What did you watch today? v 22.0

[The Professor]

Tell everyone what you watched, what you thought, and what's up next.

The first post in this thread is # 6460

And as ever, link your films please.

[Guy]

I went and saw Year One at the theater, not because I thought it was going to be great by any means, but because the local Carmike cineplex refuses to show anything remotely intelligent. (Indeed, they seem to despise intelligence, and people in general, in every aspect of their approach to doing business.)
My low expectations were not disappointed, however there were funny glimmers of a humanistic sensibility that made me laugh on several occasions. Harold Ramis has had a great string of interesting movies in his career, and this is a minor effort that is actually worth watching.

[Cheryl]

The American Hobo It's a no-budget documentary look at hobos past and present-day. I give it 4 stars for effort and they got both Earnest Borgnine and James Michener to be in it.

[jumpspeed]

Yes, Plus you can even go wrong with a movie that has the word 'HOBO' in it.

[Snorii]

Here are some I've seen recently

Best Laid Plans (1999) - Reese Witherspoon, Alessandro Nivola and Josh Brolin star in this thriller.

The Fourth Protocol (1987) - A Russian spy (Pierce Brosnan) is going to detonate a nuclear bomb and blame it on the US, but it is up to a British spy (Michael Caine) to stop him. No longer available on Watch Instantly, but it was just ok.

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) - Expires on Watch Instantly today - stars Burt Lancaster as the mad scientist. I've never read the book, but this story never really seems to come off well on the screen. This version is better than the 1996 version, though.

Sex and Lucía (2002) - Lots of fiction intermingled with fact along with jumping backwards and forwards in the story so that I wasn't sure what actually happened. The movie itself becomes the unreliable narrator.

Many years ago, I was reading The Far Side comic and there was one where two guys were having dinner in a restaurant where one was a clown and the other was wearing a pie on his face. The caption merely said, "My Dinner with Andy". This was one of those Far Side jokes I never got and never did get even years afterword. Then I saw that there was a movie called "My Dinner with Andre" and I thought to myself, could this be where the basis of the comic came from?

My Dinner with Andre (1981) - Sit back and watch ... a dinner conversation. Doesn't seem like it would work, but it held my attention. The part that really stuck out to me was when Wallace Shawn says "It's inconceivable" six years before The Princess Bride.

So, is this where the comic comes from? I'm still not sure, but its the closest answer I've come up with.

Kid Galahad (1937) - Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart face off as two boxing promoters. Pretty standard fare for their movies together where Bogart's character is always shown as pure evil. :P

Madagascar (2005)

In Like Flint (1967) - Some light-hearted campy spy adventures if you're in the mood for that. I was amazed that they had James Coburn "speak" like a dolphin in a couple of spots. Sadly, this is off Watch Instantly now.


Man of La Mancha (1972) - 3/5 I enjoy everything I've seen with Peter O'Toole in it (especially King Ralph! ;) ) and he certainly helped make this better than it should have been.

Midnight (1939) Claudette Colbert stars as a woman who arrives in Paris with just the clothes on her back, but gets caught up in a con game where she pretends to be a wealthy Hungarian baroness. Also stars Don Ameche and John Barrymore.

Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990) - Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward star as this takes a look at the American middle class. It reminded me of Gattopardo in the way it focuses on the patriarch and changing times.

6ixtynin9 (1999) - I had a lot of fun watching this one. After a girl is fired from her job, she finds a box full of money sitting outside of her apartment door. Then the misadventure starts and can she stay ahead of the gangsters and policemen?

Underground (1995) - This movie reflects the history of Yugoslavia since World War II and while this is a comedy, the undercurrent is pretty painful.

The Vikings (1958) - Good classic action flick. Stars Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine, & Janet Leigh.

Last Life in the Universe (2003) - Same director that did 6ixtynin9 (Pen-Ek Ratanaruang). An obsessive-compulsive Japanese librarian living in Bangkok spends most of his empty days contemplating suicide. His attempts at suicide are foiled more than once and ends up paired with another lonely soul who is an opposite in a lot of ways. She is a slob and smokes pot but isn't socially inept like he is. These two lonely people help each other find the meaning to their meaningless existences.

Up next - Mr. Skeffington and Shoot 'Em Up

[Aces]

I saw 6ixtynin9 and Last life in the Universe and thought both were really good.
Trivia - Tadanobu Asano who stars as Kenji in Last Life in the Universe also stared in Ichi the Killer. There is a poster of Ichi in the library were Kenji works. Ichi was directed by Takashi Miike who plays one of the mobsters in Last Life.
Last Life in the Universe has a 100% fresh rating from top critics on RottenTomatoes.com and 6ixtynin9 has a 94% from critics. I rewatched 6ixtynin9 last night. Unless NF changes it they are both expiring on Instant Watch tonight.

[Sevorin]

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) . . . stars Burt Lancaster as the mad scientist. I've never read the book, but this story never really seems to come off well on the screen. This version is better than the 1996 version, though.

Try watching the old b&w version with Charles Laughton and Richard Arlen. That one doesn't come off so well either.

But the grisly ending is hard to shake.

[The Professor]

That thing was creepy as hell.

[jumpspeed]

Puppetry of the Penis This is the Citizen Kane of movies where a guy manipulates his penis to look like a hamburger

[SJ]

My favorite show "The Back of My Eyelids" I'm heading into the atomic hot flash stage of my life (my kids are 19,11 and 6 so it isn't time for the rest home yet) It's so hard to sleep.

These flashes radaite out from the cneter of my body and wake me up every 20 minutes.I managed to sleep past 4 am today.

My favorite movie is Dragonfly with Kevin Cosnter.I really like Big Fish and The Green Mile too but could watch Dragonfly over and over again.

I'm melting...............

[The Continental]

Black Robe 1991 solid 3 stars for me, I like films that deal with violent half necked indigenous peoples" only a few short sexual scenes in this film dammit",,Torchering Dumb Assed evil white Europeans,but only after testing the outer most limits of said Europeans mental & physical endurance capacities, only ,in the end,to ultimately parish because of their association with the aformentioned Dumb Assed white Anglo Europeans.
If a viewer enjoys movies like The Mission ,Mountains Of The Moon, Apocalypto, or even the more Hollywoody Dances with Wolves, they should like this.
PS and I like that they always gotta have one drop dead beautiful native chick and all the others are either real plain or real ,,well you know, worse than plain..

[The Professor]

That movie has a few scenes that are just brutal. I remember seeing it in the local indy theater and it bothering me for weeks afterwards.

[The Continental]

That movie has a few scenes that are just brutal
I agree, what I appreciated most was the cinematogrphy, there are some shots in there that capture man in nature as well as any film I've seen, the letter boxed " Not anamorphic image quality of the DVD isn't the best there's a little noise around here and there, but its still good . The lighting on interior scenes really puts you in the era,(1600's).Even though most of the outdoor scenes are over cast, it's Canada in the fall approaching winter, the scenery is as beautiful as it is foreboding, jeez, I'm talking myself up to 3.5 stars...........