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

[Calidore]

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

[qimissung]

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

[Emil Miller]

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

[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.

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

[Emil Miller]

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.

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.

[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.

[Emil Miller]

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.

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.

[Calidore]

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

[Emil Miller]

The Thing from Another World (1951): 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

It probably was, as in most science fiction, nothing succeeds like excess.

[Ecurb]

I saw "Whiplash" last night. It's a movie about music and teaching: a Jazz drummer studying at a thinly disguised Julliard is abused by a teacher who runs the school's Jazz ensemble as if it were a Marine boot camp. He screams at and abuses his students. His excuse? He wants to motivate them to true greatness, like Charlie Parker was motivated when some drummer I hadn't heard of threw a cymbal at him.

The lead actor is a kid so obsessed with drumming (he drums until his hands bleed, and he races to perform at a concert after a bloody car accident) that any reasonable adult would encourage him to take it easy. Not Fletcher (the teacher, played by J.K. Simmons). He, evidently, comes from the Vince Lombardi, football-coach school of motivation, screaming, belittling and abusing. The film is less about music than it is about the psychotic desire for control

In the end, while the film is intense, it is overblown and not believable. In addition -- who want to hear a brilliant drum solo as the grand finale? Couldn't they have made the hero a sax, trumpet or piano player?

[free]

"First Knight" (1995). The king Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot triangle. I liked it very much, although I expected it to be about Holy Grail which is in the legend closely connected with king Arthur and his knights. But, anyway, I spent a pleasant time watching it. Good acting, imaginative ideas and beautful scenery.

[YesNo]

Cuban Fury: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2390237/

As a child Bruce (Nick Frost) was winning all the salsa dance competitions until some bullies embarrassed him and he stopped dancing just before a likely win at the championship. Years later he's being bullied by a co-worker who is trying to sleep with their new boss whom he likes as well. As it turns out the boss is a salsa dancing student and so he has to brush up on his dancing skills to win the girl.

The only problem with Bruce is he could lose a pound or two. Regaining his corazon wouldn't hurt either. Neither I nor his boss pictured him as a salsa dancer, but he proved us both wrong.

Score: 8/10

[Emil Miller]

With existentialism all the rage, Louis Malle astutely released Le Feu Follet in which the protagonist (Maurice Ronet) is a burnt out playboy who has spent some time in an alcoholic's rehabilitation centre. Unfortunately, the cure has left him with a crisis of identity which is amplified when he returns to Paris and finds that his erstwhile friends have dispersed to take up lives of bourgeois normality, chase after the big money, or sink into drug induced degradation. After visiting various friends, he returns to the rehab centre and commits suicide.
Originally, Malle started shooting it in colour but sensibly changed his mind when he realised that black and white was a much more expressive medium for this story. The camerawork is excellent and captures a Paris that is, sadly, disappearing due to crass commercialism and duff architecture; it's worth seeing for that alone.

http://youtu.be/mpQ4UED3LLU

[silverdroger]

Last movie i watch Exodus Gods And kings It was awesome and i am still looking now to watch Interstellar both are good movies.

[Chuck Habakkuk]

I watched the Quiet Man last night. I believe it's the best John Wayne movie, up there with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence and True Grit. Very funny if you can understand the thick Irish accents and stand the fifties stereotypes.