Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

Discussion in 'Movies, TV and Music' started by Val1, May 4, 2012.

  1. Belgian guy

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    Park Row (1952)
    Dir. Samuel Fuller

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    Phineas Mitchell is a disillusioned newspaper editor in late 19th century NYC, a principled man who loathes the practices of many of the publications on Park Row, especially the Star, which happens to be his employer. Until his overt criticism of owner Charity Hackett's methods earn him the sack. An opportunity arises when a sympathetic man gives Mitchell the use of his press to create his own newspaper. Gathering a band of misfits and has-beens around him, the paper he creates, the Globe, becomes an unlikely success due to his editorial choices - including the championing of the fund-raising of a pedestal for the statue of liberty - and some smart innovations in newspaper circulation. Unfortunately, the Globe's success becomes a threat to the more established and thus wealthier Star and the methods employed by the competition to bring the Globe down a few pegs get increasingly more drastic and morally dubious.

    Re-watched this Samuel Fuller classic, essentially his love letter to print journalism. A passion project of Fuller's, as he was famously a newspaper man himself before he went into directing. Some of the plot is based on Joseph Pulitzer's real-life campaign to fund-raise for the statue's pedestal in his New York World. Starring Gene Evans as Phineas Mitchell, who I would guess most Fuller fans will primarily associate with the Fuller Korean war film Steel Helmet (an excellent one at that). Also features one of stage actress Mary Welch's few screen credits before her death in 1958, as Mitchell's foil Charity Hackett.
     
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  2. Belgian guy

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    The Constant Gardener (2005)
    Dir. Fernando Meirelles

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    Justin Quayle, a British diplomat with a posting in Kenya, is informed of the murder of his wife Tessa, assassinated whilst visiting Southern Sudan with her friend - and rumored lover - Dr. Arnold Bluhm. Due to the fact that Bluhm is missing it is initially believed that he might have killed Tessa in a jealous rage. Justin, who is still coming to terms with his wife's supposed infidelity, slowly uncovers the true nature behind his wife's trip, and earlier activism. She suspected a huge scandal involving a dangerous drug trial for a new TBC medicine, which caused dozens of fatalities that were subsequently covered up, with the help of the Foreign Office. As Justin himself retraces his wife's steps and slowly learns the details of the scandal, he too becomes a target.

    I never saw this Le Carré adaptation at the time. It's very well acted, with a subdued but powerful performance by Ralph Fiennes at the heart of it and a contrasting and more passionate portrayal by Rachel Weisz, primarily in repeated flashback scenes. It does drag more than a bit in the middle section and probably could have been improved upon with a shorter edit that cut out fifteen or so minutes. It also feels slightly dated in that a movie set almost entirely in Africa only has one black character of consequence, who even barely features any more in the second and third act. I suspect more of an effort would be made nowadays not to make the story so very much centered on the European characters.
     
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  3. Belgian guy

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    Black Friday (2021)
    Dir. Casey Tebo

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    An eclectic group of employees of We Love Toys, a toy store, gather for the Black Friday shift, already dreading the horde of shoppers ready to descend upon their store. They include Ken, a middle-aged divorcee who has clearly stuck around far too long in that job, his friend Chris, a germaphobic young schlemiel who is the lightning rod for a lot of the assistant manager's casual cruelty, Marnie, Ken's much younger store love interest, Archie, a somewhat intense long-time employee, Brian, a boot-licking assistant manager and Jonathan, the store manager, a man who is an almost religious devotee when it comes to the whims and wishes of "Corporate".

    Shortly after they open the store, some of the customers display strange and increasingly violent behavior, until it is revealed that some alien entity has turned them into barely human zombie-like creatures. When they learn that the entire town is impacted and thus no help is immediately on the way, the surviving staff of We Love Toys must work together and overcome their internal strife and drama to survive the night.

    This is an action horror-comedy starring Bruce Campbell so of course I was going to watch this. Unfortunately it's not a very good action comedy and Groovy Bruce's presence alone cannot make up for its many flaws (mostly in the writing). The creature effects and make-up are nicely done for a film of this budget.
     
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  4. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    Speaking of Bruce Campbell...

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    Burn Notice (7 seasons, 2007-2013)

    Michael Weston was a contractor for the CIA, sent on the most delicate and difficult of missions. In the middle of one of those most delicate and difficult of missions he was burned - a faked dossier of illegal and self-serving activities was released and Weston finds himself out of a job, out of resources, and stuck in Miami under constant surveillance while the government tries to figure out what to do with him. His new mission is to find the people that burned him, get unburned, and return to the job he found so meaningful. But just about once a week someone who needs a spy's help distractingly shows up on his doorstep.

    Love this show. At turns breezy and tense, it uses a heavily narrated style that makes you feel smart. But what makes this such a good binge watch is that it kind of works in reverse. When it starts we know exactly who this guy is. Weston is a moral (if occasionally practical) guy despite the injustices hurled from multiple angles and he proves it every show by helping the downtrodden at great risk to himself. But as it goes on we know less and less about who this guy really is. At first colleagues from his past show up, and they are monsters. Later on imperatives fall to expedience and eventually gut reaction. The show gets more stressful, more serious. He is slowly but unevenly deconstructed before our very eyes, and we don't really see the consciously-put-back-together Michael until two minutes before the final final credits. It's all quite the journey.
     
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  5. Belgian guy

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    The Forever Purge (2021)
    Dir. Everardo Gout

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    Several individuals living near the Mexico-U.S. border are preparing for the next Purge. Among them the Tucker family, wealthy white Texas ranchers, as well as Juan and Adela, recent immigrants to the U.S., with Juan working as a cowboy on the Tucker ranch. Whilst the Tuckers wait out the Purge inside of their well-secured ranch and Juan and Adela instead hide in a shelter that caters to less well-off immigrant families, all successfully survive the night... only the next morning it appears that some purgers do not want to stop after the twelve hour window has ended and instead want to keep up committing violent crimes - including murder - with impunity. The Tucker clan and their immigrant employees thus have to work together to survive.

    The Purge franchise has attempted to make some very unsubtle societal commentary from the start. The Forever Purge does this from the angle of immigration (legal and otherwise), economic exploitation and xenophobia. Through the prism of a well-off white family depending on their Mexican immigrant employees to keep them alive, as well as the concept of Mexico as a safe haven for American citizens. Also as per usual, this is done in a heavy-handed way that doesn't really land as intended. I would say fans of the franchise will still enjoy this entry.
     
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  6. Belgian guy

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    Sorum (2001)
    Dir. Jong-chan Yun

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    Yong-hyun is a taxi driver who moves to Seoul, and finds an apartment in a debilitated old building. The other remaining residents in the structure are all people with few better alternatives in terms of their housing. They include a former publisher who lost his business and is trying to regain his former status by successfully completing a novel he is writing about the apartment complex' dark history, which includes a supposed murder thirty years ago, for which it is assumed that the killer successfully hid the body of his wife somewhere in the building, yet it was never found. Also on Yong-hyun's floor is a young window convinced that her late husband still visits her in her dreams and another young woman who is stuck in an abusive marriage and who immediately attracts Yong-hyun's attention and attraction. As more of the residents' and the building's history is revealed, it also becomes clear that Yong-hyun moving in wasn't entirely a coincidence itself...

    A nice, slow-burning Korean psychological horror film. In its themes of a new arrival who becomes increasingly disturbed and unhinged due to the supposed dark secrets of a place, it is very much reminiscent of Roman Polanski's The Tenant, and to a lesser extent, Jack Clayton's The Innocents. Flickering lights, dark corners, strange noises... Yet in the end, 'l'enfair, c'est les autres'. Lots of very good performances, especially by leads Myun-ming Kim and the late Jin-young Jang, whose sad eyes become the movie's soul.
     
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  7. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    #8432 spejic, Dec 10, 2021
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2021
    I rep everyone who has given an opinion about a piece of media, but I only mean it for Belgian guy.
     
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  8. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    #8433 spejic, Dec 11, 2021
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2021
    I'm about to find out what a "Takashi Miike" is.

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    First Love (初恋, 2019)

    Old-school yakuza Gondō has just been released from a stint in prison, but he's returning to an organization a shadow of its former self. The Chinese Triad is encroaching on their turf and his group has orders to maintain a détente with them. It's getting so criminals and corrupt cops can't make a decent living any more. So one of each decide to team up to rob the Yakuza and get out of the game with a nice retirement. But their simple plan goes wrong when the druggie prostitute they plan to pin the robbery on gets an unlikely protector, and then it goes even more wrong. And then, like, all the way wrong.

    It's a little slow at start, especially because there's a lot of boxing and I don't really care about that. And it centers on a characters who don't yet have a reason to live so we don't have a reason to care. But when things start moving it gets good. There's these little violent set-pieces and a wild car chase in a garage and the fantastic final confrontation in a hardware store and they are all directed with a perfect mix of the light and the heavy. First Love is kind of a Reservoir Dogs with a little magic and a lot of dark humor. And there was a bit of a send up of the 50-years-ago Yakuza and Triad cool... but just a bit. I guess Takashi Miike isn't the kind to totally throw away the fantasy of the the old samurai spirit.
     
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  9. Belgian guy

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    First one of his you've ever seen? I haven't seen this Miike joint yet myself, it's going on the list.

    I got a tiny bit of a "Russell Crowe in Nice Guys" vibe from the boxer character based on the trailer. Lost soul moving aimlessly through life, with a secret and desperate desire to be heroic?

    BTW, based on that poster, I briefly thought that Amy Acker had been cast in a Takashi Miike flick. I was kind of disappointed when I found out I was wrong about that!
     
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  10. Belgian guy

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    First Love (2019)
    Dir. Takashi Miike

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    Leo is a young Japanese boxer whose trainer is annoyed at his lack of passion displayed in the ring. Leo's behavior is due to a broader disillusionment with life, which grows exponentially when after a lost fight, an MRI reveals he has a non-operable brain tumor and likely only has a limited time left to live. It is in the midst of this existential crisis that he meets Monica, a young woman on the run from a dirty cop who wants to use her as the unwitting stooge for a drug shipment theft. When she asks for Leo's help, he offers her his assistance, meaning he gets involved in a messy situation that involves said dirty cop, his double-crossing Yakuza associate, the Yakuza member's peers and superiors and the Chinese gang they have been involved in a long-time conflict with. A gang war which was already primed to explode into a new chapter of violence due to the return of two high-profile members, one on either side of the conflict.

    A Takashi Miike action comedy that was pretty fun. A return to the Yakuza settings of say Gozu or Dead or Alive. Only it's all a tiny bit sillier and goofier than in the past (not that these traits weren't already there on occasion in his older films). The two leads are both fine but I found myself enjoying some of the supporting players more. Like Kase, the honorless Yakuza whose seemingly simple get-rich scheme goes so terribly wrong it requires an increasingly larger pile of bodies just to keep it going. Or the vengeful and surprisingly deadly Julie.
    Also features some Miike type tongue-in-cheek sentimentality in the form of a Japanese Triad assassin who after praising the value of humanity above all else takes part in a trademark bloody and over the top Miike climax.
     
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  11. malby

    malby Member+

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    49th Parallel. What a truly great propaganda movie. Anyone who was British and acting at the time is in it. I've seen two of Goebbels propaganda features (the Irish one and the Titanic one) and boy do they pale in comparison.
     
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  12. Belgian guy

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    Le Bal des Folles (2021)
    Dir. Mélanie Laurent

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    Eugénie is a rebellious young woman living in late 19th century Paris. Her family is part of the upper crust bourgeoisie, though their status is not so comfortable that her father believes himself capable of allowing for a daughter who goes gallivanting off to Montmartre unchaperoned to frequent cafés or attending Victor Hugo's funeral outside of his wishes. This level of embarrassment might have still been acceptable were it not for Eugénie's secret, which is that she can communicate with spirits who frequently visit her unannounced at all hours of the day and night. Her family disbelieve her 'gift' and instead interpret the strange behavior as a mental affliction. After another incident scares her father a bit too much, Eugénie is packed off to the famous women's sanatorium of the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, where the methods of Dr. Jean-Marc Charcot are implemented. Eugénie is horrified after her arrival to learn that the therapeutic methodology is barbaric at best and violently cruel at worst. Her rebellious nature soon means she finds herself on the wrong side of the doctors in charge of her treatment and some of the nurses tasked with her care. Eventually she zeroes in on the more sympathetic head nurse Geneviéve, a woman she hopes to recruit to help in an escape attempt.

    Interesting and entertaining French drama (with some thriller elements) which can be summarized as some sort of French feminist version of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" set in 19th century France. With a nurse Ratched type included. Based on a novel of the same name I wasn't familiar with. Lou de Laâge is spellbinding in the lead role and director Mélanie Laurent makes for a good scene partner and foil as Geneviéve. On the topic of Laurent, this is only the second film of hers (as a director) that I have seen after her adaptation of Nic Pizzolatto's Galveston. Both are excellent and suggest a far more experienced director. Though it appears she has three more feature length movies prior to those two that I have yet to see (and now very much want to check out too). Definitely one of the best films I have seen this year.
     
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  13. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

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    I guess I watch roughly one third big screen films, one third high-brow, and one third independent. But sometimes I have to return to where I came from. I can't allow myself to get too soft.

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    Stone Cold (1991)

    The Brotherhood biker gang has turned central Mississippi into a haven for their drug dealing and protection rackets. But when they kill the local judge that sentenced one of their own, the FBI decides to get involved. They find the perfect person to infiltrate the gang - disgraced Alabama cop Brian Bosworth. He's got the biker skill. He's got the biker knowledge. He's got the biker experience. Most important of all, he has the greatest mullet the universe will ever know.

    This is peak 80's action movie, just created late enough to be ignored by an audience that had seen enough already. There's a fine story that is exceedingly well directed for it's genre. There are practical effects that are jawdroppingly astonishing, and others that mindbendingly hilarious. And it has a prime scenery-chewing bad guy in Lance Henriksen. It certainly has no fear of being silly or unrestrained, but it totally defied my expectation that Stone Cold would be in the vicinity of "so bad it's good". It's simply good, and should be reconsidered by historians of this echelon of cinema. I demand a full Criterion Collection re-release on Blu Ray complete with 30 page liner notes, restoring the lost scenes of Bosworth's family and the full parade of naked boobies as envisioned by the director.

    Brian Bosworth is so close to being an action hero - he's charismatic when he's relaxed and he moves so well, but he's just missing that top gear of intensity. The music is a bit too generic as well. But I still rate this as hell yeah.
     
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  14. Belgian guy

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    Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)
    Dir. John Farrow

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    Elliot Carson follows Jean Courtland, the object of his affection, to the train station, where he is just in time to stop a suicide attempt on her part. The reason he knows that Jean might have died that night is John Triton, a former vaudeville mentalist who claims he has the true gift of foresight. Carson perceives Triton as a charlatan who is trying to get his hands on Jean's money. In reality, as Triton reveals as he recounts his past through a long flashback, he was once part of a three-man act with Jean's later mother and father. Twenty years earlier, Triton had a vision in the middle of a show that turned out to be real and not just a simple parlour trick. The vision in question saved a young boy's life. Where his partner Whitney Courtland sees this sudden ability as a way to improve both their shows and their prospects, Triton himself is afraid. Especially after he finds out it isn't always easy to avoid seeing his dark visions realized, meaning that it's not possible for him to save every person he has a terrible premonition about. Eventually Triton leaves his partner Whitney and his fiancee Jenny behind, sensing that any continued presence in their lives will bring his loved ones misfortune. After Triton disappears from Whitney and Jenny's life, they get married and have a daughter, Jean. Triton returns twenty years later, not because he wants to, but because more tragedy awaits the Courtland family and even though he is not convinced he can actually avert it, he has to try...

    Noirish thriller with a tiny hint of the supernatural. Edward G. Robinson is very good as the tortured Triton, a man who perceives his gift as a great burden - with good reason. Also manages to side-step a very easy and obvious climax, which was a pleasant surprise.
     
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  15. Belgian guy

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    The Spiral Staircase (1946)
    Dir. Robert Siodmak

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    In an early 20th century setting, we meet Helen, the mute caretaker of Mrs. Warren, a well-off widow who is largely bed-ridden. During an afternoon when Helen goes into town to catch a picture show at the local hotel, a murder is committed on the premises. A young woman who had a room at the hotel is found dead, showing all the signs of strangulation. The local constable is troubled by the realization that this is likely the third murder - that he knows of - that the same killer has committed. All three of his victims had a certain physical affliction, the most recent victim walking with a noticeable limp.

    Upon Helen's return to the Warren home, the visiting constable asks her employer, Professor Warren, to keep an eye on Helen as the fact that she is mute might make her a target for the killer, based on the constable's theory that he prefers young women with some sort of visible ailment as his victims. For his part, Warren suspects his bon-vivant brother Stephen, due to the fact that he lied to the constable about his whereabouts that afternoon, claiming to not have left the house when his brother knows this to be a lie. Mrs. Warren wants Helen to leave the house, as she senses the girl is in grave danger. A sentiment that pleases Dr. Parry, the town physician, as he has an infatuation with Helen and wants to take her to Boston in the hope of restoring her voice. But rough weather essentially traps the Warrens and their servants in their mansion for the night and as the evening progresses, it is revealed that the local killer might in fact have zeroed in on their home for real...

    Very good psychological horror film, with an excellent Dorothy McGuire in the lead role. There is also strong supporting work by legendary stage actress Ethel Barrymore and George Brent. Another thing I found of interest about Siodmak's work here is that more than one scene of it made me regard it as some sort of proto-slasher.

    One other thing, not immediately related to the movie itself. It portrays events set in an era that was three decades in the past when the film was released. The equivalent in 2021 would be a movie set in 1991. Yet the degree with which the world had changed back then was vast compared to our modern equivalent.

    The novel on which this movie was based - Some Must Watch - was actually the basis for more than one adaptation. Including one 1970s version starring Jacqueline Bisset and Christopher Plummer.
     
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  16. Belgian guy

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    The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
    Dir. Lana Wachowski

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    Many years after the events of The Matrix, we are reintroduced to Thomas Anderson. Anderson is now a middle-aged gaming developer who is most famous for having created the Matrix trilogy in the late 90s and early 2000s. It made both him and the gaming company he has worked for legendary but in the decades since they they haven't been able to repeat the success story to the same degree. WB, who owns the gaming company, insists that they develop a fourth entry into the Matrix series. Anderson himself is not keen on returning to a story that is so closely connected to the delusions he is still battling with the help of his shrink. At the same time, Anderson is being observed by Bugs, a hovercraft captain who ends up in a piece of code that Anderson wrote, which depicts the events of Trinity's near capture and escape at the start of the first film. Since both Trinity and Neo are now legends among the surviving humans, she knows what particular events she is seeing, but she does not understand why the environment exists, until a new iteration of the Morpheus character also appears...

    I went into this with mixed anticipation. I loved the original film. I was also not alone in hating the sequels and thinking they diminished much of what was done in the original outing. This is a very different movie to both The Matrix and its two noughties' sequels. The first 50 or so minutes is the most interesting section of the film. It can and probably should be read as a conversation with the original text, including many throwbacks to scenes and moments from the original film, and the use of footage from that movie throughout that segment. In the same way that Sam Raimi dissected and lampooned his own movie Evil Dead with Evil Dead 2 (and more or less created a new genre in the process), Lana Wachowski is definitely having fun with piercing through her own mythology here, especially in the scenes where Anderson and his team are brain-storming ideas for The Matrix IV. How much you will enjoy this segment depends on how much you like meta-navel gazing. I personally thought it was fairly amusing.

    The last 90 or so minutes however are much more reminiscent of the two sequels, unfortunately. So after an interesting first act, the fun quickly deflated for me. What I did like even about that later segment of the movie is Jessica Henwick as Bugs (she already was the best thing about Netflix Iron Fist adaptation too). The character of Bugs is an interesting one in how it relates to the original films. There are now almost too many think-pieces about how The Matrix should be read as a trans allegory, which means that for the original trilogy at least, you have to perceive the character of Neo as the stand-in of the writer-directors. Whereas this time around, I think the director stand-in is actually Bugs. A character so fascinated by a mythology that she becomes desperate to revive it, in spite of the fact that everyone - the machines as well as many of the surviving humans - want her to leave the past where it is.

    Probably worth seeing if you were a fan of the original film (or films), as long as you do not go in with the expectation of seeing something as good as The Matrix.
     
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  17. Ismitje

    Ismitje Super Moderator

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    I didn't know I wanted to watch another documentary about Monty Python, but I did. "The Meaning of Live" was filmed in advance of their series of ten shows at the O2 Arena in 2014 but is also about their other live tours from 1970-80 or so. And it was fun.

    This clip of Mick Jagger is wonderful (only a small part of it is in the documentary but it definitely had me on YouTube to find it):

     
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  18. Belgian guy

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    Man in the Saddle (1951)
    Dir. André de Toth

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    Owen Merritt is working his way through a bottle of scotch on the day his neighbor and owner of the notorious Skull Ranch, Will Isham, is marrying the woman that Merritt loves, Laurie Bidwell. Laurie isn't marrying Isham out of love, but for the life of wealth and comfort that the wealthy rancher can offer her. Merritt is left bitter and angry, but seemingly with no choice but to accept the fact that Laurie has married his business rival. For his part, Isham finds it hard to accept the knowledge that Laurie probably loves Merritt more than she will ever love him. So he makes it his goal to drive away Merritt, thinking that if Merritt is no longer nearby, Laurie will forget about him more easily. This starts a war between the ranchers, one which the outmatched and outgunned Merritt is keen on seeing through to the end.

    Randolph Scott is my favorite movie cowboy but I prefer him in his collaborations with Budd Boetticher. Mostly because the kind of men he plays in those - more contemplative/nostalgic/less self-assured - are more interesting protagonists on average. Not that there is anything wrong with his performance in this western. Even though it's part of the point of the story, Alexander Knox' Isham is a bit of a lightweight counterpart for him. Joan Leslie is excellent as the woman caught in the middle of them both. Also features Alfonso Bedoya in a stereotypical "Mexican" role for this era of cinema, an actor probably most famous for his small but very memorable role in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre".
     
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  19. Belgian guy

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    Strangers in the Night (1944)
    Dir. Anthony Mann

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    Sergeant Johnny Meadows gets a serious injury whilst fighting as a Marine in the pacific theater. His long recovery leaves him disillusioned and with little desire to return to civilian life. Until he gets pulled out of his funk by Rosemary, a young woman whom he starts a correspondence with. By the time he is indeed shipped back to the U.S., he is in love with his pen pal even though he has never met her or even seen a picture of her. Upon his arrival in California, he immediately travels to the small town Rosemary hails from, where she lives with her mother Hilda and Hilda's live-in companion Ivy. During the train ride, he meets and is charmed by Leslie Ross, a young doctor who is also traveling to the same small town to become its new physician. His attraction to Dr. Ross does not stop Johnny from wanting to meet Rosemary. Unbeknownst to him, Rosemary is a figment of Hilda's imagination and the letters he received were actually written by the lonely old woman. Her delusions have a sinister nature, one which is only known by her close companion Ivy, who fears for Johnny's safety should he pierce through Hilda's psychosis...

    I enjoyed this Anthony Mann noir a lot. In general I miss the lost art of entertaining one hour movies. Somewhere along the line it was decided that making a feature under ninety minutes long is a sin. The core plot line is essentially about a WWII serviceman getting cat-fished (long before that term was even coined). The three principles are all good but especially Helene Thimig does a good job at portraying Hilda's increasingly dangerous delusions.
     
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  20. KensingtonSC

    KensingtonSC Still Lazy After All These Years

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    Ever since watching the HBO series "Chernobyl" (which is still such an incredible show that I find myself watching clips of it on YouTube), and also having a curiosity of the Soviet Union, I fell down a rabbit hole and found myself watching a 1990 Soviet-made film called "Raspad" or "Decay" on YouTube.

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    Raspad 1990 - A journalist, a doctor, and a newly married couple, all from Kiev, find their lives have drastically changed in the immediate aftermath of the meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station.

    First off, this movie was made while the Soviet Union was still a thing, and it was told to Soviet audiences, so the fact that the story is this frank about many of the things that happened, speaks to how much things changed after glasnost and perestroika.

    On its face, people from the West would automatically assume that what the director is talking about in this movie is the cost of doing things "the Soviet way", but I see this movie as simply a series of tragedies. The tragedies come in all forms: a wife cheating on her husband, a doctor on his way back from a house call becomes a Chernobyl first responder, a boy in Pripyat loses his mother in the chaos, a young couple on honeymoon inconspicuously drive through the contaminated woods surrounding Chernobyl, car accidents, a man falling from a crane, government officials lying, dealing with a friend dying in your arms, and an abandoned town. Although there are these tragedies, the movie is not depressing, but it could be perceived that way. In some moments, it can actually feel like a black comedy.

    The most interesting parts were when they are flying through Pripyat and you see the city as it was in 1989, just 3 years after: The beautiful surrounding countryside, the apartments housing families of those who worked at Chernobyl and in Pripyat, the iconic ferris wheel, and a football stadium that looks like it had just been built, and the lasting image of a poster of Lenin in front of a government building. Additionally, the director features things that were changing at the time: television broadcasts, Pepsi advertisements, clothing that felt modern and chic for Soviets in the mid-80s.

    While watching this, I had this feeling in my mind like I was doing something wrong. I felt like I would be hauled into court at any moment and asked if I supported the communist party. American propaganda has a funny way of doing that to you. It was almost like people from the West weren't meant to see things like this because it humanizes the people in the film. When you grow up during the Cold War, you're told how communist states and their peoples are your enemy, but, as I watched this, I realized how, at the time, they were no different from us. The tragedies they experienced are universal.

    After initial viewing, I wasn't sure if I thought it was a good movie or not, but after spending some time thinking about it, I think it's actually a really good movie. It gave me a glimpse into a bygone world as it was in that bygone world. I was watching a Soviet movie made in a Soviet country during the Soviet era discussing a topic which affect hundreds of thousands of Soviet people. It's pretty impressive. At the end of the day, isn't that what movies are supposed to do?
     
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  21. KCbus

    KCbus Moderator
    Staff Member

    United States
    Nov 26, 2000
    Reynoldsburg, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'll say it: I'm watching "Don't Look Up."

    It's absurd, but it's a pretty good mirror of what's wrong with the state of the world.
     
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  22. chad

    chad Member+

    Jun 24, 1999
    Manhattan Beach
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I saw Spider-Man: No Way Home. Andrew Garfield, whom I had never seen as Spider-Man, was fantastic. The rest of movie was incoherent.
     
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  23. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    I mean do we think Trump wouldn't have handled a comet in the same was as the pandemic and climate change?

    "It will go away by easter!"

    "It's a dem conspiracy!"
     
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  24. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
    "I've ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to work at warp speed creating bunkers for everyone, beautiful bunkers, designed them myself, 'Trump Bunkers' we'll call them, and all you need to do is sign a loyalty oath and sign over your life savings and future Social Security income and you can move right into one, but those that won't, the radical leftist democrats, will just have to take their chances huddling in caves.

    And then when the beautiful comet hits-- they wanted to call it Comet Trump it is so beautiful-- it will burn all the Covid virus right up and also all the immigrant criminal rapists who spread it, and that will be that-- we'll have a new Golden Age no funding problems, we can just take all the oil we want-- coments are basically made of oil they say- and we can bring in products from everywhere in the world because the balance of trade will be fixed.

    And the best part is-- the coment will pay for it all."
     
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  25. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
    Belgium
    Aug 19, 2002
    Belgium
    Club:
    Club Brugge KV
    Walk a Crooked Mile (1948)
    Dir. Gordon Douglas

    [​IMG]

    FBI agent Daniel O'Hara is posted at a Los Angeles research facility to protect it from espionage. Part of his job is to investigate anyone with access to the facility who might be suspected of communist sympathies. When another FBI agent under O'Hara's authority who has been tailing a suspicious employee is murdered on the job, O'Hara follows his supposed killer to San Francisco, where he himself is murdered shortly after his arrival. O'Hara suspects the man was killed by his former associates to silence him before the FBI could apprehend him. With the help of a Scotland Yard detective on special assignment, they successfully deduce that some sensitive information has been smuggled out of the research facility O'Hara is supposed to protect and then relayed to Europe as hidden messages in paintings made by a man named Igor Braun. Braun is subsequently shadowed to figure out who his inside man at the research facility might be...

    Essentially an anti-communist propaganda film, already very much drenched in Cold War, Red Scare thinking. Still a decent watch, I especially liked the on-location scenes in San Francisco, with plenty of nice exterior shots of how the city looked like in the late 1940s. Like other such films of its era, e.g. T-Men, it also has a certain degree of interest in properly portraying law enforcement procedure. O'Keefe and Hayward are an okay on-screen duo.
     
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