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The Last Movie You Watched?

Oh, I forgot to mention the very best movie I saw over the weekend, Memories of Murder. Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho's very moving story of the effects of a serial killer on a rural police department. It's amazing how they are so committed to solving this case as quickly as possible, but each time willing to compromise more and more of their own integrity. Very moving and well worth a watch.
 
Trees Lounge (1996) on Amazon Prime - 8/10. Steve Buscemi (writer, director), Samuel L Jackson, Carol Kane, Chloë Sevigny.
 
The OH picked Sisters for us to watch last night (a romcom with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey). I'm generally not a fan of romcoms but this one did have some very funny moments in it.
 
Die freudlose Gasse 1925 (aka Joyless Street). Greta Garbo's 2nd silent after Saga at Gosta Berling. Really depressing, but I'm a Garbo silent fan, so what can I say.
 
A delightful British murder mystery from 1946, Green for Danger. Based on a Christianna Brand novel, it features the inimitable Alastair Sim (the definitive [to me] "Scrooge" in the 1951 A Christmas Carol) as Inspector Cockrill. In the last year of WWII, as Hitler's buzz bombs rain down on England, a postman dies mysteriously on the operating table in a small coastal hospital. The head nurse claims she knows who murdered him and that she has proof -- and is killed herself. But who did it? And what was the motive for the first death?

Sim really takes over this film when he appears about a third of the way in. I've never read any of Brand's Cockrill stories, so I don't know the character, but if he is anything like the way he is written and played here, I need to check them out. Sim's Cockrill is given to witty observations. When the anesthetist explains about laughing gas, that the "laughter" of the patients was caused by impurities, Cockrill observes, "Much like our music halls." Later the head surgeon gives him advice about how to pursue his investigation, and Cockrill murmurs, "Some day I must try my hand at removing an appendix."

If the film has a flaw, it's that the British actors rattle off some of their lines so swiftly it's hard to follow them. But they settle down after a while. The plot is tricky, with twists and turns, and a very tense final act and a surprising resolution. A gem in writing, acting, and cinematography!
 
Ava.

Not awful but not as good as it could have been. Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell are good and of course John Malkovich is excellent as usual. The story is a little silly.
 
"Dazed and Confused" A coming of age movie set during the time that I was coming of age. Having graduated from a large high school, I can recognize the people that I went to school with in the characters of the movie. Being from Texas, I recognize or have been to, many of the filming locations around Austin. And yes, very representative of the late 70's that I grew up in. Good times...
 
The Gary Cooper classic Sergeant York from 1941. I remembered watching the turkey shoot scene on the late show with my mother when I was about 9, but nothing else about the film. Cooper turns in a fantastic performance, and there are neat little surprises, like the very young June Lockhart as his younger sister, Howard Da Silva as a neighbor, Ward Bond and Noah Beery Jr. as his drinking buddies, and George Tobias, familiar to us decades later as Abner Kravitz, the Stephenses' neighbor on Bewitched.
 

EclipseRedRing

I smell like a Christmas pudding
My wife likes comedies and we started watching Spy from 2015 with Melissa McCarthy. I was astonished at the amount of profanity and vulgarity that was attempting to pass itself off as comedy. I am no prude and have enjoyed this type of humour but this was simply pathetic. We turned off after 45 minutes. An appalling travesty of film making.
 
My wife likes comedies and we started watching Spy from 2015 with Melissa McCarthy. I was astonished at the amount of profanity and vulgarity that was attempting to pass itself off as comedy. I am no prude and have enjoyed this type of humour but this was simply pathetic. We turned off after 45 minutes. An appalling travesty of film making.
Steve Martin had a great line, and I can only paraphrase,that if you're expecting to get a laugh from the swear word, then you forgot to write a joke.
 
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