What was the last film you watched?

[Willie Oleson]

i guess the film just isn't for everyone and that's fine

There is a lot of good stuff in it and I wouldn't hate to rewatch it some time in the future, but it wasn't as great as I hoped it would be.

but i've always hated the ending

I honestly can't say if it was good or bad. There was too much information missing to make that decision.

And what was the deal with the chauffeured limousine (well, sort of). Not the kind of transport I'd expect from a working farm.
I kinda imagined that McMurphy was from a wealthy family and that his devious "JR Ewing" type of brother shipped him off to the loony bin.
Whatever.

 

[darkshadows38]

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (1974)

well this is another great film and the remake is Actually pretty damn good i think too i dunno how well that was Received or not but i enjoyed the hell of it

 

[Willie Oleson]

LITTLE ACCIDENTS (2014)



A small-town drama with two characters going through parallel storylines. Even though the accidents are really not that "little", the story plays out in a rather restraint fashion which in itself is not a bad thing, but somehow it never reaches the depth it was going for. This is not another THE ICE STORM.
I think I would have liked it better if it had been a French film since those film makers have a knack for understated atmosphere - or perhaps it just works better for those French villages.

Some reviewers find it too soapy, but I (the soap opera fan) think it's not soapy enough because there was so much more to explore.
Maybe that also describes how LITTLE ACCIDENTS kinda falls between two stools.
Regardless, I enjoyed it and there wasn't anything in it that I disliked, but it's not a terribly rewarding experience.

 

[Willie Oleson]

PHANTOM THREAD (2017)



It looks as delicate as its subject, but with a strong, gothic-tragic undertone.
The dialogue alone makes this film a must-watch, but it's also beautifully shot and very well acted.

 

[rlr718]

Recently just watched Krampus, Nanny McPhee and Nanny McPhee Returns.

 

[rlr718]

Oh I almost forgot, also recently watched the ghost and mrs Muir. Very different from the tv sitcom.

 

[Willie Oleson]

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994)



Didn't remember anything about it so I thought it would be fun to rewatch it. Well.
The first 15 minutes or so are actually pretty good - thanks to Tom Cruise who made an interesting transformation. Lestat kinda looks like Jennifer Saunders, I think.
But then the story becomes one big long complaint mixed with misplaced elements of parody, and it certainly wasn't Brad Pitt's inexpressive face and voice (and cringy 1990s Chippendales hairdo) that would make this film slightly more watchable.
I guess I should be grateful that I've never tried to read the novel. This is dreck.

 

[Sarah Danner]

The Major and the Minor. Ginger didn't always need blonde hair and Fred to help her shine.

 

[Willie Oleson]

MISSISSIPPI BURNING (1988)



As one would expect from a real life human vs. human story this film is often frustrating to watch, and mostly brings about feelings of revenge. When that revenge finally happens it's not as satisfying as it should be, and at the same time I don't want it to be.
It's perfectly OK in a completely dreamed up scenario like, say, a soap opera, but generally speaking I don't enjoy feeling that way about other people.

However, I find this film incredibly interesting when the story is placed in the bigger picture of American history, rather than an isolated case in "The South".
The cultural shifts in the 1960s, the oh-so-typical American conspiracy theories and the elusive power of the FBI and how it operates adds to the film's grandeur.

The physical action in Mississippi Burning - no matter how difficult to watch - is extremely well done.
Willem Dafoe is almost cast against type and even though it's just Willem Dafoe with specs I often had to remind myself that it was Willem Dafoe.
I'm not a big fan of Gene Hackman and perhaps that's why this film sat in my watchlist for such a long time, but here he doesn't disappoint (or at least doesn't do any damage).
Frances McDormand is reliable as usual but the one who ended up on my radar is actor Brad Dourif whose performance I enjoyed previously in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, and now I feel I need to see more of him (a glance at IMDB informs me that he was Piter De Vries in David Lynch's infamous DUNE).

Like I said it's very disturbing but there are many great things about this film that make it enjoyable and fascinating to watch.

 

[Willie Oleson]

QUEEN BEE (1955)



A young woman named Jennifer (Lucy Marlow) visits her cousin Eva (Joan Crawford) although I think Eva was meant to be her aunt.
Eva terrorizes her family - husband Avery, sister-in-law Carol and Carol's love interest Jud - but there's no legitimacy behind it since Eva herself is the outsider who married into the wealthy Phillips family. It's not explained where her authority comes from and the fact that everybody reacts so inexplicably passive to her shenanigans makes them even more unlikeable than Eva herself.

I assume they were going for the angle that Eva is simply irresistibly attractive, especially in the romance department, but only on the basis of "because we say so".
This viewer needs a more convincing argument.
Carol's decision to kill herself because of something relatively trivial (an affair that happened a long time ago and really shouldn't affect the here and now) is downright laughable and completely devoid of tragedy.
Not that anyone cared, blink and you'll miss it.
The timelines are shoddily done. What appears to be "the next morning" is two weeks later which makes it even more plodding and idiotic.

Then the narrative starts to change. Weak and alcoholic husband Avery takes control by seducing his wife and then it turns out that that's what she wanted all along.
Reading between the lines - and I can't believe I bothered to make the effort - it was his marital neglect based on guilt for standing up his former fiancée that made her lash out the way she did.
Which still doesn't explain why everyone would put up with it. It's not like she could play the inheritance card or something like that.
Besides, Eva even considered herself to be the villain and enjoyed every minute of it, which kinda removes any dimension this character could have had.
"Aren't I wicked?" she says.

It kinda works as a set up for a Murder She Wrote episode but as a feature film this is just a waste of celluloid.
A lazy star-vehicle with uninspired dialogue and mostly soulless performances (except for Fay Wray as Avery's former fiancée Sue), I can't even call it a guilty pleasure.

 

[Seaviewer]

The Mule (2018)
When I sat down to watch this I was expecting to see a Western about an actual mule.
Instead, it's about a grumpy old man, estranged from his family, who becomes a drugrunner to solve his impending financial woes.
As star & director, Clint Eastwood balances the action and emotion well, and even throws in some humour here and there.

 

[Rove]

Creation of the GODS 1
Available to watch on Amazon Prime this Chinese epic fantasy film surprised me.​

 

[Emelee]

Cool Runnings - the story of the Jamaican bob sleigh team.

 

[Willie Oleson]

THE CHASE (1966)



This has been in my prime rentals watchlist for quite some time but today I found it you-tube, in good quality and without commercials. I didn't even have to look for it, actually.

So...this is basically a retelling of East Of Eden, the story of two young men, a miscast and an outcast - and Jane Fonda.
From Marlon Brando's point of view this a sci-fi schlocker about a town driven to madness by forces from outerspace.

But then sometimes it's a soap opera that tries hard to be steamy and anarchic, but never really gets there, the way Valley Of The Dolls also didn't.
The adults act like horny drunken teenagers, none of them have children and the actual children we do get to see don't have parents.

There's not much of a chase going on, and during the first half of the film I thought they were chasing a good storyline.
The star-studded cast (admittedly, some of them in the early stage of stardom) could also been seen as a red flag for lack of substance, kinda how it works in those awful disaster movies.
THE CHASE even features a Shelley Winters look-alike and Marlon Brando's sister.

It's an odd mix of brilliance and awfulness. Robert Duvall is woefully underused and yet he managed to make his character "pop".
All the others were just fine and Robert Redford whose character mostly serves as the story's cataclysm makes the best of his performance when he finally gets the chance to speak.
He plays Bubba, you're going to hear that name a lot. Like, teeth-grindingly and wanna-stop-watchingly often.
I found the last part exciting and satisfying, it uses the clever irony of predicting the outcome the wrong way.

Marlon Brando leads an all-star as Sheriff Calder in...The Chase ! A film with many flavours and, evidently, many readings.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Scrooged (1988)

This was watched on a whim. If I'd stopped to think about it I'd probably have decided it's too early for Christmas-themed films, but the poster doesn't look particularly festive and the film itself didn't really feel very Christmassy either.

I'd never watched this before, but I do remember it being popular with classmates when it was in cinemas. Bill Murray was quite big at the time, and I'd enjoyed Ghostbusters, but something put me off watching this. Something at the back of my mind tells me I was probably put off on some level by the idea of an Americanisation of a quintessentially British story.

Fortunately, this isn't a "straight" adaption. As you'd guess from the poster it's really a typical Bill Murray film which happens to follow the same basic story as the Dickens novel. The only really cringey parts are the "film within a film", with the Buddy Hackett's Scrooge opening the window on Christmas morning and ordering the all-American kid to buy a bird for the Cratchits. But then, since Murray's character is filming this version of A Christmas Carol it's meant to be cringey (I think).

Bill Murray, naturally, is Bill Murray. You know what you're getting and this film is no exception in that regard.

Besides Bill Murray, I had no idea who was in this film, and I found myself more impressed with each familiar face that appeared. It feels like the world and his wife are in this, with everyone from Robert Goulet and Lee Majors cameoing as themselves to the likes of John Forsythe (as I'd never have expected to see him), Robert Mitchum and Carol Kane (whose character feels straight out of a panto - in the best kind of way).

Giving the film its grounding are Alfre Woodard as the kind-of-Bob-Cratchit character and Karen Allen as the film's kind-of-Belle. Both are truly captivating, with radiant, natural performances.

It's not the kind of film I'd want to watch every Christmas. Now I've seen it, I don't feel the need to revisit it. All the same, I'm glad I watched it just this once.​

 

[Willie Oleson]

Bill Murray, naturally, is Bill Murray. You know what you're getting

To be honest, I wouldn't have a clue.

John Forsythe

Oddly enough I've never bothered to find any of his films but now you've given me the inspiration. On that note...

84 CHARING CROSS ROAD (1987)



If 84 CCR is considered a Christmassy movie then I'll say that this is completely coincidental since I chose it for the lead actors who had starred so magnificently in the other biopic THE ELEPHANT MAN.
"A big love affair" could be a little misleading to those who are looking for something overtly romantic - and spoilers be damned, that scene on the beach with two people running towards each other is not going to happen. Ever. But there is a beach, and Judi Dench in a supporting role.

I would compare 84 CCR to that other transatlantic story LOCAL HERO in terms of being uneventful, wholesome, soothing and also somewhat hypnotizing.
The story of a correspondence also plays out as a correnspondence, interspersed with mentions or showings of historical events, and that gives it a bit of a novelty quality. At least I had never seen something like this before.
As life goes on and the years go by the characters are inevitably confronted with mortality, but the lack of high drama doesn't make it less impactful.
I don't know if Helene Hanff continued her correspondence with any of the people in England or if she visited any members of the Doel family once she finally got there.
One note of criticism: bad fake-typing.

It also made me think of how we, here on tellytalk, have become a similar story to 84 CCR. And I did, indeed, receive some soapy goodness from people who live in foreign countries. And so it has become a Christmassy affair after all.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

To be honest, I wouldn't have a clue.

Perhaps I should have added the caveat "...if you've seen one Bill Murray film."

In a nutshell, there's a whole lot of wry, sarcastic deadpanning going on, together with quirky eccentricities.

Oddly enough I've never bothered to find any of his films but now you've given me the inspiration.

He did a couple of Hitchcocks which are worth it on that basis alone. Most notably black comedy The Trouble With Harry:

The 1950s Vermont setting gives it a bit of a Peyton Place vibe, I think. And the premise (kind of) informed an iconic Knots Landing season finale.

84 CHARING CROSS ROAD (1987)

I would compare 84 CCR to that other transatlantic story LOCAL HERO in terms of being uneventful, wholesome, soothing and also somewhat hypnotizing.

I've never seen either, but now I'm interested.

It also made me think of how we, here on tellytalk, have become a similar story to 84 CCR. And I did, indeed, receive some soapy goodness from people who live in foreign countries. And so it has become a Christmassy affair after all.

Aww, that's lovely.

 

[Seaviewer]

He did a couple of Hitchcocks which are worth it on that basis alone. Most notably black comedy The Trouble With Harry:

You might try Madame X (with Lana Turner) as well.

 

[Willie Oleson]

THE INTRUDER (1962)



William Shatner shines as the dashing and manipulative segregationist on a mission.
You could say that this is an early "Mississippi Burning" and I guess it's not surprising that "The Intruder" looks a bit safer by comparison - but probably more challenging to make considering the conditions and the time it was made.
This being a B&W 1960s film also means that the eeriness comes very naturally, and the theory that racial integration was nothing but a devious plot hatched by pro-Russia Jews usually has a whiff of "Twilight Zone" imo.
Since the local paper is part of the story it also reminded me of Flamingo Road.

Not to be missed if you're a fan of sixties cinema.

 

[Willie Oleson]

SPENCER (2021)



And yet another unintentional choice for a Christmas movie. What's going on here?

The first thing to notice it the modern one-word title. Could it be an origins story for a Disney or James Bond character? Nooo, it's all about then-Princess Diana.
Not really a biopic or something that is supposed to reveal new information, and I think it's more about the "how" than the "what".

From that point of view I think this is a gorgeous film, and the score covers almost half of the narrative.
With the focus on Diana's state of mind during this fictionalized event it often comes across as a Roman Polanski-esque mystery drama, and I can even read a little bit of Alice In Wonderland in it. The pheasants, the scarecrow, the military precision especially in relation to the Queen - and at the beginning of the film she even says "I have no idea where I am".

I think the film is ambiguous enough in its portrayal of paranoia vs. being gaslighted (or is it gaslit?) but it does make me re-think the actual situation (what we know of it anyway) and Diana's death in particular.
Apart from that it is also a story about a marriage on the rocks, the clash of past, present and future, and also what it means to be part of a monarchy.
SPENCER mostly shows without being too literally informative, something that can only be achieved in film so that's a big plus imo.

I haven't seen Netflix's BLONDE (see? another hip one-word title) but I suspect it's somewhat similar to this one.
Now I feel I should watch CRUELLA but it's only available to buy for 14 Euros. Well, I think not!