What Was the Last Movie You Watched?

OldFeller said:
That's the truth. When I read someone's recommendation I immediately thought of Blackboard Jungle.

But no, this is a caper film. A recently released convict develops a plan to break into a bank vault and steal a million dollars worth of jewels.
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Heh, heh. Yeah, Blackboard Jungle (1955) was a inner city high schoo social dramal film starring Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, and Sydney Poitier in an early role. At 11 years old, I was totally enthralled by its depiction of rebellious youth; but mostly by the landmark film score song, "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and his Comets.

The Asphalt Jungle is a great noir which I happened to re-watch a couple of weeks ago. Some commentary:

I've always been a big fan of most of John Huston's work, from The Maltese Falcon (1941) through to Prizzi's Honor (1985). As far as noir films, the former may have been the first mainstream instance of the noir movement in its classic presentation.

Huston's The Asphalt Jungle is one of his better films, especially so as a noir example. Cinematographer Harold Rosson was fresh from filming On The Town (NYC) and Key to the City (San Fran), so he had experience representing the feel and power of big cityscapes, which was on display right from the git-go in Jungle's opening scenes: the post war stylized fedora-wearing mug framed by the enormity of building arches; the shadowy doorways and litter shown in urban alleyways-- mostly filmed in Cincinnati.

As a heist film it was notable for showcasing early variations of the now familiar story mechanics: the gang is formed; the plan is made; the characters are developed; and the complicated burglary is pulled off-- although not without some bad luck. It's also the first time in memory that the thieves must slide on their backs underneath an electronic eye.

In my view the standout performance was by Marc Lawrence, playing the underworld bookie wannabe big shot gangster. His performance never varied or weakened, and was completely believable. Sam Jaffe also gets plaudits as the mastermind ex con, Doc Riedenschneider. And Jean Hagen had a tough part to play as the weak gal named Doll who was head over heels for ex con Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden), and she came through in spades. Hayden himself was convincing as the tough guy who was looking to make a big score so he could return home to buy his family's previous horse farm. Much of Hayden's performance, as well as most of the other cast's, was over-acted by today's standards; but yet they didn't want anyone missing the point in those days.

Louis Calhern did a journeyman's job as the regal but untrustworthy financier of the operation. Calhern's approach was pretty similar most in any role that he played. Anthony Caruso was starting to get notice here as Louis Ciavelli, the expert safe cracker. Much notice has been made of Marilyn Monroe as Calhern's mistress. She certainly exuded allure and raw sexiness as a dimwitted plaything, who eventually causes Calhern's end.

The picture was fairly long for its era, but filled all of its 1' 52" effortlessly. It was nominated for 4 Oscars that year, and remains today as one of our finer noirs.
 

ChiroDoc said:
Heh, heh. Yeah, Blackboard Jungle (1955) was a inner city high schoo social dramal film starring Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, and Sydney Poitier in an early role. At 11 years old, I was totally enthralled by its depiction of rebellious youth; but mostly by the landmark film score song, "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and his Comets.

The Asphalt Jungle is a great noir which I happened to re-watch a couple of weeks ago. Some commentary:

I've always been a big fan of most of John Huston's work, from The Maltese Falcon (1941) through to Prizzi's Honor (1985). As far as noir films, the former may have been the first mainstream instance of the noir movement in its classic presentation.

Huston's The Asphalt Jungle is one of his better films, especially so as a noir example. Cinematographer Harold Rosson was fresh from filming On The Town (NYC) and Key to the City (San Fran), so he had experience representing the feel and power of big cityscapes, which was on display right from the git-go in Jungle's opening scenes: the post war stylized fedora-wearing mug framed by the enormity of building arches; the shadowy doorways and litter shown in urban alleyways-- mostly filmed in Cincinnati.

As a heist film it was notable for showcasing early variations of the now familiar story mechanics: the gang is formed; the plan is made; the characters are developed; and the complicated burglary is pulled off-- although not without some bad luck. It's also the first time in memory that the thieves must slide on their backs underneath an electronic eye.

In my view the standout performance was by Marc Lawrence, playing the underworld bookie wannabe big shot gangster. His performance never varied or weakened, and was completely believable. Sam Jaffe also gets plaudits as the mastermind ex con, Doc Riedenschneider. And Jean Hagen had a tough part to play as the weak gal named Doll who was head over heels for ex con Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden), and she came through in spades. Hayden himself was convincing as the tough guy who was looking to make a big score so he could return home to buy his family's previous horse farm. Much of Hayden's performance, as well as most of the other cast's, was over-acted by today's standards; but yet they didn't want anyone missing the point in those days.

Louis Calhern did a journeyman's job as the regal but untrustworthy financier of the operation. Calhern's approach was pretty similar most in any role that he played. Anthony Caruso was starting to get notice here as Louis Ciavelli, the expert safe cracker. Much notice has been made of Marilyn Monroe as Calhern's mistress. She certainly exuded allure and raw sexiness as a dimwitted plaything, who eventually causes Calhern's end.

The picture was fairly long for its era, but filled all of its 1' 52" effortlessly. It was nominated for 4 Oscars that year, and remains today as one of our finer noirs.
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Wikipedia had this to say about Marc Lawrence which explains why he's lesser known....

"In 1951, Lawrence found himself under scrutiny for his political past. After being visited at his L.A. home by two government agents who accused him of being a Communist Party USA (CPUSA) member, Lawrence was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). On April 24, 1951, he appeared before the HUAC and admitted he had belonged to the CPUSA in the late 1930s.

He named fourteen of his film industry associates as Communists, including fellow actors J. Edward Bromberg, Morris Carnovsky, Jeff Corey, Howard da Silva, Lloyd Gough, Sterling Hayden, Larry Parks, Anne Revere, and Lionel Stander. Despite being a cooperative witness, Lawrence did not fully escape the blacklist, and so he and his wife, screenwriter Fanya Foss, and their two children departed for Italy in 1951. They lived abroad for six years. During that time, he appeared in numerous Italian films and also landed the role of Diomedes in Robert Wise's Helen of Troy (1956)."
 

The Green Book (2018). A sophisticated black pianist on a concert tour through the south in 1962. He hires a chauffeur who happens to be white and of an Italian heritage to drive him about on his tour. The chauffeur is a rough ex-bar bouncer type but happily married. Dr. Shirley works to mold Frank into a respectable tour manager. Together they help each other to grow and become better human beings while facing stiff racism in the south. Very enjoyable and often funny.
 
The Dressmaker - arguable imo the best outback film ever made in Oz - a slow start perhaps but the crescendo picks up to murders ; suicides and souls bared to the outback ozzie sun !! It epitomizes the outback of the early settlers warts and all - supreme - should not be missed!! If it doesn't touch ya soul ya aint got one!!
 
OldFeller said:
Wikipedia had this to say about Marc Lawrence which explains why he's lesser known....

"In 1951, Lawrence found himself under scrutiny for his political past. After being visited at his L.A. home by two government agents who accused him of being a Communist Party USA (CPUSA) member, Lawrence was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). On April 24, 1951, he appeared before the HUAC and admitted he had belonged to the CPUSA in the late 1930s.

He named fourteen of his film industry associates as Communists, including fellow actors J. Edward Bromberg, Morris Carnovsky, Jeff Corey, Howard da Silva, Lloyd Gough, Sterling Hayden, Larry Parks, Anne Revere, and Lionel Stander. Despite being a cooperative witness, Lawrence did not fully escape the blacklist, and so he and his wife, screenwriter Fanya Foss, and their two children departed for Italy in 1951. They lived abroad for six years. During that time, he appeared in numerous Italian films and also landed the role of Diomedes in Robert Wise's Helen of Troy (1956)."
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He was a really good actor, but he got pigeon-holed into gangster typecasting. Yeah Hollywood was full of commies then. Now as then the profession is full of people living in a dream fantasy world. They're like little kids-- they think on an emotional level.
 
jhummel73 said:
The Green Book (2018). A sophisticated black pianist on a concert tour through the south in 1962. He hires a chauffeur who happens to be white and of an Italian heritage to drive him about on his tour. The chauffeur is a rough ex-bar bouncer type but happily married. Dr. Shirley works to mold Frank into a respectable tour manager. Together they help each other to grow and become better human beings while facing stiff racism in the south. Very enjoyable and often funny.
Click to expand...
IMO the film was watchable, but it was a typical Hollywood woke job.

Hollywood has put excellence in story telling on the back burner for the past 15 years or so in favor of promoting its own fashionable social causes. Now, just in case there are folks who haven’t been to a movie since 1960, the writers of Green Book endeavor to show us that there was deep racial prejudice against blacks in the U.S., most especially in the South.

The story creates an account of one of America’s premier pianists named Don Shirley, a black man, who embarked on a year-plus concert tour in 1962, of which many dates were in the South. Because of racist violence against Nat King Cole at a concert in Alabama in 1960, Shirley hired Tony “Lip” Vallelonga --a mob friendly Italian who worked at Manhattan’s Copacabana night club-- to be his driver and bodyguard.

Beyond these basic facts the story is completely fictionalized. To their credit, the producers announced in the opening credits that the film was “inspired by a true story”. “Inspired by” means that the Shirley/Vallelonga tour gave them an idea for a story. Unfortunately in the film version, the tour was shrunk to two months, and was made to end just before Christmas so that Tony could return home to be with his family, and to set up a dramatic ending.

In Hollywood fashion Tony and Don soon became buds, yet in true life Shirley’s brother stated that Don never considered Tony a friend, but only an employee who he required to wear a chauffer’s uniform and a cap. And there are no reports of racial incidents on the tour. Presumably the pair did make use of the “The ***** Motorist Green-Book” (actual title) in selecting their safe accommodations.

This is certainly not the first time Hollywood has made up an entire story based on an actual event, and in fact there probably have been more fictionalized movie accounts than not. But while watching the film the question kept coming up: what was this film’s point of view? And whose story were they trying to portray? Certainly they were going for both entertainment and social justice value; but after the many dozens of movies dealing with black/white racial issues over the past 60 years, the back story of the Jim Crow South was not a shocker.

At least since 1958, with The Defiant Ones, then Patch of Blue, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, on through Driving Miss Daisy, even Forrest Gump, along with scores of others since, have thoroughly explored and displayed the subject of prejudice against mixed race pairings, and in prejudice in general. Yet in Green Book we are treated to the corniest scenes of southern boobs dishing out the rankest forms of racial derision in such hackneyed form that it bordered on satire. One half expected to see Sheriff Buford T. Justice appear.

If the film’s title and subject matter were any indication that the focus was on Don Shirley, his beliefs, and his quest to endure a music tour of the South, then it came as a surprise that the thrust of the story put most of the emphasis on Tony Lip: his background, his actions, his philosophy, his awakening. Reportedly this was not lost on Shirley’s relatives, who resented the depiction of their family relationships, along with the emphasis put on Tony.

The chief disappointment in the film was the writing. Director Peter Farrelly is known for wacky comedies, and this was his first foray into drama. He participated in the scripting with a sophomore writer, Biran Currie, along with Tony Vallelongas’s son Nick. Tony Lip’s part was the better of the two in construction, and Viggo Mortensen brought in an award winning quality performance. There must have been indecision about scripting Don Shirley’s part. In an attempt to give the character too many facets, the result was a personality who was all over the map, which must have made it a difficult continuity project for the actor.

In his defense Mahershala Ali stated that he’d liked to have met with Shirley’s family in order to provide a more nuanced character. Still, what he did well, he did really well. Of particular note was his portrayal of piano playing. He’d worked with composer Kris Bowers until he really appeared to be playing the difficult piano pieces.

Despite its anachronistic nature, heftier writers with a different approach could have made this story into a more interesting film.
 
ChiroDoc said:
IMO the film was watchable, but it was a typical Hollywood woke job.

Hollywood has put excellence in story telling on the back burner for the past 15 years or so in favor of promoting its own fashionable social causes. Now, just in case there are folks who haven’t been to a movie since 1960, the writers of Green Book endeavor to show us that there was deep racial prejudice against blacks in the U.S., most especially in the South.

The story creates an account of one of America’s premier pianists named Don Shirley, a black man, who embarked on a year-plus concert tour in 1962, of which many dates were in the South. Because of racist violence against Nat King Cole at a concert in Alabama in 1960, Shirley hired Tony “Lip” Vallelonga --a mob friendly Italian who worked at Manhattan’s Copacabana night club-- to be his driver and bodyguard.

Beyond these basic facts the story is completely fictionalized. To their credit, the producers announced in the opening credits that the film was “inspired by a true story”. “Inspired by” means that the Shirley/Vallelonga tour gave them an idea for a story. Unfortunately in the film version, the tour was shrunk to two months, and was made to end just before Christmas so that Tony could return home to be with his family, and to set up a dramatic ending.

In Hollywood fashion Tony and Don soon became buds, yet in true life Shirley’s brother stated that Don never considered Tony a friend, but only an employee who he required to wear a chauffer’s uniform and a cap. And there are no reports of racial incidents on the tour. Presumably the pair did make use of the “The ***** Motorist Green-Book” (actual title) in selecting their safe accommodations.

This is certainly not the first time Hollywood has made up an entire story based on an actual event, and in fact there probably have been more fictionalized movie accounts than not. But while watching the film the question kept coming up: what was this film’s point of view? And whose story were they trying to portray? Certainly they were going for both entertainment and social justice value; but after the many dozens of movies dealing with black/white racial issues over the past 60 years, the back story of the Jim Crow South was not a shocker.

At least since 1958, with The Defiant Ones, then Patch of Blue, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, on through Driving Miss Daisy, even Forrest Gump, along with scores of others since, have thoroughly explored and displayed the subject of prejudice against mixed race pairings, and in prejudice in general. Yet in Green Book we are treated to the corniest scenes of southern boobs dishing out the rankest forms of racial derision in such hackneyed form that it bordered on satire. One half expected to see Sheriff Buford T. Justice appear.

If the film’s title and subject matter were any indication that the focus was on Don Shirley, his beliefs, and his quest to endure a music tour of the South, then it came as a surprise that the thrust of the story put most of the emphasis on Tony Lip: his background, his actions, his philosophy, his awakening. Reportedly this was not lost on Shirley’s relatives, who resented the depiction of their family relationships, along with the emphasis put on Tony.

The chief disappointment in the film was the writing. Director Peter Farrelly is known for wacky comedies, and this was his first foray into drama. He participated in the scripting with a sophomore writer, Biran Currie, along with Tony Vallelongas’s son Nick. Tony Lip’s part was the better of the two in construction, and Viggo Mortensen brought in an award winning quality performance. There must have been indecision about scripting Don Shirley’s part. In an attempt to give the character too many facets, the result was a personality who was all over the map, which must have made it a difficult continuity project for the actor.

In his defense Mahershala Ali stated that he’d liked to have met with Shirley’s family in order to provide a more nuanced character. Still, what he did well, he did really well. Of particular note was his portrayal of piano playing. He’d worked with composer Kris Bowers until he really appeared to be playing the difficult piano pieces.

Despite its anachronistic nature, heftier writers with a different approach could have made this story into a more interesting film.
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Yes, I knew it was woke, and presented some of the worst examples of predjudice. But still enjoyed it!
 
@ChiroDoc I had mixed feelings about Green Book: I enjoyed it while watching, but afterwards I felt uncomfortable with the perspective and how it was almost a "white savior" story. The things you said are interesting and accurate.
 
A movie with unrefined actors might be the best way to describe it.
Escape 2120
Sci-fi Action?
Posted Synopsis
A detached orphan teen escapes to the future in suspended animation, but when he arrives at a natural utopia, he must evade a lynch mob convinced he’s the prophesied Devil’s Child.
Full movie
 
Re: Nonnas: That movie is based on a real restaurant in Staten Island. I went there with friends last time I was in NY, around 2018 or 19. It was fabulous, we loved it. And as my daughter said when we talked about the movie and the place, it's a good thing we went then, since they're about to be overrun with business bc of the movie. And it is a fairly small place.
 
Marcy Sheiner said:
I went to the movies with a friend yesterday to see Sinners. Multi layered, full of meanings to be interpreted or misinterpreted, as the case may be. Worth watching but almost too intense for me.
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I'm not a fan of supernatural horror, but the movie is getting good reviews.
It's supposedly set in Clarksdale, Miss., which is the home and hometown of famous actor Morgan Freeman. Maybe someday they'll make a film set in the Mississippi Delta with a story line that's not about the Jim Crow South...:rolleyes:
 
Three movies I have watched recently.
The BreakerUpperers. New Zealand and their weird sense of Comedic Expression. 👍 7/10
Brigsby Bear Unusually sweet movie. See it out till the end. 👍 7/10
A Ghost Story Poignant look at Death. Non Scary Genre. 👍 7/10
 
The last movie I watched was The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow filmed in 1974. I also watched the 1949 version starring Alan Ladd, Shelley Winters and MacDonald Carey. I read about how Scott Fitzgerald derived the characters of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. There was a real person named Max Gerlach who was a bootlegger during the 20s, known to the author. The guy fell on tough times after prohibition. His attempt at suicide left him blinded.
 
McBride said:
The last movie I watched was The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow filmed in 1974. I also watched the 1949 version starring Alan Ladd, Shelley Winters and MacDonald Carey. I read about how Scott Fitzgerald derived the characters of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. There was a real person named Max Gerlach who was a bootlegger during the 20s, known to the author. The guy fell on tough times after prohibition. His attempt at suicide left him blinded.
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I didn't like the 1974 version. We had to watch it in High School. I did however enjoy the more recent one (2013) with Leonardo DiCaprio.
 
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