What is the last movie you saw? and rate it.

Project X: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1636826/

After starting the movie I realized that I saw it before especially when the parents interact with the teenagers planning the mother of all parties at the beginning.

You would think that watching people get drunk and jump off the house into the pool in the backyard would be boring, but there is enough story going on to keep one's interest. One amazing scene is when the teenagers get word from their kung-fu security guards that the police are coming. The entire party moves to the back yard and is silent. It's incredible. By the time the police come the second time, it's too late. They are now celebrities.

Any movie that I would enjoy a second time deserves a score of 10/10.

La stanza del figlio (2001). It’s an Italian move by a director called Nanni Moretti. When I first got it I wasn't sure if I would like it, but once I started watching it, I found it to be absolutely amazing.

The ending was simply wonderful. If you can find it I highly recommend that you watch it.

And of course I give it a rating of 10/10. Here is the IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208990/

Her (2013) with Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Rooney Mara. Actually I am still watching it right now, and for some reason it reminded me of this forum, and well I guess here I am. And it's really good so far, though it's making me a bit uncomfortable in some inexplicable way (probably because it hits a wee bit too close to home) because a lot of my correspondence is online now, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

This story of a young female concert pianist who inexplicably tries to commit suicide and then refuses to communicate with anyone stars James Mason at his silky best as the Svengali like guardian of his protege Anne Todd. Although he mistreats her badly, she has affairs with a young fellow student at the Royal Academy of Music and also with the society painter who is hired to paint her portrait. It is the psychiatrist, brilliantly acted by the charismatic Herbert Lom, who dedicates himself to uncovering the reason for her attempted suicide and refusal to speak. The reason is finally revealed as suppressed feelings for one of the three men in her life: no prizes for guessing who but that's women for you. The music is Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto and Beethoven's Pathetique sonata so it's romance writ large but, despite that, the performances more than compensate for the scenario. 7/10


http://youtu.be/uu1PHOZ9LGM

The trailer was pretty good on the Seventh Veil.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The trailer was pretty good on the Seventh Veil.

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You can watch the whole film on YouTube if you are interested.

I'm not very big of movie-watching, let alone contemporary cinematography. I tend to avoid anything that's made nowadays in movies and books if they're fiction. Now, documentaries and non-fiction books are another story. They might have useful data.

Dead-end Drive In (1986)

Possibly one of the best films I've ever watched. Top-notch to me yet the Scottish girl (she actually speaks gaidhlig: Scotland's REAL language) who watched with me said she saw nothing in it. Quite uninteresting, according to her.

Mile, Mile And A Half

Best film I've watched in a long, long time.

Although it is not really a movie, and it's not really a documentary either. It's just sort of a story.

It's the story of a group of friends hiking the John Muir Trail, which runs approximately 200 miles from Yosemite to Mount Whitney. One of them does still photography, one does motion pictures, one does panoramic photos, one does sound. Along the way, one guy drops out, but several others join in. The scenery is gorgeous, but the story really becomes more about life on the trail, the people they meet, the experiences they have, the stories everybody shares.

I think avid hikers as well as folks who never leave the city would enjoy the film.

I Netflixed it

Not exactly a movie but an interesting little item from Youtube.

Fascinating to see Dick Cheney's 1994 view of what an attack on Iraq would do.

http://youtu.be/TC3tINgWfQE


9/10

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

Not exactly a movie but an interesting little item from Youtube.

Fascinating to see Dick Cheney's 1994 view of what an attack on Iraq would do.

http://youtu.be/TC3tINgWfQE


9/10

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Enjoyable documentary, if that is what one calls these things. It confirmed my worst suspicions.

From a human nature perspective, there is that cute brunette in a white dress around 30 seconds in saying, "Airstrikes. Bomb them, bombing them again and again" (if I got the quote right).

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Enjoyable documentary, if that is what one calls these things. It confirmed my worst suspicions.

From a human nature perspective, there is that cute brunette in a white dress around 30 seconds in saying, "Airstrikes. Bomb them, bombing them again and again" (if I got the quote right).

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Having an interest in geo-politics, the events as described in this 'conspiracy theory' pretty much match the conclusion that I have come to. Having been forced off the 'Gold standard' under President Nixon, the cards are now beginning to stack up against the 'Oil standard' and, facing economic Armageddon, one wonders what the US will do in the event of a dollar collapse.

I figure we're headed for a deflation, but I know jack about economics. I also found that Seventh Veil movie on YouTube, but I haven't had time to watch it.

Anatole Litvak's screen version of Terence Rattigan's famous play was unfortunately filmed in Eastman colour when both the subject matter and settings would have been better in black and white. This resulted in very muddy colours and poor definition but Vivien Leigh and Kenneth More are good as the wife of a High Court judge, sympathetically played by Emlyn Williams, who leaves him for a former fighter pilot whose free-wheeling and hard drinking lifestyle is the opposite of the stolid sobriety of the judge. This is a recipe for disaster, for the failure of her efforts to reform her lover eventually leads to attempted suicide. Her situation is redeemed by Eric Portman's wisely pragmatic ex-doctor who has been struck off the register for some unexplained medical misdemeanor and the film ends intriguingly with the departure but possible return of the Kenneth More character.

7/10

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

Not exactly a movie but an interesting little item from Youtube.

Fascinating to see Dick Cheney's 1994 view of what an attack on Iraq would do.

http://youtu.be/TC3tINgWfQE


9/10

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Ha! Well there's 22 minutes I'll never get back. And I feel stupider for having sat through the whole thing. I wouldn't exactly call that YouTube video a "documentary". In my opinion it didn't rise to that level. I don't even think it rose to the level of a compelling "conspiracy theory." In fact most 3rd grade science projects have more academic rigor than did that film.

What I'd call that piece is - commie propaganda. The film maker has a fundamental problem with inductive reasoning and evidently a profound misunderstanding of global markets, the Fed's monetary policy - and of currency in general. The dollar didn't go from a "gold-backed currency to an oil-backed currency" - the dollar went from a currency in specie (gold) to a fiat currency (backed by the full faith of U.S. government). The U.S. dollar is the dominant international reserve currency precisely because of its stability and liquidity. Markets decide what currency they'd prefer to do business with, and right now it's primarily the dollar.

One day that will change, probably gradually as happened in the middle of the last century when the preferred international reserve currency went from the pound sterling to the dollar, but certain events could drive a change quite rapidly - the Fed losing its sh*t and starting to print money willy-nilly, or the U.S. government defaulting on its debt. Neither is likely, in the near future anyway.

So what about changing the dollar back to the gold standard? I'm no monetary-policy expert either, but when the vast majority of serious economists consider that crazy talk, I'll throw in with them rather than the You-tube experts. Intuitively it seems to me that a currency backed by jewelry is a bad idea.

Hey, here's one I Netflixed:

The Unknown Known

It's about the political life Donald Rumsfeld, essentially a no-holds-barred interview by Errol Morris where he tries to hold the former Secretary of Defense accountable for the missteps and mistakes during the George W. Bush administration. It's a fascinating look into the way his mind works. He doesn't dodge any questions except the last one. Morris asks, "One last question - why'd you agree to this interview?" Rumsfeld smiles and replies, "I have no idea."

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Originally Posted by Sancho

Ha! Well there's 22 minutes I'll never get back. And I feel stupider for having sat through the whole thing. I wouldn't exactly call that YouTube video a "documentary". In my opinion it didn't rise to that level. I don't even think it rose to the level of a compelling "conspiracy theory." In fact most 3rd grade science projects have more academic rigor than did that film.

What I'd call that piece is - commie propaganda. The film maker has a fundamental problem with inductive reasoning and evidently a profound misunderstanding of global markets, the Fed's monetary policy - and of currency in general. The dollar didn't go from a "gold-backed currency to an oil-backed currency" - the dollar went from a currency in specie (gold) to a fiat currency (backed by the full faith of U.S. government). The U.S. dollar is the dominant international reserve currency precisely because of its stability and liquidity. Markets decide what currency they'd prefer to do business with, and right now it's primarily the dollar.

One day that will change, probably gradually as happened in the middle of the last century when the preferred international reserve currency went from the pound sterling to the dollar, but certain events could drive a change quite rapidly - the Fed losing its sh*t and starting to print money willy-nilly, or the U.S. government defaulting on its debt. Neither is likely, in the near future anyway.

So what about changing the dollar back to the gold standard? I'm no monetary-policy expert either, but when the vast majority of serious economists consider that crazy talk, I'll throw in with them rather than the You-tube experts. Intuitively it seems to me that a currency backed by jewelry is a bad idea.

Hey, here's one I Netflixed:

The Unknown Known

It's about the political life Donald Rumsfeld, essentially a no-holds-barred interview by Errol Morris where he tries to hold the former Secretary of Defense accountable for the missteps and mistakes during the George W. Bush administration. It's a fascinating look into the way his mind works. He doesn't dodge any questions except the last one. Morris asks, "One last question - why'd you agree to this interview?" Rumsfeld smiles and replies, "I have no idea."

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Well You tube is admttedly often highly suspect in its political/economic videos but even before watching this one I, like many others, had been asking why the US and its allies were so intent on getting rid of Saddam Hussein, Muahmar Gadaffi and Bashar al-Assad and turning the Middle East into hornets nest in the process. There has to be a reason and Donald's 'Stuff Happens' doesn't quite cut it.

Been asking that question myself. But let me add a few of names to that trifecta of brotherly love you've got there: Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, The Ayatollah Khomeini, Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler...I'm sure there're more. Oh yeah, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Jefferson Davis, Antonio López de Santa Anna, and of course George III.

I do agree with what Howard Zinn said in that clip, something like - watch governments closely, listen to what they say, and watch what they do. But I'm not yet cynical enough to believe that the United States' recent foreign adventures where all planned out as some shady international economic deal. And an internet video that chops up sound bites of Alan Greenspan, Richard Nixon, Dick Cheney, and Fox News (P'Tooey); and then forms a general conclusion as to a grand plan behind U.S. foreign policy is a good example of horribly flawed inductive reasoning and, well, commie propaganda.

Anyway the big question that's been weighing on my mind lately is - what's going to happen when Rick Perry is elected President of the United States? You know, he's from TEXAS.

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Originally Posted by Sancho

Anyway the big question that's been weighing on my mind lately is - what's going to happen when Rick Perry is elected President of the United States? You know, he's from TEXAS.

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Surely the question is 'if' rather than 'when' but, assuming that he gets to the White House, how about secession?

With a cast of top class actors of the period, this thriller opens with a cleverly planned murder of an arms dealer by his wife and her lover. It then falls apart with the killer trapped in a lift while his car is stolen and used in the random killing of two German tourists. It was much admired in its day, but with a plot full of holes, Louis Malle's directorial debut is nothing to write home about even though the Paris locations are, as always, very watchable.

http://youtu.be/sjURPebrbrY

My wife and I watched Blended last night: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blended/ Initially, the dialog seemed goofy, but that was before we finished our bottles of Dragon's Milk: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/335/5428/. After the stout, the dialog was great. I was looking forward to a nice comedy like 50 First Dates from Barrymore and Sandlers and, with the help of the beer, they delivered.

Score:10/10

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

Surely the question is 'if' rather than 'when' but, assuming that he gets to the White House, how about secession?

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Oh no, it's when. Just ask Governor Perry. He'll tell ya. Definitely when. Boy Howdy. But what happens then? My guess is we'll all be packing heat and wearing those pointy toed cowboy boots that can smash a cockroach in a corner.

Braveheart 8/10

It just seemed appropriate with all this talk of secession (on both sides of the pond). I'm afraid though this time over here if Perry is elected, it'll be North that secedes. In fact, it's probable that everybody except TEXAS secedes.

I don't normally watch the news. I didn't know Scotland wanted to secede from the UK until I read about it in one of Biggus' poems. But I think he's right. The other parts of the UK should vote on whether they want to let Scotland stay.

And now I hear that Texas just might want to secede or the rest of us might want to secede from Texas and I think to myself if a state can avoid its share of the US national debt by seceding from the union, that might be a good move unless the remaining states don't ultimately plan to pay it back anyway.

At the library I found out that Joan Rivers died and so I checked out "Don't Start With Me". She was 78 when she made this movie, three years ago, and I don't know where she got the energy and the jokes were crude and funny, just what I expected.

Score: 10/10 and I wasn't even drinking.

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Originally Posted by Sancho

Oh no, it's when. Just ask Governor Perry. He'll tell ya. Definitely when. Boy Howdy. But what happens then? My guess is we'll all be packing heat and wearing those pointy toed cowboy boots that can smash a cockroach in a corner.

Braveheart 8/10

It just seemed appropriate with all this talk of secession (on both sides of the pond). I'm afraid though this time over here if Perry is elected, it'll be North that secedes. In fact, it's probable that everybody except TEXAS secedes.

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That might be construed as having an anti-Texan bias. After all, I seem to recall that the present incumbent's predecessor came from Texas and his oratory will go down in history like that of Demosthenes and Cicero....but not for the same reason.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I don't normally watch the news. I didn't know Scotland wanted to secede from the UK until I read about it in one of Biggus' poems. But I think he's right. The other parts of the UK should vote on whether they want to let Scotland stay.

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Well they decided against independence. One of the many questions that might have concerned them was what their national anthem would be. Here's one possibility:



http://youtu.be/dF7wXe1LznU

^ouch, but also, Hahaha! Toot that saxophone.

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

That might be construed as having an anti-Texan bias. After all, I seem to recall that the present incumbent's predecessor came from Texas and his oratory will go down in history like that of Demosthenes and Cicero....but not for the same reason.

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Heh-heh, Dubya does have a way with words, don't he - a splendiferous oratalogical gift.

The sad thing about it is that people are always misunderestimating him. It's gittin' me all hot under the collar just thinkin' about it. I'm fixin' to git heat frustration!

The Outlaw Josey Wales, 10/10

Based on the book, Gone To TEXAS, by Forrest (Asa) Carter, a man with very checkered past.

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Originally Posted by Sancho

Heh-heh, Dubya does have a way with words, don't he - a splendiferous oratalogical gift.

The sad thing about it is that people are always misunderestimating him.

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This reminds me of the time when during his term of office there was a large anti-Bush demonstration in London about the Iraq war. A reporter covering the event wrote that he tried to interview one of the demonstrators but he couldn't understand him because the man was still wearing his George W Bush mask.

The governor of TEXAS that preceded Dubya probably said it best:

Poor George, he caint help it - he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.

http://youtu.be/ZgeQ_y7LMRI

Although the quote was about George H.W. Bush, it works for junior as well. Ann Richards truly had a way with words. That speech at the '88 Democratic Convention made her nationally and even internationally famous. Queen Elizabeth noticed, in fact she visited the governor in Austin in '91.

Ann Richards was also the last (and only) TEXAS governor that I ever voted for. I was living there at the time. She was defeated for reelection by Dubya in a particularly nasty campaign. It was a real smear job designed by the miscreant Karl Rove.

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

Well they decided against independence. One of the many questions that might have concerned them was what their national anthem would be. Here's one possibility:



http://youtu.be/dF7wXe1LznU

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That potential national anthem got me wondering what "Hoots Mon" even means.

I asked my wife if she knew that Scotland wanted to secede. She told me that was old news and that they voted against secession confirming what you said. I suppose I could have just looked this up on the internet. She said that Scotland has all the natural resources and the nukes. No wonder they wanted to secede.

For movies, I saw the documentary, "Bad Grandpa .5". My wife declined to view it with me. It was a good description of how they made "Bad Grandpa", a movie both of us enjoyed.

Score: 10/10

This British film has a weird provenance insofar as its cast and director are concerned. It was directed by Laslo Benedek, director of The Wild One, and stars Dorothy Dandridge, Edmund Purdom and Trevor Howard; casting doesn't get much weirder than that. A few stalwarts of British supporting actors such as Michael Hordern, Alfred Burke and Paul Stassino complete the lineup. The story looks as though it was made up as they went along and it's a pity to see Trevor Howard in such low grade material, although the opening scene where a burglary is carried out in total silence in the presence of the sleeping victim was genuinely exciting. All in all though, it falls into that category where someone with too much money backs a film that should never have been made.

4/10

Who Is Dayani Cristal?
2013
8/10

It's a documentary about migrant workers coming into the United States from south of the border. I know, as soon as I said "documentary" it sounds boring, but it's not. Here's the set up:

Deputies from the Pima County Sheriff Department are heading out into Sonora Desert to do a body recovery. Pima County is in Southern Arizona and runs from Tucson to the Mexican border. There are some beautiful shots of the desert, but then you see the buzzards circling. The body is of a young man and it is beginning to bloat. Thankfully the film makers digitally blurred the man's face. The one distinguishing characteristic of the body is a tattoo across his chest: Dayani Cristal, hence the name of the film.

You then spend time with the coroner and a representative from the Mexican Consulate in a forensics lab in Tucson. Hats off to these two for what they do. They were serious and conscientious about their task. At one point the coroner looks at the camera and sort of sheepishly says something like - I had to remove the hands and try to rehydrate them to get good fingerprints.

They get a hit on the fingerprints and determine that the man is a migrant worker from Honduras. From there the film takes you along the man's journey from his village in Honduras to the desert near Tucson - and back. The young Mexican actor, Gael Garcia Bernal, narrates as he tries to retrace the man's footsteps, riding atop trains, sleeping in shelters, and chatting with people who are making the trip for real - to the promised land.

It's gritty, it's real, and it's personal.

"Who is Dayani Cristal" sounds interesting. I'll have to keep it on my list with the others people recommend here.

I ran into this short film (less than 12 minutes) as an advertisement prior to watching some other YouTube video, but it was the only advertisement I actually finished watching. It is one of the Jameson First Shot 2014 series of short films called "The Mundane Goddess" written and directed by Henco J: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujqoQ6V_kl0

The Greek gods have incarnated as ordinary people and Hera is in therapy complaining about her life.

Score: 8/10

Royal Opera House's production of Tosca.

I loved it! Tosca is one of my favourites.

10/10

This British crime thriller is definitely a cut above others of the genre. It shows the frustratingly painstaking work that the police undertake in tracing the killer of a woman whose dismembered body is found in a house at the southern seaside resort of Brighton.
Starting from almost nothing, the Detective Superintendent and his two sergeants follow some false leads before they identify the victim by a process of elimination and they twice arrest the wrong man before the murderer is finally brought to light.
How this happens even astounds the police as the case is finally brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
The film has been much praised among critics for its documentary style and it is both engrossing and exciting by turns.


8/10

Godzilla. It was fun. 7.8/10

D.E.B.S. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367631/

I think I've seen all the recent comedy and so I started looking up the old stuff in the library. It needs to be stupid enough to wind me down at the end of the day, but not too stupid that I'll fall asleep. This one was just right.

The D.E.B.S. are female spies recruited when they took their college entrance exams with secret questions. They remind me of a mix between the powerpuff girls and Charlie's angels. There is also a bad girl and her male assistant. They are so misrepresented by the spy agency that everyone is afraid to come in contact with them. The D.E.B.S. are trying to bring them to justice.

If one needs more than mini-skirted teenage spies carrying weapons that should be too heavy for them to lift, there is an interesting theme about lying and deliberate misrepresentation that could keep an adult entertained.

Score: 8/10

This romantic tragedy was directed by Anatole Litvak and stars Kirk Douglas and French actress Dany Robin. The story revolves around a GI (Douglas), based in liberated Paris during WWII, agreeing to pose as the husband of a young French girl from St Malo (Robin) in order that she can obtain a room under wartime laws then in place. What starts out as a wary relationship slowly develops into a romance that leads the soldier to propose marriage, but he needs the permission of his commanding officer who thinks that Douglas has given in to a whim and has him transferred to another city before he can contact the girl who, thinking that she has been deserted, kills herself. The girl had told him that she had only been happy once when she was on holiday and staying in a small hotel by the sea in Villefranche on the French Riviera. Years later, the GI returns as a civilian to France and goes to Villefranche to stay at the same hotel and while there he runs into his former commanding officer who is there on holiday with his wife. When asked about the wartime incident, he is dashed to hear that his refusal to allow the marriage resulted in the girl's suicide.
I might have thought the later meeting of both men in a small French seaside town was too much of a coincidence except for the fact that, some years after I had left the Home Office in London, a woman I had worked with was staying at the same Villefranche hotel as myself.

Last movie I saw was 'I Saw the Devil,' a very brutal and dark story about a serial killer who murders a girl who just happens to be both the daughter of a police chief and has a boyfriend whose a federal-type agent and national mixed martial arts champion. With a recipe like that you'd think this was some kinda dark, 90's style action flick, but it's not... the hero proves to be as brutal as the killer, harming people himself in order to get what he wants.

In the end he defeats the bad guy only to realize now he's the bad guy?

I saw the "Carrie" remake. 1/10 Horrible movie. Probably one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It was laughably awfully made. The lead actress was stupid. Terrible to watch. I can't say enough to describe how I completely hated it. It was the opposite of bliss.

With Halloween ending the month of October, the library had all its suspense videos available for free rental. I looked them over and couldn't find any I wanted to watch. If I have to cover my eyes to protect myself from seeing some monster pop out, why bother watching the movie? That's when I saw the movies, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King on display and although I've seen them before, it is October.

The Mummy: Score 9/10

The Mummy Returns: Score 8/10 Imhotep's despair when his lady love abandoned him at the end was worth the wait. I don't see how the Scorpion King in this movie relates to the one in the next.

The Scorpion King: Score 10/10

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Originally Posted by Varenne Rodin

I saw the "Carrie" remake. 1/10 Horrible movie. Probably one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It was laughably awfully made. The lead actress was stupid. Terrible to watch. I can't say enough to describe how I completely hated it. It was the opposite of bliss.

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the original or the remake?

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Originally Posted by HCabret

the original or the remake?

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The remake. The original is a work of art. I love De Palma.