What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[AmateisGal]

Since I was stuck in bed today, I watched TCM in between naps.

First up: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I've never watched this film, and I honestly don't know why. It was fun and I enjoyed it, and sure, the "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" number has become famous, but it's not a movie that I'll own.

Second: Larceny, Inc. with Edward G. Robinson and Jane Wyman. I love this movie. It's got some one-line zingers that just make you laugh out loud, and the comedy in it is pure gold. And what a cast! Lots of regular character actors from the '40s here. Now this is a movie I want to own!

Third: Mr. Soft Touch with Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes. Confession: This was playing more in the background while I did a few things, so I can't offer a complete review, but I'll watch any 1940s flick with Glenn Ford because...Glenn Ford. The ending was pretty ambiguous as the guy gets shot and we don't know if he lives or dies. Why do classic films sometimes end so abruptly? It's always been weird to me.

 

[Fading Fast]

Brother Orchid from 1940 with Edward G. Robinson, Anne Sothern, Humphrey Bogart and Donald Crisp

This quirky movie mashup of a mob story morphing into a Christian redemption story is uneven and clumsy at times, but lead Edward G. Robinson holds it all together with his incredible talent and screen presence.

Rackets boss Robinson retires from the mob at the top of his game to go out in the legitimate world and buy his idea of "class" for himself - luxury goods, artwork, culture, etc. Five years later, after being fleeced by the purveyors of class and culture, he tries to return to his former position only to be turned away by his old gang, now run by Humphrey Bogart.

Also, while away, Robinson's girlfriend, Ann Sothern, has moved on to a wealthy Texan. Robinson then sets out on a mission to build a rival gang and to get his girl back. All of this is handled in an almost lighthearted away, which leaves us somewhat sympathetic to mobster Robinson.

After some initial success, Robinson is captured by his old gang and taken out to the woods to be shot, but he escapes and, injured, stumbles into a pleasantly run monastery. Here, the monks nurse him back to health and offer him a home for as long as he wants it, as long as he'll do his share of the work.

This is where the movie shines as Robinson keeps looking for the Monks' angle - are they featherbedding for the free room and board, running an illegal business or working some other scam - as he can't accept that their humble and charitable worldview is real. It is a perfect fish-out-of-water moment as every assumption a mobster has about human nature fails in an atmosphere of Christian charity.

After trying his own minor scam on the Monks, getting caught and being forgiven, Robinson begins to see the light in their charity and forgiveness. While still leaning to the view that they are "suckers," their Christian goodness is worming its way into Robinson's heart. So much so, that when he sees the Monks' business - selling flowers to support themselves and their charitable efforts - is threatened by his old mob's protection racket, he leaves the monastery to break the mob's control of the flower market.

After defeating the mob and getting his old girl back, Robinson has his, literal, come-to-Jesus moment: it's all his for the taking as he can go back to running the mob with his old girlfriend at his side or has he seen the light? You can probably guess, but let's leave it there for those who want to see the ending for themselves.

Is it a great movie, no. But it has two things that you can't get in a modern Hollywood production. One, a leading man who looks like a dented garbage can, but who has such outsized talent that he carries the entire movie and, two, an unabashed belief in the redemptive powers of Christianity.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947), produced and directed by Roy Del Ruth, with Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles, Victor Moore, and Gale Storm. Capra-esque whimsy about a "hobo" who winters in the empty NYC mansion of a multimillionaire who spends November to March at the family mansion in Virginia. Through a series of events that could only happen in the mind of a screen writer, happy-go-lucky Victor Moore helps folks see what "rich" really means.
We watched it because it has the slightest possible Christmas connection in the story. And it's funny as well.

 

[Fading Fast]

It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947), produced and directed by Roy Del Ruth, with Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles, Victor Moore, and Gale Storm. Capra-esque whimsy about a "hobo" who winters in the empty NYC mansion of a multimillionaire who spends November to March at the family mansion in Virginia. Through a series of events that could only happen in the mind of a screen writer, happy-go-lucky Victor Moore helps folks see what "rich" really means.
We watched it because it has the slightest possible Christmas connection in the story. And it's funny as well.

"Through a series of events that could only happen in the mind of a screen writer." Well said.

And agree overall, good, not-great Christmas movie. Also, it's interesting to see an older Ann Harding as, until this movie, I'd only seen her in her pre-code days of youth.

 

[MisterCairo]

Cairo Cavalcade of Christmas continues apace.

Friday night has always been movie night, so last night's family treat was Arthur Christmas, the 2011 Aardman CGI film (theyvtraditionally do the claymation Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep things).

One of our absolute favourites, Bill Nighy is fantastic as Granpa Santa ("A sock full of sand to the side of the head and a dab of whisky on the lips, and (kids who wake up to Santa) don't remember a thing in the morning').

Girls to bed, mum and dad wrapped a bunch of stuff with less family fare, namely Office Christmas Party, with T.J. Miller, Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman. Total raunchy but funny as heck.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Confession: with my wife, I just watched the Hallmark Christmas movie “Christmas in Vienna” (2020) starring Sarah Drew and Brennan Elliot. It was recommended to us because it beautifully shows off our beloved city, Vienna, at Christmas time. It is a cute and heartwarming romance, as one would expect from Hallmark. The characters are attractive, earnest and have their hearts in the right place. All in all, a nice bit of warm hearted, escapist fluff for a cold night. Certainly a welcome break from depressing news headlines. For me, I loved seeing Vienna shown off in such a positive light. Beautiful city!

 

[Fading Fast]

Watching '38's "A Christmas Carol" on TCM right now. The restoration of the film is beautiful and thoroughly enjoying my one-billionth viewing of one of the many versions of this movie I've seen. I was going start decorating the tree while it's on, but am enjoying it too much to view it that way. Oh well, the tree will have to wait.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I never saw or even heard of Midnight Run (1988), but with DeNiro's style, I will watch that!!

 

[Zombie_61]

I also watched A Christmas Carol (1938) earlier on TCM. It's one of few cinematic versions of the story that I can enjoy. Next for us was Meet John Doe (1941) which is one of my favorite Gary Cooper movies; perhaps my absolute favorite. And at the moment we're watching The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) starring Monty Woolley, Ann Sheridan, and Bette Davis. In real life no one in their right mind would tolerate Sheridan Whiteside's abuse no matter what was at stake, but Mr. Woolley seems to be having a great deal of fun with the role.

 

[Fading Fast]

I also watched A Christmas Carol (1938) earlier on TCM. It's one of few cinematic versions of the story that I can enjoy. Next for us was Meet John Doe (1941) which is one of my favorite Gary Cooper movies; perhaps my absolute favorite. And at the moment we're watching The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) starring Monty Woolley, Ann Sheridan, and Bette Davis. In real life no one in their right mind would tolerate Sheridan Whiteside's abuse no matter what was at stake, but Mr. Woolley seems to be having a great deal of fun with the role.

Even though, as you imply, it's ridiculous, I've come to really enjoy "The Man Who Came to Dinner," as with many movies, once you just go with it, it's a lot of fun. I DVR'd "Meet John Doe" as I couldn't watch it when it was on, but am looking forward to it.

 

[Worf]

"Peppermint" - Sigh... Take the origins of "The Punisher" literally (it's the exact same premise) but make the lone survivor a woman. Take the training regimen of Batman (except she kills with gusto). Combine the two in glorious shakeycam and you have the Number One title on Netflix right now. The villains are so far beyond formulaic as to be laughable, stereotypic Latin L.A. drug dealer and thugs so singularly dull that I almost turned the film off. Corrupt judges, cops etc... and you have a film so dated and hackneyed as to make a root canal seem a viable alternative. Jennifer Garner must've really needed a paycheck with this one. Still people seem to be watching it.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

Mank from 2020 on Netflix

Mank is an inside-baseball look at deep-state Hollywood in the 1930s, so much so that this Turner Classic Movies uber-fan and consumer of many Golden-Era Hollywood books only recognized some of the references and parts of the story: a story that reveals how an all but washed-up alcoholic-screenwriter, Herman Mankiewicz, struggled to complete the screenplay for, what would become, the cinematic masterpiece Citizen Kane.

It's 1940 and Mankiewicz is in bed recovering from an auto accident while writing Kane at a much slower pace than his contract and the film's young phenom director, Orson Welles, demand. And even though he is in desperate need for this screenplay to be a career Hail Mary, instead of putting his nose to the grindstone, a convalescing Mankiewicz boozes away, banters with his whip-smart English secretary and wallows in reminiscences.

So to save his skin, he pens a scathing roman à clef of the life of media baron William Randolph Hearst and his young wife, screen-star Marion Davies. In flashbacks, which make up half the movie, we see that Mankiewicz was an intimate friend of both Hearst and Davies throughout the 1930s when Hearst was at the peak of his power as lord of his personal Xanadu, San Simeon.

Mankiewicz betrays that former friendship for ego, he wants a capstone to his screenwriting career, and money, he's a spendthrift alcoholic gambler with an ignored family to support. It's a betrayal he both boldly defends and, in weaker moments, guiltily agonizes over. But Mank's director, David Fincher, doesn't make any of this story easy for the viewer as the relevance of characters, events and flashbacks only partially reveal themselves over time and only if you are, at least, reasonably familiar with 1930's movie-studio history.

For everyone else, the movie is more like a roller-coaster ride through 1930s Hollywood where famous and not-so-famous names pop up, while stories about Mankiewicz's career path, his rivalry and friendship with his brother Joe, the mendacity and crudeness of MGM studio-head Louis B. Mayer, the socialist promulgations and political aspirations of Upton Sinclair and other Golden-Era-Hollywood ephemera are all presented in a phantasmagoria of confusing but engaging scenes and stories.

And kind of framing it all is Mankiewicz's relationship with Marion Davies, wonderfully portrayed by Amanda Seyfried. During Mankiewicz's visits to San Simeon, the two bond over their insecurities, owing to humble roots, amidst the epic opulence of Hearst's mise en scène and the outsized egos of the noted guests. This makes Mankiewicz's later betrayal all the more treacherous and poignant.

While that's most of the story, the movie's beautiful style, meant to echo Citizen Kane's groundbreaking cinematography, competes for your attention. Shot in black and white and using many of Kane's unconventional camera angles and fast, but sometimes jarring, scene transitions, in Mank, you are visually reminded of Welles' masterpiece, while seeing how Kane's screenplay itself was birthed. That said, there is something about Mank's particular black and white cinematography that, while usually crisp and clear, occasionally lacks focus.

Mank's final notable feature is a surprising amount of humorous dialogue, often seen in asides, as when Mankiewicz's wife is spelling out her long and annoying-to-her marital name to a maitre d and, after reciting all the letters in "Mankiewicz" but the last one, notes with a blend of mirth and exhaustion, "and out of nowhere at the end, a Z."

Much like Citizen Kane, Mank is a wonderful ball of too-muchness that asks a lot of its audience, but does hold up its end of the bargain. Perhaps director Fincher could have connected a few more dots and contextualized more of Mank's Hollywood references for its audience, but to absorb everything, most really good movies require multiple viewings. That's why Mank will be even more enjoyable the second and third time through.


N.B. Kudos not only to Amanda Seyfried (below) for her Oscar-worthy performance, but also to Gary Oldman as Mankiewicz, Lily Collins as Mankiewicz's conscience and secretary and Tom Burke who must have studied hundreds of hours of tape to have nearly perfectly captured Orson Welles' singular voice.



@LizzieMaine, I think you'd enjoy this one if you have access to Netflix. Also, it would have been an interesting one to run in your theater.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Skirt Shy," a 1929 Hal Roach short starring Harry Langdon.

The true test of a movie comedian, so far as I'm concerned, is "can he or she make you laugh when you watch them when you're alone." Any halfway proficient comic using halfway-decent material can get laughs in a theatre, in front of a crowd, but film comedy before an audience of one is quite another matter. There are only a few movie comics who have ever made me laugh out loud while watching their films by myself -- W. C. Fields is one, the Paramount-era Marx Brothers are others. But the film comic I *know* will make me laugh out loud watching his films alone is strange little Harry Langdon -- the "elf," the "elderly baby," the "baby dope fiend," or whatever other such name you want to call him.

The plots of Harry's films are of no consequence, and they're usually pretty ramshackle -- excuses for him to do his weird, unsettling, unpredictable set pieces. In this particular short, only his third talking film, Harry is the butler for an old lady who is desperate to get married to avoid being evicted from her home. When her elderly beau calls while she is out, Harry decides the only thing he can do is keep him busy by impersonating her. Looking for all the world like a demented Lillian Gish in a huge floppy bonnet, Harry ends up getting chased around the garden by the old codger, and then the two of them get chased by a second beau, a loud and loutish fellow who carries a gun and is determined to expunge his rival.

That's enough plot for any two-reeler, but what makes this film stand out for me are the points where, as in any Langdon film, the plot is completely forgotten and Harry goes into his routine. It seems that in creating his disguise he has used a pair of boxing gloves to provide himself with a false bosom -- and when those gloves get snagged by a tree branch and end up dangling by their laces, that's when the magic happens. Harry sees the gloves hanging there, and forgets all about the fact that there's a crazy man chasing him with a gun. He looks at them suspiciously and gives them a slight swat. They swing back and punch him lightly in the face. He reacts with a very subtle look of annoyance, and taps at the gloves. They swing back and, harder this time, they punch him in the face again. He again reacts, and punches back. And again the gloves respond. And back and forth they go, twenty times, and all during this Harry's expression shifts -- in microscopic stages -- from perplexity to annoyance to frustration to rage to amusement to delight. The scene stops the film cold for a full minute and a half, and at one point Harry sneaks this minute little flick of his eyes into the camera and gives this tiny little smile -- the exact expression a year-old child gets when he's amused by a game of "peek-a-boo." It's just there for a split-second, but the result is you completely forget you're watching a pudgy forty-five-year-old man in pancake makeup, and "Harry The Baby" becomes a living entity.

Every Langdon film up thru the middle of the thirties -- when he finally abandoned his classic screen character -- contains a moment like this, and it's these moments that make sitting thru the jerry-built plots worthwhile. There was no other screen comedian quite like Little Harry, and once you understand what he's trying to do, there are few screen *artists* like him.

 

[MisterCairo]

"Christmas movies to wrap by". Films on as background noise and visual distraction while wrapping gifts.

Our tradition started when years ago we finally watched Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddy's Island Adventure. So bad it's bad, but it is a trivia question: name the only actor to reprise their role as a Griswold child - Dana Barron, Audrey in the original NL's Vacation, and this "sequel".

 

[Doctor Strange]

Mank. I was underwhelmed.

For all its good acting and technical virtuosity, let me echo something that FF said above: This movie is actually so far inside thirties Hollywood that, while it's fun for someone like me who knows Kane backwards and forwards, and has read biographies of Welles, Thalberg, Mayer, etc... I think it's far too obscure for most viewers. It feels like another case of a mature genius filmmaker wanting to play in the old studio system sandbox, and coming up with something that only partly works - Hail, Caesar!, anyone?

For a movie about a put-upon screenwriter trying to save his reputation, I liked the recent Trumbo with Bryan Cranston more. (And let us not forget that the Coens got there a long time ago brilliantly in Barton Fink, with its lightly disguised Faulkner and Odets.) For more powerful recent uses of b/w, I prefer The Lighthouse and Roma. For a docudrama about Hearst, Marion Davies, et.al., I prefer The Cat's Meow. Re the making of Citizen Kane and Welles, see RKO 281 and Me and Orson Welles...

Don't get me wrong, Fincher's a fine director and the film is okay. But it's no masterpiece, and for all its gorgeous production design, cinematography, and snarky inside references, I don't think it entirely works.

 

[MisterCairo]

Cairo Cavalcade of Christmas continued, with my brother visiting for the day, with The Polar Express. Bro was struck by how great it looked on blu-ray on the 75 inch plasma screen. A TV cannot be too big!

 

[Trenchfriend]

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)

Was that the very first "Rocky" movie??

 

[Edward]

The Journey, a 2016 film from Northern Ireland which tells an imagined version of the story of how Democratic Unionist Party firebrand Reverend Ian Paisley and republican Martin McGuinness, the then Deputy leader of Sinn Fein, first made a breakthrough that not only led to them working together from 2007 as, respectively, First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, but forming a very personal and very genuine friendship, all of which was utterly inconceivable prior to 2006. While nobody in the film is entirely a lookalike as such, the performances are very good. The actor playing Tony Blair absolutely captures perfectly Tony Blair's nature. Colm Meaney captures the human side of MacGuinness, but the real, stand-out performance is Timothy Spall as Ian Paisley, both true to the essence of the man as a public persona, a theologian and as a person also. Of course it's a fictionalised version of how the pair got from A to B, but well written and while humanising both it also lets neither off the hook - much of the narratives success being down to the quality of the screenplay by noted novelist Colin Bateman. More one for people with a bit of background knowledge of the Troubles and the two protagonists, also in their post-2007 phase. A great film, though, and one that deserves a much wider audience than it has enjoyed to date.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Lost Squadron from 1932 with Richard Dix, Mary Astor, Joel McCrea and Eric von Stroheim

It's an early and in-need-of-restoration talkie that packs a lot of jumbled-up plot into its seventy-nine minutes. Three WWI pilots from the same squadron, along with their dedicated mechanic, swear a life-long allegiance to each other at the end of the war.

But when they return to the states and find that their jobs or money or girlfriends have been taken or stolen from them during the war, starting over is hard and they scatter a bit. Then, it's a decade later and two of the pilots are riding the rails in the depression where, after arriving in California, they see that the third pilot from their group is a successful stunt flier for the movies.

He immediately gets the other two jobs as stunt pilots and gets their old mechanic hired on to work on the planes. While that is all good, old girlfriends, a love-triangle involving a pilot's sister and a tyrannical director turn their lives into soap operas amped up by the stress of daily life-and-death movie stunt flying.

For 1932, the flight sequences have held up very well. In a move-inside-a-movie moment, the filming of the risky flights - a reenactment of a WWI battle - are gripping and realistic. Naturally, reenacting a dog fight from the war is emotionally disturbing to these former WWI pilots.

But it all comes to a boil - remember, it's a soap opera at this point - when the tyrannical director, jealous of one of the pilots because he used to date his current girlfriend, sabotages that pilot's plane before a stunt. From here, with only fifteen or so minutes to go, the movie morphs into two, yes two, murder mysteries complete with a hidden body and police inspectors.

Being a pre-code, the justice that is meted out is harsh and only somewhat fair, but isn't that life? Director George Archainbaum lost a bit of control of his multifaceted story a few times, but still put out a pretty good tale with some outstanding action sequences all in an insanely fast effort. If you can deal with early '30s movie-making clunkiness, it's worth the watch.


N.B. If you do watch it, look for Eric von Stroheim as the tyrannical director - a role not far from real life as this double-threat director/actor had a reputation as being a difficult director to work for. As an actor, I can never decide if he's a ham or just an early method-actor. That said, when he's in a scene, you can't help watching him.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Mank. I was underwhelmed.

For all its good acting and technical virtuosity, let me echo something that FF said above: This movie is actually so far inside thirties Hollywood that, while it's fun for someone like me who knows Kane backwards and forwards, and has read biographies of Welles, Thalberg, Mayer, etc... I think it's far too obscure for most viewers. It feels like another case of a mature genius filmmaker wanting to play in the old studio system sandbox, and coming up with something that only partly works - Hail, Caesar!, anyone?

For a movie about a put-upon screenwriter trying to save his reputation, I liked the recent Trumbo with Bryan Cranston more. (And let us not forget that the Coens got there a long time ago brilliantly in Barton Fink, with its lightly disguised Faulkner and Odets.) For more powerful recent uses of b/w, I prefer The Lighthouse and Roma. For a docudrama about Hearst, Marion Davies, et.al., I prefer The Cat's Meow. Re the making of Citizen Kane and Welles, see RKO 281 and Me and Orson Welles...

Don't get me wrong, Fincher's a fine director and the film is okay. But it's no masterpiece, and for all its gorgeous production design, cinematography, and snarky inside references, I don't think it entirely works.

I'm going to check out Mank but I have been put off by the outrageously self-conscious visual style and the grating Welles impersonation by Tom Burke. But I've only seen the promos. Unfortunately, very few people I have met even know who Orson Welles is - one person I spoke to recently was sure he'd written 1984. Mank and Hearst are almost totally unknown here - be interesting to see who cares enough to watch this.