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

A Patch of Blue. Elizabeth Hartman plays a blind girl at the mercy of her abusive mother Shelley Winters and useless alcoholic grandfather Wallace Ford; she has no education and almost no adaptation to her situation. Sidney Poitier happens to meet her, befriends her, and tries to help her, while enjoying having a friend who genuinely doesn’t care about his color. Of course, she starts to fall in love with Poitier, the only person who’s ever given her any positive attention. It’s the kind of earnest film that tugs a bit too aggressively at the heartstrings (it is, after all, a racism, disability, and domestic-abuse movie all rolled into one), but it’s well-meaning and fairly sensitive, and the actors are all quite good.

 

Just got back from the opening weekend show of Becky's Drive-In, near Lehighton, PA.
The first feature was "Godzilla vs. Kong". It was pretty good. The big fight between the two was well-produced, as was the following fight with a third opponent. I did notice that Kong seemed more heroic, while Godzilla was more in "force of nature/stay out of his way" mode. The plot had problems, though. (A big corporation up to no good? Boy, that's a new one, huh?) And the two story threads don't really mesh to well on the human level. In a way, I was reminded of "Tora Tora Tora", where two entirely separate units filmed each side of the story. So far as I could see, the humans on each side of this movie never meet and probably never even know of the other's existence. Still, it was OK. I did notice that they cited Godzilla's original copyright holders, but not Kong's. And I was surprised there was no stinger; I thought those were mandatory.
The second feature was "Wonder Woman '84". I wasn't impressed. It was heavy-handed, slow, poorly-plotted, and had less-than-compelling villains. And the ending was waaaay overdrawn. Oddly, while the CGI heroics were well-produced in this and other recent superhero movies, I thought such things were far more impressive when Christopher Reeve did them via comparatively low-tech SPFX. The closing cameo was a nice touch, though. But, on the whole, I should've gone with my first instinct: download Bridget & Mary Jo's Rifftrax commentary onto my laptop and bring it with me.
The trailers were for "Dune" (looked too familiar, and I missed Toto's "Prophecy Theme" from the Lynch version), "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" (looks good, but when the heck will it arrive?), "A Quiet Place II" (didn't see the original), and "Mortal Kombat" (not really my thing).

 

The Last Blockbuster (2020)
And then there was one. This documentary features the rise and fall of Blockbuster Video; and follows the daily happenings of the last BV store on Earth. It's kind of sad and nostalgic in a way. I remember when the last BV store closed near my hometown on Long Island. It's nice to see that people still care enough to be loyal customers. Interesting that the movie is being featured on Netflix, while Netflix did play a role in the company's demise.

 

I did like how they made Godzilla more of a bad guy/force of nature in GVK. It's more in line with the original KKVG and the first 4 movies in the series. I did think Godzilla was a little too "good" in the last 2 recent films.

 

Currently watching Beetlejuice on one of the movie channels.

 

Aliens - as a final film in my own Alien Trilogy. I watch Prometheus, Alien and then Aliens. Aliens is just awesome. Period. The final scene of Newt & Ripley in hyper-sleep is a fabulous way to end the saga. Great scene there. And, all the films that came after Aliens are entirely unnecessary and dont exist in my world.

 

Birds of Prey

Surprisingly funny on second viewing, I laughed quite a lot and more than on first viewing. It's fast, fun, colorful, zany, violent, and the cast definitely seem to be having a good time.

Nice production design, especially the fun house battle where all the outnumbered ladies show off their unique fighting styles. Margot clearly put a lot into this movie and character and highlights include the recurring Grievances gag in which angry violent people from her past whom she has wronged show up to off her.

And the roller derby bit where Harley is starting **** is great. All the roller skating and gymnastic fighting style with a mallet or baseball bat at a gun fight is truly zany and reminds of the comics.

Ewan McGregor positively churns up scenes as the narcissistic and sadistic Roman, clearly delighting in the role.

Good direction, fast pace, color, and lots of humor make this a unique viewing experience.

 

The Gay Diplomat (1931) starring Ivan Lebedeff, Genevieve Tobin, Ilka Chase cherrypicked in minor role; directed by Richard Boleslawski.

The cinematography grabbed me from the getgo and if you watch the first two minutes of the movie, you'll see why. Cinematographer Leo Tover swirls and swoops his camera into amazing scenes throughout, ably abetted by editor Arthur Roberts, and I guess Max Rée in the art department. We see stark WWI cavalry charges at night, lit only by spotlights (?) followed by an immersive scene depicting the wounding in battle of the Tsar's officer Lebedeff and the plot follows from there: *from imdb: "Captain Orloff is sent to Bucharest to capture a Mata Hari type of spy, but many different women fit the bill and are attractive enough to make one question one's allegiance." It's a hoot to follow Ivan as he gigolos his way among three main suspects, naturally falling in love with one of them. Ivan was born in Ushpol, Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire (now Uzpaliai, Lithuania) and if you think of Bela Lugosi's accent in Dracula of the same year, you've got the picture. Ivan had tons more dialogue than Bela, though, and it took great concentration from me to follow his fluid but accented English. Boleslawski (also from the Russian Empire; his hometown is now in Poland) directed a personal fave, The Garden of Allah in 1936 starring Dietrich and Colman, and a lush early Technicolor romance that one is. In Diplomat, Boleslawski either directed or gave Tover free rein to film actors through 1. a wall of candelabras, candles flickering mightily, and 2. a chilling prolonged scene of Ivan's gallant little valet (95 pounds dripping wet) being strangled by the Big Bad. Another note is that despite taking place in 1915, the female stars sport 1931's marcelled waves of hair and gowns resembling 1931 fashions. Max Steiner handled the music well enough.

It's a fairly early talkie and once, Ivan turned his back to speak to someone behind him and the sound became muffled; this happened only this time, AFAIK. RKO (when it was just Radio Pictures) touted him as the next Latin lover type a la Valentino and he filled out a tux well, but it seems the public didn't want him because this lone starring vehicle lost tons of money and Ivan turned to supporting roles as a continental lover type, often not on the up and up. If you want to see Ivan more animated, catch his work in 1933's Bombshell which starred Jean Harlow.

This is pre-code with many wink-wink-nudge-nudges towards the camera and I LOLd plenty when Ivan, doing his best to discern which femme fatale is the Spy, gets vamped on by Suspect #3 Ilka Chase ( RL stage star, writer, radio hostess and socialite who had a superb film role in Bette Davis' vehicle Now, Voyager) who gets very handsy with him and his medalled, be-ribboned Russian officer's chest at a party; she practically humps his leg. Later that night, she invites him to "have a nightcap" in her hotel room right across the hall from his and although he dissembles deftly, he cannot evade her aggression without harming his reputation as a Lothario and possibly jeopardizing his mission. She, opening her door and beckoning: "Captain Orloff, how does it feel to be a hero?" He, glumly following her into her room: "I'm just finding out." Fade to black.

 

Aquaman (2018)
I wasn't impressed when I saw it on the big screen, but tonight I was tired and just wanted something with bright colors and no need to think, so I gave it another chance. It's a goofy story, which can work as GotG proves, but this one just doesn't have that kind of bizarre charm. If only the dialog hadn't been written by somebody with a tin ear, it could have been a lot more fun. It's visually spectacular though.

 

Love Crazy. William Powell and Myrna Loy are one of the greatest screen couples of all time, and it’s lucky for us they made a ton of movies together. In this one, Powell plays a reformed playboy who’s madly in love with his wife, Loy, but unwisely takes the opportunity to duck out of the house with an old flame who’s moved into a nearby apartment to escape being stuck all night with his absolutely unbearable mother-in-law. Soon, the meddling mother-in-law has Loy convinced Powell was cheating, and she files for divorce and won’t listen to a word he say. The only way Powell can think of to stop the process is to fake insanity. As you may have gathered, this is the kind of screwball farce where ludicrous events happen with great regularity and simple misunderstandings refuse to be cleared up until the finale. And it’s tremendous fun. Loy, unfortunately, doesn’t get as much chance to shine as the injured woman, but her zany rapport with Powell is as good as ever, and Powell is in the zone playing a madcap goofball who then has to pretend to be crazy — and immediately regrets it when he ends up committed. There’s just a ton of good comic business here, sharp punchlines and solid physical comedy. Lots of wacky fun.

 

Spencer Tracy's health was so frail at the time that they basically had to structure the entire production around making sure he didn't drop dead in the middle of filming.

 

He looks remarkably hale onscreen, though, for a man who was obviously dying offscreen. A tremendous effort on his part. Hepburn’s eyes are visibly brimming with tears throughout the entire movie, though — you can tell it was rough on her.

 

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Watched the theatrical cut over at my friend's house. It's one of his favorite films. Mine too.

It's always fun and inspiring to rewatch this classic.

 

Was it the original 1977 cut, or the revised one with a couple of new scenes (like discovering the ship in the desert), but without the now-disavowed shots inside the Mothership?

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

You know, this is an all right sequel to the classic NOES 3 Dream Warriors.
Found meself rooting for most all the characters as they are quite likeable.

It's a surprisingly calm installment and is a bit of a slow burn actually as lots of time is spent on character development. Freddy is more like your nightmare sideshow game host comedian here. Lots of memes have been made from his appearances in this one. Shark fin on the beach then sunglasses for example.

There is a dog who fire pees on some bones in a junkyard that initially rebirths Freddy. There are junked cars attacking a young teen boy. An asthmatic girl's insides are sucked out. There is death by invisible kung Fu Freddy. There's the death by bench press anomaly.

This is pretty ok flick though, maybe my 4th fave in the franchise after 1, 3, and New Nightmare.

@Kenneth Morgan
It was the 1977 cut of Close Encounters we watched.

 

Just watched Brightburn and I totally dug it lol. That was twisted fun.

 

An anti-marijuana PSA from the late 1960s, as riffed by the Mads. Narrated/hosted by a very...relaxed Sonny Bono, wearing gold lame pajamas that undercut whatever message he's presenting.
Here it is on YouTube:

 

High Wall. A man with a head injury confesses to murdering his wife, but while locked up in the asylum, a caring lady doctor works with him and tries to recover his memory of the incident, during which he blacked out. Of course, he realizes he might not have done it. It’s an interesting noir setup, but the movie doesn’t get the most out of it. It’s not very atmospheric, and spends too long muddling around with a generic plotline about our lead being thrown into the madhouse before unveiling the memory-recovery card, at which point things proceed too fast. Not a gripping film; it’s okay at best.

 

Are We There Yet?
2005

In order to gain favor with a woman he wants to date, Ice Cube agrees to accompany her two insufferable, irascible kids on a flight to Vancouver, which turns into a train ride, to a road trip, and eventually his fancy SUV getting completely destroyed. Like set on fire and exploded.

The plot is inspired by Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and although nowhere near as funny as that classic, Are We There Yet? was entertaining enough and there are some truly humorous and ludicrous scenes in this picture.

Tracy Morgan plays a Satchel Paige bobblehead. Just FYI.

 

The Narrow Margin. Noirs, especially B noirs like this, had a tremendous ability to find a killer hook to hang a movie on. They didn’t always deliver on it, but this one does. A detective has the task of picking up a mobster’s widow to testify before a grand jury, and has to take her cross-country on a train, hiding her from the gangsters on the train who are out to get her. The result is a taut, energetic noir, full of great touches like making the widow a truly reprehensible character you’d rather see dead. The biggest keys to its success are its great hardboiled patter, which gives the movie a ton of gritty attitude, and the lead performance of Charles McGraw as the stressed-out cop. He has the perfect growling, gravelly delivery to make his gruff, cynical-but-incorruptible dialogue land, and his performance really sells the character as a hard-bitten, tough professional who’s straining to keep ahead of the mysterious syndicate and has no time for everybody else’s antics, a man who’s competent but is being pushed to his limits. It’s a great movie, coming in at a tight seventy-one minutes, except for a misstep of a late twist that ties the movie up in a neat bow but doesn’t make much sense. It’s still a great ride, though, well worth checking out.

 

A Trio of 1950's movies.

Forbidden Planet (1956)
A stunning movie. Amazing sets and design. Amazing "music"... electronica from the 1950's! Robby the Robot. A spaceship crew that could come from a World War 2 movie set on a PT boat, playing up the "mad about dames and booze" tropes. And then it goes all deep talking about the subconscious and monsters from the id.

War of the Worlds (1953)
The Martian spaceships are gorgeous. The heroine has ridiculous screaming panic attacks. And oddly a very Christian movie that answers the question "If God loves us, why did he make diseases?".

This Island Earth (1955)
This movie surprises you.
It feels like it's going to be something low budget with the heroes running about the Californian desert to find aliens in rubber suits. But then it goes huge and wild, sending us off to a war ravaged alien planet.


Anyway, a good little trilogy of super science and space ships. Scifi movies I'd recommend if you want to get into old stuff.

 

Irving also tried to propagate the theory that Elmyr faked his own death after the latter committed suicide two years after the film came out. Props for bottomless audacity, I guess.

 

This Island Earth was one of my favorite films when I was growing up.

 

"This Island Earth" is a well-made movie that's enjoyable to watch on its own, yet provides good riffing material. The AV Club has posted a new oral history on the making of "MST3K-The Movie", including why TIE was chosen: https://film.avclub.com/mystery-science-theater-3000-the-movie-the-oral-histo-1846694612