What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Edward]

"Edge of Seventeen" form 2016

A high school coming of age moving that was, for the most part, thoughtful, sensitive and intelligently done. Not our typical fair, but we saw the trailer and Woody Harrelson caught our attention as a sardonic teacher. He didn't disappoint as he shined in this supporting role - showing that real actors always bring something more to a role.

Sure, being a teen movie, there were some cliches and cringe-worthy moments, but if it pops up on cable or streaming and you're looking for an hour and half of not-too-challenging entertainment - it's worth the time.

I had a similar experience with The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It caught me with the nostalgia of the Rocky Horror bit (longtime shadowcaster myself), but it really was a sweet little film with a realistic feel to it. Believable characters. I also loved Tom SAvini's cameo as a high school woodwork teacher.

Equilibrium - a 2002 SF future dystopia film with Christian Bale. This was downright terrible, with every aspect of the story borrowed from other, better dystopia stories:

I found it entertaining enough, if, as you say, vastly derivative. The emtions thing reminded me of a 2000AD comic book property, but I can't recall the name of the character.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2... I'm still processing my feelings.

Minus the wonderful surprises of the first film (the rare Marvel property I didn't have a long history with, and my knowledge of the initial 70s comics versions of Drax and Gamora didn't help much), this one pushes even harder into the characters - it could have been subtitled "Daddy Issues". There's still plenty of action and wonderment, but the character interactions are more important, which is actually pretty gutsy. Lots of laughs, lots of cute... maybe too much? And at least it doesn't have the one-dimensional villain character that's usually the weakest thing in the Marvel films.

If you liked the first, you'll like this one. It's very entertaining, and loaded with interesting Easter eggs for old Marvel fans (for example, the Stan Lee cameo). But there's something about it that didn't quite work for me that I can't put my finger on.

Not mentioned anywhere I've seen: there's a(nother) new Marvel Studios logo at the beginning... which uses quick shots from the MCU films rather than the comics images montage of previous versions.

WE're gonig to see that when I get home from Beijing again next week. It has an added layer of amusement in our house, as thed cat is obsessed with Rocket. We watched the first on Netflix and enjoyed it very much - but my tabby Greta kept running in and excitedly nosing at the screen every time Rocket spoke. We bought her a talking soft toy Rocket, and she seems to love it....

MURPHY'S WAR (1971) starring Peter O'Toole

A lone survivor from a WW2 British naval ship is obsessed with getting revenge on a German U-boat crew that massacred his shipmates in the water.

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I remember watching that oin a tiny black and white portable television in our caravan, on holiday in either Wales or Scotland, back in the early eighties. I remember it very clearly as it was the first time I encountered the concept of a Pyrrhic victory (though I wouldn't know that term until much later on).

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

At the theater, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol.2
Youngest Shellhammer and I watched on Netflix something called Harlock: Space Pirate, a Japanese CGI movie. Parts are very steampunk-ish. The graphics, especially the details on things such as cracks in leather gloves, made it visually gripping.

 

[Worf]

"The Giant Claw" - One of the silliest "GIANT" monster movies of the 50's with the flat out ugliest giant buzzard you've EVER seen. Silly science, silly story but great fun. Even more fun than the movie was seeing clips of other "better" movies used as supplemental footage. Crowd scenes were lifted from "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" as were some of the falling rubble shots. I spotted crowd footage and building destruction shots from at least 2 Harryhausen films including "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers". But the worst theft was extensive aerial footage lifted from "30 Seconds Over Tokyo". They mounted the bird killing apparatus on a B-24 and rather than spend the money to film it they just pilfered footage from the earlier film. The planes name the "Ruptured Duck" can plainly be seen on the side of the ship which also changed color from Camo Green to Silver several times. All in all... what a ultra low budget hoot! All the buildings were models as was the beastie itself, wires being visible many times. A must see.

Worf

 

[belfastboy]

Broke away from Netflix and spent some money last night on "Paterson" the latest Jim Jarmusch movie. Never a huge fan of his work but did not dislike him either I found this movie to be wonderful. Hesitate to label it great as bestowing that upon a small, gentle, so human a movie would be doing it a disservice. I thoroughly enjoyed it. A Gem!

 

[Bushman]

Victor Frankenstein with Daniel Radcliffe and James Mcavoy. Playing Igor and the deranged doctor respectively, this was a really interesting version of the the classic tale. It also has a couple cinematic firsts for me. I won't pretend to have seen every cinematic version of Frankenstein, but I have seen most of them, and I think this is the first time I've seen a Frankenstein movie where the monster is shown as he's described in the book: pus yellow skin instead of green, and grotesquely shaped. I did enjoy the joke about giving him a flat head, even if that's not how the monster eventually came out looking. It was a nice nod to the 1931 movie. I also believe this is the first version where Dr. Frankenstein is automatically horrified at his creation, just like in the book. Most versions have Dr. Frankenstein madly excited about his creation, running about his laboratory in a frantic state of deranged glee. Not this time. He sees what he created isn't what he imagined, and seeks to instantly destroy this monstrosity.

It's a very character driven version of the Frankenstein tale, focussing on Igor's point of view, which is something we also haven't gotten before outside of a terrible, failed children's cartoon that wasn't very good. I liked that perspective, and Mcavoy and Radcliffe played off each other very well. The romantic subplot between Igor and the trapeze artist woman never seemed especially prominent, like the writers never knew what they wanted from it, but it's an otherwise very worthy addition to a long list of cinematic Frankenstein monsters.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Jimi: All Is by My Side. A biopic about Jimi Hendrix, but not the whole story, only about the year he spent in London during which he went from being an unknown musician to the cusp of world fame.

I wasn't really up on this portion of his biography, so I don't know how accurate the film is. Judging by Wiki, it's not too far off. I was a bit surprised to see Hendrix portrayed through much of the period as a deeply original musician... but with little/no ambition, and what we'd today call pretty bad people skills. If he hadn't been aggressively pushed and championed by others, the sense is that he'd have spent his life as an unknown sideman. (Really?)

Anyway, it's a well made film, and I enjoyed seeing the whole Swinging London scene and rock star cameos. (Did Clapton really walk offstage disgusted muttering, "He's really that good.." when Hendrix jammed with Cream?) Despite not being able to use any of Hendrix's music or recordings, the guitar work on display (recorded by Waddy Wachtel) is impressive and Hendrix-like. Excellent performances all around too. Recommended if you're curious... though I have a feeling true Hendrix fans probably hate this movie.

Full disclosure: I partly wanted to see this flick because it costars our beloved Agent Carter, Hayley Atwell. She's second-billed as Jimi's girlfriend during the period, a combative train wreck who both helps and hinders his development. And Atwell is excellent, playing this very different woman without any hint of Peggy Carter.

 

[Zombie_61]

Victor Frankenstein with Daniel Radcliffe and James Mcavoy...I won't pretend to have seen every cinematic version of Frankenstein, but I have seen most of them, and I think this is the first time I've seen a Frankenstein movie where the monster is shown as he's described in the book: pus yellow skin instead of green...

The notion of a green-skinned Monster started with Universal's advertising for the 1931 movie. Makeup artist Jack Pierce painted Boris Karloff with a bluish-green greasepaint so that the Monster would photograph as having a pale "death pallor" complexion on the black-and-white film. Pierce never otherwise intended the Monster to be green, but someone at Universal apparently thought it was ghoulish enough to be included in some of the color/colorized posters and a false legend was born.

Shelley's description of the Monster in her novel is somewhat vague: "His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips." I'd guess Shelley had her own idea of what such a creature would look like, but deliberately left it vague enough to allow the reader to create their own mental vision of it.

...I also believe this is the first version where Dr. Frankenstein is automatically horrified at his creation, just like in the book. Most versions have Dr. Frankenstein madly excited about his creation, running about his laboratory in a frantic state of deranged glee. Not this time. He sees what he created isn't what he imagined, and seeks to instantly destroy this monstrosity...

It did take Henry Frankenstein a while to realize the horror of what he had created in the 1931 movie, but in Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) Victor Frankenstein is immediately horrified by the creature. This is probably the closest movie adaptation of Shelley's novel that we'll ever get, but in my opinion it falls into the "okay, but not great" category and Robert De Niro, as much as I like and respect him as an actor, is miscast as Frankenstein's creature.

 

[Stearmen]

I was a bit surprised to see Hendrix portrayed through much of the period as a deeply original musician... but with little/no ambition, and what we'd today call pretty bad people skills. If he hadn't been aggressively pushed and championed by others, the sense is that he'd have spent his life as an unknown sideman. (Really?)

By all accounts, Jimi was a very shy person! One of the reasons he probably got so deep into drugs. On the other hand, the women in his life, said that his shyness was one of the things that attracted them the most!

 

[Edward]

What I particularly like about the deNiro version of the monster was that it was the first one I saw where he had the 'humanity' and intellect of the creature in the book, as opposed to the grunting beast he became in so many productions.

Jimi: All Is by My Side. A biopic about Jimi Hendrix, but not the whole story, only about the year he spent in London during which he went from being an unknown musician to the cusp of world fame.

I wasn't really up on this portion of his biography, so I don't know how accurate the film is. Judging by Wiki, it's not too far off. I was a bit surprised to see Hendrix portrayed through much of the period as a deeply original musician... but with little/no ambition, and what we'd today call pretty bad people skills. If he hadn't been aggressively pushed and championed by others, the sense is that he'd have spent his life as an unknown sideman. (Really?)

Plausible from what I've read, which suggests that Jimi, for all his later wild man stage antics (and he was always a flamboyant performer: he was fired from Little Richard's backing band, as I recall, for upstaging the man himself), was also quite a shy fellow. He certainly didn't rate himself as a singer early on, though he felt capable enough to record a lot of stuff on his own in the studio in 65/66ish, pre-experience.

Anyway, it's a well made film, and I enjoyed seeing the whole Swinging London scene and rock star cameos. (Did Clapton really walk offstage disgusted muttering, "He's really that good.." when Hendrix jammed with Cream?)

Yes, Clapton really did walk off stage. The eyewitness descriptions I've read had him less disgusted, more rattled, by the newcomer's talent.

Despite not being able to use any of Hendrix's music or recordings, the guitar work on display (recorded by Waddy Wachtel) is impressive and Hendrix-like. Excellent performances all around too. Recommended if you're curious... though I have a feeling true Hendrix fans probably hate this movie.

Is this the one where Hendrix is played by Andre 3000? I remember hearing that they had been banned from using Hendrix music. I can only assume they couldn't afford to pay enough in the eyes of the estate: since inheriting from Al Hendrix (Jimi's father, who had to fight long and hard for many years for his right to Jimi's music after Jimi died), Janey Hendrix, Jimi's half-sister, hasn't always had a reputation for being exactly discriminating in what she's prepared to greenlight. (I well remember the PR disaster of the Epiphone/Gibson Hendrix-branded Stratalike a few years ago; I think in the end they never went into production, such was the outcry.)

Full disclosure: I partly wanted to see this flick because it costars our beloved Agent Carter, Hayley Atwell. She's second-billed as Jimi's girlfriend during the period, a combative train wreck who both helps and hinders his development. And Atwell is excellent, playing this very different woman without any hint of Peggy Carter.

That would be Kathy Etchingham, Jimi's girlfriend from 1966 through 1969. She did comment on the film, claiming it was "nonsense" in its portrayal of her.

 

[Zombie_61]

What I particularly like about the deNiro version of the monster was that it was the first one I saw where he had the 'humanity' and intellect of the creature in the book, as opposed to the grunting beast he became in so many productions...

I do have to give it credit for that. Karloff declined offers to play the Monster after Son of Frankenstein because he could see Universal was turning the character into nothing more than a lumbering brute, and he had no interest in playing the Monster that way. Clancy Brown injected some humanity in his portrayal of the Monster in The Bride (1985), but even his Monster was far more brute than intellectual. So I believe Branagh's version was the first to combine both traits and show the Monster to be an intelligent, sentient being who could survive on his own...anger management issues aside, that is.

 

[Edward]

I do have to give it credit for that. Karloff declined offers to play the Monster after Son of Frankenstein because he could see Universal was turning the character into nothing more than a lumbering brute, and he had no interest in playing the Monster that way. Clancy Brown injected some humanity in his portrayal of the Monster in The Bride (1985), but even his Monster was far more brute than intellectual. So I believe Branagh's version was the first to combine both traits and show the Monster to be an intelligent, sentient being who could survive on his own...anger management issues aside, that is.

The best version of the story I've seen was on stage, at the National in 2011. It was filmed for later showings in cinema,s but sadly no DVD release as of yet. Worth seeing if you ever get the chance, though - I saw it dur4ing previews with Cumberbatch as the creature and Johnny Lee Miller as Franknstein (famously, they swapped roles each night, meaning one of them didn't have to go in for four hours of make-up to play the creature *every* night.... plus it meant a lot of people went twice.....). Directed by Danny Boyle, with music by Leftfield. It was fantastic - lovely allusions to the nature / industrial revolution conflict as well.

 

[MisterCairo]

Victor Frankenstein with Daniel Radcliffe and James Mcavoy. Playing Igor and the deranged doctor respectively, this was a really interesting version of the the classic tale. It also has a couple cinematic firsts for me. I won't pretend to have seen every cinematic version of Frankenstein, but I have seen most of them, and I think this is the first time I've seen a Frankenstein movie where the monster is shown as he's described in the book: pus yellow skin instead of green, and grotesquely shaped. I did enjoy the joke about giving him a flat head, even if that's not how the monster eventually came out looking. It was a nice nod to the 1931 movie. I also believe this is the first version where Dr. Frankenstein is automatically horrified at his creation, just like in the book. Most versions have Dr. Frankenstein madly excited about his creation, running about his laboratory in a frantic state of deranged glee. Not this time. He sees what he created isn't what he imagined, and seeks to instantly destroy this monstrosity.

It's a very character driven version of the Frankenstein tale, focussing on Igor's point of view, which is something we also haven't gotten before outside of a terrible, failed children's cartoon that wasn't very good. I liked that perspective, and Mcavoy and Radcliffe played off each other very well. The romantic subplot between Igor and the trapeze artist woman never seemed especially prominent, like the writers never knew what they wanted from it, but it's an otherwise very worthy addition to a long list of cinematic Frankenstein monsters.

I enjoyed the film too, the critics, both here and elsewhere, be damned!

 

[Doctor Strange]

Gotta go against the grain here: I enjoy most variations of Frankenstein, but I thought Victor Frankenstein was a worthless mess.

Last night I watched the much-praised Manchester by the Sea. I found it over-praised. Too long, way too many landscape atmosphere shots, annoying use of classical music to impart extra import (a pet peeve of mine), and I am tired of dramas about people so traumatized they become withdrawn and uncommunicative. Beautifully shot and with some powerful performances (notably Michelle Williams, who does a lot with a little), but I didn't like it nearly as much as some of Kenneth Lonergan's other dramatic films, like You Can Count on Me or Margaret.

 

[belfastboy]

Another Netflix night....watched "Five Nights in Maine". an indie feature starring Dianne Wiest. I applaud the writer/director for what she attempted, a spare emotional charged movie but somehow doesn't get there. I appreciate movies that allow the viewer to fill in the holes but this one falls short. Too many relationship/motivation gaps that are too wide for me to fill in and just leaves many things unexplained.

 

[Fading Fast]

Gotta go against the grain here: I enjoy most variations of Frankenstein, but I thought Victor Frankenstein was a worthless mess.

Last night I watched the much-praised Manchester by the Sea. I found it over-praised. Too long, way too many landscape atmosphere shots, annoying use of classical music to impart extra import (a pet peeve of mine), and I am tired of dramas about people so traumatized they become withdrawn and uncommunicative. Beautifully shot and with some powerful performances (notably Michelle Williams, who does a lot with a little), but I didn't like it nearly as much as some of Kenneth Lonergan's other dramatic films, like You Can Count on Me or Margaret.

My quick thoughts when I saw "Manchester by the Sea" a few months ago line up pretty closely with yours:

"Manchester By The Sea"

A real movie with a real real story, real characters, real writing and real directing. My only complaint is that it was tough to spend two-plus hours watching an already broken man break a little more. Okay, one small additional complaint: A couple of times, the "artsy-ness" showed a bit too much as when the dialogue stopped and the camera panned the actors almost in slow motion.
​

And, agreed, Williams (who I almost never see pop up in a movie) did a lot with very little.

 

[Fading Fast]

Another Netflix night....watched "Five Nights in Maine". an indie feature starring Dianne Wiest. I applaud the writer/director for what she attempted, a spare emotional charged movie but somehow doesn't get there. I appreciate movies that allow the viewer to fill in the holes but this one falls short. Too many relationship/motivation gaps that are too wide for me to fill in and just leaves many things unexplained.

Just checked it out on IMBD as your comments, plus my love of Maine, plus Wiest is an interesting actress got me interested, but it got a 4.3 rating which might be the lowest rating I've seen for any movie ever on that site.

 

[O'Sully]

Shield for Murder with Edmond O' Brien

 

[Fading Fast]

Shield for Murder with Edmond O' Brien

I recorded it from TCM last weekend and have been trying to make the time to watch it (saw the first ten minutes and it looks good).

What did you think of it?

 

[Worf]

"Gargoyles" on Svengoolie - A made for TV flick from '72 that is far scarier and creepier than it's premise or budget would indicate. Probably because the actors played it straight and for keeps. Best scene being Bernie Casey as the lead male gargoyle sniffing and pawing at the young, unconscious female lead in a scene straight out of "King Kong". Don't know how that scene got aired.

Worf

 

[Doctor Strange]

I remember enjoying Gargoyles when it first aired. Most made-for-TV movies in that era were essentially forgettable B pics, but there were some occasional standouts.