Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins - Hulu documentary
Extraction, an action film with Chris Hemsworth as a mercenary hired to retrieve the kidnapped son of a drug dealer. Netflix.
Saturday night I saw The Last Picture Show, about young people in a dying Texas Town. Depressing, gray, (literally, it’s filmed in black and white), sad, fairly awful all round. There were boobs now and then. The best part was the subplot featuring Cloris Leachman as an older woman having an affair with one of her husband’s students.
Do not recommend.
I’ve been watching a lot of pap lately.
Total Recall (1990) - Ahnold in top form. In fact, I think I’ve watched it about three times in the last week, just sort of like on in the background kind of thing.
The Tuxedo (2002) - Jackie Chan and a very hot looking Jennifer Love Hewitt. Silly fun movie but even in my old man ogling stage of life it was just a little bit too sexist. JLH plays a strong woman who doesn’t take shit, but at the same time she’s forced to say lines like, “the password is, ‘nice rack’ and I’ll reply, ‘I forgot my bra.’” And there is no shortage of her in low cut dresses, often soaking wet. Just a little weird for what would otherwise be almost a kid-friendly movie.
… And Justice For All (1979) - pre-Hoo-Ah! Pacino. An almost understated performance, until the end scene in fact. Pacino is an ethical lawyer forced to defend an immoral judge on a rape case or he’ll be railroaded into a disbarment. A great collection of characters and some heart-wrenching pathos. The only thing that turns this into pap is the god-awful score\soundtrack that comes with it. Favorite lines:
I’m following the Unspooled podcast, which each week dives deeply into one film on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Films of All Time. I was surprised when Last Picture Show came up … I saw it when it was first released in 1971-ish, and literally have not given it a thought since. So I don’t have much of an opinion on it, and you’re certainly entitled to yours. But it is apparently highly-regarded.
- sigh * I know. It’s another thing to add to my list “Stuff I Just Don’t Get”.
I also watched that film recently and found those scenes disgusting. Clearly we have different senses of humor, I’ll give you that.
Do not recommend? Okay, why? Just because it’s depressing?
ETA: FWIW, I disagree. If you’re looking for a serious/dark/depressing film, and particularly if you want to see the trope of a small country town where “everyone is happy and has their place” subverted most ruthlessly, then The Last Picture Show in the way to go.
Watched the old Tom Hanks/Shelley Long flick The Money Pit. It’s still funny in parts, thanks mostly to Hanks’ impeccable comedic timing.
And pointless. Everyone has a hopeless life, and they weren’t very nice people anyway. A couple of characters who weren’t despicable died. I’m not sure what message I was meant to receive from this story.
Re-watched Where Eagles Dare, WWII film (1969) with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. Last time I watched it was probably almost 40 years ago. I had forgotten many of the twists. Movie holds up well.
Speaking of meathead action flicks and bad soundtracks …
Over the Top (1987) - Sylvester Stallone is an absentee father with a broken down rig and a right arm made of iron. Arm wrestling is the name of the game and Lincoln Hawk don’t take no shit. You don’t watch it for the philosophizing, you watch it for the, well, the whole Stalloneness of the thing.
Bloodsport (1988) - John-Claude Van Damme is Frank Dux, an American born and bread with a thick French accent, but why not since pretty much everything else about Frank Dux is apparently bullshit anyway, but I digress. “Based on true events,” JCVD split kicks his way to the top of the heap. Kumite, Kumite, Kumite … it’s a catchy little number of the credits that’s easy to dance to.
It also costars Donald Gibb (Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds) as a completely unlikable douchebag who can’t really fight for shit and ends up losing because he grandstands but everybody still likes him anyway, for some reason.
One of my favorite songs ever “(I Just Wanna Be) Your Steve McQueen” is from that movie. There are a couple of videos of the song on youtube with compilations of various scenes from McQueen movies that are cool and bittersweet at the same time; they really make you wish he was still around.
shrug I guess we just had a different subjective experience, because I don’t disagree with your interpretation of how the story plays out or how the characters are presented, it’s just that I kind of enjoy, at least on some level, movies with a more nihilistic (and realistic) bent every now and then, where not all the conflicts get resolved satisfactorily in the end and life just sort of goes on being dull/shitty for a lot of people whether they deserve it or not.
So while you find it depressing, I find it vaguely uplifting in a cathartic sort of way, like deriving satisfaction from being told “the truth” for once in a work of fiction. Call it an antidote to the oppressive optimism and escapism pushed in so many other films.
You both might want to read further books by Larry McMurtry on the character Duane Moore (called Duane Jackson in the movies). He’s the character played by Jeff Bridges in the movie. He’s in five books, and you can see what happens to him later in life:
The Last Picture Show
Texasville
Duane’s Depressed
When The Light Goes
Rhino Ranch
The first two books were adapted into films with the same titles as the books. There are also two books published before The Last Picture Show which are set in the same town. The town is called Thalia in the books but Anarene in some of the movies (and is modeled on McMurtry’s hometown of Archer City). The two books are Horseman, Pass By, which was adapted into the movie Hud, and Leaving Cheyenne, which was adapted into the movie Lovin’ Molly. This Wikipedia entry calls the books Horseman, Pass By, Leaving Cheyenne, and The Last Picture Show a trilogy:
McMurtry has had an interesting life.
As a fan of horror fiction, I get that. I liked a somewhat similar movie, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (For certain values of “liked”. I’m probably not going to watch it again!)
In thinking about Last Picture Show a bit more, I think one of the things I liked about the Cloris Leachman subplot was that it came full circle. It had a beginning, middle, end, and didn’t peter out the way I felt the overall plot of the movie did.
We watched the old blockbuster Quo Vadis last night; a three hour spectacle from 1951. Peter Ustinov as Nero. Debra Kerr and Robert Taylor as the protagonists, and a cast of thousands.
Suspiria (1977).
Wow. Just wow. The colors, the music, the sets… all quite incredible. Total sensory overload. Have never seen anything like it. I want to see it again.
Hi Chefguy. Hope things are going well for you. It’s not a huge issue, but the purpose of this thread — from the first lines from the original post — is:
I’d like this thread to contain peoples’ opinions about films they’ve seen recently - either because they liked them and wish to recommend them to others or because they didn’t like them and wish to warn others to avoid them.
For me personally, just hearing what movies someone has watch recently is not interesting. But again, no huge deal.
Watched this. Not bad at all.
It’s based around the plot device of an ordinary man drawn, semi-willingly, into taking revenge against scary criminals. Often in such movies I’ll think, “Buddy, this would be an excellent time to get the police involved.” I had that thought several times during this film, and at a key moment the film gave a knowing wink about that very point. A nice touch.
The protagonist did seem too unconcerned about possible witnesses to his acts of revenge.
Like most of those old blockbusters, Quo Vadis is a biblical epic along the lines of Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, The Robe, and others. I assumed most folks were familiar with the genre.
Oh My God.
I just watched The Mountain Between Us (not knowing anything about it, but figured plane crash and survival in the mountains gotta be good, right?).
More corn than the Nebraska State Fair. P.U.! Avoid like The Clap.