Last Movie You Watched

[Madiel]

If you haven't read the books, that is a common misconception. Paul is not a savior but a tyrant.  He is depicted as the hero of the story in the first one and then shows the truth in the second novel.  The theme that runs through the entirety of the chronicles is to be wary of charismatic leaders.

Fair enough. But as I said, even in these films from the first novel there is a distinct uneasiness about his status. And his willingness to make a certain move at the end is disquieting.

Do we know if there are plans to continue the films into the next novel? It would surely make sense with the visions of the future included.

Edit: I just found my answer that Villeneuve intended to adapt the second novel too. 

[DavidW]

Fair enough. But as I said, even in these films from the first novel there is a distinct uneasiness about his status. And his willingness to make a certain move at the end is disquieting.

Yes, that is what caused the huge fan backlash at the publication of Dune Messiah! Nowadays, people consider the entire series to be classic, but back then, so many hated the sequel that only a niche group continued with the rest of the books.

[Cato]

In recent days:




Very funny, but also has its dramatic moments: Jeremy Sisto has the toughest role, as a controlling, edgily violent, yet also sympathetic character, sympathetic because he is so (comically) insecure, needy, and pathetic.


Written and directed by character actress Adrienne Shelley, who also plays a comical role in the movie.

Sadly, right before the movie was released in 2007, she was murdered, strangled, by a construction worker in New York City.  He is still in prison.

Also:



Hard to believe that this is almost 30 years old! 

A "mockumentary" from Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy: a small-town theater troupe expects to hit the big-time!

The real treat is in the special features, where Parker Posey performs in an "audition" (which she wrote herself), where she reaches new heights in jaw-dropping comedy:

[NumberSix]

Re Guest: I prefer A Mighty Wind and Best in Show. But Guffman is a certified classic, as well.

"She Used to Be Mine" from the Broadway adaptation of Waitress is a showstopper. I'm not going to pull it up right now on YouTube, because otherwise I will watch that performance from the Tony Awards a dozen times in a row. I know – – I've seen me do it.

[Karl Henning]

Poor Things. "Do you think my father could have branded me with hot irons on the genitals the way he did, if he could not put science and progress first?" Largely enjoying it. Still, I'm rather feeling that less would have been more.

[Karl Henning]

Poor Things. "Do you think my father could have branded me with hot irons on the genitals the way he did, if he could not put science and progress first?" Largely enjoying it. Still, I'm rather feeling that less would have been more.

Say "formidable" at the end. House rules.

[Karl Henning]

Poor Things. "Do you think my father could have branded me with hot irons on the genitals the way he did, if he could not put science and progress first?" Largely enjoying it. Still, I'm rather feeling that less would have been more.

The wedding and the sequel are more than worth seeing it through!

[Cato]

Continuing our alphabetical journey through our collection: a movie in which Matthew Broderick received top billing for the first time over some better known actors.


He had earlier been in a movie with Jason Robards called Max Dugan Returns.




Lots of fun watching 40-year old computer technology at the heart of the movie!   

[Karl Henning]

Continuing our alphabetical journey through our collection: a movie in which Matthew Broderick received top billing for the first time over some better known actors.


He had earlier been in a movie with Jason Robards called Max Dugan Returns.




Lots of fun watching 40-year old computer technology at the heart of the movie! 

I think I saw that in the movie house. I should revisit it.

TD: Robocop 2

[JBS]

Continuing our alphabetical journey through our collection: a movie in which Matthew Broderick received top billing for the first time over some better known actors.


He had earlier been in a movie with Jason Robards called Max Dugan Returns.




Lots of fun watching 40-year old computer technology at the heart of the movie!   

And what proved to be an extremely over-optimistic idea of Artificial Intelligence.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Continuing our alphabetical journey through our collection: a movie in which Matthew Broderick received top billing for the first time over some better known actors.


He had earlier been in a movie which was called Ladyhawke  Or did I miss your posting?  I watched it and enjoyed it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladyhawke_(film)

PD

[Karl Henning]

Continuing our alphabetical journey through our collection: a movie in which Matthew Broderick received top billing for the first time over some better known actors.


He had earlier been in a movie which was called Ladyhawke  Or did I miss your posting?  I watched it and enjoyed it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladyhawke_(film)

PD

I'm a big fan of Ladyhawke. 

[Karl Henning]

TD: Robocop 2

Only the second time I've watched this, and there are reasons. Least of which, perhaps is that this score is not by Basil Poledouris. (The chorus singing "Robocop" over the closing credits is beyond parody. Paul Verhoeven generally declined to participate in sequels, and he refused this. Somehow the screenwriters for the original were absent  as well. I have to wonder if Frank Miller has enough self-regard to be embarrassed to have written this screenplay. The most interesting element, whether there can still be anything between Alex Murphy and his wife/widow, is just glanced upon and then left to wither on the vine. Peter Weller returns, but his character is scattered all over by a story which is really not much of a story (Robocop versus bigger and Frankensteinian Robocop 2), but which takes too long to come into focus (Robo has to be restored twice before the movie's midpoint). The violence in the first movie served a purpose, but in the second is excessive and cartoonish. You wonder why the franchise survived to yield a third movie.

[Cato]

He had earlier been in a movie which was called Ladyhawke  Or did I miss your posting?  I watched it and enjoyed it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladyhawke_(film)

PD

Ladyhawke is from 1985, War Games is from 1982/1983.


Last night we caught The Sandlot, a wonderful movie about boys in the 1950's and baseball.

My students loved it, but marveled at the freedom displayed in it by boys 9-12 years old back then,

But yes, that was my childhood as well.  You could run all over the neighborhood, or even neighborhoods, all day into the early evening: just be back for lunch and supper.

My over-protected students - from our current era of empty playgrounds and empty baseball fields and of adults supervising everything! - thought they were watching childhood from another dimension.

I suppose they were!  It is sad how things have changed on that basis, and society is poorer because of it.

Anyway, I would have ended the movie without the rather melancholy and contrived "Where are they today?" sequence.

Otherwise, great fun!




One annoyance: the movie came from 20th Century Fox c. 30 years ago.  Last night, on Disney-owned television network ABC (American Broadcasting Company), the movie was suddenly called a "Disney movie."

Disney, however, had no involvement in the movie's creation! 

[Todd]

I started streaming Beverly Hills Cop IV to see how much I could watch.  The first movie is an action-comedy/star vehicle classic with great bits (eg, banana in the tailpipe).  I literally can't remember one thing about the second movie, and I never watched the third movie.  I ought not to have tried to watch this.  The dialogue and set up are dreadful, the entirely recycled nostalgia soundtrack pointless, and the "acting" insipid.  I only got to see Murphy, Paul Reiser, and Judge Rheinhold revisit their parts before I threw in the towel at thirty-one minutes in.  Awful stuff.

[VonStupp]

Only the second time I've watched this, and there are reasons.  You wonder why the franchise survived to yield a third movie.

Not good, that much I remember. I think the third was a mite better, but only because of the return of Poledouris, as far as I remember.
VS

[Karl Henning]

I'm a big fan of Ladyhawke.

Slipping it into the tray now.

[Karl Henning]

Slipping it into the tray now.

"Are you flesh, or are you spirit?"
"I am Sorrow."

[Karl Henning]

And, more Matthew Broderick

[Karl Henning]

"Are you flesh, or are you spirit?"
"I am Sorrow."

One of the screenwriters was Tom Mankiewicz, son of screenwriter/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and therefore nephew of Herman Mankiewicz, who wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane, among others. In between viewings of Ladyhawke, I am apt to forget that Richard Donner directed it, and that Alan Parsons did the score.  Tom Mankiewicz had worked with Donner previously on Superman.