HBO is running the new Matrix movie. I started it, but was immediately lost and likely won’t return.
Same here; I tried to watch it at home but quickly decided I really didn’t care.
Finished up Lost Daughter.
Good movie, well acted , a bit of a study of some of the stresses of motherhood, if that doesn’t sound too pretentious.
A quiet ,slow watching movie , not a feel good movie, not depressing mess, kind of a wet afternoon almost thoughtful movie.
IIRC there was an earlier version with Clint Eastwood, but can’t find the details at the moment.
In other news: Watched The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. Don’t. Just…don’t.
Don’t know if you were joking but the 1971 Clint Eastwood version of The Beguiled was also called The Beguiled. And directed by Don Siegel.
TCMF-2L
Easily my favourite Robin Hood movie and probably my favourite Sean Connery movie as well.
TCMF-2L
Wasn’t joking, but for some reason Google wasn’t coming up for me so I couldn’t find the details of the older version.
To anyone else who watched or is going to watch the 2017 Beguiled, do yourself a favor and watch the Clint Eastwood version. It’s a good’n. I could also add it to the “movies that unintentionally traumatized you” thread because of the amputation scene
I rewatched Mr. Brooks the other night. I can’t believe it wasn’t better received. I think it’s a great thriller with Kevin Costner as a prominent businessman with a dark secret, William Hurt as his Id and Dane Cook as a sleezeball, wannabe killer.
I was stunned it wasn’t a hit. Costner wanted to do three of them. Has he been the villain in other movies?
Yes, In Now Way Out he is a soviet mole.
A minor correction to the above, that’s No Way Out.
The Killers (1946), directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien and Sam Levene. It’s mentioned upthread only briefly, so I thought I’d talk about it here, because everyone seems to agree on the merits of this first adaptation of Hemingway’s short story. With the same title, Don Siegel directed another version in 1964 that’s also highly acclaimed and features a stellar cast, but this one is considered by many to be among the best in the film-noir genre. I haven’t seen enough “black films” to have an opinion, so I’ll just say that I found it highly entertaining on every level, despite the fact that it was made 77 years ago. One of those films that just sucks you in and leaves you wondering exactly why it’s so engrossing. IMO, there are several reasons: (1) The story is told bit-by-bit through a series of very different flashbacks, and it changes course enough to leave you in suspense right up to the end. The events that are central to the plot are shown at the beginning, so we know what happened and who did what to whom, and the how and why are slowly unraveled over the course of the film, especially in the last minute or so. (2) The actors are very good (Gardner delivers a line or two flatly but also has some excellent moments, IMO) and, most importantly for me, (3) I didn’t have to swallow or choke on any stupid dialogue, scenes or plot twists, and the pacing is just right (I see that John Huston collaborated in the writing of the screenplay). For what it’s worth, Hemingway thought highly of the film.
If you watch it, be sure to catch the background music at The Green Cat in the second half of the film. Also, there’s an interesting detail in an extremely brief shot of Ava Gardner when Burt Lancaster’s character is asked if he’s in or out of a deal in the making. She’s sitting on a bed, and all she does is glance his way and twist a foot around in a circular motion, but there’s something extraordinary about it. I had to replay it four or five times and will probably do so again the next time I watch it.
The film looks its age at all times, and, by the midway point, I was still expecting it to fall flat, because it looks too old to be interesting. Don’t let that fool you.
I just watched this. I agree that it’s a highly compelling, top quality documentary, with a lot more details and problems that we didn’t see in the media at the time.
We just watched Disaster Movie, which is currently free on HBO, and which is the lowest-rated film on IMDb at 1.9. I can’t even begin to say how spectacularly bad it was, but it did have some bits so terrible, so laden with cringe, that my son and I roared with laughter (while repeatedly saying “oh, no, that can’t be right!”). But maybe that was the writers’ intent? If so, I salute them!
It’s not clear to me how this gets 1.9, and Movie 43 gets as high as a 4.3. Unless there was a dedicated campaign to make Movie 43’s rating match its name, more or less.
I watched some TCM over the weekend, and saw a couple of movies.
The first was the original Nightmare Alley from 1947. It’s about a man (Tyrone Power) who joins a carnival doing a mentalist act. He reaches new highs…and new lows. It was pretty good, although the end seemed rather precipitous. After the movie, I was interested to hear that the writer had been the first husband of Joy Davidman (her second was C.S. Lewis). Also, this writer, William Gresham, killed himself after checking into a hotel under the name of one of the saddest-sack characters in this film. Chilling.
The second movie I watched was Some Came Running from 1958. A hot mess, in my opinion. There were several storylines that didn’t go anywhere much, and almost all the characters were unlikable. It starred Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine (playing the part of manic pixie dipshit who talked a lot), and Dean Martin. The fun fact about this movie was that they had cut the book down from 1200 pages. Maybe they kept the wrong ones.
One more movie we saw recently (from Amazon Prime, I think) was The Comedy of Terrors, from 1963. Dreadful, and not in the way I hoped it would be. Here Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Richard Matheson, and Basil Rathbone proved that you can get a whole shitload of talent together on the same project and produce something really best forgotten.
I’m guessing the creative process started and ended with the title.
Hey! I saw this in the theater and it was one of the best movies I saw that year!
Of course, I was about 10 years old at the time… 
Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar is a weird comedy from Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, with Jamie Dornan and Damon Wayans Jr. It’s akin to Austin Powers or Anchorman in its oddball twists and over-the-top silliness. I recommend it!
Wandering the cable wasteland this evening and came upon Hidden Figures, about the African-American women who helped calculate our way into space while facing the daily racism of the 1960’s. Probably takes a little liberty here and there with the historical record, but it’s superbly scripted and acted and well worth watching again.
Not quite similar, but related, is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks about a black lady in the 50’s who’s generic makeup furthered modern science without recognition.