Last Movie You Watched.

Ah, I see.

A Night to Remember

the last time I saw this was as part of the centenary into the sinking and at the BFI. This being said I've seen it far too many times and it's responsible in part for my Kenneth More fandom.
This being said, it remains one of the best films imaginable. Not just on the sinking of the Titanic but also society at the time. Never really affected me until last night, maybe watching Downton Abbey earlier, had me in this class conscious mind but one of the film's triumphs is contrasting the decks. You see the upper class on their way to the dock, waved and cheered off by the estate's children then you see the Irish who will be in steerage leaving amidst tears and well-wishes.
Once on the ship you see the contrast again. The upper class in First and some in Second walking the upper decks, the steerage mostly below (though in reality they would have been able to get topside, such is the film you don't see this) and then during the sinking. The upper lacking comprehension or clarity of mind (women trying to get their belongings from the purser, wanting their rooms warmed for when they return, etc -even after it's apparent the ship is doomed this continues) and the lower deck knowing what's going on and damned determined to get out. One scene that sums the difference up is when the steerage passengers we've been following burst into the First Class dining room and stand there in open mouthed astonishment.

The film was made in 1958 so it went by what facts were known and when many of the survivors were still alive. More had the option of being able to talk to Lightoller's widow and this helped the performance I think. Some of the More charm and humour is there. Otherwise it's one of his best performances.
Unlike other films on the subject it veritably jumps straight in. All is set out in the first ten minutes. The passengers, the departure from Southampton on April 10th and thence into the night of April 14th.

I got sucked in more than before. Kept looking at some of these characters, even the nameless ones, thinking who will die that awful night and who'd have a chance. Or the Californinan, that if she was that 'mystery ship', if she knew of the Titanic's plight, how much of a difference she could've made.
Like in Raise the Titanic (the book) how Dirk Pitt says it's all a matter of "If's..." concerning Titanic.
If the lookouts had binoculars (left in Southampton).
If the ship wasn't speeding.
If she hit the iceberg head on (she likely would have survived)
If there were enough lifeboats for all (or if the lifeboats were fully loaded)
If...

Always been moved by the little boy who bursts out from somewhere crying out for his mother. Who ultimately dies with the old steward who rescues him.

Indeed, the film has these moments that the Cameron film writes up with great flair and backed by Horner's music. The striking with the iceberg, here it's devoid of music and you see the beast approach and the horror in Murdoch's eyes. Or the final plunge, the dramatic music segues into the people which the camera zooms in on bit by bit. (It contrasts to other films in that you get the impression in this film that there are only a hundred or even a dozen people) You don't see it, but you imagine the water surging up the stern towards them on the quarterdeck. Feel the horror knowing what is coming and then she's gone.

Actors here are so linked with the people they play in my mind: Michael Goodliffe's Thomas Andrews, Laurence Naismith's Smith, Frank Lawton's cowardly Ismay, More's Lightoller and so on that though I liked Garber in Titanic, no one else has ever really captured these people as well on film.

Anyway, enough waffling.

(Still can't find Connery though. One source says he's a steerage passenger, another a deckhand)

Gave THE PHANTOM MENACE a watch on a blu-ray rental for the first time, or at least a partial part of my attention. Just part of a countdown to the new movie. I knew something was wrong when the only thing I focused on when watching was how atrocious the HD transfer was. It was like Lucas tried to scrub off the film grain in order to make it look like the HD shot prequels that came after. Looked more video than film.

At least the next one will be a more amazing train wreck where Hayden Christensen wins the heart of Natalie Portman by slaughtering a village of sandpeople, "the women and the children too".

Reckon Lucas will watch Episode VII in a private room at Skywalker Ranch, gradually dissolving into tears. Maybe.

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Watched over time Under the Skin. Film4 showed it without breaks which was a novel idea. Trouble is, it just sort of...ran. I wouldn't say it was bad. Johansson wasn't bad (bit of all right is what you mean) but meh.
I feel aggrieved at my lack of panache considering I'm nosing my way through the Red Shoes and In Which We Serve at the moment. Highbrow/lowbrow.

Steve Jobs - I've seen surprise expressed elsewhere that this is so 'tough' on Jobs. All I can say is the dead can't sue.

The man was, of course, a technological visionary. But also undoubtedly a petty, vengeful and arrogant shit.

Good thing that the dead can't sue, otherwise I suspect Ian Fleming would've been in court a few times in the past fifty years

Hilly KCMG wrote:

Good thing that the dead can't sue, otherwise I suspect Ian Fleming would've been in court a few times in the past fifty years

Ian Fleming was in court just over 50 years ago and it killed him.

REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940)
Director: Mitchell Leisen, Writer: Preston Sturges

Excellent MacMurray/Stanwyck film. They had brilliant chemistry.

I'm not into Christmas films, but I'll always go out of my way to watch this one.

bit of a cross-section this weekend, so:

"...THIS...is a story of a ship...

In Which We Serve

Always been a favourite, it's depiction of the navy, men at war and all this -in a nutshell. Broader, this and films like The Way to the Stars are wartime highlights. Here, a cross-section of society from the aristocratic Captain Kinross down to the middle-class Hardy to John Mills' working class, everyman, Shorty Blake. Indeed, Mills demonstrating here that variety of skill he had. Look at this film, look at Ryan's Daughter/Hobson's Choice/Gandhi/Heroes of Telemark/ etc.
I'm undecided on Coward as a Mountbatten type, concern back then that an effete man like Coward playing a macho type like Mountbatten isn't too far wide of the mark but overall I think Coward did a sterling job. Certainly, some lines don't hold mustard seventy-three years on and yet...some do. I always like the dialogue around the Blake's family table as Shorty and his Marine brother-in-law exchange jibes (and more of Mills saying "And that's no error!"). The only bits that jar actually are in the high class scenes or Coward's little blighters whenever they speak.

A favourite scene, THE favourite might just be Shorty meeting Kay Walsh's Freda on the train. I remember it used in a Virgin Trains advert not long before Sir John died. It's touching in its way and a delicate moment in a film rife with war.
One scene I find hard to watch in some respects, is when Shorty comes to Hardy to tell him his wife, Kath, was killed in a blitz on Plymouth. The dificulty Shorty has telling him after finding out Freda's had a baby followed by Hardy, a genial and cheerful man, going out on deck stunned stupid by the news. It's a "stiff upper, be a chap's chap" scene. As indeed, is a moment in the flashbacks where a dying crewman requests 'My captain, I need to see my captain!" and Kinross stays with him, giving him praise and reassuring words. Or that, doing the same with Dickie Attenborough's crewman who previously had bolted his station.
Sad to think that no-one remains from this cast and thereby, at the end where Kinross says goodbye to the Torrin's company, it's a moving moment.

"...THIS was a story of a ship but this story does not end here..."

The Wild Geese

who needs the Expendables when you had these guys? I only wish Moore had brought this to his Bond, I know the two worlds weren't exactly the same but Sean Finn strikes me as Moore's Bond manned up. Forcing the little shit to eat the cocaine and flying the plane at the end in spite of being shot.
Must give full praise to Burton at that scene where Harris implores him to kill him before the enemy gets him. Burton's face twisted already by pain and anger.
The one jarring note might be the title song. Doesn't...sit, well but then these films back then had a certain way of doing things.
Wouldn't touch the sequel even if I was paid to.

Taxi Driver

well, would you believe I've not seen this until now? I know, I know, who cares but someone reads these bits and probably picks them to death in some way. Anyway, what a film. De Niro is quite remarkable, the music sets the picture off from the beginning so well -this was New York. Yes, I've never visited nor grew up there or know it as one who is in either category might talk of her but films like Serpico, French Connection etc show a New York whilst not perfect, looked...well, real.
Admittedly, when I first saw Keitel I nearly fell of my chair but then he's stuck doing crummy insurance ads here in the UK so who's having the last laugh?
And back in the day, Cybil Shepherd.
I read there were talks of a remake/sequel/reimagination or whatever, based on tonight, it's a heinous idea.
Why not remake the Big Bus.

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LOVER COME BACK

Absolutely sublime romantic comedy, and a great satire on Madison Avenue comprable to Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (and maybe even more Tashlinesque than Tashlin's own film, with some great cartoony visual gags that recall his best work with Jerry Lewis).

Seeing gender roles subverted in the genre is quite funny and, er, liberating the first hundred times you see it, but eventually it just seems odd. What I like about this one is that Rock Hudson beats Doris Day at every single turn. She's a totally lame jobsworth whose first thought when a lucrative account comes in from Virginia is to work all night on a pitch. Rock knows better and he jumps at the chance to take the guy out to a club and pretend to be a reb'. He wins the account of course, and Day never once gets any kind of professional revenge on him. The highlight is the second act where she mistakes Rock for another client, and he tricks her into taking him to a titty bar.

I think Hudson is a great leading man, not only in the Sirk melodramas but in silly light comedies like this and Hawks's magnificent Man's Favorite Sport? There's a real sparkle in his eye as he takes her along for the ride.

ADAPTATION.

A gimmicky idea done right. Nicholas Cage does great in both roles, and I think Brian Cox steals the show in his brief appearance as McKee. The turn at the beginning of the third act is inspired, and I like the fact that the film has a very ambivalent attitude towards the whole McKee/guru thing - the conclusion seems to mock Hollywood convention while, in a strange way, affirming its validity.

Control wrote:

REMEMBER THE NIGHT  (1940)
Director: Mitchell Leisen, Writer: Preston Sturges

Excellent MacMurray/Stanwyck film. They had brilliant chemistry.

I'm not into Christmas films, but I'll always go out of my way to watch this one.

This one was a revelation. I think Leisen generally is one of the most underestimated of the old masters, and the string of screwballs he made in the late 30s (eg Hands Across the Table, Easy Living, and Midnight) deserve to be spoken of in the same breath as the great works of a Lubitsch or a Cukor. But Remember the Night is really something quite special and it touches deeper than any of those.

Bridge Of Spies - this telling of the real-life Cold War negotations between the US, Russia and Germany over an exchange of spies is solid rather than spectacular Spielberg. Some nice period atmosphere and tension, and Tom Hanks does his usual 'throughly decent Everyman' schtick.

Hilly KCMG wrote:

Wouldn't touch the sequel even if I was paid to.

A guilty pleasure of mine. Barbara Carrera can't tempt you?



Halloween II (1981, Rosenthal)

Way more fun and entertaining than the first, although there is one scene involving the gorgeous Pamela Shoop that is particularly sadistic and doesn't sit right with me - I think I'm right in thinking its inclusion was against the director's wishes and was actually at the request of John Carpenter in his producer role. Donald Pleasence is on top, most ridiculous form, reprising his role as Dr. Loomis ("I shot him six tiiyaams!"), childhood favourite Lance Guest props up his short career, Gloria Gifford impresses and Leo Rossi provides the gags. I think, unfortunately, the one weak link is actually Jamie Lee Curtis.
A minor eighties genre classic.

★★★★


Red Beard (1965, Kurosawa)

Not quite Kurosawa's magnum opus, but a stunning, sensitive film nonetheless even if it's often, bizarrely, dismissed by some critics as being misogynistic. The female characters are among the most interesting and the pivotal scene between Kyôko Kagawa's madwoman and Yuzo Kayama's young doctor rank among the finest, most tense and dramatic from any of Kurosawa's work. But the finest performances are from the two child actors, particularly the young boy whose conception and understanding of what it would be like to face death is far beyond his years.

★★★★★

G section wrote:

Hilly KCMG wrote:

Wouldn't touch the sequel even if I was paid to.

A guilty pleasure of mine. Barbara Carrera can't tempt you?

Hmm.

As long as I had a dry martini.

L A Confidential (1997)

Very entertaining and engaging period crime drama - everything I hoped for Mullholland falls but simply wasn't, great soundtrack, at times beautifully lensed, Spacey, Pearce and Cromwell really work well and even Russell Crowe is on form (presumably because he hadn't yet become Russell Crowe...).

Somehow this got beat by Titanic at the Oscars????

Loved that film upon its release.
It has been a while since I last saw it.
I wonder how well it holds up today.

If only someone had seen that iceberg in time.

Caught up on some P.T. Anderson recently.

There Will Be Blood (2007)
Widely acclaimed masterpiece, must-see American epic, a consummate work of art. Now enough with the blurb on the back of the DVD case, what about your thoughts Strangways? I liked it, great I guess. Wasn't enthralled or anything, nothing to complain about but not a film I'm particularly gaga over except maybe for the last thirty minutes or so when things unravel just a tad bit and the oil-well burning up scene especially Jonny Greenwood's music "Convergence."

Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
A pretty loony movie which honestly I knew very little about other than Anderson mentioning in an interview he was inspired by the screwball comedies of the thirties as well as Sandler's output at that time. I have to say I enjoyed the insanity of the film and the scenes with Philip Seymour Hoffman were particularly amusing especially his shouting match with Sandler.

"There Will Be Blood" ruined bowling for me.

THE CRYING GAME

I knew exactly what was coming but I've still never laughed harder.

CJB wrote:

"There Will Be Blood" ruined bowling for me.

I'm never going to be able to order a milk shake again in the future without hearing Daniel Day Lewis' voice in the back of my head telling me he's going to drink my shake then making slurping noises.

Black Mass - nice to see Johnny Depp actually acting again ... he's nastily convincing in this true-life drama as Jimmy 'Whitey' Bulger, at one time South Boston's most notorious gangster.

John Wick

Keanu Reeves gets a lot of schtick for his performances but some roles he fits like a glove and this is one, quickly and unapologetically getting down to the business of ott action and (admittedly brutal) entertainment.

No great pretensions but all the better for it imo.

Star Wars : Revenge Of The Sith - the opening space battle/rescue of Palpatine captures some of the spirit of the original trilogy, the climactic lightsabre duel is spectacularly staged, and Ian McDiarmuid is clearly enjoying himself immensely and is therefore a joy to watch.

As for the rest ... oh dear.

Ian McDiarmid is the MVP of ROTS, so much that looking back at TPM and AOTC he seems very underused there.