Last Movie you Watched?

And I have now completed my Best Picture run...



In the Heat of the Night (1967)

I'm glad to say that I ended on a high note. This was actually a pretty good movie. Odd that I hadn't seen it before as I grew up watching the show from time to time.

But yeah, I thought it was really well handled. Not your typical social issue drama. My favorite line was a throw away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJbfCQqiD0M#t=7m46s

Made me lol. Well, not ol.

-Two powerhouse actors giving two powerhouse performances.
-Good, solid direction.
-A good script, from when procedurals hadn't yet been done to death, no pun intended.
-Great supporting cast with quality character actors like Warren Oates, Lee Grant, William Schallert, Anthony James, and Scott Wilson.
-Nice, thick atmosphere.
-A Quincy Jones score, and a title song by Charles that beats the ever-living pants off of the TV show version.



Now it's left to just SUNRISE to really complete the run.

I never actually saw that one, but I did see the sequel THEY CALL ME MISTER TIBBS! years ago.

There's even a third Tibbs movie called THE ORGANIZATION.

In a Lonely Place

Pretty good mystery, drama and acting. I like Bogey here, once again.
Apart from REBEL, this is the only film of Nicholas Rayfn I've seen yet. :)

The Eagle Has Landed: Extended Version

good actors, good music, good, good, good. It sort of meanders under Radl but kicks off once the Germans get to England. Like the action sequences in and around the village as the Yanks initially bumble under Hagman then get it together with help curiously in the form of Jeff Conaway (first film apparently) and wipe out Jerry in the church. Steiner is akin to Frederich August Freiherr von Heydte who was hardly a Nazi and in this respect the Germans are half decent apart from the obvious. Duvall, Michael Byrne, Quayle, Caine and Sutherland on fine form.
Some cracking lines but it was Tom Manckiewicz so no surprise. "If you'll forgive me Father, we're going to give it a damned good try."

THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER. Overlong and not entirely credible, yet extremely well-made and entertaining. Simultaneously old-fashioned (in a good way, I mean - a "They don't make 'em like that any more" kind of way, what with its solid, unhurried storytelling, its fine craftsmanship and its sense of the epic, and its lineup of square-jawed military types engaging in macho anctics, indeed these guys are basically just like the guys from the same director's PREDATOR with much better academic grades) and curiously ahead of its time (it looks and feels more like a film of the late 1990s or the early twenty-first century than a product of the late 1980s). Ultimately, decent performances are the glue holding this flick together (Connery has rarely been better, actually).

I really hope John McTiernan hasn't directed his last film.

TAKE SHELTER kept my interest up right till the end, and then I hated it. Maybe now I understand why some people don't like the end of Carpenter's THE THING, because that is how I feel about this thing.

Also, KILLER ELITE. Man, the ads really misrepresented this movie. It's not a brainless action pic at all, and Statham holds his own with DeNiro and Owen ... ever since THE BANK JOB (another 'based on a true event in British history' so I wonder if he has some agenda going on to tell stories that otherwise would be lost to history), I've been getting the impression that Statham is not just the pond's answer to Chuck Norris, but that he has some stuff going on.

This movie must take place in an alternate universe from THE INTERNATIONAL, cuz Clive seems to be working for the bad guys now. There's a good fight scene, some good car stuff ... only downside is that most of the set-pieces look like they were inspired by (if not outright lifted from) CR and QoS. Will probably buy this.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984, dir. Sergio Leone)

Spectacular.

Harmsway wrote:

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984, dir. Sergio Leone)

Spectacular.

DVD or Blu? I've been on the lookout for cheap copies of the Blu.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984, dir. Sergio Leone)

Spectacular.

DVD or Blu? I've been on the lookout for cheap copies of the Blu.

DVD, and it still looks pretty darn stellar. I haven't picked up the Blu yet, but I probably will (along with all the other Leone films), even though I suspect the difference between the up-converted DVD and Blu isn't too significant.

Harmsway wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984, dir. Sergio Leone)

Spectacular.

DVD or Blu? I've been on the lookout for cheap copies of the Blu.

DVD, and it still looks pretty darn stellar. I haven't picked up the Blu yet, but I probably will (along with all the other Leone films), even though I suspect the difference between the up-converted DVD and Blu isn't too significant.

Not sure if my player up-converts. Do all players do it?

WEST looks great on Blu. I hear the Dollars films vary in quality, with FAFDM having the most improvement.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Not sure if my player up-converts. Do all players do it?

Most do, these days, though admittedly there are some cheap models that don't.

American Psycho (2000)

Thought it was lame. It felt overplayed to me. The fact that nearly everyone is portrayed as soulless is something I just found annoying, and to me it's part of what kills this movie.

Ripley's Game (2002)

So happy I got this for just 2 dollars. A charming little movie with Malkovich being evil. It's pretty slight in terms of budget, but it's wonderfully acted by everyone in it.

I haven't read Highsmith's books, but I'd like to. I want to see THE AMERICAN FRIEND- the other adaptation of this book.

Winstone FTW.

I saw this movie before I ever saw THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, so that film looked even worse when I finally got around to it.

London Boulevard - A lesser version of Layer Cake, right down to the finale. The cast of Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, Ray Winstone, and David Thewlis is the only thing that keeps it watchable to the end. The Russian title for this is "The Bodyguard" - a very misleading title.

Would love to give that a watch. One of Keira's films I haven't seen.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

American Psycho (2000)

Thought it was lame. It felt overplayed to me. The fact that nearly everyone is portrayed as soulless is something I just found annoying, and to me it's part of what kills this movie.

Complete piece of shit. Not sure why everyone thinks it's so great.

I remember the novel being a lot better. (Naturally.)

Mr. Brown wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

American Psycho (2000)

Thought it was lame. It felt overplayed to me. The fact that nearly everyone is portrayed as soulless is something I just found annoying, and to me it's part of what kills this movie.

Complete piece of shit. Not sure why everyone thinks it's so great.

I remember the novel being a lot better. (Naturally.)

But the part where he explains how the new Genesis is so much better than than the old Genesis was hilarious. Soulless Phil Collins-loving bastard.

The movie was obviously a send-up of the 1980's self-absorbed, 20-something me-generation. But yep, the book I'm sure was much better.

But nobody does soulless better than Bale.

I haven't read the novel, but this David Foster Wallace pretty much put me off of it entirely:

Quote :

"If what’s always distinguished bad writing— flat characters, a narrative world that’s clichéd and not recognizably human, etc.— is also a description of today’s world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then [Bret Easton] Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it."

I just didn't care for how it was handled. The movie felt smug, and pleased with it's self. And it never, to me, earned the right to feel anything close to that.

I mean, black comedy social satire about a serial killer? I ought to love it. But the film feels as shallow and the characters, and not in some ironic way or anything.

Oddly enough, Bale was my favorite thing in it. I actually thought he was terrific. I just didn't like anything much around him. There were a few moments that I liked, though.

Harmsway wrote:

I haven't read the novel, but this David Foster Wallace pretty much put me off of it entirely:

Quote :

"If what’s always distinguished bad writing— flat characters, a narrative world that’s clichéd and not recognizably human, etc.— is also a description of today’s world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then [Bret Easton] Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it."

I don't even believe we're in dark times, but I'd agree with a lot of that.

AMERICAN PSYCHO? The book (while flawed and - make no mistake - very far from a pleasant read*) is vastly superior to the film, which is abysmal.

*Not that it was intended to be such a thing, of course.

Actually I quite enjoyed the film American Psycho. It was stylish and did revel in it's brazen depiction of yuppie consumerism and self absorption. The film was pure satire.

It was a bizarre film, but that was by design. Bateman's shallow taste in music was not only funny in itself, but Bale's oh-so earnest delivery really sold it. At the end of the film, when he was trying to come clean and confess to being a serial killer, everyone else was so self absorbed, they couldn't hear what he was saying.

Bale makes the film. The casting was brilliant. And he sculpted the perfect vanity body for the role too. His morning vanity routine was a great send-up of the whole GQ scene. Sad thing, is there really are lots of guys that would relate. They wouldn't be quite sure if they were being mocked or saluted. I suspect in the spirit of the film, they might think Bateman was giving them a shout-out.

The movie is an acquired taste, but its one I like to pop-in from time to time, just for its pure bizarre entertainment value. The fact Bateman went nuts shooting-up the Toronto Dominion Centre tower complex was entertaining, as I used to work there, and spent much time in those lobbies.

tiffanywint wrote:

Actually I quite enjoyed the film American Psycho. It was stylish and did revel in it's brazen depiction of yuppie consumerism and self absorption. The film was pure satire.

It was a bizarre film, but that was by design. Bateman's shallow taste in music was not only funny in itself, but Bale's oh-so earnest delivery really sold it. At the end of the film, when he was trying to come clean and confess to being a serial killer, everyone else was so self absorbed, they couldn't hear what he was saying.

Bale makes the film. The casting was brilliant. And he sculpted the perfect vanity body for the role too. His morning vanity routine was a great send-up of the whole GQ scene. Sad thing, is there really are lots of guys that would relate. They wouldn't be quite sure if they were being mocked or saluted. I suspect in the spirit of the film, they might think Bateman was giving them a shout-out.

The movie is an acquired taste, but its one I like to pop-in from time to time, just for its pure bizarre entertainment value. The fact Bateman went nuts shooting-up the Toronto Dominion Centre tower complex was entertaining, as I used to work there, and spent much time in those lobbies.

I get it, it just didn't work for me. But I thought Bale was great.

The film as a whole doesn't do much for me, but I do love the scene where he kills Jared Leto with the axe while praising Huey Lewis and the News.

And his apartment.

Oh, and word on the book. I can't even look at a wire coathanger the same way.

Or a gerbil.

Road to Morocco

absolute blast from end to end and all bits in between. Some academic bonz said this was stereotypical nonsense but bah. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby zing along at a rate of knots, acting as if we're in on their joke with their glances at camera and lines. Anthony Quinn in typical villain mood with Donna Duke and Dorothy Lamour...gosh, lumme.

Ten to one we'll meet Dorothy Lamour...



Wow, first time I've ever seen steam heat in print...

:5*: