Last Movie You Watched.

Some Like It Hot

I didn't find it laugh out loud funny but still a very good movie.

A Fistful Of Dollars - believe it or not my first time watching this ... the first of the classic spaghetti Western 'Dollars Trilogy' that made a star of Clint Eastwood and whose 'Man With No Name' character surely set the template for the gruff, bad-ass anti-heroes to follow. Fabulous stuff.

trevanian wrote:

Is it wrong for me to admit my favorite DeNiro performance is in MIDNIGHT RUN? They basically hired him to, in my mom's words, play Harrison Ford, but I think he went a step or two past that.

I'm not trying to take anything away from his accomplishments in GFII or TAXI DRIVER, just that I usually feel a tad distanced from him in his better-known and better-acclaimed roles (I'm not going to include BULL in here because I didn't like the film ... even its technical accomplishments were lost on me.) Jack Walsh was real to me ... even if he did have extraordinary luck when it came to shooting down a helicopter with a pistol. The scene with his daughter trying to give him her babysitting money gets me every time ... I was going to say every time I watch the movie, but actually, it gets me every time I even think about it. And that's coming from somebody who doesn't have children or siblings.  

Midnight Run has been on my watchlist for far too long, but you’ve just shot it up a few spots-- this could be a blessing or a curse because now you’ve hyped up his performance so I hope it meets these expectations!

Sarai wrote:

Some Like It Hot

I didn't find it laugh out loud funny but still a very good movie.

So Marilyn I’d consider sexy and beautiful.

Bi wrote:

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - sure, like everything Tarantino's done for a while now this is overlong (and like Inglourious Basterds, also has a wish-fulfilment rewriting of history). But DiCaprio and Pitt make a great double-act as a washed-up actor and his best-buddy stunt double, Margot Robbie is a delight as Sharon Tate, Damian Lewis' cameo as Steve McQueen is a hoot and QT's affection for Tinseltown in the late Sixties shines through.

I bought tickets to the extended version so I’m not well-placed to agree it was overlong. Top Tarantino along with IB, JB and HE for me. Pitt was a real standout in this for me.

I'm always so happy watching Marilyn and could probably just just loop her movies for a year straight.

Rockers 1978

if you haven't seen it you are really missing out on this one

Sarai wrote:

I'm always so happy watching Marilyn and could probably just just loop her movies for a year straight.

Need to watch more of her work. Feel I’ve only seen a couple of her movies.

Sarai wrote:

Bringing Up Baby is the funniest movie I have ever seen in my life. I don't see anything topping that.

The ultimate screwball comedy.

Sarai wrote:

I'm always so happy watching Marilyn and could probably just just loop her movies for a year straight.

You'd go into a sex coma and it would then be adios to that Sarai we were all coming to know and love so much.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

A Fistful Of Dollars - believe it or not my first time watching this ... the first of the classic spaghetti Western 'Dollars Trilogy' that made a star of Clint Eastwood and whose 'Man With No Name' character surely set the template for the gruff, bad-ass anti-heroes to follow. Fabulous stuff.    

It's plenty good, but the next two are even better. For a Few Dollars more may just be as good as The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

I've been mainly rewatching TV series that I hadn't looked at it in a very long while (early SCRUBS currently, though we'll probably stop soon and switch over to BOOMTOWN or MANHATTAN), but in between those eps I've managed to rewatch THE FINAL PROGRAMME three times!

In the US it was known as LAST DAYS OF MAN ON EARTH, but whatever you call it, PROGRAMME is a mess of a movie. Even so, strangely compelling, and full of style with a lot of Bond-ish one-liners. The art direction is insane, almost like CR67.

Jon Finch plays the lead, and it is like Billy Zane a decade and a half early -- this guy must be the only man on earth who can wear a ruffled shirt (for the entire duration of the too-brief movie) and make it look good. (sorry George, I'm not on board with it even in OHMSS.)

There's an actress named Jenny Runacre who runs roughshod over every scene, it is kind of like Fiona in TB but with a sci-fi aspect. I also think a ton of films bit off it in the decade or so that followed. It's based on a a series of very famous 'new wave' science fiction novels by Michael Moorcock, and was intended in part as a riff on Bond ...in this case a Bond who wouldn't just sleep with Moneypenny, but would do so regardless of knowing she is his sister.

I can't in all honesty recommend it, but if anybody is in the mood to experiment with their viewing habits, it is on BFI Player classics.

Couple good comedies there back-to-back, Sarai, with Some Like It Hot as well. I agree with your assessment. I like it but there are a handful of other Wilder works I like more. My favorite of his comedies is probably The Major and the Minor. Premise sounds whacked but the fact that you walk away from it after thinking, “Somehow they made that work,” shows Wilder’s genius.

Duck Soup, Animal Crackers and A Night at the Opera

I went from someone who didn't like them to a full blown Marxist.

I read it as Dick Soup and so did all of you!

Sarai wrote:

Duck Soup, Animal Crackers and A Night at the Opera

I went from someone who didn't like them to a full blown Marxist.

'Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read' is a Groucho gag I love.

I made the mistake of watching Love Happy first because it had Marilyn in it for all of ten seconds and very little of Groucho. It's just not all that great so I wrongly assumed the early ones couldn't be that much better but they really are.
The others are OK but it's all about those Groucho roles. He's a demented madman who makes absolutely no sense, completely in his own reality, spends all his time insulting people for no reason and even the state to war.
You can't take your eyes of him waiting for the next word to come out of his mouth.

Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot. But don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.

Over the weekend I watched the original three Bourne moves for the first time in well over a decade. Also watched the newest one for the first time (the very cleverly named, err, 'Jason Bourne.') I skipped the one with Jeremy Renner because the shape of his head bothers me.

Some observations:

- The first one is probably the most interesting one from start to finish. Or should that be the least uninteresting?
- The shaky-cam shit wasn't as bad as I remembered; in fact, it's done far more conservatively than what we see in QOS;
- The fights and car chases are good (minus the completely dumb Vegas chase in the last one, which makes the DAF Vegas car chase look like Ronin);
- Though we are treated to multiple films of this character, Damon/Bourne remains a completely one-note, automaton of a character;
- Actually, literally every character in this franchise is totally devoid of personality;
- The last movie was truly bad, unneeded and they had no idea what they were doing so, naturally, they needed to bring in some sort of "chosen one" origin story and daddy was (indirectly) the author of all your pain blah blah.

To whatever extent the first Bourne movies influenced the dumping of Brosnan and his style in favour of Craigdom, it showed on the part of Babs and friends a total misread of why people go to Bond movies.

Yes, well done car chases are good. Borrow that from Bourne if you need to. But the character of Jason Bourne, as mentioned, is a bland automaton from the first time he's pulled out of the water to the last time he walks into the distance to the blares of Moby's fire alarm. When we first see James Bond in the casino in '62, he's dapper, charismatic, effortlessly charming, witty etc. That's why the character and franchise stuck. Trying to ape Bourne in the Bond world just doesn't work.

The (first three) Bourne movies were decent in their own right, but no dad is chucking on Bourne Supremacy on Christmas Eve for a fun time, just as the equally dour Bournised Bonds of Craig will also collect dust.

But yeah, as mentioned, the first three are decent enough thrillers which capture the "cynicism" of the era and the action is good. The last one is pure garbage. The end.

The Offence - part of Connery's deal to return as Bond for DAF was that 2 films of his choice would be backed by United Artists ... ultimately, the financial failure of this first one would mean the second never got made.

Nonetheless this stage-play adap (directed by Sidney Lumet) is a gripping crime drama, with Connery brilliant as a copper haunted by the awful things he's seen in the line of duty in the last 20 years. When a suspected child molester (Ian Bannen, equally good) is brought in for questioning, a shift in the dynamics between accuser and accused gradually occurs over the course of the interrogation.

In the last few years I've started seeing bits indicating Connery wanted to do MACBETH as the other part of that deal, but Polanski had just done that himself while Connery made DAF, so that ground was already freshly trod (and by Jon Finch at that, the guy I'm now really wishing had taken on Bond in the 70s, because I think he could do the Dalton thing as well as the showboat-y stuff.)

I wanted to see THE OFFENCE for 20 years, but when it finally turned up on A&E during the 90s, I couldn't get into it (probably because Connery is in that awkward phase between Bond and the Raisuli, because I see WIND & THE LION as his true emergence as star/actor w/o any Bond crutch.) I tried renting it earlier this century, but couldn't get the thing to play. At this point, even though I like him and Bannen (especially together in THE HILL), I'm thinking it is going to take a very rainy day when it happens to stream to get me and that film together. I hope it happens, because I have a problem going through life thinking that my favorite actor's best scene is in OUTLAND of all things.

Blue Jasmine

You can't help notice the similarities with Streetcar but holds up and has an identity of it's own.

Sarai wrote:

Blue Jasmine

You can't help notice the similarities with Streetcar but holds up and has an identity of it's own.

 

Is it anything like Blue Velvet or The Blue Lagoon?

Woody Allen film

oh yeah I watched Sleeper as well

I've been big on the Woody lately!

let's face it CJB would have turned it into a dick joke no matter what I said

CJB wrote:

- The first one is probably the most interesting one from start to finish. Or should that be the least uninteresting?

Agreed. I like Supremacy, too, which felt purposeful and stylistically fresh. But Ultimatum already felt stale, rehashed, a rewarmed serving of Supremacy. Like they had just made it to do a trilogy for the sake of doing a trilogy.

CJB wrote:

- The shaky-cam shit wasn't as bad as I remembered; in fact, it's done far more conservatively than what we see in QOS

It definitely seems more measured, thought-through, and coherent in its own way.

CJB wrote:

- The last movie was truly bad, unneeded and they had no idea what they were doing so, naturally, they needed to bring in some sort of "chosen one" origin story and daddy was (indirectly) the author of all your pain blah blah.

I only saw the last one once in the theater but I remember liking the (Athens was it?) opening sequence. But everything else I’ve forgotten (even that awful car chase at the end till you mentioned it).

There’s just no range with Bourne, not very many ways to make it work and be a Bourne movie.

Sarai wrote:

I've been big on the Woody lately!

I’ve probably seen ten or so Woody movies. That seems low to me.

I remember liking Stardust Memories quite a bit. And Match Point. Only seen ‘em once though.

Problem is, Bourne isn't Bond. There's a very specific arc related to his memory loss, his old handlers chasing him etc. He can't just get a fresh story ad infinitum.

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Sarai wrote:

I've been big on the Woody lately!

let's face it CJB would have turned it into a dick joke no matter what I said

I don't know any dick jokes...

Somerset wrote:

Sarai wrote:

I've been big on the Woody lately!

I’ve probably seen ten or so Woody movies. That seems low to me.

I remember liking Stardust Memories quite a bit. And Match Point. Only seen ‘em once though.

I definitely fall into the category or cliche of liking his early funny films. A real test of how funny a movie is comes when you see it in an empty theater and find yourself laughing aloud, or in my case, actually once falling out of my seat laughing, and PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM (which admittedly he only wrote and starred in, didn't direct) delivered that experience fully for me. (IT'S ALIVE also had me rolling on the floor laughing, but that was only for one scene, when the wrong baby is surrounded by armed police officers with guns drawn.) Serious-wise, I actually found INTERIORS quite engaging, but I don't have much to compare it with, as I've only seen a couple of Bergmans.

I adore HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (neat trick to make a movie likeable when nearly all of the characters are anything but), and for me it has been a drop off the cliff since then. The last one I saw in the theaters was early 90s, and was a shakeycam thing that actually made me feel ill watching it. I don't think I've seen any of his movie in the last 25 years, never felt any interest, but revisit SAM and HANNAH regularly, and will watch BANANAS or ANNIE HALL if they're on the box. And THE FRONT, even though he only acts in it.