Last Movie You Watched Part II, Electric Bugaloo

[Timothy Hunter]

Stalker

The longest most boring film ever made. I'm on a bit of a science fiction bend, so I was excited to watch what was hailed as a sci fi masterpiece, little did I know that it was 3 hours of three balding, middle aged men walking through a forest. It's one of those films that substitutes plot and character with pseudophilosophical ramblings.

Casablanca

It's great watching a film with characters and plot and things happening. In all seriousness the reputation of this film is completely deserved and then some. Rick's nightclub feels like a truly lived in place, giving off the impression that each of its customers had their own story to tell. I wouldn't be shocked to learned that Mos Eisley Cantina from the first Star Wars film drew inspiration from Casablanca.

[ed2962]

Cooley High ( 1975). I hadn't seen this in years and had actually forgotten a lot of it. But a great coming of age movie that still holds up. It was sold as a Black American Graphiti, and that makes sense seeing as it takes place in roughly the same era, but it was actually loosely based on the teen years of the screenwriter. These days folks look at it as a classic of "black cinema". Great script, great acting, the last act will tug on your heartstrings. Having said that...

I didn't release this before but it was produced by Steve Krantz. Steve Krantz was one of the producers on the old 60's Spiderman TV show. And he produced the animated X-Rated Fritz The Cat movies.

Alot of this was shot on location and it kinda messes up the time period. For instance, the opening credits show Marina City which was built in 1968 although the movie takes place in 1964. Also, I didn't see any cars from the 50's but 70's gas guzzlers work their way into some shots.

Also, in the "Where are they now" sequence...spoilers:

someone is supposedly killed in racial violence at the '68 Democratic Convention. In real even though there was police violence, no one died. And for the most part, folks don't look at that event as a racial incident. It was cops beating up mostly white kids.

end of spoilers

And...There was supposed to be a Cooley High TV show, but the pilot was poorly received, so it was completely reworked and became "What's Happening".

[Powerboy]

I just watched "The Cat from Outer Space", a really run of the mill 1978 Disney movie that I hadn't seen since it's original release. The one thing about it that may (or may not) be unique is that the actors who portrayed two M*A*S*H* 4077th commanding officers appear together in this movie and in scenes together: McLean Stevenson (Colonel Henry Blake) and Harry Morgan (Colonel Sherman Potter).

Edit: A few days ago, I watched "The Alamo", the 1960 movie. I had seen it as a little kid, on television, but only remembered bits and pieces. Far better than I was expecting it to be. Battle scenes so good as to defy belief, especially since some scenes involved literally hundreds of stuntmen in a way pre-CGI era. The sets were also amazing and the dialogue was fantastic. Note: I didn't say the dialogue was realistic. I said it was fantastic.

Recently, for the first time, I saw, "To Kill A Mockingbird". A great movie dealing with racial bigotry in 1932, made in 1962 , and still very relevant today.

[Mormel]

La Ruche, a Belgian movie directed by Christophe Hermans, and starring Ludivine Sagnier as a single mother of three teenage daughters, played by Sophie Breyer, Mara Taquin, and Bonnie Duvauchelle, living in the city of Liege, Belgium. The mother suffers from bipolar disorder, and her daughters cope with this in their own ways. Marion (Breyer) seeks refuge in her capoeira/hip hop dance classes with friends, and is gearing up to take a sabbatical year in Brazil; Claire (Taquin) escapes in dates and drinking; the youngest, Louise (Duvauchelle) does her best to perform well in school and for the most part clings to her big sisters while at home.

The movie is a little unconventional in its fairly free-flowing plot progression and key moments of characterization. Central character is eldest daughter Marion; the story really feels like a slice out of the lives of these characters. I thought it was quite good.

[CliffHanger2]

Green Lantern Beware My Power. Best Green Lantern movie ever. That's not saying much but one the better DC movies in general. No silly no kill rules or heroes preaching about how important it is to save evil mass murderers. Just straight up good story-telling and lots of action. John's costume could have been a little better nut that's my only nitpick.

[CliffHanger2]

Resurrection with Tim Roth. Not sure how to classify this movie but it was really weird and ridiculous. But I think that was the point.

Dayshift with Jamie Foxx. What a hoot! good old fashioned kill all vamps flick with a few twists. Jamie Foxx and Snoop make a hell of a team.

[Deathstroke]

Serenity (Firefly continuation)

Prey (Predator prequel)

[Kirby101]

Carter, crazy, high octane, nonstop action Korean flick. Don't worry about the plot, just watch.

Day Shift, what cliffhanger said.

[Mormel]

Saw the Italian/Argentine movie Hogar from the year 2019 which was playing at our local theater. It tells the story of a shelter house for teenage mothers and their children, run by Catholic nuns. Naturally, the young girls are from broken homes or otherwise difficult backgrounds. Some are in the middle of pregnancy. The main characters we follow are Fatima (Denise Carrizo) who has 1 son Michael and is expecting her second child, and Luciana (Agustina Malale) with her little daughter Nina (Isabella Cilia). Fatima is the more low-key and responsible one, Luciana prefers to sneak out of the shelter to live it up at parties and score dates. The coming of a new young nun, Sister Paola, signifies a change in the lives of these characters as she starts bonding with little Nina as Luciana drifts off from parenthood responsibilities.

Don't want to use too many words but I thought this was a beautiful movie with great performances throughout, both in the scenes that had more dialogue, as well as the scenes that relied more on non-verbal conveying of emotions. The child actors for Nina and Michael do a very adequate job as well. Worth checking out if you can find it streaming somewhere or playing at a local theatre. Unusual setting too, and very amusing to see the contrast between the devout, traditional nuns, and the rebellious teenage girls.

The ending is abrupt, but that only underlines how quickly things can change in the lives of these young women and their children, and that they live in a world of finite things.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Nice Guys (2016)- it's a fun detective comedy.

[ed2962]

The Big Combo 1955. I'd heard of this film but had never seen it before. I totally get why it's regarded as a film noir classic ( although it goes a little over the top in the last act).

Having said that, I'm wondering about something...spoilers:

In one scene, the two main henchmen get a phone call to go kill someone. It's the middle of the night. The lights are all out. The phone rings and one of the guys wakes up and answers the phone. He's in the bed and he has no shirt on. After getting the instructions, he motions to the other henchmen who seems to have been sitting in a chair next to him just off screen. Near the end, shirtless henchman dies and the other henchman is reduced to tears.

end of spoilers...Were the filmmakers trying to say something about the characters that they couldn't just come and say due to the Hayes Code?

[CliffHanger2]

DBZ Super Hero- Some suspect fusion stuff aside. Best action and fight movie I've seen in years. And My man Piccolo finally got an upgrade. Pan is only three in this so not sure how it fits into canon. But yeah totally awesome stuff in this.

[Deathstroke]

I saw the Gerard Butler thriller Last Seen Alive. This one wasn't overly great. And there is a line in the trailer that sounded really cool, yet I don't recall hearing it in the movie itself. It's good enough to kill 90 minutes or so but unlikely to inspire a 2nd viewing.

[Mormel]

As coincidence would have it, this week the theatre was playing another movie by a Belgian director once again on the theme of bipolar disorder. This one, Les Intranquilles by Joachim Lafosse, is set in France and stars a French cast: Lucien Bonnard and Leïla Bekhti play a married couple with a young son (Gabriel Merz Chammah). Damien is an artist whose bipolar disorder sends him into frequent intense manic episodes, as he starts lapsing on the frequency with which he takes his medicine, het becomes increasingly erratic and unpredictable, much to the dismay of Leïla and Amine (Merz Chammah).

Though there are parallels between this movie and La Ruche it's quite different in tone, narrative style, structure, and cinematography. I'm hesitant to say which movie I liked better. Although they cover a very similar subject matter, they each tell different stories and tell them really well. Curiously, both have an abrupt ending that's not jarring in a bad way and instead work very well. So for me, it's a tie.

[ed2962]

The Killing 1956 directed by Stanley Kubrick. Great film.