Last Movie Watched Thread

Accidentally made a double feature with the last movie I watched, of black and white movies where characters talk about the benefits of pairing coffee with cigarettes. This time it's Peter Falk, telling an angel how nice it is to pair the two things together.

This is my second Wim Wenders experience, after Paris, Texas, which recently blew me to smithereens. I've been thinking about scenes from it for...months now? It's one of those "can't get it out of your head" movies. Wings of Desire may yet reach that status but it was a little harder for me at first blush. It's more self-consciously Profound and Poetic, but it does get to real profundity and poetry too.

My expectations were a bit off. I thought it was about angels watching over people in Berlin and then hanging out with Peter Falk for some reason, in black and white. That's more or less true, but it's not all in black and white. And the basic fact isn't just that angels are watching us, but that they can read all our thoughts. In a way, the black and white picture relaxes our eyes because the soundtrack is a sensory overload. Every character is thinking! There are so many voiceovers! So many streams of consciousness! Ack! For almost all the movie we just...follow the angels around...as they eavesdrop on people and express a sort of helpless, unknowable empathy. The plot, when it comes, is: one of the angels wants to descend and become a human, to feel what people feel, to experience what we do, to see colors and taste things, and not deal with the frustration of immortality and omniscience. Also, turns out Peter Falk used to be an angel too. (Fact!)

The theme that made me feel like a teenager having Big Teen Thoughts is the symphony of various people's thoughts, the "sonder," the sense of wonder that all these different consciousnesses are all around us. But the theme that felt more adult, more mature, is the fact that knowing everything when you can't change anything is a burden, something to escape from. That seeing all, or living through all, isn't something to be desired.

Wenders is such a romantic. He really wants everyone to love life, appreciate the little things, reach out to others. I haven't seen Perfect Days yet but that sounds like the ideal companion piece to this.



An early Mike Leigh TV movie, Home Sweet Home. It's got all the bones of the future Mike Leigh greatness: unobtrusive, naturalistic observation of working-class people going about their lives; melodramatic Big Life Event subject matter handled with seemingly no awareness of how melodramatic it could be; and plenty of comedy notes folded in to keep you going. (Like one character's nonstop dad jokes, or a social worker's house visit, where she opens a door and says, "This is where you keep all your junk? Nice!")

The plot is: three guys work at the post office, and the camera follows them around. That's about it. One of them is separated from his wife and daughter. One of them has an irritable marriage to a woman who calls him stupid (and sometimes sleeps with guy #1). And the third is the perfect, lovely Timothy Spall, playing a near-complete idiot. (He doesn't even get the dad jokes.) They make small talk at the office and deal with relationship problems at home.

Leigh movies are so intimate, so close to and affectionate for their subjects, that they feel like you're making friends. And they don't try for ingratiation or friendship in the way that some directors do. (I like Rian Johnson but he really wants to be liked.) The result of that, and the stylistic neutrality, is that he can handle a lot of Big Issues while still making you feel hope. Even in this, ya know, TV movie.

Next I need to watch a movie with a capital-p Plot!

MrsLangdonAlger I’m not sure if I find Faist hot-hot but I think there’s something about the total physical-persona package that’s really appealing to me (feel bad for the insane diet they put him on to bulk him up—as a thin guy I’ve never been able to build any real muscle no matter how hard I tried). O’Connor’s face really matches some wealthy-but-destitute people I know, it’s uncanny.

My family (except me—sister working remotely to stay with my parents) decided to watch. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere my father has Lewy body dementia, and one of the things the condition really affects is sequential tasks and that goes with his viewing habits, where he prefers more regular stuff (movies or TV he’s seen a million times, sports), most of which still aligns more with boomer dad taste. I was surprised he gave it a try—he didn’t like it, though I couldn’t help but laugh that his main takeaway was that it was “unnecessary, I didn’t want to watch an ad for Stanford.”

The Incident (1967)

What a cast on this thing. Martin Sheen and Tony Musante in their film debuts, Ruby Dee, Beau Bridges, Brock Peters (the defendant in To Kill a Mockingbird), and a legitimate dramatic performance from Ed McMahon of all people. The film’s a sort-of proto-Taking of Pelham 123, with the superior first third setting up the dynamics of the couples and families who end up on a red-eye train that are terrorized by the sadistic hoods played by Sheen and Musante—their psychosexual relationship makes me guess Michael Haneke is a fan of this one. Neat on-location shooting of late-‘60s NYC that then becomes a stagy train car set drama. Overall an interesting if often heavy-handed indictment of humans’ inability to work for a common goal from short-sighted self interest. Director Larry Peerce went on to a career with films as disparate as Goodbye, Columbus and the John Belushi hit job Wired. Free on Youtube in a gorgeous print.


The Nickel Ride (1974)

Speaking of To Kill a Mockingbird, Robert Mulligan impressively shoots an early script from Eric Roth. Jason Miller of The Exorcist plays Cooper, manager of a L.A. bar front for a hot merch ring, who succumbs to the paranoia of being iced out out of the operation. Solid if slightly tedious ‘70s grit that at least deserves credit for being unaffected and unassuming in its depiction of the mob during the height of Godfather mania. Free on Youtube in a not-gorgeous print.

What if they finally did decide to make Idris Elba into the new Bond, now that he’s like a 70 year old man who loves shilling for the gold mining industry?

Since we’re talking Bond, I’d just like say, that, like the song or not, the title sequence for Casino Royale* is the absolute best one, no argument allowed.

*Craig

I feel like the buzziest horror movies have been letting me down lately. Not sure why, maybe I just get my hopes up too high, but nothing has really hit me lately. I'm glad to see your review, and also glad this thing is finally coming out. Feel like I've been hearing about it forever. Really hoping this is the one for me.

The End 1978

Sonny Lawson is a racist, sexist, real estate con man. He is also dying. 
  Burt Reynolds directs and stars in this weird comedy-drama about a man's dealing with his own impending death. While it has some bits that are horribly offensive today, it was controversial when released for having some bits that were horribly offensive even then. The thing that drew the most pushback was the portrayal of Dom DeLuise character's self hating Polish heritage, and his portrayal of a mentally ill person, as well as a large dose of typical 70's cringe.  The movie does also depict attempts at self harm.
  If you can get past that, and it can be hard to get past, the movie actually has quite a bit of depth.  After seeing many doctors, Lawson consults specialist Norman Fell, who gives him the bad news that he has maybe a year to live, due to a "rare blood disease".  Lawson then goes through several stages of grief in an attempt to tome to terms with his own mortality. After learning what the end stage of his disease is like, he enlist the help of mental patient Dom Deluise to aid him in avoiding that outcome. For being a 70's Burt Reynolds "comedy" it has some surprisingly poignant scenes.  It takes a hard look at death, and how it affects not only the individual, but also the ones who will be left behind. It goes very, very dark at times, while still finding humor in the absurdities of life. 
  The supporting cast is first rate, including Sally Fields as Lawson's girlfriend, Joanne Woodward as his ex-wife, Myrna Loy and Pat O'Brien as his parents, Kristy McNichol as his daughter, Carl Reiner as a counselor, and Robby Benson as a young priest who tries to hear Sonny's confession.  
  It is a very uncomfortable movie at times, but it went places nobody else was exploring at that time.  It's worth a look.



A Quiet Place: Day One 2024

Mrs. Floyd wanted to see it. I didn't like it, I haven't liked any of the series. I think the premise is flawed and actually kind of stupid. Invading aliens can cross the galaxy, but can't figure out how boats work.  Ambient noise doesn't set them off, but dozens of aliens will converge on a single human at the slightest noise. Nobody figures out that extremely loud noises hurt them.  
Humbug.

After I complained about how stupid this all is, Mrs Floyd suggested the theory that these invaders are some kind of drones sent ahead to wipe out humans in front of their masters, or drivers, or  inventors, or somebody, shows up to take over.  My thought about this is that the first movie was set three years after the initial invasion and nobody smart had shown up yet. I don't buy it.



Unfrosted 2024
and
Maxxxine 2024

I saw both of these within a couple days of each other, and it struck me that they both suffered from the same flaw.  Each movie spent way too much time and effort to nail down the sense of time and place of their setting, and didn't concentrate enough on just being a good, coherent movie.
Having lived through both eras of the settings of these movies, they each nailed it down to the last detail.  While I was watching Unfrosted, I kept getting distracted by the tiny period details they smugly emphasized. Yep, I remember that, and that, and that, and that... and dammit, the movie's over. What happened?
Sienfeld is into breakfast like Tarantino is into feet.

Maxxxine also gets mired in trying to evoke the 80's and Hollywood, and just beats you over the head about it.  OK, the big bad has a green door, I get it. Oh, three minutes later here is the intro from "Behind the Green Door".  Frankie Goes to Hollywood, got it.  Walk of Fame, OK, Body Double, yep, Psycho house, got it, Animotion, sure, Hollywood sigh, of course. And so on.  Maxxxine isn't a bad movie to the degree that unfrosted is, but it doesn't do much with many of it's characters. The plot was pretty predictable, and what is with Kevin Bacon's accent?  Did he hear Mia Goth's accent and go "Hold my beer"? It just didn't hold up nearly as well as X or especially as well as Pearl.

I resented my mother's fondness for Burt Reynolds' comedies but, I must admit, you're right that there seems to be a resonance to this one whereas I can't remember a thing about The Longest Yard. 

Robocop (1987)

My Marxist feminist wife actually asked to watch this. Why? I can only guess the heat's warping her brain just like mine and she remembered me describing it as a kind of subversive one. I suppose so. A lot of good character actors in this one.  

Oh, I forgot that we also watched The Nice Guys, just to break up the stupidity. I've seen that movie like five times now and it's still great on every single viewing.

Ouija Shark (2020)

Here's the twist ending so that you have absolutely no need to watch this Canadian-made CGI shark crud/bikini ogle-fest: the murderous ghost shark summoned by the Ouija board was orchestrated by the Trump White House in collaboration with some vaguely-defined occult elements.

“It must be because of M.I.T., my relationship with M.I.T., very smart, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight, and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery is now underwater and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there... by the way, a lot of shark attacks lately.... Do I get electrocuted or do I jump over by the shark?”

stable genius

Monty Python and The Holy Grail (1975)


Larfs aplenty. Grand expositions of humourousness. I only half-remember watching this a number of times in my 20s. What struck me this go-round is how similar the plot is to Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain.




I'm sure there's more to discuss, Mr. Tarantino, but I haven't the time to dive into the details at the moment.

This has got to be one of the most British movies ever made. Campy in the extreme. Earnestly innocent, even childish about the way the world is. Hopelessly romantic. Cringingly colonialist and full of caricatures. Features a ton of absurd mustaches and a character with an obsession over collecting trinkets. Yep, this may be set in a mythical 1001 Arabian Nights landscape of Arabs, Indians, and Africans all mixed up, and it may be produced by a European emigrant, but it's British all the way.

An evil grand vizier usurps power and casts a spell on the rightful heir, blinding him. Meanwhile, the heir also falls in love with the same beautiful princess the vizier loves. And there's a kid who steals stuff. So the heir and the thief team up, love wins, all that stuff. And there is a genie in a lamp.

It's in riotous Technicolor, and features special effects that were on the cutting edge then and frankly were still as good as it gets until the invention of the computer. The story is pure cheese, but it's entertaining, and elevated most of all by the glorious performance of Conrad Veidt, proving himself once again as the O.G. movie villain. And this role was supposed to be Henry Fonda's! Nah, people. Veidt is magnetic.



Holy shit. I knew this was a 200-minute biopic, but I didn't realize it has everything. Not everything in Malcolm's life, that is. But everything you can put in a movie. The intro credits are famously splashed across a burning flag, just to get you ready for the political heat and contemporary relevance of what's to come. Video of the beating of Rodney King plays, distinguishable from 2024 videos only by the graininess. And then Spike Lee pulls out the rug. One of the first big scenes is...a dance musical number! With Lionel Hampton's big band and hundreds of dancers and electric energy and, oh yeah, Spike Lee himself personally ending the scene by sliding through his partner's legs and staring straight into the camera with a big-ass grin that says "I did this shit!"

How can you not love the audacity of a movie that starts with those two images: a burning flag and the director himself cutting up on the dance floor. What unfolds afterwards is, as I'd read so many times before, probably? definitely? most likely? the best biopic ever filmed. Denzel Washington gives about 15 different performances: innocent youngster playing in the park, revolution-inflamed firebrand, con artist and crook, prisoner, loving husband. He plays a man who doesn't know to seek inner peace, and then a man who knows he doesn't have it, and then a man who struggles to find it, and then a man who finds it. It is a performance of jaw-dropping range, matched in all its parts by an incredible gallery of character actors and cameos. (Nelson Mandela is the biggest cameo get of all time, right?)

As Washington is throwing in everything he has, so is Lee. The spliced-in contemporary or historical footage, the flashbacks, the scene on the train where Malcolm imagines shoving food in a white man's face (looped and played twice for extra jarring effect), the amazing color palette and range of cinematography (solitary confinement is made into abstract painting here) - man, it's powerful stuff. It's also, after that beginning, less overtly political than you'd think, but instead about the man, his character, his work, his inner quest as well as his outer one. In that way, it's basically the opposite of Maestro, which was also flashily directed, but cared only about who Lenny was sleeping with, and not about what his work was or what it meant for him.

Three hours and twenty minutes is a long, long time, and I watched in two sittings, and there are faster and slower momentum bits. But when I decided to end the first sitting and wait to finish it later, I kept getting to scene breaks and...not wanting to pause. You can't not watch this. Especially near the end, when the inevitability of Malcolm's death starts to feel like a whirlpool sucking you in faster and faster. 



This was super interesting. What a combination of art movie effects and storytelling styles with blunt, to-the-point, no-poetry violence. Through both halves of it walks Lee Marvin, angry, almost silent, and wanting one thing only. His money. Ruthless movie.

The best part to me was the incredible gallery of great 60s/70s actors around him. Carroll O'Connor as a heavy! Keenan Wynn! And best of all, the irresistibly slimy John Vernon and his wondrous rich voice, in his first role, but already prepared to be an unforgettable villain in this, in Charley Varrick, in Animal House, in...I need to watch Topaz to see him playing a Cuban (lol) for Hitchcock. Wish the guy had been a Columbo villain.



I made it a double feature of pulp crime novels intersecting with art house directors. Where Point Blank is told with considerable flair but basically down 'n' dirty, High and Low (actually titled Heaven and Hell in the original) is noble, commanding even. Kurosawa has a lot of filmmaking tricks up his sleeve, too (like the thrill of the train sequence) but he's mostly happy to be as methodical as the police characters in his story. And then he lets the emotional power and thrill build up naturally, as the story and characters capture your imagination. The visuals are meticulous and perfectly calculated, rather than expressionistic.

The story is in 2.5 parts. Part one: kidnappers take a wealthy business owner's son and demand his entire fortune. Except actually they've gotten confused and kidnapped his chauffeur's son. They boldly refuse to change their plan or their demands. So, first, the rich man must decide whether to pay everything he has for the return of an employee's child. Issues of class are unavoidably in the foreground. Emotions run high on the part of every character. The decision is a vise squeezing everyone on the screen.

Part two: the police try to find the kidnapper. This is handled with incredibly satisfying precision. It's just the pleasure of watching a great procedural, of watching great cops at work. It's also the pleasure of being released all across Yokohama after the first part, which took place almost entirely in a single room. Heck, we hadn't even seen the outside of the house yet. I thought it was an apartment building penthouse until part two started.

Then there's the final scene. Just in case, no spoilers. But this is one of those It All Comes Together movies where the final scene brings everything into one confrontation, and the themes of the movie are laid out in shockingly candid, emotional dialogue. Is it a metaphor for the problem of evil, why bad things happen to undeserving people? Is it an examination of what causes crime? Is it a way more subtle, way more mature, but also way less rub-your-face-in-it version of Parasite? Is it a symbol of how sometimes life's hardships don't make any freaking sense? ... Yup.

To bring this post full circle: Spike Lee is currently remaking Heaven and Hell/High and Low with Denzel in the Toshiro Mifune role. Uhhhh...not so sure about that...but this did come from pulp fiction and it did become a very Japanese story, so maybe there's room for a version that is a very American one. And Denzel might be the only person alive who can match Mifune's charisma and density of emotion. (The little scene on the train where Mifune washes his face...riveting.) Anyway. We'll see. But Iunno.