Last Movie You Watched.

It's sad that Lloyd passed. What a character. Of course my first thought hearing the news was of Frye's smug expression in the back of the cab in SABOTEUR.
Such a great picture and one's of Hitch's most underrated. I champion it wherever I can. Being a spy nerd I prefer it over the much more lauded SHADOW OF A DOUBT as it follows in the 39 Steps/Foreign Correspondent vein. Agreed Priscilla Lane is another of the great stunners of classic era Hollywood.
My favorite scene is the lead couple trapped by enemy agents surrounding them at the society ball and so they must keep dancing as long as possible. The best speech is the lead villain's with the bit about "the moron millions".


I like Gladiator very much but feel it is very much a repeat of things we've seen before in Ben Hur, Fall of the Roman Empire and more of the classic roadshow historical films. Reed steals every scene he's in and was so incredible when he was really going for it.
For me the great picture of Scott's modern years is Kingdom of Heaven which in it's full version is probably the best film about the Crusades. And the closest anyone's ever gotten to making a proper roadshow film with substance in modern times.

Pale Rider - a mysterious stranger (possibly some sort of supernatural entity) moseys into town and helps the good, honest, hard-workin' townsfolk to resist and overcome the forces of oppression ... hold on Clint old son, isn't this High Plains Drifter? Ah well, I guess he's entitled to rework his own back catalogue and it was no less enjoyable a Western for it.

The Silencers on Amazon prime.
First of the Matt Helm films, I have the box set, so do enjoy them, even if they are very silly and are basically Dean Martin playing at being a slightly alcoholic Secret Agent. A guilty pleasure of mine as I think the main saving grace of these films is the charm and personality of Dino.

hegottheboot wrote:

It's sad that Lloyd passed. What a character. Of course my first thought hearing the news was of Frye's smug expression in the back of the cab in SABOTEUR.
Such a great picture and one's of Hitch's most underrated. I champion it wherever I can. Being a spy nerd I prefer it over the much more lauded SHADOW OF A DOUBT as it follows in the 39 Steps/Foreign Correspondent vein. Agreed Priscilla Lane is another of the great stunners of classic era Hollywood.
My favorite scene is the lead couple trapped by enemy agents surrounding them at the society ball and so they must keep dancing as long as possible. The best speech is the lead villain's with the bit about "the moron millions".


I like Gladiator very much but feel it is very much a repeat of things we've seen before in Ben Hur, Fall of the Roman Empire and more of the classic roadshow historical films. Reed steals every scene he's in and was so incredible when he was really going for it.
For me the great picture of Scott's modern years is Kingdom of Heaven which in it's full version is probably the best film about the Crusades. And the closest anyone's ever gotten to making a proper roadshow film with substance in modern times.

I watched the bonus feature, the making of, for Saboteur and Lloyd said about the look to the Normandie "it was nothing". It isn't really, he just looks, we read into his expression and it works brilliantly.

I do like the scene you mention. I think Saboteur as an American, writ large, version of 39 Steps.

I can see your point about Gladiator. I prefer Ben Hur, Quo Vadis even Fall of the Roman Empire over it. The special features with Crowe made up for it.

I've not seen Kingdom of Heaven. Must check it out.

Saboteur is so underrated. It's got an Americana feel during wartime plus some of the Universal house style. Many Hitch flourishes are present and yes it definitely expands on 39 Steps and Foreign Correspondent. Bondian flourishes are abundant of course. And the intercutting of the Normandie footage works sublimely with Lloyd's reaction.

Quo Vadis is also really underrated. Robert Taylor normally being so wooden makes sense for his character and thus the arc feels earned. Ustinov walks away with everything that isn't nailed down and Deborah Kerr is gorgeous as always.

You'll love Kingdom of Heaven. It rarely gets mentioned but to me is Scott's modern great work and second to Blade Runner in his entire career. Be sure to see the full four hour director's cut as Fox chopped it in half for the theatrical release and it got middling to poor reviews because most of the movie was jettisoned. I really liked the theatrical version but felt a lot was missing. Then I saw the full thing and thought oh my word, Fox why the hell did you cut out the heart of the movie!?!?!

I also was one of the few who liked the flawed but still refreshingly adult 2010 Scott Crowe reunion on Robin Hood. It had a troubled production history but I liked the gritty realism of the Scott historical style along with the more mature tone. It needed a better script but it had spirit. I don't know why everyone continues to do problematic Robin Hood attempts. Prince of Thieves and 2010 pretty much nailed the production design for their eras even if the final films were problematic at best.
No one will ever equal or eclipse the 1920 Fairbanks film or the 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood. The latter is iconic and untouchable so I think the only reason they keep bothering is because it's public domain and thus free.

Then there's Exodus which was a film no one asked for but had tons of potential and apparently was four hours long-then hacked down to a dullish and mostly empty release version. The full version has never been released nor is it planned to be sadly.

I have a huge soft spot for Prince Of Thieves ... I can forgive Costner's accent because Hood is a folk tale and therefore 'accuracy' seems less important (and his noble heroism compensates anyway), the action is well-staged, there's quite a few laughs and of course there's Rickman, clearly enjoying himself immensely. Not forgetting the Connery cameo and Mike McShane's pleasing fourth-wall break as Friar Tuck to finish.

Hell, I don't even mind the Bryan Adams song (although admittedly its sixteen-week stint at Number 1 in the UK singles chart at the time was a touch patience-testing).

If you have the Laserdisc it's the theatrical version and the disc literally starts with the Adams music video before the film. I like PoT for some elements and wish everything else lived up to the high points.

Last Man Standing - apparently the general critical consensus of this Prohibition-era Western/gangster movie mash-up is that it's an ill-advised remake of Yojimbo (Wade, is that you?) ... well meh, I've never seen Yojimbo. So to me, it's an enjoyable actioner with Bruce Willis' gun-for-hire 'John Smith' rocking up in border town Jericho and proceeding to play the rival Italian and Irish bootlegging gangs off against each other. Looks great, and has an excellent score by Ry Cooder.

Also starring Christopher Walken, Bruce Dern and Michael Imperoli.

Yeah it's basically Walter Hill redoing the structure previously done in Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars but the Prohibition setting brings it back to the original inspiration for the idea which was Dashiell Hammett's classic novel RED HARVEST.

It's an okay movie with a great 90's 5.1 soundmix.

The Dark Knight,
    Got a bargain on Google movies the 4k version for only £7.99, watched it again last night. Great performances from all and looks so clear in 4k so much detail in every scene. I hope they start releasing the other Bond films on 4k sometime soon, and not just the Daniel Craig movies.

hegottheboot wrote:

Saboteur is so underrated. It's got an Americana feel during wartime plus some of the Universal house style. Many Hitch flourishes are present and yes it definitely expands on 39 Steps and Foreign Correspondent. Bondian flourishes are abundant of course. And the intercutting of the Normandie footage works sublimely with Lloyd's reaction.

Quo Vadis is also really underrated. Robert Taylor normally being so wooden makes sense for his character and thus the arc feels earned. Ustinov walks away with everything that isn't nailed down and Deborah Kerr is gorgeous as always.

You'll love Kingdom of Heaven. It rarely gets mentioned but to me is Scott's modern great work and second to Blade Runner in his entire career. Be sure to see the full four hour director's cut as Fox chopped it in half for the theatrical release and it got middling to poor reviews because most of the movie was jettisoned. I really liked the theatrical version but felt a lot was missing. Then I saw the full thing and thought oh my word, Fox why the hell did you cut out the heart of the movie!?!?!

I also was one of the few who liked the flawed but still refreshingly adult 2010 Scott Crowe reunion on Robin Hood. It had a troubled production history but I liked the gritty realism of the Scott historical style along with the more mature tone. It needed a better script but it had spirit. I don't know why everyone continues to do problematic Robin Hood attempts. Prince of Thieves and 2010 pretty much nailed the production design for their eras even if the final films were problematic at best.
No one will ever equal or eclipse the 1920 Fairbanks film or the 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood. The latter is iconic and untouchable so I think the only reason they keep bothering is because it's public domain and thus free.

Then there's Exodus which was a film no one asked for but had tons of potential and apparently was four hours long-then hacked down to a dullish and mostly empty release version. The full version has never been released nor is it planned to be sadly.

Nice to see some love for Quo Vadis. I read when Ustinov joined the director told him "play him as if he fiddles with himself at night". Plus he wrote during the preliminaries, Nero was under 30 ( I forget the age Ustinov writes) and I'm 27/28, I could be too old. Initially they wrote back, forget it then they consulted with a historian and left it alone.

Must see Exodus one of these days, I have the soundtrack. I read Uris' book so should complete things.

Well chaps, a 70s bonanza.

Westworld

off the iplayer. When I first saw this as a kid, aged about 8, I was freaked in parts. Of course this is the prototype for Jurassic Park. The attraction going apeshit. James Brolin is the shit in this film, Richard Benjamin is good, but Brolin until his untimely death is the balls.
Brynner riffing his Magnificent Seven character is great.
I've not seen the TV series but this film is a guilty pleasure. Plus if you like Star Trek, Majel Barrett (Rodenberry) as the Madam in the whorehouse.
I think Roman World might be more my speed.

Sweeney!

Finally got my hands on the films of the Sweeney (TV series 75-78). If I recall this was made sort of around the third season. It features a lot of guest stars from the series and all of the cast really bar the guv'nor.
The 70s was ripe with TV series being turned into films. Usually sitcoms. The film versions of Are You Being Served, Steptoe, Dad's Army et al usually fell short of the mark. You missed the studio audience, they couldn't last 80mins plotwise and usually the plot was turned on its head. Sweeney still felt weird as a film initially. It looks like a film (whereas of course the series, despite also having on location filming, looks like TV) and it has things that the series couldn't keep going. Swearing, graphic violence and tits. Yes, I said it. The late Lynda Bellingham providing much of it.
Our big name is Barry Foster. I like Foster be it Battle of Britain or Frenzy but he plays an American here and it took me over 30mins to get used to it.

The Talking of Pelham 123

Another film I suspect I like more than most. Even in book form this plot must surely tax the limits. A train being hijacked. The Shatner TV movie Disaster on the Coastliner works more but we'll skip that.

Love Walther Matthau in this, plus the late Jerry Stiller, Robert Shaw et al. If only Julius Harris had returned in another Bond as a cop.

As I've said before, New York in the 70s, on film anyway, looked 'gritty'. Be it Serpico, this, Taxi Driver or whatever. Of course you can see where people have clearly romped up to watch and the best example is when the squad car carrying the money crashes. A good hundred watching.

You half back the bad guys getting away with it.

I've not seen the remake and honestly I doubt I ever will. Does it have Matthau, Shaw etc? No.

Westworld is a very entertaining slice of 70s sci-fi ... I tried a couple of eps of the show, but couldn't get into it. The sequel Futureworld doesn't seem to feature on TV much these days, although if it pops up somewhere like TCM or Talking Pictures TV I'll certainly give it a go.

The original Pelham is also great ... it's steeped in what I would call that Noo Yoik 'No ...FUCK YOU, buddy!' attitude that I suspect is much more fun to observe in movies/TV than it would be to experience as a visitor. The remake is apparently mediocre, despite the likes of Washington and Travolta.

I've not seen any of the Westworld series. I've heard the latest season is relatively poor. Not seen Futureworld beyond clips on YouTube. Westworld does well with a very small cast and what looks like a slim budget.

Does make me think rather than Bond, Brolin would've made a decent Leiter.

Yeah, Pelham has that NY attitude throughout and rather well. The hostages are a nice cross-section of New Yorkers and Matthau is sublime. I've not touched the remake, I think there's another version of it...quickly googles...
...a 1998 TV movie with Edward James Olmos, er Donnie Wahlberg and filmed in Toronto. Hmm.

Lol, I think the fact that the '98 version *stars* Donnie Wahlberg is all one needs to know about it.

Indeed. Looks like him and Olmos is as high profile as it gets.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Next to VTAK and Final Countdown, this was one of the most watched films I recall seeing. I remember seeing the series early to mid 90s off C4. Back then I was easily scared it seemed. Anyway, VTBOTS as a film was nothing special perhaps but still somehow good and exciting.

Seaview in the near future (the 1970s!) is in the North Pole, suddenly everything's gone to shit. Seaview surfaces and the temps are so far above warm that everywhere on Earth is a nightmare.

Seaview faces everything, giant squids, enemy subs, mines and so on until she is able to fire a missile that saves the day.

The TV Series used the film for a two parter ("The Sky's on Fire") but it wasn't the same. I knew Basehart and Hedison more for this series and I can't help but wonder if they did the film. Don't get me wrong I like Walter Pidgeon et al in the film but what if Baseheart, Hedison and co did it?

Anyway, it does the job. I think a recent release of the film was branded the Global Warming edition. It's hard not to see when watching this film that global warming affects things. The only thing is, we don't have the USOS Seaview to save the day.

Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo

You heard rightly.

Like most Disney films as an adult you look at a little differently. I do and will always like Dean Jones, between this and the Love Bug, he's the man. Jim Douglas was an ass at first but he gave a damn. Suddenly he has a sidekick but who cares. As a kid I wanted to wade in and save Julie Sommers, who wouldn't?

It has a good score, some great driving sequences and so on. I recall seeing Titanic with my parents and saying: "That's the guy from Herbie Goes to Monte Carol!" a.k.a Eric Braden. I'm sure Braden doesn't count this film in his top 10 but that's what I know him best for. And indeed for Roy Kinnear.

Once in London, I saw a guy that was the dead spit for Kinnear and said to my parents, that's the guy from Monte Carlo. I had to be explained he was long dead but the guy was the dead double.

Anyway. Few are left from this film now. Bernard Fox passed not too long ago and Sommers is 80.

But you know, if you want a film to pass the time it's not the worst.

The Terminator - on the big screen, no less! Cinemas reopened here in NI yesterday, and fortunately (as nothing amongst the current releases appealed to me) Belfast's Odeon had the good sense to screen a couple of older movies.

Still a stone-cold sci-fi action classic. It was unfortunate that other patrons didn't appear to have learned during the last 5 months whilst cinema attandance wasn't possible that their wandering out to the toilet/concession stand *might* be a distracting fucking irritant, though. Oh well.

You know, I don't think I've ever seen The Terminator in full.

For me it's to one great Cameron picture and better than T2. I like T2 and The Abyss to an extent but the first Terminator is a great taut suspense film that draws in the viewer and makes them care. It's the one reason why I have any respect for Cameron...although the story did rip off Harlan Ellison of course.

I hate the teal coloring Cameron gave it on Blu as otherwise the new master looks good-but it must be heard with the original mono mix as the 5.1 with new effects is terrible.

There was a 'Acknowledging the works of Harlan Ellison' (or something similar) credit, presume that's been added at some stage.

Excalibur - it's muddy, bloody and has some of the cast in the nuddy! A stylish, grown-up adap of the Arthurian legend with debut/early film appearances by Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, Ciaran Hinds and Cherie Lunghi and an eccentric-even-for-a-wizard turn from Nicol Williamson as Merlin.

Join me, as we go into the heart of a desert and...

The Flight of the Phoenix

based on a best-selling Elleston Trevor novel (who under other names wrote the likes of Quiller Memorandum etc), I've seen this here Phoenix film a few times now but first on DVD. I've seen the remake once. Does it matter? Well the reviews of book, film and remake are usually similar whenever the respective types came out- it's a basic if flimsy premise with not much action.

And yet...and yet. It involves Robert Aldrich who went on to do Dirty Dozen (with composer Frank DeVol and ol' George Kennedy) and it has a singular title sequence that might be dated but works every-time. The music stopping at every freeze-frame on the startled face of a cast member before it speeds up, freezes, etc.

Cast-wise it's up there. This film would, if remade again, would get a fairly mixed cast whereas your glimpses of women are few if faint. Jimmy Stewart, Ian Bannen (Plummer's old drinking buddy), Dan Duryea, Kennedy, Attenborough, Peter Finch, Ronald Fraser, Ernie Borgnine, Hardy Kruger, Marquand and chaps who are expendable. (It's funny, but then I guess Hollywood it happens often, how much of the cast work together in other films. Fraser/Kruger Wild Geese, Kennedy/Stewart Airport 77 and so on).

Each of the main cast have their strengths, though sometimes it feels Stewart ebbs into the background, it works as the cast is strong enough. Attenborough always did, as an actor, that nervy-on the edge well (and his insane laughter before they test the Phoenix is notable). Kruger's character sluggishly weaves between is-he-nuts from the off or is he quietly the most sane one there? throughout. Borgnine is brilliantly nuts, Finchy is doing his best stiff upper and so on.

Ultimately it's a film of men being pushed to the limit so that by the time we get to the Phoenix's flight, all the characters who've made it, even Stewart, are about to snap if it fails. Even if it works.
Kruger's announcement that he's a model plane designer is brilliant. But they go on, have to.
And the shots where you can see the actors clinging on makes it work.

The last word is that as far as I can see of course, only Kruger remains and he's 93. Golden age is but almost gone.

As mentioned in another thread, Munich.

Surprise surprise, Craig is the weakest link amongst the cast. Such an over-actor and I still don't know what accent he was attempting. Australian? Afrikaans? Israeli? Sounded mostly English.

It's the 2nd time I've watched this movie. Better than I remembered. As is Eric Bana-- I never really rated him but I was wrong. It's a nuanced and powerful performance.

Such a treat to see Lonsdale and Almaric in the film together.

Well, can you tell I'm back in lockdown?

Gorky Park

Could Joanna Pacula have made a better Kara Milovy? Possibly.