Brooklyn. Sweet, but nothing apart from the usual immigrant story.

Arrival. Not bad, makes a mockery of human intelligence and military politics globally. Also expands the ideas on what is possible by the human brain that we deliberately and unknowingly limit by thinking we know what is right and necessary.

the blues brothers

just randomly started watching it, totally forgot carrie fisher was in it

in fact a geat many people in that movie are dead now ... fisher, belushi, john candy, james brown

well at least twiggy and aretha franklin are still around, and ackroyd too of course

Kingdom Come. I was surprised to see this was on tv. Still like it.

Air Force One. I wanted a mindless action flick, I got one. One thing I didn't get though, was the motivation behind the Secret Service agent who was with the bad guys, did they address that while I was getting another beer?

A beautiful mind.

Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) Eleanor Powell, Robert Walker, Jack Benny,Buddy Ebsen, Phil Silvers.

Keep the sound off until Ms Powell dances and Jack benny wise-cracks. Buddy Ebsen comes off as a mentally deficient spastic. I'm not sure what that's about. Let's just say his style is unique. There's also a professor of snoring.

Conspiracy; about the 1942 Wannsee conference during which the details of the final solution were handed down by Nazi SS leadership. Interesting work on the banality of evil, and with a great cast. On Amazon Prime.

i wonder if that's a remake of a german film called "conference at wansee", which was based on actual transcripts of the meeting ... very powerful and worth watching as well

Duchess Of Idaho (1950) Esther Williams, Van Johnson, John Lund, Paula Raymond.

The Ring Two (2005) Naomi Watts.

Flashdance.

Three Little Words (1950) Fred Astaire, Red Skelton, Vera-Ellen and Arlene Dahl. Light fluff about a songwriting duo.

Astaire was unstoppable. In 1950 even the young highly skilled dancer like Vera-Ellen has to work to keep up in some very athletic dance numbers.

Old musicals are a nice tonic. The more vacuous the better, sometimes.

Ribtor posted:

Three Little Words (1950) Fred Astaire, Red Skelton, Vera-Ellen and Arlene Dahl. Light fluff about a songwriting duo.

Astaire was unstoppable. In 1950 even the young highly skilled dancer like Vera-Ellen has to work to keep up in some very athletic dance numbers.

Old musicals are a nice tonic. The more vacuous the better, sometimes.

I'll have to check that one out!

TOS posted:

Ribtor posted:

Showboat (1936) Irene Dunne, Paul Robeson, Hattie McDaniel, Alan Jones.

Better than the 1951 remake. Robeson and 'Old Man River' loom over the first half of the film to great effect. Watch the film just for that.
Some might think it cringe-inducing but it was as progressive as they could get away with at that time. The '51 version took a step back in that regard. They should have left Ava Gardner's singing in the '51 version because it was at least as good as her voice-double's.

The Paper Chase (1973) Timothy Bottoms, John Houseman, Lindsey Wagner, Lames Naughton, Edward Hermann.

Pleasant. A definitive performance by Houseman as the first year law prof.

poor old paul robeson, how he suffered

he was a dear friend of my grandmother's, the whol family loved him

The small city next to where I live is party famous for a riot that occurred when a couple groups organized a Paul Robeson concert.
Members of the American Legion handed out baseball bats and axe handles to people to beat the "commies" with. The Police just watched it unfold.

The neighborhood that I live in was an anarchist colony. A couple miles away was a Communist colony. They generally avoided each other (one of my neighborhood's main goals was to keep out the commies), but they were working together to organize the concert.

Séamas posted:

TOS posted:

Ribtor posted:

Showboat (1936) Irene Dunne, Paul Robeson, Hattie McDaniel, Alan Jones.

Better than the 1951 remake. Robeson and 'Old Man River' loom over the first half of the film to great effect. Watch the film just for that.
Some might think it cringe-inducing but it was as progressive as they could get away with at that time. The '51 version took a step back in that regard. They should have left Ava Gardner's singing in the '51 version because it was at least as good as her voice-double's.

The Paper Chase (1973) Timothy Bottoms, John Houseman, Lindsey Wagner, Lames Naughton, Edward Hermann.

Pleasant. A definitive performance by Houseman as the first year law prof.

poor old paul robeson, how he suffered

he was a dear friend of my grandmother's, the whol family loved him

The small city next to where I live is party famous for a riot that occurred when a couple groups organized a Paul Robeson concert.
Members of the American Legion handed out baseball bats and axe handles to people to beat the "commies" with. The Police just watched it unfold.

The neighborhood that I live in was an anarchist colony. A couple miles away was a Communist colony. They generally avoided each other (one of my neighborhood's main goals was to keep out the commies), but they were working together to organize the concert.

that's fascinating

my family always talked about the peace arch concert he gave (literally at the border because the us refused to give him a passport) ... it happened in the early 50s but to my folks it was just the previous tuesday

John Wick. They killed his dog, so they deserved every nasty thing that happened to them.

Also, this: https://youtu.be/iGpZ9xaQLYQ

Last edited by Pithecanthropus on Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:32 pm.

Mr. Roberts (1955) Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, Jack Lemmon.
Classic.

Ribtor posted:

Mr. Roberts (1955) Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, Jack Lemmon.
Classic.

love!

justine posted:

Ribtor posted:

Mr. Roberts (1955) Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, Jack Lemmon.
Classic.

love!

ditto!

Casablanca (1942)

Saw it last night in the main opera of The National Arts Centre. The NAC Pops orchestra provided the music.

Play it, Sam!

According to the internet, Dooley Wilson was a drummer who couldn't even play the piano.

Ribtor posted:

According to the internet, Dooley Wilson was a drummer who couldn't even play the piano.

tons of fascinating trivia about that movie

the script was by two brothers who were juggling multiple projects and hadn't finished the script for casablanca ... they'd run over to the set to deliver pages and the actors would be furious because they had no idea who their character was supposed to be in love with or really what the hell was going on

also humphrey bogart was in a crazy alcohol-fueled screaming marriage (near its end; he would soon meet lauren bacall and live happily ever after), while ingrid bergman, a complete unknown at the time, was in a horribly abusive marriage with a psycho controlling husband who was crazy jealous, and if that wasn't enough many of the foreign actors were refugees from nazi europe whose families were disappearing

a ton of emotions under the surface

Goodfellas (1990) I was amused by Joe Pesci.

Joe Pesci is the same character everywhere, even in real life.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

House On Haunted Hill (1959 and 1999) The '59 version is cheesy fun. The '99 version substitutes vulgarity for wit. Good B movies.

For a second I thought Jeffrey Rush was channeling James Woods but it's supposed to be an homage to Vincent price.

ukimalefu posted:

Joe Pesci is the same character everywhere, even in real life.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

If I asked for his autograph would he stab me in the neck with my pen? That'd suck.

jackie

bloody amazing, natalie portman was spellbinding -- 100% deserves the oscar

though she's up against meryl streep so i don't like her odds

Spectral - a netflix movie

It's like a Syfy original movie with a decent budget. If you're able to suspend all disbelief, you could enjoy it.

Words and Music (1948) Mickey Rooney and Tom Drake play the Rogers and Hart songwriting team with lots of MGM stars in musical numbers. Like the bio-pic of Cole Porter, heavily sanitised. Not much to recommend.

Casino (1995) I think Scorsese's Goodfellas was better.

the fog (1980)

an odd movie in many ways but i always liked it

TOS posted:

the fog (1980)

an odd movie in many ways but i always liked it

The music is fantastic. There are some great shocks and suspense. This was John Carpenter's first big budget studio movie after Halloween was the biggest independent movie of all time. The remake sucks.

Carry On Doctor (1967) Not as good as "Khyber", but ok for what it is.

Changeling (2008) Ms Jolie is great. The movie tells two stories at once and loses focus but still well worth seeing.

Till The Clouds Roll By (1946) an almost entirely fictional account of composer Jerome Kern's life. Utter crap from start to end. Unbelievably soppy. I sat through it for the sake of completeness. At the end they had Sinatra in white suit standing on a white pedestal singing Ol' Man River.

Don't ever watch this movie.

The Caine Mutiny (1954) Brilliant from start to finish. Bogart, Johnson, MacMurray, Ferrer.

Van Johnson is in both films.

Automata

Ghostbusters (2016).

It wasn't awful, just that I saw no reason for remaking the original movie. I do not at all comprehend the objections made by some that somehow their memory of the original was ruined by this. It's not a line-by-line or even scene-by-scene remake, but at the end my thought was that this wasn't a good showcase for the comic talents of the leads.

I did smile at the cameos made by some of the stars from the original movie though apparently I completely missed Dan Aykroyd's cab driver. The initial appearance of the firehouse from the original was inspired bit of injected realism.

What was up with the ending credits? Apparently they had filmed enough of a bit with co-star Chris Hemsworth's Kevin--AFTER having been taken over by the bad guy--doing a remake of what looks like Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video but they decided to take all but the very start of it out of the movie.

I do have to wonder at what those people who "greenlit" this project saw other than dollar signs. Perhaps they only thought that since practically a literal generation has passed since the 1984 original that reuse of the comedic elements BUT WITH GENDERS REVERSED(!) would be sufficient.

Doctor Strange

Absolutely Fabulous

Yori posted:

Absolutely Fabulous

Last Man On The Moon
Documentary about Eugene Cernan.
Very well done. Worth the time.