What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[la vie en rose]

Follow the Fleet! Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire never fail to make smile.

 

[Kilted_Surveyor]

The Dark Passage. Bogey and Bacall.

 

[LadyStardust]

Jurassic Park. On the big screen. LOVE. Great movie, always been one of my favorites, and getting the chance to experience it in its intended format was incredible and unbelievable.

 

[Diamondback]

JP is always better when the tyrannosaur looks about life-size, isn't it, Miss S.?

I saw that one six times during its theatrical run, then wore out several copies of the VHS, and had to sit through the network-premiere just to see what they'd cut out.

Dennis Nedry's shaving-cream can and coffee-cup still occupy space on my desk... lol

 

[LadyStardust]

JP is always better when the tyrannosaur looks about life-size, isn't it, Miss S.?

I saw that one six times during its theatrical run, then wore out several copies of the VHS, and had to sit through the network-premiere just to see what they'd cut out.

Dennis Nedry's shaving-cream can and coffee-cup still occupy space on my desk... lol

Yeah! That scene, with that first earth shattering roar, still makes my heart leap into my throat, and I've seen the movie dozens upon dozens of times, up to now just on small screen. So when it was magnified to its original format, and you see the tyrannosaur in all its colossal glory, the effect is that much greater. I'm just so glad I had this opportunity, because I was too young to get caught up in all the mania when it was released in 1993 (god, that seems SO long ago! :eusa_doh: ), and I always wished I would somehow would have a chance to see it in theatres as a special re-release. This wasn't that, it was just a one-time event, at least for now, so I took advantage of it. And it didn't disappoint.

 

[Diamondback]

I probably shouldn't admit this, but that tyrannosaur is one of my heroes.

Let's see:
1. Helped get Grant & the kids moving back to the visitor-center
2. Attitude-adjustment to the over-smug egghead
3. Saved the day at the end
4. Encouraged an expedited medevac of said smug egghead after accidental injury
5. Dsipatched the lawyer--that's always a public-service, in my book!lol

And people say animals aren't smart...lol Plus you're looking at the high-water mark of land predators, what's not to admire? (unless downrange of it, anyway)

 

[SamMarlowPI]

i remember seeing it as a kid in its original run with my grandma as a double feature...scared the holy macaroni outta me...but i loved it...

 

[KY Gentleman]

re-watching "Memento" tonight.

 

[Edward]

Last movie I saw was "Walk the Line". Definitely well done, with strong performances. My fella and I were a little disappointed that the movie focused solely on his relationship with June Carter and ignored one of the things that made him truly remarkable - being a left leaning social activist while the country music genre is in large part extremely conservative.

Not to stray into forbidden territory on the lounge, but I suspect that that was probably a deliberate decision, that very conservatism being the reason. Bearing in mind also that this came out after the Dixie Chicks, eh... incident, I should have thought that if they glossed over anything (including also Cash's religious nature), that it was quite possibly a fear of alienating a potentially large slice of the market. It was otherwise impressive, though - I did enjoy it. I thought the vocal performances were especially impressive (does memory cheat me in recording that Phoenix recorded his own vocals for the film?).

Most recent film I saw was Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Saw it Saturday night - stunning. I had high hopes, it being a Depp / Burton affair, but it was truly amazing. It's a while since I have seen something new with such beautiful photography. I want Johnny Depp's wardrobe from this one. All of it.

Westworld again. so so so cool..wish it was real...

It's not???

lol

 

[Doctor Strange]

Re Walk The Line, I don't think it was a politically motivated decision not to cover Cash's support for liberal causes. It was more that the timeframe that the film covered was essentially before he came to embrace those causes in public. His outspoken criticism was more in the 70s and therafter, and the film only went up until 1968, when he was just beginning to look beyond his own personal demons.

 

[Hondo]

Doc, as a huge Johnny Cash fan, I greatly agree with ya, you hit it! and always enjoy your threads, comments.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Aw shucks, 't'weren't nuthin'... (But thanks!)

 

[KittyT]

I thought the vocal performances were especially impressive (does memory cheat me in recording that Phoenix recorded his own vocals for the film?).

Yes, they did record all of their own vocals for the film, and I thought the jobs were impressive. It's obvious that both Phoenix and Witherspoon spent a lot of time studying their respective characters, and I thought Phoenix did a good job portraying the evolution of Cash's voice from it's shaky beginnings to that rich rumble we grew to love.

I also thought the actor who portrayed Jerry Lee Lewis was spot on and absolutely amazing. But Elvis? Really? They REALLY couldn't find anyone better to play the King?

Anyway, thanks for the feedback about the stuff I commented on. Interesting, insightful stuff.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

lol

AHHHHH!!! oh...Edward...its you...phew! lol lol nice getup, partner...

 

[KY Gentleman]

I don't have enough time tonight but I've been wanting to watch "Gangs of New York" again. Maybe tomorrow.

 

[Quigley Brown]

'Dark Blue World' (2001). Must see! I watched it early this morning. It's a WWII epic about a squadron of Czech pilots who, after getting thier planes confiscated by the Germans, leave the country to join the RAF...a love triangle is thrown into the mix, too. Has some great Spitfire scenes. I guess it was the most expensive Czech film ever made.

 

[Marty M.]

The Queen.

The Queen. I love Helen Mirren. She's a total hottie, except in this film :eusa_doh: .
Marty Mathis

 

[Doctor Strange]

Evening... A soapy deathbed-remembrance-of-youth story with a great female cast - Claire Danes, Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, Toni Collette, Natasha Richardson, Glenn Close - that had its moments, but just wasn't the masterpiece it had obviously set out to be. And the portion set in the early 1950s had really hit-or-miss costumes and production design (e.g., a closeup on a doorknob in a gorgeous seaside Newport mansion revealed a contemporary brass-colored el-cheapo knob you can get at WalMart for $8.)

It was well-acted, and I found it borderline-moving at points, but it didn't really succeed in illuminating the consequences of life-choices in the way that it was intended.

 

[skyvue]

I was very pleased to attend a screening of THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE last night at which the director Patrice Leconte was feted. He's long been one of my favorite directors, and it was a kick to get to meet him (he took a picture with me and signed my DVD of THE HAIRDRESSER'S HUSBAND, my favorite of his films).

Leconte was charming and funny, in an understated way, during the Q&A following the picture. He said that he and actor Daniel Auteuil have a two-man mutual admiration society and when Leconte announced recently that he's going to make just three more pictures (he's concerned about slipping into mediocrity, as some directors do), Auteuil got quite miffed with him. Auteuil finally forgave him, Leconte said, but only if he promised to make all three pictures with the actor.

Leconte said doesn't have a favorite among his movies. He loves them all, even though he knows there were some that don't really stack up. It'd be like choosing between his daughters to select a favorite movie, he said, and he could never do that.

Leconte had Vanessa Paradis in mind for the female lead in THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE from the very beginning, Leconte said. "I don't know if she's a muse -- you'd have to ask Johnny Depp" he quipped. "But she was for us."

Leconte revealed that it took nearly as much effort to convince Paradis to cut her hair for the film as it did to make the whole picture, but he's convinced that her fetching hairdo is what cemented her character and put the film over the top.

THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE is the only movie Leconte's ever made in black and white, and the only one he will make, but he was adamant from the beginning, he said, that it had to be made in black and white. Color, he is convinced, would have overwhelmed the story.

For Leconte, the magic of cinema is not that it can show everything, but that it can be used to suggest so much. Much is lost, he said, when all the details are revealed -- it is suggestion and allusion that interests him.

A recent interview with a film student revealed to Leconte something he'd never realized about his movies -- that virtually all of his movies begin with an encounter between strangers, and their lives being altered as a result. He was startled, he said, at the realization; no one had ever pointed it out to him before. He said he realizes now that he'd struggle to make a movie about, say, a long-married couple, that he thinks there's a similarity between movie-making and chemistry.

"You take a few drops of Vanessa Paradis and put them in a test tube," Leconte said. "She's a sad young woman ready to end it all. Then you add a few drops of Daniel Auteuil, a knife thrower at the end of his career. And poof! You watch how they interact with each other and impact each other."

Leconte said that he's always apprehensive about introducing one of his films, as he did THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE, as he feels he is expected to come up with something brilliant and insightful. "I can't say, 'This film is in black and white,'" he quipped. "You'll see that soon enough." He much prefers a post-show Q&A, where he can provide concrete info in response to viewers' questions, and he certainly did that last night.

I was very pleased to see that Leconte had signed my DVD, "Vive le cinema!" Everyone in attendance for this delightful evening would no doubt have echoed that sentiment.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I was very pleased to attend a screening of THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE last night at which the director Patrice Leconte was feted. He's long been one of my favorite directors, and it was a kick to get to meet him (he took a picture with me and signed my DVD of THE HAIRDRESSER'S HUSBAND, my favorite of his films).

Nice write-up, Skyvue. The Hairdresser's Husband is a terrific film, and The Girl on the Bridge is wickedly stylish and looks great in black-and-white. Just on the basis of those two -- I haven't seen his others yet -- Leconte would have to rank in the upper echelon of directors today.