What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

Bushman said:

The Day the Earth Stood Still from 1951. I still have yet to see the remake, which the trailers made appear to be ridiculously overproduced.

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I had the same feeling and just ignored the new one altogether. I'll probably see it when it pops up on cable at a time that I'm flipping channels looking for something, but I've been so disappointed over the years by remakes of classic films that I usually just avoid them.

^ I did watch the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still when it came to cable TV. In my opinion is was another example of people thinking they could improve on the original, but proving they couldn't. Not the worst movie I've ever seen, but not nearly as memorable as the original.

It's not really a movie, but it's derived from one -- now previewing a "Broadway in HD" screen presentation of a London West End production of the stage version of "42nd Street."

The original 1933 Warner musical version is one of my favorite films -- but pretty much all the qualities that make it so are missing here -- the acrid backstage dialogue, the bitter Depression-era cynicism, the overtones of Julian Marsh as a lonely and repressed gay man, and most of all the sound of it, that unmistakable thumping blare that musical director Leo Forbstein and his Vitaphone Orchestra gave to all the Warner musicals. The original score, for the most part, is here -- augmented by other Harry Warren-Al Dubin tunes from other films of the period -- but they lose their zest in the translation to hokey 70s TV-variety-show-sounding arrangements that sound like something out of Peter Matz's wastebasket. Compare Bebe Daniels' exquisite performance of "You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me" in the film to Bonnie Langford's cornball mugging in this show and you'll see the difference immediately. All of the songs suffer from this, and as someone who thinks Warren and Dubin stand with Porter, Kern, Rodgers and Hart, and Gershwin in the front ranks of American popular composers, it really hurts to hear their music caricatured like this.

And that's the thing. The production is a period piece of a period piece -- the stage show came out as a product of the 1970s nostalgia craze, which leached out everything harsh and edgy about 30s popular culture and gave it a fake, sunny veneer that 's completely alien to the true spirit of the thirties. It's like taking a big, sour kosher pickle and dunking it in half a gallon of Karo syrup.

The actors and the director don't help, going all-out for a bellowing, exaggerated delivery of the dialogue, like everyone in the play is trying to do an imitation of Ethel Merman based on a female impersonator's caricature of her that they saw at a party in 1980 -- except for the chorines, all of whom squeak out their vocals like Betty Boop. Langford, as the hard-boiled diva who breaks her leg on opening night, reminds me very much of her screaming performance as the Sixth Doctor's annoying companion Mel in mid-80s "Doctor Who," and Tom Lister as director Julian Marsh bears no resemblance to Warner Baxter's sensitive, tormented performance in the film -- shouting his lines with very little modulation no matter what point he's trying to express. And Claire Halse as ingenue Peggy Sawyer, who's Going Out There A Youngster But Got To Come Back A Star, ramps the camp up to 100 while lacking the clumping vulnerability that Ruby Keeler brought to the film.

I wanted to like this show. Anything that puts the compositions of the era that I consider the high point of American popular music back into the public consciousness ought to be praised for the effort -- but the material is just so poorly served here that it makes me angry.

LizzieMaine said:

It's not really a movie, but it's derived from one -- now previewing a "Broadway in HD" screen presentation of a London West End production of the stage version of "42nd Street."

The original 1933 Warner musical version is one of my favorite films -- but pretty much all the qualities that make it so are missing here -- the acrid backstage dialogue, the bitter Depression-era cynicism, the overtones of Julian Marsh as a lonely and repressed gay man, and most of all the sound of it, that unmistakable thumping blare that musical director Leo Forbstein and his Vitaphone Orchestra gave to all the Warner musicals. The original score, for the most part, is here -- augmented by other Harry Warren-Al Dubin tunes from other films of the period -- but they lose their zest in the translation to hokey 70s TV-variety-show-sounding arrangements that sound like something out of Peter Matz's wastebasket. Compare Bebe Daniels' exquisite performance of "You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me" in the film to Bonnie Langford's cornball mugging in this show and you'll see the difference immediately. All of the songs suffer from this, and as someone who thinks Warren and Dubin stand with Porter, Kern, Rodgers and Hart, and Gershwin in the front ranks of American popular composers, it really hurts to hear their music caricatured like this.

And that's the thing. The production is a period piece of a period piece -- the stage show came out as a product of the 1970s nostalgia craze, which leached out everything harsh and edgy about 30s popular culture and gave it a fake, sunny veneer that 's completely alien to the true spirit of the thirties. It's like taking a big, sour kosher pickle and dunking it in half a gallon of Karo syrup.

The actors and the director don't help, going all-out for a bellowing, exaggerated delivery of the dialogue, like everyone in the play is trying to do an imitation of Ethel Merman based on a female impersonator's caricature of her that they saw at a party in 1980 -- except for the chorines, all of whom squeak out their vocals like Betty Boop. Langford, as the hard-boiled diva who breaks her leg on opening night, reminds me very much of her screaming performance as the Sixth Doctor's annoying companion Mel in mid-80s "Doctor Who," and Tom Lister as director Julian Marsh bears no resemblance to Warner Baxter's sensitive, tormented performance in the film -- shouting his lines with very little modulation no matter what point he's trying to express. And Claire Halse as ingenue Peggy Sawyer, who's Going Out There A Youngster But Got To Come Back A Star, ramps the camp up to 100 while lacking the clumping vulnerability that Ruby Keeler brought to the film.

I wanted to like this show. Anything that puts the compositions of the era that I consider the high point of American popular music back into the public consciousness ought to be praised for the effort -- but the material is just so poorly served here that it makes me angry.

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I have no interest in shows of that kind for precisely the reasons you have so delightfully articulated; your review was hilarious and insightful and a powerhouse of critical acumen. Tributes often come out as parodies - why is that? - and I can never understand why creatives often stomp on the very attributes that made the works they are copying great.

The Aftermath from 2019 with Kiera Knightly, Jason Clarke and Alexander Skarsgård

Some movies just never reach escape velocity as you keep waiting for the promising early scenes, plot developments and characters to come together in a compelling way...but sometimes they just don't.

And the elements are all here in this one including a good setting - just-defeated-in-WWII Germany with an almost ghost-like population of underfed and shellshocked civilians shuffling amidst the rubble of the Allied bombing - some attempting to clean up and rebuild, others just wandering aimlessly.

There's also a promising story - the Commander (Clarke) of the British Zone moves with his just-come-over-from-England wife (Knightly) into a former wealthy German architect's (Skarsgård) home (the house is incredible).

Early tension rises as the English couple is still grieving the loss of their young son to German bombing while the German owner (living with his daughter in the attic owing to the kindness of the English couple; otherwise, it's off to a detention camp for them) lost his wife in the war.

Upping that early stress, the English Commander is dealing with the "88" mini-rebellion of diehard nazis - killing English soldiers - while living under the same roof with a potential former nazi (we don't know yet).

But after that set up - not much unexpected or compelling happens. By now, we're familiar with post-war complexity undermining war-time moral clarity - are underfed Germans getting what they deserve? / was Allied bombing unfairly indiscriminate? / were there actually any Germans who were nazis during the war? - challenging issues, but no fresh insights are offered up here.

Throw in some obligatory infidelity and gratuitous sex scenes, a lot of brooding, some boorish behavior, a not believable ending and cut to the credits. The period details (as almost always today) are amazing - Kiera Knightly was born to wear '40s clothes - but are not enough to make this anything other than a watch-and-forget movie.

Keira Knightly often seems to fit rightg in to the look of those times. Pity she was never much of an actress.

Watched Mike Leigh's Peterloo, a fine exposition (and thus condemnation) of the inequalities of England when the class system had its grip over Westminster in the late Georgian period.

I'm really looking forward to watching Peterloo. Mike Leigh's films are always worthwhile - even in the rare instances when they're not flat-out masterworks.

And Edward, I just can't stand Keira Knightley. The most overrated actress of our time, full stop.

I've been wanting to see the latest Transformers movie since it was released about a half year ago, but things sort of get in the way (as in I dislike going into movie theaters anymore), so I hadn't seen it.

Why a Transformers movie, you may ask? Because the latest one, called Bumblebee (2018), features an air-cooled VW Beetle, and I loooove VW Beetles.

The basic story line is the pretty standard Transformers story line, which I won't go into, because I don't care about it.

What I enjoyed most about this movie were the antics of the car in combination with his Autobot self. Lots of comedic moments that actually were funny, and action scenes that were exciting. The actual robot fights I couldn't care less about, though.

Hailee Steinfeld, the movie's main (human) protagonist, was perfect for her role, convincingly displaying heroism, as well as a whole range of tender feelings appropriate to the moments.

As a Transformers (kid) movie, everyone of any consequence in the film ends up better off than when the movie began. The main human antagonist sees the truth at the end and does a turnabout, helping Bee and Charlie (Steinfeld) escape before more misunderstanding reinforcements arrive. There is some death, but it is portrayed in a kid-friendly (?) way, I guess.

The animation was first-rate, capturing subtle nuances of movement and feeling (mainly from Bee) all through the film.

While on vacation with the in-laws we were entertained by A Slight Case of Murder (1938), The Thing From Another World (1951), Silverado (1985), and Poltergeist (1982). Silverado was the choice of the in-laws, while we introduced them to A Slight Case... and The Thing..., both of which they enjoyed very much. I had only seen about half of Poltergeist on TBS or somewhere, and it was brand new to everyone else. Silverado was virtually unknown to me, but still fun.

The other night it was Alice Adams (1935) with Katherine Hepburn in the title role. Based on the Booth Tarkington novel of the same name. The Missus had listened to the audio book and pointed out the departures from the original plot. Fred MacMurray was the leading man.

(edit) Watched a movie called Kesari (2019) about a historical incident in which 21 Sikhs defended a fortress against a force of 10,000 Pathans, in 1897. My experience with Indian cinema is limited to Satyajit Ray and his Pather Panchali trilogy, so an objective opinion of this film would be debatable. Nonetheless, the film is epic in story and presentation, set in breath-taking mountains, with a large cast (probably some CGI extras).

The acting might be thought of by some as melodramatic. The director favors the David Lean school and the Peter Jackson school of film-making, with dominating landscapes and swooping aerial shots. The action scenes are very well-done. From Amazon Prime.

I just finished the remake of "Pet Semetary." I liked the original from 1989 better, but I liked the addition of the Wendigos to the story. They're never exactly seen, but they're implied to exist, and it gives the forest a creepy "living" feeling. The problem is that though it's set in Autumn like the original, it doesnt FEEL like autumn and the atmosphere isnt as thick in this version. The also changed the ending, and I didn't like it. They also cut the whole Tim Baterman story, though Louis comes across a newspaper clipping that mentions a Vietnam soldier whose body mysteriously becomes reanimated and commits a series of grisly killings. There's also an "IT" reference. A road sign that says "Derry 20 miles".

And I finally got around to seeing "Captain Marvel" yesterday. I also watched "Shazam!" in the same sitting and I enjoyed that one more. Captain Marvel's political bend got old real quick especially when every other scene had a "oh I'm gonna show that chauvinistic man how much better than him I am!" And I still think the character has an attitude problem and acts like she's the tough shit without having earned it. I probably wouldnt have a problem with it if she earned the attitude, but she has it right from the beginning. Unlike Tony Stark who gets humbled after his attitude problem and then has to earn being cocky again, Carol just has an attitude from the get-to and never has a humbling moment that forces her to have to re-earn thatattitude. I find it offputting and makes me dislike the character.

"Shazam!" one the other hand, was simply good hearted fun. No politics necessary. Just a good old fashioned fun, silly comic book movie and I really enjoyed it.

Julian Shellhammer said:

The other night it was Alice Adams (1935) with Katherine Hepburn in the title role. Based on the Booth Tarkington novel of the same name. The Missus had listened to the audio book and pointed out the departures from the original plot. Fred MacMurray was the leading man.

(edit) Watched a movie called Kesari (2019) about a historical incident in which 21 Sikhs defended a fortress against a force of 10,000 Pathans, in 1897. My experience with Indian cinema is limited to Satyajit Ray and his Pather Panchali trilogy, so an objective opinion of this film would be debatable. Nonetheless, the film is epic in story and presentation, set in breath-taking mountains, with a large cast (probably some CGI extras).

The acting might be thought of by some as melodramatic. The director favors the David Lean school and the Peter Jackson school of film-making, with dominating landscapes and swooping aerial shots. The action scenes are very well-done. From Amazon Prime.

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It's amazing how not known today Booth Tarkington is. My comments on Alice Adams here if you care:

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/thr...ovie-you-watched.20830/page-1324#post-2506669

That Kind of Woman from 1959 with Tab Hunter, Sofia Loren, Jack Warden, George Sanders and Keenan Wynn - a heck of a cast.

Tab Hunter stars in a solid movie and his acting is professional. There, I said it. Hunter's no Spencer Tracy and That Kind of Woman is no Casablanca, but go in with reasonable expectations and it's a solid hour and half spent in front of a screen.

But it's also no Pillow Talk. Instead, it's much closer to Sweet Smell of Success as Hunter and Ward play Marines on leave during WWII taking a train from Miami to NYC where they meet two kept women, Loren, Loren's friend - and an older man (Keenan) traveling with them in a sorta guardian manner.

The implication is that Loren and her friend have been at this game for years and with several men. Think about that for a moment in the context of the movie being released in the 1950s. Ward immediately gets it, but Hunter is the innocent Vermont farm boy who initially just sees Loren as a beautiful bird in some kind of trouble.

Hunter and Loren spend the night on the train together - as noted, it's no Pillow Talk - with Hunter wanting Loren to stay with him during his leave. She tells him the unvarnished score - she's lives with an older man for his money and she won't give it up for, said derisively by Loren, "love".

After Loren leaves Hunter at Penn Station in NYC, Hunter goes on an urban vision quest, sometimes aided by Ward, to find Loren and change her mind. Little is held back as we see Loren's gilded cage - Sutton Place uber luxury provided dispassionately but not abusively by Sanders who, recognizing that he might lose Loren, offers to marry her. Hunter counters with his own offer of marriage - no money, little prospect, but genuine love and decency in the hills of Vermont (assuming he survives the war).

The climax - stripped down to its essential - is a will-she-won't-she moment starkly framed by Loren's choice between a transactional, loveless, but not mean-spirited marriage providing wealth and security and a leap-of-faith-marriage to earnest Hunter, providing nothing but the love of a man, to help her face all of life's uncertainties. You have to watch the movie to get the answer as it isn't clear which way this noir-ish feeling movie dripping with cynicism from most everyone but Hunter will go.

And kudos to director Sidney Lumet who shows a shot-on-location NYC that, like the movie narrative, is alternately brutal and hopeful. Scenes of bucolic Central Park framed by soaring skyscrapers are interspersed with grubby street scenes of urban decay and poverty. Even Loren, younger in real life, looks older and a bit torn and frayed compared to freshly scrubbed and full-of-hope Hunter.

The Oscars didn't accidentally over look this movie or its acting, but most even good movies, like That Kind of Woman, aren't Oscar-worthy. What it does show, not unlike one or two early Elvis movie efforts, is that if pop-iconography hadn't interfered, Hunter might have had a chance to develop into a decent actor with a real career in movies - but alas, the thrall of America's teenagers had to be sated and another career was stillborn.

Toy Story 4 - loved it, my favourite by far!

Spider Man: Far Away or Away from home or Spider Man in Europe, National Lampoon's Spider Man's European Vacation, or whatever. best part - saw it at the drive in! Worst part - everything else.

And we really enjoyed the first one!

Fortress of War, Russian, from 2010. Subtitles. The story of the Brest Fortress, which bore the brunt of the start of the Nazi invasion in June 1941. Defenders held out for nine days.
Very well filmed, with numerous CGI effects that don't detract from the visuals or the story. I am guessing it was made in high definition as the picture is sharp and details stand out.
Told in voice-over by the now adult young man who a school-aged band member of a military unit.
The depiction of the wounds and casualties is presented graphically, and the combat is brutal. If you watch, be prepared.

We're in the middle of a three-week run of "Maiden," a documentary look at the career of international yacht-racing champion Tracy Edwards, who won a round-the-world competition in 1989 with an all-female crew.

I cannot think of a topic that interests me less, or that has less to do with any aspect of the world of my own life experience, than international yacht racing. The film pushes hard on the idea of Edwards' adventure as an inspirational victory for all women, but it didn't do a nickel's worth for me -- I never heard of her until we got this movie, and in 1989, when she was Breaking Glass Ceilings, I was two years removed from my factory job, churning out radio copy for $5 an hour. If I had heard of her in 1989, my response would have been "So what? Will the award that Tracy Edwards wins make the dirtbag coke-sniffing station owner give me a raise?" I have always found inspirational triumphs the most hollow triumphs of all. That's still my response today.

The film is well made, for what it is, although it goes in way too heavily for ominous underscoring as the talking heads chatter on. But it's nothing you couldn't see on the Travel Channel, and I don't see why we're getting two hundred people a night for it. But we are, so I won't look a gift yacht in the bilge, I guess.

The most interesting aspect of the film for me is the demographics of the audience. I noticed on Saturday, when it opened, that nearly every person buying a ticket was a blue-eyed blond. We're talking Full Nordic here. And every night since then, the pattern has held -- the audiences are overwhelmingly blond-blue-eyed, in a part of the country where such persons are very much a minority. It's rather eerie and a bit unsettling, and it makes me want to get an undercover job as a cleaning woman at the local Yacht Club to see just what's going on.

LizzieMaine said:

We're in the middle of a three-week run of "Maiden," a documentary look at the career of international yacht-racing champion Tracy Edwards, who won a round-the-world competition in 1989 with an all-female crew.

I cannot think of a topic that interests me less, or that has less to do with any aspect of the world of my own life experience, than international yacht racing. The film pushes hard on the idea of Edwards' adventure as an inspirational victory for all women, but it didn't do a nickel's worth for me -- I never heard of her until we got this movie, and in 1989, when she was Breaking Glass Ceilings, I was two years removed from my factory job, churning out radio copy for $5 an hour. If I had heard of her in 1989, my response would have been "So what? Will the award that Tracy Edwards wins make the dirtbag coke-sniffing station owner give me a raise?" I have always found inspirational triumphs the most hollow triumphs of all. That's still my response today.

The film is well made, for what it is, although it goes in way too heavily for ominous underscoring as the talking heads chatter on. But it's nothing you couldn't see on the Travel Channel, and I don't see why we're getting two hundred people a night for it. But we are, so I won't look a gift yacht in the bilge, I guess.

The most interesting aspect of the film for me is the demographics of the audience. I noticed on Saturday, when it opened, that nearly every person buying a ticket was a blue-eyed blond. We're talking Full Nordic here. And every night since then, the pattern has held -- the audiences are overwhelmingly blond-blue-eyed, in a part of the country where such persons are very much a minority. It's rather eerie and a bit unsettling, and it makes me want to get an undercover job as a cleaning woman at the local Yacht Club to see just what's going on.

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Scandinavic blond or russian blond ("Barbie-style")?

If I had to say, I'd say Scandanavian, mostly. It's all very odd -- most of the real seafaring people I knew growing up were dark-haired, dark-eyed, and a bit swarthy, the "Black Irish" paradigm that was common in this area. And none of them wore pink polo shirts with lime-green pants.

Another thing that bugs me deeply about this film is that it pushes way hard on the whole "she pulled herself up by her bootstraps to make this happen" trope. Well, sure. She mortgaged her house to buy the yacht. That's some bootstrap -- weren't too many twenty-somethings around here in 1989 who owned a house free and clear. Guess we didn't have well-to-do engineer/ballet dancer parents to help us out with that. And then there's the role the King of Jordan -- who she "met in Greece" -- played in pulling strings to get her into the competition. That's pretty good. Only king I knew in 1989 was Burger King.

Lizzie, if you feel like storming the Yacht world's citadel, it's right here in NYC. I'll stand by with bail money for you should things go awry.

Kidding aside, I have no connection to the Yacht world (and have never spelled the word correct on the first try in my entire life), but I did go to a large meeting at the NYC club a few years ago (when they deign to let non-members in - they rent it out to businesses sometime) and the place is, as shown below, insane. It's Beaux-Arts on steroids.

There's something to be said for tasteful minimalism.