What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Worf]

"Embrace of the Serpent" - Nominated for best foreign film last year... this multi festival award winning film charts two journeys into the Amazon by outsiders looking for what they do not possess but want desperately. Neither finds what they expected. Amazing performances by all involved. Filmed in glorious black and white the film is totally mesmerizing from opening frame to last. True art house fare, don't expect this at the local multiplex. One warning if you're skurd of snakes... cover your eyes...

Worf

 

[Lean'n'mean]

'Jane Got A Gun'........................waste of time.

 

[Sloan1874]

Went to a screening of the brilliant Exit, Delighted this evening at the Bo'ness Hippodrome Silent Film Festival. Wonderful silent movie starring Beatrice Lillie, once known as the Funniest Woman in the World! Lillie had genuine funny bones, she had the whole cinema laughing from start to finish:

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Pee-wee's Big Holiday."

One of the most uncanny triumphs of makeup, lighting, and digital retouching I've ever seen in my life. Mr. Herman looks *exactly* as he did in 1986. I hope Harrison Ford is taking notes.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Yep, he's looking younger everyday...

 

[Zombie_61]

"Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named Indy,
He still holds his own, but he's gettin' kinda' windy.
He digs up graves, finds historical artifacts,
Or, I should say, he used to, 'til his ankle got cracked."

 

[ChiTownScion]

"Embrace of the Serpent" - Nominated for best foreign film last year... this multi festival award winning film charts two journeys into the Amazon by outsiders looking for what they do not possess but want desperately. Neither finds what they expected. Amazing performances by all involved. Filmed in glorious black and white the film is totally mesmerizing from opening frame to last. True art house fare, don't expect this at the local multiplex. One warning if you're skurd of snakes... cover your eyes...

Worf

On our recommendation, we saw it this evening.

 

[Stearmen]

King Solomon's Mines (1950) A pleasant little surprise! Lately, when I have watched a movie from my child hood, I was disappointed at how bad they were compared to my memory of them. This movie was the other way round, much better. For some reason, I thought it was a typical Africa movie, with the natives being portrayed as either cannibals or imbeciles. In this movie, Quartermain showed emotions when his native friend died. The Natives were three dimensional, with all the good and bad traits of humans. I liked when Kerr ask why he is not trading beads, he replies, "their not stupid you know!"

 

[Touchofevil]

Kingsman
A much better flick than I would have thought.

 

[MisterCairo]

We had some chilly rainy nights at the cottage this past week, so we signed out from the local library the three Night at the Museum movies for our girls. Good silly fun, but sad to watch Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt knowing what was to come.

 

[Worf]

On our recommendation, we saw it this evening.

And? I'm interested to hear your appraisal!

Worf

 

[Worf]

Kingsman
A much better flick than I would have thought.

Yeah first time I saw it I thought it was a hoot! If you were British the class humor might have hit home more but I still liked it.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Watched "Key Largo" for the umpteenth time and had two impressions jump out. One, the hotel is gorgeous - a wonderful time-travel to a Golden Era hotel - large windows, angles, nooks, step downs, woodwork, etc. and, two, the story is very tight - every line is in there for a reason and early references come back later - really well written.

Edit add: RE the hotel architecture. In this movie, as in "Double Indemnity," there was a wall mounted fan whose electrical cord draped about three feet to a wall outlet that was not in any logical place - i.e., near the floor or corner, but literally, in the middle of the wall. It was so clear (or appeared to be) that the outlet was put there - floating on the wall - just for the fan and was added well after the building was first built that it begged the question, why didn't they place the outlet right behind the fan or near the baseboard or in some other logical spot. So my question is, was the outlet intentionally placed a few feet from the fan and oddly in the middle of a wall for a reason - was that the "style" of the time? It's been bugging me since I saw "Double Indemnity," but now seeing it again in "Key Largo," I had to ask.

 

[Touchofevil]

Star Trek into Darkness

 

[ChiTownScion]

And? I'm interested to hear your appraisal!

Worf

It was a very different type of film. Difficult to follow at times, but intense and thought provoking. The theme of the corruption of native cultures by the developed outside world was certainly presented in a gut wrenching manner.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Bridge of Spies w/ Tom Hanks as an American insurance lawyer in 1957-1961, orchestrating the exchange of Rudolf Abel the Soviet spy for Francis Gary Powers the U.S. pilot and an imprisoned U.S. student. A more different film from a James Bond spy story could hardly be imagined. The conflict is about negotiation, how Hanks's character uses negotiating skills and superb argument first to save his client (Abel) from being condemned to death, and then to achieve the exchange. Nicely done.

And it had some neat details: Hanks's stingy-brimmed fedora, for example, the period automobiles (including a Volvo P1800 sports coupe), and the marquees of the movie theatre in West Berlin. All the films listed (Spartacus and One, Two, Three, for example) were correct for the period.

 

[Fading Fast]

Bridge of Spies w/ Tom Hanks as an American insurance lawyer in 1957-1961, orchestrating the exchange of Rudolf Abel the Soviet spy for Francis Gary Powers the U.S. pilot and a imprisoned U.S. student. A more different film from a James Bond spy story could hardly be imagined. The conflict is about negotiation, how Hanks's character uses negotiating skills and superb argument first to save his client (Abel) from being condemned to death, and then to achieve the exchange. Nicely done.

And it had some neat details: Hanks's stingy-brimmed fedora, for example, the period automobiles (including a Volvo P1800 sports coupe), and the marquees of the movie theatre in West Berlin. All the films listed (Spartacus and One, Two, Three, for example) were correct for the period.

Nice review - I can't wait to see it. It is at the top of our Netflix queue, we just need to get time to watch what we have now and return it.

"One, Two, Three -" what an incredible showcase of James Cagney's talent. He fires off a ridiculous amount of dialogue like a gatling gun - never missing a beat, fully engaged physically and seemingly doing it all without effort. I couldn't memorize all that dialogue if I had a lifetime, let alone delivering it like it was extemporaneous.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Nice review - I can't wait to see it. It is at the top of our Netflix queue, we just need to get time to watch what we have now and return it.

"One, Two, Three -" what an incredible showcase of James Cagney's talent. He fires off a ridiculous amount of dialogue like a gatling gun - never missing a beat, fully engaged physically and seemingly doing it all without effort. I couldn't memorize all that dialogue if I had a lifetime, let alone delivering it like it was extemporaneous.

Cagney always dazzles me. Someone here said that nobody in the real world ever spoke like Jimmy Cagney, and yet every performance he ever gave was true-to-life.

The story I've heard about the Billy Wilder film was that Horst Buchholz was such a pain to work with -- continually upstaging him, etc. -- that Cagney was exhausted after the film wrapped; he threw in the acting towel and retired for some 20 years, until Ragtime, just before his death.

 

[Stearmen]

Fugitive In The Sky (1936)

 

[2jakes]

On TCM tonight in glorious black & white.