive me lads.

It's a Wonderful Life last night

No, not the Cliff Richard film of the mid 60s but the perennial classic. It's more than a Christmas film, Christmas just happens to take up the last 40mins of this 2h film. It's brilliantly acted by Stewart and Donna Reed, the support cast is not too shabby neither (Ward Bond no less there) and Henry Travers is a delight as Clarence -"No! I didn't have a drink!"
Poor George thinks he's a failure, at every turn he can't get away from Bedford Falls (I do wonder, surely he left the town once even if it was out of state). Something I can feel with him. Anyway. He gets the greatest gift, being able to see others' life if he had not been born. Such is his life, Bedford Falls becomes this place of sin and inequity, Pottersville.
The end, well, I remember seeing the film in 2016 at the Prince Charles Cinema, London (fantastic place that shows older films constantly, OHMSS next Feb) with a full audience. You appreciate a film with others in a cinema (like A Night to Remember or Strangelove at the BFI) and it had been lively. Laughing at things but at the end, deathly silence then the sound of clearing throats, sniffling and perhaps a sob. In Cheers Sam says it's so sugary it makes your teeth ache but that of course is the beauty. George is redeemed as such (though poor Uncle who lost the money...).

Today started differently, Carry On at Your Convenience

audience wise one of the more unpopular films they say owing to the trade union stuff not going down well. But good to see Jeremy Corbyn's younger days played well by Cope.
Liberally sprinkled with Bond alum, albeit the smaller roles of Bond. The late Margaret Nolan, Peter Burton and Anouska Hempel.

Scrooge

Alistair Sim and it closes in on Scott's as one of the better adaptations. Trouble is you see so many like Finney's is on tomorrow for example, even the Muppets and parts seemed to merge. Was one actor in that film? No the other. Did they do that sequence for this one, no, etc.
Sim precedes Scott by thirty years and his Scrooge seems a little more full of conscience but it's buried down of course. How he reacts to the sight of the ghouls when visited by Marley, or seeing the Cratchit Christmas (funny of course that Cratchit sees the good in Scrooge in spite of his pisspoor treatment but the family always wants to lynch Scrooge. Not seen a version where Mrs C shouts: You're being taken for a mug!)

Fantastic cast though. Patrick Macnee in an early feature (he's meant to be in Colonel Blimp, 1943, but yet to pinpoint him), Hattie Jacques seven years prior to Carry On, Mervyn Johns, Michael Hordern (the M that wasn't), George Cole, Hermione Baddeley (ten or so years prior to Mary Poppins) and on and on. Further proof that we had this golden age of cinema and now, no more.

Hattie jacques was in scrooge?....i religiously watch this version every christmas but don't remember seeing the hatter, i will make a point of watching for her

Heaven would include:

Timothy Dalton as James Bond in
The Scream of a Rose
Directed by John Frankenheimer
Written by Richard Maibaum
Score by John Barry

Coming this December 1991.

Oh that would have been something else. I do wonder who'd do the theme song with "Scream of a Rose". Can only imagine it'd be some sort of Aerosmith type number.

"Scream of a Rose" performed by Depeche Mode

That would work. What we need now is to make mockup of the titles like someone did with a Dalton FYEO featuring the Blondie version.

Well, for those who avoid such things look away now.

Yesterday plundered the iplayer and did a couple others today.

Yesterday kicked off with The Godfather

When I first saw it, round about 2008, it sailed past me. Like other films that had over years snowballed into an incredible reputation I guess I was underwhelmed by not seeing the fuss or taking time to appreciate it. Needless to say since and as with yesterday, it's a masterpiece. As well Coppola held firm one some of his choices and requests. Hard to imagine the film done any other way with any other cast. Though Don Rickles' roast of Jimmy Caan came to mind, why can't every role be Godfather, "get the bullets out of my ass and I'll play Sonny again".
Having seen a trailer for it, I am itching to see the recent recut of Part III.

Clash of the Titans
After the heavy going of the previous, chose a childhood classic. This being of course the '81 film. Boy, childhood changes things really. I think since I was 10, I had only seen this film once before. The great Harryhausen's effects might seem kokey to a modern audience but they do a job. Trouble is the film feels unintentionally funny in places now unfortunately like Jack Gwillim being 'underwater' (but then he did serve in the Navy during the war so...)
One of the perks is Olivier. Even in a role I'm sure he left shaking his head at, he positively shines with 'proper actor' vibes. In comparison Harry Hamlin, I'm not sure about. Some scenes he feels strong in acting-wise and others vague.
Soaring score by Laurence Rosenthal though. Film features a dubbed Ursula Andress.

Skipped into Grease afterwards.

Today, The Phantom Thread

This is one I need to return to. Every thought in my mind was to say this is excellent and though it looks good, DDL on form, I couldn't get into it. It feels sacrilege to say this being a Paul Thomas Anderson film but it might've been a touch long.
As I say, I'll return to it at some point.

and lastly, via the ITVplayer Force 10 from Navarone

Well, by now having seen it a couple of times as a teen and once or twice since then, this occupies a strange place. Like Finney's Scrooge.
By a certain point, Alistair MacLean had been writing books in the hope of them becoming films. Folk say by the time of his death in 1982, his works were weaker and weaker. He wrote Force 10 in '68, seven years after the film Guns of Navarone and made it murky, book-wise, by writing it as a sequel to the film Guns and not the literary Guns.

Making it trickier, is that the film adaptation came along in '78, by which time the great era of war films is done and dusted despite random efforts along the way like Bridge Too Far for example. Plus seventeen years since Guns came out, thus the cast is redressed. No Peck, Niven and Quinn of course -indeed Andrea doesn't feature in the film Force 10 despite being in the book.
The tricky, surreal feel to me at any rate is underlined by how it looks and the cast. Robert Shaw died before the film was released and looks in places a touch too old for Mallory (the literary Mallory is New Zealander, in the films he gets played by an American and Britisher), Fox is a bit too posh for Miller (again, in the books Miller is American from the south but in the films played by two very British actors). The two have this repartee that is in line with another film not a Navarone epic.

Harrison Ford appears a year after Star Wars and probably now has wiped this from his mind. So you have a pre-big fame Ford really or pre-Indy etc.

You then have a smattering of Bond alum, two from the same film. Barbara Bach who gets her kit off (I seem to remember seeing her climbing out of a bath but subsequent viewings this looks to be cut out or maybe I was far too hopeful as a teen) and Richard Kiel. Acting wise, Bach is no different really to TSWLM if more subdued in places (her accent is no different). Kiel on the other hand appears dubbed by Robert Rietty and it just is out of place.
Michael Byrne on the other hand does the job well. As with Eagle Has Landed and Last Crusade, he does a fine German accent. Carl Weathers is alright but the film is just plain all over the place. Not the worst film but being so long after the predecessor Navarone, seems pointless.

The effects are questionable if you know your films. During the Lancaster dogfight, the attacking German plane is at once a re-used clip from Battle of Britain but then it becomes a Spitfire (also from Battle of Britain).

Guy Hamilton directs by the bye and George MacDonald Fraser helped on the screenplay.

Anyway, it does have some fine location and classic war score by Ron Goodwin.

I put off seeing Force 10 for years and finally saw it about two years ago. I was delighted. Sure the picture isn't perfect and has some drawbacks but something about the dark irreverent humor mixed into a serious WWII on a mission films plus the cast and Bond alums just worked for me. I really want to get Indicator's big Blu-ray boxset with multiple cuts but Kino's blu-ray here is a newer master. I'll have to get both even though I already have the Laserdisc, DVD and old MGM Blu-ray...

"IT DIDN'T WORK!"

The humour is one perk of it though I read Robert Shaw apparently was saying it was going to be his last film. "I have nothing left to say" and half the lines being awful. I'll have to find a blu ray copy somewhere and have a fresh look. Pretty sure ITV changed the titles as they used to consist of a montage of WWII pictures.

Someone did two Navarone sequels years ago, Storm Force from Navarone and Thunderbolt from Navarone (Sam Llewellyn). I had faint hopes of them being turned into something, even a radio adapation. I started jotting a sequel, Spearhead from Navarone but dried up on it. Faint idea of the team going in to Germany late 44.

--

Vonce more unto zee iplayer

Death of Stalin

I say, crackles along at a pace with some lines shooting off like Katusha rockets. From the off, you twig no accents. But unlike Enemy at the Gates, where neither Russian nor German had accents, you put that to one side (though Stalin initially was a chuckle, like a Sweeney villain). Historical inaccuracies are neither here nor there, it's not the point (though fiction, I would recommend Robert Harris' Archangel if you want to read something that makes a fair go of depicting the post-Stalin chaos).

I did think Russell Beale was Khruschev before they put the names up, largely as he resembled Khruschev more. Either way Buscemi was a wonder (the whole cast really were, I was pleased to see Sir Michael Palin naturally). But just when I thought this film couldn't get zanier, bang, in comes the Bond that wasn't, Jeremy Isaacs doing his best Bernard Manning impression. Indeed, I would go as far to say Isaacs was the hidden star of this film. Every line a hit (the coup scene especially. "Not now Georgy, I'm staging a coup right now") and Isaacs seems to be enjoying himself.

Dunkirk

Now for a film that everyone else raved about and muggings sort of shrugged. I've not seen it since the cinema, indeed I think I've seen the '58 Dunkirk five times since. Now, it's technically well made and some bits are accurate enough like the RAF having blow all fighters to cover Dunkirk and limited fuel at that, the soldiers' etc but like then, it lacked that feeling of endangerment. The '58 Dunkirk managed on a limited budget (all its locations were in Kent or London). Supposedly the perimeter shrinks but there's no sound of the guns which dogged soldiers' minds, no chaos at sea (the vaporising of little boats to direct hits from above, the destroyers working relentlessly in and out), near constant air attacks during the day...it was chaos. The film feels in a bubble and I suspect I stand alone but the summer of 1940 is something I've looked into since university and especially this year when I plagued the internet about it.
Could've done without a Zimmer score to be fair. No real note there until the end when borrowing from Nimrod.

Normal service to be resumed shortly.

PEPPERMINT.
This was far better than expected, Jennifer garner plays a timid american housewife who's husband gets mixed up with one of the local drug barons, during a visit to the carnival she witnesses her husband and young daughter shot dead by a rival gang, the film then turns into a revenge story after the assailants walk free from court after bribing the judge. Garner is wonderful as a female version of Charles bronson who will stop at nothing to avenge her family. Sure it's a familiar tale told many times but this one is a cut above.....recommended.

Sir Hilary Bray OBE wrote:

The humour is one perk of it though I read Robert Shaw apparently was saying it was going to be his last film. "I have nothing left to say" and half the lines being awful. I'll have to find a blu ray copy somewhere and have a fresh look. Pretty sure ITV changed the titles as they used to consist of a montage of WWII pictures.

Someone did two Navarone sequels years ago, Storm Force from Navarone and Thunderbolt from Navarone (Sam Llewellyn). I had faint hopes of them being turned into something, even a radio adapation. I started jotting a sequel, Spearhead from Navarone but dried up on it. Faint idea of the team going in to Germany late 44.

--

Vonce more unto zee iplayer

Death of Stalin

I say, crackles along at a pace with some lines shooting off like Katusha rockets. From the off, you twig no accents. But unlike Enemy at the Gates, where neither Russian nor German had accents, you put that to one side (though Stalin initially was a chuckle, like a Sweeney villain). Historical inaccuracies are neither here nor there, it's not the point (though fiction, I would recommend Robert Harris' Archangel if you want to read something that makes a fair go of depicting the post-Stalin chaos).

I did think Russell Beale was Khruschev before they put the names up, largely as he resembled Khruschev more. Either way Buscemi was a wonder (the whole cast really were, I was pleased to see Sir Michael Palin naturally). But just when I thought this film couldn't get zanier, bang, in comes the Bond that wasn't, Jeremy Isaacs doing his best Bernard Manning impression. Indeed, I would go as far to say Isaacs was the hidden star of this film. Every line a hit (the coup scene especially. "Not now Georgy, I'm staging a coup right now") and Isaacs seems to be enjoying himself.

Dunkirk

Now for a film that everyone else raved about and muggings sort of shrugged. I've not seen it since the cinema, indeed I think I've seen the '58 Dunkirk five times since. Now, it's technically well made and some bits are accurate enough like the RAF having blow all fighters to cover Dunkirk and limited fuel at that, the soldiers' etc but like then, it lacked that feeling of endangerment. The '58 Dunkirk managed on a limited budget (all its locations were in Kent or London). Supposedly the perimeter shrinks but there's no sound of the guns which dogged soldiers' minds, no chaos at sea (the vaporising of little boats to direct hits from above, the destroyers working relentlessly in and out), near constant air attacks during the day...it was chaos. The film feels in a bubble and I suspect I stand alone but the summer of 1940 is something I've looked into since university and especially this year when I plagued the internet about it.
Could've done without a Zimmer score to be fair. No real note there until the end when borrowing from Nimrod.

Normal service to be resumed shortly.

I recorded The Death Of Stalin the night it was on ... jet-black and at times screamingly funny satire, if my memory of seeing it in the cinema serves me correctly. Armando Iannucci is a bloody genius.

I wasn't that hot on Dunkirk either ... it's not bad, but that's all it is. Although it's good to know Nolan can still keep a flick to a 105-minute runtime (take note, Tarantino!).

Trying to do a certain thing from many angles -the bomber attack and Spitfire intercept- was one thing but the film felt too much an experiment. The short runtime is a blessing in disguise.

As I've said before, Darkest Hour, as far as recent films go, did a better job underlining the nature of the situation in May 1940.

I met Iannucci very briefly when volunteering at the Dickens musuem in 2011. Turned up for my turn one morning and he was there. We exchanged words about something I forget now but I know he was laughing and agreeing. I had always wanted to give kudos for his championing of Yes Minister for that Great British Sitcom thing.

--

The Untouchables

not seen it since my first and only viewing years ago when we noted Connery's pronouncing of "secret", but what a rollicking ride really. Kind of wish Connery was the driving force, the lead. Just 120mins of arse-kicking. The shootout at the station is top notch but at the back of my mind images of Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun 3 came to mind, refused to budge.
Feels the kind of film no longer likely.

and after this, onto Operation Crossbow

As every war film should have, a cracking score by Ron Goodwin.

As I ended the post whilst starting it, Operation Crossbow

one of these films that plays fast and loose with the facts but it's a good ride. One of the few films of the era trying to present either side accurately. The effects for 1965 aren't too shabby, re: the V1's (including the lesser touched upon manned V1).

As noted it kicks off with a title score by Goodwin that is one of his better ones alongside 633 Squadron, Where Eagles Dare and Force 10 from Navarone. The score has a certain sound in places, such as the German scenes (for the V1 and later, the V2) that has an element of menace. Every war film should have had a Goodwin title sequence.

Cast wise, great (I always forget John Mills is in it until I see it) but it sort of shudders off the rails when Sophia Loren shows up. Granted, knockout but she was married to the producer or some such and there she is. It feels like she's crowbarred in and then she's gone (yet gets star billing etc).

Naturally our heroes go out fighting. As they should. Few war films have the entire lot gone.

Then today saw, er, this Viva Las Vegas. Really Ann-Margret. I mean, you know, she's there and it's hard to look anywhere.

Then it's over and you realise this film has zero plot.

Still Vegas seems to be filmed in three ways: Viva Las Vegas way, DAF way and Casino way.




Ah, the 60s.

Viva Las Vegas is memorable and notable for: the gorgeous Ann Margaret, being influenced by Bond, the time capsule factor of Vegas at the time and being one of the influences on Speed Racer (Elvis's hair).
That's it.

I really think the only Elvis film worth a darn for anything that isn't window dressing is King Creole because it was directed by Michael Curtiz.

LAST SHIFT (2014)
juliana harkavy stars in this low budget but nevertheless very good horror film about a rookie cop left alone on her first shift to guard a disused police station which happens to be haunted by a number of cult members who commited suicide whilst in custody...A highly original story with some genuinely shocking moments....recommended!

hegottheboot wrote:

Viva Las Vegas is memorable and notable for: the gorgeous Ann Margaret, being influenced by Bond, the time capsule factor of Vegas at the time and being one of the influences on Speed Racer (Elvis's hair).
That's it.

I really think the only Elvis film worth a darn for anything that isn't window dressing is King Creole because it was directed by Michael Curtiz.

when I was little, I saw most of his films as mum was and is a big fan (GI Blues I think I've seen a good dozen times). On this occasion, Ann-Margret was the pull, as it were. That intro shot of her that comes from under the car was sublime. Cor.

Next to No Time

being a Kenneth More fan, revisiting this. As I googled, IMDB says it's currently 5.7. Alas. Not the best film but 90mins of light gaiety to pass the time on a cold, dull New Year's Eve. Based upon a Paul Gallico story (starting to think Gallico had a thing about liners), it zips along best as it can. Sort of flags in places but without the likes of KM doing it, it might have sunk a quick death.

Bond-wise, intriguing set-up. Roland Culver and Reginald Beckwith were in Thunderball and here, like then, (or rather here before then), Beckwith is playing Culver's assistant. Was half tempted to see if they were paired off in more films. Just a small thing. Very small thing. The difference being TB was Beckwith's final film before death.

And this, NTNT was the director Henry Cornelius' final film before his untimely death aged but 44.

The Party

Rewatched this Blake Edwards/Peter Sellers classic for the first time in what must be decades. I found that it held up rather well. I am also confused by its now much maligned status, of it being deemed a racist piece. Especially in an era where say Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat is widely celebrated. Yet the latter's Central Asian stereotypes act is far more offensive in many ways than Sellers' far sweeter and quite tender take on a South-Asian man.