What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Zombie_61]

I watched They Drive by Night. Bogey is in a supporting role. Not a great movie, but a lot of great hats!

I have seen it once before, which is why I wanted to watch it again--to see if I'm remembering it correctly, and whether or not my opinion will change.

"...as many as my wife could tolerate..." LOL...

Yeah...for the most part my wife and I have very different tastes with regards to entertainment, and sometimes we have to endure rather than enjoy each others fascinations. She's been slowly coming around to the virtues of TCM in recent years so I don't want to push my luck.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Aquaman. Too long, incomprehensible plot that seems to be making itself up as it goes, continuous psychedelic CGI overkill, bad performances from good actors (Nicole Kidman, Patrick Wilson, Willem Defoe)... but still kind of enjoyable. I liked Jason Mamoa's performance much more here than in Justice League. And Amber Heard is unexpectedly good as Princess Mera, and she looks smashing in costume. All the costumes and design work is good. Not up the level of Wonder Woman, but - apart from its dumb plot stupidities - also not as disappointing as the other DC flicks.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

I have seen it once before, which is why I wanted to watch it again--to see if I'm remembering it correctly, and whether or not my opinion will change.

Yeah...for the most part my wife and I have very different tastes with regards to entertainment, and sometimes we have to endure rather than enjoy each others fascinations. She's been slowly coming around to the virtues of TCM in recent years so I don't want to push my luck.

It was my first viewing.
The link you provided will take you to an IMB site, with reviews. The lengthy, glowing headline review starts out something like this; "What a joy for serious film buffs ...."
Please allow me to translate:
"Unless you're a serious film snob, you'll take off your fedora and scratch your head, wondering which of the serial story lines was the actual plot of the film."
Watch it though, for the hats if nothing else. The blue collar vintage dress is worth noting to, if you're a regular working stif like me.

Sent from my LGMP260 using Tapatalk

 

[Fading Fast]

I have seen it once before, which is why I wanted to watch it again--to see if I'm remembering it correctly, and whether or not my opinion will change.

Yeah...for the most part my wife and I have very different tastes with regards to entertainment, and sometimes we have to endure rather than enjoy each others fascinations. She's been slowly coming around to the virtues of TCM in recent years so I don't want to push my luck.

My girlfriend and I are pretty lucky as one of our first connects was when we realized we were both true old movies fans.

The world is made up of three types of people: (1) those who don't like old movies (okay, their choice), (2) those who say they like old movies (but after "The Wizard of Oz," "Casablanca" and a few others, don't really like or know them) and (3) those who really, truly love old movies.

We quickly discovered were were both in the third category.

It was my first viewing.
The link you provided will take you to an IMB site, with reviews. The lengthy, glowing headline review starts out something like this; "What a joy for serious film buffs ...."
Please allow me to translate:
"Unless you're a serious film snob, you'll take off your fedora and scratch your head, wondering which of the serial story lines was the actual plot of the film."
Watch it though, for the hats if nothing else. The blue collar vintage dress is worth noting to, if you're a regular working stif like me.

Sent from my LGMP260 using Tapatalk

My girlfriend and I always notice how much more classic the working / everyday women's clothing was during the '30s-'50s than the fancy stuff. Many of those dresses, blouses, pants and shoes could still be (and some are) worn today, but most of the fancy / high-end women's clothes would look like costumes if worn today.

 

[Hat and Rehat]

My girlfriend and I are pretty lucky as one of our first connects was when we realized we were both true old movies fans.

The world is made up of three types of people: (1) those who don't like old movies (okay, their choice), (2) those who say they like old movies (but after "The Wizard of Oz," "Casablanca" and a few others, don't really like or know them) and (3) those who really, truly love old movies.

We quickly discovered were were both in the third category.



My girlfriend and I always notice how much more classic the working / everyday women's clothing was during the '30s-'50s than the fancy stuff. Many of those dresses, blouses, pants and shoes could still be (and some are) worn today, but most of the fancy / high-end women's clothes would look like costumes if worn today.

You might like They Drive by Night. The review I poked fun at waxes eloquent about the director's impeccable attention to set and clothing detail, in all of his films.
With a very small list of exceptions, I haven't a clue who directed a film. I know who a lot of actors are, but I also am likely to say, "You know, the guy who played ..." I like to watch films, including old ones, but I'm not a film buff.

Sent from my LGMP260 using Tapatalk

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Invasion USA (1952) with Gerald Mohr, Peggy Castle, some other folks, and several hundred feet of grainy stock footage from WW2 and maybe the Korean War. Ostensibly the characters watch an Admiral tv in the local watering hole as "the enemy" (who appear to be Russians) bomb the US and drop paratroops. Eventually they try to get back to their respective homes. I won't spoil the ending but it's like Criswell meets Red Nightmare.
Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935) with Sylvia Sidney, Melvyn Douglas, and Alan Baxter. The Missus really likes Melvyn Douglas so we watched the movie on the TCM streaming app. Society is cruel and judgmental against a sweet kid from the sticks. Douglas doesn't show up until about halfway through, but naturally he's the love interest. Fun movie- romance, gangsters, Pert Kelton as brassy blonde, and a sixth-billed Brian Donlevy as a gangster's henchman.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My girlfriend and I always notice how much more classic the working / everyday women's clothing was during the '30s-'50s than the fancy stuff. Many of those dresses, blouses, pants and shoes could still be (and some are) worn today, but most of the fancy / high-end women's clothes would look like costumes if worn today.

They were costumes even then -- nobody wore Adrian or Orry-Kelly or Edith Head in the real world. It was all part of the fantasy. The most outlandish clothes worn by actual people were generally women's hats -- and even those were self-consciously ridiculous, with the wearers making it clear that they were in on the joke.

 

[Haversack]

I've had something of a soft spot for They Drive By Night ever since listening to an LP my college roommate had that had dialogue excerpts from a lot of classic Warner Bros. movies. In this case Ann Sheridan's sharp, snappy put-downs to the leering men at a truck stop. Now owning the DVD, I've watched it several times and think that it really is two different noir movies grafted together. The first half is about two brothers trying to make it as independent truckers hauling produce to LA and San Francisco. (Rather like the set-up in the aforementioned Thieve's Highway). The second half is about the good man pursued by the evil woman. Not original but Ida Lupino's courtroom scene is both shrill and scary. All in all, I wish they had run with the first half of the movie.

 

[Fading Fast]

Fate is the Hunter from 1964 with Glen Ford, Rod Taylor, Nancy Kwan and Suzanne Pleshette

This is one of the first movies I saw on TCM back in the early '90s, so I have a soft spot for it as, back then, TCM - and AMC, now changed - starting running old movies that rarely if ever made it to the usual play-old-movies-on-occasion PBS or second-tier local stations that ran a much smaller selection since they didn't have to fill up twenty four hours a day with old movies. Hence, at that time, seeing a movie like this was a bit of a treat even if the movie itself was only okay.

And Fate is the Hunter is a classic example of an only-okay movie that's enjoyable enough as a story, but equally enjoyable for its time-travel snapshot. In this one, the pretty straight-forward plot is the investigation of a commercial plane crash where "the powers that be" want to quickly wrap-up the investigation with a blame-the-pilot (Taylor) explanation, while the pilot's former Air Force friend and boss at the airline (Ford) passionately believes there has to be an exculpating-his-now-deceased-friend reason for the crash.

Not helping Ford is Taylor's known lifestyle as a not-religious womanizer and boozer at a time when both companies and the public expected people in positions of responsibility to be church-going family men with (outwardly) unimpeachable moral character - the story has much less drama if seen through today's libertine values.

Against this, Ford pushes for a thorough investigation including a complete reenactment of the flight. Aiding him, hesitantly, is one of the three crash survivors, a stewardess (Pleshette) - understandably frazzled and scared to fly again - and one of Taylor's former girlfriends, the against type for playboy Taylor, brains-and-looks super combo of Nancy Kwan who, like Ford, also wants to clear Taylor's name.

As the investigation reveals troubling evidence such as Taylor being seen in a bar just hours before the flight, Ford's position becomes less tenable at the airline, thus, building up to the all-or-none career moment for Ford of the flight reenactment. I'll leave it there for anyone who might want to see it in the future.

This brings us to the other, aforementioned, joy of these old movies: time travel. I usually refer to time travel as the cars, clothes, architecture, etc., of the period, but that's an incomplete view as these movies are also an imperfect window into the cultural norms, the unwritten rules, the prevailing mindsets, the acceptable etiquette, etc., of a time.

Two reasonably non-controversial ones that come up regularly if you watch old movies (as they do in Fate is the Hunter) are train travel and couple's dancing. In the '30s and '40s (and into the '50s), train travel between cities makes an appearance in, easily, ninety-plus percent of movies. From this, you can see and feel how woven into the fabric of America train travel was in a way that a history book showing you the factual evidence will never accomplish.

And dancing - men and women would regularly get up to dance together at a restaurant, a soda shop (yes), their own home, a dive bar (yes) and other places if there was a band, a record or just a radio playing music. If you aren't used to it, it looks really weird to see a couple in a soda shop get up and dance alone on the floor especially as no one pays them the least attention because couple's dancing was common knowledge - everyone knows that everyone knows that public dancing to music, almost anywhere, is normal.

To be sure, the stuff we still fight about today - religion, politics, money, family responsibilities, etc. - is also all on display in old movies. While these movies no more perfectly reflect their times than today's do, taken as part of the story - along with a study of history, non-fiction accounts, etc., - old movies provide further input into our view of the past.

Hence, a run-of-the-mill movie like Fate is the Hunter becomes more than run-of-the-mill to us today. Yes, it's a solid movie that can be watched for its plot, etc., but it also is an incredible opportunity to see social and cultural norms from the past. It's a much better - less inaccurate - step back in time than are modern period pieces riddled, as they always are, with their own present-day, intentional and unintentional, biases and prejudices.

Nancy Kwan and Glen Ford

 

[Haversack]

Regarding train travel in old movies. I've not seen it written about anywhere, but I have noticed that in what seems to be Every Single One of the movies Preston Sturges wrote and directed there is at least one scene depicting travel by rail. Whether it is shooting soda crackers in the Ale and Quail Club club car in The Palm Beach Story, hopping a freight in Sullivan's Travels, or even with Sturges playing himself watching dailies of the Golden Gate Quartet doing a proto-hip-hop number as the staff of a dining car in Star Spangled Rhythm train travel is ubiquitous. I think it was noticed at the time as a Sturges trademark as he didn't write his scene in SSR. (Another of his apparent trademarks was including a bit of slapstick into his movies.)

 

[Fading Fast]

Regarding train travel in old movies. I've not seen it written about anywhere, but I have noticed that in what seems to be Every Single One of the movies Preston Sturges wrote and directed there is at least one scene depicting travel by rail. Whether it is shooting soda crackers in the Ale and Quail Club club car in The Palm Beach Story, hopping a freight in Sullivan's Travels, or even with Sturges playing himself watching dailies of the Golden Gate Quartet doing a proto-hip-hop number as the staff of a dining car in Star Spangled Rhythm train travel is ubiquitous. I think it was noticed at the time as a Sturges trademark as he didn't write his scene in SSR. (Another of his apparent trademarks was including a bit of slapstick into his movies.)

Great observations and catch. I know the scenes you referenced, but never thought about it as a "Sturges" feature - Lizzie might have, though, as I know she's a big fan of his.

What is stunning is that, once you are aware of it, you will see that, as noted (and my very unscientific guess), ninety-plus percent of the movies from the '30s-'50s (excluding period films, of course) have a train scene even if it's nothing more than a quick shot of a train arriving or departing. And many have - as you describe - much more extensive ones.

Just the other day, I caught the beginning of "After the Thin Man" (pretty sure it was that one, but I caution, the "Thin Man" movies all run together in my head), which has an incredibly good train scene where Nick and Nora are packing up after several nights in a sleeper compartment just before arriving in San Fran. It's a neat scene as it felt more real than the "perfect" train scenes you often see as their compartment is a mess and Nora's trying to get it organized and packed while Nick just wants to nurse his hangover with a little hair of the dog.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Just finished previewing Avi Belkin's thoughtful look at the life and career of the most provocative figure in late 20th Century journalism, "Mike Wallace Is Here."

This is a unique bio-documentary in that it features no talking-head analyses or retrospective appreciations of the subject. Instead, the entire film is drawn from archive footage -- of Wallace's own interviews over the decades, as well as interviews *of* Wallace by others. What emerges is a portrait of a man who never seemed to be at peace with who he was -- even at the height of his career. Here was a man who was desperate to prove himself a real reporter, a dedicated reporter, despite the shadow of his past. For those who knew him only as that guy in the trenchcoat who ambushed shady executives on the street and made them sweat, it might come as a shock to learn that Wallace began his career in broadcasting as a an all-around "personality" -- an actor and announcer in radio, the co-host of a husband-and-wife chit-chat show, an ever-smiling commercial pitchman, a game-show host, even a bit actor in live-TV dramas. He had no training in journalism whatever, and at first approached his emerging role as a hard-boiled interviewer in the late 1950s as just another facet to his career. It was the death of one of his sons in 1962 that drove him to reevaluate his life and decide to devote himself fully to news -- but he remained uncomfortable with his show-biz past for the rest of his life, and visibly writhes in clips where hostile interviewers bring it up.

That shadow hangs over the whole film -- raising the question of just how much of hard-nosed bulldog reporter Mike Wallace was "acting." Belkin doesn't answer that question -- he just raises it thru his careful selection of clips and leaves the viewer to decide. The ambiguity of the portrait is the most fascinating aspect of the film -- you emerge after an hour and a half with a new understanding of Wallace and his accomplishments, but you're not all that sure how you feel about him. Was he a force for good, was he a dogged enemy of those who would conspire against the people -- or was he the godfather of the "personality newscaster" represented here at his most noxious by accustatory clips of Bill O'Reilly telling Wallace to his face that he himself is responsible for everything O'Reilly represents.

Who can say? Wallace himself went to his grave with deep self-doubts about his legacy, and seeing his career laid out like this maybe confirms them. Maybe those doubts *are* his legacy. Mike Wallace, provocative to the last.

 

[Haversack]

I know that scene in After the Thin Man extremely well as I rode the train into the City every day for 13 years. The view outside the window looks to the south west towards the Baker & Hamilton building with the northwest slope of Potrero Hill in the background as the train makes the final bend as it approaches the terminal yard. The old Mission Revival SP passenger terminal was at 3rd and Townsend. They shortened the yard by one block so the current Caltrain passenger terminal is now at 4th and Townsend. Given all the construction that has taken place in the surrounding area, it is rather amazing that that particular view is still pretty much that same as in the movie.

There are a lot of other scenes in that movie that they actually shot in San Francisco. The pickpocket scene in front of the old SP terminal, the street kids recognizing Nick in the car at Lotta's Fountain, the drive way to their house is the turn-around in front of Coit Tower on the top of Telegraph Hill.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't remember a train scene in "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," but it's been a while since I looked at it and I may be wrong.

As for train scenes in general, for me it's a tossup between the "Shuffle Off To Buffalo" number in "42nd Street," with Ruby Keeler and Clarence Nordstrom skipping happily thru a Pullman car while Ginger Rogers and Una Merkel call out wisecracks from an upper berth, and the 1934 Our Gang comedy "Choo-Choo," in which the kids wreak absolute havoc during a train ride. Honorable mention goes to a forgotten Joe E. Brown comedy called "Bright Lights," in which the large-mouthed comedian leads a coach full of bored passengers in a sing-a-long of "She Was An Acrobat's Daughter." That's a train ride I'd have enjoyed.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

TCM has the Summer of Stars special, so we watched Cry 'Havoc' (single quotation marks are in the title) and A Letter to Three Wives (1949) in the salute to Ann Sothern. Cry 'Havoc' (1943) reveals its origin as a play by showing most of the story in the Philippine Islands bunker/dorm/bomb shelter where the nurses reside. Trips outside to the jungle and hospitals break up the claustrophobia. A patriotic ensemble drama with enough characters and plot points to keep you involved.

A Letter to Three Wives is a well-done drama and suspense story with Ann Sothern, Linda Darnell, and Jean Crain about a nameless small town and some marital complications. Joseph Mankiewicz won Oscars for direction and screenplay, adapted from a serialized novel in Cosmopolitan magazine. Well worth a viewing-

 

[Zombie_61]

Once Upon a Time ... In Hollywood (2019). Television actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his best friend and stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) attempt to keep their diminishing careers going in southern California (mostly) during the summer of 1969. Director/Writer Quentin Tarantino tells the story he wants to tell, blending real and fictional people/characters as he sees fit and ignoring or re-writing some events in recorded history. At 2 hours and 41 minutes the movie is a little long, but I enjoyed it.

 

[jacketjunkie]

Once Upon a Time ... In Hollywood (2019). Television actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his best friend and stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) attempt to keep their diminishing careers going in southern California (mostly) during the summer of 1969. Director/Writer Quentin Tarantino tells the story he wants to tell, blending real and fictional people/characters as he sees fit and ignoring or re-writing some events in recorded history. At 2 hours and 41 minutes the movie is a little long, but I enjoyed it.

The movie definitely is not for everyone. It is long, it has less action and gore to keep viewers entertained than his previous pictures and is imho also stylistically less pleasing; both cinematography and soundtrack are not on par with say Pulp Fiction which I saw a number of critics compare it to.

That being said, I loved it. It is Tatantinos most personal work yet and you can tell from viewing this was a passion project to him. I am pretty sure doing this he knew this wouldn't please everyone and I'm certain he did not care one bit. He wanted to tell this tale for those who share his passion for Hollywood and to pay tribute to Sharon Tate. And while the Sharon Tate arc is only a small portion of the movie, if I had to label this movie in one sentence, I would call it a love letter to Sharon Tate. Rather than focusing on her gruesome death as pretty much all previous movies about her did, Tarantino focuses on her life and shows Sharon Tate as a human being. I remember reading Sharon Tates sister was afraid this movie may idolize the Manson Family as so many did in the past.. she worried for nothing. With the same passion Tarantino shows his love for Sharon Tate, he displays his loathing for those who took her out of this world. Dicaprio is fantastic in this, wouldn't be surprised about Oscar nomination. Brad Pitt does a great job too but is given much less to work with and Margot Robbie is rocking the few scenes she has. I disagree with critics who wanted more of her; the more Sharon Tate you show, the more you can potentially do wrong and Tarantino found just the right dose to make us love her without risking to botcher her character.

 

[Touchofevil]

Again, "Hot Fuzz." Simon Pegg at his best or at least pretty near it.

 

[Worf]

I got shanghaied in to taking a group of Seniors to the multiplex AGAIN! (Dammit why am I the only one that can still pilot an automobile!) I was "treated" to the latest in what seems to be and un-ending string of canine/religion mashups. "The Art of Driving in the Rain" details the life and times of an erstwhile race car driver (NOT NASCAR) who's life and times are narrated by his faithful dog Enzo (yes named after Enzo Ferrari). The dog, voiced by Kevin Costner (what's with him and dog movies all of a sudden?) talks us through his master's life with all the depth and drama of a Hallmark TV movie... which is all this is. The twists and turns are foreshadowed a mile away, the characters may as well be cardboard cutouts and the whole "death is not the end" theme is hammered home relentlessly. Of course the old folks loved it. I wasted 2 more hours I'll NEVER get back. Unless you're into sentimental drivel wait till it's on TV for free.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Our Kind of Traitor 2016

While based on a John le Carré novel, the screenplay was written and movie directed, unfortunately, with too much fealty to the book - there was so much exposition that you could almost feel the pages turning as scenes progressed. But to be fair, le Carré books are dense and ambiguous at the same time, which is not the easiest material to turn into a taut two-hour film.

And the story - a top Russian money launderer wants to make a deal with MI5 to get his family safely to England in return for exposing corruption that reaches into the highest levels of English government and society - is solid, but, honestly, it felt stale and unimportant.

Sure, defeating high-level corruption is important, but these international mafia stories always feel flat compared to the old Cold War tension of East versus West, Capitalism versus Communism, Individualism versus Collectivism, Democracy versus Dictatorship, Freedom versus Statism.

Everything was on the line then - or felt that way - with authors like le Carré and Clancy producing their best books and movie offspring. Now, the bad guys aren't arguing they have a morally superior way of life; they just want money and wealth and will lie, cheat, steal and kill to get it - hence, these stories are just modern day cops-and-robbers tails with the chases, sex (it's a modern movie, after all) and explosions all amped up.

This is the same challenge that modern Bond films face when compared to their early classics - there are no competing world philosophies standing toe to toe, so all that's left is bigger, faster and louder special effects. To be fair, Our Kind of Traitor tries to treat its story with respect; there just isn't enough story there to matter.