Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

It did.

It was called "Die Hard..."

 

I thought of that immediately, but it is not quite the same premise. Close though!

 

Almost is, but with a different framework.

It does have a Final Girl, but the black guy doesn't get killed IIRC, so it isn't a slasher movie.

Loved the color values in the cinematography.

 

Wake Up Dead Man: a Knives Out Mystery (2025)
Dir. Rian Johnson



We meet a young priest, Father Jud Duplentency as he provides a written account of the events of the last few months to Benoit Blanc. In the flashback, we see him being assigned to a parish led by the unconventional, combative and unscrupulous Monseigneur Jefferson Wicks. Jud does not approve of how Wicks leads his congregation, nor how he treats his parishioners. Eventually Wicks behavior leads to a murder, the nature of which is strange and mysterious enough to attract Benoit Blanc's attention. Blanc is presented with a cast of characters around Monseigneur Wicks, that includes Church busybody Martha, her husband Samson, lawyer Vera Draven, guardian to her adult charge Cy, a young man with political ambitions. There is also Dr. Nat Sharp, a physician who has not yet gotten over the separation from his wife. As well as Simone Vivane, a talented young cellist with physical ailments she hopes Monseigneur Wicks can cure.

Rian Johnson's third Benoit Blanc adventure provides a more coherent mystery for the sleuth to solve than the writer/director's more meandering and unfocused riffing on The Last of Sheila in Glass Onion. So in that respect I enjoyed it more. What it did slightly less good than Knives Out and its imperfect sequel, Glass Onion, was to give every member of the ensemble enough interesting things to do. I would say that apart from the two leads, Daniel Craig and Josh O'Connor, the only cast members who get enough screen time to be memorable are Josh Brolin and Glenn Close. Some of the rest of the cast are underutilized, noticeably so. If I rewatched this with a stop-watch to figure out how much time Thomas Haden Church (an actor I really like) is on screen, I am fairly sure it would be under 5 minutes, in a feature that is 140+ minutes long. It's a film that is surprisingly elegiac about religion and faith, especially in its portrayal of Father Jud. Daniel Craig's third outing as Benoit Blanc, but unlike some of his later Bond roles, nothing about this performance suggest he has already tired of the character.

 

Wake Up Dead Man was enjoyable. I thought Josh O'Connor's performance was great. It's an easy to root for character, much like the protagonist of the first film. If any complaint, it's that the beats between this and Knives Out are a little too similar. When you can bring together these ensembles, you probably don't have to make big changes to the formula though. I agree that some of the roles seem wasted on great actors. Jeffrey Wright is quite funny in his couple scenes but would have enjoyed that as a bigger part.

 

A few days without internet let me catch up on some movies I had on my computer I haven't watched yet.



Forbidden Area (1956)

In an alternate late 20th century, the Cold War is still very tense. So far the findings of the top secret Intentions of the Enemy group have been very theoretical, and not played a large part in orienting forces. But then the B-99 bomber - the aircraft that sent all the B-52's and B-47's to the boneyard - starts disintegrating at altitude. The parts offer no clue as to the cause. Soon there is a nation-wide call to stop using the deathtraps, but it will take weeks to bring the older bombers out of storage to empower the United State's only nuclear deterrence. Most of the members of the Intentions of the Enemy group are certain the Soviets have planned an attack for that time, but the civilian head of the organization is set against bringing those fears to the President.

Starring Charlton Heston (with eye-patch!), Vincent Price, Tab Hunter with teleplay by Rod Serling, and made for TV for the Playhouse 90 series. The plot is simple; as a spy thriller it's too uncomplicated, and as a military thriller it requires an unconvincing set-up. Forbidden Area is much more important and interesting as a capsule of the mentality of the times, with serious thought (as ridiculous as it sounds now) of maneuvers to win a nuclear war. It's also interesting as a premonition of the future Twilight Zone style, especially in the opening scene where the Russian spies are trying to pass their tests. As you all know, I'm a big fan of stock footage and this had some great stuff.

 

The Trial of John Peter Zenger (1953)

German immigrant John Peter Zenger was only concerned with the quality of his printing until Rip Van Dam (who doesn't do a single spin-kick in the movie) wants him to print and publish a newspaper against the current colonial governor of New York, William Crosby. Zenger is doubtful, but the powerful and rich Van Dam guarantees him against trouble. Unfortunately the British governor is seriously put out, and Zenger isn't only facing a fine. He spends eight months in jail, and then is tried for libel. Zenger's only defense is that what he printed is true - but the concept of the truth being a defense against libel has never been a point before a court before.

Made for TV as part of the Studio One series. Based on a true and very important story, but it plays a little loose with facts to make Zenger apolitical until politics was forced on him, as was the doctrine American style of the 1950's. Mostly felt like something the teacher would put on in grade school to have an hour to themselves - while the acting (starring Eddie Albert) was top quality the lines were a bit melodramatic. My copy kept all the Westinghouse commercials of the original program, and I found those very entertaining.

 

The War Game (1965)

A documentary style representation of the effects of a large scale Russian nuclear attack on Brittan. Made by Peter Watkins, who made the very similar Culloden, a favorite of mine. It was based off of the best evidence of the times, including the direct physical and later social effects on Hiroshima and the World War II firebombings of German and Japanese cities. It is really quite harrowing and affecting, and it's obvious why this made such a stir back in the times when people were living with the possibility of this happening. It's widely regarded as one of the most important films to come from the Cold War era.

 

MacGyver - Lost Treasure of Atlantis (1994)

MacGyver is with his former college professor exploring a ruin in Greece. The find a coin-sized device known as the Key of Solon, which is supposed to lead to and open the resting place of the treasures of Atlantis. They go hopping through Europe to find the remaining clues while being slowed by doubting administrators, a bloodthirsty Bosnian warlord, and professional treasure thieves.

There's basically three MagGyvers, Cold War spy MacGyver, outdoorsman and environmentalist MacGyver, and Indiana Jones MacGyver. This is the latter. As is usual for the Indiana Jones episodes, the history is dubious and the traps are impossible and both are very contrived. But there are some fun Macgyverisms and hearing Brian Blessed belt out the most ridiculous lines with absolute sincerity is a joy and well worth the price of admission.



MacGyver - Trail To Doomsday (1994)

MacGyver is at a birthday party in England being held for a friend whom he once saved on a mountain climbing expedition. The estate of the friend's brother seems well protected, but tragedy strikes when a terrorist group invades and starts shooting. Now MacGyver feels duty bound to investigate, despite the strong opposition of the London police. Fortunately he has some help from ex-KGB left out in the cold after the fall of the Soviet Union.

This post-Cold War MacGyver is as good as made-for-TV thrillers get, with lots of twists and turns and constant tension as MacGyver seems totally out of his depth with all the forces arrayed against him. We've never seen Richard Dean Anderson as athletic as this, performing some really dangerous stunts. When we realize how big the stakes are at the end this might have turned James Bond but it didn't, keeping that weighty feel.

 

Millennium Actress ~ Kon, S.

As a famed Japanese studio closes, an employee seeks out one of their legendary stars for an interview. The interview weaves her life story with the roles she played in a blend of reality and fantasy. Beautifully animated and a well-crafted story. Supposedly, it is loosely based on the life of Setsuko Hara. This is a "love-letter-to-film" movie I can get behind. It celebrates Japan's film history without sanitization or adulation, while being visually and thematically adventurous.

 

I thought you were going to discuss the final adventure of Patrick Troughton's time as the Doctor in Doctor Who, although I guess that was from 1969.

 

Where were you able to watch this? I'm only seeing streaming rentals from the UK at the moment.

 

Hunting Season (2025)
Dir. RJ Collins



A reclusive hunter, Bowdrie and his daughter Tag, live far off the beaten path, in a cabin in the woods in Oklahoma. It is mostly just Bowdrie and his daughter, the pair living a simple life that consists mostly of fishing, hunting, small repair to their home and vehicle, shared meals, ... Until their routine is broken when Tag finds a wounded young woman near the river's edge. Bowdrie helps carry the injured stranger back to their cabin where he applies first aid. He is troubled by the fact that the stranger begs him not to take her to the hospital, but through his Sheriff friend he finds out why a few days later: the gunshot wound that January, the woman in question, had suffered was a memento from a run-in with a gang of local drug dealers who had also killed her roommate in front of her. Bowdrie knows that keeping January at his home endangers him and his daughter, as the drug dealers will want to get rid of a witness to murder, only Tag has grown increasingly close to January.

A slow-moving action thriller starring Mel Gilbson. A problematic trait of myself is that I still can't quite help myself from enjoying Mel Gibson performances, even though the guy has been thoroughly revealed as a rather bad individual in his personal life, to say the least. He has always been a super-charismatic screen presence, starting with his George Miller break-out performance in Mad Max and then through the 1980s with the Lethal Weapon franchise. Yet there is an extra layer to the older man Gibson performances, a quality I first noticed in Blood Father, but also in later films like Dragged Across Concrete. He is easily the best thing about this film, which isn't good enough that I'd recommend it. Among the rest of the cast are Sofia Hublitz - the daughter on Ozark - as daughter Tag and Shelley Hennig as January. There is also a small part for one of Sly Stallone's daughters, Scarlet Rose Stallone.

 

I don't know. It's been on my computer for years. I did find a version from the "first American TV broadcast" (which looks like it was done on public access) recorded on VHS. It has some commentary parts at the beginning and end but you can skip to the start at 5:17.

https://archive.org/details/AV_179-THE_WAR_GAME-_THE_REALITY_OF_NUCLEAR_WAR

The infamous Threads is on YouTube, but I don't know if my constitution can take watching that.

 

Ok, back on the grind.



Open Season (1974)

The first we learn about Peter Fonda and his two buddies is that they were clean cut students who are so respected that the DA forces a woman to drop a rape charge against them. They serve together in Vietnam, quite enjoying all the war crimes, and despite all now having families in the suburbs their savagery has only grown. Every year they take a hunting vacation in the north together. On the way they kidnap a bank computer guy and his mistress. At first he thinks he's been targeted for a payout and the woman thinks they want her body. Like every couple every year. No, the trio are there for the hunt, and eventually they tell the couple what they are hunting.

I don't like the style of people constantly talking over each other, which was a thing in movies around that time. The movie also takes its sweet time with the very uncomfortable low-key sadism, spending most of the film on that to hide the shocking Most Dangerous Game reveal 70 minutes in. Something I did like was the proto-meme-culture behavior of the trio, who would constantly repeat or enact some snippet of popular media as a replacement for personality and shield for self-reflection. These guys are the most accurate 4chan characters in all film - a generation before 4chan existed. The two targets are uniquely realistic in how poorly they evade and how quickly they abandon each other. But it also had a turnaround that came out of nowhere at the end. It took a lot of patience to get through everything to get to that cracker of an ending, but as the last character standing would have said, patience is a virtue.

 

You can blame Robert Altman for that!

 

Yeah, 1973's The Long Goodbye used this to such an extent it distressed me and I gave the movie a bad rating, which didn't put me in good standing with a certain former BigSoccer poster who used that movie's poster as his avatar.

 

Does Matt still post on BS? Haven't seen him in this topic in a while.

 

Backfire (1950)
Dir. Vincent Sherman



Van Nuys, 1948. We meet Bob Corey, a veteran recovering at a veterans hospital. Bob has gone through over a dozen surgeries over the years since he got seriously injured during the war, but is finally almost done with his treatment and ready to return to civilian life. His prospects look pretty good too. War buddy Steve Connelly is waiting for Bob's release so the pair can go into business together, buying a farm. And during his stay at the hospital, Bob has fallen in love with and wooed pretty nurse Julie. Unfortunately just a fortnight or so from his release from hospital, around the Christmas period, Bob is visited by a woman who claims that Steve has gotten seriously injured and desperately needs his help. Julie as well as his primary physician convince Bob it was likely just an anxiety fueled dream, caused by the painkillers he was still on following his final surgery. Bob himself is convinced he did not merely see the woman in his subconscious mind. Proof of that is the lack of communication he has received from Steve. No visits, no phone calls, no telegrams. When he is released from hospital, his fears are confirmed, when he is approached by a police Captain who informs him that Steve is the primary suspect in the murder of a professional gambler by the name of Solly Blayne. Bob cannot believe his friend could turn to murder, though he does believe he is in trouble, evidenced by his night-time visitor at the hospital. Together with Julie he retraces Steve's steps, and through a series of flashbacks we find out what happened in Steve's life in the last few months: strapped for cash enough to try his luck as a boxer in low-paying undercard fights, finding employment as a dogsbody for the shady Lou Walsh, and his subsequent infatuation with night club chanteuse Lysa Radoff, Lou Walsh's girlfriend...

Nice little mystery noir that I enjoyed a lot. Good lead performance by Gordon McRae, though it is probably his co-lead Edmond O'Brien who leaves the strongest impression. Virginia Mayo plays the kind of war nurse that every (former) enlisted man in the late 1940s will have dreamed of, though the character gives her far fewer opportunities to truly shine than the much more shady, gold-digging femme fatale she played in The Best Years of Our Lives. One of the earlier Hollywood appearances of Swedish actress Viveca Lindfors, in the role of Lysa. To more modern audiences, she played Catherine Langford (the older version of the character in the present day scenes) in the movie Stargate, in one of her final screen appearances.

 

The Running Man (2025)
Dir. Edgar Wright



In a dystopian future, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has only increased. For those caught on the wrong side of that divide, there are only limited options to make money and change their prospects. One such man, Ben Richards, has no chance but to use one such avenue, when he finds himself out of a job and needing money for medical care for his infant daughter. Against his wife's wishes, he tries out for the various game shows put on by the Network. Richards ends up getting selected for the most dangerous of them all: The Running Man. Any contestant on that show who survives being chased by professional hunters as well as vigilantes trying to make a bounty for thirty days wins a fortune. Only so far no one has ever made it the full thirty days. Richards believes he will be the one to change that trend, even though the common belief is that the show is rigged against the contestants and it is impossible to beat.

An adaptation of the Stephen King novel, substantially different from the 1980s Arnie vehicle directed by Paul Michael Glaser. It follows the plot of the novel much more closely than the Arnie actioner did. This wasn't very good, though in some ways still better than I had expected, based upon the very poor reviews. So my expectations were so low they were marginally exceeded. Which isn't to say that this is a good movie. Among its various issues, the biggest one is the bloated runtime of over 135 minutes. I'm sorry, but there isn't enough good material here for even a ninety minute movie. It's surprisingly devoid of pure action sequences. A lot of this film is just Glen Powell's character hiding out in various rooms and houses. It's also clear we are meant to care much more about the allies he meets along the way than we actually do, only the writing lets us down in that regard. Some of them are played by performers I have enjoyed in other projects, like Michael Cera or Emilia Jones (who was probably the best thing about the recent HBO show Task). Honestly kind of a mess, but not bad in any sort of offensive way. Just incredibly mediocre and a waste of a good cast that includes the likes of Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo and Lee Pace on top of the ensemble members I had already mentioned.

 

Das Millionenspiel ['The Millions Game'] (1970)

After the passing of the Progressive Recreational Activity act in alternate 1973, numerous shows appeared on West German television where contestants risked their health and lives in pursuit of money. The queen of all of them is Trans European TV's Das Millionenspiel, with over 50 million viewers. A runner is free to move and hide anywhere in the nation, but has to reach checkpoints at the end of every day, the final one on the seventh day giving him a reward of one million Deutschmarks. A deathsquad with automatic weapons is sent after him, getting their own reward to kill him. Regular citizens are not only able but encouraged to affect the proceedings (either helping or hurting). The current runner, Bernhard Lotz, is exhausted after six days on the run, and is losing the cleverness and drive that made him a hit early on. The producers are going to make sure this episode ends on a high note.

It is really remarkable how much this predicts events in the Running Man book and the 1987 Running Man movie, and yet I'm almost certain that neither Stephen King nor the writers / director / set designers of Arnold Running Man watched this. While Das Millionenspiel is a vital cultural artifact as an early example of television questioning itself, and there are a few clever moments (like bringing his mother into the studio), there are many stretches where it becomes a slog. Whenever Lotz escapes the camera crews, we have the show-within-a-show doing lots of filler, some worthwhile (Running Man dancers meets Sprockets!), but mostly repetitive and pedantic interviews with the studio audience, people in the street, or intellectuals. What action there is is typical for European TV of the time, which means lots of cuts, little activity.

 

A certain section of people have always believed King got his ideas from the Robert Sheckley novel Le Prix du Danger, which was the basis for The Millions Game. Though they primarily refer to its own French language adaptation of the same name. That film was released in 1983 so could not have been the inspiration for King's effort under de nom de plume Richard Bachman.

 

Le Prix du Danger ['The Prize of Peril'] (1983)

In a highly unlikely alternate near future, France is beset by protests and strikes. Fortunately, CTV has a new show that pulls 200 million Europeans out of their riots and quietly back into their homes, at least for a while. By exploiting a loophole in the assisted suicide law, the Le Prix du Danger game show sends five assassins to try to kill a runner within the allotted broadcast time. The contestant is free to sprint through any public place in Paris (or Yugoslavia) and if he reaches the studio alive he wins a million dollars. No contestant has won the million game yet, but newest runner François is plenty cocky. That's because he hasn't yet guessed how the show is written.

I really want to thank Belgian guy because I had no idea this film existed. First, it's clear now that the 1987 Running Man was almost totally based on this. Second, this is a thrill ride of a movie in its own right. Unique among Running Men, this caps the chase within a short time limit, which makes this incredibly fast paced and packed with activity. Fortunately the budget could handle everything demanded by the script, with multiple helicopters, scores of extras, location shooting, even that blimp. I really enjoyed Gérard Lanvin's physicality, and the game show host Mallaire, played by Michel Piccoli, who had the perfect amount of sleaze, sympathy, quick wit, and easy charm. I get why the Arnold film had to go with the Richard Dawson stunt casting - I don't know what regular actor could be Piccoli's match.