What movies have you seen recently?

Post Reply New Topic

... And God Created Woman (1956)

It is French. I believe this is the first film I've seen with Bridget Bardot. She is twenty-two. It was a good film. Wonderful photography and color. Good acting. It is in French, but it seems good. Good direction.



I was browsing the streaming platform Max, after watching John Oliver. Under Brand Spotlight, TCM 30 Anniversary was listed. I select that and selected the option A-Z to see the featured films. 441 films. I have 440 films left. I'm started with the first, which was this film. The variety of films is immense from throughout the 20th Century. Too many to list. Some I've seen. Some of those I have on DVD, but most I have not seen. I should count them. It's my intent to watch all of them. The Georges Méliès films are short. My goal is to watch all of them because it will broaden my film experience.

Fack ju Göhte/Suck Me Shakespeare https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2987732/

"German" and "funny" don't usually go together, but this comedy was pretty good.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7a1h0V1AhI

God's Pocket.

Story of a working class neighborhood in New York, where a low level mobster's a$$hole son gets himself killed at work, where his coworkers cover for the murderer. The petty criminal, always out of money, can't afford the funeral, so the funeral director throws the body out on the street. Grieving father that he is, he tries to hide the body from his wife while trying to raise money to bury his no account son.
Very enjoyable black comedy.

the driver [1978]. about a getaway driver who can't get caught. seemed like an utterly banal film to me.

civil war. also pointless.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Second film in my TCM 30 experience on the Max streaming service. I've seen it several times before. I found it more enjoyable than the last time I watched, and I've always enjoyed it.

One thing I found annoying was the films were supposed to be alphabetized, but the first several films list were not in the same order as they were last night when I watch ...And God Created Woman (1956)

Last night, at my urging and her not exactly eager, we watched:

Ex Machina [2014]
<=>"There is nothing more human than the will to survive."



Nathan has a very large and apparently highly successful company in the realm of advanced computers. He throws a contest for his employees and Caleb is the winner. He gets to go to Nathan's estate for a week.

...where he is almost immediately asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement. When he signs he learns that Nathan has developed an incredibly advanced Artificial Intelligence which is in a beautiful robot body, and Nathan wants Caleb to do a Turing Test of the AI.

And we get to watch.

The movie is elegant, beautiful, and thought-provoking.

Oh, Oscar Isaac plays rich-guy/incredible-intellect Nathan and, according to IMDb, "said he based his characterization of Nathan on Bobby Fischer and Stanley Kubrick, who he sees as mysterious, elusive geniuses." And, each happens to be suspected by some of being Autistic (BF SK).

TCM 30 Anniversary (on Max) film #3

49th Parallel (1941)

The above link is to Wikipedia. It is full of interesting information about the film.

I enjoyed this movie. It was filmed before the U.S. got into World War II. The hope was it would sway the Americans to join the war. It was not released until 1942. Pearl Harbor was December 6, 1941. We were already in the war.

What I liked about it was it was not over the top stereo types. The six surviving Nazis from a sunk U-Boat off the coast of Canada attempt to make to the U.S. They meet several people along the way. They are good people. Some of them end up dead.

I normally don't follow war films, so committing to this list is good. I would have missed a good film.


Glynis Johns is in the film. She was 18. In a couple decades, she will be the suffragette mom in Mary Poppins.

438 films to go.

TCM 30 Anniversary (on Max) film #4

8 1/2 (1963)

I am surprised I've never seen this film until today. I became aware of if when I was sixteen. I'm almost sixty-four. I am sure I could have seen it at the college movie theater back in the late '70s and early '80s. But I didn't. I don't know why.

Visually, it was very interesting, and that is all I can say. Why? Because I have a suspicion that I was only seeing the upper left quarter of the frame. Was it a 4k stream?

I just tested it on my other television and it has none of the extreme closeups where only one eye, or the edge of the hair, or just the ear, was in frame on the right side of the screen with the background filling the rest. I swear, I thought it was just some of the most creative framing I'd every seen. It also explains why there were no subtitles. They were at the bottom of the screen, beyond the normal 1920x1080 resolution. HA!

I just finished watch 2 1/16, a quarter of the film 8 1/2 by Federico Fellini. I really enjoyed 2 1/16. I could not understand a word that was being said, but I thought the framing was incredibly interesting. Very intimate. I thought "Wow! Fellini is a genius!"

I'll watch it again on the other television.

Dr Strangelove

Last night I watched:

Things to Come [1936]
<=>"The future is here!"



Written/screenplay by H. G. Wells.

A momentous Science Fiction film and reasonably watchable.

Released in 1936, predicted a horrendous world war would start in 1940.

a colorized and stereoized version of that film is out.

TCM 30 Anniversary (on Max) film #5

Carol for Another Christmas (1964)

Rod Serling's take on a modern (1964) version of A Christmas Carol. First aired December 28, 1964 and not seen again until TMC played it December 16, 2012.

Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz (Suddenly Last Summer)
Brother of Citizen Kane co-author Herman J. Mankiewicz, Uncle to Frank Mankiewicz, the father of Ben Mankiewicz of TCM.

TCM 30 Anniversary (on Max) film #6

A Christmas Dream (1945)