last movie you watched

[Walter Hale 4]

I started to watch Violent Playground saturday evening, as in the one i posted recently (Old movies thread) with David MacCallum , Anne Heywood and Stanley Baker, but didn't have much enthusiasm following the tragedy in Sydney Shopping Centre. I stopped around about 40 minute-mark. Will try again this evening.

Anyone here seen and liked Violent Playground film?

[pmp]

I started to watch Violent Playground saturday evening, as in the one i posted recently (Old movies thread) with David MacCallum , Anne Heywood and Stanley Baker, but didn't have much enthusiasm following the tragedy in Sydney Shopping Centre. I stopped around about 40 minute-mark. Will try again this evening.

Anyone here seen and liked Violent Playground film?

I saw it several years ago, but it must have been at the time when I was on one of my sabbaticals from the forum, as I don't appear to have written about it. It was last mentioned in this thread in 2009! I remember it to be really very good, which I guess is hardly surprising given the cast and director (Basil Dearden) - but beyond that, I can't tell you much. My memory isn't that good. Hopefully there will be a blu ray release at some point.

[pmp]

Over the weekend, I watched The Eagle has Landed and Crossfire.

I'm pretty sure most have seen Eagle has Landed, but it was on TV last week, and I recorded it, thinking I might fancy it at some point. When I saw it last night, it was almost certainly the first time I'd seen it since I left home back in 1997. Much of it is a similar set up to the wonderful Went the Day Well - a bunch of Germans go to a small English village disguised as English army troops in practice. In the instance of Eagle, it's to try to kidnap Churchill. I have to say that I thought it was a pretty awful film that ultimately makes little sense. If you were going there to try to be unnoticed, would you really be wearing your German uniform under your jackets? Unlikely. But, thankfully, that's what they did - or they'd never have got found out. Utterly stupid. Beyond that, it simply doesn't have the class of Went the Day Well, despite the similar premise, and I say that despite a fine case including Michael Caine and Donald Sutherland.

Crossfire, meanwhile, is a film noir from 1947, and one of a sequence of Hollywood films from the period dealing wit anti-Semitism. Gentleman's Agreement is the most famous, but is perhaps a little too self-important. Crossfire avoids that as it wraps it all up in a murder investigation. The book that the film is based on had a gay man being murdered instead of a Jew, but Hollywood wasn't up to tackling THAT issue. Still, this is a fine film featuring Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Robert Young (anyone called Robert, basically) and Gloria Graeme. The film's just been issued in the UK on the Warner Archive series, and it looks stunning.

[pmp]

Tonight I saw A Study in Scarlet, a Sherlock Holmes movie from 1933 starring Reginald Owen and Anna May Wong. This is part of a blu ray collection called "The Sherlock Holmes Vault Collection" that presents a group of four public domain Holmes films in the best way possible - given that they only survive in sub-par prints, and often those prints are many generations from the original. This is the worst looking of the four films, and I'm guessing is probably the worst film, too. Reginald Owen (who had played Watson the year before) is a pretty bland Holmes, with none of the edge we have come to expect. Despite the title, the narrative has nothing to do with the original Doyle novel, and is completely new, as members of a secret society start getting notes and then dying (rather unconvincingly).

The most interesting aspect of the film is that the notes each victim receives contain a verse from the "Ten Little Indians" rhyme that Agatha Christie would go on to use in And Then There Were None about six years later. Even more interesting is that the other element of that book - ten people locked in a mansion in the middle of nowhere, and getting killed one by one, with the no-show host talking through the radio - was the basic plot of a 1934 film called called The Ninth Guest? A coincidence? probably not.

Back to A Study in Scarlet, it's a poverty row movie, and not a good one. It plods along, and yet, despite having three or four murders in the first twenty minutes, seems remarkably dull and tedious. Even Anna May Wong can't perk things up. A few years later, Owen would appear as Scrooge in a memorable version of A Christmas Carol - which is a hundred times better than his Sherlock Holmes.

[pmp]

Tonight I returned to The Skulls, a popcorn thriller from 2000 that led to two straight to video sequels. It's a good, entertaining movie starring Joshua Jackson and Paul Walker as to young students offered the chance to join the university's secret society, The Skulls. After a murder, they realise all is not what it seems.

The film boasts good performances and solid direction, and the cinematography is very nice indeed, with its pallete of autumnal reds, browns, and greens dominating. Bearing this in mind, it's almost an achievement to see just how bad Mill Creek's release of the film on blu ray is. For some reason, they pack all three films on to a single disc, and the bit rate doesn't get above 20bps. Luckily, there isn't much in the way od digital artefacts, but the contrast is so poor that on multiple occasions details of faces literally disappear when light is shining on them. This is common in faded prints of silent films, but I've never seen it on anything so modern. The colour pallete is overly saturated, and the soft focus photography is sometimes like watching the film through a piece of plastic. It's a Godawful blu ray presentation.

[r&b]

Just saw for the first time in years Guys & Dolls on TCM last night. Brando was better than I remember. Also last week Last Tango In Paris. He was excellent and a tragic figure. They are featuring Brando I guess for his 100th birthday.

[Walter Hale 4]

One of our TV free-to-air channels has just played the iconic "From Here To Eternity" which i've just watched with great interest, always a fave of mine !

This to be followed by another 50's War classic in The Bridge on The River Kwai...


Tremendous sequencing but also a very unusual scheduling being friday afternoon.



SBS World Movies Channel

From Here to Eternity

2:20PM - 4:30PM

Refusing to join the company boxing team gets Robert Prewitt, a soldier in Sgt. Milton Warden's outfit, ostracised by his fellow soldiers save one, Pvt. Angelo Maggio. While Prewitt falls in love with prostitute Alma Lorene and Warden carries on an affair with the wife of their company commander, Maggio goes AWOL. Stars Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed.

Romance | USA | 1953 | PG


The Bridge on the River Kwai

4:30PM - 7:30PM

In 1942, the Japanese army had captured more than 200,000 Allied prisoners of war and needed a supply route to its frontline troops in Burma. POWs and thousands of Asian labourers were ordered to complete a railway linking Thailand and Burma that would include the infamous 'bridge on the River Kwai'. Meanwhile, the US was developing a 'smart bomb'. In late 1944, a group of rescued POWs provided the first accurate information about targets along the railway, and the railway was destroyed.

War | UK | 1957 | PG

[Walter Hale 4]

Gone are the days when From Here to Eternity used to get loads of screenings on Late night TV and Subscription television here (ie FOX CLASSICS).

It's one of those films i watched numerous times and never loose enthusiasm

[pmp]

Gone are the days when From Here to Eternity used to get loads of screenings on Late night TV and Subscription television here (ie FOX CLASSICS).

It's one of those films i watched numerous times and never loose enthusiasm

In this world of multi-channel TV and streaming it is, sadly, much more difficult to catch older films by accident. When I was growing up, if it was wet outside you were stuck indoors and your choice of TV was a 1940s war film on BBC2 or a musical on Channel4. It didn't really click with me how much difference this makes until I was teaching film at uni, and found that none of the teenagers had that general film knowledge that I had partly simply because of my age and how TV was in my youth. If you're stuck with a 40s film to watch or nothing, well you often gave the 40s film a go - and, more often than not, enjoyed it. in fact, I remember being about 13 or 14 and BBC2 were showing the Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films every Monday teatime. There would be much excitement on the school bus going home that night and discussing them the next morning. But that's the way it was then. Not necessarily better, just different.

Tonight I saw Five Nights at Freddy's, which I found surprisingly enjoyable. I really wasn't expecting much, but what I got was a surprisingly gore-less horror, which was good entertainment without being anything remarkable. And that's the kind of movie I'm perfectly happy with on a Friday night. That said, the plot did seem to have a surprising amount in common with Black Phone, I thought. But while the script is so-so, there's some really good performances from Josh Hutcherson and Matthew Lillard (it took me half the film to recognise him, I might add), and it isn't half as daft as the trailer might suggest, and with sombre undertones. It looks and feels like a Blumhouse movie (which it is). The problem with that is that the production company isn't necessarily moving the formula forward - but the good side of that is that many of the films are competent horror movies in a style that reach the widest audience.

[pmp]

I rewatched Polanski's The Ghost Writer tonight, starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan. McGregor is a ghost writer hired to make something decent out of ex-prime minister Brosnan's memoirs. As he does so, a controversy about the ex-PM erupts, and McGregor feels that something is being hidden and sets out to uncover the mystery. This is Polanski in Hitchcock mode, but the truth is that Hitchcock in his prime would have been able to make something really special out of this kind of material, whereas (post prime) Polanski makes something that is merely entertaining. Entertaining is just fine, but it feels like something is missing, and the final reveal isn't all that exciting either. The performances are sound, though, and this is good stuff, but it could have been great.

[Johnny2523]

20240421_025302.jpg

Last nights view was "Notting Hill" on VHS, a rom-com i havent seen before, it features plenty of laughs mostly due to Hugh Grants dry wit and the rather dumbwitted but performed hilariously character of roommate Spike played brilliantly by ‌Rhys Ifans, Julia Roberts plays an actress named Anna Scott who shows up to Williams Travel book store, after the two meet a funny incident brings them together again, and the romance starts, unexpectedly she has a boyfriend played by Alec Baldwin, i didn't expect him to show up as the cover of my vhs doesnt list him, which makes sense as hes more of a glorified cameo.

Naked pictures and videos get released to the public and press and a distraught Anna returns to William, they go over a movie script, and a joke i thought was rather funny as they comment on a painting in the kitchen "Happiness isnt happiness without a violin playing goat". Exchanges about stunt butt's and Mel Gibson not using those under a bowl of icecream happen next, they make love and next morning a knock on the door, William opens the door and a storm of gossip and press are infront of it, after being warned not to spike opens the door and poses for the press in a hilarious quick moment, Anna blames Spike for calling the press, Anna and William have a fight, talk about perspective of the situation, and Anna makes a remark that she will always regret it, something that hurts William, and Anna leaves once again, hurt on his pride and possibly thinking she don't want to talk to him William throws away the phone numbers he gets and decided to give up on the relationship.


After a newspaper handed to him shows she is back in London and filming, William goes off to set where him and Anna reunite once more but due to things goin wrong on the set she asks him to wait and drink lots of tea. William is invited to listen in on the dialogue for the movie, and overhears Anna being asked by her co-star who the shy boy was and she admits she said it was simply a person from her past,

William once again hurt leaves, while at work in the shop Anna shows up, they have a conversation about what happened, Anna admits she has to leave again but asked if she decided to stay she could see him a little or often and maybe get him to like her again, he declines due to him feeling like hes a simple guy vs her being a big movie star, we then get him later realizing he made a mistake in his decision and in a hilarious family car scene under the music of "Gimme Some Lovin'" we have William and co. Trying to catch Anna on time before she's gone forever after having been informed she is holding a press conference.

William makes it, acts like a member of the press, and Anna decides to stay indefinitly. Fast forward, they get married and everyone lived happily ever after.

This movie was alot of fun and a feel good end to a feelgood night! Recommended.

[pmp]

Tonight I saw the new blu ray release of the silent version of The Cat and the Canary, made in 1927. The film is great fun, and Paul Leni was such a wonderful director of this kind of daft material. The Cat and the Canary has several elements that make it feel different to the average silent movie, not least the animated intertitles. That wasn't a new device, it had been done before, but Leni really goes to town in making them reflect the "horror" that the characters are feeling. Also we have some wonderful shots with what we'd today call a hand-held camera. This wasn't entirely new either, although such shenanigans came to an abrupt halt when sound came in and the "motion" of "motion pictures" pretty much stopped overnight for several years. In the case of Cat and Canary, it's done to try to give the perspective of seeing things through an unknown character's eyes. Probably the most famous cinematography of this nature in silent cinema is the glorious snowball fight from Napoleon (also 1927) - I'd love to link to it, but it is seemingly not on YouTube. Cat and Canary is great fun, although not quite as delirious as the later Seven Footprints to Satan, which also isn't on YouTube in watchable quality. That will change in January, when it comes out of copyright, no doubt.

The Eureka blu ray is good. It's not the best I've ever seen a silent film look, but restorers can only work with the materials available to them. But it's much better than the DVD was. The musical score has been put together from cue sheets issued for musicians accompanying the film when it was released, which is a nice touch - although you'll be sick of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony by the end - a piece that Universal would use repeated through its 1930s horror cycle, too. The extras are fine, if not particularly exciting, and a before/after comparison for the restoration would have been nice.

[ForeverElvis]

20240421_025302.jpg

Last nights view was "Notting Hill" on VHS, a rom-com i havent seen before, it features plenty of laughs mostly due to Hugh Grants dry wit and the rather dumbwitted but performed hilariously character of roommate Spike played brilliantly by ‌Rhys Ifans, Julia Roberts plays an actress named Anna Scott who shows up to Williams Travel book store, after the two meet a funny incident brings them together again, and the romance starts, unexpectedly she has a boyfriend played by Alec Baldwin, i didn't expect him to show up as the cover of my vhs doesnt list him, which makes sense as hes more of a glorified cameo.

Naked pictures and videos get released to the public and press and a distraught Anna returns to William, they go over a movie script, and a joke i thought was rather funny as they comment on a painting in the kitchen "Happiness isnt happiness without a violin playing goat". Exchanges about stunt butt's and Mel Gibson not using those under a bowl of icecream happen next, they make love and next morning a knock on the door, William opens the door and a storm of gossip and press are infront of it, after being warned not to spike opens the door and poses for the press in a hilarious quick moment, Anna blames Spike for calling the press, Anna and William have a fight, talk about perspective of the situation, and Anna makes a remark that she will always regret it, something that hurts William, and Anna leaves once again, hurt on his pride and possibly thinking she don't want to talk to him William throws away the phone numbers he gets and decided to give up on the relationship.


After a newspaper handed to him shows she is back in London and filming, William goes off to set where him and Anna reunite once more but due to things goin wrong on the set she asks him to wait and drink lots of tea. William is invited to listen in on the dialogue for the movie, and overhears Anna being asked by her co-star who the shy boy was and she admits she said it was simply a person from her past,

William once again hurt leaves, while at work in the shop Anna shows up, they have a conversation about what happened, Anna admits she has to leave again but asked if she decided to stay she could see him a little or often and maybe get him to like her again, he declines due to him feeling like hes a simple guy vs her being a big movie star, we then get him later realizing he made a mistake in his decision and in a hilarious family car scene under the music of "Gimme Some Lovin'" we have William and co. Trying to catch Anna on time before she's gone forever after having been informed she is holding a press conference.

William makes it, acts like a member of the press, and Anna decides to stay indefinitly. Fast forward, they get married and everyone lived happily ever after.

This movie was alot of fun and a feel good end to a feelgood night! Recommended.

Really enjoy this film too.
Might be one of Robert’s most charming performances and Grant comes close to the work he did in 4 Weddings.

But why would you watch a pan a scan vhs with a 4:3 aspect ratio? The film was theatrically presented at 2.35:1. You’re missing 40% of the image shot by the director in every frame.

[Johnny2523]

20240421_025302.jpg
Last nights view was "Notting Hill" on VHS, a rom-com i havent seen before, it features plenty of laughs mostly due to Hugh Grants dry wit and the rather dumbwitted but performed hilariously character of roommate Spike played brilliantly by ‌Rhys Ifans, Julia Roberts plays an actress named Anna Scott who shows up to Williams Travel book store, after the two meet a funny incident brings them together again, and the romance starts, unexpectedly she has a boyfriend played by Alec Baldwin, i didn't expect him to show up as the cover of my vhs doesnt list him, which makes sense as hes more of a glorified cameo.

Naked pictures and videos get released to the public and press and a distraught Anna returns to William, they go over a movie script, and a joke i thought was rather funny as they comment on a painting in the kitchen "Happiness isnt happiness without a violin playing goat". Exchanges about stunt butt's and Mel Gibson not using those under a bowl of icecream happen next, they make love and next morning a knock on the door, William opens the door and a storm of gossip and press are infront of it, after being warned not to spike opens the door and poses for the press in a hilarious quick moment, Anna blames Spike for calling the press, Anna and William have a fight, talk about perspective of the situation, and Anna makes a remark that she will always regret it, something that hurts William, and Anna leaves once again, hurt on his pride and possibly thinking she don't want to talk to him William throws away the phone numbers he gets and decided to give up on the relationship.


After a newspaper handed to him shows she is back in London and filming, William goes off to set where him and Anna reunite once more but due to things goin wrong on the set she asks him to wait and drink lots of tea. William is invited to listen in on the dialogue for the movie, and overhears Anna being asked by her co-star who the shy boy was and she admits she said it was simply a person from her past,

William once again hurt leaves, while at work in the shop Anna shows up, they have a conversation about what happened, Anna admits she has to leave again but asked if she decided to stay she could see him a little or often and maybe get him to like her again, he declines due to him feeling like hes a simple guy vs her being a big movie star, we then get him later realizing he made a mistake in his decision and in a hilarious family car scene under the music of "Gimme Some Lovin'" we have William and co. Trying to catch Anna on time before she's gone forever after having been informed she is holding a press conference.

William makes it, acts like a member of the press, and Anna decides to stay indefinitly. Fast forward, they get married and everyone lived happily ever after.

This movie was alot of fun and a feel good end to a feelgood night! Recommended.

Really enjoy this film too.
Might be one of Robert’s most charming performances and Grant comes close to the work he did in 4 Weddings.

But why would you watch a pan a scan vhs with a 4:3 aspect ratio? The film was theatrically presented at 2.35:1. You’re missing 40% of the image shot by the director in every frame.

Mostly because i enjoy collecting VHS, i got tapes for free earlier in the week including this movie, and in my case it was the only format of the movie available to me without pirating or spending extra money on a different format on the night i randomly wanted to see a fun movie.

[Walter Hale 4]

Over the weekend, I watched The Eagle has Landed and Crossfire.

I'm pretty sure most have seen Eagle has Landed, but it was on TV last week, and I recorded it, thinking I might fancy it at some point. When I saw it last night, it was almost certainly the first time I'd seen it since I left home back in 1997. Much of it is a similar set up to the wonderful Went the Day Well - a bunch of Germans go to a small English village disguised as English army troops in practice. In the instance of Eagle, it's to try to kidnap Churchill. I have to say that I thought it was a pretty awful film that ultimately makes little sense. If you were going there to try to be unnoticed, would you really be wearing your German uniform under your jackets? Unlikely. But, thankfully, that's what they did - or they'd never have got found out. Utterly stupid. Beyond that, it simply doesn't have the class of Went the Day Well, despite the similar premise, and I say that despite a fine case including Michael Caine and Donald Sutherland.

Crossfire, meanwhile, is a film noir from 1947, and one of a sequence of Hollywood films from the period dealing wit anti-Semitism. Gentleman's Agreement is the most famous, but is perhaps a little too self-important. Crossfire avoids that as it wraps it all up in a murder investigation. The book that the film is based on had a gay man being murdered instead of a Jew, but Hollywood wasn't up to tackling THAT issue. Still, this is a fine film featuring Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Robert Young (anyone called Robert, basically) and Gloria Graeme. The film's just been issued in the UK on the Warner Archive series, and it looks stunning.

yes, we got THE EAGLE HAS LANDED (1976) coming up on TV here today in AU.

Of late there's been various War and related films being broadcast (ie The Great Escape, Dunkirk and in a few hours, The Cruel Sea) on national television. Must be due to ANZAC Day today.


GemTV (a Nine network offshoot)

The Cruel Sea

11:55AM - 2:30PM

CC

REPEAT

The World War II adventures of a British convoy escort ship and its officers.

Drama | UK | 1953 | PG

[pmp]

It's good to see that Warner Archive is releasing "Mr & Mrs Smith" on blu-ray, Hitchcock's only romantic comedy of the Hollywood years, and the only US Hitchcock movie not available on blu ray. I confess I don't like it much, but it will be essential for many collectors (myself included).

[Walter Hale 4]

this morning i watched THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963) an all-time classic and another longtime favorite. Odd start time of 7:25 am to 11:am.

It's been played nationally here on the SBS World Movies channel, along with a number of other 50's and 60's war films this week in australia, i guess to coincide with ANZAC Day on 25 April.

One of the greatest movies (War or otherwise) ever made and based on a true story.

While the product is quite long (better part of 3 hours) , it remains enthralling with a huge american and british cast , Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Garner, James Coburn, Richard Attenborough to name but five all time greats of the stage and screen.



Spoiler Alert...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Escape_(film)

[Walter Hale 4]

now, here's the Soundtrack album

[pmp]

I've enjoying Dead Boy Detective on Netflix this week, but Netflix confuses me. Last year it gave us Lockwood & Co, a rather tasty offering with excellent reviews. It's a teen series about a detective agency investigating hauntings. It got cancelled after one series as it didn't perform well enough. Now Netflix gives us Dead Boy Detectives, a teen series about a detective agency investigating hauntings. Fun though it is, why commission something that is basically the same premise as a series from last year that they didn't feel brought enough viewers? What am I missing here - other than a second season, as this one will probably get cancelled, too.

[pmp]

On Friday, I saw Daughter of the Dragon, the last of the late 20s/early 30s Fu Manchu films that starred Warner Orland. This one is a slight improvement on the second movie, partly because it features Anna May Wong as the daughter of Fu Manchu, with Orland taking a step back. There's also a nice role for Sessue Hayakawa, which was his first film in seven years, and his last American movie for a decade and a half. He had been a huge star in the 1910s, but that stardom had begun to wane by the early 1920s. He'd go on to get an Oscar nomination for his role in Bridge on the River Kwai in 1959. Daughter of the Dragon isn't a great film, but it's perfectly watchable, and certainly an improvement on the Return of Fu Manchu. After this movie, the series was "rebooted" (long before that term was coined) with Boris Karloff in the title role in Mask of Fu Manchu.

Tonight I finished the Final Destination series with #5. This is one of the better entries in the series - probably the best sine the original movie, in fact. This time around, the film doesn't focus on teenagers, but a group of workers on a retreat who get involved in a bridge collapse. The effects are impressive for the most part, and the characters have more...well, character...than in the previous entries. There's also a really neat twist in the final five minutes, that is really rather cool to have, and that's followed by a final credit sequence that includes all of the deaths from all five films. A reboot is being made, and should be released next year.