Last Movie You Watched.

Don't Look Now - supernatural thriller with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie as a couple who go to Venice in order to get over the drowning death of their young daughter, only to be told that she may be trying to contact them from the 'other side'. Unsettling and disorientating throughout (I've never seen a city regarded as one of the world's most romantic made to look so unwelcoming at times), with an absolute 'kicker' of an ending.

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978) - Sutherland again in a remake of the classic sci-fi horror ... a deft blend of 70s paranoia, icky body-horror and social satire. With Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy, cameos for Kevin McCarthy and Don Siegel ... and again, another doozy of an ending.

Well, well, well. It's a Donald Sutherland film-fest.

Watched JFK (1991) again last night, but for the first time since, I believe, 1998. Sutherland, of course, has a memorable role as X, an ex-black ops spook who meets JFK assassination investigor Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) in Washington, and provides Garrison with plenty of historical grist for his conspiracy mill.

JFK is somewhat overlong--the Director's Cut runs close to three-and-a-half hours. The welter of information dumped upon the viewer in rapid-fire fashion is bewildering and borderline unassimilable. But JFK is a marvel of plotting, pace, suspense, and most outstandingly, editing. The almost constant flashbacks, many of which use actual historical footage, are simultaneously disorienting and engrossing. I was not alive for most of the period in which the film takes place--1963-1969--but I certainly felt transported back to those febrile and unhinged years. Given the present, there is a feeling of deja vu.

Ultimately, JFK provides an explanation to JFK's assassination that is an alternative to the Warren Commission Report. Director Oliver Stone argues that the military-industrial complex, in cahoots with LBJ, murdered Kennedy because he was going to preempt the Vietnam War and disband the CIA. Lee Harvey Oswald was a mere scapegoat and a stalking horse to distract attention from the conspirators actually responsible for the assassination.

Whether Stone's thesis is more plausible than the Warren Report is certainly a matter for debate. However, I must say that events since the release of the film have only strengthened Stone's case. Perhaps Stone will one day make a film called Trump or J6, because the forces he alleges were behind JFK's assassination have only battened since then and their machinations are now much more baldfaced.

PS--There is a Bond connection in JFK. The film is set predominantly in New Orleans, and there is a street sequence whose music and imagery are practically identical to LALD's wake sequences in which Hamilton and Strutter are murdered. The verisimilitude is too strong to be coincidental.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Lust For A Vampire - early 70s Hammer number. Sadly, the gratuitous nudity was too sporadic to stop my mind wandering to thoughts like 'Hold on, why are these vampires (as is tradition) repelled by crosses and killed via a stake through the heart, but are OK walking around in broad daylight?'.

The Killer - I thought I'd be on solid ground with a thriller starring Michael Fassbender, directed by David Fincher and scripted by Andrew Kevin Walker ... and so it proved. Fassbender's titular hitman gets embroiled in an international manhunt after a job goes wrong. There are perhaps hints of what his Bond's colder side would've been like had Fassbender landed the job in his performance. Something that tickled me was that his character's many aliases are TV and movie characters (Felix Unger, Archibald Bunker, Lou Grant etc) and nobody ever picks up on it.  

 

I found the sitcom character thing amusing at first, and then I became convinced it was going to be the thing that tripped the character up, because otherwise, why bother?

I saw it at a screening where nobody else attended, and wonder if an audience would have helped me get into it more than I did. I've thought about it quite a lot since seeing the film, which must have been 3 or 4 weeks back, and I just keep thinking there should be more to it than I was able to take in (I was like this about DRIVE as well, which to me is at its best in its opening scenes.)

I did like the fight scene a lot, but the near-constant voice over felt so FIGHT CLUB as to be distracting. Plus ... the following too close scene just didn't play right at all.

TARZANS GREATEST ADVENTURE
Not sure what makes this his greatest, it seems like hyperbole. It looks good, I like the colours, the lighting and the natural African setting. Also cool to see a young, scruffy Connery as an unsympathetic henchman.

BONE TOMAHAWK

This is not your typical western. It starts out as one, but builds towards something horrific. I like this a lot.

Perhaps the most gruesome movie I have ever seen. One viewing was more than enough, although it's certainly a good film.

MISA MI

Swedish film about a girl who loses her mother, goes to live with her grandmother during a vacation, and befriends a wolf who gets hunted. Sweet and moving little film.

THE LEGEND OF TARZAN

It does have some issues, but may still be the greatest Tarzan adventure. Skarsgård works surprisingly well in the role even with a Swedish accent. Margot Robbie is a fine Jane, Christoph Waltz his usual self. Based on various Burroughs books.Thomas Newman provides an effective score.

The Twelve Chairs (1970)

This early Mel Brooks vehicle was the first movie I remember seeing. I was three at the time. Also one of the 10 funniest films I've ever seen. Dom Deluise is a panic as a nutty Russian priest.


Taxi Driver (1976)

People naturally focus on Bob DeNiro's Travis Bickle, but the other central character is mid-70s New York. I dare say the latter comes off looking worse than the former.

PK, I have seen Taxi Driver a bunch of times. It is like seeing an old friend at this point.

BABEL

Inarritu never disappoints. Drama where several human fates are interconnected, but we do not know just how from the start. Good performances all around.

Kind of George Kennedy week here. Had been itching to watch so-bad-its-good EARTHQUAKE (kennedy and Chuck Heston turned out two movies in the same month, this and AIRPORT 1975), but instead watched THE EIGER SANCTION and MODERN ROMANCE, two long-time faves that always entertain.

The fact that EIGER doesn't fall apart during the climbing stuff is pretty miraculous given how uninteresting climbing usually seems in films -- even FIVE DAYS ONE SUMMER and CLIFFHANGER never engaged me.

trevanian wrote:

Kind of George Kennedy week here. Had been itching to watch so-bad-its-good EARTHQUAKE (kennedy and Chuck Heston turned out two movies in the same month, this and AIRPORT 1975), but instead watched THE EIGER SANCTION and MODERN ROMANCE, two long-time faves that always entertain.

The fact that EIGER doesn't fall apart during the climbing stuff is pretty miraculous given how uninteresting climbing usually seems in films -- even FIVE DAYS ONE SUMMER and CLIFFHANGER never engaged me.

There's a climbing documentary called Touching the Void that is pretty interesting. True story about two climbers scaling a peak in South America. Disaster strikes. I'll leave it at that, except to say it's an incredible story.

Agreed, Khanners. A real candidate for 'truth is stranger than fiction', that one.

Outland - 'High Noon in space', or maybe that should be 'shpace' as Marshal Connery investigates skulduggery at a titanium mining colony on one of Jupiter's moons. Needless to say, there are consequences.

I rather enjoyed this ... 40+ years on the SFX/backdrops etc hold up well, the sense of a claustrophobic working environment is convincingly evoked and the supporting cast includes Peter Boyle, James B. Sikking, Steven Berkoff and Frances Sternhagen in an excellent turn as a no-nonsense medic.

There's a Harlan Ellison essay in which he utterly eviscerates OUTLAND, and while I generally agree with his criticisms, that hasn't stopped me from watching this movie at least 20 times. Personally I find the handball scene with Sternhagen to be among Connery's best performances EVER, as he shows a level of vulnerability that really resonates with me. Might be why Ellison says that Connery looks like he wishes he was back making a worthwhile flick like THE HILL.

I do find the actor playing his kid to be a real miss, as in, when he opens his mouth, I cringe!

I used to have the large-format (same size as ALIEN) PhotoStory/novel of this, but like ALIEN, the frame blow-ups of the somewhat grainy film don't lend themselves to reproduction.

I do love the elevator down to the mine model. In fact, I love all the model work, though the fine detail was obliterated when Hyams decided the model was too dark and had somebody spray the whole thing white. The respray just used regular spray cans, not airbrushes, and the overspray covered all the fine panel lines cut by the modelers, who were just astonished by the casual destruction of their work, which really blew the scale on extreme close shots. Also, the greenhouse model got dropped and shattered, which didn't thrill them either, though they did get to fix up the shuttle, which was done by somebody else (John Stears of Bond fame, I think) and originally as delivered was essentially an undetailed box with sprung landing legs.

Trivia: the young black marshall is Freemon from THE WIRE. Honest!

UP
One of the better Pixars. Top five, I think. Funny, but also very sad.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Perhaps the most gruesome movie I have ever seen. One viewing was more than enough, although it's certainly a good film.

S. Craig Zahler is an interesting filmmaker, if Sam Peckinpah has an heir in the 21st century, he is as close as we are going to get.

I find the accusations of racism and bigotry towards him strange. Though it is primarily about the total lack of arts literacy among modern movie-going audiences.
Take Dragged Across Concrete, so much focus on the racist cop characters when objectively speaking the smartest individual in that film and the closest thing the story has to a hero is a young(ish) black man.

Zahler a rayciss, eh? I couldn't possibly care less.

Sisters - doozy of an early 70s Hitchcock-homaging horror-thriller from Brian DePalma. Tracking shots, split-screen and Bernard Herrmann combine in this tale of conjoined twins, madness and murder. With Margot Kidder and Charles Durning.

Species - what can I say ... sometimes on a Sat night, you just want to watch a bit of B-movie sci-fi nonsense (which nonetheless somehow got the likes of Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker and Michael Madsen to star, HR Giger to design the creature, and Roger Donaldson to direct) in which a hottie (Natasha Henstridge) gets her kit off a lot.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Perhaps the most gruesome movie I have ever seen. One viewing was more than enough, although it's certainly a good film.

Same thoughts on my side. Excellent bit of horror but, err, not something I’d return to for light entertainment.

CJB wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Perhaps the most gruesome movie I have ever seen. One viewing was more than enough, although it's certainly a good film.

Same thoughts on my side. Excellent bit of horror but, err, not something I’d return to for light entertainment.

Dragged Across Concrete and Brawl in Cell Block 99 are similarly brutal at times.

COCO

Peak Pixar.

Oppenheimer

Enjoyable but not peak Nolan for me. I am not even sure if it would make my top five.
Also had expected RDJ to feature more than he did.

The Barbie timing was fortuitous for the meme aspect, but I doubt Oppenheimer is a movie many will revisit.

CJB wrote:

The Barbie timing was fortuitous for the meme aspect, but I doubt Oppenheimer is a movie many will revisit.

I bought it, so will see it again at some point, but I agree with Salome that it is not a top five Nolan.

SOUL

Not as good as some of the earlier Pixars. Animation is state of the art, and the subject matter is interesting, but the first half is very boring and some of the voicework is less than stellar.