Last Movie You Watched.

FUN AND FANCY FREE

Of the various musical package films Disney came out with in the 40s, this is probably the weakest. Still lots to enjoy. Both "Bongo" and "Mickey and the Bean Stalk" were origianlly planned as full length feature films. Last movie where Disney voices Mickey.

Gave Oppenheimer a second go. Felt the length more this time round, but the test detonation sequence remains a stunning piece of filmmaking and I seriously doubt if there'll be another 2023 release with more interesting subject matter.

'Napoleon' later this year should be good.

Barbarella - cult 60s sexy sci-fi fluff, with Jane Fonda at her most toothsome in (and indeed out of) a series of skimpy outfits. The bad guy is called Duran Duran (hey, what a great name for a band!).

MELODY TIME

This musical package feature is more like it. It is up there with Make Mine Music, the absolute highlight being Lambert the Lion.

Fargo (1996)

A typically quirky and gruesome Coens affair, but with several moments that elicit spontaneous guffaws. Frances McDormand, incidentally, is marvelous as a disarming but very wise small-town sheriff in Minnesota. Her character, in some respects, resembles Columbo. She won an Oscar for her performance, and it was richly deserved.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Fargo (1996)

A typically quirky and gruesome Coens affair, but with several moments that elicit spontaneous guffaws. Frances McDormand, incidentally, is marvelous as a disarming but very wise small-town sheriff in Minnesota. Her character, in some respects, resembles Columbo. She won an Oscar for her performance, and it was richly deserved.

My second favourite Coens movie, right behind NCFOM.

OPPENHEIMER

Interesting movie with a stellar cast, strong score and the way it is edited (going back and forth in time) helps the length, which is about three hours. Sam Mendes, eat your heart out, Nolan blew up an atom bomb here.

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST

One of the most disgusting films I have ever seen. I can see why it was banned in a bunch of countries.

Jurassic Park - 30th anniversary screening ... Spielberg in his popcorn-blockbuster pomp. Still a terrific thrill-ride adventure, with a nicely wry turn from Jeff Goldblum as 'chaos theory' expert Ian Malcolm.

Equalizer 3 - the action is a bit sporadic in what is probably going to be the last of these movies based on the TV show about an ex-Secret Service operative with a 'certain set of skills'. Still, Denzel Washington remains as watchable as ever.

HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE
I checked out the title thinking it may have had something to do with NS, but this is about something else. A group of young people with various motives team up to do what the title says. Fiction thriller based on an ecoterrorism manual that advocates sabotage of infrastructure:

Elektra King must've read that.

Or maybe the writer is a TWINE fan.

THE WHALE
Brendan Fraser gives his strongest performance by far. Everyone is good in this, which is often the case in an Arronofsky film. Heartbreaking, but very good and watchable drama.

Phantom Commander wrote:

Or maybe the writer is a TWINE fan.

Yes, that'd make more sense.

TAR

Conductor Lydia Tar is widely respected until a scandal starts snowballing. Pretty interesting film.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Red River (1948): John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan, Howard Hawks

A truly excellent Western--certainly one of the best I've ever seen--damaged by the daffy character Tess Millay played with overwrought obnoxiousness by Joanne Dru. One of the most ridiculous female characters I've ever seen. Christmas Jones is Scarlett O'Hara by comparison. Still, even with this blot on the escutcheon, Red River is a certified classic.

Fantastic film with a terrifying Wayne. Hawks is doing what John Ford would do again with the Searchers, only nearly a decade later.
Yet the latter film is far more well known to this day.

Salomé wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Red River (1948): John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan, Howard Hawks

A truly excellent Western--certainly one of the best I've ever seen--damaged by the daffy character Tess Millay played with overwrought obnoxiousness by Joanne Dru. One of the most ridiculous female characters I've ever seen. Christmas Jones is Scarlett O'Hara by comparison. Still, even with this blot on the escutcheon, Red River is a certified classic.

Fantastic film with a terrifying Wayne. Hawks is doing what John Ford would do again with the Searchers, only nearly a decade later.
Yet the latter film is far more well known to this day.

I haven't seen The Searchers, but shall do so soon.

You seem to be quite a Western maven, Salome.

When i was much younger, RED RIVER seemed to be held in higher esteem, maybe the B&W factor weighed against it by the time the 80s rolled around and things started showing up on VHS? Also, according to Hawks, the version screening on tv much of the time wasn't even his cut, but instead a workprint of an earlier cut that barely resembled the finished film, and may have contributed to a generation or more not really seeing it properly. I remember trying to watch RR on the tube as a teen and giving up pretty early. Even though I like me some Hawks, I've never given it another try, even though I should, since I've only ever seen Clift in ETERNITY and then after the accident in NUREMBERG.

SEARCHERS really is terrific, but for me there's a dated comedy aspect that weighs heavily against frequent rewatches for me. It's like what I let slide in the wonderful SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON causes my teeth to grate in SEARCHERS, not sure why.

And how I can suspend disbelief over fifty-something Jimmy Stewart playing a fresh new law graduate in LIBERTY VALANCE, I just can't explain at all. I keep thinking somebody like Brandon DeWilde should have been in the role, but I still keep rewatching the movie, almost as much as WILL PENNY and Richard Brooks' two westerns, THE PROFESSIONALS and BITE THE BULLET.

There are a lot of us into westerns, though I seem to have a strong preference for the ones that used to be described in books as 'western elements' where there are automobiles and/or automatic weapons and the 'end of era' aspect is in full flower. It's probably why I wish STAR TREK had done something right after the end of the original crew movies, before everything got so utopian in the 24th century with NEXT GENERATION era stories. It's kind of a MAGNIFICENT AMBERSON fixation for me, this clash of viewpoints at certain turning points in history.

trevanian wrote:

There are a lot of us into westerns, though I seem to have a strong preference for the ones that used to be described in books as 'western elements' where there are automobiles and/or automatic weapons and the 'end of era' aspect is in full flower. It's probably why I wish STAR TREK had done something right after the end of the original crew movies, before everything got so utopian in the 24th century with NEXT GENERATION era stories. It's kind of a MAGNIFICENT AMBERSON fixation for me, this clash of viewpoints at certain turning points in history.    

If that's the kind of Western you like, you might be interested in the Spaghetti called "A Bullet for the General," starring Gian Maria Volonte and Martine Beswick, by gawd. It's set in Mexico around 1911, at the time of the revolution there. It's also the only Marxist Western of which I'm aware, although there are probably others. It's not great and it's not terrible, and I think the conclusion is actually pretty good.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

trevanian wrote:

There are a lot of us into westerns, though I seem to have a strong preference for the ones that used to be described in books as 'western elements' where there are automobiles and/or automatic weapons and the 'end of era' aspect is in full flower. It's probably why I wish STAR TREK had done something right after the end of the original crew movies, before everything got so utopian in the 24th century with NEXT GENERATION era stories. It's kind of a MAGNIFICENT AMBERSON fixation for me, this clash of viewpoints at certain turning points in history.    

If that's the kind of Western you like, you might be interested in the Spaghetti called "A Bullet for the General," starring Gian Maria Volonte and Martine Beswick, by gawd. It's set in Mexico around 1911, at the time of the revolution there. It's also the only Marxist Western of which I'm aware, although there are probably others. It's not great and it's not terrible, and I think the conclusion is actually pretty good.

I've actually read something about that title in the last few months, maybe on a disc forum? Will check it out, though marxist western sounds unique, like Alex Cox unique (as in, could go either way, very good like REPO MAN or very bad, like so many others.)

I'm also a sucker for traditional ones like TOMBSTONE, and I can sit through just about every western scored by Jerry Goldsmith just because he is there (ditto for Elmer Bernstein.) I am also probably the only person in the history of this board to own THE GOOD GUYS AND THE BAD GUYS on DVD, and I don't offer that as any badge of honor, just to show I'm a sucker for ridiculously earnest bad westerns the same as I am for 'I know I'm bad but so!' action movies (ACTION JACKSON!!!!!)

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Salomé wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Red River (1948): John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan, Howard Hawks

A truly excellent Western--certainly one of the best I've ever seen--damaged by the daffy character Tess Millay played with overwrought obnoxiousness by Joanne Dru. One of the most ridiculous female characters I've ever seen. Christmas Jones is Scarlett O'Hara by comparison. Still, even with this blot on the escutcheon, Red River is a certified classic.

Fantastic film with a terrifying Wayne. Hawks is doing what John Ford would do again with the Searchers, only nearly a decade later.
Yet the latter film is far more well known to this day.

I haven't seen The Searchers, but shall do so soon.

You seem to be quite a Western maven, Salome.

I have always loved them and that love and appreciation has only ever grown. They might now be my favorite genre.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Assault On Precinct 13 (1976) - tense, violent 'cop-shop under siege' action thriller from John Carpenter. Don't know if the remake was up to much, have never seen it.    

The remake is rubbish. The original is fantastic and is essentially Carpenter's attempt to make a more urban modern take on Hawks' Rio Bravo.

I have a soft spot for Napoleon Wilson. The prototypical Carpenter hero that would mostly be played by Kurt Russell in subsequent films.

Also always loved Laurie Zimmer who played Leigh, in one of her few screen credits. No one had any idea what happened to her, until a documentary film maker tracked her down in the noughties and revealed she had retired from acting and become a teacher instead.

One of my favorite little scenes in the film:

THE VIRGIN SOURCE (Jungfrukællan)

Never been too much into Bergman before. This is an unpleasant, but powerful film. I see now how Blofeld became evil.

A Haunting In Venice - Kenneth Branagh adapts Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party for his third go at Hercule Poirot. Enjoyed this more than his adap of Death On The Nile ... as you might expect from the title, this has an enjoyably spooky atmosphere as Poirot once again exercises his 'leetle grey cells' in order to unmask a murderer.

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

A deeply layered Western that gets better with every successive frame. There are many interesting postulates about civilization and savagery, and the relationship between the two. Bill McKinney co-stars as villainous Captain Redlegs Terrill. He played Mountain Man in Deliverance (1972), another film that speaks to the clash between civilization and barbarism.

Paula Trueman is excellent as the spirited, domineering Kansas elitist, and Sondra Locke--later Eastwood's real-life love interest--is lovely in the role of her daughter.

I'm adding this DVD to my burgeoning Western collection, no doubt about it.