Last Movie you Watched?

I find 2046 much more moving and compelling than IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, which has lovely moments, but is ultimately a bit too simple to be any kind of major statement (as far as I'm concerned, it's the weakest entry in the trilogy). 2046's wider scope offers a better look at the memory/identity questions which continually fascinate Wong, along with some of the finest metaphors and narrative conceits he has ever found to embody them.

From Russia With Love (1963)

Solid Bond adventure. Not too thrilled about a return to Istanbul in SKYFALL. We've seen enough of it in FRWL and AS THE WORLD TURNS IS NOT ENOUGH. I think Izmir would be more interesting. Grant > all of us.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Sorta perfunctory Hitchcock to me. The gears move well, but it doesn't interest me a great deal. To be honest, I find that the second half kinda sags in a lot of places. The Albert Hall sequence is of course, to quote Doug Wilson, legendary. Shame Reggie Nalder was never in a Bond movie. This movie is like the love-making of a couple married for 20 years. The moves are down, but it's a little dull at points.

Up next tonight, finally, I'm gonna see...



LEE REMICK'S ANATOMY.

Huh? It's ANATOMY... OF A MURDER? Son of a bitch. Well, I guess I'll watch it anyway.

She is what I enjoyed most in that film.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

A heartwarming comedy about friendship, family, drugs, and NPH's neverending quest for pussy.

You can't watch a movie like this critically. There is nothing really of merit for the technical execution and there is no comedic innovation. However, like the White Castle burgers sought after in the first movie, it hits the spot and it hits it hard.

If they continue to make sequels, they need to become more and more absurd. The best parts of all the H&K movies is when they go off the rails.

Tubes wrote:

NPH's neverending quest for pussy.

I've never found that remotely believable.

Lee Remick, and her Muff.

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

How fitting that it's the 187th film I've watched this year. I found it mostly hypnotic, and I am not a fan of courtroom dramas as a genre. Preminger's control, his cinematography, mise en scene, and the performances are what I really loved in this film. I did like how the film handled the battlefield between Stewart and Scott, and how the DA was a bit of a stuffed shirt. Lee Remick (Holy God) and Jackie Treehorn also acquit themselves very well.

I did think the ending came along too quickly for my liking. The verdict and the aftermath could have been given more weight I thought.

Still, it's one of the better films I've seen this year. It's a dialogue-heavy, slow film for adults that is handled very well and never gets boring. Well, at least to me. Lee Remick apparently said, "I make movies for grownups. When Hollywood starts making them again, I'll start acting in them again." This is a good showcase of human emotions and motivations with a dynamite cast that you actually have to pay attention to.

Also, the R1 DVD is open matte. I think this film looks better fullframe as opposed to cropped.

I recently went with two Brit-flicks I haven't seen in ages: Layer Cake and Children of Men. Both were highly entertaining... more so than when I first saw them. When I first saw Layer Cake, its cast was unknown to me other than Craig. Now, all the faces are so recognizable... Michael Gambon, Colm Meaney, Ben Whishaw, Sienna Miller, Tom Hardy, Sally Hawkins, George Harris (he's 60... WTF!), Kenneth Cranham, etc. Vaughn still hasn't made as good a film since, IMO.

Children of Men has so many fine details and moments to keep track of. While its action is outstanding, I feel that some parts of the film could've been shortened. I understand that Cuaron wanted to make his dystopian masterpiece, but some of the longer, dramatic pauses make it lose momentum. Still, one of the best films of the last decade.

Sky Riders
James Coburn stars in a preposterous but entertaining action flick
adventurer Coburn's ex wife Susannah York and son are kidnapped by a 70's terrorist group seeking a ransom in arms from her rich current hubby, Robert Culp
Coburn still has a soft spot for her and the boy so he turns up to help out Culp and Police Chief Charles Aznavour
turns out the terrorists are hold up in a seemingly inaccessible disused monastery on top of a spectacular rock formation (in reality "The Holy Monastery of Rousanou/St. Barbara")
part of a complex of scenic monasteries later used in James Bond (except "The Monastery of the Holy Trinity" was used for FYEO)
Coburn is wondering how to get in when he has a flash of inspiration, why not make use of the latest 70s craze, the hand glider
he seeks out a travelling hand gliding circus troupe led by John Beck (who I coincidentally just watched in Rollerball) and persuades them to join him in mounting a daring commando style rescue
fortunately, as well as being proficient with hand gliders, they are also dab hands with automatic weapons and grenades
once you've swallowed that, away we go
as long as you don't think about it too much it moves along well enough and provides some wonderful aerial footage of the spectacular Meteora scenery
as with "Firepower" it's more fun than his wannabe "Thomas Crown" efforts, like "Dead Heat On A Merry-go-round" and "The Internecine Project", while offering more satisfying action and drama than his "Flint" and "Presidents Analyst" Bond spoofs
like Charles Bronson, as a lead actor Coburn doesn't often get to work with the best of material, so I rate this one a respectable effort
and on that basis, if you’re a Coburn fan this is a must

Exiled

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796212/

another great gangster crime thriller out of Hong Kong by director Johnnie To

if you never seen a movie made by To, you are missing out!!

Have you seen much of Preminger's other films, Tux?

FourDot wrote:

Have you seen much of Preminger's other films, Tux?

I've seen LAURA and WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

FourDot wrote:

Have you seen much of Preminger's other films, Tux?

I've seen LAURA and WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS.

I tend to prefer his independent stuff. Advise & Consent and Bunny Lake is Missing are both top notch films. I loved Exodus; no one else seems to. In Harm's Way is similarly bloated, but intriguing. Even his lighter fare like The Moon is Blue entertaining.

What I liked about Preminger is that he always found some new way to push the envelope in terms of what was acceptable to be shown (or said) on screen to an American audience. Well... until he ran out of ideas and made something like Rosebud, which is a strong contender for WORST THING EVER. Richard Attenborough as an Arab, I ask you.

I really want to see Skidoo, out of morbid curiosity.





Or maybe I don't.

I've owned the DVD of Anatomy for so long and I STILL haven't popped it in. :| I'm too tired right now to watch something and I'm sure something else will divert my attention, still it's ridiculous. It has my favorite film star ever Jimmy Stewart and I've heard nothing but good things.

Makeshift Python wrote:

I've owned the DVD of Anatomy for so long and I STILL haven't popped it in. :| I'm too tired right now to watch something and I'm sure something else will divert my attention, still it's ridiculous. It has my favorite film star ever Jimmy Stewart and I've heard nothing but good things.

James Stewart.

Lee Remick.

Lee Remick's panties.

George C. Scott.

Great cinematography and set design.

Titles by Saul Bass.

Music by Duke Ellington: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cntm7j6R1G0#t=51s

The Wrong Man (1956)

I like it. It stretches credulity like any Hitchcock film, but it's odd here because the film strives for realism. So it's a weird dynamic to me. But it's technically great with a great cast.

The ending seems a little like a cop out.

Goldfinger (1964)

I love it.

CR the end with the sinking house in Venice and Vesper dying in that elevator still feels like a cop out of the acting skills of mr. Craig & miss Green. Like DAD to much over the top action. Having opted for a non-spectacle end but with acting could have made CR a brilliant movie.

Tux didnt find ANATOMY OF A MURDER perfect in every way?

This displeases me. :|

colly wrote:

Tux didnt find ANATOMY OF A MURDER perfect in every way?

This displeases me. :|

can't please everyone all the time. Must try harder.

Hilly wrote:

can't please everyone all the time. Must try harder.

Bérénice can. Though it helps being double-jointed.

Sharky wrote:

Hilly wrote:

can't please everyone all the time. Must try harder.

Bérénice can. Though it helps being double-jointed.

Will have to check that out one day. Maybe on a rainy afternoon or some such.

saint mark wrote:

CR the end with the sinking house in Venice and Vesper dying in that elevator still feels like a cop out of the acting skills of mr. Craig & miss Green. Like DAD to much over the top action. Having opted for a non-spectacle end but with acting could have made CR a brilliant movie.

The last third of CR is pretty dreadful imo (its an acute problem as the first 2/3 are pretty good) I'm not conviced Ms Green has any acting skills to offer however so I can't imagine we missed much from her. Curiously action does seem to have become the bane of modern Bond, it's a requirement that imposes no matter how inapprorpiate or contrived the situation, rather than adventures or thrillers the series has been pigeonholed pure action and thats to the detriment of its wider appeal. I'm hoping the report that Mendes is toning down the action is more a signal to a proper set of priorities so that films can recover some sense of balance and allows the movie to end when its right to do so not always havbing to jump though that hoop of a final surge of adrenalin no matter what..

STEALING BEAUTY. A mostly very "European" film that just so happens to have a very "Hollywood" ending irritatingly tacked on, STEALING BEAUTY is frustrating fare that spends two hours being neither one thing nor the other and rarely flickering into life. As usual with Bertolucci, it's good to look at (never great to look at, though), and it's never less than watchable, although being as how it focuses largely on a bunch of uninteresting characters with (Jeremy Irons' dying playwright aside) decidedly high class problems as they loaf around an Italian villa one summer, it rarely sets the pulse racing, exactly. Matthew Spender's sculptures, which are featured prominently, often seem the most captivating characters onscreen.

The most interesting moments seem to coincide with Irons' appearances - rarely has a flick been so "saved" by a supporting role. Every so often, he seems to wander in from a much more intelligent and involving film, as (to a lesser extent) does a young Joseph Fiennes. Strangely, acres of screentime (relatively speaking) are lavished on Stefania Sandrelli's professional agony aunt, a mindblowingly dull character who is, as far as I can see, utterly redundant to the narrative. The main star, Liv Tyler, does what she can, but it's hard to care overmuch about a heroine who goes to Italy to find her real father yet when she gets there barely lifts a finger in order to do so (and completely fails to spot the big reveal that's under her nose the whole way through), opting instead to dance around mindlessly to the sort of loud rock music that Bertloucci seems to have somewhat patronisingly imagined a teenage American girl would most want to listen to, and to moon about the villa writing doggerel like: "The die is cast/The dice are rolled/I feel like shit/You look like gold." (We're told that her mother was an accomplised poet, in which case the apple would appear to have fallen rather far from the tree.) Almost needless to say that the film's attempts at eroticism are largely hamfisted and embarrassing.

STEALING BEAUTY flounders in phoniness and condescension. As Roger Ebert puts it: "Lucy is a creature without an idea in her head. She has no conversation. No interests. No wit. She exists primarily to stir lust in the loins of the men. ...like many a middle-aged man before him (Bertolucci) has been struck dumb by the beauty of a nubile young girl, and has made the mistake of trying to approach her on what he thinks is her level. The movie plays like the kind of line a rich older guy would lay on a teenage model, suppressing his own intelligence and irony in order to spread out before her the wonderful world he would like to give her as a gift. Look at these hills! These sunsets! Smell the herbed air! See how the light catches the old rose-coveredvilla! The problem here is that many 19-year-old women, especially the beautiful international model types, would rather stain their teeth with cigarettes and go to discos with cretins on motorcycles than have all Tuscany as their sandbox." Maybe, maybe not, but this film is rarely convincing or compelling.

Harmsway wrote:

Oxfordian thought is about as sensible as 9/11 conspiracy theories.

An oasis of sense in a sea of lies, in other words?

I once watched an interesting documentary which claimed that Sir Francis Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare's plays.
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