Last Movie You Bought?

Bought used copies of several DVDs and BluRays recently, ranging from a buck to three bucks apiece at local nonprofit thrift shop.

ROBIN & MARIAN, SWASHBUCKLER, ADVENTURELAND, MUNCHHAUSEN, HORRIBLE BOSSES (both)

Was there ever a thread here for movies I most want that aren't on homevid (or at least dvd)?

Mine would feature LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR and HARD CONTRACT, along with a few old TV movies, including THE CHALLENGE with McGavin and Mako.

I remember seeing a mid80s movie called IMPULSE with Tim Matheson and Meg Ryan that was kinda creepy-good, a proto-XFILES vibe to it, and I don't think there are any versions of that available outside of VHS. It's not something I crave, might not even like it a second time, but it is surprising that this just slipped through the cracks so completely.

There was a nice letterboxed version of HARD CONTRACT on TCM a long ways back, but that is the closest it has come to anything decent quality wise; GOODBAR had a very nice version streaming on netflix about 13 years back (reason I signed up for the service in fact), but other than that, there is just VHS and a mediocre P&S laserdisc.)

Pre-ordered THE FLASH.
Yes, I liked it that much. Much better than the Wonder Woman movies or Birds of Prey and such which I hated. Not at all up there with JOKER or Zack Snyders Justice League, but I want it in my collection.

KING OF COMEDY, AFTER HOURS, OUT OF SIGHT and WILL PENNY

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST
DUNKIRK
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN
TOTORO
PINOCCHIO (2019)
THE FALL
THE LITTLE RASCALS
VIOLENT NIGHT
WHIPLASH

Fantastic Voyage (1966). I'll be watching it tonight for the first time since I saw it in the theater, which would have been around 1975.

DUMB AND DUMBER

Classic comedy. I never tire of this. Certainly top five of the Carrey movies.

OPPENHEIMER
I think I need this in my Nolan collection. I like how it portrays Truman, as the absolute psychopath he was.

THE PHANTOM

Never seen this, but hey its The Phantom, and it has to at least be better than the daft 1940s movie I tried to watch once.

There's a lot of hatred for THE PHANTOM (maybe on part with the vitriol over THE SHADOW), but I didn't know anything about the source material and enjoyed it very much. Probably my favorite 'fun' role for Zeta, who goes way over the top past Onatop, and Treat Williams is having a blast.

I think I only saw it in the theater because I hadn't seen McGoohan in anything new for many years, and he seems pretty feeble in his small role. No, I went for Billy Zane too, who i really hoped would break out, but apparently a lot of people (even my wife, who hasn't seen DEAD CALM) get a psycho vibe from him. He's one of the few actors who I could write a character for with him in mind speaking the lines (Clive Owen and Craig T. Nelson are two others.)

Picked up a used blu-ray of TWILIGHT ZONE THE MOVIE for two bucks -- mainly because it seems to resell for a lot more than that. If I rewatch, I will probably skip the Morrow segment because it just brings back all the injustice over what happened and how rich people get away with shit and the Spielberg segment, which I've never been able to get through. Find the plane and IT'S A GOOD LIFE segments to be pretty fun though I have never understood why they didn't plus-up the ending on the plane one. The first time I saw the TV version with Shatner, I was convinced the ending was going to be a pilot shouting at Shat after he shot the thing on the wing. "Why did you do that? How do you think we keep these things in the air?! When the movie came out, I thought the same thing, but heard from a friend opening night, 'sorry kevin, they didn't use your idea this time either.'

trevanian wrote:

The first time I saw the TV version with Shatner, I was convinced the ending was going to be a pilot shouting at Shat after he shot the thing on the wing. "Why did you do that? How do you think we keep these things in the air?! When the movie came out, I thought the same thing, but heard from a friend opening night, 'sorry kevin, they didn't use your idea this time either.'

Haha, that is a great idea!

Phantom Commander wrote:

trevanian wrote:

The first time I saw the TV version with Shatner, I was convinced the ending was going to be a pilot shouting at Shat after he shot the thing on the wing. "Why did you do that? How do you think we keep these things in the air?! When the movie came out, I thought the same thing, but heard from a friend opening night, 'sorry kevin, they didn't use your idea this time either.'

Haha, that is a great idea!

I talked about this with a friend last night and found out that one of the recent TZ reboots also redid this episode ... and third time was not the charm, so I guess we got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals!

The Fabelmans
Master Z: Ip Man Legacy
Top Gun Maverick
1917
Eddie the Eagle
Hotel Mumbai
Good Morning Vietnam
About Last Night (Zwick)

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

1917

That one is a masterpiece. One thing Mendes can be rightfully proud of.

Used DVDs of HARPER and its sequel THE DROWNING POOL. My HARPER disc was all screwed up a couple years back, and I had intended to buy the bluray, but getting these on dvd for just two bucks -- I find the followup pretty good too -- was something I couldn't pass up.

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
TARZANS GREATEST ADVENTURE

Insanely good deal on DONNIE DARKO 4K, still sealed.
Then I found out that as first released, the theatrical version of the movie doesn't play right on most systems. And that the company handling it stopped making replacement disks a ways back. So I'm a little torn, as it is still unopened, but apparently the odds are good that the theatrical version (the only one I've seen and the only one I was interested in having an upgrade on from my dvd) will not play properly.

WILD AT HEART
One of my favourite Lynch movies. Top three for sure and the one I have seen the most times, so maybe the best of the bunch when all is said and done.

Phantom Commander wrote:

WILD AT HEART
One of my favourite Lynch movies. Top three for sure and the one I have seen the most times, so maybe the best of the bunch when all is said and done.

WILD, along with STRAIGHT STORY, are the only Lynchs I've seen just once (it was over 30 years between viewings of ERASERHEAD for me, so that almost feels like I've only seen it once, especially since I was totally drunk for a midnight show on the original viewing.) I think that is probably due to Cage, who I've never liked -- if Cruise and Cage ever acted together, my universe would probably implode, I find them so obnoxious, practically on a Craig/Bond level.

And then there's INLAND, which we tried to watch I think a total of four times and never made it even an hour in. My wife is bugging me to give it another try (it has been at least 10 years since the last time, when I was so frayed that I actually threw the disc away -- it was a blind-buy for me, but I figured the odds would be good I'd dig it, since I saw MULHOLLAND and HIGHWAY so many times and practically live and breathe all seasons of TWIN PEAKS), but I'm still a little wary on EMPIRE.

I do love ELEPHANT MAN and eventually got to love BLUE VELVET after shutting it off in midfilm the first time through, and I've actually seen his DUNE at least twenty times (more if we could the Judas Booth version), so it isn't like there is just one part of his work that delivers for me.

For me, the other top three contenders are probably Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. Lost Highway is somewhere up there, too. I too love Twin Peaks. It revolutionized tv, but in retrospect, Fire Walk With Me was not that great. I still havent seen Straight Story. It just seems dull.

There are movies when I just wonder, how many times do I have to try before I give up for good?

The 'why are there people in the world like Frank?' lament in BLUE VELVET made me shut it off in disbelief first time through the VCR, and it was more than two decades before I gave it another try ... and now I love it.

Mann's HEAT is a movie we have tried watching 4 times, and never gotten more than 45min in before giving up (I know there is a big gunfight later in the film and have considered starting there next time and then going back, which seems like a cheat but is how I was able to get into Herbert's DUNE novel -- jumping 140 pages in to a big banquet scene -- after stalling out on for a full decade.)

Most embarrassingly, I have tried to watch SEVEN SAMURAI twice and not gotten a 1/2hr in either time. Literally everybody who knows my passion for movies and my inclinations for types of movies has told me time and again that I'd be watching SS yearly for life if I could just get through it once.

Not sure if this counts, but yesterday I bought the digital version of DON'T LOOK NOW on a streaming sale for just $2.45. I very rarely ever buy stuff in digital format (FANTASTIC VOYAGE, THE HENDERSON MONSTER, CATCH-22 theatrical, ELECTRIC DREAMS theatrical, plus both seasons of MANHATTAN, THE GAME UK tv and DOWNWARD DOG are the only items that come readily to mind), but due to price points and availability, those seemed no-brainers when they came up as offerings in the last couple of years.

trevanian wrote:

There are movies when I just wonder, how many times do I have to try before I give up for good?

The 'why are there people in the world like Frank?' lament in BLUE VELVET made me shut it off in disbelief first time through the VCR, and it was more than two decades before I gave it another try ... and now I love it.

Mann's HEAT is a movie we have tried watching 4 times, and never gotten more than 45min in before giving up (I know there is a big gunfight later in the film and have considered starting there next time and then going back, which seems like a cheat but is how I was able to get into Herbert's DUNE novel -- jumping 140 pages in to a big banquet scene -- after stalling out on for a full decade.)

Most embarrassingly, I have tried to watch SEVEN SAMURAI twice and not gotten a 1/2hr in either time. Literally everybody who knows my passion for movies and my inclinations for types of movies has told me time and again that I'd be watching SS yearly for life if I could just get through it once.

Not sure if this counts, but yesterday I bought the digital version of DON'T LOOK NOW on a streaming sale for just $2.45. I very rarely ever buy stuff in digital format (FANTASTIC VOYAGE, THE HENDERSON MONSTER, CATCH-22 theatrical, ELECTRIC DREAMS theatrical, plus both seasons of MANHATTAN, THE GAME UK tv and DOWNWARD DOG are the only items that come readily to mind), but due to price points and availability, those seemed no-brainers when they came up as offerings in the last couple of years.

Trev, you and your wife must truly be kindred spirits. From your posts, you really seem like the perfect couple. I think that's very sweet, and that you both are fortunate. My wife and I are similarly well matched.

It's kinda amazing when something like this happens, isn't it? She and I definitely part company on certain films (ACTION JACKSON is a prime example of me like/she not, while its the reverse on THE FOUNTAIN, which I've never stayed awake for, even in the theater; for her THE WILD BUNCH was a one-and-done, while I tend to at least sneak the big battle at the end in if she is engaged in the kitchen), but our taste levels are somehow similar in what I guess are the important ways. Shoot, she turned me on to Se7en after I swore I'd never see a Fincher movie again when ALIEN 3 came out and stamped all over the great memories I had of its predecessor, so I owe her big just on that one.

She's got the clear cell carcinoma thing going on now, so though they may have caught it all at stage 1, even after chemo infusions she knows this kind always comes back, so we're trying to be a little more discerning with our entertainment choices -- it's like you're sitting there watching THE WIRE and wondering, 'is this the last time we're going to get to do this together?' That pretty much takes the Roger Moore and Broz Bond movies off the table for the foreseeable future along with most forms of STAR TREK, but hey, I've seen all of those things enough to last multiple lifetimes. To paraphrase from the end of the YOLT novel, 'we will use our time.'

trevanian wrote:

It's kinda amazing when something like this happens, isn't it? She and I definitely part company on certain films (ACTION JACKSON is a prime example of me like/she not, while its the reverse on THE FOUNTAIN, which I've never stayed awake for, even in the theater; for her THE WILD BUNCH was a one-and-done, while I tend to at least sneak the big battle at the end in if she is engaged in the kitchen), but our taste levels are somehow similar in what I guess are the important ways. Shoot, she turned me on to Se7en after I swore I'd never see a Fincher movie again when ALIEN 3 came out and stamped all over the great memories I had of its predecessor, so I owe her big just on that one.

She's got the clear cell carcinoma thing going on now, so though they may have caught it all at stage 1, even after chemo infusions she knows this kind always comes back, so we're trying to be a little more discerning with our entertainment choices -- it's like you're sitting there watching THE WIRE and wondering, 'is this the last time we're going to get to do this together?' That pretty much takes the Roger Moore and Broz Bond movies off the table for the foreseeable future along with most forms of STAR TREK, but hey, I've seen all of those things enough to last multiple lifetimes. To paraphrase from the end of the YOLT novel, 'we will use our time.'

I will add her to my nightly prayers.

Health is important, and love even more so. I am sure you take good care of each other.

I really appreciate the sentiments, folks, I surely do.