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Post by darksidebeadle on Mar 28, 2017 16:21:07 GMT
The Invisible Man / James Whale (1933). This delightful “horror” film, a dark comedy, based on H.G. Well’s 1897 novel, introduced Claude Rains in his first lead role. It made him star even though he is not seen until becoming visible right at the final fadeout. He stars as Griffin, a scientist who goes where mankind was not meant to go. In trying to develop invisibility, he uses a forbidden compound that effects people’s minds, turning them psychotic (a change from the source in which Griffin was a megalomaniac from the start). The film opens in a small English village during winter. In the pub, there is the unexpected arrival of a stranger completely covered in clothing and his face wrapped in bandages. He demands a room where he can have quiet and solitude – something the meddling pub owners are not willing to give. This leads to the first unforgettable set-piece. The landlord couple decide to evict him. When he loses his temper, he unwraps his bandages and starts shedding clothes, reveling his invisibility. He then frolics down the street, kicking people in the rear, knocking off hats, and stealing one man’s bicycle (an uncredited Walter Brennen) and riding it, seemingly with no one on it, down the street. The big takeaway from this scene is Una O’Connor, the pub landlady, and her extended hysterical screaming. H.G. Wells, himself, praised O’Connor for her performance. The special effects astonished the original audiences and is still pretty amazing if it is kept in mind that they didn’t have computer animated help. “The Invisible Man” is one of several important “monster” movies from Universal Studio in the early sound era. It came after “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” but before “The Bride of Frankenstein.” An important and fun film. Junior G-Men Of The Air / Ray Taylor and Lewis D. Collins (1942). The cast of young street kids in the social realism film “Dead End” (1937) spun off into several different movie permutations and series: the Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, East Side Kids, and, finally, The Bowery Boys. Maybe the most unusual setting for them was the three cliffhanger serials for Universal. Junior G-Men (1940) and Sea Raiders (1941) were the other two. Some of the Little Tough Guys movies featured a sub-set of the Dead End Kids: Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, and Bernard Punsley. This same sub-set is also the lead cast of these serials. Leo Gorcey does not appear in them, although his younger brother David Gorcey is in some of the early chapters. In this one, made after the U.S. entered WWII, the Bad Guys are a gang of Fifth Columnists led by a Japanese mastermind played by Lionel Atwell. Atwell hardly appears at all, maybe a couple of minutes per chapter. He is always sitting at a desk giving orders to henchmen or berating them for letting these kids defeat his plans. Like most serials, the plot is at once very simple and extremely knotty. Halop’s younger brother (Gene Reynolds) invents a muffler for airplanes at their father’s junk yard. The spies want it so they kidnap Reynolds. So, there are attemps to try and find the brother, getting the muffler plans back, losing the plans back to the spies, heading off sabatoge attempts, and so on. Not the best of serials; not the worst of serials. For fans of Dead End Kids and/or cliffhanger serials (don’t miss another exciting chapter next week at this theater). Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka. (2003). When the British cult sci-fi series “Doctor Who” was canceled by the BBC after 26 seasons, fans had to find something to hang on to. The void was usually filled by periodicals featuring fan fiction, new novels in several story lines, and audio adventures from the company Big Finish. The BBC, of course, had to license all these productions, but didn’t do much themselves. In 2003, just two years before the return of The Doctor to a regular TV schedule, Ma Beeb produced and webcasted this animated adventure. It consisted of six weekly episodes of 10 to 20 minutes length each. Richard E. Grant (“Withnail and I”, “Gosford Park”) got the call as The Doctor. As his new companion, they picked Sophie Okenedo (just one year away from an Oscar nomination). It begins in a rather leisurely fashion but quickly picks up speed. By the last episode, the viewer his holding one’s breath as the Earth comes close to destruction and the human race to extinction. An excellent story and script by Paul Cornell who went on to write two of the best stories of the New Series. I’m not sure why Grant didn’t get the part when Doctor Who returned on a regular basis. He did appear as a villain in three later stories and Okenedo showed up in two stories as Queen Liz 10 of England. Highly recommended for science fiction thriller fans. A Bigger Splash / Luca Guadagnino (2015). The follies of the rich and famous with a great cast but not to much point. Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton) is an international rock star who has had throat surgery à la Julie Andrews and is recuperating on an Italian island resort with her lover, Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts). She is forbidden to speak except infrequently in a whisper. They are suddenly dropped in on by her former manager, Harry (Ralph Fiennes), a motormouth who says anything that comes into his head, who she had previously been romantically involved with. He brings along his daughter, Penelope (Dakota Johnson), who he is just getting to know. Disputes, jealousies, adultery, and just about everybody getting naked ensues. The film doesn’t really go anywhere or have anything new to say. If there are any pleasures to be had, it is, for me anyway, that I can watch Fiennes and Swinton in just about anything and be happy. They are both excellent here. The other two main cast members do OK. I don’t know much about either of them except that Johnson was in that one hit movie that I will never see and that she is the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith and her grandmother is Tippi Hedren – if those factoids have any meaning I don’t know what it is. Been too long since I saw the invisible man (no pun intended) but I remember it being pretty near
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Post by darksidebeadle on Mar 28, 2017 16:25:01 GMT
Billy Madison (1995, Tamra Davis) tv
This was the breakout film for Adam Sandler that got the ball rolling. he plays the spoilt son of a hotel mogul who must repeat all the grades of High School to prove to his father he can take over the business. It has a god villain, some funny scenes but Sandler is very annoying to watch in this one. It does have a superb cameo from Steve Buscemi though that is very memorable. 5/10 A View to a Kill (1985, John Glen)blu ray
Roger Moore's final outing as James Bond is a little more serious than the previous film but unfortunately frightfully slow and dull. The story drags but there are some high spots and Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter) has a great presence as the main villain. 4/10
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003, Peter Jackson) tv Some people say that most of the effects in these films have not aged well but they were pretty damned patchy when they first came out. Time of course has made them a little more laughable. The effects might be forgivable if the design was better, lets face it though everything in these films is varying degrees of bad except for maybe Gollum. It just happened to be on this afternoon while i was doing some other things and it is still quite fun to laugh at how awful these turned out. 3/10
“Billy Madison” is, I think, one of only two Adam Sandler movies I have seen. You are absolutely right that Sandler is annoying and that the Steve Buscemi cameo is a memorable classic. I would also mention the speech by the teacher at the quiz contest who tells Sandler that his answer has lowered everybody’s IQ. I actually laughed at that. “A View to a Kill” is frequently mentioned by people as the worst Bond movie. I can’t really say that because although I have seen it a couple of times (including in theater when first released), I don’t remember a single frame of it. A week after I watch it, it’s gone. So, it is not really “bad,” just hardly there at all. “Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King.” I have never been a big reader of science fiction or fantasy so when a friend of mine, a high school reading teacher, shoved a copy of “The Fellowship of the Ring” into my hands one day about 40 years ago and told me to read it, I really didn’t want to…but, just out of friendship, I started it. And finished it. And bought the other two volumes. Then read them all again. And again. I have even read the entire saga out loud twice; once to each of my sons. So, I was apprehensive when approaching Jackson’s three movie adaptation. I felt a little relieved at “Fellowship,” but got uneasy at the start of “The Two Towers.” About half-way though the middle movie – at the dwarf tossing scene – the whole project had gone off the rails and stayed off. “The Return of the King” is Tolkien’s great achievement reduced to a standard CGI dominated summer action blockbuster for gamers – stick figures running around shooting and fighting. So much was cut from the story that I don’t understand how anyone who had not read the books at least 3 times could figure out what the hell was going on. Maybe the mind-numbing action overwhelmed little details like telling a compelling story. Thanks for your response!
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maxwellperfect
Junior Member
@maxwellperfect
Posts: 3,966
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Post by maxwellperfect on Mar 28, 2017 20:29:00 GMT
Suffragette (2015) -- first viewing -- This movie does a good job portraying the courage of the women who demonstrated and agitated for the right to vote in early 20th Century England. It's certainly an interesting story and you can't fault the performances or period detail, yet somehow this movie left me somewhat cold. The is possibly because the movie's entire energy comes from depicting the wretched working conditions of women and their disenfranchisement, which can only be viewed as wrong from our enlightened 21st Century viewpoint, and therefore the movie doesn't really make you think at all. Preaching to the choir. I call it the "Do the Right Thing" syndrome. 7/10
Horse Feathers (1932) -- The Marx Brothers were the funniest human beings on the planet, and this movie is a prime exhibit. Best line: Chico starts playing a piano ballad. Man A sighs, "I love good music," and Groucho replies, "So do I. Let's get out of here!" 8/10
Miller's Crossing (1990) -- first viewing -- Entertaining neo-noir that requires your full attention to keep track of all the characters and plot developments, riding a kinetic energy of stylized dialogue, quirky characters (except for the main character, who I found a bit bland) and (of course) over-the-top violence. 8/10
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Post by darksidebeadle on Mar 28, 2017 20:45:55 GMT
Suffragette (2015) -- first viewing -- This movie does a good job portraying the courage of the women who demonstrated and agitated for the right to vote in early 20th Century England. It's certainly an interesting story and you can't fault the performances or period detail, yet somehow this movie left me somewhat cold. The is possibly because the movie's entire energy comes from depicting the wretched working conditions of women and their disenfranchisement, which can only be viewed as wrong from our enlightened 21st Century viewpoint, and therefore the movie doesn't really make you think at all. Preaching to the choir. I call it the "Do the Right Thing" syndrome. 7/10 Horse Feathers (1932) -- The Marx Brothers were the funniest human beings on the planet, and this movie is a prime exhibit. Best line: Chico starts playing a piano ballad. Man A sighs, "I love good music," and Groucho replies, "So do I. Let's get out of here!" 8/10 Miller's Crossing (1990) -- first viewing -- Entertaining neo-noir that requires your full attention to keep track of all the characters and plot developments, riding a kinetic energy of stylized dialogue, quirky characters (except for the main character, who I found a bit bland) and (of course) over-the-top violence. 8/10 I saw horse feathers as a kid but was never a fan of the Marx brothers Millers Crossing - one of the coens most stylish for sure 7/10
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Post by LaurenceBranagh on Apr 1, 2017 2:23:09 GMT
A Double Life - 8/10 Howl's Moving Castle - 8/10 Jodorowsky's Dune - 7/10 1984 (1984) - 6/10 Crime and Punishment (2002) - 6/10 Howard the Duck - 5/10 Churchill's Secret (TV Movie) - 4/10 The Magnificent Seven (2016) - 4/10
Re-Watch: How the West Was Won - 9/10
Best Picutre: How the West Was Won Best Actor: Ronald Colman, A Double Life Best Actress: Debbie Reynolds, How the West Was Won Best Supporting Actress: Vanessa Redgrave, Crime and Punishment Best Supporting Actor: John Hurt, Crime and Punishment Best Ensemble: How the West Was Won Best Director: Hayao Miyazaki, Howl's Moving Castle
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