What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Doctor Strange]

I haven't actually seen this Paul Newman film, but am dangerously close to purchasing a dvd copy of it. It is the 'Buffalo Bill and the Indians' film from 1976. I bought a book about Buffalo Bill in Britain just a few weeks back andtrue to form, I have become enthralled by the guy and, will do the subject to death...
Anybody seen this film one asks..??? The reviews are not exactly sparkling...

It is an interesting film, and very typical of director Robert Altman. However, it's only vaguely interested in the truth about Bill Cody or the west. Like Altman's films Nashville and A Prairie Home Companion, it's about the people surrounding an entertainment phenomenon, in this case Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. It's entirely about show biz, the truth and lies that underlie it, and the backstage manipulations that are required for the show to go on.

By setting it in the past - though keeping the characters and their motivations modern - Altman is able to make observations about what goes on backstage that relate to today's entertainment world as much as the Wild West Show. (E.g., Burt Lacaster's writer Ned Buntline is the actual creator of the Cody myth that's making Cody a fortune, but has been banished from Cody's inner circle.) Like all Altman films, it's an ensemble piece, and Newman's decidedly nonheroic, pragmatic take on Bill Cody as something of a pompous fraud is a far cry from earlier treatments.

Anyway, I liked it, but I'm a fan of Robert Altman's talky, complicated, observational films. If you expect a heroric or historically accurate treatment of the subject, you will be sorely disappointed.

 

[Dated Guy]

Thanks for the info' maybe I will give it a miss then. I do so enjoy a biographical account that has a token of truth in it at least.... maybe that's why political films leave me cold as well....

 

[Tomasso]

[video=youtube;xJjHGeO-nRY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJjHGeO-nRY[/video]

 

[LocktownDog]

MST3K: The Lost Continent. Hugh Beaumont, Cesar Romero. Awful, bloody awful. Thank goodness for Crow T Robot.

 

[Formeruser012523]

Wait Until Dark.

I couldn't decide if Audrey Hepburn was great or annoying. lol

 

[jamespowers]

Malice in the Palace 1949. Ginna Rumma. :rofl:

 

[jamespowers]

Wait Until Dark.

I couldn't decide if Audrey Hepburn was great or annoying. lol

Annoying---always.

 

[Dennis Young]

Saw Metropolis (again) last night. I'm not usually a big fan of silent films and especially dubbed silent films. But this is one exception. (The other being Seven Samurai).

The story is basically about a futuristic mega-city (Metropolis), but with non futuristic 1920's era cars and airplanes, society is divided into two classes. The "managers" live in luxurious skyscrapers and the workers live and toil underground.

Theres a big ol struggle between the classes and a robot woman that stirs up the masses. It encourages the lower classes to stop working the machinery that runs the city and as a result the city is flooded.

Tons of extras were used and lots of them were little kids. I couldn't help but wonder how many of those children went on to become Hitler Youth or fight for the Nazis when they grew up. The film was released in 1927, so many of the kids would have been about the right age to be Nazi Stormtroopers during the war.

Interesting notes:

Brigette Helm (female lead) played a dual role of Maria as well as the female robot in the film. She incurred the wrath of Nazi Germany for "race defilement" in marrying her second husband Dr. Hugo von Kuenheim, an industrialist of Jewish background. She retired in 1936 but was was considered for the title role in Bride of Frankenstein before Elsa Lanchester was given the role.

Gustav Fröhlich played the heroic male lead in the film. He was engaged to the actress Lida Baarova until she became involved with the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. In 1937, he rented his house to Hitler's architect, Albert Speer. In 1941 he married Maria Hajek. In the same year he served the Wehrmacht.

Heinrich George played the foreman of the heart machine in the film. He was active in the Communist Party of Germany before the Nazi takeover, who did not permit him to continue work. He then he took over leading a group of "non-desirable" actors. He died in 1946 in a concentration camp for political prisoners just north of Berlin. Cause of death was starvation.

 

[jamespowers]

Hang 'em High

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Hang 'em High

If you're referring to the 1968 Clint Eastwood movie, I think that Bruce Dern steals every scene he's in with his patented "Backstabbing weasel coward" act. His teeth do more emoting than most actors' entire bodies!

 

[jamespowers]

If you're referring to the 1968 Clint Eastwood movie, I think that Bruce Dern steals every scene he's in with his patented "Backstabbing weasel coward" act. His teeth do more emoting than most actors' entire bodies!

That is the movie.

 

[Formeruser012523]

:becky:

I liked Dern best in The Burbs.

 

[WH1]

King Solomon's Mines with Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr on TCM right now.

 

[DNO]

King Solomon's Mines with Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr on TCM right now.

Just watched it on TCM as well. Before that, The Eagle.

 

[VitaminG]

Burke & Hare

 

[Doctor Strange]

The Coen Bros. True Grit. I wasn't enthralled. It was certainly well done, but it just didn't engage me emotionally. It differed enough from the 1969 film to not be an "unnecessary remake", but is one of the few Coen projects that didn't much excite me.

The night before, I watched The King's Speech, and that one did live up to the hype. Excellent!

 

[Monsoon]

:becky:

I liked Dern best in The Burbs.

"In Southeast Asia we'd call this kind of thing bad karma."

 

[DesertDan]

Peter Jackson's "King Kong" despite it's faults I really enjoy this movie. And just as with LotR all of the "Making of" features are just as entertaining to me as the movies themselves.

For fun and giggles tonight I will watch the DeLorentis version. I remember going to see this version in the theater when I was a kid.

 

[W-D Forties]

The Thing - the John Carpenter version. I watch this on average about every 4-6 weeks, it just gets better with age.

 

[DesertDan]

Amen! I watch it just as often and sometimes moreso (glad I'm not the only one! ).