What was the last movie you watched?

[Jesse412]

Repulsion (1965)



An introverted young woman's monotonous life leads her to slowly descend into madness culminating in violent outbursts where she murders her boyfriend and then her landlord.  There are some interesting visuals in the later half of the movie that depict her gradually losing her mind.  I felt the hands coming out of the walls to be pretty disturbing.  I think the ending is really interesting and it left me wondering whether she actually killed anyone of it it was all just in her head the whole time.

[Johnny Unusual]

Zombieland

I wanted to like this more than I did.  Zombie comedies are a dime a dozen and while this certainly isn't the weakest one, it misses the mark in a lot of ways.  I don't like when it deals with Eisenberg's characters approach to women (which, unfortunately, I feel like the writers side with him on.  Guess what, maybe women who don't ask him out aren't "bitches" so much as they just aren't interested), the female characters themselves are pretty uninteresting, a lot of the jokes are weak and the ending feels like a big shrug.  But on the plus side, Harrelson plays his part really well and the entire middle part with the big cameo is great.  Not just the cameo itself, but it feels like the jokes and performances are sharper (the performances are overall something I like, but they get even better in this section) and despite the fact that this is a sojourn for the characters, the film seems to really come alive.  Even Emma Stone, whose character I don't care for, becomes a lot more fun and interesting.  So flawed movie, but that middle section is pretty solid.  But the big climax is pretty lackluster.

[stethacantus]

The BFG ( 2016 )
THIS IS IT!! I am finally at the end of my Steven Spielberg marathon, which I began on February 17th this year with Duel.  It took me eight months, but I am finally finished. Next week I go back to using the morning time slot for watching riffed films again. I have the latest MST3K volume and a few Rifftrax DVDs released since last year I have not watched yet, and next week I begin watching the Cinematic Titanic set. The BFG is the most recent Spielberg film to be released on home video. It is based on a novel by Roald Dahl, the author who also wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ( a.k.a. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory ), Fantastic Mr. Fox, James and the Giant Peach and Matilda. This film starring Mark Rylance ( who previously played Rudolph Able in Bridge of Spies ) as the giant via motion capture. It is the story about a little girl living in an English orphanage in the 1980s. She is wide away one night, hears a noise outside, and walks out onto her balcony to see a giant sneaking down the street. The giant sees her, then snatches her and runs off across the country and into Giant Land, where all the giants live. There she finds out that the giant is friendly, and only kidnapped her because she saw him, and he did not want her telling anyone else that giants existed. The giant, who has no name but calls himself Big Friendly Giant, which the girl shortens to BFG, wants the girl to live with him the rest of her life. If he returns her, her is afraid that she will tell the other humans about him, and he will end up captured and put in a zoo. However, as they end up becoming close friends, the other giants, who are canables, begin to smell her scent and realized there is a human around. We find out that a long time ago BFG had taken a boy for the same reasons he took the girl, and the boy had also become close friends with the giant, but ended up being discovered by the other giants and eaten. Not wanting that fate for the girl, BFG tries to returns her to her orphanage. But she refuses to part with him. So they both come up with a plan to get rid of the man eating giants, one that involves meeting the queen.

There is something anticlimatic and underwhelming about the movie. The plan to enlist the aid of the queen and the British army to get rid of the other giants works nearly flawlessly, so the final act of the film is rather brief. Having not read the Roald Dahl book the movie is based on, I have no idea if the anticlimatic final act of the movie is Spielberg being true to the source material, the result of an underdeveloped script, or like with Hook, that the script was dictated by budget restraints. The film itself is an odd mixture of every visual effect Spielberg had leaned during his career. Motion capture characters as he had done with The Adventures of Tin Tin, turned into CGI giants that interact with live actors, as was done with the Jurassic Park films. Perhaps the film may have worked better if the girl and the other human characters were also motion capture, or if the giants were men in makeup and added to the screen via optical effects. But I am guessing Spielberg was inspired by Peter Jackson's King Kong, which paired a giant CGI motion capture character with a live actress to great effect. Jackson and Spielberg had worked together on the Tin Tin film and are still working together on possible sequels, so I imagine it was more Jackson's suggestion to Spielberg as how to film BFG's effects than something Spielberg himself came up with. Basically The BFG is a kids film, which feels like more of a children's film than any other film Spielberg had ever made. It even had the obligatory fart humor that Hollywood thinks children love. ( Check any G rated kids film made since the 90s. They all have at least one scene with a fart gag. Remember when farting was considered R rated adult humor? Remember when Blazing Saddles aired on CBS and the sound of cowboys farting was removed from the soundtrack before they could air it on network television? Today half the kids shows on the Disney channel have characters farting. ) But as a kids movie it is unusually dark for something coming from Hollywood. While we never really see it happening, it is made clear that the bad giants have captured and eaten children, including the BFG's former friend, and are still hunting children. Overall The BFG is a good film, but far from Spielberg's best. This would be one of his lesser films, which will eventually be remembered more by Roald Dahl fans that Spielberg fans.



Code of Silence ( 1985 )
I have only seen one Chuck Norris film in the theaters, and that was Code of Silence. I can't remember why, but most likely as part of a double feature. And if I had to see a Chuck Norris film, that was the one to see. Critics gave it good reviews, and have since proclaimed it his best film. And with good reason. Most of his films were made for Cannon, American Cinema, Action 1 Film Partners, and other no budget production companies. Code of Silence was made for Orion Pictures, with an actual Hollywood budget. Also, the script for the movie was originally written for Clint Eastwood for his fourth Dirty Harry film. The joke has always been that the Chuck Norris films were all made from scripts Clint Eastwood rejected. In this case, it was actually the truth.

The film begins with a failed police raid. An informant wearing a wire has been sent in to buy drugs from some gang members. Meanwhile a rival gang has sent their own hitmen to kill the other gang members, and steal both their drugs and the money of the buyer. The cops swarm the apartment building, but too late to stop the rival gang, most of who escape with the loot. Meanwhile an old detective accidentally shoots an innocent teenager in the building hallway, then takes out gun and puts it into the dead teenager's hand and tells his rookie partner to tell the others that the teen aimed that gun at them. Chuck Norris is one of the detectives involved with the failed raid. He is basically Dirty Harry, but the name changed to Cusack for this film. Norris was not there when the teenager was shot, but suspects the detective that shot him lied about the incident. Meanwhile, the police have to worry about a gang war breaking out over the hit. The man who ordered the hit was a rogue gang member named Tony Luna, who has since gone in hiding both from the rival gang and it's leader Luis Comacho ( Henrey Silva ),  and his own father who is the head of his own gang and had not sanctioned a hit. If Norris can arrest Tony Luna over the hit, then he could avoid a war between both gangs. But no gang members on either side will talk to the police due to their code of silence. Meanwhile, Norris wants then old detective off the force, but cant get his fellow detectives to testify against him due to their own code of silence. When Norris is the only one to testify against the old detective at a review board, the rest of the police force disown him, and at a time when he is surrounded by gang members and needs backup, they all refuse to come to his aid.

As I said last week, Norris was determined to become something other than a martial arts star. Code of Silence was one of the many films he did that had hardly any martial arts action at all. Several scenes where he chases down the bad guys ends with him pulling out a gun and asking them to put their hands up. A scene where he persues a gang member up onto the roof of a moving elevated train should have ended with a martial arts fight. But with exception to a couple of normal punches, there was no fight. ( Although, I have to give points to Norris for filing a scene on the top of an actual moving train. This was not a stunt man, it was Norris, and he had no visible safety line attached to him. ) Even more disappointing is the ending of the film where Norris single handedly attacks a warehouse full of gang members to rescue Tony Luna's teenage daughter. Not once does Norris hit or kick anyone. The entire climax to the film is all Norris shooting gang members. Even the final confrontation between Norris and Silva ends with Norris shooting him. The only fight scene takes place at the end of the second act. Norris is in a bar surrounded by Silva's gang. For about a minute he is able to fend them off using kicks and punches before someone beans him with a pool ball, and everyone jumps him. That one minute of fighting is all the film has, and I am sure existed just so they could put it in the trailer to lure martial arts fans to the film. While this is yet another film for martial arts fans to avoid, I have to agree that it is Chuck Norris' best movie. But only because he was given a good script to work with that barely asked him to act.



The Mask of Zorro ( 1998 )
This movie was almost part of my Spielberg marathon. I had his filmography from Wikipedia that included every film he directed, had a producer credit, had a bit part role in ( almost always playing himself ) and films he had not screen credit but was confirmed he had acted as producer. I knew I wanted the films he directed. But I also knew there were a lot of films he produced that had so much of his creative input that they came out as Spielberg films, even if he did not direct. But after the failure of Hook, Spielberg decided that if he did not give up devoting all of his time to being a hands on producer that the films he was directing would suffer. Only some of the movies he produced during the 90s had his creative stamp. At first I thought his involvement with the Zorro films was much more than just rubber stamping the movies. Eventually I got enough information from the internet that proved he was much to busy at the time to have worked on Zorro. So the films were not included. But then I realized they were part of the Wikipedia American superhero list. And you can get the films so cheaply. There was some delay from a third party seller on Amazon who said he had the films, and then months after I gave him my money, finally sent me a refund admitting he did not have the films in stock and they never showed up for a reorder. I ordered them again from two different sellers for each film, and finally here they are.

For those of you not familiar with Zorro, here is a quick bio. The character lived in California just after the founding of Mexico. ( although, the later movies and television series set the time to the early 1800s when California was still under Spanish rule. ) He was a Don named Diego de la Vega who did not like how corrupt government officials were oppressing the poor. So he dressed in all black, wore a mask, and rode his black horse Tornado across the countryside as the vigilante outlaw Zorro. The character did not begin in comic books, but earlier than that in pulp novels. There would not be any Zorro comic books until Disney began producing the Zorro television series in the late 50s and a tie-in comic book was published. He was basically a proto-superhero; One of those early masked heroes that had no powers, but was very skilled. In the 1920s Douglas Fairbanks further popularized Zorro by making two Zorro films. Much of the flair attributed to the Zorro character came from Douglas Fairbank's performance. The movie also served as part of the inspiration for Bob Kane's Batman. A few other Zorro movies were made during the early sound era with other actors, but it was not until Walt Disney chose to make a weekly Zorro television series that the character reemerged into popularity. There had been various cartoon shows, live action pilots and full Zorro series since then. The Mask of Zorro was the latest attempt to launch a Zorro film franchise, one that unfortunately only lasted two films.

The movie opens in the final days of the Mexican revolution and the last days of Spanish rule. Montero, California's corrupt governor, is determined to capture his sworn enemy Zorro before he has to flee the country for Spain. Montero had somehow figured out that Don Diego ( Anthony Hopkins ) was Zorro, and while he and his troops attempt to arrest him in his home, end up shooting his wife. While Diego conforts his dying wife, Montero knocks him out. The last thing Don Diego sees while being taken away to prison in a cage is his burning house, and Montero holding his infant daughter. 20 years later Montero has returned to California to turn it into an independent republic via a scheme to buy it from Santa Anna. Upon learning that Montero is back, Don Diego manages to escape from his prison. However, too old to take Montero and his men on his own, Diego finds a thief named Alejandro ( Antonio Banderas )  and trains him to be the new Zorro. Complicating things, Montero has brought his daughter Elena ( Catherine Zeta-Jones )  to California with him, who turns out to be the daughter he stole from Don Diego.

The mask of Zorro is really an origin film for a new Zorro. Apparently the decision was that any new Zorro series should take place during the days of the American west, and to do that without having an elderly Zorro, a story needed to be told showing the original Zorro passing his legacy to an heir who was at least 40 years younger. As an origin film, the new Zorro gets very little screen time as much of the movie is him learning to be Zorro. There is also a lot of Banderas jumping off of roofs and failing to land on his horses back, getting knocked off his horse by tree branches and other obstacles, slipping and falling during fights, and making other clumsy mistakes as he learns how to be Zorro. But as origin films go, this is one of the better ones. ( It should be noted that no other movie or television show bothered with a Zorro origin. Even the Disney show had Don Diego come up with the costume and Zorro concept within a minute after deciding to go after a corrupt official. )



Spielberg ( 2017 )
It seemed like pretty decent timing that HBO would premiere it's  Spielberg documentary just a few weeks before I finished the marathon. Also good timing was a free preview weekend where I could tape the documentary and watch it the night I completed the marathon. It is basically two and a half hours of ass kissing by every living person who worked with Spielberg. instead of being a proper documentary. It begins with Jaws, then doubles back to how Spielberg first got into films, then how Universal hired him as Hollywoods youngest director and put him to work directing television shows. It mentions Duel and Sugarland Express, but does not explain that the first was a television movie, and the later was Spielbergs first theatrical film. Skipping Jaws and going right to Close Encounters, the film then skips to E.T., only doubling back later for 1941, barely mentioning it's significance at almost ending Spielberg's career or how much of a disaster it was for Universal Studios, and only as a set up for the Indiana Jones films which are all lumped together. Through this all we do get a lot of details of his private life and the divorce of his parents. But the history of his films is short changed to nearly nothing. Some, like Always, are skipped completely. There is only one quick mention that Spielberg was also a producer, while some of the movie posters for the films he produced flash by the screen. How can you do a Spielberg documentary and ignore him as a producer. Spielberg the producer gave us Back to the Future, The Goonies, Poltergeist, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Gremlins, Innerspace, and that is just the 80s.( and I am leaving out The Money Pit, Joe Versus the Volcano, Batteries Not Included*, Fandango, Young Sherlock Holmes and many other films Spielberg produced just that decade alone. ) The Twilight Zone movie is never mentioned, perhaps because it lead to the on set death of Vic Morrow and two children, nor is Amazing Stories ever mentioned. Other decades are treated similarly ( no mention of the Men in Black films he produced. No mention of The Terminal. Barely a mention of Hook. etc. ) So what do we get for those 2.5 hours? A lot of testimonial by other celebrities about how much of a genius Spielberg is. Basically, this documentary is a huge disappointment.

[Jesse412]

Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)



The fifth film in the Hammer series and the forth to feature Christopher Lee picks up at the end of the previous film when a sleazy salesman stumbles across a dying impaled Count Dracula and preserves his blood covered possessions.  Some time later a disgraced socialite and devil worshiper convinces others to perform a ceremony in order to resurrect him.  I'm not sure why this sequel isn't more highly regarded because it's actually quite good for what it is.  The mood is sufficiently eerie throughout and there are plenty of cool looking visuals some gory and disturbing.  Once again the supporting cast really carry the film and keep it interesting.  Ralph Bates gives a particularly good performance especially during the ceremony when he drinks Dracula's blood.  Linda Hayden also gives a creepy performance while she's under Dracula's influence.  Plus another exciting and climactic confrontation with the title character ends the film.

[Jesse412]

Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)



The grooviest of the Dracula sequels is definitely a victim of its time but is no less fun and it gets better as it goes along.  It also sees the return of Peter Cushing as Van Helsing both the original and his descendant.  Stephanie Beacham is one of the better actors in this and she's pretty entertaining to watch despite some of the material she was given.  Christopher Neame at times gives an over-the-top performance as Johnny Alucard and the resurrection ceremony scene is very well done.  Dracula appearing out of the smoke is a really cool visual as is seeing Lee and Cushing reunited on screen as these particular characters at the end of the film.  In fact the build up to their confrontation is quite suspenseful and I really like the brutal trap Van Helsing sets for Dracula.

[Jesse412]

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)



I've been meaning to watch this for awhile and finally found the time and opportunity to watch it on TCM On Demand.  It's a long film to sit through but it's pretty entertaining.  Honestly it doesn't get better than  Bette Davis and Joan Crawford chewing the scenery together.  There are moments on screen where it feels like you can see the real life tension between the two actors and their rivalry itself is pretty interesting.  Davis plays a bratty child star grown into a hopeless alcoholic who believes she is responsible for crippling her sister and at times her performance is haunting.  There's this great contrast between the sisters; Blanche is meek, kind and disabled while Jane is ... the devil.  There's also a great performance from Victor Buono who played King Tut in the 60s Batman TV series.  The build up to the climax is incredibly tense and suspenseful and the reveal at the end is genuinely moving.  I can't recommend this one enough!

[Edward J Grug III]

I haven't posted much in here this year, but I saw a couple of films that kind of blew my mind last night.

It was Movie Club night at our place, and we screened two Ernst Lubitsch films.

He's been a popular director for the club - Our first movie night we screened the fantastically naughty pre-code Design for Living, and a few months later, To Be or Not To Be. TBoNTB is, in my opinion, one of the all time greatest comedies. I really defy someone who enjoys comedy films to not love it. (It was later remade by Mel Brooks, and I do not endorse that version).

Anyway, I picked up a boxset of six Lubitsch films from 1918 - 1921, fully expecting to be watching them on my own, since hundred year old silent German film isn't the easiest sell, but the others loved the previous movies so much - once I gave the synopses of the films int he set, they were in.

I Don't Want to Be a Man (Ich möchte kein Mann sein)

A teenaged tomboy, tired of being bossed around by her strict guardian, impersonates a man so she can have more fun, but discovers that being the opposite sex isn't as easy as she had hoped.

This was an incredibly surprising film. The 'tomboy,' played by then superstar, Ossi Oswalda, is very naughty, and decides to dress as a dude so she can go have fun. Before watching it, we assumed she would learn that really women have it easy and being a dude was such hard work, she should just be happy with her place in life. Instead she goes to a club, is mobbed by women and attempts to seduce away the woman that is with her new strict guardian, just to annoy him. He comes across the club to confront Ossi, and they look back to see the woman is making out with another guy.

Ossi and the strict guardian go drinking, get hammered, flirt and start making out and talking about brotherly love? And then when guardian figures it out the next day, he's like 'Wait, you let a man kiss you like that?'

The movie is dated, sure, but it's funny and charming throughout. Here it is on Youtube.

Since it was only 45 mins, we rolled straight into the next one:

The Doll (Die Puppe)

Because the Baron of Chanterelle wants to preserve his family line, he forces his timid nephew Lancelot to choose one of the village maidens to wed. Lancelot flees to a monastery to escape the forty eager maidens. When the gluttonous monks discover that the Baron is offering a large sum for the marriage, they suggest Lancelot marry a mechanical doll instead. The doll maker has just finished making a replica of his daughter Ossi, but his assistant accidentally breaks it and convinces the real girl to mimic the doll. Lancelot buys her, thinking she is a doll, and takes her back to the monastery, where they are wed

This one is part fairy tale, part wacky comedy. It's the sort of premise you could see being remade as a terrible Adam Sandler vehicle.

It uses so many great special effects for the time, and amazing, deliberately artificial sets to play up the fairy tale nature of the story.

And again, we laughed all of the way through (well - there was a running gag about a child getting beaten that wasn't great...)

And here it is on youtube.

[Kete]

Thor Ragnarok. SO MUCH FUN..

I LOVED IT! So funny. The music and style are perfect. I'm so happy for Taika. He is so talented and deserves all the credit he's going to get for this.

[Cyrusso]

Thor: Ragnarok I... LOVED IT! I had so much fun watching this thing! That's a pretty big contrast after the First Thor which was passable and Thor The Dark World which was just really hard to sit through.

[ihavemyreasons]

Dark Star (1974)
Have always either loved or hated John Carpernter movies and this one was 1 of I think 3 or 4 I had never seen.
Thought it was kind of slow overall and not terribly funny as a comedy, but the effects varied from great no matter the budget to good considering the budget. Knew about the alien going in and was surprised that it still came off as rather terrifying in parts. Definitely see how this movie led to Dan O'Bannon's work on Star Wars and Alien. Overall the first John Carpernter movie I didn't really love but I also didn't hate.

[BathTub]

Yeah got to see Thor last night, bit more comedy than I expected, always funny to hear NZ accents on screen.

[Darth Geek]

Thor Ragnarok - I really liked it. Although I think it has way too much humor. I laughed at most of the jokes individually, but so much of it did tend to make the tone very inconstant. The dialog often gets way too modern slang, which is out of character for everyone here. The only part that really didn't work for me was the blue rock guy, he was just annoying. But otherwise, the action was fantastic. And I really liked seeing Thor having to not rely on his hammer.

[ihavemyreasons]

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Another John Carpernter movie I had never seen before. Looked a hell of a lot better than it's $100,000 budget. A bit dated feeling in the way music is used but not nearly as dated as Halloween feels primarily due to it being copied so much since it came out- ahead of it's time in other ways like having strong African American characters, the gang of villians being ethicnally diverse and a badass woman character. Loved it. Moved along at a much quicker pace than a lot of movies from the 70s. A scene of a little girl getting shot that got criticized as being unnecessary, but did a great job of setting up the vilians as being cartoon-itionally evil. Makes my list of top 5 John Carpenter movies (1 The Thing, 2 They Live, 3 In The Mouth of Madness (know a lot of people hated this one, but I loved it), 4 Escape from New York, 5 Assault-replaces Big Trouble in Little China that I move to 6th place).

[Kete]

The only part that really didn't work for me was the blue rock guy, he was just annoying.

That was the director, Taika Waititi. I think he's hilarious.

[Johnny Unusual]

Horsefeathers

Rewatched this one again.  Not the best of the Marx brothers movie, but Harpo kills it (which is interesting because of the three REMEMBERED Marx bros, he's usually my least favourite).  Zeppo... has nothing to do again, but Groucho and Chico do well, though I've seen them do better (some of Chico's bits feel a bit flat this time around).  The password scene is a delight.  It's a kind of bit that's been done a lot since, but Groucho and Chico bring the right amount of energy to it.