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

The Heroin Busters (1977)

To me, this is Italian action perfection. A fun look at an undercover Italian narc who infiltrates and busts a worldwide heroin drug ring currently based in Rome. Fabio Testi is a delight as the Errol Flynn-like undercover narc, while his cranky, Interpol boss (David Hemmings) is comic relief you never saw coming.

Director Enzo Castellari’s four police film is my favorite for its playful interludes during an otherwise dour look at heroin dealers and addicts. Testi’s cavalier narc is an utter blast and the final 30 minutes is a sweet over-the-top chase sequence that is ridiculous in all the right ways.

I still dig this movie after 17 years. Not just because it boasts my favorite Goblin, or that Fabio was some swell eye candy. At times, this movie is fun.

 

The Train-Never seen this but thought it was fantastic

 

I need to watch this. I loved his next flick he made after that one, Hunt for the Wilderpeople

 

Lady in the Lake. This Chandler adaptation is mainly notable for the gimmick it introduced: it’s shot in first person. And that’s really the downfall of that kind of gimmickry: when you do something that gimmicky, it’s all your film is ever going to be known for. You can argue it suits the first-person conventions of hardboiled fiction, and, yeah, it’s an interesting experiment. It doesn’t really distract from the movie too much; you get used to it pretty easily. But it’s still a showy, basically pointless flourish that’s just taking away your ability to see the main character. Director-star Robert Montgomery’s performance, aside from some intro bits and a few mirrors, is just reduced to his voice, which isn’t really suited for Marlowe (he can get some of the sarcastic delivery right, but that only reinforces the fact that he sounds like an Alan Alda impersonator (it took me about forty-five minutes of “What is bugging me so much about his voice?” until I figured that one out)). Overall, it’s a pretty good noir and a decent Chandler adaptation except for the unnecessary stylistic flourish.

 

Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah 1991

Serious, fun, and well made Gojira film from the Heisei era. Evil time travelers warn of Japan's destruction unless Godzilla is destroyed. When they teleport him, Ghidorah is created by three cute little aliens left to be nuked lol. Meanwhile Godzilla is brought back and gets accidentally nuked by a submarine and the kaiju start attacking cities.
After Gojira destroys one of Ghidorah's heads and leaves him for dead at the bottom of the sea; he is of course revived by our time travellers who create MechaGhidorah or whatever he's called. Great music too. Whew!

It was fun to rewatch, I love the movie.

 

The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
I've been meaning to see this movie for awhile. It's on Amazon Prime now so I watched it today. I thought it was all right. Shia Laboef is a Southerner on the run after he gets on the wrong side of his fellow fisherman, and he stumbles on a boy with down-syndrome who himself had run away from a rehabilitation facility. It's a nice, thoughtful movie with heart. The boy is played by a young actor who does have down-syndrome. Dakota Johnson also stars as the boy's caretaker.

 

Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017)
More of the same mythical superhuman ridiculousness, with a little 300 style imagery. Recommended for viewers who want to see men fighting by throwing chariots, trees, and oxen at each other with their bare hands. I saw the first one with super-cheesy dubbed dialog, but this one was subtitled, so the acting seemed better, but the subs read like Google translate fails. Still, I enjoyed the story, I just wish it had been told better.

 

I loved the disclaimer on the scenes that appear to show anything happening to the animals.

 

I kept meaning to see this in theaters. Shia is having a bit of a resurgence which is pretty great.

 

I was going to say I don't think I've seen him in a film since that last Indiana Jones movie. That came out after Transformers, right?

 

The Old Guard... Netflix original. Charlize Theron is a great actress. Well thought out, original script. Great concept. I enjoyed it very much.

 

Sayonara. Marlon Brando stars as a Korean War Air Force officer stationed in Japan who shares the official disapproval of servicemen marrying local girls. But when his airman friend marries a Japanese woman, he agrees to be best man, and after his fiancee, the daughter of the area general, grows distant, he becomes obsessed with a Japanese actress and begins an interracial romance of his own.

It takes a bit of a heavy moralizing tone, to be expected when delivering this kind of message in the fifties, but it is pretty graceful overall (casting Ricardo Montalban as a famous kabuki actor is a misstep, though). It’s pretty a pretty potent story, handsomely shot and well acted. Miyoshi Umeki and Red Buttons, as the first couple, both won Oscars, Miiko Taka is very good as Brando’s girlfriend, and you’ve got James Garner as another friend. And Brando knocks it out of the park. He insisted on playing the character with a sort of mumbling, sheepish Southern accent, and it helps Brando really sell the performance as someone who isn’t some hateful bigot who’s converted, but just a good ol’ boy who’s completely out of his depth dealing with a foreign culture for the first time, but who comes to have a profound growth by slowly engaging with it. It’s a well-crafted, solid film; its only real flaw is that it doesn’t need to be two and a half hours. It could very easily have been cut down.

 

That was kind of a creepy movie to watch in the theater...

 

The soundtrack was amazing in the theater on Midnight Special. Those ambient rumbles were seat-shaking. Great movie all around.

He is phenomenal in Peanut Butter Falcon. Really excellent. The movie is pretty good, not great. But Shia's performance is maybe his best.

I haven't seen Sayonara and I've always wondered: Is he better than Sessue Hayakawa in Bridge on the River Kwai? That always seemed like a weird choice for the Academy to make.

 

Making Waves The History of Cinematic Sound . doc 2019

very good doc covering the development of sound in the cinema with lots of interviews . Its interesting how slowly sound developed , I mean from the 30s to the 70s there was barely any improvements , most movies in the 70s were still mono . SW and Apocalypse Now really pushed it on.

 

Honestly, neither of them stand out at the Oscar level. But they both get to do the kind of grandstanding that the Academy loves.

 

Gojira 1954

Watched this for the second time, first blu ray viewing.

What can I say that hasn't already been said, as there have been countless pages written about this classic film. It's the one that started it all.

It's a really well made film and extremely bleak by necessity, as the story and events it references are incredibly traumatic and sad.

It's quite a remarkable response to and reflection on the horrors of nuclear war.

And what an ending.

I'll have to finally check out the US version from 1956 as I've never seen it. The Criterion blu ray I have has both versions.

 

South Plainfield Library showed the Raymond Burr version last Friday. As good as the original is (and it is very good), I still favor the Burr version. That was one of my Dad's favorite movies, and when he accidentally taped over his copy, I was very happy to get him a copy on DVD. After he passed away, our family donated the DVD to the library, with a dedication on the catalog record.

 

Here Comes the Navy (1934)
Starring James Cagney (playing James Cagney in his usual style) and most of the USN, apparently. I watched it for the scenes with the airship USS Macon, which were mostly stunning, aside from a few obviously fake moments. There was a lot of pre-WW2 era naval equipment on display, 4-piper destroyers, Curtiss biplane dive-bombers, the carrier Lexington, and here's what really got to me, lots of scenes filmed aboard USS Arizona. She only had seven more years before she went to the bottom of Pearl Harbor.

 

The Yearling. This adaptation of one of the great underappreciated classics is right on. It has wonderful material to work with in the story of the coming of age of a young boy on the frontier. It’s a beautiful story full of both moral clarity and complexity, balancing the joy of innocence with the necessity of growing up. The film does a fantastic job of bringing it to the screen, with a visually beautiful color presentation and strong performances, especially Gregory Peck as Penny, a literary father figure every bit as remarkable as Atticus Finch. A wonderful film.