What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

belfastboy · Sep 13, 2021

Zombie_61 said:
Really? My friends (the ones who like the movie, that is) and I laugh right through most of it, mostly because Ben (Dustin Hoffman) seems to be so clueless about the world he lives in. "Different strokes for different folks", I guess.

I loved the line giving Hoffman advice.....something to the effect...."Plastics, son, that is the future, get into plastics".....little did we know that 50 years on we would be attempting to ban it! That scene alone always gets me laughing.

Trenchfriend · Sep 13, 2021

Primal Fear (1996)

What a cast!!

Julian Shellhammer · Sep 14, 2021

Out of the Blue (1947) with George Brent, Virginia Mayo, Turhan Bey, Ann Dvorak, and Carol Landis, dir. Leigh Jason. IMDb folks call this a screwball comedy, however, I found the humor arising out of the plot points to be strained. The Missus agreed. Milquetoast Brent gets tangled up with "quirky" Dvorak, and smooth operator Bey, who is an artist, while Landis bounces back and forth from domineering to overly-protective wife to Brent. Mayo is involved with Bey but can be no-nonsense when it comes to those New York wolves.

Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent, on the other hand, in My Reputation (1946) sell us completely about a recently widowed lady who gets back into the social life too soon to please her clucking family, clucking peers, and even her adolescent sons, who don't cluck but say things like "Golly, Mom, don't you miss Dad?" Living in what looks like the set from Bringing Up Baby, Stanwyck suffers in mink, and almost forgets her cook and husband-and-wife caretakers while struggling with her sudden feelings for dashing Army major Brent. We enjoyed it.

Trenchfriend · Sep 15, 2021

Blade Runner - FC

Harp · Sep 15, 2021

Boyo said:
I (re)watched the "Graduate" last night on TCM... interesting that they ( those at TCM) called the movie a comedy? while certainly quirky.. there aren't really many laugh out loud moments.

Compare Anne Bancroft's The Graduate performance with her subsequent endearing 84 Charing Cross Road
role as an English Literature lover opposite Anthony Hopkins.
A film cut from the same cloth as Dead Poets Society but quite different; almost a romance, tinged with
non requisite suffice to spice, its chronology coupled to time's passage mark, not a relationship between
a man and a woman but a shared love of books. I admit a weakness therein.
I absolutely adored both Bancroft and Hopkins.

Fading Fast · Sep 15, 2021

Harp said:
Compare Anne Bancroft's The Graduate performance with her subsequent endearing 84 Charing Cross Road
role as an English Literature lover opposite Anthony Hopkins.
A film cut from the same cloth as Dead Poets Society but quite different; almost a romance, tinged with
non requisite suffice to spice, its chronology coupled to time's passage mark, not a relationship between
a man and a woman but a shared love of books. I admit a weakness therein.
I absolutely adored both Bancroft and Hopkins.

Love the book and love the movie.

Harp · Sep 15, 2021

Fading Fast said:
Love the book and love the movie.

Never read the book. Anne Bancroft always rocked my chair and her portayal in Charing Cross
cast a different spell over me, which dovetails Dead Poets Society.
Then there is another film with Anne, Turning Point. And, another film without her, Black Swan.

I'm starting my Christmas stocking movie list for the office gals. I like gifting excellent films with intellectual
currency and overall heft. And, of course, keep it fairly light due to the festive season.
Also, like to keep all focused on the chick-flick genre. Is chick filet a genre?

Edward Reed · Sep 15, 2021

Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) romantic comedy/drama starring Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, and Walter Slezak
This one surprised me. I thought I was in for another cheeky rom-com and while it starts out this way it progresses to a darker and more sinister tone and eventually gets quite grim once it reaches the subject of Jewish persecution and the plight of those trying to stay a step ahead of the Nazis.
Ginger Rogers really shows us her acting chops in the last 15 minutes of the film with a very convincing panic attack after an encounter from whom she is running from. Cary Grant is goofy and often hilarious which is a nice balance to help lighten moments that flirt with the more disturbing and desperate events about to unfold.

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Fading Fast · Sep 16, 2021

Edward Reed said:
Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) romantic comedy/drama starring Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, and Walter Slezak
This one surprised me. I thought I was in for another cheeky rom-com and while it starts out this way it progresses to a darker and more sinister tone and eventually gets quite grim once it reaches the subject of Jewish persecution and the plight of those trying to stay a step ahead of the Nazis.
Ginger Rogers really shows us her acting chops in the last 15 minutes of the film with a very convincing panic attack after an encounter from whom she is running from. Cary Grant is goofy and often hilarious which is a nice balance to help lighten moments that flirt with the more disturbing and desperate events about to unfold. View attachment 361958 View attachment 361954 View attachment 361956 View attachment 361957 View attachment 361959
View attachment 361961

I've never seen this one, but based on your comments, it's now very much on my list.

Trenchfriend · Sep 16, 2021

Blade Runner - International Theatrical Cut.

Missed it already after 50% of Final Cut!!

Fading Fast · Sep 16, 2021

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The Miracle of Morgan Creek from 1943 with Betty Hutton, William Demarest, Eddie Bracken and Diana Lynn

Farce: a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.
- Definition from Oxford Languages

Farce is not my thing, so I have to work a bit to appreciate movies like The Miracle of Morgan Creek, which is a farce on steroids.

During WWII, Betty Hutton, a nice but flighty young woman, in a night of drunken craziness, marries a soldier she doesn't know, consummates the marriage that evening, then wakes up the next morning to find that he's gone.

She also doesn't remember his name, but remembers she used a false name, she's now forgotten, on the marriage license, she's now lost. So, effectively, she can't find the soldier or proof of her marriage.

Okay, that's not a really big deal as it can all just be "forgotten" (who cares if there's a meaningless marriage license floating out there with a false name on it). She can just move on with her life - we all have a night or two in our lives, assisted by intoxicating beverages, we'd prefer to forget.

Except, Ms. Hutton has a small problem; yup, shortly afterwards, she discovers she's pregnant and not in a time when single moms were embraced by small-town morals.

While Hutton tries to keep this, umm, "news" from her cranky constable father, William Demarest (who was born looking forty and, then, aged in real time from there), she and her younger sister, Diana Lynn (the only person in the movie with a brain), try to scheme their way out of this mess.

Enter Ms. Hutton's childhood admirer, bumbling and stuttering (it was a different time and that was acceptable humor, especially in a farce) Eddie Bracken. This milquetoast is only too happy to marry the way-out-of-his-league girl of his dreams, Hutton, even after he learns of her condition - every prize comes with a price.

With that set up, the rest of the movie is a series of increasingly frantic pranks, pratfalls and misunderstandings as Hutton and Bracken, with an assist from Lynn, try to annul Hutton's mysterious one-night marriage. The next step in the plan is for Hutton and Bracken to get married, so that everything will be made "right" before Hutton's pregnancy shows.

Writer/director Preston Sturges, though, is not going to let everything be made right before everything is, first, made a lot more wrong. The attempted "fix it" marriage falls apart at the Justice of the Peace. When Bracken tries to right the ship, he ends up in jail charged with, amongst other things, bank robbery. Not helping at all, Demarest, his future father-in-law, is his jailer.

More crazy farce stuff ensues: A fake escape attempt, an intervention by the governor, Hutton's family is run out of town, a cow wanders through their new kitchen and (spoiler alert), at Hutton's madcap delivery, doctors and nurses run around unglued as she gives birth to sextuplets, which becomes international news.

Despite all the stars and crazy stuff going on, the gem in this movie is younger sister Diane Lynn. While everyone and everything is falling apart, time and again, she keeps her head, comes up with the best plans, eye rolls her Dad when he goes off the handle and placates her not-bright big sister Hutton. She's the enjoyable normal amidst the three ring circus.

You either go with all the antics (which is hard for me) or turn off the movie. If you go with it, you begin to see, under all the crazy, smart social and political commentary about the hypocrisy of our surface morals and the dirty dealings of insider politics.

A couple of other good messages from the movie are, one, we need to be more understanding of people's failings, as everyone has them, and, two, life can be fun if we all would just loosen up a bit.

While ridiculous on the surface, the underlying story - a woman pregnant out of wedlock - was very real and serious for its time. Maybe that's part of writer and director Preston Sturges' genius. By wrapping a big taboo of the era inside a farce, he was able to get The Miracle of Morgan Creek past the sensors, while making the taboo itself seem nonsensical and mean spirited.

Edward Reed · Sep 16, 2021

Fading Fast said:
The Miracle of Morgan Creek from 1943 with Betty Hutton, William Demarest, Eddie Bracken and Diana Lynn

I enjoy Betty Hutton so I’ll check it out.
She reminds me of Gilda Radner . same style

Doctor Strange · Sep 16, 2021

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is far from my favorite Preston Sturges movie (that would be Sullivan's Travels!), I find it too shrill and overwrought. It's got that frantic war years energy turned up to 11 - maybe past 11 - and I don't care for either Hutton or Bracken at all. But it is a classic that deserves to be seen just to observe how beautifully Struges misdirected the censor and made a film about a subject that was entirely taboo under the Production Code!

And yeah, Diana Lynn is awesome.

LizzieMaine · Sep 17, 2021

"Morgan's Creek" is one of my favorite films of all time, and one of the very few that makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. The dialog zips past so fast you need multiple viewings to catch it all, and the reactions of his cast are are even funnier than their actions. It is, indeed, very much of its time -- it's like a Preston Sturges version of a Bob Clampett cartoon, in that loud, brash style that dominated nearly all comedy during the war years. There's nothing realistic about it, nor was it ever intended to be -- and once you engage it on that basis, it lays you in the aisle. Maybe that's what happened to Trudy Kockenlocker.

And I'll add that the "Lissen, zipper-puss..." bit is the unquestioned zenith of William Demarest's long screen career.

Edward Reed · Sep 18, 2021

Fading Fast said:
View attachment 362008
The Miracle of Morgan Creek from 1943 with Betty Hutton, William Demarest, Eddie Bracken and Diana Lynn

Farce: a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.
- Definition from Oxford Languages

Farce is not my thing, so I have to work a bit to appreciate movies like The Miracle of Morgan Creek, which is a farce on steroids.

During WWII, Betty Hutton, a nice but flighty young woman, in a night of drunken craziness, marries a soldier she doesn't know, consummates the marriage that evening, then wakes up the next morning to find that he's gone.

She also doesn't remember his name, but remembers she used a false name, she's now forgotten, on the marriage license, she's now lost. So, effectively, she can't find the soldier or proof of her marriage.

Okay, that's not a really big deal as it can all just be "forgotten" (who cares if there's a meaningless marriage license floating out there with a false name on it). She can just move on with her life - we all have a night or two in our lives, assisted by intoxicating beverages, we'd prefer to forget.

Except, Ms. Hutton has a small problem; yup, shortly afterwards, she discovers she's pregnant and not in a time when single moms were embraced by small-town morals.

While Hutton tries to keep this, umm, "news" from her cranky constable father, William Demarest (who was born looking forty and, then, aged in real time from there), she and her younger sister, Diana Lynn (the only person in the movie with a brain), try to scheme their way out of this mess.

Enter Ms. Hutton's childhood admirer, bumbling and stuttering (it was a different time and that was acceptable humor, especially in a farce) Eddie Bracken. This milquetoast is only too happy to marry the way-out-of-his-league girl of his dreams, Hutton, even after he learns of her condition - every prize comes with a price.

With that set up, the rest of the movie is a series of increasingly frantic pranks, pratfalls and misunderstandings as Hutton and Bracken, with an assist from Lynn, try to annul Hutton's mysterious one-night marriage. The next step in the plan is for Hutton and Bracken to get married, so that everything will be made "right" before Hutton's pregnancy shows.

Writer/director Preston Sturges, though, is not going to let everything be made right before everything is, first, made a lot more wrong. The attempted "fix it" marriage falls apart at the Justice of the Peace. When Bracken tries to right the ship, he ends up in jail charged with, amongst other things, bank robbery. Not helping at all, Demarest, his future father-in-law, is his jailer.

More crazy farce stuff ensues: A fake escape attempt, an intervention by the governor, Hutton's family is run out of town, a cow wanders through their new kitchen and (spoiler alert), at Hutton's madcap delivery, doctors and nurses run around unglued as she gives birth to sextuplets, which becomes international news.

Despite all the stars and crazy stuff going on, the gem in this movie is younger sister Diane Lynn. While everyone and everything is falling apart, time and again, she keeps her head, comes up with the best plans, eye rolls her Dad when he goes off the handle and placates her not-bright big sister Hutton. She's the enjoyable normal amidst the three ring circus.

You either go with all the antics (which is hard for me) or turn off the movie. If you go with it, you begin to see, under all the crazy, smart social and political commentary about the hypocrisy of our surface morals and the dirty dealings of insider politics.

A couple of other good messages from the movie are, one, we need to be more understanding of people's failings, as everyone has them, and, two, life can be fun if we all would just loosen up a bit.

While ridiculous on the surface, the underlying story - a woman pregnant out of wedlock - was very real and serious for its time. Maybe that's part of writer and director Preston Sturges' genius. By wrapping a big taboo of the era inside a farce, he was able to get The Miracle of Morgan Creek past the sensors, while making the taboo itself seem nonsensical and mean spirited.

Holy smokes! WTF did i just watch?!

Lol! That was great! That was easily the weirdest, craziest, wildest 1940s picture I’ve ever seen! Loved it!

Edward Reed · Sep 18, 2021

Swing Girl said:
…..

Found a great movie I think you will absolutely love Swing Girl! Check out
THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR (1942)
Ginger Rogers; Ray Milland, Diana Lynn, Robert Benchley
Very fun and charming! Ginger Rogers is really amazing in this!

Fading Fast · Sep 19, 2021

Tall Story from 1960 with Jane Fonda, Anthony Perkins, Ray Walston, Marc Connelly and Anne Jackson

What would a 1950s-era mashup of a battle-of-the-sexes movie with an innocent college movie look like? Enter, Tall Story.

Big man on campus Anthony Perkins is an earnest basketball star and scholar. Jane Fonda is the coed who came to Custer College to meet and marry Perkins - with no compunction about using subterfuge.

Tall Story is wholesome and silly, like a Rock Hudson-Doris Day movie, but set in a college and filmed in black and white. One doubts a movie like this was taken seriously at the time, but seen as goofy escapism, then or now, it's okay entertainment.

The fun "twist" in this one is while Jane Fonda is radar locked on target Anthony Perkins, he's kinda oblivious, at first, to her overtures. Equally fun is Fonda all but roping in two of her professors, Ray Walston and Marc Connelly, kinda against their will, to assist in her campaign to win Perkins' affections.

After Fonda talks the professors into seating her next to Perkins in their classes - yes, it's that kind of movie - she just keeps coming at Perkins until he begins to notice her. Yet, he's really focused on "the big game" against a traveling Russian team.

It's all hijinks - she wrangles a job babysitting for one of the professor's kids to, again, get close to Perkins; they have their first kiss after a discussion of fruit flies mating (she's the aggressor); he gets so distracted by her that he fails his ethics test and loses his eligibility to play in "the big game."

More hijinks ensue: the college president (with his eye on the alumni money that follows sports' victories) tries to "not pressure" the professor to allow Perkins to take a make-up exam; the Russians try to bribe Perkins to not play and Perkins breaks up with Fonda when he discovers she had a plan to "catch" him.

If you've seen a few 1950s battle-of-the-sexes movies and a few 1950s college movies, you've seen all the pieces of this one just arranged differently in other movies. You also know that after a few more catastrophes, that really aren't catastrophes, all will work out in the end as it does here.

The actors, especially Walston and Connelly (and Walston's pleasantly put upon wife, Anne Jackson, who is clearly smarter than her professor husband) seem to be having fun in their roles, which makes the silly plot tolerable. Although, you know you're getting old when you enjoy the comic relief of the middle-aged college professors as much as the youthful pulchritude of stars Fonda and Perkins.

Don't seek Tall Story out, but if you stumble upon it one day and you're in the mood for a cute, mindless 1950s movie with some appealing actors, it's an acceptable way to spend an hour and half (just don't admit to anyone you watched it).

Harp · Sep 19, 2021

Somewhere betwixt Tea and Sympathy and Animal House Hollywood either flunked college or played truant.

Fading Fast · Sep 19, 2021

Harp said:
Somewhere betwixt Tea and Sympathy and Animal House Hollywood either flunked college or played truant.

Good description.

Edward · Sep 19, 2021

Four films this weekend, each diverting or interesting in its own way.

Everyone's Talking About Jamie, the new musical, a transfer from the stage version, about a young, aspiring drag-queen who wanted to attend his school leaving prom in a dress. Good performances all round, diverting enough, if lacking for me. The other drag queens were great (lovely to see Myra Dubois, a comedy genius whose career I've been following since she first appeared on the London cabaret scene). Richard E Grant was, for me, the emotional core of it all, with a surprisingly emotive number as the older drag queen who had to fight all the hard fights for rights in the eighties. Otherwise, it didn't really engage me emotionally, and the songs were, in the main, weak and unmemorable. Still, for all its flaws and it being to me not a whole lot more than Pretty in Pink with a boy in a dress, I'm sure there are young kids out there for whom this will be everything and will indeed speak to them; I should think they're much more the target audience than a forty-seven year old man who, frankly, hasn't been relevant to mainstream, popular culture for over three decades.

Bloodbath at the House of Death is a 1984 spoof-horror starring, inter alia, the late Kenny Everett. A note-perfect parody-pastiche of the old Hammer Horror films of the Sixties, with Vincent Price as the high priest of evil spoofing himself in much the same manner as Leslie Nielson cocked a snook at his own earlier career in The Naked Gun and Airplane.

Class of 1984, a 1982 youth-violence exploitation flick is equal parts Repo Man, The Warriors, Straw Dogs and Rcok'n'Roll High School. Reminiscent of 2017's Revenge (American couple inherit house in French countryside, local gang of kids make their life hell until he snaps and murders all of them). Idealistic new English teacher in Abraham Lincoln High School stands up to punk gang of kids who rule the school. Nasty things follow. Eventually they gang rape his wife, at which point he flips, and murders each of them in turn. Not for the faint of heart, but a rare early-eighties action film wherein every death actually matters and packs a punch.

Kate - This one I chanced across on Netflix. If you've ever seen eighties classic DOA starring Dennis Quaid as a man who has been poisoned and spend his last 24hours seeking his own murderer, this is a very similar story, but with a cool, young lady assassin in Tokyo, with all the cool backdrop and visuals that implies. A good turn by Woody Harrelson as her mentor.

Prospect - sci-fi tale of survival in a dystopia, with an element of the same atmosphere as The Road, if not quite so crushingly bleak.

What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

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