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

You're right. That is never explained.

 

Mine: The Guardian of The Moon (2014)
A computer-animated feature film delving in fantasy. The sun and the moon are guarded by strange creatures who "drive" large living beings that help bring about the day and night. It's more of a kids/family movie than anything else. It wasn't a bad movie; just not all that memorable.

 

Last night I watched The Boy.
Creepy old school horror film starring Maggie from Walking Dead. She is running from an abusive relationship and takes a job looking after a rich couples child, which turns out to be a doll. Very clever and a nice twist at the end. Well acted as well.

 

Frozen II - how did this movie go through an entire production without the storytellers addressing the most fundamental of story questions: what does Elsa want / need?

watching the BTS doc to try and understand. So many talented people worked on this completely incoherent movie in search of a story. They needed more time.

 

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) starring Harrison Ford, Sean Connery and Kate Capshaw; directed by Steven Spielberg. Oh the joy of watching a loved film on Thanksgiving with someone who had never seen it *Youngest* deserves boldening.

 

Kate Capshaw is in "Temple of Doom". Alison Doody is the female lead in "Last Crusade".

 

I get the feeling this is one of the movies Jim Kirk watched incessantly while growing up.

 

Ack you are so right!! Forgive me, Alison. I'll try to make it up to you somehow.

 

The Social Dilemma (2020)
A Netflix Original film. Once upon a time, there was no Facebook. There was no Twitter, Instagram, nor Snapchat either. In fact, once upon a time there was no Internet at all (but we don't necessarily have to go back that far). Like it or not, social networks encompass the lives of the vast majority of human beings throughout the world. You can say you deleted your account. You can say you never had one to begin with. But that doesn't mean that in some way, shape or form you haven't been affected by them in some capacity. This documentary portrays what goes on behind the scenes of the big players among the social networks; primarily how they actually get paid for the "service" they appear to be giving to everyone. There's a high degree of shock value; and certain aspects are shown to be a little exaggerated. But overall the movie is enlightening. Personally, I can't imagine too many people are going to be deleting their social media accounts after watching it. I know I won't. But then again, I don't click on any political ads nor share them. The most I do is like some that friends have posted on their feeds. I just feel bad for those people whose lives are enveloped by what they see on their feeds every waking hour of every day; but even beyond that, it really bothers me about how it's been affecting young people beyond just politics. It briefly talks about how social media affects teenagers emotions, like bullying leading to self-harm and suicides. IMO that's far more important for these companies to put a stop to than selling my favorite clicks to some third-party company so they could drop an ad on my feed.

 

Stage Fright. Alfred Hitchcock directed like twenty famous, classic films, in a record any director could be proud of. But he was so insanely prolific, he also directed another huge slate of movies like this, competent thrillers from a master director that are now relatively obscure and forgotten because the great ones have crowded them out.

Jane Wyman plays an acting student who helps her crush evade the police when he’s suspected in the murder of his lover, Marlene Dietrich’s, husband. She and her father come to believe Dietrich set him up and try to clear him, but she also meets the investigating detective and starts falling for him. There’s plenty of Hitchcock intrigue, and though it’s not one of his highlights it’s definitely a decent watch.

 

Downhill (1928) starring Ivor Novello; directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

This is one of the few Hitchcock films I've not seen and Turner Classic Movies did itself proud by airing it; the silent comedies are great, too, and they are easier to relate to in 2020, but dramas force a viewer to focus on the acting, setting, etc. to overcome the strangeness of 1920s mores. There were funny bits; I looked hard to see if Hitchcock appeared, but couldn't tell.

This film, AKA When Boys Leave Home, out-melodramas the best melodrama I've ever seen and also uses most excellent silent film techniques. Ivor, a fun-loving British exclusive college student, plays championship rugby while acing his studies and Headmaster selects him to be "Captain of the School."It's downhill from there as his story is basically The Prodigal Son's. As he slipslides away into dissolution, Hitch uses various tints to display events such as seasickness *green*; he also uses very few intertitles but shows much speech, for instance when the Wronged Girl tells her story to stern Headmaster, she yammers on and on in closeup and the intertitle tersely reads, "His family is wealthy, tell his father that he's got to see me through this!" I tried to read her lips but she spoke quickly. What was the trouble, pregnancy or scandal at being found out a Loose Woman? I don't know.

The pacing impressed me and Ivor's performance in what was mostly a one man show did, too. He's innocent of the charge that got his father to kick him out of the house but he's honor bound to protect his best friend, the guilty party. Hoo boy. Ivor flourished in the silents but his real accomplishments graced his career in the stage as he became hugely popular writing and starring in West End musicals. Some refer to him as the Andrew Lloyd Webber of his time. In 1914 at age 21, he wrote "Keep The Home Fires Burning," a poignant song for World War I soldiers that garnered him fame and wealth.

 

Just watched Aliens. Classic movie. That and Alien are in my all time top 10.

 

Aliens

Watched the Special Edition this time and once the action with the xenomorphs picks up this movie really rolls. That last 75 minutes or so of the film contains sequence after sequence of intense action set pieces.

Sigourney Weaver is terrific as usual and the daughter sub plot with Newt is a nice addition seeing as how she lost her own daughter while in stasis for 57 years.

Alien and Aliens are a unique example of two directors with quite different approaches to filmmaking creating their own visions of the universe and both succeeding.

Alien is much more suspenseful and mysterious than Aliens and is my favorite in the franchise by a lot.
Aliens also succeeds though, in spite of how different in tone it can be, and is many peoples favorite for good reason. It's my second fave in this franchise.

And gotta love all the quotable lines too.
Game over.

 

Lady Snowblood (1973)
Japanese samurai revenge movie.
Watched because of that show on Disney+. You know the one.

A a woman in perfectly precise kimono seeks revenge on those who killed her father and raped her mother.

She slices through her enemies with high pressure hoses of bright red blood spraying across the landscape.

Beautiful and gory.
An obvious influence for Kill Bill.

I have the Lone Wolf and Cub movies waiting to be watched, also because of that Disney+ show.

 

Corvette Summer. This film is known mainly as the first movie Mark Hamill made post-Star Wars, though it’s also Annie Potts’s first movie. It’s not known for anything else, because it’s terrible.

Hamill is a kid who builds a hideous custom Corvette and has it stolen on his first day out, so he goes off to Vegas trying to find it, scraping by and getting together with would-be hooker Potts. It’s one of those movies you just feel embarrassed for everybody involved, because they were trying and they failed miserably. The writer-director was clearly trying to do this fun-teen-comedy thing, and aiming pretty low, and didn’t even manage to clear the low bar. It’s just bad. The plot is incredibly stupid, the writing is awful, the acting terrible (I love Hamill, but he’s no good with this trash script). It’s not even generally so-bad-it’s-good; it’s just embarrassingly inept.

 

Watched highest grossing movie of 2020 (excluding China), "Bad Boys for Life". Directors did a good impression of late 90s early 2000s Michael Bay and certainly more visually comprehensible than Bay's recent output. Solid twist for the 3rd act. Best line of the flick "That've better been a safe or a piano!"

 

Sean The Sheep: Farmegeddon (2020)
The latest feature film in the Aardman collection, on Netflix. An alien creature lands on Earth and causes havoc for the farm and the town; but it only really wants to get home. It starts off rather silly and lighthearted but gets poignant towards the middle. The movie is chock full of Easter Eggs that don't even try to be subtle in their references. It's definitely a nice family movie.

 

A Christmas Carol - 1984 version starring George C. Scott.

 

Arrival.
Terrific movie by one of my favorite directors, who went on to do the excellent Blade Runner sequel. Intelligent, heady sci fi and a great lead performance by Amy Adams. Bizarre, surreal soundtrack.

 

Lizzy McGuire?

 

I desperately wanted to make a joke like that, but I couldn't come up with a funny enough show. I think you nailed it.

 

Didn't C.S. Forester influence both Gene Roddenberry and Patrick O'Brian? - It would be even funnier if Patrick O'Brian had also been influenced by the original Trek series.

 

Solo. Some pretty great performances. I really like the smaller stories like Solo and The Mandalorian where the fate of the galaxy isn't hanging in the balance.

 

That's one of the big reasons I enjoyed "Solo". No prophecies, no superweapons, no big conflicts between good & evil. Just Han, Chewie, Lando and their pals trying to stay alive and make a buck.