What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[MisterCairo]

Who's this Elvis people keep talking about? Was he anything like Buddy Holly???

 

[Edward]

Who's this Elvis people keep talking about? Was he anything like Buddy Holly???

More famous than Buddy, but less important ot rock and roll in the long run. Like the Beatles without the pretension.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Last night I watched The King, a Netflix Original film about how drunken carouser Prince Hal became Henry V and beat the French at Agincourt. It's a lot less pretty and noble than Bill S. presented things, which probably means it was much more historically correct.... Certainly, the Agincourt battle sequence is just an appalling scrum of murder, which is much more convincing than the fantasy knights and chivalry nonsense you see elsewhere. Perfectly diverting way to spend a couple of hours.




I believe it's pretty much spot on. It does over-simplify Mercury in one sense (he was genuiniely bisexual rather than as binary as 'gay'), and inevitably it plays a few things out of sequence to reality, but less so than many. It did get a level of criticism on release over here for sanitising his story, though I actually felt that by playing down the drugs asnd the wildness (they are certainly acknowledged, but most of the extremesa are hinted at rather than shown on screen) it gave the viewer more of a portrait on the man as a person rather than just the stereotypical 'sex, drugs and redemption' storyline which is standard for all rockstar biopics (except for the 'sex, drugs and death' alternative). I'm no big Queen fan, but I quite enjoyed it nonetheless.



Hugely underrated character actor. I think I first became aware of him with From Dusk Til Dawn; you always know things are gonig to be great when he turns up. Even his severed head on the back of a tortoise has massive screen-presence!



I held off from it for a long time because it kept being compared to Shaun of the Dead. Long experience tells me that whenever a marketing team resort to "If you like X, you'll like Y", almost inevitably if I love X, I will hate Y with a burning passion. I wouldn't put it in the same class as Shaun - I'm not even sure I found Zombieland actually funny, but I did greatly enjoy its satire on a genre I love, much motre so than anticipaTED. Bill Murray's cameo was an absolute joy, notg least because it's exactly how I would hope Bill Murray would react in a situation like that.



The aesthetic of the Keaton films was much closer 'my' Batman, but I enjoyed the first Nolan film very much as an alternate take. Making Batman palatable again after what Joel Shumacher did to it was an even bigger challenge than rescuing the brand from Adam West's obscenity was for Burton. I liked Bale in the role a lot; he seemed to understand that the Bat was less a hero, more an outworking of an almost schitzophrenic reaction to severte childhood trauma; PTSD on crack.

TBH, though, much as Joker was always my favourite character in the Batman universe, I found Ledger's Joker wildly overrated. Not bad (again, far from the abysmyl Caesar Romeo, who didn't even respect the role enough to shave for it), but certainly not worthy of the adulation he posthumously received for it. The second Nolan film was also a good 20 minutes too long. In some ways, unorthodox as this opinion is, I preferred the third one over Dark Knight.

TRhe best Bat-related film I'#ve seen to date was Joker; I'd simply adore to see that world fleshed out with The Bat in it.



I've always got tiem for knocking hippies and supporting Elvis!

I agree with you about Heath Ledger - he and that film didn't do it for me - it was turgid and almost slid into parody through its po-faced seriousness. I like the first Nolan film. But to me Nolan's films are really just better executed, less arch versions of the Burton Batman films. The production design and film noir elements don't depart much from Burton's which were a gift to the genre (even if cribbed from Frank Miller's 1986 graphic novel).

I wasn't a Keaton fan in the role, but I liked the idea that a normal, somewhat geeky guy with money could become a superhero through equipment and applied technology. Bale's Wayne is a formidable athlete already, with extra tech. Not as interesting to me, but Bale is the better performer.

 

[MisterCairo]

More famous than Buddy, but less important ot rock and roll in the long run. Like the Beatles without the pretension.

The Beatles without the pretension, Queen without it, Pink Floyd, The Eagles. I cut through the ego and listen. Not to Queen, Pink Floyd or the Eagles though. They all suck...

;-)

 

[Edward]

The Beatles without the pretension, Queen without it, Pink Floyd, The Eagles. I cut through the ego and listen. Not to Queen, Pink Floyd or the Eagles though. They all suck...

;-)

When the ego's all they have, though....

John Lennon was probably the biggest charlatan in the history of music.

 

[Edward]

I agree with you about Heath Ledger - he and that film didn't do it for me - it was turgid and almost slid into parody through its po-faced seriousness. I like the first Nolan film. But to me Nolan's films are really just better executed, less arch versions of the Burton Batman films. The production design and film noir elements don't depart much from Burton's which were a gift to the genre (even if cribbed from Frank Miller's 1986 graphic novel).

I didn't exactly hate Ledger's take on the role, but I did think the hype was more to do with his death than it necessarily being a career-defining performance. (Though it's definitely interesting how far genre films have come in the last twenty years that a super-hero franchise spin off can be taken so seriously. Joker - which in my mind is a much superior picture - would have been unthinkable in the nineties.

I wasn't a Keaton fan in the role, but I liked the idea that a normal, somewhat geeky guy with money could become a superhero through equipment and applied technology. Bale's Wayne is a formidable athlete already, with extra tech. Not as interesting to me, but Bale is the better performer.

Keaton was the first screen Wayne who seemed to comprehend the different personalities involved, rather than the Bat being Wayne in a mask. Which is what made it interesting at the end of the second film when Selina Kyle is dying and he rips off the mask and blurs the line that way. Nolan's choice with taking Bale the direction of Wayne being a conscious 'disguise' for the Bat was interesting (shades of Zorro and his playboy alter-ego), though I still feel none of them have quite yet captured the psychosis of it all.

In terms of physique, I liked what they did with Bale. I can't imagine anyone not at their athletic peak doing what the Bat does, and it's actually true to the source material. Batman's origin story isn't massively dissimilar in some respects to The Shadow (a character which predates the bat by some eight or nine years, and which was definitely an influence). I'd love to see, though, a 'handover' picture where an aging WAyne realises he can't physically meet those demands any longer, and seeks out someone to take over so he can 'retire'. The'yve done somethingl ike that in the comic book, I believe, but not as of yet on screen. It would bev much more interesting that just another run at the same Batman story... could even prove to be DC's Logan.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Three Faces of Eve from 1957 with Joanne Woodward, Lee J Cobb and David Wayne

• An okay movie about a woman with three distinct personalities from a period when the science of psychology was just starting to understand the condition

• Despite the movie being introduced by a serious looking and sounding man declaring that it's all true, it still seems too neatly tucked into a Hollywood-style story to not have been "curated" by the Dream Factory

• It's Joanne Woodward's movie as the tripartite woman and she owns it from beginning to end. It is more about her performance than the somewhat plodding movie itself

• Lee J. Cobb gives his usual professional performance and is believable as the caring psychiatrist. But as always, he has a hint of menace to him, which is why he is always at his best playing the heavy

• It was another time, but the casual attitude toward domestic violence is jarring

My Foolish Heart from 1947 with Susan Hayward, Dana Andrews, Lois Wheeler and Kent Smith

• It opens with the failing marriage of a couple who loath each other, then it flashbacks to how they met

• It is a bit contrived, but it works as you have their awful marriage in your head as you watch the pieces that built it come together

• The Hollywood production code tried to elide premarital sex again, but adults watching (then and now) get that the young couple had sex before marriage

• Watch for the scenes with Hayward and her character's father - Robert Kieth - as they have a genuineness and decency that would make any girl want him to be her father and any man want to be that kind of father

• Kent Smith seems to alway play the dog that gets kicked
  • Gary Cooper uses him as a mop in "The Fountainhead"
  • Ann Sheridan smashes his entire life in "Nora Prentiss"
  • And, here, Susan Hayward twists him into a loveless marriage for her own advantage (you want to see why and how)

• Susan Hayward's character is presented here as arrestingly beautiful - Hollywood's selling, but I'm not sure I'm buying. She is pretty, yes, but the earth is still spinning on its axis as she passes

Rocketman from 2019 with Taron Egerton and Jamie Bell

• Fighting parents, divorce, unloved by one's father, uneven love from one's mother, picked on at school, insecure, awkward, homosexual in an closeted time, child music prodigy, a few kind people provide help along the way, rock 'n roll as a soul-touching oasis, early struggles, the breakthrough/moment/album/performance, success, more success, adulation, easy money/drugs/booze/sex, cheating managers, sychopants, hangers-on, excess wealth not providing fulfillment, descent into drug/booze/sex/spending addictions, recovery...

• Yes, you've seen this movie and story before, even if you know nothing about Elton John, because many elements of it are, unfortunately, a not-uncommon story about superstars

• Done in a fantasy/musical style - the movie unfolds against the backdrop of Elton's songs performed in '60s musical fashion

• Lead Egerton deserves more than a shout-out for capturing Elton and even echoes his voice as he sings those famous songs

• Predictable, and at times tiring, but if you like Elton songs and musicals, in general, it holds together

N.B. There is some good time travel to the '60s in the Rocketman - cars, houses, stores and clothes, like Elton's father's Fair Isle button vest.

 

[belfastboy]

When the ego's all they have, though....

John Lennon was probably the biggest charlatan in the history of music.

Bro, and I thought I was alone in the universe holding this thought.....I am NOT alone! Lennon & McCartney, purveyors of maudlin schlock posing as rock music.

 

[Edward]

Bro, and I thought I was alone in the universe holding this thought.....I am NOT alone! Lennon & McCartney, purveyors of maudlin schlock posing as rock music.

I actually quite like some of their stuff, but it just never collectivelyl ived up to the hype for me. One of those "received wisdom" things where they're always voted "the best" because people are told they're "the best". Reminds me of when I was a kid and the only "chart return" record shop in Belfast was Woolworths, and Woolworths only stocked records that were in the charts....

Me, I'd sacrifice the entire Beatles backcataolgue for Vince Taylor's Brand New Cadillac, which is ultimately a far more important record for what I always enjoyed, even if less well known.

 

[belfastboy]

Last night I watched The King, a Netflix Original film about how drunken carouser Prince Hal became Henry V and beat the French at Agincourt. It's a lot less pretty and noble than Bill S. presented things, which probably means it was much more historically correct.... Certainly, the Agincourt battle sequence is just an appalling scrum of murder, which is much more convincing than the fantasy knights and chivalry nonsense you see elsewhere. Perfectly diverting way to spend a couple of hours.




I believe it's pretty much spot on. It does over-simplify Mercury in one sense (he was genuiniely bisexual rather than as binary as 'gay'), and inevitably it plays a few things out of sequence to reality, but less so than many. It did get a level of criticism on release over here for sanitising his story, though I actually felt that by playing down the drugs asnd the wildness (they are certainly acknowledged, but most of the extremesa are hinted at rather than shown on screen) it gave the viewer more of a portrait on the man as a person rather than just the stereotypical 'sex, drugs and redemption' storyline which is standard for all rockstar biopics (except for the 'sex, drugs and death' alternative). I'm no big Queen fan, but I quite enjoyed it nonetheless.



Hugely underrated character actor. I think I first became aware of him with From Dusk Til Dawn; you always know things are gonig to be great when he turns up. Even his severed head on the back of a tortoise has massive screen-presence!



I held off from it for a long time because it kept being compared to Shaun of the Dead. Long experience tells me that whenever a marketing team resort to "If you like X, you'll like Y", almost inevitably if I love X, I will hate Y with a burning passion. I wouldn't put it in the same class as Shaun - I'm not even sure I found Zombieland actually funny, but I did greatly enjoy its satire on a genre I love, much motre so than anticipaTED. Bill Murray's cameo was an absolute joy, notg least because it's exactly how I would hope Bill Murray would react in a situation like that.



The aesthetic of the Keaton films was much closer 'my' Batman, but I enjoyed the first Nolan film very much as an alternate take. Making Batman palatable again after what Joel Shumacher did to it was an even bigger challenge than rescuing the brand from Adam West's obscenity was for Burton. I liked Bale in the role a lot; he seemed to understand that the Bat was less a hero, more an outworking of an almost schitzophrenic reaction to severte childhood trauma; PTSD on crack.

TBH, though, much as Joker was always my favourite character in the Batman universe, I found Ledger's Joker wildly overrated. Not bad (again, far from the abysmyl Caesar Romeo, who didn't even respect the role enough to shave for it), but certainly not worthy of the adulation he posthumously received for it. The second Nolan film was also a good 20 minutes too long. In some ways, unorthodox as this opinion is, I preferred the third one over Dark Knight.

TRhe best Bat-related film I'#ve seen to date was Joker; I'd simply adore to see that world fleshed out with The Bat in it.



I've always got tiem for knocking hippies and supporting Elvis!

I too thought "The King" a worthwhile expenditure of 2+ hours of my life. Recently returned from Scotland where we visited the Culloden battlefield. They have an immersive experience in the visitors centre that with 360 degree screen that places you in the middle of the battle. I entered with a jaundiced tourists view and left surprisingly moved by it. Why Bonny Prince Charlie is still revered by many is a total mystery to me. Another leader with "Custer's Luck" that finally ran out.

 

[belfastboy]

I actually quite like some of their stuff, but it just never collectivelyl ived up to the hype for me. One of those "received wisdom" things where they're always voted "the best" because people are told they're "the best". Reminds me of when I was a kid and the only "chart return" record shop in Belfast was Woolworths, and Woolworths only stocked records that were in the charts....

Me, I'd sacrifice the entire Beatles backcataolgue for Vince Taylor's Brand New Cadillac, which is ultimately a far more important record for what I always enjoyed, even if less well known.

My wife winces every time we hear "imagine" as she knows it evinces a scream from me.....it embarrasses her especially in church.

 

[Edward]

I too thought "The King" a worthwhile expenditure of 2+ hours of my life. Recently returned from Scotland where we visited the Culloden battlefield. They have an immersive experience in the visitors centre that with 360 degree screen that places you in the middle of the battle. I entered with a jaundiced tourists view and left surprisingly moved by it. Why Bonny Prince Charlie is still revered by many is a total mystery to me. Another leader with "Custer's Luck" that finally ran out.

I've only ever visited Culloden the once, in 1986, on a primary school trip to Scotland, but it's.... an atmospheric place. I remember it had an impressive AV show even then.

There's a certain kind of folk who will always flock to what they see as the cause of the "doomed romantic", whether that's Charlie Stewart, Robert E Lee, or whomever... Of course, Culloden has also over time become so much a part of a particular form of nationalist mythology as well, despite the fact that in reality it had nothing whatever to do with whether England ruled Scotland; indeed, the Stewarts merely exploited the Highlanders in their own pursuit of the English throne. BPC was more Italian than he was Scottish. (If you've seen the first couple of series of Outlander, it seems that they represent him very accurately in that, right down to the arrogance and inshakable faith in his own military decisions which were his ultimate undoing.) It's very similar - and, of course, far from unconnected, to the way in which other mythologies have recast the Battle on the Boyne in Ireland in 1690 as something wholly other than what it was really about. But then that's "history", isn't it? The way we view the past is almost always and almost inevitably through the lens of the present.

My wife winces every time we hear "imagine" as she knows it evinces a scream from me.....it embarrasses her especially in church.

It's a song that would seem..... somewhat out of place in a church....

 

[MisterCairo]

When the ego's all they have, though....

John Lennon was probably the biggest charlatan in the history of music.

One hell of a songwriter though! And if there is a funnier scene in music cinema than his interaction with a woman who mistakes him for someone else in A Hard Day's Night, I have not seen it... I will take him over The Colonel insisted on "my" songwriting credits Presley any day of the week!

 

[Worf]

Caught up on some Halloween Holdovers on the DVR.

"Blacula" - This 1972 Blaxploitation horror flick is quite forgettable save for the performance of William Marshall (Dr. Richard Daystrom Star Trek ToS "The ultimate computer") as the titular Black Vampire. Sent to Translyvania(?) to seek help from nobles to stop the slave trade, the black prince Mamawalde and his wife are insulted, snatched and abused by a noble who happened to be Count Dracula. The prince is converted to a vampire and locked in a coffin which is bought by two gay interior decorators for a pad in L.A. Needless to say they set him loose and all hell breaks loose. While hanging at the club one night Blacula spies the sister of our hero's girlfriend who's the spitting image of Mamawalde's long dead wife. You can guess the rest. Bad disco music, awful acting and terrible fashion are all mitigated by the acting and voice of Marshall who plays the role for all its worth and his PIPES! Only James Earl Jones has ever had a more hypnotic basso profundo as far as I'm concerned. Spent most of my time shaking my head that I'd ever spent 1 hour plus of my life watching this in the movies.

"The House on Haunted Hill" - I'd forgotten almost all the twists of this film so I watched it again... Some frights and chills at first but man was I disappointed at the ending... all that set up and not a single ghost or ghoul to be had, just a tired murder plot gone wrong. Pheh! I wus robbed!

Worf

 

[Seb Lucas]

William Marshall had an exceptional, wonderful voice.

 

[Touchofevil]

The Hitch-Hiker on TCM’s Noir Alley this morning while sipping a cup of coffee. Easing into this Sunday morning.

 

[belfastboy]

Who's this Elvis people keep talking about? Was he anything like Buddy Holly???

Better looking but his music inferior to Buddy's

 

[belfastboy]

I've only ever visited Culloden the once, in 1986, on a primary school trip to Scotland, but it's.... an atmospheric place. I remember it had an impressive AV show even then.

There's a certain kind of folk who will always flock to what they see as the cause of the "doomed romantic", whether that's Charlie Stewart, Robert E Lee, or whomever... Of course, Culloden has also over time become so much a part of a particular form of nationalist mythology as well, despite the fact that in reality it had nothing whatever to do with whether England ruled Scotland; indeed, the Stewarts merely exploited the Highlanders in their own pursuit of the English throne. BPC was more Italian than he was Scottish. (If you've seen the first couple of series of Outlander, it seems that they represent him very accurately in that, right down to the arrogance and inshakable faith in his own military decisions which were his ultimate undoing.) It's very similar - and, of course, far from unconnected, to the way in which other mythologies have recast the Battle on the Boyne in Ireland in 1690 as something wholly other than what it was really about. But then that's "history", isn't it? The way we view the past is almost always and almost inevitably through the lens of the present.



It's a song that would seem..... somewhat out of place in a church....

Yep, that is what I thought....but then they would never run the playlist past me.

 

[belfastboy]

Rented the new doc "Pavarotti" last night. What a great documentary. A flawed man but damn he could sing.

 

[Fading Fast]

Ford v Ferrari from 2019 staring Matt Damon and Christian Bale

See it in the movie theater because, while the story and acting are so good they will work on the small screen, the race scenes - setting a new film standard - demand and deserve the biggest and best canvas.

When Ayn Rand looked for a business to frame her themes of the individual versus the collective / the brilliance and achievements of the singular mind versus soul-destroying groupthink, she chose architecture as it was a field where one man could still redefine an entire discipline stupefied by bureaucratic hegemony.

Had she waited, she could have use the field of auto racing, as Ford v Ferrari is really a Randian tale of highly confident, brilliant, risk-taking individuals beating the creativity destroying force of rulebooks, of decisions by committee, of decisions for "the good of the many".

Sure, it's slick and manipulative as Hollywood brought everything in its bag of tricks to this one, but as the original movie moguls knew when they built early Hollywood in the '20s, a good story with people you care about is all that matters - and this is a good story with people you care about.

Early Hollywood also knew (and, at times, hated) the value of actors - not just stars, but actors. And, while there are many good ones in Ford v Ferrari, this is Matt Damon's and Christian Bale's movie - good all the time, better when either is in a scene, magic when they both are.

You can read reviews to get the entire plot: Henry Ford's grandson, Henry Ford II - the Deuce - in the '60s, encouraged by Ford executive Lee Iacocca, wants to do the unthinkable and build a racing team at Ford to beat Ferrari and win Le Mans. He hires racing legend and race car builder Caroll Shelby to do something a corporate monolith shouldn't be able to do - defeat the tiny, craftsman-driven Ferrari team in an extreme test of individual and technological achievement.

This individual-versus-the-collective schism is instantiated by Shelby's chosen star driver and real-life Randian hero, Ken Miles. Miles represents everything that buttoned-down Ford and its boot-licking executives aren't. It is a movie of operatic sweep capturing, possibly, one of the last moments when man's raw intelligence and instinct, not translated to computer code and algorithms, could still win at the apex of a field driven by science, math, engineering, technology...and preternatural human talent. You need to see this movie.

N.B., The book that the movie is based on, "Go Like Hell", is every bit as good as the movie or, really, the movie is as good as the book - a surprise as both are brilliant. How a book about the singular achievements of singular men was made into a clearly corporate-driven movie without losing its soul is mystifying, but it happened.