Films you've seen lately

[aeolium]

I also thought LH was good in The Alamo and The Manchurian Candidate, and I also remember seeing him in a now completely forgotten 1960s film, but to my young self very powerful at the time, The Ceremony, which I also discover he directed and co-wrote. I don't recall much of his later film work.

[Nick Armstrong]

Cracker from Talking Pictures TV which I'm currently watching in instalments having recorded it: She Played with Fire (aka Fortune is a Woman)... Jack Hawkins, Dennis Price, Christopher Lee (in a strange Welsh bit-part)... plus a score by William Alwyn.

The main title music (from 3'17" onwards in the clip below) is strangely familiar, can't think why (must have heard it on the Sounds of Cinema programme about Alwyn's film work)

[gradus]

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman on Talking Pictures the other evening, wonderfully awful. I must have first seen it in the early fifties and I'd forgotten the magnificent faux piano playing of Ava Gardner whose contract surely included a minimum number of perfectly lit head-shots. James Mason in superb form.

[Stanfordian]

'Bohemian Rhapsody' the 2018 biographical film - Great entertainment.

[vinteuil]

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... yesterday we went to Steve McQueen's marvellous 'whip-smart heist movie' Widows. Tom Shone in The Times says "the best two hours of film making so far this year". I agree.



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[Richard Tarleton]

Greatly looking forward to this (tho in our case it will be on TV, courtesy of S*y, whenever). I remember the 1980s original, complete with big hair and the terrifying Ann Mitchell.

[vinteuil]

Greatly looking forward to this (tho in our case it will be on TV, courtesy of S*y, whenever). I remember the 1980s original, complete with big hair and the terrifying Ann Mitchell.

... I think this is one of those cases where a big-screen cinema experience would be really worth it. The cinematography is stupendous. It'll be OK on the telewele, but for the full effect, you need the big screen. Just sayin' ...


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[Serial_Apologist]

Yesterday I watched my VHS of "10 Rillington Place" - one of the most uncomfortable films to experience, imv - and it struck me how brave Richard Attenborough was to have agreed to taking on so many undesirable roles during his career as actor, and done them so authentically: the sadistic Pinky in "Brighton Rock"; the bent capitalist in "I'm All Right Jack"; the scab strike-breaker in "The Angry Silence"; the ex-spiv in "The League of Gentlemen"; the henpecked child kidnapper in "Seance on a Wet Afternoon", and Christie in "10 Rillington Place". Remarkable, when you think about it.

[Richard Tarleton]

... I think this is one of those cases where a big-screen cinema experience would be really worth it. The cinematography is stupendous. It'll be OK on the telewele, but for the full effect, you need the big screen. Just sayin' ...


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Understood...the logistics of cinema going hereabouts on the grim side.....recently mentioned by Robert Crampton (a Pembs regular) in his column in The Times......

[LMcD]

Yesterday I watched my VHS of "10 Rillington Place" - one of the most uncomfortable films to experience, imv - and it struck me how brave Richard Attenborough was to have agreed to taking on so many undesirable roles during his career as actor, and done them so authentically: the sadistic Pinky in "Brighton Rock"; the bent capitalist in "I'm All Right Jack"; the scab strike-breaker in "The Angry Silence"; the ex-spiv in "The League of Gentlemen"; the henpecked child kidnapper in "Seance on a Wet Afternoon", and Christie in "10 Rillington Place". Remarkable, when you think about it.

I quite agree. He didn't play particularly sympathetic characters in 'Guns At Batasi' and 'Oh! What A Lovely War' either!

[Conchis]

Yesterday I watched my VHS of "10 Rillington Place" - one of the most uncomfortable films to experience, imv - and it struck me how brave Richard Attenborough was to have agreed to taking on so many undesirable roles during his career as actor, and done them so authentically: the sadistic Pinky in "Brighton Rock"; the bent capitalist in "I'm All Right Jack"; the scab strike-breaker in "The Angry Silence"; the ex-spiv in "The League of Gentlemen"; the henpecked child kidnapper in "Seance on a Wet Afternoon", and Christie in "10 Rillington Place". Remarkable, when you think about it.

It IS a very uncomfortable film and R.A. was indeed very brave to attempt the role. To my mind, he triumphs in it: probably the cinema's best portrayal of a man consumed by self-loathing.

John Hurt is also very good, though I suspect his Welsh accent hasn't worn well.

[Conchis]

I think I first came across him on the big screen in The Alamo**, as an excellent Colonel Travis - acc. to Wiki he was John Wayne's personal choice for the role, thanks to the aristocratic demeanour Wayne thought he could and indeed did bring to the part. I don't think he was at all oleagenous in that.... I saw him on stage at Drury Lane in 1964 in Camelot, about which the less said the better ((in those days I got dragged along to musicals) - his singing was right up there with Pierce Brosnan's in Mamma Mia But my favourite screen appearance of his was in the original and best version of The Manchurian Candidate. A terrific actor - he could certainly do oleagenous if the part required it, but I think the "ever" is unfair.

PS **I did not know then that my Scottish soldier-of-fortune great-great-great-great grandfather was helping to train the Mexican army at the time - that's the one, Cali, whose abandoned wife, my 4xgreat grandmother, had a spell in the Fleet prison for debt in the late 1820s

Laurence Harvey had a reputation for being difficult to work with. Most of his co-stars disliked him.

By some accounts, he had the personal ethics of an alley cat and would 'service' anyone to advance his career: his abandoned the man who'd made him a star (James Woolf) to marry the widow of Hollywood tycoon Harry Cohn. Once she'd done what she could for him, he moved on to Leighton, whom he then dumped for a younger model.

He died young and unlamented.

[Belgrove]

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... yesterday we went to Steve McQueen's marvellous 'whip-smart heist movie' Widows. Tom Shone in The Times says "the best two hours of film making so far this year". I agree.



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I agree entirely - a hugely entertaining and well made film with terrific ensemble performances, there really isn't a weak link. It's the most mainstream film that McQueen has made, but it's up there with the best of Scorsese's contributions to the crime/corruption genre.

[Dave2002]

Nae Pasaran

A kind of documentary film - quite a lot of politics. Well worth watching, and make of it what you will.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/31/nae-pasaran-review

I'd give it more than 3 stars - though as a film it could be shorter, and probably still get the main points across. Not an entertaining film though - so the criteria for judgement are very different from a Hollywood blockbuster, or a French art film.
This scores because of the humanity, and the issues raised - some obvious, but others rather more hidden - and some perhaps already too easily forgotten.

https://naepasaran.com/

https://www.scottishdocinstitute.com/films/nae-pasaran-feature/

[Dave2002]

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Just watched this, as we have a Now TV subscription (Cinema) which I've cancelled and it runs out soon.

I really don't know what to make of this film. It seems to have been highly rated, and presumably not only in the UK, but also in the USA. Entertaining - sort of. Violent - yes in parts. Well acted - probaby.

What I really can't get to grips with is how it would be viewed in the USA, or even in different parts of the USA. Althogh the language is English, and I've even lived in the USA, I really can't understand this film from a cultural point of view. Perhaps I shouldn't try.