|
|
Post by Ish Kabbible on Feb 16, 2015 0:36:40 GMT -5
Did an old curmudgeon just have a senior moment?
|
|
|
|
Post by Pharozonk on Feb 16, 2015 1:15:02 GMT -5
Tonight's viewing of choice was Westworld, a western/science fiction classic from 1973. Written and directed by Michael Crichton, it's clear this movie served as a prototype for Jurassic Park many years later, which is one of my all time favorite movies. The movie can also be seen as an inspiration for the Terminator movies as Yul Brynner's robot character is very similar to the T-800. All in all, it's a fun movie to watch and I recommend it.  |
|
|
|
Post by Jesse on Feb 16, 2015 9:24:07 GMT -5
My Bloody Valentine (1981)  When people say this is one of the better early slasher movies they aren't kidding. It holds up incredibly well and to this day is probably one of the best slasher films ever made. The premise that the killer returns to stop a Valentine's Day dance is a bit cheesy but completely forgivable considering how well done this film is. The acting is solid, the mood is eerie, the scares are tense, the kills are good and the gory special effects makeups are very effective even by today's standards. I think the miner is one of the better slasher movie villains. While the costume is kind of basic it is also very menacing and at times the use of breathing is reminiscent of Darth Vader.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jesse on Feb 18, 2015 6:39:57 GMT -5
The Bicycle Thief (1948)  A beautifully compelling and at times depressing film from a fascinating point in history. What De Sica is able to accomplish here with little budget, no studio sets and non-actors is truly remarkable. The Italian Neorealism movement is born out of necessity and that is fully on displayed here as well. With World War II over and Mussolini's government fallen there is crushing poverty and people are struggling to find work. When the protagonist finally catches a break and finds a job that requires him to have a bicycle his family pools together pawning their bed sheets so that they can afford one. All the more heart breaking when the bicycle is stolen after only one day. While the situation is very serious there are still lighthearted moments and even a few laughs. The ending is extremely heart felt and emotionally taxing as well as makes an interesting commentary on morality.
|
|
|
|
Post by MDG on Feb 18, 2015 13:05:04 GMT -5
Rewatched Moontide (1942) last night. A small, but very good noir with a great cast, including Jean Gaben, Ida Lupino, Claude Raines, and Thomas Mitchell. Also has one of the best drunk montages ever:
|
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Feb 19, 2015 23:58:02 GMT -5
I watched Giant last night. I stopped to have dinner and then my nephew wanted to play air hockey and later I stopped to brush my teeth. It's a long movie (3 hours and 20 minutes) and after you added in all my interruptions, well, I felt like I watched it all night.
It has its moments, sure, but it's not really my kind of movie. There's a few really long movies (Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, The Seven Samurai, Andrei Rublev) that are among my favorite films, but Giant doesn't have the focus I like in a long movie. It's based on a novel, so that's probably part of the problem.
Another problem I had with the movie was the romance between Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. They fell in love overnight and Taylor dropped everything and moved to Texas for a guy who was kind of a jerk. It probably works better in the book. I found the first half of the movie kind of boring. There's some good moments. Mercedes McCambridge and James Dean are very good.
I was thinking of turning it off and trying to watch the last half the next day. But there's an abrupt transition about half-way through and 12 to 15 years pass between scene. So it's a lot like two separate movies. And the second half has Carroll Baker and Dennis Hopper! So it got a lot more interesting pretty quickly. If you look at it like two separate movies, I liked the second one a lot more than the first one. Especially the big fight in the diner!
I know this is a movie that many people consider a classic, but it really didn't work for me as well as it worked for audiences in 1959. It was a big deal back then, I know. I would probably love it too if I saw it in 1959 on a gigantic screen.
|
|
|
|
Post by The Captain on Feb 21, 2015 13:07:42 GMT -5
Watched "The Philadelphia Story" with my wife last night. She's been on a big TCM kick lately and has been recording a lot of things that looked interesting to her. It has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 93% Audience Score.
Sadly, the movie was a major disappointment to us, particularly since our expectations were high; it was a Best Picture nominee, won the Oscar for Best Screenplay and starred Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart (who won the Oscar for Best Leading Actor for his role). It was way too talky, with little to keep us focused or interested as some scenes dragged on for 10-15 minutes of just characters babbling on and on, and it really wasn't a comedy (as it was listed) or a drama; I think they were going for something in between but achieved neither side successfully.
Can't win them all, I guess.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jesse on Feb 21, 2015 15:32:31 GMT -5
Sunday night TCM is showing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon and Network back-to-back-to-back.
|
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Feb 21, 2015 16:44:32 GMT -5
Watched "The Philadelphia Story" with my wife last night. She's been on a big TCM kick lately and has been recording a lot of things that looked interesting to her. It has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 93% Audience Score. Sadly, the movie was a major disappointment to us, particularly since our expectations were high; it was a Best Picture nominee, won the Oscar for Best Screenplay and starred Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart (who won the Oscar for Best Leading Actor for his role). It was way too talky, with little to keep us focused or interested as some scenes dragged on for 10-15 minutes of just characters babbling on and on, and it really wasn't a comedy (as it was listed) or a drama; I think they were going for something in between but achieved neither side successfully. Can't win them all, I guess. For me, much of the enjoyment of movies like this comes from the dialogue. I particularly enjoyed Cary Grant's performance in this one - but that's no surprise since he's probably my favourite actor, at least as golden-age Hollywood stars go. |
|
|
|
Post by The Captain on Feb 21, 2015 17:29:36 GMT -5
Watched "The Philadelphia Story" with my wife last night. She's been on a big TCM kick lately and has been recording a lot of things that looked interesting to her. It has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 93% Audience Score. Sadly, the movie was a major disappointment to us, particularly since our expectations were high; it was a Best Picture nominee, won the Oscar for Best Screenplay and starred Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart (who won the Oscar for Best Leading Actor for his role). It was way too talky, with little to keep us focused or interested as some scenes dragged on for 10-15 minutes of just characters babbling on and on, and it really wasn't a comedy (as it was listed) or a drama; I think they were going for something in between but achieved neither side successfully. Can't win them all, I guess. For me, much of the enjoyment of movies like this comes from the dialogue. I particularly enjoyed Cary Grant's performance in this one - but that's no surprise since he's probably my favourite actor, at least as golden-age Hollywood stars go. It might just have been this movie. I think The Apartment is a great movie, as I do Pillow Talk, both of which are "talky", but this one just left me flat. As I said, it may have been that the movie embraced neither full comedy nor full drama, leaving it straddling an uncomfortable middle. |
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Feb 21, 2015 22:32:05 GMT -5
I watched The Owl and the Pussycat yesterday. I DVRed it off Cinemoi.
I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about this movie, good or bad. I can't remember ever seeing it scheduled on a movie channel. I don't ever recall seeing it on VHS or DVD at a rental store. I almost didn't DVR it.
But I do know the basic plot of this movie because I read the MAD Magazine version. I wasn't reading MAD in 1971 when the issue came out, but I probably saw it in a MAD Super Special, or I might have gotten hold of the old issue where it first appeared because old issues of MAD were everywhere in the late 1970s. So I could have seen it at a friend's house or I might have picked it up at a used book store where they sometimes had stacks and stacks of old issues of MAD Magazine for 50 cents each.
So I noticed it on the schedule and didn't set it to record, but I started thinking about it, and I remembered more of the MAD version. Barbra Streisand has a really foul mouth with a lot of #$@*! symbols for cuss words. (The MAD version makes it look a lot worse than it is.) George Seagal wears a skeleton costume, and he throws Barbra down a hill for some reason at the end.
And I got curious and went back and set it up and recorded it and watched it the next day and I really enjoyed it. Streisand is a prostitute/model/actress and Seagal is a book clerk/writer and they meet under inauspicious circumstances in New York and come together despite their different temperments. The script by Buck Henry has a few LOL bits of dialogue and it's entertaining throughout.
I looked it up on Wikipedia and was surprised to find that it was the 12th-highest grossing film of the year! (1970) I'm kind of surprised that I haven't heard more about this film over the years.
Hey! That's one more movie to check off my list of films where I read the MAD version and haven't yet seen the actual movie! I hope TCM shows The Tamarind Seed pretty soon.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2015 2:44:09 GMT -5
Sunday night TCM is showing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon and Network back-to-back-to-back. I liked One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and loved Dog Day Afternoon. Never heard of Network though. |
|
|
|
Post by DE Sinclair on Feb 23, 2015 14:12:58 GMT -5
My wife and I went to an Oscars themed dinner party at our church last Saturday night (they always do a couples night around Valentines Day). Along with the meal, they had a couple of movie trivia contests where each table worked together on their answers. We thought we weren't going to have a chance because all the other tables had four people except ours and one other (the other couple that were signed up at our table didn't show up for some reason). The first contest had teenagers from the congregation (it was a fund raiser for the church youth group) acting out famous movie lines and we had to come up with the name of the movie and the name of the character or actor. The other contest was multiple choice trivia questions (Like "what was the only movie that Clark Gable won an Oscar for?"). To our surprise, we ended up winning both contests. Ended up taking home $40 worth of gift certificates to the local movie theater chain, a Wizard of Oz DVD (which we never had a copy of), and some popcorn & candy. Plus, since we were the only ones at our table, we didn't have to split it with anyone. It was a fun night.
|
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Feb 23, 2015 15:01:03 GMT -5
The first contest had teenagers from the congregation (it was a fund raiser for the church youth group) acting out famous movie lines and we had to come up with the name of the movie and the name of the character or actor. Here's some trivia:
Which movie has a scene set at a talent show where one of the characters performs the scene in "North by Northwest" where Cary Grant has to dodge bullets from an airplane while running around in a wheat field?
Bonus points for naming the actor! (Which I would have to look up because I don't remember his name.)
|
|
|
|
Post by Prince Hal on Feb 23, 2015 20:05:41 GMT -5
Was it Vincent Gallo, Hoosier?
|
|
