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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 13, 2016 20:40:58 GMT -5
Two years ago or so, I saw parts of Panic Room (2002)... Surprised you waited so long to see this excellent suspense film. All of David Fincher's movies are must-sees: Se7en, Fight Club, The Game, Zodiac, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, Gone Girl. His version of Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was not as good as the original Swedish version but was decent enough. Only his first film, Alien 3 missed the mark
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 14, 2016 0:21:26 GMT -5
Holy Moley ! Great Krypton! Fred MacMurray was both Captain Marvel and Superman I've read many a time how C.C. Beck used Fred MacMurray as the model for Captain Marvel. Facially, it's easy to see the resemblance. Alec Ross continued that tradition.But now I've stumbled upon this movie and my jaw fell to the floor in astonishment. I have never heard anything in fanzines or fan conversations about what I beheld. The film is No Time For Love (1943) Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray It's quite a good, sparkling comedy in it's own right. Claudette is a famed woman photographer for a prestigious magazine. Her current assignment is to take pictures of the men at work digging a tunnel under the river. Arriving to shoot the "sandhogs" at work, she meets a rather egotistical, brawny,quick with his fists tunneler named Jim Ryan (Fred MacMurray). His nickname, mentioned a dozen times during the course of the film, SupermanAnd well does he deserve that moniker. He has a knockout punch that he loves to show off. There's a scene where he's at a photoshoot with a obnoxious Mr. America type who likes to flex his muscles. "Superman" lifts some heavy barbells up from the ground and tosses it at Mr. America, sending him crashing through a wall. There are scenes with Fred MacMurray working in the hot tunnels bare-chested and man is he buff. Hard to believe if all you know of him was his Disney films and My Three Sons decades later The basic story is sophisticated Colbert slowly falling in love with Superman. The dialogue is quite witty, much better than most of it's day. Colbert and MacMurray are a great pair-after all this is one of seven films they worked on together. The movie won an Oscar for Best Art Direction It's only available on DVD as part of a Claudette Colbert box set. But do look for this treat when TCM or some other network airs it. Now, as a comic fan, I understand that Captain Marvel had already appeared by then in a live action serial (1941-played by Tom Tyler and an excellent example of movie serials too). I'm guessing Fred MacMurray was too big a star by then. And the Superman cartoons by the Fleischer studios was already up and running. So-Is this really the first live-action appearance of Superman on the silver screen? Granted- it's a cockeyed version and nowhere in the credits for the flick is any mention of Superman comics nor their publisher. But I'm mostly bewildered that I never read or heard anything before about this piece of trivia Here is the showcase sequence for the film. Claudia Colbert dreams about a fiendish Snidely Whiplash villain threatening her, forcing her to do a Lois Lane swan dive and then Fred MacMurray ...just watch it for yourself
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 14, 2016 14:53:03 GMT -5
This is the film Beyoncé Knowles will be remembered for! I watched Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) last night. I'm not sure what the general consensus is on this movie now that it's getting almost old enough to be considered a classic, but I remember that when it came out, it got a bit of a "meh" from audiences, and many of the people I knew who loved the first two Austin Powers movies didn't make the same effort to see Goldmember in a theater. I was pretty busy, working hard finishing up my bachelor's degree, so I didn't see as many movies in 2002 and 2003 as I did in earlier years, but I did go see Goldmember at the Vine Theater near the corner of Hollywood and Vine. I lived only a few blocks away, and even when I was really busy, it just wasn't much of a time commitment to take a break and stroll over to the Vine to see a movie. It was (and probably still is) a second-run house, where you could see two relatively recent movies for only $5. I loved it! It may not be as wall-to-wall full of funny jokes as the first two (especially The Spy Who Shagged Me) but Goldmember is just so chaotic, almost entirely lacking anything but the most basic story structure. I love the movie-within-the-movie (with Tom Cruise as Austin, Kevin Spacey as Dr. Evil, Danny DeVito as Mini-Me, John Travolta as Goldmember and Gwyneth Paltrow as Dixie Normous), Beyoncé Knowles as Foxxy Cleopatra, Dr. Evil and Mini-Me in prison performing a rap version of "It's a Hard-Knock Life" from Annie, Fred Savage as the mole with the mole, and Michael Caine as Austin's father. Whereas the first two films are making fun of the spy genre (which the movies have been doing since ... the 1940s? I'm thinking of My Favorite Brunette. And probably earlier. Much earlier.), Goldmember is making fun of the very idea of narrative storytelling. That's not particularly original in and of itself, but I think Goldmember should get more credit for being such an intentional narrative mess in a movie that's ostensibly a comedy blockbuster. That it succeeds so well is quite an accomplishment. I have to admit that it kind of reminds me of the much-maligned 1967 spy spoof Casino Royale, another movie that I love! Last night was the first time that I've seen Goldmember in its entirety since it first came out, and I think it holds up as well as I thought it would.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2016 15:22:14 GMT -5
Austin Powers Movies
Shagged Me International Man of Mystery
Goldmember
I really never cared for Goldmember because I consider the 3rd Movie of the Austin Powers Series not as good as the first two and I consider Shagged Me the funniest and the most cleverest and International Man of Mystery a great one too. The first two were good on it's own terms and Goldmember was done poorly. Sorry Hoosier - I just have a serious distaste for Goldmember and haven't seen it since it's shown on the theater in 2002.
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 14, 2016 17:44:33 GMT -5
Another spy spoof that I love is The Last of the Secret Agents? (1966). With Marty Allen and Steve Rossi. And Nancy Sinatra! It doesn't bother me a bit that it's stupid a lot more often than it's actually funny. It's still AWESOME! I used to have it on a VHS tape that also included Casino Royale and Modesty Blaise.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2016 20:46:25 GMT -5
Another spy spoof that I love is The Last of the Secret Agents? (1966). With Marty Allen and Steve Rossi. And Nancy Sinatra! It doesn't bother me a bit that it's stupid a lot more often than it's actually funny. It's still AWESOME! I used to have it on a VHS tape that also included Casino Royale and Modesty Blaise. I remember seeing it at a friend house and it was funny and stupid at the same time and I was very surprised to see Nancy in this movie and I saw it about 30 years ago and I haven't seen it since. Thanks for jarring my memory bank here.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 16, 2016 15:30:05 GMT -5
You Can Be Sure...If It's Westinghouse
As a change of pace, I cracked open a 6-DVD box set called Studio One Anthology. This is the famed CBS live dramatic show that ran from 1948 to 1958. The box set has 17 one-hour shows replete with Betty Furness hawking the latest appliances put out by Westinghouse. These commercials are a hoot in themselves as the high-brow presentations are occasionally interrupted as Betty tries to sell us washers, dryers, TVs, electric frying pans, air conditioners and what not.
In those early days of TV, critics complained of "the vast wasteland" to be found on the airwaves. Variety shows filled with vaudeville acts, wrestling, roller derby, game shows, soap operas-if they could only see what's on TV now. CBS would point to this show as a counterpoint and harbinger of the potential TV could serve with fulfilling the intellectual and cultural entertainment needs. So let's check out this sampling witch I'm viewing from time to time among those classic movies
Disc One- I'll admit, this disc I could barely watch. In fact I only watched about 5 minutes of each show. First up is The Medium, an opera with no one I'm aware of. I'm not sticking around for the fat lady singing.
Next was Julius Caesar, severely truncated to fit the one hour slot and again no one I ever heard of in all those togas. I've seen the full version enough times, specifically with Marlon Brando, to pass this by
Disc 4-whoops, I went out of order by accident but glad I did. First up THE REMARKABLE INCIDENT AT CARSON CORNERS, a captivating and intriguing premise. Again I'm unaware of the actors but the story is remarkable. A small town and the parents of a grade school are filling the auditorium to watch their children put on a play. No one knows the subject matter, not even the teachers for the children kept it secret. The play begins and turns out to be a murder trial concerning the death a few months back of a little boy at that school who fell from a staircase. Ruled an accident, the murder trial play is now accusing the school janitor of pushing the boy down the stairs. Pandemonium breaks out in the audience which include the dead boys grieving parents. Has that ring of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller to it. This is a home run show
Next up, Dark Possession, the first play written by Gore Vidal specifically for this show and guest starring Geraldine Fitzgerald and an impossibly young Leslie Nielson. Turn of the century timepiece with a recently widowed woman receiving letters from a stranger accusing her of murdering her husband. Decent show but a bit stiff
Finally comes another winner, THE DEATH AND LIFE OF LARRY BENSON. Larry it seems had served in the Korean War and has been MIA for 2 years. His family finally receives a letter from him that he's been discharged and will arrive by train. Waiting at the station, the young man jumps off to rush to his folks happy to see them again. But it's not Larry, even though he claims it is and knows everything about the family. Very Twilight Zone-ish and very well acted. Stars Chester Morris and Skip Homeier. This and the Carson Corners episode was written by Reginald Rose who suddenly is a favorite author of mine
Disc 2-June Moon starring baby faced Jack Lemmon and Eva Marie Saint. Lemmon meets Saint on a train to NY where he hopes to break into the songwriting biz. She's a sweet innocent girl but once Lemmon gets a hit song he starts hanging out with the fast crowd. Hokey but loved watching these "unknown" actors at work
Next, a truncated version of Wuthering Heights starring Charlton Heston. He was quite an imposing performer even at this early stage
That's where I'm at for now and will continue to view the rest within the next few days. Hoping for more Reginald Rose scripts.
One of those commercials was about Westinghouse's TV sets. One of the selling points was "If and when color TV appears, you can use our Westinghouse Color Adaptor with this TV set to enjoy the color programming." I actually quite remember the roll out of color TV to the general public (I also remember Guttenberg's printing press but that's another story). I do not remember Color TV adaptors making any dent with the public. Betty Furness lied to us
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 16, 2016 22:23:20 GMT -5
I thought I had seen just about every film Burt Reynolds made from Deliverance until the late 1980's. But no, I needed to ..Do The Hustle! Hustle (1975) Burt Reynolds, Catherine Deneuve, Paul Winfield, Eddie Albert, Ben Johnson. Eileen Brennan, Ernest Borgnine,Jack Carter A young girl is found dead on the beach, apparently a drug overdose. Reynolds is a Police Lt. willing to close the case as a suicide. Ben Johnson, as the girl's father, believes there is someone out there responsible. With reluctance, Reynolds investigates the death leading into the realm of pornography, strippers and crooked lawyers Very cynical 1970s film. Burt Reynolds dates a hooker and his car has an 8-track tape player. He probably has a Farrah Fawcett poster too. You can definitely classify this as neo-noir since every one has character flaws and Reynolds with his partner Winfield work outside the system Directed by Robert Aldrich who scored a big hit with Burt the year before with The Longest Day. This film was not as successful. It takes it's time but certainly builds a head of steam at the end and provides a powerful climax
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 17, 2016 0:57:17 GMT -5
Must keep my snarkiness under control..must keep my snarkiness under control.. Must..MustFire Maidens From Outer Space (1956) Written,Produced and Directed by the Inimitable Cy Roth starring a bunch of chain smoking astronauts, a creature in a turtleneck sweater and a dark coconut head mask and 12 girls in tennis outfits Amazingly, Mystery Science Fiction Theater produced this film decades ago. Yup, that explains it. We discover the 13th moon of Jupiter and it seems to be earth-like so off we go. But first, make sure you're wearing your Longines watches and keep showing them on your wrist as well as referring to them since that company is obviously subsidizing the mission. And get used to the orchestral version of 'Stranger In Paradise" since it's played constantly and must be the moon's national anthem. Wonder why these girls are called Fire Maidens since all they ever do is light some torches. Look at IMDB and behold the 2.1 rating and ponder how many films achieved lower grades. Weep for Ish Kabbible for the 80 minutes he will never get back. Contemplate what might have been written here if my snarkiness was fully unleashed
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 17, 2016 21:30:52 GMT -5
Here's what I saw the last few days. I seem to have been in a "Movies I've Seen Before" marathon without realizing it.
That Touch of Mink (1962) - With Cary Grant, Doris Day, Audrey Meadows, Gig Young and John Astin. I believe we've already talked about this on this forum. Remember? How much I hated it? But I sure do think about it a lot! I couldn't help myself; I DVRed it off the MOVIES! channel last week and watched it Wednesday night. It's still really stupid in so many ways. Where do I begin? Gig Young's psychiatrist has to go back to Vienna because he never heard of homosexuality. Gig Young complaining because his boss treats him so well. Doris Day freaking out and going hysterical and costing Cary Grant's company thousands of dollars in labor. (Bitches be crazy.) Audrey Meadows throwing gig Young down the stairs and setting a dog on him because of a misunderstanding. (Bitches be crazy.) Cary Grant coming off as smug and condescending when he's supposed to patient and understanding. The alpha males dismissing John Fielder because he's bald and short and meek so they don't have to admit they've made a mistake, so it's OK to leave him with the wrong impression about his new wife without a single word of explanation.
I do love the weird chase scene through New Jersey to Asbury Park with John Astin and Doris Day running away on a rendezvous in a milk delivery truck with Cary Grant in pursuit in a falling-apart taxi as Doris Day makes John Astin stop at every gas station to slow things down.
This movie may be so so stupid, but it's never boring.
Hara-kiri 1962 - This movie is so great! Japanese. Black and white. Really really serious looking! All the samurai sit on their little mats and look at each other being so serious! A masterless samurai comes to the house of the Iyi family and asks to use the forecourt to commit hara-kiri. It's 1630 and the samurai have become a bit antiquated, but there are still thousands of them roaming Japan trying to make a living. Those that can't make it have to do SOMETHING. Well, it turns out that the first guy who wanted to commit hara-kiri in the courtyard was patted on the back and welcomed and given a job so he could support himself ... so now all the masterless samurai are doing it. The head of the house of Iyi decides it's time to get tough with these scoundrels! This movie is about how well that worked out ...
I saw this for the first time about five or six years ago. It's one of the best Japanese films I've ever seen! I mean, it's no King Kong vs. Godzilla. But what is?
The Bank Dick (1940) - With W.C. Fields, Una Merkel, Grady Sutton, Franklin Pangborn and Shemp Howard. One of my favorite comedies! I taped it off A&E in the 1990s and I had that VHS tape for almost 20 years, so I've seen it a bunch of times! Ten times? Twenty? Somewhere in there, probably. I haven't seen it for a while. It was killing me last night! His awful awful family! (The little girl is HILARIOUSLY AWFUL!) The Black Pussycat Café. Grady Sutton as Og Oggilby. J. Pinkerton Snoopington. Fields attacking the boy dressed as a cowboy in the bank. The dreaded mogo-on-the-gogogo. THE CRAZIEST CHASE SCENE IN MOVIE HISTORY!
As much as I love this movie, it's not my favorite Fields film. There are three others that I rate (slightly) higher.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 17, 2016 22:14:35 GMT -5
As a comparison, here's my comments on That Touch Of Mink back in April
The Cary Grant DVD boxset finale
That Touch Of Mink (1962) Cary Grant, Doris Day, Gig Young, Audrey Meadows, John Astin
Rich tycoon Cary Grant is getting a ride through Manhattan on a rainy day in his chauffeured limo which splashes a puddle full of water on pedestrian Doris Day. Ever the gentleman, he offers to pay for the cleaning which leads to a dinner which leads to a date which leads to a weekend trip to Bermuda. Can Doris Day hold on to her virginity until she's properly wed. C'mon, this is Doris Day. Of course she will. She always does. To this very day Doris did
One of the greatest films ever made and there are three reasons why
Ralph Kramden's wife, Alice plays Doris Day's best friend. Never enough Alice Kramden in the world
Alice Kramden works at a Horn & Hardart's auto-mat restaurant. There's a big scene filmed within the auto-mat. The little nippers out there today have no idea about what they missed since auto-mats disappeared. Suddenly I have a yen for pie
Cary Grant takes Doris to a NY Yankee game. They sit with Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Yogi Berra who all have dialogue as well.
I couldn't give a fig about the rest of the movie. Doris never gives it up anyway.There's no suspense to that question
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 18, 2016 1:36:37 GMT -5
1979 was a magical year for sports in the city of Pittsburgh. The Steelers bega the year winning the Superbowl and ended the year on the way to a back-to-back victory. The Pittsburgh Pirates and their "We Are Family" theme song won the World Series. But the biggest story, the biggest surprise was happening with.... The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979) Julius Irving, Jonathon Winters, Meadowlark Lemon, Kareem Abdul-Jabber, M. Emmett Walsh, Flip Wilson, Stockard Channing, Debbie Allen, Marv Albert The season began with the team as pathetic losers and t each other's throats. In fact the coach and all the players (except Julius Irving) quit. Hurriedly, a new team was put together. Even though they were all misfits and quite eccentric, they were all Pieces and were compatible with Julius Irving's astrological vibe. So they began to win. And win.And made Jonathan Winters, their owner very happy A fun and campy experience and a kick seeing all these now-iconic players at their prime.There's plenty of basketball action done excellently.A movie that certainly improved with age. Just as long as you forgive some of it's goofiness
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 18, 2016 13:44:39 GMT -5
Yesterday afternoon, I watched Hips, Hips, Hooray (1934), a comedy with the team of Wheeler and Woolsey. And Thelma Todd was in it as well! Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were a comedy team who made a bunch of movies from the start of the sound era up to Robert Woolsey's death in 1938. (He's the one with the glasses. He was only 50 when he died.) I saw a couple of these movies on AMC in the early 1990s and I thought they were hilarious. Then I saw a couple that were pretty bad. I did a little research and found out that the critical consensus is that they made several very funny movies, but they also made some really bad ones that are really very nonsensical to modern audiences. And for a while, when I saw that a Wheeler and Woolsey was going to show on AMC or TCM, I would give it a pass. I wasn't sure which ones were good and which ones were bad. But I did eventually watch High Flyers (1938) because I saw that it had Margaret Dumont and Lupe Velez in addition to Wheeler and Woolsey. It's hilarious and crazy and you can hardly believe what you are watching! I highly recommend it for fans of crazy 1930s movies who may have seen Duck Soup and The Man on the Flying Trapeze a few too many times. So yesterday, I was taking a little afternoon rest and I decided to watch a short movie, and nothing on the DVR quite fit the bill. So I found Hips, Hips, Hooray on TCM On Demand. It was less than 75 minutes, it had Thelma Todd, and it's been a long time since I saw a Wheeler and Woolsey movie. It's so WEIRD! One of those odd mixtures of slapstick, singing and dancing that you see in a lot of those 1930s movies, like A Night at the Opera. Hermes Pan was the choreographer! He did a bunch of those Astaire and Rogers films. I found it to be fairly entertaining, but a lot of my fascination was based on how weird it was. The plot - such as it is - involves Thelma Todd's cosmetics company as she tries to come up with new publicity ideas to boost her falling sales. (She doesn't know she's being sabotaged by one of her executives.) One of the gimmicks is sponsoring a racecar in a transcontinental race, a subplot that is barely mentioned and then suddenly reappears in the last ten minutes. Wheeler and Woolsey are con artists, trying to sell flavored lipstick on the street. Thelma Todd believes their story about being wealthy (if eccentric) businessmen, and decides a business merger is a good idea. And her assistant Dorothy Lee develops a crush on Bert Wheeler. And bananashenanigans ensue. Including several songs and weird dance numbers. The highlight of the film involves a song with bizarre choreography where Wheeler, Woolsey, Thelma Todd and Dorothy Lee destroy a businessman's office for no discernible reason. It's really quite an amazingly wonderful scene. Thelma Todd will never be mentioned in the same breath as Ginger Rogers or Cyd Charisse as one of cinema's great dancers, but she's certainly no slouch as a funny dancer! Like Groucho in the "Captain Spaulding" number. You know what I mean. That scene in Hips, Hips, Hooray! is HILARIOUS! Once you get over wondering WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON, you will laugh your silly butt off. Since the movie is only about 70 minutes long, and it's frequently very amusing, it's definitely worth watching the whole thing to see the number where they trash the office for no reason. Especially if you like crazy movies from the 1930s!
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 18, 2016 14:07:08 GMT -5
And last night I watched Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) on Netflix Instant Watch. I'm on a longstanding quest to watch every Woody Allen movie, but it's hard to keep up because he makes a new movie every year. I've seen all of his movies up to Celebrity, but after that, I've probably seen about half of them. Woody has been wildly uneven for a very long time, but I find his films are seldom as bad as the word of mouth. ( Anything Else is a major exception; it's as bad as you heard.) There's usually something worth seeing, and some of his later films are very good to great. Midnight in Paris and Vicky Cristina Barcelona are both a lot of fun. And Match Point is one of his best movies. Which brings us to Curse of the Jade Scorpion. It's not the unmitigated disaster that I'd heard it was, but it's not particularly good either. I found it an interesting failure. And I was never bored. So there's that. It was a bit of an homage to genre films of the 1930s and 1940s, and I think I would have liked it better if it had been 70 or 80 minutes long instead of 100. Also some pretty good performances, especially from Helen Hunt and Charlize Theron. But overall, I can't really recommend it. It's an acceptable entry for Woody Allen completists.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 19, 2016 0:44:39 GMT -5
The Gunslingin' Pastor Heaven With A Gun (1969) Glenn Ford, Carolyn Jones, Barbara Hershey, John Anderson, David Carradine A western released at the end of the trail of that genre's heyday, and trying to connect a bit with it's contemporary audience Glen Ford is a gunfighter, arriving in a town that sees a deadly rivalry between sheepherders and cattlemen. But Ford is not looking to choose sides and hire out. No, he aims to open a church and preach Sunday sermons. That's unless someone takes a poke at im or rapes his young Indian squaw. By this point Glenn Ford has put on a few hefty pounds on his body and I feel a might sorry for his horse. Even so, he's a great western actor and a fine cast supports him. Sporadic nudity is included as reflecting with what was happening in many Hollywood films beginning at this point. Plus the fact of Ford trying to abstain from violence to solve confrontations was something that might resonate to the anti-war young Hippie crowd. It's an OK movie worth watching on TV but I wouldn't cancel anything important to make time for this
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