What Movies Have You Watched Recently?

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
Although not an unknown gem by any means, I watched Cat People the other night. Simone Simon is wonderful, of course, but she might be even better in The Devil and Daniel Webster, a must-see film.

[/ QUOTE ]

heh, I watched the first half of this on the train this morning, and will watch the second half on the way home. Great movie.

I got this Val Lewton box set that contains 9 of his movies, with some great commentaries (including William Friedking talking about 'The Leopard Man'.)

I'll report back anything good on the commentaries.

[Tennenbaum]

The Last Dragon

Holy crap. This movie is awesome. And by awesome...I mean completely awful. It's about Bruce Leroy. A young black ninja from Harlem. He finishes his training w/ his Sensei (on a houseboat in the harbor) and has to find his new master.

He has a few run in's with Sho'nuff, the Shogun of Harlem. Falls in love with a tv music personality (played by Vanity) who he saves from a few thugs one night. Turns out the thugs work for Eddie Arkadian. A rich man whose wife wants to break into the music biz. Well the only way to get the music played is to force her to play it.

That's pretty much the entire plot. And it's completely cheesy...which is why I loved it.

[Blarg]

That flick surprises almost everyone by being such great fun. Who could not like the Shogun of Harlem?

[fyodor]

I said I would look for more Lubitsch and I did. Next one I found and watched was:

To Be or Not to Be (1942)



With Carol Lombard (her last film before the plane crash that ended her life) Jack Benny and Robert Stack.

I found it started a little slow but was well worth the wait once it got rolling. A comedy/spy movie about actors in Poland just prior to and during the Nazi occupation. Jack Benny plays a vain and not very good actor. Lombard plays his wife, the most famous actress in Poland. She doesn't seem to mind the attention of other men. Summed up nicely in this exchange:

Maria Tura (Lombard): It's becoming ridiculous the way you grab attention. Whenever I start to tell a story, you finish it. If I go on a diet, you lose the weight. If I have a cold, you cough. And if we should ever have a baby, I'm not so sure I'd be the mother.

Josef Tura (Benny): I'm satisfied to be the father.

Lots of running gags, Shakespeare quotes, risque humour, impersonations and political satire. Lubitsch does an excellent job of pulling it all together and banging out the jokes.

If you're looking for old gems you'll find one here.

p.s. John Cole: I should have 'The Shop Around the Corner' next week. Looking forward to that one.

[diebitter]

Th Last Dragon is awesome. I think I gotta rewatch it, and write it up in that 'do sychos explode in sunlight' thread...

[Barcalounger]

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

I'll admit it up front. I'm a D fan. Have been ever since my buddies and I wore out a VHS copy of their HBO specials every night after the bar back in my college days. I've seen them live twice, I own bootlegs of a bunch of shows, and I've even watched the pilot for Heat Vision and Jack way too many times to count. I love these dumb fat bastards.

The fact that it took a fan like me, and all my buddies, this long to see the flick should tell you just how low my expectations were. I had very little desire to see it because I was afraid that a completely terrible movie, which is what I feared this was, would sully my enjoyment of the D in the future.

But finally the day came where I decided to face my fears and popped this thing into the xbox 360. Then a funny thing happened. In fact, many funny things happened. The first scenes of the movie had a young kid playing Jack Black (spot on) rebelling against his religious dad who was played by Meat Loaf in complete heavy metal Rock Opera form. Complete with a cameo by Dio. They hooked me.

What follows in the movie is bizarre, stupid, drug induced, stupid hi jinx that tries too hard to be a buddy road movie, but somehow kept me laughing (did I mention stupid?). Some of the songs were good, some not so good, and I personally wished there had been some more of the "classics" by the D in there. Jack Black felt a little restrained, but he's so manic that I guess mankind is not ready for Jack at an 11 instead of at a 4. The "quest for the pick" never felt as epic of a journey as they probably thought it would. But somehow, perhaps because of my low expectations, I actually enjoyed it a lot.

Disclaimer: I have no clue how a Tenacious D hater or plain old non-fan will take this movie. Probably not well. These guys have a very unique sense of comedy. But for a D fan, go ahead and crack open, spark up, brush up on some power chords, gain 30 lbs, draw a pentagram on the carpet, pop in this DVD and enjoy.

[GambleGamble]

Blades Of Glory

Good movies, that needs to be watched a couple more times to catch parts that were missed due to laughing already, it delivers exactly what it sells a vehicle for Ferrell to break out more hijinks, prat falls, and one liners...he essentially plays the same character as in Anchorman and Rick Bobby....I would put it just below them 2, but will add to DVD collection day it comes out...

[rothko]

2001: A Space Odyssey
stumbled onto this little gem in the previously viewed bin at the video store. methinks space movies are neat and stuff. thought this one looked fun. what a trip. zomg, i didn't really get it: monkeys and monoliths? killer computers and gravity boots? babies and broken glasses? checked on imdb and apparently the guy who made this has done a bunch of other weirdo flicks (one of them even had tom cruise in it!). kind of a freak, i guess. he's dead now, though. oh wellers. hal was so scary. i hope my computer doesn't do that to me, lolz. i don't know, check it out and stuff, i guess. it's like a masterpiece or something.

[fyodor]

rothko who are you attempting to make fun of here? because if it was me I think that's pretty tasteless. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

btw check your picture hosting skills - they may need honing

[fyodor]

"Psychologically I'm very confused." - Klara Novak

The Little Shop Around the Corner (1940)



Stars Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan

On John Cole's recommendation this was my next Ernst Lubitsch film. How had I never heard of this guy before? I've now watched 3 of his films in the past week and loved them all.

This one started out with some funny lines and just got funnier as it went on. For those who haven't seen it and might want to, I don't want to give away any of the jokes, but if you've already seen it or have no intention to, I'll add some spoilers in white.

<font color="white">A great piece of physical comedy early on when Matuschek is establishing his character and says for the 3rd time, "I want your opinion, your honest opinion. That's all I want" and we just see Pirovitch's legs dissapear up the stairs.

Pepi talking Matuschek into the promotion and his subsequent phone conversation with Mrs. Matuschek for the benefit of everyone else in the shop were both brilliantly funny. </font>

Didn't know this going in but figured it out pretty quick that You've Got Mail (1998) with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan was based on Little Shop.

In To Be or Not to Be the Polish underground was using a copy of "Anna Karenina" to leave messages for each other. In "Little Shop" Klara has a copy of "Anna Karenina" so that Alfred will recognize her at their rendezvous. I'm going to go off on a tangent here. Alfred also mentions "Crime and Punishment" in one of their conversations. I just reread C&amp;P for perhaps the 4th time and while I was watching, the book store called to say that my new copy of the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation was in. C&amp;P has also been mentioned in the latest DVD Club discussion of Crimes and Misdemeanors.

On Saturday a friend of mine who's opinion I respect told me I should watch Stranger Than Fiction I had seen the previews and it looked wholly uninteresting. I decided on his recommendation to give it a shot though. Hadn't gotten around to doing it but Tuesday I was taking a bus to the casino and they showed it on the bus. At one point Professor Hilbert gives up on saving Crick and tells him to go live his life and finish Crime and Punishment. I had my old copy with me on the bus as I was reading some essays in criticism from the back and had just put it down to watch the movie. We got to the casino before the movie ended so I had to go back to my real life. I still haven't seen the end.

I may be psychologically confused.