WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

Bogie · Post by **Bogie** » June 2nd, 2008, 9:35 am

I just finished watching the Hal Roach feature The Housekeeper's Daughter. It's kinda hard to talk about the movie without spoiling it but needless to say lots of apparent situations to some characters aren't what they seem which gives the audience some huge laughs. Adolph Menjou as the hard drinking womanizing ace reporter was a hoot! Seriously this movie was non stop laughter from almost start to finish. My only complaints are that the lead (John Hubbard) was a bit weak and the ending was just a little TOO far fetched. I thought the whole fireworks fight dragged on too long.

A solid 4 out of 5 stars from me.

Bogie · Post by **Bogie** » June 2nd, 2008, 1:00 pm

Next up in my trio of movies today is Too Many Husbands (1940)

Hmm I dunno, i'm a bit conflicted about this one. I'm actually surprised that the premise for this movie made it past the censors of the day. Basically Fred MacMurray is a man who was presumed dead at sea who comes back home to find his wife is now married to his best friend. Hilarity ensues when the wife played by Jean Arthur who looked especially delicious in this film has to decide on which husband to choose.

This is where the whole movie falls down to me. She's only been married to the best friend (Melvyn Douglas) for 6 months yet she's acting like she's been with him for years and can't decide to go back with her first husband. You then have the totally immature rigmarole of her liking the predicament and pitting the two men against each other. This does provide some good comedy but in some ways is quite juvenile and stupid.

Oh and major props should be given to Harry Davenport who played Arthur's father. His role was a bit thankless but I felt that he was the only sane person in this screwball comedy.

2 out of 5 stars.

Post by **movieman1957** » June 2nd, 2008, 2:05 pm

Re: Too Many Husbands

I liked this one better than you. It's the same basic plot as "My Favorite Wife."

I think the cast really works well together. The biggest problem I have with it (as do some others) is that the movie is never really resolved. There they are, the three of them dancing. What happens? Don't know.

I love Jean Arthur so that gives a better rating alone.

charliechaplinfan · Post by **charliechaplinfan** » June 2nd, 2008, 2:05 pm

Hedvig, I love Roman Holiday. Perhaps one of these days I'll give The Queen a try

Bogie · Post by **Bogie** » June 2nd, 2008, 4:27 pm

...and now the final movie of the day.

As an aside i've got a ton of movies on the docket the next couple days so i'll be giving very scattershot thoughts for each film. If there's one that I absolutely love or hate i'll expand it to a full review.

Where was I? Oh yes! Turnabout (1940)

John Hubbard was a lot better in this film. Basically it's about a couple that bickers and fights. The husband is a dynamo of a guy, always out for adventure and doing crazy health related things. He's also a bit of a corrupt ad man as well. The wife is your typical society wife who's more genteel. Anyways they somehow communicate with a statue of a man on their mantel who switches them.

and herein lies the one problem with the movie. I think it would've been a lot better if the actors were allowed to perform as the switched personalities instead you have the voices switched as the actors played out their new personalities physically.

This movie isn't LOL funny but there are some good moments. Adolphe Menjou again is fantastic as one of the ad executives and poor Donald Meek (I see this guy a lot in these old movies) as the harried butler who nearly has a nervous breakdown after the body switch!

Pretty good movie and I give it 2 1/2 stars. Oh and you just gotta love the gag at the end of the film LOL

Hollis · Post by **Hollis** » June 3rd, 2008, 8:42 am

Good morning everyone,

In the last week I've watched "There Will Be Blood" and "No Country For Old Men." Forgive me, but I found the former slightly confusing at times although the acting itself was superb. Especially Daniel Day-Lewis. The latter was one of the more memorable films in recent memory and will no doubt be viewed as a "Classic" film as time goes by. Without a doubt, it was the best (and most understated) performance I've ever seen from Tommy Lee Jones. An unexpected and more than pleasant surprise. Next on my NetFlix Queue comes "The Usual Suspects" which is another film I've never seen. From what I've been told, I'm sure to enjoy it.

As always,

Hollis

jdb1 · Post by **jdb1** » June 3rd, 2008, 10:56 am

Bogie, I really like Turnabout. I recorded it, and I've liked it more with each viewing. I agree with you about the switch. At first, I found it a little confusing, and I also think it took place too far into the movie. However, the supporting players are so good, and the little side stories are really funny -- the chaotic advertising agency; poor, befuddled William Gargan as the "silent partner" with nothing to do and no voice in what goes on. If you look at it a few more time, you'll get a lot of the bits of business you may have missed the first time. Mary Astor looking gorgeous; Franklin Pangborn as "Mr. Pingboom" -- that whole Pingboom thing is soooo funny.

Bogie · Post by **Bogie** » June 4th, 2008, 9:42 am

Well yesterday was a bit of a bust as my upper body seized up on me and I felt wretched for most of the day

I even missed The Bitter Tea of General Yen. ARGH!

Hopefully I can find it through other means.

I did watch two movies though starring John Derek. The first was The Family Secret. The movie's about a teen (Derek) who kills a family friend in self defense. His father (Lee J. Cobb) is a lawyer who feels his son should explain everything to the DA but when the son goes to tell the DA they've found someone else is the killer. The family knows that the guy being fingered is innocent and eventually Cobb becomes the man's lawyer.

The movie also has a cock eyed love story thrown in there that isn't really believable and Derek's character is VERY unsympathetic throughout. It held my attention for a while but the last 3rd of the movie was boring as hell.

The 2nd John Derek movie I saw was much more entertaining even though it's unoriginal and there's been better films in the genre. The film is The Masked Avenger. Personally I thought the movie should've been called Ghost of Monte Cristo but I guess they didn't have the rights to the Monte Cristo name.

Nonetheless Derek plays the son of an Italian Governor who is killed by the Military leader of the district played by Anthony Quinn. Essentially Quinn is a traitor by lining his pockets and allowing the enemies of Italy to take over. Derek becomes his captive but he eventually gets out and dresses up as the Ghost of Monte Cristo in order to protect the people. There's also the obligatory love story and this time it was a lot better as his love interest is a feisty young lady who knows how to use the sword and can protect herself for the most part.

Quinn is excellent as the heavy and Derek was a lot more likable in this movie. A lot of the scenes had that "I coulda swore i've seen this movie before" quality to it which just shows how routine the movie was as it was a glossed up B movie. Nonetheless I truly enjoyed it and this rating is going to be more due to enjoyment rather then the technical aspects....

3 out of 5 stars.

mrsl · Post by **mrsl** » June 4th, 2008, 10:55 am

Lucky Me!

I woke up and went into the living room, and turned on the TV just as General Yen was starting, and I turned it off 15 minutes before the end. I was fighting to stay awake until the end but something has to perk your interest in order to keep the old peepers open. I'm sorry but the movie was just too transparent. In his entrance scene, walking down the corridor, I knew Jones was not a nice guy, and the mistress Mali was definitely bad news, nor can I believe the audiences accepting Miss Stanwyck as such an innocent flower after some of the silents she made. You might say it was the time or the circumstances, but this has happened before, and if I tune into a movie that grabs me, nothing lets me fall back to sleep until it's over, but in this case I was talking to myself saying 'get this thing over with, already'. I love Ms. BS and this is probably the first movie starring her that didn't get to me.

As for the string of John Derek movies, as an actor he had a lot to learn, and his only saving grace was in choosing beautiful women for his wives.

Anne

charliechaplinfan · Post by **charliechaplinfan** » June 4th, 2008, 2:01 pm

Yesterday I could swaer I left a post about a film I'd watched. I've either put it on the wrong thread but I can't find it or I got interrupted whilst leaving the post, which is very likely, so I'll leave it again. Sorry if some of you are reading it twice

I watched Stage Door a film I've been wanting to see for so long. The cast list is so impressive. Kate Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball, Gail Patrick, Ann Miller, Constance Collier and Adolphe Menjou.

Kate Hepburn arrives at the Footlight Club a house that puts up young female theatre hopefuls. She's obviously a cut above and some of the girls are 'wary' of her. She rooms with Ginger who plays a sassy theatre hopeful. The girls rooming at the Footlight Club have a easy comaraderie. Adolphe Menjou is a slimy theatrical agent who dates Gail Patrick and then decides to take Ginger out for a night (hilarious) before moving on to Kate. Kate gets a role that one of the other girls wanted and precipitates the girls decline.

This is a special movie, the dialogue is snappy and witty, the performances are great, I truly thought it was Ginger's movie until the last 20 minutes when Kate snatched it right back again. Everyone gives a good performance. A starstudded cast that works.

Last night I watched The Americanisation of Emily Julie Andrews and James Garner. From on a brilliant screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky. James Garner's character isn't far removed from the character he plays in The Great Escape the man who gets things. Julie Andrews does not play her Mary Poppins type roles. Instead she is a sexually liberated women, widowed in the war who had a stint as an ambulance driver but decided to move jobs as because she kept sleeping with the soldiers before they went back to the front and they never came back to her. 'Sentimental' is how she puts it. The film is an exploration of war and it's effects. It's not maudlin but it is reflective.

I like James Garner. For years he was the man my mother used to like on TV, Jim Rockford.

Then I watched The Late George Apley a brilliant later film starring Ronald Colman. The film is multilayered it tells of an important Boston family whose children are ready to start flying the nest and making good marriages. Both children want to marry their hearts desires but that's not the thing that is done in Boston. Ronald Colman is rigid to the principals he was brought up with. Gradually we learn how he wanted to marry someone else but his family didn;t approve and he went abroad and married his cousin when he came back. Their marriage has been a successful one. They are similar people, they have similar tastes but passion perhaps is lacking there. This is a story of one man's unbending to try to give his children what they want. In one charming scene he meets the father of the gilr his son wants to be married. He thinks them wrong as they are not alike but is willing to let his son marry the girl of his chance only to be told by the girls father that the match is suitable. I can't possibly do this film justice. It's a very pleasant way to while away an hour and a half.

MikeBSG · Post by **MikeBSG** » June 5th, 2008, 3:28 pm

Yesterday, I watched "Samurai Assassin," a 1965 film that starred Toshiro Mifune. For much of its length, Mifune was the best thing in it. The movie is based on a real assassination in 1860 Japan, and most of the scenes seemed to be the Japanese version of "As you know, Bob..." in which one character tells another character a lot of background information.

However, Mifune's performance and character were absolutely first rate.

And then the movie concluded with one of the greatest action sequences I've ever seen.

Sixty samurai are defending the Shogun. Sixteen ronin are trying to assassinate the Shogun. A snowstorm lashes flakes into everyone's face as they struggle to the death.

It would be worth renting a theater, a projectionist and a print of the film to watch this scene rather than see it crammed onto a small TV screen. However, it was breathtaking as we saw the duels in the snow and saw how the characters' rivalries and fates played out.

In some ways, this made me think of "The Wild Bunch." I wondered if Peckinpah had seen this film, for some points closely reminded me of his work.

ChiO · Post by **ChiO** » June 6th, 2008, 9:16 am

I'm not a huge fan of musicals, but I'd wanted to watch THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT for a long time and recent discussions here finally pushed me. In-depth review: WOW! Loved everything about it, but especially Michel Legrand's music. Shame on me for waiting so long.

At the request of our baby, home from college, she and I watched AMERICAN GANGSTER. I enjoyed it more than I expected -- Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe were in fine form -- but didn't we watch this in THE GODFATHER, THE GODFATHER, Part 2, and SERPICO?

AFTER LIFE (Hirokazu Koreeda, 1999): When people die, they go to a way station. For three days, the staff (also dead folks) helps them select a memory. Over the next four days, the staff recreates that memory, the person whose memory it is reviews it, and then that is the only memory the person has for eternity. A happy older woman with a lifetime of wonderful memories is able to select one immediately. A man has no memories, so he reviews his life on videotape to try to find one. Another man has only bad memories, so, once assured that all other memories will be wiped out upon his selection, he chooses his earliest memory. The young rebel tries to refuse to choose, then asks if his memory can be a fantasy that he had.

When I first saw AFTER LIFE three years ago, my immediate reaction was that it was a reasonably good movie, but then I found myself thinking about it constantly. Wouldn't it be grand to go through eternity with one glorious memory? Or, wouldn't going through eternity with one's life reduced to a single memory be the very definition of Hell? Watching it this time opened a new train of thought:

In the Greek Orthodox tradition, there is a hymn sung at the end of the funeral service and all subsequent memorials that, in translation, is:

Eternal be your memory/Eternal be your memory/May your memory be eternal.

It is intended to mean that we pray, on behalf of the deceased, that there are always living persons remembering the deceased, that memory thereby making the deceased eternal. There is an ambiguity, however, in the language (which, after discussion with our priest, he said also exists in the Greek, but he had never noticed it). It can also be a prayer that the deceased retain memory for eternity and thereby give the deceased an eternal connection with others.

AFTER LIFE's tag line was "What memory would you choose?" That is a fun parlor game, but this film is far more profound, causing one to examine the meaning of life, one's own life, "after life", and one's current memory of those who have gone before.

feaito · Post by **feaito** » June 7th, 2008, 12:45 am

The other day I watched a rather disturbing contemporary film titled "Bosque de Sombras" (2006) (The Backwoods), a Spanish co-production starring Gary Oldman. A very downbeat, rather realistic movie, set in a rustic isolated village in the north of Spain, where Oldman has a cottage. Some strong stuff and well acted by most of the cast, save Virginie Ledoyen, who's very attractive but not very talented.

Today I watched in my building's small projection room "Bluebeard's Eighth Wife" (1938), a funny and engaging Lubitsch film with a knockout pairing: Colbert and Cooper, plus David Niven, E. E. Horton, Elizabeth Patterson, Herman Bing et al. A zany, screwball comedy with Lubitch's famous touch. Very amusing. Liked it a lot. Maltin's rating is totally unfair. The opening sequence dealing with the pajamas is superb. Underrated. A small gem. Thanks Ollie.

Post by **movieman1957** » June 7th, 2008, 9:48 am

It must be me but are newer movies running way too long.

I saw "American Gangster." Denzell Washington was really good and Russell Crowe was ok but nothing great. His part really wasn't all that deep, I thought.

The back story took forever to get going and when the two leads meet up it's rather late. The thing that bothered me most about it was Washington, as a successful drug king pin, at one point buys this huge mansion for his whole family to live in. His mother, who is dirt poor, asks no questions and doesn't even mention the fact that she ignored it until late in the picture. That doesn't make her look very good.

Rough language, violence and some annoying time errors (it is from the late 60's through the mid 70's)

Also watched "The Kite Runner." OK film about boy who escapes Afghanistan when the Russians come only to have to come back after the Taliban take over to rescue a young boy. Interesting story marred by length getting to it.

Like I said, maybe it's just me.

Bogie · Post by **Bogie** » June 7th, 2008, 1:54 pm

I don't think it's just you. Some of the longer movies out today are that long for Oscar/prestige reasons. Now there's a movie that's in the works that I WANT to be over 2 hrs long and that's the biopic on Marvin Gaye that's going to be pitched to the studios this week coming. The scriptwriter is the guy that wrote Blood Diamond and the director is the guy that helmed the "Italian Job" remake.

There's also a much smaller budget one in the works helmed by James Gandolfini's production company and starring Jesse L. Martin as Marvin. That movie will be focusing on the last 5 years of Marvin's life. That movie looks like it may never get off the ground though as there's no financing right now.

ANYWAYS........

I saw Our Relations this morning/afternoon and thought it was just ok which is a letdown as this was one feature from The Boys that i've wanted to see ever since I first read about it. Now don't get me wrong, there are some pretty good set pieces like the whole bit where Stan and Ollie more or less rearranges James Finlayson's face in the restaurant and the ending was comic genius but the rest of the movie was just "meh". One complaint I have is that the twins acted more or less the same way as Stan and Ollie. I think they should've differentiated their twins a lot more then they did.

Overall it's still 3 out of 5 stars just not their best work IMO.

The Silver Screen Oasis

The Silver Screen Oasis

WHAT FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?