Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[stanton]

Yeah it got worse in the 90s, and of course not in every film. But in most.

[drinkanddestroy]

The Bedford Incident (1965) 8/10

[sargatanas]

The Bedford Incident (1965) 8/10

2 words NERVOUS REX !!  wally cox deserved  the oscar 

[sargatanas]

"PATTERNS "
seriously, hyper pissed off guys. noir scenes of interiors of massive 1956 skyscrapers
Everett Sloane has unbelievably, hideously fast, ultra furious dialog w/ screen play by rod
sterling earning him the first of six emmy awards. lauren bacall pops up in an elevator w/ zero lines    
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049601/

[cigar joe]

"PATTERNS "
seriously, hyper pissed off guys. noir scenes of interiors of massive 1956 skyscrapers
Everett Sloane has unbelievably, hideously fast, ultra furious dialog w/ screen play by rod
sterling. a bute on DVD. lauren bacall pops up in an elevator w/ zero lines   
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049601/

Sounds very interesting ;-)

[drinkanddestroy]

"PATTERNS "
seriously, hyper pissed off guys. noir scenes of interiors of massive 1956 skyscrapers
Everett Sloane has unbelievably, hideously fast, ultra furious dialog w/ screen play by rod
sterling earning him the first of six emmy awards. lauren bacall pops up in an elevator w/ zero lines    
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049601/

yeah, I saw this one as well (Van Heflin day on TCM). It was definitely fun. I give it an 8/10. Sloane, Begley, and Heflin were all real good. As were Beatrice Straight and Elizabeth Wilson. (Wilson is still with us, at 91 years old).

One thing I kind of didn't like was all that screaming about the cutthroat business tactics vs. the humanity. A board has only duty and that is increasing value to its shareholders. All this bla bla about humanity, that's not what a company is about. If they would refrain from closing down a plant that's losing money just cuz they feel bad for the laid-off workers, they could be sued by their shareholders for breach of fiduciary duties. As it was made clear, the company was nothing when it was run by people interested in humanity. If, say, the Sloane character was engaging in dishonest business practices, then of course I would agree that he was wrong; nobody ever has a right to act dishonestly in search of profits. But these abstract whinings about humanity don't make much sense.

So I have a quibble with the trait which they used to present the tension between the two ideologies. But overall, as far as showing the cutthroat business culture, I thought this movie was good.

And the part with Ed Begley's son, "Father, I have a whole drawer full of tickets to games we were supposed to see," was very touching.

Also, there was a great bit of camera work, in a scene where someone has a heart attack. The camera becomes his POV, so we see everything spinning, everyone crowding around him, looking all blurry, and slowly it fades to black, so we know he's become unconscious. I really liked that bit.

This was a good movie, and I am slowly starting to get more and more respect for Van Heflin as an actor. There was another movie showing on TCM called "THE PROWLER," it uses the same basic storyline of DOUBLE INDEMNITY/THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE: Van Heflin plays a cop who is called to the home of a woman (Evelyn Keyes) who has seen a prowler; he's attracted to her, and her husband has a lot of money... The story starts to get a little nuts toward the end, but for anyone who complains that Van Heflin always plays the good guy, think again.

[sargatanas]

i think the humanity bit was Corny, but it made Sloane's character
look all the more dictator worse. ed begley's heart attack best ever on film. you know poor ed's fixing to drop dead but beagley could milk that sucker real good.  those staccato rage rants Sloane was
capable of.  i don't think there were any shareholders as much as
guinea pigs of Sloane's character. the ending was van the man standing
his ground, taking care of business which finally brought a wry smile to the otherwise stone/Sloane face as if to say NOW we're talking   which suddenly breaths new life into his bad ass character in the film's very last frames


the final scene in THE PROWLER where van heflin, now found out,
makes a run by trying to get over that huge desert hill would have been
better in slo - mo after running dead in to his police partner & bitchy wife because of the rocks he placed in the one lane road to keep people out of his hide out....caught, in the jaws of his own vice  stranding him w/
no car causing him to now just like run. only to almost make it over the hill.....to what ? the guy who shot him
was half a mile away. one shot, one kill. nice rolling all the way back down
that damn hill of mushy stuff i'm a van fan for life now pal.

[drinkanddestroy]

i think the humanity bit was Corny, but it made Sloane's character
look all the more dictator worse. ed begley's heart attack best ever on film. you know poor ed's fixing to drop dead but beagley could milk that sucker real good.  those staccato rage rants Sloane was
capable of.  i don't think there were any shareholders as much as
guinea pigs of Sloane's character. the ending was van the man standing
his ground, taking care of business which finally brought a wry smile to the otherwise stone/Sloane face as if to say NOW we're talking   which suddenly breaths new life into his bad ass character in the film's very last frames


the final scene in THE PROWLER where van heflin, now found out,
makes a run by trying to get over that huge desert hill would have been
better in slo - mo after running dead in to his police partner & bitchy wife because of the rocks he placed in the one lane road to keep people out of his hide out....caught, in the jaws of his own vice  stranding him w/
no car causing him to now just like run. only to almost make it over the hill.....to what ? the guy who shot him
was half a mile away. one shot, one kill. nice rolling all the way back down
that damn hill of mushy stuff i'm a van fan for life now pal.

well let's face it, the Heflin character was competitive as well. He got what he wanted; he wasn't necessarily 100% principled either. And maybe that's the point, that even when people have morals, they only have it up to a point.
Sloane did deliver a terrific performance.

As for THE PROWLER, the editing was terrible in that final scene: Heflin is trying to crawl up a hill, then it cuts to a scene of him falling backward quickly, and then immediately back to the first shot of him trying to go up the hill. It's obvious that the middle shot does not belong there, that is very poor editing

[drinkanddestroy]

Who's That Knocking at My Door (1969) 9/10

What a wonderful movie!  Scorcese's first feature. There were a few scenes where I think he got a tad too cute with the editing/camera angles; sometimes, you can overkill a good thing. And the (fantasized) scene where J.R. visits a hooker was the first time I have ever LITERALLY gotten dizzy while watching a movie (and it wasn't in an iMax theatre; it was on my 32" tv!).

Good times  

[Groggy]

Ronin - 9/10 - Criminal-for-hire Robert De Niro joins a team assigned to retrieve a Macguffin from gangsters in Paris. Lots of twists, turns and killings result. Pretty much your ideal action movie: there's just enough plot to get things moving, then stand aside for slickly-paced, exciting action. John Frankenheimer's a master of car chases and this movie has some doozies, and the finale is a particular treat. A first-rate cast (Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgard, Jonathan Pryce, Michael Lonsdale) sells the necessary exposition.

[sargatanas]

JIM, THE WORLD'S GREATEST 8 / 2
The Cheerleader. The Girlfriend. The Brother. The Father. He took care of them all. 

[drinkanddestroy]

Just saw Cinema Paradiso for the first time. The 173 minute version (ie. Tornatore's version). Absolutely blown away. You can argue that a couple of things are perhaps a bit contrived, the melodrama may be laid on too thick, or that there's something of a lack of subtlety. It's still one of the greatest movies I have ever seen 

[cigar joe]

Just saw Cinema Paradiso for the first time. The 173 minute version (ie. Tornatore's version). Absolutely blown away. You can argue that a couple of things are perhaps a bit contrived, the melodrama may be laid on too thick, or that there's something of a lack of subtlety. It's still one of the greatest movies I have ever seen 

 

[drinkanddestroy]

Reversal of Fortune (1990) 8/10

I'd heard about this case but was unaware of the movie (and book) till recently.

One of Dershowitz's real-life students who worked on the case with him was Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money.


I also just saw The Journey (1959), with Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner, and Jason Robards in his first film role. It was very good until the last 15 minutes; starting with that scene where Brynner starts crying to Kerr about how he doesn't understand anything anymore cuz he loves Kerr, the movie falls apart. That scene is painful to watch. The guy is a brutal Commie murderer, and suddenly he's crying in typical Hollywood fashion about a girl screwing up his whole value system, and letting them off free? And Robards shaking his hand at the end??? WTF does everything have to always end in some sort of reconciliation between adversaries? Fuck that.

[rrpower]

Just saw Cinema Paradiso for the first time. The 173 minute version (ie. Tornatore's version). Absolutely blown away. You can argue that a couple of things are perhaps a bit contrived, the melodrama may be laid on too thick, or that there's something of a lack of subtlety. It's still one of the greatest movies I have ever seen 

Dumby! 173 minute version sucks.

There Will Be Blood - 10/10
fuck you guys.

Expendables 2
Great campy fun, hilariously awful jokes, fun action. I think I slightly preferred the first one.