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Post by ZolotoyRetriever on Mar 22, 2018 20:25:53 GMT
This is such a good thread... I'm getting lots of movie titles to add to my "To see" list. Keep up the good work, lads and lasses.
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Post by jeffersoncody on Mar 23, 2018 5:55:16 GMT
THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH (1978) on Blu Ray. A powerful, brutal tale about racism in Australia, this brilliant, shocking and heartbreaking Aussie film is right up there with the likes of classics such as PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, WALKABOUT, GALLIPOLI, THE TRACKER, BAD BOY BUBBY and MAD MAX. In other words this is one of the greatest Australian films ever made. A must-see.
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Post by ZolotoyRetriever on Mar 23, 2018 8:01:02 GMT
Crossfire (1947), with Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum, and Robert Young. DVR'd off of TCM telecast a few nights ago. Second viewing for me, although the first viewing was quite a while ago, so it was almost like seeing it all over again for the first time. This is excellent film noir. Touches on many themes and societal issues that are still relevant to this day.
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Post by kijii on Mar 23, 2018 16:24:33 GMT
Counsellor-at-Law (1933) is another example of an early William Wyler talkie. This is the second movie I have seen in which Elmer Rice wrote both the original stage play and the screen play--the other was Street Scene (1931). Although I think the play was good, I see a lot of possibilities to make this stage-bound movie much better than it was, and I blame Wyler for most of the moive's shortcomings. Wyler is one of my favorite top-quality directors. But, on this movie missed the mark for me. I have never seen John Barrymore in a great movie role and one of shortcomings starts with using him in the title role. It's too bad that Paul Muni could not be used here as he was in the stage play; Barrymore was subject to extremely sudden and exaggerated mood shifts which call attention to themselves and ruin the message. Pacing was another problem. Although this play may have been meant to be fast paced, it often seems to play like a 50-yard dash, with Barrymore talking too fast on the phone (as if the party on the other end of the conversation was not there). People are running in and out of his office all the time--pushing several plots simultaneously. It is hard to imagine a large NYC law firm operating in such turmoil: after watching this movie, one is more likely to remember the obnoxious switchboard operator than the interactions between lawyer and his clients. .jpg) ------------------------------------------- The Gay Deception (1935) www.imdb.com/title/tt0026400/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1is another just-seen early William Wyler talkie.. 
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Post by teleadm on Mar 23, 2018 16:58:47 GMT
Houseboat 1958, directed by Melville Shavelson, original script by Shavelson and Jack Rose, soundtrack composed by George Duning, starring Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, Martha Hyer, Harry Guardino, Eduardo Ciannelli, Murray Hamilton, Madge Kennedy (who was Samuel Goldwyns first female star back in the silent days) and others including in unbilled parts Bess Flowers and Kathleen Freeman. This is delightful entertainment about Tom Winters (Grant), a widower, who is trying to understand and raise three precocious children alone. He gets a little unexpected help from Cinzia (Loren), when the children decide she is to be their new maid. She is actually an Italian socialite who is trying to get away from her overprotective father. Because of circumstances they end up living on the titled Houseboat. Some outdoor scenes was made on beautiful locations in Maryland and Virginia Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote two songs, "Bing! Bang! Bong!" sung by Sophia, and a love theme also called "Almost in Your Arms" sung by Sam Cooke that is played during a society club party and not during the titles sequence. Cary Grant's comedy skills comes to good use, and Sophia Loren complements him well, though she has a strange coloured make-up that makes her skin a bit too dark. The three siblings are not cloying and says some hard truths sometimes and that is also part of the fun. This is a romantic comedy that throws a few punches directed at the upper classes snobbery. I enjoyed being in their company. The three siblings was played by Paul Petersen, Mimi Gibson and Charles Herbert, and they were at the time of this movie seasoned kid actors, and they all followed similiar paths. They all had mothers that pushed them into acting, and when they turned turned 18 y/o their mothers had spent all their money. Mimi sued her mother, Paul finished school and got a degree, and they both started the initiativ within The Screen Actors Guild "A Minor Consideration" to help child actors and former child actors to get their fair amounts and a modification of the Jackie Coogan Law. Sadly for Charles everything when downhill once he was in his late teens, and he lived nearly 40 years in dispair and on drugs, finally getting drug free in 2005, sadly he died suddenly in a heart attack in 2015. They each got 25.000 USD for their roles, so one can understand but not sympathize with their mothers greed. I have mentioned this because I always wonder what happed to those kids in movies after they stopped being "cute".  Paul, Cary, Charles, Sophia and Mimi. 
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Post by mikef6 on Mar 23, 2018 17:01:18 GMT
My third viewing of “Chimes At Midnight” Full review coming (possibly) this weekend on the weekly thread or, if not, next week, depending on the breaks and if I finish another Wellesean Shakespeare movie to pair with it in the meantime.  |
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Post by kijii on Mar 23, 2018 17:11:45 GMT
My third viewing of “Chimes At Midnight” Full review coming (possibly) this weekend on the weekly thread or, if not, next week, depending on the breaks and if I finish another Wellesean Shakespeare movie to pair with it in the meantime. I love Chimes At Midnight because it takes all of those great Falstaff moments from Shakespeare's History plays and combines them into one movie. And, Wells is my favorite Falstaff!! It is hard to imagine a better one. |
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Post by kijii on Mar 23, 2018 23:21:51 GMT
The Reluctant Debutante (1958) Kay Kendall and Rex Harrison were married at the time this movie was made. Kendall had a wonderful sense of comedy here; all Rex had to do here is let his wife act circles around him and do her thing. Kendall died when she was only 33 during her short marriage to Harrison. 
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Post by kijii on Mar 24, 2018 1:00:31 GMT
This is such a good thread... I'm getting lots of movie titles to add to my "To see" list. Keep up the good work, lads and lasses. Thanks, Zolotoy Retriever, I think this thread offers an alternative--only an alternative--to the weekly thread and provides a (more or less) permanent central place to go when trying to remember which movie you watched and when. Also, I like to write reviews (with comments, or photos) right after seeing the movie while it is still "fresh in the mind." Another thing I like about it is the real-time show-and-tell of what others on the Board are doing at (about) the time they are doing it. --------------------------------------------- I notice that there is a fairly sizable group of Joan Crawford movies playing right now on TCM and I look forward to filling in some gaps there. I think I have recorded all of them on my DVR. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2018 4:11:52 GMT
I did just finish The Wizard of Oz (1939) a movie i had not seen in probably 20 years
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Post by Nalkarj on Mar 24, 2018 4:17:33 GMT
Sahara (2005), a movie that I should like, but it’s just so bland and forgettable. Is it bad? Nah. Is it good? Nah. Preposterous plot, as the reviews all noted, but that’s the least of its worries—the tone and acting are all over the place, and the staging is badly done; this needed a different director. I’m probably going to forget about it in just a few minutes—except, maybe, for one or two scenes that I will inexplicably remember and then [w]rack my brain trying to remember where I remember it from. So—in other words, to prevent that, thanks for this thread, kijii !   P.S. Patrick Malahide [whom I know best as Ngaio Marsh’s Insp. Roderick Alleyn] attempts an American accent. It’s a pretty good American accent, but somehow he still sounds like he’s gargling with marbles.
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Post by mikef6 on Mar 24, 2018 5:15:24 GMT
Macao  |
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Mar 24, 2018 12:57:01 GMT
I saw it before, 28 years ago!  |
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Post by BATouttaheck on Mar 24, 2018 13:50:32 GMT
NalkarjRE: Sahara. I need to watch this one again. I remember seeing it with a friend in a theater and the two of us kept literally laughing out loud and getting "looks" from the other attendees who were just sitting there eating their popcorn and looking bored. Have not seen it since, but I remember the experience rather fondly even tho' I don't remember the film itself ! Perhaps just another "not extra-ordinary film" that worked at that particular moment. I do have a copy of it ... un-watched (yet).
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Post by kijii on Mar 24, 2018 14:11:51 GMT
Joan Crawford Marathon --Or, Why I keep thinking about Mommie Dearest?
#/media/File:Autumn_Leaves_One_Sheet.jpg) Autumn Leaves (1956) is a movie that starts out strangely and builds slowly. But, what is going on here? Why does Burt (Cliff Roberson) keep changing his story about where he came from and what he did in the army? Liz Eckhart (Ruth Donnelly): Nobody can help you now.
Milly (Joan Crawford): Why cant they? When do I get my turn? Everybody needs help don't they? I need help too. Maybe I don't want to find out how he feels.
Liz Eckhart : Being in love is never easy, and the more in love you are, the less easy and more lonesome it gets.
------------------------------------------------- Torch Song (1953) is an interesting color "musical" about a perfectionist career-driven singer and dancer. Joan has a new look here with reddish blond hair. Her stage director is played by an unlikely Harry Morgan; her mother by Marjorie Rambeau. Her new love interest and savior is a blind pianist, Michael Wilding. I have no idea why Gig Young was in the movie because he adds nothing to the overall plot. It is fun to watch this movie, if for no other reason, to hear the female vocalist used for dubbing Joan's voice. I wonder who she is? Whatever...her great voice surely does not match Joan's voice or personality. It's was interesting to see a musical stage piece with Joan and her fellow dancers all in black face. What was THAT about?  -------------------------------------------------- Flamingo Road (1949) may have been trying to rematch some of the magic of Mildred Pierce (1945) with the same director (Michael Curtiz), the same love interest (Zachary Scott), and the same rages-to-riches roadhouse waitress motif for Joan. But, FR adds a new villain (Sydney Greenstreet) who tries to ruin Joan's life over and over again. By the time the movie ends, you will hate Greenstreet's character so much that you will have wished for him to have suffered more than he ultimately did. Sheriff Titus Semple (Sydney Greenstreet): Now me, I never forget anything.
Lane Bellamy (Joan Crawford): You know sheriff; we had an elephant in our carnival with a memory like that. He went after a keeper that he'd held a grudge against for almost 15 years. Had to be shot. You just wouldn't believe how much trouble it is to dispose of a dead elephant.
---------------------------------------------------- Queen Bee (1955) It's hard to think of one major performer in this movie that Eva (the Queen Bee) didn't, or hadn't, somehow poisoned. Carol Lee Phillips (Betsy Palmer) [while talking to Jennifer Stewart (Lucy Marlow)]: She'll sting you one day. Oh, ever so gently, so you hardly even feel it. Til you fall dead.
-------------------------------------------------- This Woman Is Dangerous (1952) is a B movie with a complex plot. It is about a gangster's moll who discovers that needs eye surgery to save her sight. The moll (Joan Crawford) leaves the gangster (David Brian) and goes to another city for the surgery after they pull off an major heist. But, while getting and recovering from the eye surgery, she fall in love with the compassionate doctor (Dennis Morgan). Thus, we have a love triangle. But, the movie only get more complex from there with the FBI and a private I getting involved trying to finding her.  -------------------------------------------------- I Live My Life (1935) is a comedy common to the era when Joan Crawford's character could have been played by any young actress from MGM. The story: young rich girl (Joan Crawford) leaves her yacht to go slumming (on a donkey) while in the Grecian Isles. She happens upon to an Irish archaeologist (Brian Aherne) while he is on a dig. They fall in love which leads to several comedic episodes. I do like Brian Aherne in comedies.  Here it is on YouTube with 4 eventual "Oscared" performers (7 continuous sections): www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejy9l33E0xc ----------------------------------------------------- A Woman's Face (1941) is an interesting movie with a good cast. This seems to be an English language remake of A Woman's Face (1938) Anna Holm (Joan Crawford) : Oh, no, you're the expert. Turn on your lights.
Dr. Gustaf Segert (Melvyn Douglas) : Unfortunately for humanity, the light hasn't been invented...
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Susan and God (1940) Joan seems to have done well under Cukor, A Woman's Face and The Woman, being two other examples of Joan's work with Cukor. Susan and God is a strange idea for a comedy based on a play by Rachel Crothers. A rich frivolous woman (Crawford) finds"God" in Europe. She, with her newly-discovered religious zeal, flies into the movie on a motor boat and never quite hits the ground until the end of the movie when she realizes that her daughter and husband are more in need of her than her work with the movement is. Don't expect to find a Bible thumper here, God is only a concept for the comedy. Boy, these ultra-rich people live strange lives....
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Post by kijii on Mar 24, 2018 22:39:32 GMT
Centennial Summer (1946) is possibly the worst musical of the era, with no memorable story or songs. If this was 20th Century Fox's answer to the success of MGM's Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), it failed in ever sort of way. One thing that Vincente Minnelli was good at was musicals, and Otto Preminger shows us again that he had no feeling for the genre. It would be hard to imagine a worse cast, with Walter Brennan married to Dorothy Gish, and both singing along to the unmemorable music of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein. Still, they did get an Oscar nomination for this movie. I saw this on YouTube (the picture is not very good): www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJg1t3CI4O4 |
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Post by ZolotoyRetriever on Mar 26, 2018 3:03:49 GMT
The Formula (1980), www.imdb.com/title/tt0080754/?ref_=rvi_tt Featuring George C. Scott and Marlon Brando.
Second viewing for me. DVR'd off of TCM a couple months ago. This one is a good, intriguing murder mystery - not so much a "Who Done It?" but a "Why Done It?" The reasons really make you stop and think.
Excellent performances, some great bits of dialogue, and interesting filming locations. See it if you get the chance.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2018 4:00:34 GMT
I did just finish The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) and it has become the fith movie i have given a 10\10
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Post by ZolotoyRetriever on Mar 26, 2018 4:36:16 GMT
The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), with Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft. DVR'd off of TCM last night.
This is a repeat viewing for me. I like this one - lots of funny lines and over-the-top angst from Jack Lemmon's character. Sometimes a bit *too* over-the-top. But, a fun watch just the same, and has some timeless comments and observations about contemporary living that are still spot-on some 40 years later. See it if you haven't. Get a load of the HUGE mid-70s cars we used to drive in America, too. lol
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Post by jeffersoncody on Mar 26, 2018 16:16:11 GMT
Double feature. Hadn't seen either since they were originally released on the big screen. These two stand the test of time. LOVELY & AMAZING (2001). 8 out of 10.  BOYS DON'T CRY (1999). 9 out of 10.  |
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