What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[sukumvit boy]

If you didn't like The Mule, I can't recommend another film of an old man robbing banks, apparently also based on a true story.

The Old Man and the Gun (David Lowery, 2018 ) has been showing on UK tv more than once, and is a tedious succession of polite exchanges between Robert Redford and some unfortunate bank teller or manager, with the inevitable gun somewhere in his grasp. The film has the charm of cat shit on the carpet, as the memory of its 'banter' with horse-loving Sissy Spacek lingers unwanted, for at least 24 hours. That said, Ms Spacek - who made some genuinely memorable films in the 1980s- looks to be in better condition than Mr Redford- maybe we should all take up horse riding as we get older. Got to be safer and healthier than robbing banks.

[Stavros]

Eye in the Sky (Gavin Hood, 2015)

This aired on tv the other night, and presents an air strike on suicide bombers preparing for a mission as a moral dilemma because a young girl arrives outside their building to set up a stall and sell bread. There is a cast of well-known actors with a well-drilled script, but as I did not believe -on the basis of air strikes and drone strikes across the Middle East and Afghanistan- that anyone in the military or government in the UK or the US would agonise for so long over this moral problem, it might have been better to call the film Pie in the Sky.

[sukumvit boy]

"Mars Attacks "and "Guildmember" .
Absurd ,stupid and mindless, best watched with someone you love and are not trying to impress .
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt011699
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin..._in_Goldmember

[Stavros]

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Michael Cimino, 1974)

Though I have seen this film several times, I started watching it late night on tv, and decided to stay the length again. It was the first of the 8 films Cimino directed, and rivals Heaven's Gate as his best, though I think his films are under-rated. Eastwood may also have been at his peak in the 1970s, but whatever, and in spite of the references to other films (eg, Midnight Cowboy), it is an engaging film, with a spakling script and some fine acting, particularly from Jeff Brides, though the Montana Armoury's security system lacks credibility. The scene with Mr Frosty on the wrong street being harangued by a schoolboy must have been something Tarantino remembered when he came to make Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction -?

[sukumvit boy]

The streaming TV series ,"The Monarch of The Glenn" ,made between 2000 and 2005 I find this charming series interesting and entertaining. We just started series one and I am reminded of John McPhee's delightful book "The Crofter and the Laird" describing the Scottish Highlands system of land management and ownership with it's roots in feudal times.
https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show...ch-of-the-glen

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/..._and_the_Laird

[Stavros]

Judas and the Black Messah (Shaka King, 2021)

Based on the true strory of Black Panther Party leader in Chicago, Fred Hampton, this is a gripping film with a strong script, well-chosen and not intrusive music, and an array of cinematic skills in lighting, editing, camerawork -I was worried this was going to be a standard biopic, but in the era of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor the relevance is clear, based on the evidence the FBI was involved in Hampon's murder and covered it up for years. It is astonishing to bear in mind Hampton was just 21 years old at the time of his death, while the actors playing him and the FBI undercover agent Wllliam O'Neal (even yonger than Hampton in real life) are much older.

There is little in the film to link the Panther's socialist tactics with the pre-existing but no less important community work in Chicago with which Saul Alinsky is associated, nor any sense of any dialogue the Panther's might have had with the Lost-Found Nation of Islam and its corruptt and twisted leader Elijah Mohammed, surely in the broader context of Chicago, and especially in the turbulent 1960s this would have merited more attention, where the attempt by Hampton to fuse the aims of the Panthers with the city's Gangs did in fact take place (see the links for historical accuracy).

I am not sure the fim emphasies that in Chicago guns were used in self-defence, though there seems to have been a mixed message on this in the Panther Party more widely. Thus the film may be part of a conversation in the US that reviews the past with a more favourable attitude to the Black Panther Party than has been the case since it went into decline in the 1970s. That said, the Marxian and Maoist elements in Hampton's speeches and perspective open the rift between the Panther's social and community work, and their revolutionary intent. This was a revolution without a resolution, or one where the tenets that maintaned the USSR and China and were the currecy of activists who supported the Cuban Revolution and the Vietnamese Communists, have long since been tossed into the dustbin of history. That does not invalidate socialism but begs the question of what it might be in the 21st century, while the insistent and violent reality of race in the US remains as toxic now as it was in 1969, as if little had changed.

As Roger Ebert has argued in his blog, the film does not really develop out the character of O'Neal and his relaionship with Hampton, though Lakeith Stanfield gives as good a performance as he can with the material he is given. I really liked this film and recommend it to anyone with an interest in the 1960s.

Historical accuracy is discussed in these two links-

https://slate.com/culture/2021/02/ju...-accuracy.html

https://www.historyvshollywood.com/r...black-messiah/

[Stavros]

A Cure for Wellness (Gore Verbinski, 2016)

The most obvious cure for something that doesn't need a cure: do not go to a Sanatorium in Switzerland and be mistaken for a patient and never get out. The film has multiple references to other films, mostly 'Gothic Horror via Kubrick) but even that is just a conceit to perpetuate a long and ultimately unsatisfying film.

[Stavros]

Nomadland (Chloé Zhao, 2020)

What happens when people lose a home, but gain a house -on wheels. This gently stated film on grief and loss explores how people adapt, how they can survive through temporary jobs and friendships, but never regain the stability they once had, even if there is an implication that the past was not always that good. The cruelty of industrial decline does not generate rage or anger, while Frances McDormand offers a visual explanation of her situation that needs no words. A most intelligent and sensitive film.

[Stavros]

No Time to Die (Cory Fukunaga, 2021)

Not time to die? Oh I don't know, after the bike chase, the car chase, the rogue scientist, the billionaire baddie ("people want oblivion"), guns with unlimited ammunition going pop-pop-pop, stun grendes, real bombs, female accomplices in skimpy clothing, irate bosses, and drivers at dusk wearing sunglasses....maybe now is as good a time as any. Farewell, Bond -don't come back, there's a good chap -or chapette...

[corbindallas]

Dune, which was over hyped IMO. Nothing happens and then it just sort of ends.