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

300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

Historical background: Second Persian invasion of Greek city-states which ended in a stalemate at one front and Persian loss at the other, in the year 480 BC.

It reinforces old school Orientalist characterisation in worst possible way and at the same time frames the Persians as war fanatics interested only in death and destruction.

Good computer-generated action but a lousy piece of political propaganda. 300's first episode that came out a few years ago was much better entertainment.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I saw Born Yesterday and it kind of reminded me of a play that was made into a movie.

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That's probably because originally it was a play.

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

That's probably because originally it was a play.

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Yes, I see it was: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_Yesterday

I wonder why I felt the disconnect. Perhaps the age of the play? Or the way the scenes changed? It did seem more serious than the other movies in the set except for Gross Anatomy. The others could have been labeled "S" for "Stupid", which is often all I want to see.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Yes, I see it was: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_Yesterday

I wonder why I felt the disconnect. Perhaps the age of the play? Or the way the scenes changed? It did seem more serious than the other movies in the set except for Gross Anatomy. The others could have been labeled "S" for "Stupid", which is often all I want to see.

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I haven't seen the film but it did make an impact when it came out, largely due to Judy Holliday's performance that won her an academy award for best actress. I imagine that being directed by George Cukor also helped.

If you have a penchant for films labeled "S" for stupid , the last 50 years gives you limitless choice.

I saw Annabelle last month. It's very nice, funny horror film and I highly recommend this. It tells the story of a couple of women who want to play with the same doll – Annabelle. 3/10

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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...

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I agree, it was a waste of time.

This neat little British film stars the then husband and wife team of buxom Hazel Court and handsome Dermot Walsh who play a married couple from Canada who have come to England and who buy a motorised yacht even though the ships custodian tells them that it's haunted. The ghost of a marine engineer haunts the engine room and the reason is explained when they call in a medium who under an induced trance reveals a tale of adultery and murder among the ships former crew.

7/10

I wasn't going to admit I watched these, but then I thought, why not?

Don Peyote: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1828968/

This starts out with some information about the hundredth monkey which seems to say if you can convince just enough people then you will convince everyone. I don't think this is quite true although there is something to the idea of people influencing others indirectly.

So this is about a guy who is getting married. His girlfriend is also pregnant and they did this on purpose. If there is any message for the females, it might be first get married and then get pregnant, but the story is more about the guy's views of reality especially after taking more than his share of drugs and drinking too much ayahuasca. There are also his adventures while evolving into Homo sanctus, or something like that.

Apparently, at the end he meets his son years later after his girlfriend abandoned him since he abandoned them while trying to become Homo sanctus. I guess his son was the hundredth monkey. I hope I didn't spoil the ending for anyone. I didn't understand it anyway.

Score: 3/10

Behaving Badly: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2314824/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Rick Stevens (Nat Wolff) is trying to get a cute girl (Selena Gomez) to like him and he makes a lot of mistakes along the way, but then most of his friends and family are mistakes waiting to happen. There are some nice scenes with his guardian angel or imaginary friend or whatever she was. At one point she says she is taking a vacation and leaving him on his own. That was the best scene for me.

For movies like this, I think the 'S' rating is a little too generous, but I did enjoy it.

Score: 8/10

Escape into Night (1972): A six-part British TV serial adaptation of Catherine Storr's children's fantasy novel Marianne Dreams. I only recently learned of the existence of this show, and having loved Bernard Rose's Paperhouse (1988), based on the same novel, I had to check it out.

Here's Wikipedia's plot summary of the source novel, which applies to both media versions: Marianne is a young girl who is bedridden with a long-term illness. She draws a picture to fill her time, and finds that she spends her dreams within the picture she has drawn. As time goes by, she becomes sicker, and starts to spend more and more time trapped within her fantasy world, and her attempts to make things better by adding to and crossing out things in the drawing make things progressively worse. Her only companion in her dreamworld is a boy called Mark, who is also a long-term invalid in the real world.

Well, the TV version is very different from the later movie. I understand from reviews that this version is much more faithful to the novel (which I haven't read), but I actually liked most of the plot changes the movie made. It didn't help that the lead actress of the show, Vikki Chambers, was very stiff, while the movie's lead, Charlotte Burke, was much, much better. The boys who played Mark in both versions were very good as well. In supporting roles, the differences between professional film actors and '70s low-budget British TV actors are about as you'd expect.

In general, the TV version is worth watching once, but the film is a must-see. Sadly, it's unavailable on DVD in the U.S., so I had to ask my father to bring a copy back when he took a trip to England.

Escape into Night: 7/10
Paperhouse: 10/10

Flashpoint (1984): Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams are border patrol officers who come across a long-buried jeep containing a mysterious stash of money and a rifle, and then soon find themselves up against some federal agents who have their own agenda.

I've been enjoying the Tangerine Dream soundtrack CD from this movie for 30 years, but had never seen the film itself until now. Sadly, it's pretty disposable. The plot turns out to be thin and slow to progress, the climax just kind of happens, and the director strangely ends up breaking the fourth wall to explain the MacGuffins to the audience, while the lead characters never do learn exactly what's going on. The main positives in the movie, besides the soundtrack (nice to see the music in context at last), are the always likeable Kristofferson and Kurtwood Smith (That 70s Show) as the villainous lead Fed.

4/10

Sounds like a good movie and a good book, Calidore. I'll have to check out the book.

This is a filmed version of a scandal so great that it makes the Clinton/Lewinsky affair look like a minor indiscretion.
Based on a series of books written since, it concerns what became known as the Profumo affair. John Profumo was a role model for pillar of society wannabes. Public school and Oxford educated, decorated in WWII, Conservative member of parliament and married to a beautiful actress, he had risen through the political ranks to be appointed Minister for War in the Conservative government of 1959.
By 1960, however, the siren voices of liberalism had persuaded the establishment to open its doors to the lower echelons of society and the result was, inter alia, the Profumo affair in which the MP became involved with a winsome prostitute Christine Keeler, among whose lovers was a soviet naval attaché. Another prostitute, Mandy Rice-Davies, Keeler's friend, was also implicated in the affair, as were a number of upper crust figures who had also enjoyed the girls' favours.
The linchpin of this network of impropriety was a society osteopath, Stephen Ward, who acted as a procurer for his clients and eventually committed suicide when charged with living off of the immoral earnings of prostitutes.
When the truth emerged into the public domain, it shook British society to its foundations.

The film opens very well with newsreel showing Profumo being appointed War Minister and switches to Keeler leaving home to go to London where she gets a job in a strip club and meets Ward and Rice-Davies. Ward introduces the girls to his circle of bigwigs including Ivanov the Russian naval attaché.
At a party thrown at Cliveden, the aristocratic seat of Viscount Astor, Keeler meets Profumo and their affair begins. The story continues to the point where Ward, realising that he is going to be made the scapegoat, kills himself.
It's well acted but completely fails to mention the colossal impact of the fallout from the scandal when it was uncovered by a Labour politician and splashed all over the media for weeks. It concentrates mainly on Ward's relationship with Keeler and gives but small mention to Rice-Davies who was a major figure in the affair.

6/10

I do remember the Clinton/Lewinsky affair. However, I haven't heard of Profumo before, but then my political awareness is almost unconscious. I wonder how the social fallout differed.

I've watched some rather enjoyable movies:

Chef: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2883512/

My wife told me that Sofía Margarita Vergara Vergara (her full name) was very famous and even had a line of clothing. She did seem hotter than Scarlett Johannsson which I didn't think was possible. Anyway, the nice part about the movie was the ending where the nemesis became the opposite.

Score: 10/10

Begin Again: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1980929/

Like Chef there is a couple that has problems and then get back together again. The best scene for me was when Keira Knightly's character discovers her boyfriend is seeing another woman just by listening to his music and slaps him. I also liked the idea that the two main characters did not have an affair and how they released their album in the end.

Score: 10/10

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I do remember the Clinton/Lewinsky affair. However, I haven't heard of Profumo before, but then my political awareness is almost unconscious. I wonder how the social fallout differed.

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Well, while calls for Clinton to be impeached were rebuffed and he went on to complete his term of office, Profumo was forced to resign and the government almost collapsed but held on for another year before being beaten in the following election.
The soviet naval attaché was recalled to Moscow but he was almost certainly a spy and was therefore of no further use in that capacity.

Here's how I covered the affair in my novel Pro Bono Publico:

The press, knowing they were onto something extraordinary, began to investigate the affair more rigorously, and as their journalists got to work, they uncovered a vein of impropriety implicating some of the highest names in the land as being among those attending licentious parties at one of England’s finest country houses. The allegations included call girls and drugs and, with serious implications for the country’s security, a soviet naval attaché was revealed as the client of a young woman named in the affair as the Cabinet Minister’s lover.
The sexual repression inherited from Puritan and Victorian forebears gives rise to an exaggerated prurience among the English and, as the story evolved, the public waited eagerly for new aspects of the scandal to be revealed. Their expectations were fully realised when, some weeks after the Cabinet Minister’s denial, the country’s leading tabloid published irrefutable evidence of his extramarital affair and the scandalous events surrounding it.

The involvement of the likely soviet spy complicated matters. Then the public denial of what was latter shown to be true destroyed credibility.

I can see how it was a mess. In the case of Clinton there weren't any spies involved.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The involvement of the likely soviet spy complicated matters. Then the public denial of what was latter shown to be true destroyed credibility.

I can see how it was a mess. In the case of Clinton there weren't any spies involved.

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Yes, governmental credibility was further damaged due to the appointment by the outgoing Prime Minister, who resigned for health reasons a few months after Profumo, of Sir Alec Douglas Home; a personal friend of the PM.
There is a wonderful irony in the fact that the Labour MP who uncovered the story was later caught by police as he drove around Hyde park importuning women, which in itself might be considered unusual given the number of homosexuals among members of parliament.

The Thing from Another World (1951): Hadn't watched this in quite a while, and it's still a decent, polished old-school creature feature. The only cast member who really stands out is pre-Gunsmoke James Arness as the alien, and at 6-foot-7, he can't help it. This actually has all the ingredients of an early Doctor Who base-under-siege story, making me wonder if it was an influence on the template.
8/10