BS: Seen any good movies lately?

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: MAG
Date: 14 Sep 08 - 01:08 PM

Oh I loved "Limey." Stamp gets out of prison and goes to find out what happened to his daughter years after the fact. The plot is non-linear, so you have to figure out what has happened by mentally putting them back where they go. They use bits of an old Terence Stamp movie in it for the flashback. The ending is poignant. See it!

I wasn't so sure about "Burn After Reading." I don't think it is the Cohn's best work. And the wife is Tilda Swinton, and her acting is polished as always.

They get good performances out of a bunch of Hollywood names. I wasn't so sure about Brad Pitt as the buff gym idiot. It's all a spoof on espionage thrillers and it has its moments.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Nicholas Waller
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 03:31 PM

Don Firth -

Two of the films you mention with Roger Livesey - I Know Where I'm Going! and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - were made by Powell & Pressburger (whose non-Livesey films include The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus). If you liked them you should like A Matter of Life and Death aka Stairway to Heaven in the US, which stars David Niven and Kim Hunter, with Roger Livesey as a brain specialist.

Very specifically set over a few days over the end of WW2 in Europe, and in fact shot during the last part of 1945, it combines black and white (the "afterlife" - or is it?) and Technicolor (earth) and is about life, death, love, law and war and also Anglo-American relations (it was partly a propaganda film to show Americans why they should still like the Brits, even if we did have cricket and the Empire) and is my favourite film.

Blimp is another film I really like; one amazing thing about it is that it was shot in Technicolor in south east England during WW2. Decades of exposure to films set in WW2 but shot years afterwards maybe dull the impact, but when you see magazine front covers in the film dated 1943 that's not years ago, that's months or weeks before and the outcome of the war was not fully known. Similarly with the ruins of Canterbury in A Canterbury Tale; that's real bomb damage while the war was still on, filmed in 1943, not recreated production design.

Churchill, incidentally, tried to get Blimp banned; with its sympathetic German officer character (Anton Wallbrook) and its message that the Brits ought to stop being jolly good sporting warriors and fight (and interrogate) more like Nazis, plus the suspicion that the Blimp character was partly a portrait of Churchill, he thought it didn't send the right message.

For more on Livesey and his family - including the tidbit that he and his wife Ursula Jeans met Susan Hampshire as a 6-year old and wanted to adopt her - see http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/Livesey/JillWatt.html

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 12:14 PM

The other day I found, in a charity shop, a film (in video-tape format) that I had wanted to see for ages. It was called 'The Limey' and starred Terence Stamp. It was about a gangster from the East End of London who goes to Los Angeles to investigate the death of his daughter.

It turned out to be eye-wateringly, tooth-achingly BAAAADDD!!!!! The plot, the acting, the dialogue were just awful - especially the dialogue ... no, that's unfair, the plot was worse ... holes that fleets of aircraft carriers could pass through without touching the sides ... but on the other hand the scene where Stamp talks in Cockney rhyming slang to the LA cop ... my toes still haven't uncurled after a week!!

I hope the Director (and Stamp) were shot soon after this went out.

Still, the video only cost me 99p and I'm eternally grateful that I didn't go to the cinema to see it!

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 10:16 AM

Burn After Reading!   Saw it last night, and it is a hoot!
John Malkovich is forced out of the CIA, and starts to write his memoirs. By a weird chain of events the partly completed "book", on CD, gets into the hands of Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt, who realize it's got classified stuff in it, and they try to blackmail him, and when he doesn't bite, try to sell it to the Russians. Then there's another interweaving story line with George Clooney and Malkovich's wife (sorry, I can't remember the actress's name) having an affair. Weird (there's that word again!) happenings all the way along, ending with dead bodies here and there, which SEEMS like a strange basis for a comedy, but it's great!

Seems like every identifiable character in the movie is an idiot, including Malkovich's superiors in the CIA.

Another triumph of the Cohen brothers!

I should tell you, my Beautiful Wife was wonderfully offended by the prevalence of the F word, especially in Malkovich's mouth.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: DougR
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 06:29 PM

Little Robin: I don't know what your seat partner thought either, but I'm pretty sure if I sat next to someone in a theatre who sang all though the movie, I would have been annoyed.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: DougR
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 06:03 PM

We saw one last night that the majority of you folks will eat up if you haven't seen it. It actually is a movie made for television and is the final chapter of the popular BBC series, CRACKER. My wife and I have viewed all of the other DVDs in the series and looked forward to seeing this last one (CRACKER, the final chapter). None of the previous episodes included anything political at all. Just a good old mystery type story with excellent characters. This one was almost totally political. Who's the bad guys? Why, George W. Bush of course and his able sidekick Tony Blair. Even the IRA was drug into it.

Rent it. You'll love it.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 05:26 PM

If you have not seen Perfume, DO NOT SEE IT
It is of a reality so different that your senses of sight sound and smell will be altered forever, along with your sense of history.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 05:10 PM

When the Legends Die

LOVE my new specs-- bifocal line lowered so I can lean back AND see the TV!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 12:06 PM

Onibaba

Vatel

Wonderland

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 11:46 PM

Don, we do the same thing, using IMDB and netflix. Love it!

Dave, I just "sved" Elegy at netflix, but it won't be out on DVD until Jan, 13, 2009. Oh, well, I look forward to it. Thanks!

Thanks to someone's recommendation up thread, Greenfingers is on its way to us, just in time for the weekend!

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 07:41 PM

I confess that I haven't read ALL of this thread, so this might just be a repeat of someone else's recommendation. If so, record it as just several exclamation marks after the previous rave, if any.

This afternoon my Beautiful Wife and I saw Elegy, with Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Cruz. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Those two are such great actors, and the story is marvelous. Then add lovely cinematography, and gorgeous music along the way.

In a nutshell, Kingsley, a professor and arts/literature critic and commentator (on NPR) falls in love with Cruz, who had been a student in his class. His angst about the difference (30 years or so) in their ages tortures him through the real romance. I don't want to tell you more about it, because it might spoil the effect of certain developments in their lives.

SEEITSEEITSEEITSEEIT!

(If you gather that we liked this movie, you must might be getting the flavor.)

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 09:57 AM

Au Revoir, Les Enfants

Ikiru

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Don Firth (computer still in the shop)
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 07:31 PM

We love NetFlix!! And the Internet Movie Database!

Barbara has a neat way of picking good movies, most of which we had never heard of before. She zings in on an actor we particularly like or think is especially interesting, for whatever reason. Then she looks him or her up on IMDb to see what other movies they've been in. Then, she looks the movies up on NetFlix. That's how we ran into Quigley Down Under and a particular filming of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, looking for movies with British actor Alan Rickman (most recently, probably best known as Prof. Snape in the Harry Potter movies).

Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent was another. We'd seen him as Hap Shaughnessy, the tall-tale telling blowhard on "The Red Green Show" and heard that, as ridiculous as the character was, in real life, Pinsent was an excellent serious actor. Which, indeed, he is. We saw him in The Shipping News, Saint Ralph, and Away from Her, all excellent movies, and Pinsent is, indeed, a fine actor.

Lately we've been sampling the work of another British actor, the late Roger Livesey. We had first noticed him as the elderly Duke of St. Bungay in the TV series, The Pallisers (secretly, I'm madly in love with Susan Hampshire), and there was something about that sort of "hoarse-ish" voice of his. We checked out the 1945 movie, I Know Where I'm Going, with he and Wendy Hiller. Then the Errol Flynn swashbuckler, The Master of Ballantrae (okay, but very Errol Flynn-ish), and quite recently, Futtock's End, with Ronnie Barker. Grunts and mumbles, no actual dialogue. Bloody hilarious! At the age of eighty, Livesey insisted on doing his own stunts!

We've just watched Livesey in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943). I had heard of Colonel Blimp as a satirical British cartoon character, and this movie picks up on it, although the character played by Livesey is much more fully rounded and sympathetic than the cartoon character. This carries the character, British army officer Clive "Sugar" Candy up through the ranks as he partakes of three wars (the Boer War, WWI, and WWII—over time, they age him with make-up, mainly a walrus mustache, a "bald cap," and a prosthetic belly). Deborah Kerr co-stars, playing three different (?) women in his life.

I can recommend all of the above-mentioned movies (unless you're not a fan of Errol Flynn as he swashes from the neck up and buckles from the knees down), particularly The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.

A most unusual and enjoyable movie.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Robyn
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:10 AM

On Saturday we saw The Power of Song.
Wonderful!
I sang all the way through.
(I don't know what the lady sitting next to me thought.)
So inspirational.
Robyn

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Sep 08 - 10:11 AM

Must see: Rabbit-Proof Fence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit-Proof_Fence_(film)

Rabbit-Proof Fence is a 2002 Australian drama film based on the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara. It is a true story concerning the author's mother, as well as two other young mixed-race Aboriginal girls, who ran away from the Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth, in order to return to their Aboriginal families, after having been placed there in 1931. The film follows the girls as they trek/walk for nine weeks along 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of the Australian rabbit-proof fence to return to their community at Jigalong, while being tracked by a white authority figure and a black tracker....[

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 03:58 PM

I loved Bsr Fly-- I thought of it as a character study.

I most loved about that I could say to one man of my acquaintance that he did NOT meet me in a bar.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Sawzaw
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 03:55 PM

Does anybody remember "Bar Fly"? I thought it was a good one especially to show to alcoholics to sober them up.

Mickey Rourke seemed to be imitating the voice of Hokey Wolf in the Hanna-Barbara Cartoon series.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Sep 08 - 03:01 PM

Death and the Maiden

The Illusionist

Out of Africa

Children of a Lesser God

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 12:51 AM

Haven't seen this since it came and until now couldn't find it anywhere on the Internet, so I am chuffed to note that the First Nudie Musical is now available on DVD!! It is a blast to watch with those clean cut kids from Happy Days, Ron Howard and Cindy Williams. Netflix doesn't have it, yet, but I plan to request it. It is one of the most hilarious movies I've ever seen...right up there in the spoof category with Spinal Tape etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Sep 08 - 12:40 AM

Doug - You're absolutely right. I was being very generous to give
"No Country for Old Men" a weak 2.5 stars (out of 4). I should have given it about 1 star.

I guess I was in a merciful mood when I rated it at a 2.5.

Yes, it is a terrible movie. I was not impressed when I saw it. I'm glad I just rented it rather than blowing 10 bucks on it at the theatre.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 07:26 PM

I love this! I open one window to my netflix account, the other to this thread, then go down the list of posts, check to see if netflix has each movie and voila! They are on their way to me for viewing. Thanks for the recommends! I have just added Greenfingers (love Clive Owen!), A Very British Gangster, and Everything is Illuminated to my queue.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: olddude
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 07:09 PM

Frankenfish scifi channel
oh yes rates right up there with AI assult, or Boa vs Python

only the best for the olddude

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: DougR
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 05:35 PM

Little Hawk: I think you are being most generous by rating "No Country for Old Men" 2.5 stars. I thought it was a terrible movie. Woody Harlson's role was a throw away part and Tommy Lee Jones' (a fine actor I think)role was only a tad bit better.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 05:26 PM

Seen any good movies lately? Yes.

This movie is full of murderers and other felons, but there are no gun fights or car chases. Despite that, there is a fair amount of suspense. The movie stars Clive Owen, David Kelly, AND Helen Mirren.

Greenfingers (2000) – (There is a horror movie out with almost the same title: "Green Fingers." But that ain't it, so be sure you get the right one. No relation to "Greensleeves," "Green Gables," or "green around the gills.")

It deals with prisoners in an experimental "open" prison who are being given job training for when–and if–they are released or paroled. A group of them are dragooned into learning to be gardeners ("You guys are a disgrace to the prison system!" says another prisoner) and after some initial distaste and misgivings, they take to it with gusto—and wind up at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.

Trailer

Unusual movie based on a true story. Very well done. (Be forewarned, though. It's kind of a "feel good" movie. But don't let that put you off).

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: MAG
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 10:32 AM

Since this has become wine country, I'll look for Bottle Shock. It hasn't played here yet, although I noticed it is playing in Portland (Oregon).

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: maire-aine
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 01:08 AM

Saw "Bottle Shock" a couple weeks ago. Very enjoyable, but probably not widely distributed. Check for a Landmark Theater in your area.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: quokka
Date: 04 Sep 08 - 11:40 PM

'A Very British Gangster' - documentary made by Irish investigative journalist Donal McIntyre about Manchester crime boss Dominic Noonan. If you liked 'Snatch' and 'Lock Stock' you'll love this! I saw it at a festival though - not sure if it's had a general release. Was shown at Sundance 2007. May be out on DVD. VERY powerful film.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 04 Sep 08 - 03:24 PM

I may have mentioned this on another thread, but there is one film I've seen that even afer 2 years is still the first movie out of my mouth when recommending films. It is called "Everything is Illuminated" and it has more heart than anything I've ever seen. Based on the debut novel by Jonathan Safran Foer with first time direction by the fine actor Liev Schreiber this movie will have you laughing till your sides ache and then a half hour later, genuinely bawling your eyes out. It stars Elijah Wood and a refreshing turn by Eugene Hutz, but in my opinion Boris Leskin as "Grandfather" should have easily won an Academy Award. I've seen it many time in the past couple years, we keep getting and making friends sit down and watch it, and I never tire of it. If you have not seen it, see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Sep 08 - 12:44 AM

Yeah, I really enjoyed it too. Good clean fun. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: MAG
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 11:32 PM

Yeah, I liked *Tell No One* too.

I know the Indiana Jones movies have stupid plots, but that's part of the point, right?

I loved the new one. Even if I hate perpetuating urban legends like the crystal skulls.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Sep 08 - 12:31 AM

Sweeney Todd - Another outstanding performance by Johnny Depp, and everyone else in it was great too.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 10:58 PM

Dead Man with Gary Farmer and Johnny Depp.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Barry Normal
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 10:19 PM

"300" DVD, tonight; astonishingly good

"Gladiatress" BBC1, last night; astonishingly bad


enjoyed both...

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Sawzaw
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 09:31 PM

Kit Kittredge was a good movie, especially for kids, to see.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Joe_F
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 09:03 PM

Ace in the Hole
Heathers
If I Had a Million
Ikiru
The Lost Weekend
A Man for All Seasons
Miracle on 34th Street
Paths of Glory
Revenge of the Nerds
A Taste of Honey
Yidl mitn Fidl

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 07:34 PM

I saw "No Country For Old Men". It had some strong points here and there...but I ended up really not liking it much at all by the end, and frankly wondering what the hell the point would be to even making such a movie? It's like a sort of high class snuff film with an ending that's a total non-sequitor and defeats whatever sense of direction the movie ever had. If I were giving it a review it would be a weak 2 and a half out of four stars.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 04:16 PM

See my post about the Leadbelly movie.

its a musicians movie. Civilians won't get it. It opens up his music for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 11:02 AM

Not exactly a GOOD movie - but far better than I was expecting was "The Invasion" with Nicole Kidman. It's an updated version of "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

Also on another thread I've pointed out that the TV miniseries "Lonesome Dove" has been rereleased in a widescreen version.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: john f weldon
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 09:50 AM

I don't think anyone's mentioned No Country For Old Men. If you like villains, this guy Javier Bardem beats Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson (a couple of Jokers). He's up there with Anthony Hopkin's Hannibal Lecter.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 08:38 AM

I have just seen Son of Rambow, great film.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 01:26 AM

The Violin.   Wonderful.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 12:54 AM

I agree that "Last of the Mohicans" with Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the finest films of all time. Just superb.

Another great one is "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World".

For monster films..."Cloverfield" was rather good in its own way, I think. It was a bran new approach to city-wrecking monsters, in that no attempt at all is made to explain where the monster came from or why or anything at all about that...but you were just faced with the actual events unfolding right on the spot. Quite effective, I thought.

The recent animated feature "Wall-EE" was pretty good.

And for an absolute animated masterpiece of a movie: "Ratatouille"

It has great adventure, wonderful humour, terrific subtlety, brilliant animation, great characters, and a truly heartfelt script in every way possible.

For a great extended TV series, rent yourself all the episodes in the 2005 HBO series "Rome". Very, very good.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: DougR
Date: 01 Sep 08 - 09:34 PM

Yes. "Tell No one." A French film with subtitles.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 01 Sep 08 - 09:27 PM

Down to the Sea in Ships (HOW does it END??? PM if you know so as not to spoil it for others please)

Captains Courageous

Mystery Train

Born in the Brothels of Calcutta

Ulee's Gold

The Last Wave

Reservoir Dogs


(Just got a DVR and in love with the IFC channel! Hated to erase these!)

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Becca72
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 05:02 PM

LOL number 6...she's not really my style. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: number 6
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 03:58 PM

Yikes ... for a brief moment there Becca i though you meant "One Million Years B.C." ... that movie Raquel Welch starred in.


biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Becca72
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 03:46 PM

If you're looking for brain candy and not historical documentary, I just saw 10,000 BC yesterday...it's pretty slow in the beginning, but it picks up. Probably worth renting instead of dropping $9 to see it in the theater, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 03:21 PM

I've just watched a crap one - 'Tristan and Isolde'. It was set in "Dark Age Britain" (as imagined by some crass tw*t from Beverley Hills). In an opening scene a character gives a 'presentation' involving a sort of 'flip-chart' made of deer skin (yes, really!). Everyone in the film seems to be able to read and write and frequently sign treaties and read books (small, neat portable ones). In spite of its dramatic theme the film is fairly boring and packed full of Hollywood cliches.

My favourite film of all time is 'Last of the Mohicans' - the Michael Mann one with Daniel Day Lewis playing Hawkeye. An astonishing recreation of the wars between the British and French in Eighteenth Century North America. It also unfolds at break-neck speed and had me on the edge of my seat all the way through. Why can't all films be like that?

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 05:00 PM

Seen any good movies lately?


             Yes, I watched "Sometimes a Great Notion," the other day, on VHS.

Subject: RE: BS: Seen any good movies lately?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 04:49 PM

Don Firth
Do you know if they ever issued an aboriginal cast recording for Quigley??????????? ;-)

Personally, the film didn't get to me. Did not last through it as I recall.

All the best,

Art