WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

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movieman1957
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by movieman1957 »

I'm with about Dalton. I think he was terrific. Maybe it helped after what Bond had become with Moore. It is almost with all of them they sort of start the character over again. "For Your Eyes Only" is often thought of as a film to get Moore's "Bond" back on track. I'm not sure how long one can say that he stayed there.

Dalton was the same. Make him younger, tougher, less humor. It worked for me. Who know what would have happened it he had done more.

I very much like Brosnan in "Goldeneye." I like "Tomorrow Never Dies" but with the last two they started to get a little out of hand. "Die Another Day" would have been so much better if they had just calmed down. Some of it is pretty good and some makes me laugh.
Chris

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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by RedRiver »

Timothy Dalton was well cast. I would have been glad to see more films featuring him.
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charliechaplinfan
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by charliechaplinfan »

Timothy Dalton is a bone of contention in our house, Chris thinks he's the worse Bond ever, I think he had great potential and wasn't fully allowed to exploit it. I'm glad they are heading back towards good story telling, I can't buy into the fact that a rogue agent would have such a grudge against M as to have this huge vendetta but if I suspend credibility I can enjoy the fantasy. Joe's top destination when we go to London is the MI5 building, not Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament etc because of Skyfall it's that building.

I had to give up on a film today, it's not something I often do but I was an hour into The Torrid Zone and it just wasn't igniting my interest at all, all this despite the cast Pat O'Brien, the lovely Ann Sheridan and the moutasched Jimmy Cagney, the teaming of Sheridan and Cagney initially kept me with it, Cagney as a ladykiller is quite amusing to me but they didn't ignite, not in this one. This coupled with the tongue in cheek treatment of a fruit company in Mexico and a desperado made it one of Warner's misfires for me. No wonder Cagney would chomp at the bit to be released to make his own movies in time, it's probably movies like this that drove him to it.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by Rita Hayworth »

charliechaplinfan wrote:Timothy Dalton is a bone of contention in our house, Chris thinks he's the worse Bond ever, I think he had great potential and wasn't fully allowed to exploit it. I'm glad they are heading back towards good story telling, I can't buy into the fact that a rogue agent would have such a grudge against M as to have this huge vendetta but if I suspend credibility I can enjoy the fantasy. Joe's top destination when we go to London is the MI5 building, not Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament etc because of Skyfall it's that building.
I am with you Allison!
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by RedRiver »

TORRID ZONE is not one of my favorites. It's watchable for the engaging stars. Not fascinating by any means.
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by CineMaven »

I like "TORRID ZONE." I don't like James Cagney's mustache. But I love the banter. Rat-a-tat-tat dialogue, Mexican bandidoes played by George Tobias and other incredulously un-ethnic types. ( Guess Eli Wallach was in the service in 1940, huh? ) and did you check out George Reeves as Tobias' bungling right-hand man? Reeves should have had a career. He had presence. ( "So Proudly We Hail" "Gone With The Wind" "From Here to Eternity." )Tsk! Tsk! :( "Superman" was his downfall. Ann Sheridan is a dream - sassy and saucy, Helen Vinson - villainous. I understand Sheridan hated that last line about her "24-Karat Oomph!" But what I could also never understand is...how come Pat O'Brien has such an immediate and deep-seated antipathy for Ann Sheridan's character? I mean right off the bat he was yelling and barking. ( Poor writing? No character motivation? ) Never a real Pat O'Brien fan, when I see him barking at the Oomph Girl, uhmmm, I mean Ms. Sheridan, it gets my dander up but good. If anything, O'Brien and Cagney should have been competing for that redhead. From what it looked like from where I was sittin', O'Brien and Sheridan were competing for Cagney. Hmmm...shades of "Desert Fury"??

* * *

Alison, tell Chris, that Theresa from America said the worst James Bond was Roger Moore. How I survived his Bondship without blowing my brains out is beyond me. I thought Timothy Dalton was excellent. He was cold and deadly. Dangerously handsome too. I believed him. I loved Pierce Brosnan, his sharpness and precision. But...he had those drop dead gorgeous Black Irish looks too, which didn't hurt; so if he were to just sit on Moneypenny's lap and stare out the window, I would have loved him. ( As Countess DeLave said in "The Women" which you just saw: "I didn't pick them for character." ) As for your little Joe...smart kid. MI5, is where it's at! There's time enough for Buckingham Palace when he's an old man. It's been there for 5000 years. I enjoyed "Skyfall" as I wrote about a couple of months ago. What did disturb me just a little is the fact that Javier Bardem had his hair dyed blonde to play the villain. I didn't see the point. (( ACK!!! Actors! :evil: )) I wanted him to look his Spanish best, accent, swarthiness and still kick Craig's keester. I suspend my disbelief at the door for pretty much every movie I see ( though I totally believed the shenanigans of those crazy rat bastids in "The Hangover Part III"; swallowed the goings on hook, line and sinker and it went down as easy and as salty as clams. Loved it. ) Are you looking for verisimilitude when you go to the movies Alison?

* * *

I saw "Django Unchained." Loved it. Christoph Waltz...genius. Jamie Foxx very good. Samuel L. Jackson, one of the bravest actors I've ever seen. Character actor extraordinaire. ( Have you ever seen "Eve's Bayou"? ) If he ever played Othello, Desdemona should just kill herself and get it over with. Leonardo DiCaprio finally made me a fan with this movie. I loved the action, the hero's journey; ha...the HEROES' JOURNEY. Django going from illiterate and a little fearful, to a gunslinging s.o.b. The lessons each man learned. You won't shoot a father in front of his son even though he's wanted for murder / but you will have a slave torn limb from limb by rabid racist dogs. And I loved Quentin's having a joke on us with: I was the only one in the audience who laughed at loud. Glorify slavery? Ha! Not in the least. He showed the brutality of it. And he showed a man trying to get his girl back. ( Climb heaven and earth for Kerry Washington. ) Tarantino has fun with movies. He has fun with the audience. He twists and turns us until we're pretzeled. He's not for everybody. But the man knows how to make a movie.

TCM will be programming 24 hours of Esther Williams' movies tomorrow. I can't wait. But before I do that, I've an obligation I've got to fulfill:

One of my friends from a very far away foreign land has been asking begging pleading cajoling and threatening me to watch Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper in "A Farewell to Arms." ACK!!! I've got to do it. It looks like from 1940 on, somebody switched a button in Gary Cooper and de-sexified him. ( Yup! Nope! Aargh! ) But this movie is from the 30's and my friend promises that Cooper and Helen Hayes will surprise the heck out of me. And she threw in Frank Borzage's name and...

I shall be suspending my disbelief.
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JackFavell
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

I really loved Skyfall too, Maven, it had just the right mix of old school Bond class and rugged action. On the big screen it was really fun to watch, you kind of 'fall' into the movie, and it grabs you. I wonder if it has the same impact on a small screen?

God bless you for trying A Farewell to Arms for your friend! It's way out of your usual zone, but I think it's well worth your giving it a try.

I'm with you on Torrid Zone - zing! Annie is wonderful, and even though it's absurd, it really is the best combination with Cagney Sheridan and Vinson. Just wish it was set in NYC!
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movieman1957
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by movieman1957 »

Another disappointment but not as bad as some of my previous choices was "The Prisoner." It was good to see Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins together.

Guinness plays a Cardinal for the Catholic church in what is seems to be East Germany. (The country is never named.) He is arrested for treason and undergoes long, difficult interrogation at the hands of Hawkins. They want him to confess to something and put him on trial to discredit him and the church.

Based on a stage play of the same name it is still very much that as filmed. It relies totally on the two stars for its drama. But I didn't think it ever really reached a huge dramatic climax. There is an odd secondary story line with one of the guards and a married woman that disappears after a bit but seems to serve little purpose other than her rants about the government.

At times it is over dramatic but the performances overcome it but overall it just quite doesn't have the impact it attempts. This may be one that the topic suffers from being almost sixty years old.
Chris

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
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JackFavell
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

I have never been able to get through that one, and I'm a huge Guinness and Hawkins fan. We need to find you a really great movie to watch next!
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by Vecchiolarry »

Hi Chris & Wendy,

"The Prisoner" is based on the true story of an Hungarian Cardinal held by the Communists in Budapest in the 50's. I just forget his name but it starts with 'M'...

He became an international front page story, especially after the 1956 revolution in Hungary.
His cause was championed by Ilona Massey, Hedy Lamarr and the Gabors in Washington for awhile.
I think he did die in prison, but amm not sure of that - he was quite old...

On a different note:
I have always thought Alec Guinness was the best actor from Britain; and followed by Ralph Richardson, John Guilgud and Jack Hawkins... And, dare I say it - Rex Harrison (who was a good friend of mine for a while!!)...
I have always thought Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton were just hams...

Larry
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movieman1957
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by movieman1957 »

I wondered if there was some real history to the story. They never stated the country but they referred to the Gestapo once or twice. The few times they used a character's real name, Hawkins's secretary was named Stevens, it made it hard to figure where they were. Hungary fits but I wouldn't have guessed it.

Thanks for the background.
Chris

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JackFavell
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by JackFavell »

I love all the actors mentioned, Larry with a preference for the first 2 and Hawkins. I prefer Rex in his early movies, the Shaw plays and such. He's quite good too in The Yellow Rolls Royce, he breaks my heart.
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by RedRiver »

the worst James Bond was Roger Moore

And it's not even close. That era was the worst thing that ever happened to this once stylish, exciting series.
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charliechaplinfan
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Re: WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Post by charliechaplinfan »

Maven, Gary Cooper was sexy once, even I think so and A Farewell to Arms is one of the films to prove it, I hope you enjoy it. Coop did change didn't he? I thought perhaps it was just me, he's so raw and sexy in those early films, then he grows up and it's like he unlearns it all. He made some good movies, so I'll let him off.

Chris partially agrees with you about Roger Moore but he'd put Timothy dalton lower down (and I'm married to this man, how can he get it so wrong)

Django Unchained is partly uncomfortable but Tarantino I don't know what he does with the subject matter, is he so irreverent with it that it becomes entertainment. I do know that he picks his actors well and he strips out all the saccahrineness that I dislike about modern movies.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
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