Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings
Chicago Overcoat (dir. Brian Caunter) - current cut 0/10. Previous cut 2.5/10
My writing partner and I were given two weeks to rewrite this copycat of The Departed, Casino, and Heat, and we learned some valuable lessons in writing dialogue that risks being not entirely literal. This movie is an incoherent disaster that some people have liked previous cuts of more than myself. The new cut will never sell and should never sell.
My writing partner and I were given two weeks to rewrite this copycat of The Departed, Casino, and Heat, and we learned some valuable lessons in writing dialogue that risks being not entirely literal. This movie is an incoherent disaster that some people have liked previous cuts of more than myself. The new cut will never sell and should never sell.
"How's the despair?"
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Incendiary (2008/US 2009) Sharon Maguire 7/10
I wasn't expecting much from Maguire's first film since Briget Jones' Diary, a film I didn't particularly care for, but wow!
Michelle Williams, whose last film, Wendy and Lucy, I found overpraised, really shines here as a London housewife whose bomb squad policeman husband and four year son are killed in a terrorist attack during a soccer match. The film is filled with one shock after another but ends on a hopeful note. Good support from Ewan McGregor as an investigative reporter and Matthew Macfadyen as a high ranking police official, both of whom are in love with the young widow.
Ratings for films I review in this week's DVD Report:
Waltz With Bashir 8/10
Lemon Tree 7/10
Hunger 9/10
The Baader Meinhof Complex 8/10
The International 5/10
Confessions of a Shopaholic 4/10
My Dinner With Andre 6/10
The Strange One 5/10
I wasn't expecting much from Maguire's first film since Briget Jones' Diary, a film I didn't particularly care for, but wow!
Michelle Williams, whose last film, Wendy and Lucy, I found overpraised, really shines here as a London housewife whose bomb squad policeman husband and four year son are killed in a terrorist attack during a soccer match. The film is filled with one shock after another but ends on a hopeful note. Good support from Ewan McGregor as an investigative reporter and Matthew Macfadyen as a high ranking police official, both of whom are in love with the young widow.
Ratings for films I review in this week's DVD Report:
Waltz With Bashir 8/10
Lemon Tree 7/10
Hunger 9/10
The Baader Meinhof Complex 8/10
The International 5/10
Confessions of a Shopaholic 4/10
My Dinner With Andre 6/10
The Strange One 5/10
It's a Great Feeling (David Butler, 1949) 3/10
Extremely silly film set in Hollywood made bearable by a parade of Warner Bros. stars in cameo appearances.....Edward G., Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn, Patricia Neal, Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, Eleanor Parker, Danny Kaye, Stdney Greenstreet, Joan Crawford and the directors Michael Curtiz, King Vidor and Raoul Walsh. The star of the film...Doris Day...looks positively hideous throughout in ugly costumes and makeup.
Edited By Reza on 1245770046
Extremely silly film set in Hollywood made bearable by a parade of Warner Bros. stars in cameo appearances.....Edward G., Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn, Patricia Neal, Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, Eleanor Parker, Danny Kaye, Stdney Greenstreet, Joan Crawford and the directors Michael Curtiz, King Vidor and Raoul Walsh. The star of the film...Doris Day...looks positively hideous throughout in ugly costumes and makeup.
Edited By Reza on 1245770046
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Nuts in May (1976) Mike Leigh 7/10
Roger Sloman and Alison Steadman are hilarious as a couple of basket weavers camping out for the week in the English countryside in this early Mike Leigh TV movie.
Fermat's Room (2007) Luis Piedrahita & Rodrigo Sopena 2/10
Over heated and silly film horror/thriller that is a rip off of the much better Canadian film Cube.
Time Limit (1957) Karl Malden 6/10
Standard army investigation drama helped by a terrific performance from the ever reliable Richard Widmark.
Were the World Mine (2008) Tom Gustafson 6/10
This feature film debut is inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream with a queer slant. It took a while for me to warm to this film but Gustafson weaves the narrative to a triumphant climax.
Passengers (2008) Rodrigo Garcia 1/10
A film is in alot of trouble when it's derivative of M. Night Shyamalan. I had this thing figured out in about 30 minutes and not a minute of it is convincing. Anne Hathway & Patrick Wilson deserve better.
Edited By Precious Doll on 1245760615
Roger Sloman and Alison Steadman are hilarious as a couple of basket weavers camping out for the week in the English countryside in this early Mike Leigh TV movie.
Fermat's Room (2007) Luis Piedrahita & Rodrigo Sopena 2/10
Over heated and silly film horror/thriller that is a rip off of the much better Canadian film Cube.
Time Limit (1957) Karl Malden 6/10
Standard army investigation drama helped by a terrific performance from the ever reliable Richard Widmark.
Were the World Mine (2008) Tom Gustafson 6/10
This feature film debut is inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream with a queer slant. It took a while for me to warm to this film but Gustafson weaves the narrative to a triumphant climax.
Passengers (2008) Rodrigo Garcia 1/10
A film is in alot of trouble when it's derivative of M. Night Shyamalan. I had this thing figured out in about 30 minutes and not a minute of it is convincing. Anne Hathway & Patrick Wilson deserve better.
Edited By Precious Doll on 1245760615
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
The Edge of Heaven (2007; Fatih Akin) 8/10
Deeply moving (if leisurely paced) melodrama of love, death and forgiveness. A very haunting film, with a marvelously complex script and a terrific cast.
Deeply moving (if leisurely paced) melodrama of love, death and forgiveness. A very haunting film, with a marvelously complex script and a terrific cast.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
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Another oldie finally caught up to: Avanti!, one of my few remaining Billy Wlders (Spirit of St. Louis and the dread Buddy Buddy remain outstanding).
I know there was some discussion of the film a while back, but I can't seem to locate it. My thoughts: I'm glad I didn't see this when it opened, Christmas of '72. At the time it was widely viewed as hopelessly retro, a sign Wilder (like many of his contemporaries) just couldn't keep up with the post-Bonnie and Clyde changes in film taste despite feints in that direction (like a "whoever wanted to see that?" Jack Lemmon nude scene). Given my own immersion in that 70s culture -- and the film's chronological emergence between Cabaret/The Godfather/Deliverance on one side, Last Tango/American Graffiti/Mean Streets on the other -- I'd likely have felt the same dismissiveness toward it.
Now that I'm older and less inclined to snap dismissals, I feel a bit of affection for the film. Not to say it's anything like top-grade Wilder -- the man had already begun to broaden his comedy and lose his touch throughout the 60s, and the source material here is the sort of boulevard comedy that was lower-register Wilder even when done better (as Sabrina, or One, Two, Three). The whole thing shows its three-act Broadway origins, and the attempts to hip-icize it -- the casual references to Kissinger and State Department skulldggery -- feel horribly strained. And Lemmon was beginning to display that irritating, Nixon-era kvetch persona which dominated his roles from Save the Tiger through most of the rest of the decade.
In spite of all this -- maybe just because the standards for such harmless comedies has deteriorated so much over the years since -- I found myself appreciating the classicism of the plot construction. I found Clive Revill's performance as the hotel manager greatly engaging. And I found Juliet Mills enchanting enough that I believed the just-enough romantic chemistry. (Though who in their right mind thought this actress could be realistically called "fat ass"? Her nude scene evoked much the opposite from me; I'd have jumped her bones in a second)
So, all tolled, against my better judgment, I rather enjoyed the film, if in a totally minor way. Do I dare risk Buddy Buddy?
I know there was some discussion of the film a while back, but I can't seem to locate it. My thoughts: I'm glad I didn't see this when it opened, Christmas of '72. At the time it was widely viewed as hopelessly retro, a sign Wilder (like many of his contemporaries) just couldn't keep up with the post-Bonnie and Clyde changes in film taste despite feints in that direction (like a "whoever wanted to see that?" Jack Lemmon nude scene). Given my own immersion in that 70s culture -- and the film's chronological emergence between Cabaret/The Godfather/Deliverance on one side, Last Tango/American Graffiti/Mean Streets on the other -- I'd likely have felt the same dismissiveness toward it.
Now that I'm older and less inclined to snap dismissals, I feel a bit of affection for the film. Not to say it's anything like top-grade Wilder -- the man had already begun to broaden his comedy and lose his touch throughout the 60s, and the source material here is the sort of boulevard comedy that was lower-register Wilder even when done better (as Sabrina, or One, Two, Three). The whole thing shows its three-act Broadway origins, and the attempts to hip-icize it -- the casual references to Kissinger and State Department skulldggery -- feel horribly strained. And Lemmon was beginning to display that irritating, Nixon-era kvetch persona which dominated his roles from Save the Tiger through most of the rest of the decade.
In spite of all this -- maybe just because the standards for such harmless comedies has deteriorated so much over the years since -- I found myself appreciating the classicism of the plot construction. I found Clive Revill's performance as the hotel manager greatly engaging. And I found Juliet Mills enchanting enough that I believed the just-enough romantic chemistry. (Though who in their right mind thought this actress could be realistically called "fat ass"? Her nude scene evoked much the opposite from me; I'd have jumped her bones in a second)
So, all tolled, against my better judgment, I rather enjoyed the film, if in a totally minor way. Do I dare risk Buddy Buddy?
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Stewart's daughter was played by Lauri Peters, the original Liesl in Broadway's The Sound of Music. She was Jon Voight's first wife from 1962 to 1967.rudeboy wrote:Yes, that line got me!Big Magilla wrote:I love Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation. It's silly, but contains one of my all-time favorite movie lines, Jimmy Stewart's "How about a little son on the beach?" which his his housekeeper misinterprets as "son of a bitch" still a no-no in 1962.
Nice little film, although ridiculously overstretched - and the out of place scene with Fabian and Stewart's daughter singing in the pizza restaurand was just bizarre. Still, it had some great moments - John McGiver treaching Stewart the best way to walk when birdwatching is a wonderful scene.
Big Magilla wrote:I love Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation. It's silly, but contains one of my all-time favorite movie lines, Jimmy Stewart's "How about a little son on the beach?" which his his housekeeper misinterprets as "son of a bitch" still a no-no in 1962.
Yes, that line got me!
Nice little film, although ridiculously overstretched - and the out of place scene with Fabian and Stewart's daughter singing in the pizza restaurand was just bizarre. Still, it had some great moments - John McGiver treaching Stewart the best way to walk when birdwatching is a wonderful scene.
Edited By rudeboy on 1245615708
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The Original BJ wrote:It's always so interesting to me how once relatively easy to find films can now be obscure, and vice versa. Case in point: Bad Girl
... Certainly the film isn't anything really special, but it's an interesting reflection of the era.
I'm a relatively recent arrivee at Netflix (December), and I spent the first couple of months preparing for the Oscars by catching up on all the films I'd skipped in theatres. It's only recently that I started test-searching for older films I've never seen, which turned up Bad Girl, and such as Le Plaisir, La Guerre est Finie and The King of Marvin Gardens, which sit in my queue at the moment. (At first I thought I'd found the pot of gold, as nearly everything I typed in turned up. Then I realized some were there with "release date unknown", which amounted to "No")
You remind me of one other thing that struck me about Bad Girl: the window it opened onto the social mores of the time. The open lechery of the guys at the fashion show, the brother's sense of ownership over his sister, the idea that Eilers was risking her entire life's reputation by staying in Dunn's aparment overnight -- all these things taken for granted in 1931, but mostly viewed as archaic today. Which may even expain the (to us) incongruous title. By the standards of the time, Eilers' modest rebellion might have earned her the epithet.
Edited By Mister Tee on 1245621011
/Anchorman: The Rise and Fall of Ron Burgandy/ (McKay) - 6/10
/Dazed and Confused/ (Linklater) - 9/10
Drag Me to Hell (Raimi) - 7/10
Point Break (Bigelow) - basically it's Point Break. It's fetishistically steadicammed surf-porn. There's so much inadvertently going on for it to be called nonsense. Keanu is bad even for Keanu. Gary Busey is insane. And Patrick Swayze is weirdly anonymous. The star is Bigelow who mercifully forgoes Tony's ADD-editing and Ridley's languishing atmosphere for some of the smoothest steadicamming I've ever seen. Less flashy than efficient, Bigelow is a storyteller and she knows that what she is selling is more a brand than a real story. It's totally asinine but the surface pleasures are there. It falls apart after the sky-diving but...well...it's Point Break.
Step Brothers (McKay) - 5.5/10
Mainly for the first half. The rest doesn't have to be seen. WF & JCR are children. Straight up children.
/Dazed and Confused/ (Linklater) - 9/10
Drag Me to Hell (Raimi) - 7/10
Point Break (Bigelow) - basically it's Point Break. It's fetishistically steadicammed surf-porn. There's so much inadvertently going on for it to be called nonsense. Keanu is bad even for Keanu. Gary Busey is insane. And Patrick Swayze is weirdly anonymous. The star is Bigelow who mercifully forgoes Tony's ADD-editing and Ridley's languishing atmosphere for some of the smoothest steadicamming I've ever seen. Less flashy than efficient, Bigelow is a storyteller and she knows that what she is selling is more a brand than a real story. It's totally asinine but the surface pleasures are there. It falls apart after the sky-diving but...well...it's Point Break.
Step Brothers (McKay) - 5.5/10
Mainly for the first half. The rest doesn't have to be seen. WF & JCR are children. Straight up children.
"How's the despair?"
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THAT was the same James Dunn?! Well, obviously you are correct then. Next time I'll check IMDb before I risk sounding like an idiot.Damien wrote:Although neither is well-known today the way the top '30s stars are (hell, Irene Dunne and Jean Arthur and Fredric March are non-entities to people today), it's a gross mis-statement to say that the Bad Girl stars "remained unknown."