What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[countryclubjoe]

Prince of tides

nolte and streisand

 

[jamespowers]

I saw it twice. While it did have some faults, the actors portraying each stooge did a good job, considering...
In fact, Sean Hayes sounded and acted just like Larry Fine. I've seen him in a few films where he played someone famous, and he always delivered.
Sasso? Yeah kind of a stretch other than he's got a similar build to Curly.
Diamantopoulus did an okay Moe, I've seen worse.
All in all, it was a good film but I wish it had been retro and not current day.

I liked it as well. It was a little out there as to the story but I have seen worse---cough cough The Cell.

 

[Hoofer]

Swing Time with Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, then The Sting with Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

 

[Gregg Axley]

I liked it as well. It was a little out there as to the story but I have seen worse---cough cough The Cell.

I love the line "look at those getaway sticks."
Yeah, they focused a bit more on one of the female actresses and the reason(s) she got the part.
Didn't really fit....
I do remember hearing that part of the proceeds would go to the Howard and Fine family, out of respect to them, since the Stooges didn't really make much off of their work.

 

[jamespowers]

I love the line "look at those getaway sticks."
Yeah, they focused a bit more on one of the female actresses and the reason(s) she got the part.
Didn't really fit....
I do remember hearing that part of the proceeds would go to the Howard and Fine family, out of respect to them, since the Stooges didn't really make much off of their work.

Both Families should get some part as they created the characters.
That actress does nothing for me. The movie was a complete and total watching paint dry exercise.

 

[Fulton]

I watched Perfect Sense on DVD - really liked it. Started slowly and I almost bailed, but by the end I was sucked in.

Also saw The Hobbit in HFR 3D. I have read all the complaints about the HFR format, but I found it to be awesome. I considered going again, something I never do, because, given the feedback on this one, I am not sure how many opportunities there will be to see HFR in the future.

 

[m0nk]

The Big Sleep, in honor of yesterday's anniversary of Bogie's passing...

 

[tridentine]

"Rocky Balboa".

 

[dhermann1]

My local PBS station showed Jimmy Stewart's 1957 film, "The Spirit of St Louis" Saturday night. On my new 51 inch flat screen it looked sensational, just like it did when I saw it in the theater when it first came out. Wonderfully well done, if you make a little effort to ignore 49 year old James Stewart trying to pass himself off as 25 year old Charles Lindbergh.

 

[McMurdo]

I am watching and quite enjoying The League of Gentlemen from 1960 on TCM. It's a British bank heist film with some top notch actors.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052997/

 

[Touchofevil]

On the Inside

 

[Worf]

"The Dark Knight Returns (Part 1)" - "B" - This is the animated version of Frank Miller's Batman reboot from the early 1980's. That particular limited run series along with "The Watchmen" (which I also read and loved) marked the comic's graduation from "comics" to "graphic novels". "The Dark Knight Returns" tell's the story of an aging Batman now 10 years retired forced/drawn from retirement to fight new and old threats to Gotham and in the end... "The Big Blue Boy Scout" himself. Miller's work while ground breaking in the 80's seems dated and anachronistic now, particularly his attempt to project how street gangs would speak and look 20 to 30 years in the future, he got it wrong... terribly wrong. Still the animation from Warners is good if not Pixar or Disney and the story is solid. You could do worse. An interesting double feature with "The Dark Knight Rises" since both came out this year.

Worf

 

[Doctor Strange]

I read the graphic novel years ago and had mixed feelings. While it was really interesting to see such a different and politicized take on the characters, I didn't exactly like it... and it initiated the whole grim-and-gritty phase of superhero comics throughout the nineties that I really could have lived without. (On the other hand, it strongly influenced Tim Burton's Batman films, and they led directly to B:TAS, my all-time favorite version of character.) I always felt that Watchmen was the far more significant innovation, and I think it has held up a lot better. Anyway, I won't be rushing to see this until I stumble on the DVD at my local library.

A recent DC animated film that I strongly recommend if you haven't seen it is Justice League: The New Frontier. A very interesting, quite well done revisionist approach to the DC characters of the fifties, dramatizing the transition from the stolid Golden Age characters into the sci-fi-oriented Silver Age.

 

[rocketeer]

Taxi Driver.

Never really got into the story when I saw this back when it came out. Bought it on DVD as I had not seen it since, still find it hard to follow.

 

[Worf]

I read the graphic novel years ago and had mixed feelings. While it was really interesting to see such a different and politicized take on the characters, I didn't exactly like it... and it initiated the whole grim-and-gritty phase of superhero comics throughout the nineties that I really could have lived without. (On the other hand, it strongly influenced Tim Burton's Batman films, and they led directly to B:TAS, my all-time favorite version of character.) I always felt that Watchmen was the far more significant innovation, and I think it has held up a lot better. Anyway, I won't be rushing to see this until I stumble on the DVD at my local library.

A recent DC animated film that I strongly recommend if you haven't seen it is Justice League: The New Frontier. A very interesting, quite well done revisionist approach to the DC characters of the fifties, dramatizing the transition from the stolid Golden Age characters into the sci-fi-oriented Silver Age.

I could understand your trepidations about the Graphic Novel and your preference for "The Watchmen". I too felt that B:TAS was some of the best TV made in it's time animation or live. I saw the Justice League film you mention and enjoyed it some but in that I'm not very familiar with the DC Universe (Make Mine Marvel!) I didn't get half the "Silver Age" characters or references. Also I find the Green Lantern one of the most uninspiring hero's, at least in his original incarnation, I've ever run across. How do you feel about the current Batman trilogy?

Worf

 

[Touchofevil]

"The Dark Knight Returns (Part 1)" - "B" - This is the animated version of Frank Miller's Batman reboot from the early 1980's. That particular limited run series along with "The Watchmen" (which I also read and loved) marked the comic's graduation from "comics" to "graphic novels". "The Dark Knight Returns" tell's the story of an aging Batman now 10 years retired forced/drawn from retirement to fight new and old threats to Gotham and in the end... "The Big Blue Boy Scout" himself. Miller's work while ground breaking in the 80's seems dated and anachronistic now, particularly his attempt to project how street gangs would speak and look 20 to 30 years in the future, he got it wrong... terribly wrong. Still the animation from Warners is good if not Pixar or Disney and the story is solid. You could do worse. An interesting double feature with "The Dark Knight Rises" since both came out this year.

Worf

Read both when they originally came out and thoroughly enjoyed both. Will look for the animated versions.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Worf, I have mixed feelings about the Christopher Nolan Batman films. In general, I like them - I've got all three DVDs - and I respect them for taking a much more serious and "real world" approach to the character than the cartoony-but-good-in-their-time Tim Burton fims (and their painful Joel Schumacher sequels). But B:TAS remains my gold standard of Batman adaptations, because it nails so many aspects of the character perfectly, and integrates them into an obsessed but less borderline-nuts Batman who's easier to admire as a proper hero without worrying that he's actually a sociopath.

I think it's interesting that - now that it's a few months later and the hype has died down - The Dark Knight Rises reveals itself to have pretty much followed the classic third-film syndrome (e.g., Return of the Jedi, IJ and the Last Crusade, Spider-Man III, etc.) - it's too long and self-indulgent, with too many villains and not enough hero, and with a redundant return to plot points and tropes that were already thoroughly explored in the first film. The second film in a series often expands and deepens the story (The Empire Strikes Back, Spider-Man II, X-Men 2, Wrath of Khan, etc.) and is far more impressive than the first... So, admittedly, The Dark Knight was pretty amazing and a VERY tough act to follow, but I'm not taken in by Nolan's tricks(*) to try and make us think that he's talking about the politics of the real world. And in particular, the Bruce-gives-up-the-mantle-of-the-Bat-for-eight-years-after-Rachel-dies plot point is so enormously wrong - Batman's "superpower" is that he NEVER gives up! - that it really made me have to work to get with the film.

(* One of the things about Nolan that annoys me is how all his films are built on tricks/deception/reveals - most obviously in The Prestige, but also in Inception, Memento, etc.)

So anyway, I really like the Nolan Bat-flicks - especially the first two - but they make some narrative choices that I don't dig, and while they represent a very worthy adaptation of the character/mythos, I'll stick with The Animated Series.

Of course, the big question for this year is how Man of Steel will be - Nolan and Zach Snyder have both proven themselves to be fine comics-adaptation directors... but their styles are so wildly different that I'm not convinced their take on Superman is going to work. I don't know about you, but I absolutely hated the misconceived Superman Returns, so I feel that this new reboot almost HAS to be better! (Heck, just by casting Amy Adams as Lois Lane - a role she was born to play! - it seems to be on the right track!)

 

[Worf]

Hey Doc:

Thanks for answering. I found the last "Superman" reboot so bad the new one would have to be absolutely spectacular for me to touch another one. As semi-good as TDKR was it was a distant second to "The Avengers" if'n you ask me. Nolan's "tricks" don't bother me. Though I'd like to know how Bruce got back to the U.S. so fast after climbing out of that hole AND how he managed it being broke as chit to boot. There are a plenty of plot holes in that movie but none that boiled my brain.

Worf

 

[Doctor Strange]

Well, The Avengers was a lot more FUN than The Dark Knight Rises, that's for sure! Marvel is certainly doing a better job than DC with these films. (Of course, now there's a Justice League film being fast-tracked, hoping to ape the success of The Avengers. But Bale's done as Batman - and I have no desire to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt take over - the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern film was pretty awful, and Henry Cavill's Superman is still an unknown quanity. I don't see how a JL film can work without the kind of firm foundation that the Marvel series took the time and effort to get mostly right.)

And loads of plot holes just come with the territory with superhero movies, so I don't worry too much about 'em. Hey, they're fantasy, cut 'em some slack. (Though paradoxically, the more "realistic" stance of the Batman films make doing this considerably more difficult than with most superhero flicks.)

 

[Touchofevil]

99 River Street on TCM. A pretty good flick.