Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Reza »

Forever Mine (Paul Schrader, 1999) 5/10

Pulp conventions galore in this B-noir that regurgitates that stale chestnut plot - poor guy - a cabana boy (Joseph Fiennes) at a posh Florida resort - who foolishly falls head over his ass in lust with a blonde babe (Gretchen Moll) - she gets to rise out of the sea her breasts covered in a white bathing suit - who sadly and dangerously happens to be married to a rich businessman (since its Ray Liotta we know he will also be kinda psychotic). The film clicks off every familiar trope starting with a hot sex scene which is carefully choreographed to reveal her perfect breasts and his totally hidden assets as they writhe in ecstacy. You know its all fake because neither Fiennes nor Mol break out in a sweat - its sex without sweat. Since she's Catholic she decides to confess her "sin" to her husband which does not bode too well for lover boy. However, you can't keep down a man in lust despite putting him in jail on trumped up charges, then shooting him in the face and leaving him for dead in a construction site. After 14 years he rises like a phoenix, disguises himself as a hispanic and returns to take revenge by legally helping the rich man who is in trouble with the government. He hopes to also win back the wife. The screenplay doesn't quite pull off the second half - for starters Fiennes is badly miscast not only as the stud at the start but especially as the disfigured heavily accented, middle-aged hispanic schemer. Mol is very pretty but the screenplay does not allow her any room for her character to develop while Liotta plays yet another of his vicious psycho roles which he can do in his sleep. Not topnotch Schrader.

A Time For Killing (Phil Karlson, 1967) 5/10

The insanity of war between Union and Confederate soldiers. A Union search party is led by their Major (Glenn Ford) who go after escaped Confederate soldiers. The prisoners come across the Major's fiancé (Inger Stevens) and capture her. Along the way, they kill a Union courier bearing the news that the war is over but the crazed Captain (George Hamilton) hides this fact from his soldiers wanting to continue his killing spree. Violent Western is typical of the genre during the 1960s where the actual period (1865) is conveniently ignored in the case of the leading lady's hairstyle - Inger Steven's blonde flowing bouffant hairstyle is straight out of the Swinging Sixties and her character is around strictly to be attacked, beaten and raped. Harrison Ford's film debut. Blink and you'll miss him. I did.

So Little Time (Compton Bennett, 1952) 9/10

Exquisite little film about a love affair borne out of hatred. In Nazi occupied Belgium during WWII a chateau is partially requisitioned to a German officer (Marous Goring). The home belongs to a resistance fighter who has been captured by the Nazi leaving his old wife and young daughter (Maria Schell) as residents. The girl hates the Germans but is thankful to the brusque officer for helping her mother who is unwell. Gradually these two disparate individuals come together and form a bond that turns to love through their mutual interest in music. Goring's only romantic lead was not favourably received by the British public - the film shows the Germans to be highly cultured, polite and helpful while the Belgian resistance characters are aggressive. The touching love story at the center gives the film its heart helped in great part by the delicate performances by the two leads, the music played on the piano throughout the film (Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, and an aria from Mozart's opera, The Marriage of Figaro, performed on stage by Lucie Mannheim who was Marius Goring's wife playing here his mature former mistress) and Oswald Morris' moody cinematography.

Runway 34 (Ajay Devgn, 2022) 8/10

A pilot (Ajay Devgn), after a hard night of partying and drinking, flies a plane from Dubai to Cochin which gets diverted to Bangalore due to bad weather. However, he tries to unsuccessfully land at Cochin three times after which he proceeds to Trivandrum where unbeknownst to him and his co-pilot (Rakul Preet Singh) - a warning from the control tower fails to reach them - the weather is equally bad but where they attempt to land in zero visibility. Based on a true story, and inspired by the film "Flight", the film's first tense hour depicts the hazardous flight and eventual landing which is superbly acted and directed by the star. The second hour finds the pilot under serious investigation in court by the Aviation authorities for taking undue risks on his flight plan and possibly flying under the influence of alcohol. Amitabh Bachchan, playing to the gallery, takes on Devgn in court, with the latter remaining understated in his performance in contrast to the senior actor who uses his voice and dramatic dialogue to upstage all his scenes. It's interesting to see in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tenure how Bollywood, in small subtle ways, is also playing up toward's the PM's gallery - Bachchan's dialogue is laced with difficult Hindi words which is a complete turnaround from the usual (Muslim) Urdu language long spoken in Indian cinema. Star Ajay Devgn has also started shifting towards projects heavily laced with Hindutva ideology that tend to glorify not only in terms of language but also subject matter as in his previous historical epic which played to the Hindu gallery. Also noticed that the film's credits at the end were in English and Hindi only. Credits in Urdu, which once prominently also appeared in every Indian film, are here completely missing. This is indeed a first and a glaring change during the current political climate in India where all things Muslim are slowly and steadily being eradicated.

Anek (Anubhav Sinha, 2022) 6/10

Sinha's film takes a brave stance in questioning India's claim to be a diverse democracy and being fair towards every ethnicity that is part of the country as a whole. The screenplay explores the "troubles" in the North-East of the country without naming exactly which of the eight states in that region the story is set in. This political film follows the director's recent output where he dealt with communalism in Mulk (2018), casteism in Article 15 (2019), and sexism in Thappad (2020). Here he dives headlong into the violence and racism faced by people in the North-East - it is also a not too subtle nudge at the Kashmir issue which is also a similar kind of trouble the Indian government faces. Unfortunately the screenplay is far too convoluted which comes off disjointed as it tries to balance the various characters involved in the crisis - the blustery government officials (Manoj Pahva & Kumud Mishra) from Delhi who clearly have no sympathy for the local people, an Indian undercover agent (Ayushmann Khurrana) posted in the region to ferret out the trouble makers and make peace between the many separatist groups, and his love interest, a local girl (Andrea Kevichüsa) who is not only the daughter of the prime rebel leader but also an avid boxer who faces racism by not being chosen by the Indian Government to represent the country on a National level - she is deemed too Chinese to represent India. Despite the chaotic nature of the screenplay it at least refuses to judge the local rebels as terrorists and shows them as citizens fighting for some semblance of acceptance. The film is a fascinating failure even though well worth watching to see a part of India that barely gets spoken about or seen.

Gehraiyaan (Shakun Batra, 2022) 7/10

The film keeps showing that old cliché of a giant wave crashing which signifies an orgasm. But its an orgasm borne out of a painful past. Two of the four protagonists conceal problematic parental relationships. Alisha (Deepika Padukone), a yoga instructor, is in a long term relationship with her unemployed boyfriend Karan (Dhairya Karwa). Her cousin Tia (Ananya Panday) is seeing successful businessman Zain (Siddhant Chaturvedi). Alisha has bitter childhood memories of her mother trapped in a bad marriage to her drunk father (Naseeruddin Shah) and who ends up a suicide. Zain has bitter memories of his abusive father. Both hurt souls begin an affair that continues in fits and starts. Many of the scenes are shot like a music video as Deepika and Siddhant make out in the bedroom and on a boat. Various family skeletons lurking in the closet are revealed and the plot takes on a sudden thriller aspect very much like the erotic screen potboilers from the 90s which results in a death followed by an uneasy catharsis. Deepika Padukone stands out in a fine cast and her brief scenes with Naseeruddin Shah crackle with subtle intensity. Surprisingly Ananya Panday holds her own amongst her more accomplished co-stars and gives a mature performance.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Greg »

Sabin wrote:I could throw Starting Over on one of the Oscar threads but it wouldn't greatly impact my vote. So, despite everything that I liked about it, I'll just say that I found the casting of Burt Reynolds to be just about ruinous to this film's tone. He's far too laid-back for James L. Brooks' dialogue nor can he match Jill Clayburgh's energy.
I only saw Starting Over on TV a long time ago; but, I remember Reynolds' underplayed-disappointed response to Candice Bergan's attempt sing a romantic power ballad to be just hilarious.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Sabin »

There are certain movies that you've sorted of floated around watching (catching in chunks here and there or overseen) that you can basically count it as a viewing. That's what I've done with The Guilt Trip for the last ten years. I felt as though I had basically seen it. Last night, I put off going to see Thor: Love and Thunder and gave The Guilt Trip a watch after an especially stressful conversation with my mother. Full disclosure: I currently have a very stressful relationship with my mother.

This movie has real problems but I've decided that I like it for these simple reasons: we don't get enough movies about mother/adult son relationships, it reminded me of my relationship with my mother, and fuck it if that honestly isn't enough to say it worked for me. Also (and this is a big qualifier), I'm still not tired of Seth Rogen's persona. I'm sure many are but I think he's done as good a job as any of exploring Jewish Elder Millennial rite of passage in grounded comedies as anyone. His movies are rarely a home-run but I'm just endlessly impressed with his output. In The Guilt Trip, he's playing Andy, an "inventor" whose devised an environmentally friendly cleaning product (the terribly named ScieoClean) and is taking it cross-country to put into corporate outlets. Before leaving, he stops off at Joyce, his Mother's (Barbra Streisand) in New Jersey. She is an increasingly closed off, powerfully meddler-y Boomer widow who was never entirely happy in her marriage and whose life is starting to become consumed with regret (btw: switch widow with divorcee and this is my mother), and while there he learns of a special someone in her life before Andy whom she never got over and wonders "What if?" going so far as to name Andy after him. Andy looks this person up, learns he's in San Francisco, asks his mother to tag along with him to do this nice thing for her (or so he thinks), and thus begins The Guilt Trip.

The best way to describe the problems with this film is that it's never entirely dialed in. The script is far too thin and it never quite feels like a full enough journey. It lacks the fullness of journey of Sideways, and too many bits along the way feel like "What if?" sessions (what if they stopped off at the strip club?). The direction is also a bit mismatched to the tone. Anne Fletcher never quite finds the right coverage. It also has a much clearer view of who Andy is rather than Joyce. And that brings us to Barbra Streisand. To the film's strength, she never turns Joyce into a one-note caricature, although there are times in the movie where I think it would have been a bit stronger (and honest) if she had a less Streisand-y oomph to her. In theory, this is a movie where Andy is supposed to learn more about his unassuming mother along the way, and that never quite happens. It's a problem that he learns the big secret at the beginning which, y'know, he has to to launch the journey. That being said, if anyone's going to see this thing, it's because of Streisand in the first place and while I don't think she goes very deep into this role she and Seth Rogen are fun together. I don't think she deserved her Razzie nomination at all.

It has big problems but it's fine. And it served a purpose for me.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Sabin »

I could throw Starting Over on one of the Oscar threads but it wouldn't greatly impact my vote. So, despite everything that I liked about it, I'll just say that I found the casting of Burt Reynolds to be just about ruinous to this film's tone. He's far too laid-back for James L. Brooks' dialogue nor can he match Jill Clayburgh's energy. I'm not sure if Starting Over had greatness in it but with someone else in the Phil Potter role it might've gone down better. His smug face started to wear on me as the film went on. Like, you've gotta find somebody very charming to pull of dunking poor Jill Clayburgh into a dunk tank again and again and making it work. Reynolds can't pull it off. I don't know what Jack Nicholson was doing at the time but we know that he can handle Brooks' dialogue.

I know that James L. Brooks isn't the director of this one but it still feels like his movie. It has this sitcom on a high-wire quality to it, and when his movies aren't cast right it's hard to know who to identify with. I definitely found Reynolds' casting to be problematic in identifying with Phil Potter but I also wondered if Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen should've flipped roles. Clayburgh is perfectly adorable but I never quite felt that Bergen brought the manic, narcissistic energy needed for Jessica.

It's a gorgeous-looking film. Pakula doesn't quite have a light energy touch but he directs a handsome film. He's all wrong for moments like when Phil has a panic attack in the furniture store. I generally liked it in spite of what I perceive as glaring flaws.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Reza »

Operation Mincemeat (John Madden, 2022) 8/10

During WWII in 1943 Churchill (Simon Russell Beale) planned for the Allies to invade Sicily but since it was an obvious target it became imperative to delude the German High Command. So a highly classified ruse was developed whereby a corpse carrying "secret" documents (mentioning an Allied attack in Greece) was dumped off the coast of Spain to be discovered by the Nazis. A team of five was put in place to work out the plan's details - Naval Commander Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn) - of later "James Bond" fame - a British intelligence officer (Matthew Macfadyen), a jewish lawyer (Colin Firth), his loyal secretary (Penelope Wilton), and a young widowed typist (Kelly MacDonald). Highly atmospheric espionage yarn is based on a true story with a screenplay that is talky, very dry but not without flashes of great wit. The romantic subplot - a love triangle between Firth, Macdonald and Macfadyen - is carefully intertwined into the suspense-filled main plot which is entirely played out in board rooms, offices, homes and inside nightclubs. Strongly acted film has topnotch production values.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Tom Gormican, 2022) 7/10

Hollywood actor Nick Cage (Nicolas Cage) is going through a career lull - he has been working constantly mainly making junk - has an angry ex-wife and a neglected and very disappointed teenage daughter. When he decides to retire after losing a couple of important roles his agent (Neil Patrick Harris) gets him a gig at a huge salary to go attend the birthday party of a super-fan - a billionaire (Pedro Pascal) in Majorca who may be an arms dealer the CIA is after. Cage milks this bat-shit crazy scenario for all its worth with his past screen roles emerging a mile a minute which is a Cage fanboy's dream come true. It moves predictably into action-comedy mode when the daughter is kidnapped and Cage and his fan-buddy team up to confront the real arms dealer. And let's not forget that delicious piece of audition dialogue the actor gets to use at a very tense moment which does not bring on a standing audition but certainly is an excellent accompaniment to flying bullets. The film's most shocking moment comes at the end with a brief appearance by Demi Moore. Wtf has she done to her face? Why don't these stupid actresses in Hollywood - and other regular women - "get" that putting their face under a knife or injected with fillers and other chemicals make them look grotesque. Cage seems to have also proved that if you keep churning out dreck your career will one day return to its former peak. This and a couple of recent films seem to be taking the actor in the right direction.

The Last Flight of Noah's Ark (Charles Jarrott, 1980) 6/10

Walt Disney, two precocious stowaway kids (one of them the insufferable Ricky Schroder), a prim missionary (Geneviève Bujold), a jaded pilot (Elliott Gould) being chased by creditors, a WWII Boeing B-29 Superfortress, a plane load of farm animals. Mix it all up and add on a crash landing on an uncharted island inhabited by two Japanese soldiers who think the war is still going strong. The pilot and the lady start off icy but are soon canoodling, Shroder is cocky and sheds tears like a tap, the group befriend the two soldiers and turn the crashed plane into a boat in order to return to civilization. Utterly predictable but charming little action-adventure also throws in a shark attack and a storm at sea. Old fashioned fun.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Sabin »

Damien wrote
As memorable a portrayal of someone standing on the cusp of adulthood as there's been on screen, she enthusiastically gets my vote for a great performance in Woody Allen's greatest film -- and the best movie of 1979, edging out Blake Edwards's 10.
Well, now I have my answer.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Big Magilla »

Yes, Damien had a soft spot for Blake Edwards whom he had interviewed at some point. He could no wrong in Damien's book. He even defended his atrocious casting of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's, which even Edwards admitted in later years was a mistake.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Sabin »

Big Magilla wrote
Here's Damien's reference to 10 for which Blake Edwards was voted Best Director of 1979 by his group. Billy Wilder's Fedora was named Best Picture.
Okay, well then he's some kind of fan. His top 100 list didn't feature it and he certainly liked Blake Edwards films.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Big Magilla »

Here's Damien's reference to 10 for which Blake Edwards was voted Best Director of 1979 by his group. Billy Wilder's Fedora was named Best Picture.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=5290&hilit=blake+edwards
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

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No other place to really put this but my journey through 70's comedies continues with Blake Edwards' 10.

I think I mistakenly thought this was one of Damien's favorites but I found his old Top 100 list and I think it wasn't. He was more a fan of Skin Deep (which I still haven't seen). I checked this one out and I instantly latched onto it because George Weber is celebrating his 42nd birthday which is (checks watch) a mere six months away from me. He has a mansion, he's married to a woman who is a mother, and he's beyond famous. Despite the fact that we are both greying in the temples, I am lightyears behind this man with one exception: I've largely given up drinking. The hangovers are just too much for me and I have to be able to function and force a smile every day. I expect that my experience of watching George Weber was similar to a moment growing up when my family sat around the television watching The Simpsons (our Sunday tradition) and an episode revealed that Homer is astonishingly supposed to be just 37. My father just shouted "37???" and my response was "So what? That's old." Anyway, I couldn't remotely relate to George Weber's 42nd year mid-life crisis because nobody I know experiences anything resembling that sort of mid-life crisis in Los Angeles today. Sad-sacks have Sideways adventures, but for everyone else, it's getting difficult to find a couple not in a quasi-open relationship. That being said, I don't see any male-centered mid-life crisis films that dare to tackle this kind of horndog obsession so I found that varietal sort of refreshing, although I find very little redemptive in George Weber.

Anyway, I found it to be a pretty interesting balance of tones. It's a mix of philosophizing, fantasy, and scenes that find their comedy in random wacky characters or explosions of physical comedy. The story itself is resolutely low-key, almost episodic at times. My favorite thing about it is that it feels like the kind of movie that shouldn't work and yet it does in spite of itself, almost like a James L. Brooks film. This is due to the casting of Dudley Moore. He's very good at the spastic explosions required of him as well as the moments of calm and the calm hiding his torment. I've only seen Moore in this film and Arthur, and he's more credible in this human performance. I was a little put off by the way Moore treated Julie Andrews. I mean, there's no way around it. He's a cheater. I don't know if it's a 70's thing to say he didn't cheat because he couldn't get it up or because he stopped with Bo Derek. He's a straight up cheater. The film is at its strongest when it views him as pathetic and I think probably could've stood to take him to task a little bit more. I have to be a little charitable with this film because what Bo Derek tells Moore at the end of the film doesn't quite land a punch these days, but it's also worth noting that Moore's idealization of Bo Derek never quite transcends surface level horndog. If he thinks she's something more, it doesn't quite come across.

I'm struggling to find more to say about it. Generally, I was impressed in the balance of tones and enjoyed it on that level. Also, very interesting that it was released the same year as Manhattan. They feel like twin souls a bit, although obviously I enjoyed the latter quite a bit more. So odd that Manhattan received one Golden Globe (Drama) while this got six (Comedy). None of that is right.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Reza »

The Last Flight (William Dieterle, 1931) 4/10

Broadway Serenade (Robert Z. Leonard, 1939) 4/10

Fantasic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (David Yates, 2022) 4/10

Memory (Martin Campbell, 2022) 5/10

Futures vedettes / School For Love (Marc Allégret, 1955) 4/10

Silly film set in a Vienna conservatory where the teenage girls fall for their vocal teacher (Jean Marais) who is going through a turbulent marriage. The crisis involves his relationship with a nubile teen (Brigitte Bardot) which causes another student (Isabelle Pia) to throw a jealous fit. Marais - looking very old (at 42), stiff and bored also has the creep factor. Why is this old man preying on teenage girl students? Lila Kedrova has a small bit as one of the mothers but its Bardot, a year away from international stardom, who stands out as the vivacious young girl very willing to get seduced. Based on the novel by Vicki Baum with screenplay by Allégret and Roger Vadim who was then married to Bardot.

Lili Marleen (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1981) 8/10

Fassbinder, who was inspired by Hollywood melodramas, for the longest while could never make a movie that did justice to his dream because of his films' low budgets - until his series of films during the 1980s where he chose to make elaborate female centric films. Here Hanna Schygulla is presented like a goddess harking back to early Hollywood and the days of Garbo and Dietrich. Taking a cue from the latter the plot here revolves around the famous German love song that became popular during World War II throughout Europe and the Mediterranean among both Axis and Allied troops. Written in 1915 as a poem, the song which became a desperate cry of hope for people during WWII, was first sung by Lale Andersen who in this fictionalized version of her life is played by Schygulla. An aspiring German singer called Willie (Hanna Schygulla) is in love with a Swiss jewish trainee composer-conductor (Giancarlo Giannini) who, unbeknownst to her, works for the underground using money of his rich father (Mel Ferrer) to smuggle jews and their assets to neutral Switzerland. Since she is German his father thinks she could be dangerous to their cause and has her deported. While the lovers are apart she, using the influence of a high Nazi official, becomes rich and famous for singing the song "Lili Marleen" written by her lover. As her fame spreads far and wide he secretly returns to Berlin to see her but the gestapo are suspicious and have her followed. Highly melodramatic film is exactly how Fassbinder - a fan of Douglas Sirk films - envisioned his story with Schygulla a true vision of beauty as the singer.

Persuasion (Adrian Shergold, 2007) 8/10

Exquisite adaptation of Jane Austen's last novel with her protagonist, twenty-seven year old Anne Elliot (Sally Hawkins), on the verge of spinsterhood as the story begins. Eight years before she had been persuaded by her father and a family friend (Alice Krige) to break her engagement to Captain Wentworth (Rupert Penny-Jones), a naval captain with not much future prospect. When her family is forced to move from their estate due to financial difficulties the house is rented to an Admiral whose wife happens to be her former fiancé's sister who now happens to be a very wealthy man and an eligible bachelor. Will Anne manage to change the Captain's resentful mind about her or will she instead accept a proposal from a distant cousin (Tobias Menzies)? Hawkins brings a tremulous vulnerability to her character - believed to be Austen herself - with the screenplay playing a form of dreadful hide and seek in keeping her apart from the man she once lost but has reappeared in her life. When that kiss finally comes, after various misunderstandings and heartaches, it is hilariously staged to linger endlessly before their lips finally connect. Handsome Penny-Jones makes a dashing lover for the gauche and rather plain Hawkins.

Mirage (Edward Dmytryk, 1965) 8/10

Clever, twisty thriller, with noir overtones, has Gregory Peck suddenly discovering after two years that he has amnesia and cannot recall his past life. The catalyst is a mysterious woman (Diane Baker) who claims to know him although he has never met her before. When he is accosted by a slimy man (Jack Weston) aiming a pistol at him, is threatened by another heavy (George Kennedy) who ends up in a tub for his troubles, and a psychiatrist who does not believe him, he decides to hire a private detective (Walter Matthau) in order to resolve the mystery surrounding his life. Slick Hitchcock-like film has the appealing but wooden Peck team up with brunette Baker who resembles none of the Master's heroines. Accompanied by a jazzy Quincy Jones score, stark black and white cinematography by Joseph MacDonald, a suspenseful screenplay by Peter Stone (who also wrote the thriller "Charade") and rapid fire editing with flashbacks, flash forwards and time shifts. The New York location filming adds to the realism in contrast to many films then still being shot in the studio. Peck's wooden countenance - Robert Mitchum famously (if rather unkindly) referred to Peck as "the dullest actor in motion pictures" - actually helps him here as the confused character who feels persecuted. Matthau, on the verge of big screen stardom, shines in a small part along with the other supporting actors all playing vividly eccentric characters.

Johnny Concho (Don McGuire, 1956) 7/10

Sinatra is cast against type in his first Western - as a coward who terrorizes a town because everyone fears his brother who is a notorious gunfighter. A stranger (William Conrad in full-on sleazy mode) arrives in town, announces he has killed the gunfighter and starts treating the townfolk like dirt. It is up to the coward to prove he's in fighting mode in order to save his town from the intruder but instead he is run out of town. B-film has atmosphere, is crisply shot in black and white by William C. Mellor and has a good score by Nelson Riddle. The film has a static pace - it feels like a talky stage play - but Sinatra's interesting performance keeps it moving along. Striking bits by Keenan Wynn as a gun-toting priest and Phyllis Kirk as the girl who loves the coward.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by gunnar »

Portrait of Chieko (1967) - 9/10 - Kotaro Takamura is a Japanese sculptor and poet. In 1911, he meets Chieko, a fellow artist, and takes her on as an apprentice, though the two fall in love and marry. The two have a nice supportive marriage, but problems eventually arise after Chieko starts showing signs of mental illness. It's an excellent picture with very nice performances from Shima Iwashita as Chieko and Tetsuro Tanba as her husband, Kotaro. The cinematography and use of music are also very well done. Decades pass during the course of the film and it isn't always obvious at first when a time jump has occurred, though you can figure it out. I'd been looking for this film for a long time and am glad that I finally found a copy with English subtitles. I would have voted for Chieko over Closely Watched Trains in the Foreign Film category that year, though that is also a good film.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Big Magilla »

That kind of patter still exists between couples, married or otherwise.

I'd say Sandy's character wasn't very sophisticated. She wouldn't have known what it would have meant to be liberated. It wasn't something that anyone thought about at the time.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Sabin »

Big Magilla wrote
Neil Simon originally intended it as part of California Suite which would suggest that it was originally supposed to have been a skit about an out-of-town couple having problems visiting L.A. rather than NYC. He rewrote it as a screenplay after it was rejected as part of the earlier play.
I think a smaller dose might have been more successful.
Big Magilla wrote
I don't remember Sandy Dennis asking her husband for permission to have a cup of coffee. Maybe she was asking him if there was time for that. It would have had nothing to do with it being before women's liberation which began in 1971. Women were free to have a cup of coffee on their own long before then!
It's near the end of the film. They're in the airplane. Sandy Dennis orders a cup of coffee. Jack Lemmon politely shoos away the waitress, saying they won't have dinner or coffee because there's dinner waiting. Sandy Dennis then responds a moment later by saying something along the lines of "Don't we have time for a cup of coffee" and (I believe) saying something along the lines of how it won't ruin her dinner. Then Jack Lemmon acquiesces. Maybe it wasn't asking permission per se, but it's awfully deferential to his authority. More so, she is clearly not a liberated figure.
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Re: Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Post by Big Magilla »

Don't remember much about The Out-of-Towners except that I didn't like it.

Neil Simon originally intended it as part of California Suite which would suggest that it was originally supposed to have been a skit about an out-of-town couple having problems visiting L.A. rather than NYC. He rewrote it as a screenplay after it was rejected as part of the earlier play.

I don't remember Sandy Dennis asking her husband for permission to have a cup of coffee. Maybe she was asking him if there was time for that. It would have had nothing to do with it being before women's liberation which began in 1971. Women were free to have a cup of coffee on their own long before then!
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