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  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,704MI6 Agent
    Brazil and 12 Monkeys are very good movies.
  • Golrush007Golrush007 South AfricaPosts: 3,418Quartermasters
    Brazil and 12 Monkeys are both on my list to watch in the near future.
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    Also be sure to watch The Fisher King, with Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges. its the one that came in between.
    12 Monkeys is going to mean something different in these coviddy times. Interesting context to watch it in. No further spoilers on that one!

    He's released several films over the last couple decades I didn't even realise had come out.
    The most recent one I saw starred Christopher Waltz (he's one of ours) as a sort of mathematician who has delved too deep.
    But definitely watch those other three first, especially Brazil.
  • Golrush007Golrush007 South AfricaPosts: 3,418Quartermasters
    Thanks for the advice. I'm looking forward to watching these films.
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,704MI6 Agent
    Great expectations (1946)

    This Charles Dickens novel was filmed by David Lean in 1946. I'm trying to watch some British cinema classics during the Corona lockdown, but I have to admit I was unsure about this one. I expected a slow-moving costume drama with few qualities other than being "worthy". Thankfully that didn't happen. Great Expectations isn't as epic as most David Lean movies, but it's still a great movie. The story and characters is interesting and captivating, and the story has momentum all the time. Lean also shot this in a exciting and stylised way that I suspect was inspired by German cinema in the 1920's. This is a classic that's classic for good reason.
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent
    A very moving film, with a superb supporting cast. It really is Dickensian, unlike a good many other adaptations. Edit: I mean Great Expectations, not Lethal Weapon, I took so long writing this another review got in between! :D

    The 'what have I done?' line by Miss Haversham is echoed by Alec Guinness - also seen in this film - in Lean's Bridge Over The River Kwai.
    The film isn't perfect, but it feels it. I mean, Mills is really too old to be playing Pip in his 20s. Valerie Hobson is nothing like the young Estella - couldn't they have got Vivien Leigh? She would have been a better match for the young actress - although that would have been ironic as both were involved with Laurence Olivier.
    The movie is more a gothic melodrama and mystery rather than a tale of social climbing, snobbery, sexual jealousy and misplaced ambition that the book was (though I've not really read it). Mills is too mature and dignified to look like he could be tormented by the wiles of the grown-up Estella.
    None of that stops the film being hugely entertaining, impressive and moving.

    The Woman in Black

    Talking of gothic melodrama, I caught this recent film for the first time on the Horror channel, it went out under the Hammer name but I'm not sure what happened with that. It is worthy of Hammer, though lacking the touch of the bizarre or sex that Hammer had.
    It's about a young widower, a solicitor, whose grieving means he might get the push from his law firm, so he must make good on his new assignment in another part of the country, a long train ride away.
    This really did make the hairs on my neck stand up - maybe I'm more susceptible in lockdown, I don't know. Proper frights. But they're not 'funny' frights. Daniel Radcliffe is v good as the lead, can't fault his acting in this.
    I expected another story, thinking it was The Woman in White! Perhaps that helped wrong foot me.
    Only the closing scene didn't quite make sense in view of what had come before; I would have opted for something different.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent
    PS I agree with Gymkata about the Lethal Weapon series. The third one really palled and the main problem is you have too much baggage by that point, plus you know that neither Riggs nor Murtaph will ever die, nor Joe Pesci, so it becomes a bit sitcom. The villain in it was no great shakes, nothing compared to Joss Ackland.
    Lethal Weapon 2, like so many films that year - Batman, Indy and Last Crusade - had many scenes that could have been from Bond films, while License to Kill just wasn't Bond enough, ironically.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,704MI6 Agent
    The Red Beret (1953)

    This film isn't a British classic, but some of you know it's of special interest to Bond fans. One of the two producers is Cubby Broccoli , the director is Terrance Young, Richard Maibaum wrote the script, the film was shot by Ted Moore and many of the stunts were done by Bob Simmons.
    The Red Beret is about the British Parachute Regiment during WWII, a unit Terrance Young actually served in. This doesn't mean the fim is realistic. The British usually hit and the Germans usually miss. Paras pull the pins of hand grenades with their teeth and when they hit their target (they always do) the grenades seem to hold gallons of petrol.
    Land mines also seem to be filled to the brim with petrol when they clear a mine field with a bazooka (as a former combat engineer I can only say … :o 8-) )
    But so what if this isn't Saving Private Ryan? The Red Beret was entertaining enough and offers a glimps of the origns of the James Bond series. Speaking of: In a scene an officer enters his office and tosses his hat across the room where it lands on a hat rack :007)
  • Golrush007Golrush007 South AfricaPosts: 3,418Quartermasters
    Is The Red Beret available for viewing online anywhere? I haven't come across it before, and I've always been keen to watch it. Letterboxd just has a link to the DVD on Amazon.
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,704MI6 Agent
    The Red Beret with subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=NNK_3B0Ngho&feature=emb_logo

    The film is also on Youtube without subtitles, but that version is postedin many parts. Here is part 1:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1LRmA9iUmg&feature=emb_logo
  • The Spy Who Never DiesThe Spy Who Never Dies UKPosts: 644MI6 Agent
    Number24 wrote:
    Great expectations (1946)

    This Charles Dickens novel was filmed by David Lean in 1946. I'm trying to watch some British cinema classics during the Corona lockdown, but I have to admit I was unsure about this one. I expected a slow-moving costume drama with few qualities other than being "worthy". Thankfully that didn't happen. Great Expectations isn't as epic as most David Lean movies, but it's still a great movie. The story and characters is interesting and captivating, and the story has momentum all the time. Lean also shot this in a exciting and stylised way that I suspect was inspired by German cinema in the 1920's. This is a classic that's classic for good reason.


    I watched the 1974 version this week. Can't say I was impressed. I watched it as it has James Mason in (as Magwitch) and I am on a JM binge at the moment.
  • BIG TAMBIG TAM Wrexham, North Wales, UK.Posts: 773MI6 Agent
    Is Spanish Fly an 'enjoyable romp'?

    A mid-70s Britcom, with stalwarts Terry-Thomas and Leslie Phillips.
    It's the sort of post-Brexit film that pops up on new knackered old channels like Talking Pictures.
    It exerts a grim fascination though I've seen worse...
    The stars seem to play two salesmen of the kind who get to travel abroad and bed young lovelies half their age by dint of having a car, a blazer and the ability to pay their way.
    Phillips - it is a given - will bed all the women thrown his way by the company on his travels, it is odd but then not dissimilar to a plot line in Love, Actually when young Kris Marshall unexpectedly gets to bed all the women thrown at him while abroad. Difference is, perhaps, in the earlier film it's almost 'expected' while in Curtis' film the joke is that it goes against all expectations. It's all in the nuance.
    In one scene the Aussie lady gets in the shower and we from the front see her knockers (it's the lingo for the times) in all their bouncy, unabashed glory but of course, really how is that worse than any modern day porn? It isn't, it's quite wholesome. The fact that Phillips is urged to soap her down - her back, anyway - while being bashful and at arms length means it's actually social distancing, so quite in vogue.
    Amazingly, Phillips is still going in his 90s, last was heard he married his East European carer - if the cynics thought it would lead to him being knocked off his perch in a year while she copped the money, well, seems it gave him a new lease of life!

    A nice wry review of a film from a bygone age. Phillips did alright for himself in real life. He was married to Angela Scoular (Ruby Bartlett in OHMSS). She also appeared in 1967 farce, CASINO ROYALE as Buttercup.
  • Golrush007Golrush007 South AfricaPosts: 3,418Quartermasters
    I've recently watched a few films by Peter Bogdanovich, who is a director that I've known about for a long time but whose works I've never checked out. I knew him primarily as an interviewee on dozens of DVD special features that I've watched, usually talking about the works of great directors like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles. Having now watched several of his films I see that he has clearly learnt a good deal from his studies of those great artists.

    The film that I watched today was Paper Moon, and it is probably my favourite Bogdanovich film so far. It's structured like a road movie, centered around a pair of characters played by father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O'Neal. Their journey is based around Ryan O'Neal delivering the recently orphaned Tatum to the girl's next-of-kin, and the pair scamming a few dollars along the way. Their relationship develops along the way, although they do attempt one scam too many and find themselves pursued by a lawman who bears more than a passing resemblance to our friend Higgins.

    The film is a charming and witty comedy-drama, beautifully photographed in black-and-white. As I mentioned before, Paper Moon is probably my favourite Bogdanovich film that I have seen, although the best film of the bunch is probably The Last Picture Show.
  • Lady RoseLady Rose London,UKPosts: 2,667MI6 Agent
    The Woman in Black

    Talking of gothic melodrama, I caught this recent film for the first time on the Horror channel, it went out under the Hammer name but I'm not sure what happened with that. It is worthy of Hammer, though lacking the touch of the bizarre or sex that Hammer had.
    It's about a young widower, a solicitor, whose grieving means he might get the push from his law firm, so he must make good on his new assignment in another part of the country, a long train ride away.
    This really did make the hairs on my neck stand up - maybe I'm more susceptible in lockdown, I don't know. Proper frights. But they're not 'funny' frights. Daniel Radcliffe is v good as the lead, can't fault his acting in this.
    I expected another story, thinking it was The Woman in White! Perhaps that helped wrong foot me.
    Only the closing scene didn't quite make sense in view of what had come before; I would have opted for something different.


    I really like this film.

    I'm not into slasher type horror films but I do enjoy a good ghost story that is a bit creepy and eerie. This fits the bill.

    Daniel Radcliffe is very good and Ciaran Hinds is always good value.
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent
    Under new Government guidelines you are not allowed to interact with my posts, Lady Rose.

    The Day of the Jackal

    Always excellent though its excellence points out a couple of snags. Caine wanted to play the Jackal, but got knocked back because he was distinctive and famous, which wouldn't fit the anonymous assassin. That said, it's not like Edward Fox just blends into the crowd.

    Moore was also in the frame but got knocked back for the same reason, he got to face off against Michel Lonsdale in Moonraker of course, and the same guy did the cinematography here, it's a treat.

    The Liberation Day realisation is a bit daft, you think they'd have figured that one before.
    Lovely shots of France and indeed Paris. And a fine supporting cast.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,704MI6 Agent
    edited June 2020
    Captain Blood (1935)

    This Errol Flynn starrer is a proper pirate film where some men even have wooden pegs instead of a leg! Errol Flynn plays doctor Peter Blood who gets sent as a slave to the West Indies for giving medical services to the rebels after a battle. Things develop from there.
    The pirates are very jolly, and most of all Flynn. He is also the only pirate with a shaving kit and he spends a lot of time standing heroically and pointing, often with a rapier. But he's athletic and has charm. The action and special effects are good for such an old film and can compete with much newer films. We only get one proper fencing duel, but it's a good one.
    You'd never guess the leading lady is still with us, but Olivia de Haviland is 103 years old and living in Paris. The dynamic between her character and Blood is more interesting than we usually get. Back in the day (before Doctor No?) they didn't have straight action films. Instead they had war movies, Westerns, pirate movies and other genre movies. It can be said "Captain Blood" is a major pre-war action fim, and good one.

    IMDB says one of Errol Flynn's early jobs was "slave recruiter". First of all that's ironic because of the clear antislavery stance of "Captain Blood". Second: How do you recruit people to be slaves?
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,033MI6 Agent
    FANTASTIC VOYAGE (1966). I’ve always loved this movie ever since seeing it in the cinema aged 10. Starring Stephen Boyd, Donald Pleasence and Raquel Welch, it’s about a team who are miniaturised and put into the body of a scientist to erase a blood clot on the brain that can’t be operated on from the outside. Of course there is aa assassin on board the micro-sub. The special effects still hold up well and there are many scenes full of tension.

    Raquel Welch was apparently signed up to play Domino in TB but was released by Harry Saltzman as a favour to producer Saul David.

    Well worth watching.
    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • The Spy Who Never DiesThe Spy Who Never Dies UKPosts: 644MI6 Agent
    Cloak and Dagger (1946)

    An American nuclear scientist (Gary Cooper) is sent to Europe by the OSS to find out how far along the Germans are in developing a nuclear bomb. I found it dragged a bit in the middle but it does have a certain amount of suspense and a couple of good fight scenes worthy of Bond. There are scenes near the end in a house that reminded me of scenes in the Skyfall house. I really liked the music too and I don’t very often notice the music in films!
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,704MI6 Agent
    Cloak and Dagger (1946)

    An American nuclear scientist (Gary Cooper) is sent to Europe by the OSS to find out how far along the Germans are in developing a nuclear bomb. I found it dragged a bit in the middle but it does have a certain amount of suspense and a couple of good fight scenes worthy of Bond. There are scenes near the end in a house that reminded me of scenes in the Skyfall house. I really liked the music too and I don’t very often notice the music in films!

    It sounds like the plot is based on one of missions of OSS agent Moe Berg.
  • Lady RoseLady Rose London,UKPosts: 2,667MI6 Agent
    Ant Man And The Wasp

    My first proper foray into the Marvel world and very enjoyable it was too.


    What I always find disconcerting is there is an actor in it called Bobby Cannavale as the nice but dim step Dad. The last time I saw him was in Boardwalk Empire and he was running down a hotel corridor blood soaked and naked after being shot at whilst having asphyxiation sex .... acting is a funny old game :)) :)) :))
  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,704MI6 Agent
    Harvey (1950)

    I finally took the time to watch this classic. James Stewart plays elwood, a mild-mannered man whos best friend is Harvey who is a 6' 3'' rabbit no-one else can see. This is a comedy, a good one, but there is a serious undertone. The main character is after alla mentally ill man. James Stewart delivers perhaps his perhaps best role in an unusual film. I'm very glad I watched this one.
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent
    Lloyds of London

    Lockdown viewing of this 1930s film which would be a classic but like many others, is simply never shown on TV these days for reasons I simply can't fathom.
    It's a highly fictionalised account of the banking giant and the role it played in Nelson's naval victories. It stars Tyrone Power in maybe his first role, the star is really child actor Freddie Bartholomew who like Shirley Temple was massive in the 30s and like Temple, you never see his films on telly today. Captains Courageous is another Bartholomew classic never shown on telly (in that one he takes top billing over Spencer Tracy).
    It's a nicely told yarn (Power plays the Bartholomew character grown up and very convincingly too) with Madelaine Caroll as the love interest (she's from Hitch's The 39 Steps.)
    Bit dismaying to reach the end of the film and find on the news that there's talk of taking down Nelson's Column because of his colonial associations, when his main achievement lay in repelling Napoleon.
    Perhaps they should put Napoleon ;% on the plinth instead!
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,033MI6 Agent
    Gymkata wrote:
    JAWS (1975)

    This just got released on 4K and it looks absolutely amazing.

    As to the film itself? Well, it's JAWS. It's a masterpiece, and an argument could absolutely be made that it's Spielberg's best film. If you haven't seen it in a while, give it another go (and watch it in 4K if you can). You'll have a lot of fun!

    {[] Definitely Spielberg’s best movie, and my 2nd favourite movie of all time.
    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,239MI6 Agent
    American Graffiti

    Another nostalgic choker. It's a highly idealised account of an all-nighter pulled by teens in small-town America on the final night of high school, for reasons we pass over the kids who graduate to college (only two it seems) are due to leave the following morning rather than, say, in the Fall. Is this how it's done in America?

    Now this is a lovely film so you don't want to over scrutinise it; it's unlikely all these events could occur in one night but to be fair, nostalgia tends to condense things in the memory.
    Watching it older now, it's the idea that you've made it if you go to college and otherwise get left behind that jars even if it's true in some ways, and how odd it is that this issue is never really much addressed in movie fiction. I think Starter for 10, the Britcom, does address this but that's all.
    Harrison Ford is in this, and of course he'd later be Hans Solo in Star Wars, also by George Lucas, and Indiana Jones, also by George Lucas. Would he even be a star without Lucas, and let's not forget that Coppola produced this, and also put Ford in Apocalypse Now. See Ford in other clunkers like Hanover Street and you doubt it.
    Of course, as Indy in Crystal Skulls, it was set roughly the same time as American Graffiti, which seems at the fag end of rock n roll and pre-Beatles so maybe 62 - is it specified? In Skulls, Indy is annoyed at the idea his son didn't graduate so it follows on. Richard Dreyfuss had a 2-sec role in The Graduate of course.
    You know you're middle-aged when you feel a bit sorry for the adults that Dreyfuss's teen rips off albeit under duress of the local hooligans. I mean, the cops weren't doing much wrong were they, just sitting in their patrol car. It's not like they were out and about killing black people. Then again why would they - there's one sole black face in the film, seen at the local Hop.
    It's a whitewashed account of US history but so was Stand by Me and a load of stuff.

    There's a Wizard of Oz feel to Dreyfuss' journey over the course of the night (there could be a good blog or podcast about films that pull an all-nighter). Certainly the motto there's no place like home seems to apply whatever the outcome.
    The encounter with the Wolfman seems like meeting the Wizard, the sense he's not what he seems - but then again, he is. And Ford's character, the smart alec Lothario from out of town, is shown torn and humiliated, his crown taken from him at the end.
    Perhaps like Tarantino's Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, there's the sense that you expect something bad to happen, but it doesn't turn out that way at all, which is rather affecting.
    The ending is very good and I guess you can add this to films like Summer of 42 and oh, that one with Timothy Bottoms and Cybill Shepherd, name escapes me now.
    It would also be an interesting companion piece with the Brit's That'll Be The Day starring David Essex, Ringo Starr, Robert Lindsay, Billy Fury and Keith Moon, filmed around the same time. That film really is bleak however and not idealised at all. It's the opposite in fact - promising teen drops out of school to ride the dodgems and shag around quite callously; otherwise it's all boarding houses and empty coastal towns out of season, parental disappointment etc. That film had an unloved sequel, Stardust, as did A Graffiti.
    One problem with American Graffiti is that modern versions I've seen, inc the DVD, have the dialogue a bit too hard to hear, a shame when the writing is very good.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

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

    Documentary of Amy Winehouse by the guy who did Senna.
    You'll see how she could have been saved but really didn't have a chance once it all got going.
    The lyrics to her songs float up on the screen as she sings, and they do enhance one's appreciation of them.
    She attracted her share of hangers-on - in fact, there is hardly anyone who doesn't seem to fit that category, hardly anyone who appears who is a high calibre human being. Her school friends do pop up as a sort of Greek chorus but they are largely powerless to avert events.
    Watching it, you'll want to step in and save her yourself but who are you exactly? There's the slight sense that while you could fall in love with her, she could also be a right nasty gobby character and then a shaming sense of sexism comes over as you realise she is 'too clever by half' and maybe riding for a fall - you don't get that sense watching that Lennon documentary do you? That said, Lennon did seem more in control of his own narrative in films like Imagine. He also made it a lot later in life I think he had a few years in the tank over Amy Winehouse by the time he made it, plus of course he was in a gang and shielded.
    Winehouse jettisoned any of the benign Epstein figures in her life not that there was anyone really like that for her.
    It's shocking to see the paparazzi in action they should face a harassment order. When she did detox of course all the other rooms were booked up by the tabloid press so they could spy on her, it's all rather sickening. Nothing is sacred and all the phones are hacked.
    She died not from drugs but alcohol poisoning used as a substitute for drugs.
    I love Love is a Losing Game best, of course she would have done a Bond theme but cried off. Can't blame her as QoS was drek really.
    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • PPK 7.65mmPPK 7.65mm Saratoga Springs NY USAPosts: 1,227MI6 Agent
    Rad (1986):

    This long out of print sports drama focuses on Christopher "Cru" Jones, a high school senior who is a talented BMX cyclist. When a major competition called Hell Track is set to be held in his small town, he signs up to compete in against the national champion Bart Taylor (played American gymnast Bart Conner ) despite not having much experience in competition. For spoilers sake, I won't go into major details plot wise, but it is a pretty entertaining movie highlighting BMX racing and freestyle trick bicycle riding. Also, for anyone who grew up in the 1980's like me their is plenty of rock music to listen to during the biking scenes. Stuntman turned director Hal Needham directs and the BMX scenes are quite a sight to see, especially considering that this was long before the X Games were around. Overall quite an enjoyable experience.
  • The Spy Who Never DiesThe Spy Who Never Dies UKPosts: 644MI6 Agent
    Key Largo (1948)

    I've been watching a few Bogart films lately and this was the first time I'd seen this one, although I'm not sure why! Great film. I especially enjoyed the scenes where Frank and Mr Temple played on Rocco's growing fear of the hurricane.
  • Sir MilesSir Miles The Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 26,418Chief of Staff
    The Silencers (1966)

    Dean Martin as Matt Helm...well, might as well be Dean Martin as Dean Martin :))

    It’s a decent enough kitsch romp and that’s about it...apart from the lovely ladies :x

    I look forward (?) to watching the others -{
    YNWA 97
  • Charmed & DangerousCharmed & Dangerous Posts: 7,358MI6 Agent
    I've rewatched all four Helm films during lockdown, they're such good fun. Dino is increasingly sozzled as the films progress, but the photography, locations, gadgets, outlandish plots, Dino's wardrobe, jokes about Sinatra and - most of all - the succession of outrageously beautiful actresses keep them appealing.
    "How was your lamb?" "Skewered. One sympathises."
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,033MI6 Agent
    Crawl (2019). A father and daughter struggle to safety during a hurricane in Florida, where scores of alligators are rampant in the streets. This passes 90 minutes quite nicely with some tense scenes, if you bypass the absurdities it’s enjoyable, lightweight fare. Barry Pepper is his usual reliable self. CGI is decent enough to pass muster. Produced by Sam Raimi of Evil Dead fame.
    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
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