Rate The Last Movie You Saw

[drinkanddestroy]

Revival of the play coming to Broadway soon.

cool. who's acting in it? anyone from Hollywood?

The movie was so damn good. Maybe I should have given it a 10/10. And, like with most plays, the success is so heavily based on the strength of the actors: Palance and Lupino are so damn good, this is one the best combined performances by a male & female lead I've ever seen. (Other candidates: Bogie & Bergman in Casablanca; Doris Day & Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Knew Too Much).

With any movie like this, featuring the soap opera lives of Hollywood celebrities, there's always a danger of slipping into hopeless melodrama; I am sure there are some people who will think that this one did, this movie wasn't all that popular, but IMO it does a good job of being on the edge but not over it. Steiger particularly straddles that line. But IMO this was all pulled off very well

[cigar joe]

The Big Knife (1955) 9/10

this movie has the greatest Jack Palance performance I've seen yet. Ida Lupino is incredible as well. Rod Steiger is hilariously awesome as a bleach-blonde nutjob of a Hollywood studio chief

1/10 insufferable, I hated it,  on TCM the other night (the second time I've watched it now). Visually barren 

An IMDb reviewer puts my thoughts to words:

Words, words, words, words, words..., 20 June 2008

Author: T Y from United States

The quality you're likely to remember after viewing The Big Knife is how claustrophobic it is. It's pacing is sacrificed to a uniform texture of dialog. It's talky in the extreme. Modern viewers will feel every point has been made (and then some) but the movie will still not move on, or do the viewer a favor and change the scenery. It's very inert. At the 45 min mark I was sure I had watched two very slow hours. My beleaguered response was, "Good God, where is this going?" It feels like Odets was paid by the word...

This is a good place to note the decline of drama from it's high point in the 40s through the conceit-laden projects of the 50s and 60s until actual filmic merit was rediscovered in the 70s, only to vanish again. Here we get show-offy, conventional, emotional outbursts from Steiger, Lupino et al. and camera moves pre-arranged to meet over-practiced blocking. This is due to the rise of the Method; the regrettable trend of sacrificing every other merit of film, to grant actors their most selfish wishes. "Great acting," ho-hum, has killed thought in movies.

Jack Palance's forehead & pompadour retract and thrust forward every time he reacts to something. It's disturbing.

This is awfully boring stuff.

 

[drinkanddestroy]

1/10 insufferable, I hated it,  on TCM the other night (the second time I've watched it now). Visually barren 

An IMDb reviewer puts my thoughts to words:

Words, words, words, words, words..., 20 June 2008

Author: T Y from United States

The quality you're likely to remember after viewing The Big Knife is how claustrophobic it is. It's pacing is sacrificed to a uniform texture of dialog. It's talky in the extreme. Modern viewers will feel every point has been made (and then some) but the movie will still not move on, or do the viewer a favor and change the scenery. It's very inert. At the 45 min mark I was sure I had watched two very slow hours. My beleaguered response was, "Good God, where is this going?" It feels like Odets was paid by the word...

This is a good place to note the decline of drama from it's high point in the 40s through the conceit-laden projects of the 50s and 60s until actual filmic merit was rediscovered in the 70s, only to vanish again. Here we get show-offy, conventional, emotional outbursts from Steiger, Lupino et al. and camera moves pre-arranged to meet over-practiced blocking. This is due to the rise of the Method; the regrettable trend of sacrificing every other merit of film, to grant actors their most selfish wishes. "Great acting," ho-hum, has killed thought in movies.

Jack Palance's forehead & pompadour retract and thrust forward every time he reacts to something. It's disturbing.

This is awfully boring stuff.

 

I figured that lots of people will think it's awful, that it would get very extreme grades either way.

As for the comments by and that imdb reviewer about dialogue and scenery: this is a play. what did he expect, a car chase through the streets of Hollywood? A play is basically on one set. And typically will have lots of dialogue. Of course, when turning a play into a screenplay, the writer may "open it up" a bit, eg. by adding in a few scenes in another setting. And indeed, there is a scene here when Jack Palance calls Shelley Winters at the party taking place in another house. Also, there are some scenes set in the backyard.

But, whatever you thought of the movie, the fact that there is lots of dialogue and little change of scenery is what you get when watching a movie based on a play. That person's comment "do the viewer a favor and change the scenery" is laughable. If he doesn't like watching a movie where there is little change of scenery, then he shouldn't be watching movies based on plays

[drinkanddestroy]

The Bicycle Thief aka Bicycle Thieves (1949) 10/10

What an amazing movie!!!!

THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS

The ending, where the boy is just looking at his father in great disappointment, is so unbelievably heartbreaking, it's incredible. He picks up his father's hat, and, as the tears are flowing down his face, he hands it to his father; after all, it is still his father. And he looks at his father with the most unbelievable look of disappointment. No words. Just that look. So unbelievable.

If I have a minor quibble: As the camera holds on the face of the boy looking at his father in the worst sort of disappointment, and the father with the worst sort of shame, I think it would have been better if the movie had ended on that shot, rather than having them melt away into the crowd. I think I read that the final shot of the crowd is supposed to be some sort of homage to Chaplin, but IMO it would have been better to end on the shot of the boy and his father.

Also, in that great scene in the restaurant (heck, which scene in this movie is not great?) where the boy is looking over at the boy eating the fancy meal at the next table, the father says "to eat like that, you have to make at least a million a month" I don't think that line is necessary. We understand what's going on; the 2 boys exchanging looks is all you need to see, we know that one boy will grow up in luxury while the other will struggle to eat, I don't think there's any point in his father stating the obvious.

But that's it, two very minor quibbles on a masterpiece.

[Groggy]

Did you spot Leone's cameo?

[drinkanddestroy]

Did you spot Leone's cameo?

was he really one of the German priests?


I thought it looked like him, though much skinnier!

[dave jenkins]

State of Grace (1990) 6/10. Westside Irish mobsters have trouble with the Italian mob. OK film with fun NY locations, and early performances by Ed Harris, Gary Oldman, John C. Reily and Sean Penn, who looks like a kid. Robin Wright, the love interest, looks like a guy. The big slo-mo shootout at the end made me think that maybe the director had seen Taxi Driver too many times.

[noodles_leone]

SNAKE EYES - 8/10

I've seen it more times than I can count. The (fake) extended shot is one of the best opening ever. The rest of the movie cannot stay in the same league, but we still have amazing performances, cool situations, some of the best camerawork of the decade and top notch dialogues. There are just above 17 minutes (I really timed it this time, since I'm often arguing with my brother about the actual length of the boring part) toward the ending that are truly disappointing, and what happens after the final is great again.

Apart from these 17 minutes, in order to reach 10/10, they should have:

- amplified the parallel between the story/the casino/atlantic city
- NOT casted the cheap looking Gary Sinise
- put to better use the tenth of thousands of witnesses that they keep locked into the building. They abandon good tensions and lots of interesting situations by not focusing on them.

[Dust Devil]

I was never a fan of Brian De Palma but this one I remember being decently entertaining, good paced, fun. Wouldn't give ti an 8, though.

[noodles_leone]

I was never a fan of Brian De Palma but this one I remember being decently entertaining, good paced, fun. Wouldn't give ti an 8, though.

It would deserve a 6.5 or 7, but the extended shot at the begining (10-15min?) is a masterpiece of its own. The numerous flash backs where you go back to that opening scene, always in extended shots, but from other perspective, are very very good too (although never reach the perfection of the beginning).

[PowerRR]

boogie nights

1000000000000000/10

[drinkanddestroy]

Some Came Running (1958) 9/10

Performances here all top-notch: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Arthur Kennedy, Martha Hyer (the latter 3 were Oscar-nominated).
Shirley MacLaine's character is particularly wonderful: a dumb tramp, who knows she is dumb, but as sweet a person as you can find. It was played to absolute perfection.

SPOILER ALERT

I did not like the ending, I didn't think it was appropriate for the story at all. I am sure that the marriage between Sinatra and MacLaine had no chance of ever working out; he woulda dumped her on her ass within a week, so I guess that in a crude way, her getting killed sort of took care of that for him. But it just didn't feel right, the tone of the film never felt like it was headed for murder, it canme out of nowhere, the movie suddenly does a complete 180 in the last three minutes, and leaves you feeling totally different than you felt for teh first 98% of it, I just didn't like that ending. No, I wasn't hoping for Sinatra and MacLaine to live happily ever after either, I don't think Sinatra was the sorta dude who would find peace that easily; maybe it could have ended with him leaving town alone on a Greyhound bus or something.

Also, something just didn't feel right about Sinatra's scenes with Hyer. Considering the kind of character he is, it just doesn't make sense that after meeting Hyer once, he really loves her, and runs after her in the way that he does, somehow, the scenes between Sinatra and Hyer don't seem to have been written that well.

Those are two criticisms I have of a movie that is otherwise a terrific watch. All the scenes filmed on location, there were just a few process shots during driving (which unfortunately is almost always the case).

Good times  

[dave jenkins]

Parker (2013) 6/10. Statham: same-o, same-o. J-Lo: even at her advanced age, oddly appealing. The Bald Guy from The Shield: Meh, not so much. With Patti Lupone as J-Lo's mom, and Bobby Cannavale (the reigning Prince of Broadway) as chopped liver. Oh yeah, there's an undead Nick Nolte wandering around somewhere in this too. OMG, I just watched a Taylor Hackford film!

[drinkanddestroy]

A Soldier's Story (1984) 9/10

Just about every performance here was terrific  (including one by a very young, bespectacled, 9th-billed Denzel Washington)

[drinkanddestroy]

The Naked City (1948) 3/10

An atrocious piece of crap, with the most annoying narration of any movie ever. This movie gets points only for its terrific use of NYC locations