Last Movie you Watched?

XMEN 1stClass
Really REALLY enjoyed it. So many bits seemed to evoke early to mid Bond, but w/o rubbing your nose in it. I seem to only like the oddnumbered ones, since I slept through WOLVERINE and except for act 3, didn't likeX2.

Production design was interesting, though I could have done without a lot of the white on white stuff.

Performances from the leads (not the supporting folk) were just amazingly good IMO, where they were bringing their A-game in support of pretty decent material, and even the melodramatic number of major plot points that get made didn't bother me, because they seemed earnest.

Main impression: director and Magneto should use this as an audition piece for Bond ... but only if Babs is ousted.

also rented I AM NUMBER FOUR and found it to be in focus and not overcut. About ten times better than I expected, and I stayed awake the whole time.

MBalje wrote:

Transporter 3 7.0 I consider as the best of the 3 movies.
17 Again. 7.0

I agree T3 was a return to form after the disapointment of T2, but I still think T1 is the best for three reasons

firstly the construction and filming of Statham's fights are better in T1, some of the best I've ever seen
given that Staham is actually a fine athlete and a competent practitioner, the camera does not need to cover a lack of actual skill with clever editing, as it would in a Bond or Bourne fight scene

secondly in T1 Statham is a confident professional rather than the over confident superman as he has become in T3
for example when he attacks the house in T1 the element of surprise is important in his gaining the upper hand
later when out numbered he is impressive but always on the back foot and has to utilize the oil to even the odds and give him an edge over superior numbers
whereas in T3 when the villains turn up at the garage in numbers he just stands there and kicks their arses
this element of Segal-esque inevitability is a negative aspect of T3 when compared to T1

finally in T3 there is no addtional character development, as embodied in the "rules" dialogue, which provides humour and was an important part of what made the Transporter character distinctive

still a very worthy entry in the series though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17yupESOaC4#t=8s

I love that.

Joy In The Morning (1965) Dir. Alex Segal

Not unlike other MGM productions of the period, there's a fair ring of Hollywood trying to imitate its own successes a bit with this 30s set film of two young lovers who marry against their parents wills while the man tries to get through law school, despite having no money after his parents cut him off. My apprehension grew a bit more when the opening scenes established Richard Chamberlain as a plank and Yvette Mimieux as lacking talent. Thankfully both improved as they went on, as did the film thankfully; it ended up doing a solid job, but was no masterpiece to be sure. The reason I recorded it?

Arthur Kennedy. I've kept it for months hoping for some Kennedy awesomeness as Chamberlain's father, but like Oskar Homolka, he was terribly underused! Until the end in which he softens a bit and sees that Chamberlain/Mimieux need support, he gets just one scene! And as slightly alluded to in the previous sentecne, theres a rather shoddy paper-over-the-cracks happy ending. With Chamberlain singing as well.

The Private War of Major Benson (1955) Dir. Jerry Hopper

Cheery little non-service military comedy starring Charlton Heston (in one of his very very few comedy roles) as Major Benson - a hard bitten war veteran, now a company commander, who gets caught shooting his mouth off about the peacetime army, thinking they're producing a generation of soft milksops. As punishment, he's given two options - retirement or a new post, and that new post turns out to be a small military school run by nuns. Its in danger of losing its accreditation, its football team's never won a game and the kids are all out of sorts. Sounds like THE BELLS OF ST. MARY'S except with more military. And that Heston doesnt endear himself to the boys. At all. Heston's a tough man, and he gets results like they did in the old days - grind the man down then build him back up again, because thats the way he'll survive in combat. But these are kids, and they don't like that. And its peacetime, so their parents dont like it either. Neither does hot doctor Julia Adams, who Heston somehow charms with his angry masculinity. All kinds of things ensue and the result is light but fun and its got fun actors in William Demarest, a pre-REBEL Sal Mineo and young Tim Hovey, whose time as a child star sadly didnt linger.

Hilly wrote:

The ludicrous, off the chart The Gauntlet. The 'get to somewhere without being killed' scthick but with Eastwood. Aside from the annoying Sondra Locke it's not too bad, nothing flash including the music but the clincher is the final sequence with the cops shooting the blazes out of the bus. Surreal looking scene in some ways, just all those cops. A slight thumb down for Pat Hingle being blasted away.

And before this the first 39 Steps. A contrasting double-bill if there were ever was one.

The Saturday night ITV1 showing, by any chance? The bar I was in had ITV on with the sound down (mercifully, given that Britain's Got Talent and Popstar To Operastar were both on) and the seats we had were right below one of the TVs. I glanced up at one stage to see Sondra Locke's tits were out, which was nice.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Hilly wrote:

The ludicrous, off the chart The Gauntlet. The 'get to somewhere without being killed' scthick but with Eastwood. Aside from the annoying Sondra Locke it's not too bad, nothing flash including the music but the clincher is the final sequence with the cops shooting the blazes out of the bus. Surreal looking scene in some ways, just all those cops. A slight thumb down for Pat Hingle being blasted away.

And before this the first 39 Steps. A contrasting double-bill if there were ever was one.

The Saturday night ITV1 showing, by any chance? The bar I was in had ITV on with the sound down (mercifully, given that Britain's Got Talent and Popstar To Operastar were both on) and the seats we had were right below one of the TVs. I glanced up at one stage to see Sondra Locke's tits were out, which was nice.

yes, the ITV1 showing though when I saw it on ITV4 they still managed to tack on 20extra minutes. As for Ms Locke...well, she had her charms.

The Hard Way (1943) Dir. Vincent Sherman

Brilliantly hard-edged, completely Warners rags to riches tale starring Ida Lupino - they called her the poor man's Bette Davis, and this indeed was a Davis hand-me-down role, but no-one couldve done a better job than Lupino here, she absolutely dominates the screen with a commanding performance that puts a lot of Davis' performances in the shade. She plays Helen - a gal of roughly 25 who lives in poverty town with her worthless husband, living a very dirty existence, with one shining light: her sister Joan Leslie, who was Warner's choice "dreamgirl" at the time but to me always skirts between slightly lovable and scarily cutesy-wutesy. Lupino's going to get her out of the slums, if it kills her. Luck comes on Leslie's graduation night where she goes to a show, with 2 of the performers being the two men who'll impact her life for the next many years - smooth mover Dennis Morgan and lovable oaf Jack Carson, who both put in terrific performances; Carson especially rising above his usual comic awesomeness to elicit real sympathy from the viewer. Especially when he becomes victim of Lupino's will, an absolute force of nature that inevitably gets Leslie to the very top, destroying everyone along the way but Morgan, whos really starting to interest me as an actor.

Top stuff.

A Study In Terror

a somewhat middle of the road affair where Holmes is on the tail of Jack the Ripper. The saving grace of the film is John Neville playing Holmes with vigour and sometimes it seems tongue in cheek (hints of Jeremy Brett's fine performances) as well as the sightings of Anthony Quayle, Robert Morley and a young Judi Dench, oh and of course, Donald Huston. At times it felt like parody, something reinforced by one poster having the tagline "The original caped crusader!" complete with speech bubbles a la Batman reading: "Biff!" "Bam!" etc.
It ticks usual boxes for Holmes films: cleavages/corsets, fogbound London and the like.

The Jayne Mansfield boxset arrived today. :)

I'm not show how to go about writing about these films - first off, THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT was solid. And funny. It caught me a tad unawares, whereas both ARTISTS AND MODELS and THE LIEUTENANT WORE SKIRTS wore both pretty much balls-to-the-wall comedy, this surprised me by being a more sensitive vehicle - the innuendos and leg fetish are toned down are bit from the previous 2 (not to see they are resplendently present) and the story is half-comedy, half-heartfelt love story, with plenty of rock and roll thrown in; some of these songs still get played at the supermarket where I work, which was rather funny. Gotta love Safeway being hip with the times.

Tom Ewell's fast becoming one of my favourite "common men", and he doesnt disappoint - he doesnt get up to much shenanigans as in THE LIEUTENANT WORE SKIRTS, in fact most of the shenanigans go to a scene stealing Edmond O'Brien, who I've always liked but I never knew he could be so hilarious! Alongside Henry Jones (an always familiar face from a few late 50s films), O'Brien revels in being a ham (which isnt unusual for him), but finally he's in a film where its absolutely perfect for the tone. The bit where he and Jones roll back the years by busting the jukebox racket was side-splitting.

And of course there's Mansfield, who sets the whole machine in motion, like Sheree North in THE LIEUTENANT WORE SKIRTS she's a lot more sensitive then her billing as a blonde bombshell suggests, though she was hardly going to be anything else with those assets in Monroe-era Hollywood, which as my 50s book says, is the era America "discovered the bosom." Too right it did.

On the other hand, WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? was a work of genius. Instead of filling the film with rock and roll, Tashlin goes for Madison Avenue and the cult of celebrity, packs it full of pop culture references, and the result is a sizzling satire that also, surprisingly, has a sensitive edge to it as well. Mansfield in effect plays herself, as Rita Marlowe, Hollywood's big blonde who's a big star on the back of such films as THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT and THE WAYWARD BUS, and is soon to appear with Cary Grant in KISS THEM FOR ME (much like Mansfield) and has fled Hollywood and her latest beau (played by Mickey Hargitay, who of coruse was Mansfield's husband). In New York, Tony Randall (another of my favourite common men) is a low level gray-flannel-suit advertising executive who wants success, not only for his own sense of achievement, but to raise his niece (Lili Gentle) and enable him to marry his secretary/sweetheart (Betsy Drake). Mansfield's arrival in New York gives Randall an idea - get her to endorse the lipstick he's promoting! However Mansfield has a price - Randall's got to pretend to be her new "loverdoll", which makes him an instant celebrity god, takes him to the top of the advertising game but doesnt really bring him success. And interesting double to this would be SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS of the same year, which takes a much darker view of a rather similar industry.

And both films get to take potshots at the TV industry. ROCK HUNTER even stops midway to take the piss.

I tried watching Liberace's SINCERELY YOURS.

I can put up with movies being cheap vehicles but the first 35 minutes contained at least 25 minutes of pure piano playing. At that point I just had to stop. :x

X-Men: First Class

I had a blast watching this... there are so many things going right for this film. I'm not a fan or connoisseur of the Marvel world, but First Class is a top-notch production, a "class" above almost all other comic book films of recent years that I've seen. Casting Fassbender, McAvoy, and Bacon as the trio of leads turned out to be an unorthodox, but brilliant decision - they're even better than The Dark Knight's much-praised leading trio. Much has been said about Fassbender's "Bond audition" - in some scenes, he certainly comes across as Fleming's Bond better than any of the six actual Bonds have! Throw in the delicious sets, the wild globe-trotting, and the early-1960s Cold War background - and you've got the closest thing to a Connery-era Bond film that we can possibly get in today's cinema. The final third does deviate from that vibe, becoming a more typical, silly comic-book finale. Something that distracted me personally was the mostly atrocious use of Russian (c'mon Hollywood, there are plenty of Russian actors you could've found in America. Ironically, Kevin Bacon spoke Russian better than Rade Serbedjia!). I suppose this minor fault is negated by Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones, Rose Byrne, and Zoe Kravitz all getting to show off their georgeous legs.

GeneralGogol wrote:

X-Men: First Class

I had a blast watching this... there are so many things going right for this film. I'm not a fan or connoisseur of the Marvel world, but First Class is a top-notch production, a "class" above almost all other comic book films of recent years that I've seen. Casting Fassbender, McAvoy, and Bacon as the trio of leads turned out to be an unorthodox, but brilliant decision - they're even better than The Dark Knight's much-praised leading trio. Much has been said about Fassbender's "Bond audition" - in some scenes, he certainly comes across as Fleming's Bond better than any of the six actual Bonds have! Throw in the delicious sets, the wild globe-trotting, and the early-1960s Cold War background - and you've got the closest thing to a Connery-era Bond film that we can possibly get in today's cinema. The final third does deviate from that vibe, becoming a more typical, silly comic-book finale. Something that distracted me personally was the mostly atrocious use of Russian (c'mon Hollywood, there are plenty of Russian actors you could've found in America. Ironically, Kevin Bacon spoke Russian better than Rade Serbedjia!). I suppose this minor fault is negated by Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones, Rose Byrne, and Zoe Kravitz all getting to show off their georgeous legs.

Good review. This movie is great popcorn fare and it does have a bit of a 60's Bond vibe, what with Fassbender's Bondian look and manner, the 60's Bond girl vibe of January Jones and the groovy set design.

Zombie Flesh Eaters II.

Zombie birds. Oh dear..... :D

The Godfather with the girlfriend. Somehow she'd never seen it. Watched the Coppola Restoration on my big-screen -- looks great once I get passed my anger at the replacement of the Paramount logo. I hate it when DVDs do that.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

The Godfather with the girlfriend. Somehow she'd never seen it. Watched the Coppola Restoration on my big-screen -- looks great once I get passed my anger at the replacement of the Paramount logo. I hate it when DVDs do that.

Which logo it has: the 1987-2001 logo or the current 2002 logo? 'Cause my version has the earlier one and I've always liked it the most from all Paramount logos.

Technically there was no replacement. The film originally opened with no logo, just straight to black with the "PARAMOUNT PICTURES PRESENTS" white text. That's why the music starts when its full black. Same thing with APOCALYPSE NOW opening with no logo.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Technically there was no replacement. The film originally opened with no logo, just straight to black with the "PARAMOUNT PICTURES PRESENTS" white text. That's why the music starts when its full black. Same thing with APOCALYPSE NOW opening with no logo.

So wait, did it have any logo or what?! :suspect:

There was no logo for the first two flicks. The logo was only presented right after the end credits. So if you wanted you could do a DVD rip, snip out the 2002 Paramount logo and voila you have the flick just as it originally started without compromising anything. I did that when making digital copies of the early Connery flicks as those films didn't have logos at the beginning, they originally opened straight to the gunbarrel.

Okay, because my DVD has a Paramount logo. BUT, it's not the Coppola Restoration, so that might be the reason.

All dvds have the logo added. However the 2001 release altered it by having the music start over the logo which pisses a lot of hardcore fans, while the RESTORATION properly has the music start after the logo fades to black.

The Expendables ... 'cause sometimes you just want to watch a motley crew of action stars, WWF wrestlers, (and, weirdly, the dad from Everybody Hates Chris) bring the fire, fist, and knife fights, car chases, REALLY FUCKING BIG EXPLOSIONS, and gruffly macho one-liners.

Also a good chance to ponder the wisdom of having 2 men (Stallone and Rourke) whose, erm, adventures in plastic surgery have left them with, erm, INTERESTING faces in the same movie.

I loved The Expendables when I saw it in cinema, but when I got the DVD, it was OK. The action and the jokes were still awesome, but I was kinda disappointed on the cast: Sly and Rourke were damn good and even Terry Crews was pretty cool, but I wish I could've seen Bruce Willis and The Govenator on more bigger roles rather than on one scene cameos, and there was little too much of Jason Statham and Dolph Lundgren (not that I don't like those guys). Also I would've liked to seen Jackie Chan, Bruce Campbell and even Steven Seagal there, not some WWF wrestlers who only show on some low-budget B-class flicks. But, it was still a good salute towards 80´s action flicks, and I appreciate that Stallone had balls to do it.

Johnny English (2003)



Seen this like a gazillion times but it's still enjoyable. Not as good as Mr. Bean or Blackadder, but it's Rowan Atkinson in a comedy so it's acceptable.

6.5/10



Under Siege (1992)



Whoa :shock:, the eight wonder of the world: a GOOD Steven Seagal film. And it's awesome, mostly because of Tommy Lee Jones, but still awesome.

7/10


Andrew Davis Countdown:
1. The Fugitive (1993)
2. Under Siege (1992)
3. Holes (2003)
4. A Perfect Murder (1998)
5. The Guardian (2006)
6. Collateral Damage (2002)

Makeshift Python wrote:

All dvds have the logo added. However the 2001 release altered it by having the music start over the logo which pisses a lot of hardcore fans, while the RESTORATION properly has the music start after the logo fades to black.

But to answer the original question, the Coppola Restoration has the new 2002 logo with the CGI flying stars and so on -- and tinted all gold to boot. That annoys me. If you HAVE to open the movie with a logo, at least use the one from the period the film is from. Warner DVDs always have period appropriate logos, whereas F***IN' MGM always has the modern one -- I mean, it's just wrong to be watching THE LAST WALTZ and have it open on an MGM/UA pair of logos with links to websites at the bottom of them.