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  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent

    I am about to watch 'An American Werewolf in London'. I have not seen this film before but a work colleague has recommended it so I thought I would give it a try.

  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    "Night Of The Ghouls" (1959.... and 1984)

    A film by the one and only Ed Wood. It was shot in 1959, but Ed never paid the lab fees to have the film processed and released. Long after his death, a fan paid the charges and it was released.

    It's a sequel (sort of) to Ed's previous.... masterpieces "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and "Bride Of The Monster". Some cast members return, and some of them even play the same characters. The continuity isn't strong, of course.

    There's a lead part ("Dr. Acula") which Bela Lugosi would certainly have played had he been available, which he unfortunately wasn't owing to having died a few years earlier. Tor Johnson returns as Lobo, the part he played in "Bride", and Paul Marco plays Officer Kelton as always.

    It is naturally terrible, as only Ed Wood could do. If you liked "Plan 9 From Outer Space" or "Bride Of The Monster" then it's a must. If you like good movies, avoid like the plague.

  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    I love those two actors, even in terrible movies. Oh hell, especially in terrible movies!


    I think it's a really good film, Joshua, and I hope you enjoy watching it then give your thoughts on it here.

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent
    edited May 2021

    WHEN HARRY MET SALLY… (1989)

    I have great affection for Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron’s classic romantic comedy because it was the first movie I took my first serious adult girlfriend to see. It was autumn, the Purley Odeon. We held hands, which is rather cute, and laughed a lot. That’s enough about me, what about the film.

    When Harry Met Sally doesn’t need much explanation. I expect you know the story: two unsuitable people meet on a student carshare from Chicago to New York, decide never to be friends but fortuitously meet five years later, then again five years after that, when both recovering from failed relationships. They embark on a platonic friendship which eventually leads to love. During their ups and downs, which include hopeless matchmaking, sociological debate and the public demonstration of how to fake an orgasm, there is a tremendous amount of good humour, whimsical romantic interludes from elderly couples and fantastic, genuine performances. The two leads Meg Ryan [beautiful, distracted, nervy, shamefully not Oscar nominated] and Billy Crystal [cynical, never better, shamefully not Oscar nominated] work so well together you can’t help but believe whole-heartedly in them. Early on, when their differences are deeply apparent, you feel Harry is mostly correct in his assertions about relationships, but Sally occupies the optimistic, moral upper ground. As the friendship grows, some of his rough edges invade her territory, while his persona becomes less sceptical. Of course their eventual coupling sees them revert to type – exactly as they both suggested during their ugly confrontations on that road trip twelve years earlier. The audience has known all along they’ll end up together; in the very best romantic comedies you always know, the joy is finding out how the couple get there.

    What elevates When Harry Met Sally above the staple fare of the genre, particularly the terribly inane teen influenced sex-rom-com – a peculiar sub-type of the eighties epitomised by About Last Night and The Sure Thing – is that the writer, and thankfully the director, who ran with the script almost verbatim – allow the two central protagonists to be the focal point of every scene. Modern rom-coms are too ‘busy’ around the edges with sub plots, office cattiness, parental disapproval, the other lover, etc. that they seem to overlook the basic principal of a rom-com, which is Romance first, Comedy second. No time is wasted on the couple’s lives outside each other. This evokes some of the best of Woody Allen’s New York stories, where the core friendship fills and supports everything around it rather than the other way around. We briefly learn Harry is a political analyst and Sally a journalist; that’s enough detail, now we can get on with the romance.

    When Harry Met Sally thankfully never forgets this either and, subtly, reminds us at every turn that these are two lonely people seeking friendship, loyalty and affection. Look at the way Harry approaches Sally in the book shop, tentative yet casual, intrigued, willing to befriend the only genuine person he knows. This time he remembers her name! Or the scene where they lay an enormous Turkish carpet in his apartment, discussing love while talking aesthetics. They even buy a Christmas tree together. They are able to confront and resolve each other’s relationship issues. They understand each other, because their understanding is born from initial antagonism, mutual respect and romantic adversity. They become reliant and this is reflected brilliantly in the series of hollow telephone messages Harry leaves Sally, looking for the love he knows exists. He’s suddenly the optimist. Sally’s turned pessimistic, recognising Harry’s original ethos might just be right. The resolution is neat, tidy and [for my girlfriend] a little tearful. 

    The movie is excellently written and directed, well photographed – New York almost plays a third character – it is where the two travel to forge new lives, their new backbone and of course their new loves, when Harry finally realises he's in love he's at Washington Square, the same place Sally dropped him when he first arrived in N.Y. – small details like hairstyles and fashions are spot on, barely a detail is missed. Harry Connick Jr provides an appropriately melancholic song score. The whole film sparkles, especially the performances, generating a frisson of anticipation, the same as you have at the start of a new love affair, the small moments, the highs and lows, the opposites, the similarities attracting, the future.

    One Oscar nomination wasn't nearly enough. When Harry Met Sally... should have had awards showered over it.

    I wonder if Debbie still gets teary eyed…  

       

  • The Red KindThe Red Kind EnglandPosts: 3,119MI6 Agent

    What did you think Joshua? I'm a big fan. Some parts still scare the hell out of me!😁

    "Any of the opposition around..?"
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,702MI6 Agent

    The line about the co-pilot's horoscope is so good it should be used in a Bond movie! 😃

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent


    I enjoyed it. It was different, funny and with plenty of scenes that were indeed scary. I am not a fan of horror films but that is an exception.

    I think they made a sequel? Set in Paris? Have you seen it? If so is it as entertaining as the first one?

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent


    I switched off when the flare distracted the first missile, so missed the rest of that scene! It is truly as awful as I remember! I wonder what the actors were saying about the script in between takes?!

    I have seen 'Airplane' a couple of times and honestly think that is more realistic and has more drama then the Concorde film! It's quite obvious where the Airplane people got their inspiration from!

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent
    edited May 2021

    By the way. The Concorde's engines cooled very quickly so they could throw off the other misslies!

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    A FEW GOOD MEN (1992)

    Excellent military courtroom drama from Rob Reiner.

    Tom Cruise and Demi Moore play greenhorn lawyers defending two marines accused of murder. The courtroom scenes owe much to similar legal based movies such as The Caine Mutiny, Anatomy of a Murder and Inherit the Wind. Kevin Bacon is a by-the-numbers prosecutor who seems too young to be in his job. Cruise suffers a similar fate, he really does still look about twenty years old. He’s very good. At this point in his career he still wanted to act. Jack Nicholson’s crazed Colonel Jessop who gets all the plaudits. I’m a massive Tom Cruise fan, but it is slightly disconcerting he gets pissed all over acting-wise by a man who features in only four scenes.

    Well worth watching if only for the final confrontation between Cruise and Nicholson. Ah, hell, worth watching for all those four scenes with Big Jack in them.

    There’s a stunning credit sequence of marines performing coordinated parade manoeuvres which sets the orderly tone. Reiner directs with a keen eye for character. Well-constructed, if low on legal detail. It’s based on a play by Aaron Sorkin who went on to write The West Wing.    

  • The Red KindThe Red Kind EnglandPosts: 3,119MI6 Agent


    Glad you enjoyed it. Such a fun(!) film when you're in the right mood.

    I've only seen an American Werewolf in Paris once. I think that tells you enough!😄

    In the Werewolf genre, if you haven't seen Dog Soldiers, it's worth a viewing.

    "Any of the opposition around..?"
  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    KING CREOLE (1958)

    A brooding Elvis Presley sings some great songs, treats his women mean and fights Walter Matthau.

    This was probably his best [singing] movie, although it still leaves some things to be desired: a stronger structure and a better grasp of how to capture Elvis as a live performer, for two. A good support cast really lifts this one so Presley’s charisma doesn’t have to carry the whole can. Carolyn Jones is a smouldering siren, Dean Jagger a good representative for the older generations, Matthau scheming and unrepentant as the crocodile-like villain, snarling, powerful, vicious. Vic Morrow and Dolores Hart pop up as well.

    The screenplay is nominally based on Harold Robbin’s bestseller A Stone for Danny Fisher, but there’s almost nothing left of the novel except a couple of characters. Michael Curtiz filmed in black and white to give the movie a noirish effect, but it’s not very noir, just a little seedy. New Orleans has rarely looked more raunchy and yet so miserable.

    The soundtrack was a massive seller, and rightly so. Oddly the best and bestselling single on it [Hard Headed Woman] is only heard briefly as an audience queues outside a nightclub. Compensations can be found in Elvis raucously howling the anthemic Trouble and the joyously clumping and clapping to Dixieland Rock.

     All round good entertainment.     


    P.S.

    I'm taking a break. I'm sure you're all fed up with my reviews by now. Back with more in a couple of weeks.

  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    Not fed up at all!

    This is not necessarily my favourite Elvis movie but IMO it's the best, for pretty much the reasons you mention. Surrounded by excellent actors such as Matthau, Elvis doesn't embarrass himself and gets some top class songs to sing. Sadly, this would not always or even often be the case.

  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent

    chrisno1 said:

    KING CREOLE (1958)

    ...Carolyn Jones is a smouldering siren...

    Morticia Adams! love her, I wanna see more of her work. I see she had a huge filmography, but I think the only other thing I saw her in was Wonder Woman where she played Queen Hippolyta (replacing the Chloris Leachman from the pilot, so that was some big sandals to fill)

    chrisno1 said:

    I'm taking a break. I'm sure you're all fed up with my reviews by now. Back with more in a couple of weeks.

    more reviews please! yours are the best written and cover the most diverse range of movies, and are always good for stoking discussion.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,702MI6 Agent

    Not fed up at all, no.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,702MI6 Agent

    Platoon (1986)

    This is Oliver Stone's now classic Vietnam war movie. Many tend to say movies like this one are "realistic". Most of us can't possibly know, so I guess the words we're looking for are "convincing" and "believable". Platoon has aged very well and it still packs a punch. Today it's strange watching Charlie Sheen in a serious role and Johnny Depp in a supporting role.

    I wonder if a major studio movie treating the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq in this way can have such a cultural impact Platoon had when it was released. Would it even be made? Movies like "American sniper" and "Zero Dark Thirty" are very good movies, but they don’t have the dark view of war and cynical view of US foreign policy we see in Platoon.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,702MI6 Agent

    I wonder if any of the Afghanistan or Iraq veterans will turn out to be talented filmmakers in 10-20 years?

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent


    I will give the 'Paris' sequel it a try if it comes on TV but I expect I will turn off if it is bad.


    I haven't seen Dog Soldiers either. I have looked briefly and think it is on You Tube.

  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent
    edited May 2021

    Prick Up Your Ears is a fine Alan Bennett script directed by would-be Bond director Stephen Frears - as such, it exhibits intelligence and taste if being a little short on pizzaz - a bit like Michael Apted's style. It's about the life of gay playwright Joe Orton, based on his diaries, and his slightly Sid James - Tony Hancock style relationship with his lover and flatmate Kenneth Halliwell, in that Halliewell is the Hancock type who is a bit of a misery cramping Orton's style (the comparison sticks because the actor who plays Halliwell - Alfred Molina of Raiders opening scene and 'Doc Oc' in the Spiderman film - also played Hancock in a BBC adaptation.

    Bennett matches Orton's sly, snobbish and acerbic take on his fellow men though it can't help make his cottaging exploits seem like something British and traditional like it's Last of the Summer Wine.

    It's odd to see so many English names here - Gary Oldman is brilliant as Joe Orton, of course. It's amazing to think he also did Smiley and Churchill. Of the others - Vanessa Redgrave, Julie Walters, Richard Wilson, Molina, et al it's amazing to think all these years on they're all still alive while Orton, Halliwell and Brian Epstein - referenced due to a mooted script for the Beatles - were all gone by the 70s.

    The title is a bit of wordplay, the last word being an anagram.

    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent

    When Harry Met Sally

    You can read Chrisno1's review above - though I didn't get to take Debbie to the cinema to see it, otherwise...

    Oh, one advantage is that it's only 90 mins, it doesn't outstay its welcome. Factor in all those clips of aged folk recalling their great love affairs and it's even shorter. Yet oddly it doesn't seem short, it's kind of epic in its reach over time, some 15 years or so.

    Not sure there's a bum note in the entire film, though it's odd how Billy Crystal seems older in the mid years but younger in the latter part of the film.

    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • Charmed & DangerousCharmed & Dangerous Posts: 7,358MI6 Agent

    Good shout, TRK. The Wolf Man and American Werewolf in London are the two best WW films but Dog Soldiers is right up there too - it has some great lines and the creatures are brilliant. 🐺

    "How was your lamb?" "Skewered. One sympathises."
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    Richard Wilson isn't English, Napoleon. You should have said "British".

  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent

    Yes, alright, that's true. The thing is, Alan Bennett's world is so determinedly 'English' it seems to cast its actors in that context.

    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    edited May 2021

    Trafic

    Jacques Tati, 1971

    Tati's fourth and final film as the character M. Hulot, not nearly so discussed as the first three. I'd seen those first three (and the earlier Jour de Fête) 20 odd years ago (Playtime on an authentic cinerama big screen!), and several times over spotting new details each time, but never seen this one before.

    Hulot now has a job, working as a designer for a car factory in Paris. He has designed a camper van full of gadgets, and must accompany the prototype as it delivered to an auto show in Amsterdam. The bulk of the film is the journey along the highway, choked with traffic jams, the prototype itself transported in back of an unreliable truck. Costarring with Hulot is Maria Kimberly as the tall gangly posturing Public Relations person who talks loudly in American across three countries and causes much of the chaos as she attempts to clear the path. She drives a bright yellow convertible, and we repeatedly see oblique longshots of the highway traffic disrupted by Marie's crazy driving, climaxing with a meticulously choreographed multi-car pileup. This is probably more plot than all his previous films combined?

    The criterion website has a very good essay on this film

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent

    'The next film I'm going to see'.


    'Psycho' tonight on the classic movies channel. I have not seen this film before but heard that it is good. I hope it doesn't disappoint.

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent

    Well I watched 'Psycho'. What a terrific film! I presume everyone has seen it but, if you haven't, I urge you to. You will not be disappointed!

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,702MI6 Agent

    Grayhound (2020)

    This movie is about a captain of a US Navy destroyed defending a convoy against German submarines during the battle of the Atlantic. In my opinion this part of WWII should be seen more in movies and TV. I especially hope for a miniserie focusing on a merchant navy ship in one of the Murmansk convoys. This movie goes some way in fixing this.

    The captain is played by Tom Hanks. The script is also written by him. I think he pulls of both jobs well. What's going on is shown and explained in a smart way. While the movie is exiting to watch, we don't get the white-knuckle tension of Das Boot. I also think the device of the submarine talking to the destroyed via the PA system is urealistic and a bridge too far.

    Grayhound is a worthy effort and entertaining, but no modern classic.

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