Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19319
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Post by Big Magilla »

Christopher Strong (Dorothy Arzner, 1933) 7/10

Katharine Hepburn's second film and her first starring role as an aviatrix loosely based on Amelia Earhart in which she established her knack for playing strong, independent, yet vulnerable women. Her clandestine affair with public figure Colin Clive presages her own later affairs with Howard Hughes and Spencer Tracy.

Ironically, Billie Burke who played her mother in A Bill of Divorcement is her romantic rival here. Helen Chandler (Dracula) is Burke and Clive's spoiled daughter and Ralph Forbes the upper class philanderer she marries against Burke's wishes.

Hepburn and Burke are perfect, especially in their last scene together.

Week-End Marriage (Thornton Freeland, 1932) 7/10

Pre-code gem with Loretta Young as a working wife whose career takes off as husband Norman Foster's declines.

Aline MacMahon gets the wisecracks as Young's sister-in-law. The jaw dropping ending, which today's audiences would laugh off the screen, must have had sophisticated audience members howling even then. A true artifact and one of Loretta's best.
Reza
Laureate Emeritus
Posts: 10031
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 11:14 am
Location: Islamabad, Pakistan

Post by Reza »

State of Play (Kevin Macdonald, 2009) 3/10
Reza
Laureate Emeritus
Posts: 10031
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 11:14 am
Location: Islamabad, Pakistan

Post by Reza »

Illegal (Lewis Allen, 1955) 5/10

The cast (Edward G Robinson, Nina Foch, Hugh Marlowe and Jayne Mansfield) kept me watching this B courtroom melodrama.

The Big Steal (Don Siegel, 1949) 6/10

On location filming in Mexico is the highlight of this chase film with Roberty Mitchum and Jane Greer reunited after their previous collaboration in Out of the Past (1947).

Side Street (Anthony Mann, 1949) 7/10

Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell are helped in this film noir by striking NYC location work and great b/w cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg. The car chase at the end is a highlight and brilliantly filmed.

Where Danger Lives (John Farrow, 1950) 7/10

Very underrated film noir with Robert Mitchum as a chump and Faith Domergue (what happened to her?) as the lying femme fatale. Claude Rains adds an interesting cameo appearance.

Tension (John Berry, 1949) 6/10

B film noir.....with Audrey Totter a highlight.




Edited By Reza on 1241869051
mlrg
Associate
Posts: 1747
Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Post by mlrg »

Interiors (1978) - Woody Allen

7.5/10

Another great screenplay by Woody Allen with tremendous performances by Maureen Stapleton, E.G. Marshall and specially Geraldine Page, who should have won best supporting actress for this.
User avatar
Precious Doll
Emeritus
Posts: 4453
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 2:20 am
Location: Sydney
Contact:

Post by Precious Doll »

Better Things (2009) Duane Hopkins 7/10

Depressing and bleak Bresson-like drama in which each shot is framed like a painting.

Winner Take All (1932) Roy Del Ruth 5/10

Synecdoche, New York (2008) Charlie Kaufman 7/10

Gardens in Autumn (2006) Otar Iosseliani 6/10

Hansel and Greta (2007) Pil-Sung Yim 7/10
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
mlrg
Associate
Posts: 1747
Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Post by mlrg »

Trip to Bountiful (1985) - Peter Masterson

6.5/10

I always thought that Geraldine Page won her oscar fo this as a "make-up" oscar for her previous losses, but she really gives a truly heartbreaking performance.
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19319
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Post by Big Magilla »

mlrg wrote:The Sunshine Boys (1975) - Herbert Ross

3/10

It's agonizing how I tryed to find a second of this film to be funny, and couldn't. George Burns winning the oscar for this is the only real joke here.
I couldn't have put it better myself. I loath this film.
mlrg
Associate
Posts: 1747
Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Post by mlrg »

The Sunshine Boys (1975) - Herbert Ross

3/10

It's agonizing how I tryed to find a second of this film to be funny, and couldn't. George Burns winning the oscar for this is the only real joke here.
User avatar
Precious Doll
Emeritus
Posts: 4453
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 2:20 am
Location: Sydney
Contact:

Post by Precious Doll »

flipp525 wrote:My lord, you watch a lot of movies. I've been so busy lately, I think I've watched maybe 3 in the same number of weeks. Are you a movie critic or something?
No I'm not a film critic and I did see these films over a 5 days period. Also I don't watch any television so I have more time to watch films.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
Hustler
Tenured
Posts: 2914
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 1:35 pm
Location: Buenos Aires-Argentina

Post by Hustler »

Finally, The Reader: 8/10
Sabin
Laureate Emeritus
Posts: 10747
Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 12:52 am
Contact:

Post by Sabin »

Transformers (Michael Bay) - 4/10

My God, this movie is fucking stupid. There are two stories in this film: A) a boy finds out his car is alive (SWEEEEET!) and B) Transformers fight for the sake of the planet. Don't care about B) nearly as much as A). A) is put in a choke hold by the ramping-360 around/boom out on a sea of helicopters over the desert that has been Michael Bay's career: a walking, waking handjob to the military complex. Which has so little place in this movie! I want A). I have B). I also hate that the Transformers talk and have names like Jazz and Bone-Crusher. If this is your childhood, I'm sorry. The leaps of logic in this film are too much. At least it's plausible that a box of pizza fell into the sewer and the Ninja Turtles began there love affair.
"How's the despair?"
flipp525
Laureate
Posts: 6163
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2003 7:44 am

Post by flipp525 »

American Dream (dir. Barbara Kopple, 1990) 5/10

Hormel gets the "villain meat-packer" edit in this overlong documentary that seems to be more about how ugly clothes really got in mid-80's Minnesota than it does about one of the biggest labor disputes of that decade. Kopple loses out on the golden opportunity to make this a more personal experience by showing the effects of the strike on the community of Austin, Minn, which is something she achieved more effectively in Harlan County, USA. Only towards the end of the film do we get a poignant scene of one wife packing up her soon-to-be-foreclosed home as a result of lost jobs, lost dreams. Inexplicably won the Oscar for Best Documentary over the seminal, non-nominated (and far-superior) Paris is Burning.

The Tenant (dir. Roman Polanski, 1976) 7/10

If you've ever wanted to see Roman Polanski in a dress, this is your film. Directing and starring in this Kafka-esque exercise in claustrophobia and paranoia, Polanski as "Trelkovsky", a timid clerk, takes over the lease of a squalid Paris apartment recently vacated by a mysterious woman who jumped from the window to her death into the building's courtyard and through a glass porch. Slowly becoming obsessed with her while convincing himself that the other tenants of the building drove her mad, Polanski delves deeper and deeper into her psychosis. A veritable feast of Oscar winners of yore appear in cameos (Jo Van Fleet, Melvyn Douglas, Shelley Winters, Lila Kedrova, etc.), and there is also a young Isabelle Adjani to behold. Not bad, but only gets really interesting in the last third. Trelkovsky's passivity began to grate.

I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (dir. Jack Hofsiss, 1982) 3/10

Horrid and disturbing "Valium-is-Bad!" Jill Clayburgh showcase. For a more extensive review, please see further downthread.




Edited By flipp525 on 1241706484
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."

-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
flipp525
Laureate
Posts: 6163
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2003 7:44 am

Post by flipp525 »

Precious Doll wrote:The Sinful Dwarf (1973) Vidal Raski 7/10 (Guilty pleasure)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) Richard Thorpe 4/10
Paris 36 (2008) Christophe Barratier 3/10
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) Mamoru Hosoda 7/10
Tenderness (2009) John Polson 1/10
The Garden Murder Cased (1936) Edwin L Marin 4/10
The Casino Murder Case (1935) Edwin L Marin 4/10
My lord, you watch a lot of movies. I've been so busy lately, I think I've watched maybe 3 in the same number of weeks. Are you a movie critic or something?
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."

-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
User avatar
Precious Doll
Emeritus
Posts: 4453
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 2:20 am
Location: Sydney
Contact:

Post by Precious Doll »

The Sinful Dwarf (1973) Vidal Raski 7/10 (Guilty pleasure)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) Richard Thorpe 4/10
Paris 36 (2008) Christophe Barratier 3/10
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) Mamoru Hosoda 7/10
Tenderness (2009) John Polson 1/10
The Garden Murder Cased (1936) Edwin L Marin 4/10
The Casino Murder Case (1935) Edwin L Marin 4/10
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
cfliau
Graduate
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2005 7:28 am

Post by cfliau »

Safety Last 9/10
Girl Shy 7/10
For Heaven's Sake 7/10
The Freshman 7/10

I do find Harold Lloyds's films more appealing to a modern audience than Chaplin's sentimental movies.
Post Reply

Return to “Other Film Discussions”