Amph What was the last movie you saw? (Ver. 2)

Flash (1980)
Haven't seen this one in years, and it's more fun than I remembered, even though the leads are worse, far worse, than I remembered. Max von Sydow and Timothy Dalton do their usual roles, and Brian Blessed is at his most Blessed-icious. Hawkmen rule!

Have Blessed and John Rhys-Davies ever made a movie together? I'd love to see them trying to one-up each other in hamminess.

 

or deep voicedness.

 

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I’ve seen war movies less brutal than this. It chronicles one hellish night in the combative marriage of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, subjecting a younger couple to the worst get-together ever. Taylor is abrasive, venomous, incapable of letting anything go, an absolutely relentless force of bottled-up (and bottle-tipping) bile. Burton is quietly seething, a man of haughty sarcasm and sedate attacks until he boils over with the same mutual resentment. The performances are just incredible, channeling the rage and frustration and mutual understanding of this tormented, dysfunctionally codependent marriage. George Segal and Sandy Dennis, as the couple drawn into their nightmare, are less compelling, but are key to making the thing work. The film does a great job of slowly unspooling the scenario as it slowly becomes apparent that the guests are not just subjects to the most awkward afterparty ever; they’re the entertainment, as this couple can unite in taking out their frustrations through a sort of perverse, antagonistic prank. The whole thing is a work of dark, vicious brilliance. This is my Halloween horror movie.

 

I'm not sure if they've ever been cast together, but I'd like to see them reprise the Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche roles in Trading Places. Two more vital examples of the "wily old coots" formula couldn't be found ... now to recast Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis

 

The Comic. Another Reiner film, this features Dick Van Dyke as a silent film comedian whose career crumbles with the rise of talkies. Van Dyke is of course fantastic at the silent slapstick comedy, but he proves surprisingly good at the darker material, playing an egotistical alcoholic who collapses his own marriage and career and seems blind to anything but his own comedic greatness. The trouble is that there’s just not that much to the film; it’s a pretty conventional rise-and-fall tale and it doesn’t really do much, comedically or dramatically, to set itself apart. I liked the concept of the still-blindly-arrogant, crotchety Van Dyke narrating from beyond the grave as he observes his funeral, but it’s not enough. Its main reason to exist seems to be letting Reiner shoot a lot — and I mean a lot — of silent-film comedy for the film’s prolific reruns of Van Dyke’s work. It’s a labor of love to pay tribute to the silent era by one of the century’s great comedians, but it doesn’t have much to say.

 

Inheritance A rich father dies in mysterious circumstances and leaves his daughter a secret inheritance that no one else knows about, its an inheritance she doesn't want and is one that could compromise her position as DA.

Spoiler

The inheritance is a man being held prisoner in a hidden bunker on her fathers estate. Who is he? Why is he imprisoned? What should she do with him?

This is a typical Netflix film, a very good premise, but executed on a budget with a story that's not quite full complete or satisfying, there a lot of family stuff that touched on with her brother running for senate that at the end of the day is probably superfluous to the story. It was ok. I enjoyed Simon Pegg in it, but other than that its fairly average and could have been much better.

 

Currently watching The Lighthouse after recording last night. This is one strange film. Can't say I hate it but I'm glad I didn't pay cinema prices to see it.

 

I think it was wildly overrated.

 

So do I now that I've seen it.

 

A while back, I read the book Alternate Oscars. As I recall, the author made a pretty good case that, for 1966, Richard Burton was more deserving of the Best Actor award for this movie than actual winner Paul Scofield was for "A Man for All Seasons". And, of course, Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis won, respectively, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for their roles.

 

One thing I learned from The Omen was to never stand at the doors of a church in a lightning storm.

 

Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
It's a shame this one didn't do better at the box office. Yes, it's a rehash of the first one, but there's enough fresh material to keep the laughs coming. The courtroom scene is comedy gold, IMO. Kudos to Lloyd Bridges, Chuck Connors, Peter Graves, and especially William Shatner for going all in on self-parody. And before you ask, no, I'll never get over Macho Grande.

 

I think the first half of it is pretty good but for me it loses steam in the latter half. Never really cared much for the Shatner stuff. But yeah, the courtroom scene is easily the best part.

 

The Lady Eve. Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda get to do comedy, and they’re both quite good. Fonda is a naive, snake-obsessed ale-fortune heir, and Stanwyck is a con woman who sets out to fleece him aboard a passenger liner but ends up falling in love instead. It’s a good premise, but the film weakens when it gets away from it and ends up in a contrived situation in which they break up after he finds out her secret and then a vengeful Stanwyck sets out to con him again at his home with an utterly wacky plotline, breaking his heart and then coming back for the big romantic ending. It lost me there. It tried to do too much when it should have been focusing on what it already had going. There’s a lot of funny business in here, though, and Fonda is a riot as a pratfalling, painfully earnest straight man.

 

This film had one of the best animated credits, and to me, it presaged the greater use of animation in comedies such as the talking camels in 1942's Road to Morocco. The last time I rewatched it, I left off right before Henry gloms onto Barbara's fakery. I agree, it's a downer part of the film and doesn't recover fully after that unmasking.

 

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

It's good. I like it. Lots of really good action. If you like action movies about killer robots fighting over the fate of humanity, then this is a good example.

This is how franchise sequels should be. The same, but different. Possessing the same qualities that made the original great, but standing on its own. Not just replaying the same scenes out of nostalgia. Didn't learn that Cameron was onboard until the credits; doesn't surprise me that this is the best one since T2, Cameron isn't just some hack like JJ Abrams who is just going to copy his own scenes.

Love the beach invasion scene at the beginning. The BIG SHOCK scene that follows didn't bother me at all in concept, I was glad to move on from that character, and make it about someone else. It was a refreshing change. It just looked weird with the obviously CGI faces.

I thought Mackenzie Davis was wonderful. Absolute badass. I really enjoyed powering up the human protector, made for a fun twist. Basically sold the movie for me.

Linda Hamilton is solid, even getting in a bit of humor. The writing for her was a bit thin, there's just not a lot there. She had a good one liner late in the movie, and I found myself wishing there was a little more of that.

I've never really been onboard with Old Man Terminator. It makes no sense, I just don't buy it. But I guess it's the best they can do in order to include Arnold. Arnold is solid here, too, in a smaller role than usual. The drapes dialogue was great. (If you look past his pecs, Arnold is really looking his age. His posture, his gait. Reminded me of what people said about De Niro in The Irishman. It doesn't matter to me, but maybe, for his sake, it's time to give his body a rest.)

Reyes isn't really convincing. She's absolutely tiny. There's no strength or power in her. It's very obviously intentional, but...it's just not convincing. And it sorta made me realize: is there really only one person who can lead? Is there really only one person who will fight back? The idea that the human resistance will come down to just one person isn't all that convincing if there's nothing really special about that one person. There's nothing shown about Dani that isn't commonplace.

I liked the split gimmick with the new terminator, and I liked that they gave him some human politeness to keep his cover.

I think the C-5/dam sequence is the only weak part of the movie. It's just obviously contrived. The C-5 seemed more like it was chosen by the director for the set piece than by Carl. You could see it all coming, and why: because the director wanted it. And I think it crossed that line between grounded and ridiculous.

I would say it's too bad this apparently killed the franchise, but it was long overdue, and I'm glad it went out on what I consider a high note.

 

If You Meet Sartana, Pray For Your Death (1968)

“I am your Pallbearer...”

Spaghetti Western fun with Gianni Garko’s almost spectral gambling gunslinger getting one over on the bad guys and a cache of loot. 13 years out from watching at least a 100+ spaghetti westerns, Sartana is my favorite of the Yojimbo/Clint descendants. Elegant, deadly, and nobody’s fool, Sartana feels a bit Bond-like in his way. Works for me.

Really though, it’s all about Gianni Garko who was just a joy to watch in these (Hearing them in Italian is the icing on the cake). This first Sartana film is my favorite as Gianni finds himself up against Klaus Kinski’s Morgan and William Berger’s Lasky.

Nice to take a break from my usual Italian genre fare with something fun.

 

Currently watching Hocus Pocus (1993) on one of the movie channels. A bit of Halloween fun..

 

SuziQ...

an unfortunately boring documentary about Suzi Quattro. I thought the bits about the band she formed with her sisters -The Pleasure Seekers- was the only interesting section. Though now I can hear and see what a big influence Elvis was on her.

You know when you keep looking at the clock the interest was not there. Oh well.

 

City of the Living Dead and The Beyond

I have a soft spot for Lucio Fulci's gore filled films and these two are his best IMO. Definitely not for everyone and their not exactly the most well acted or written films in the world, but their greatly entertaining nevertheless. Everyone talks about the gore of these movies, but an underrated aspect of these films is the thick atmosphere of dread and the pervasive sense of doom throughout both that I never felt around other zombie flicks.

 

Don't forget about Cher's worse half.

Spoiler

 

isn't he the lead singer of U2?

 

Of his zombie films, I agree. The atmosphere is pretty great (love the blind woman in The Beyond).

I prefer Lucio's giallos his A Lizard In A Woman's Skin is one of the best ever made. Not much gore (though the eviscerated dog scene is pretty awful), but it's a great murder mystery. --

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Gamera vs. Gyaos


(Yes kids, GAMERA has repulsor technology...)

There are many Kaiju, but I confess I've never watched a Gamera movie until now. I mean, giant, flying fire-breathing turtle, big whoop. Apparently, people loved this giant, flying fire-breathing turtle, so here we are.

Dumb humans apparently discover the blood thirsty Gyaos who spits laser beams and Gamera seems to come to the dumb humans rescue more than once.

Godzilla definitely had the best enemies...but I haven't laughed this hard through a Kaiju movie ever. So there is that.

Sorry, Gamera. The radioactive dino-lizard will always have my kaiju heart. However, Gamera vs Gyaos s the funniest kaiju film I've seen, so I bought two more.

Unfortunately, the gif below is NOT in this movie...(It's from Gamera vs. Guiron).



Neither is this... (Actually, I like Gamera's design here. I think this is Gamera Guardian of the Universe)