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Film A Movie Thread

Battleship (2012)- What a movie! A completely realistic scenario about how a WWII ship helps defeat the alien enemy menace, and it’s entertaining. 😉


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Sydney Pollack’s “Castle Keep” (DVD) is an odd duck, a sort of art house WW II version of “Platoon”.

Eight soldiers trying to stop a German advance hole up inside a 10th century castle called Maldorais. It’s owned by a Count and is filled to the brim with art treasures. A conflict arises between the squad leader, Maj. Falconer (Burt Lancaster), who wants to fight from the castle and risk everything being destroyed, vs. the Count and an art historian, who want to move the fight anywhere else.

The dialogue can seem pretentious at times, but the beauty-vs-brutality story is told well, Michel Legrand’s score is haunting, and the cinematography is beautiful. Patrick O’Neal, Peter Falk, Tony Bill, Michael Conrad, Bruce Dern and gorgeous Astrid Herren round out the cast.

This is one of the few times I’ve tuned in a film just by accident and been totally taken with it. Highly recommended.
 
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Caught Total Recall (1990), a thoroughly entertaining sci-fi movie from an era long gone, on the big screen. I love that the dominating cinema company here screens classics.

The movie is certainly as watchable today as it was then, and the way it ends is pure perfection.
 
More from the classic repertoire (and the sanity of @Pumbaa being questionable): The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Marathon, special event from 10 AM to 11:30 PM last Saturday.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

The original cuts were nice adaptions of Tolkien’s work. This was my first time actually watching the extended editions after many years of making fun of them, and, well, I was mostly right. A select few of the extra scenes actually added something to the story and experience, but they were absolutely right to originally cut most of the extra scenes…
 
Out of Africa, based on the memoirs of Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) on a coffee plantation in then British East Africa during World War I.

I had watched this film before but was struck this time around by a particular observation made by the Somali major-domo Farah, as he dresses the lion claw wounds in Baroness Blixen’s back after their wagon troupe have chased off a lion attack but lost use of one of their oxen, on their trek through the bush with supplies for her husband at the border :

"Memsa’b is bleeding. She does not have this ox. This lion is hungry. He does not have this ox. This wagon is heavy. It does not have this ox. God is happy. He plays with us."
 
Huntn said:
House of Dynamite (2025 Netflix)- Military doomsday thriller about an ICBM flying at the US from an uncertain foe does one thing well, illustrates how close we are to self annihilation. Excellent tension since FailSafe. This theme was big during the Cold War. We just don’t think about it now. However the ending is frustrating because I did not want to watch this scenario 3 times from different perspectives and everything about the ending is unknown other than it can perceived to be bad, but I’ll leave that for you to decide.
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Going to give that a shot on Netflix today before the month-long sub I took expires in early January. I read some reviews but am wondering how much I'll like the triple-view angle Bigelow has taken with this film. Sometimes I like that approach, sometimes I lose interest.

Will be weird to watch fear of mass death by ballistic missile when the actual situation in Northeast USA currently is much more about potential hypothermia, and after that all the changes to US health policy that may wipe out more people than usually die over the course of a winter.
 
Huntn said:
House of Dynamite (2025 Netflix)- Military doomsday thriller about an ICBM flying at the US from an uncertain foe does one thing well, illustrates how close we are to self annihilation. Excellent tension since FailSafe. This theme was big during the Cold War. We just don’t think about it now. However the ending is frustrating because I did not want to watch this scenario 3 times from different perspectives and everything about the ending is unknown other than it can perceived to be bad, but I’ll leave that for you to decide.
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I will have to remember to check that out. I usually never subscribe to Netflix, but I do also want to see "Wake Up Dead Man".
 
It’s definitely suspenseful, but “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning” (Paramount) is so over the top, so chock full of stunts and derring-do, that you ultimately won’t buy it.

Continuing the attempt to stop a Colossus-like AI from taking over the world, Ethan Hunt repeatedly is in extreme danger from everything from crushing ocean depths to falling out of sky high disintegrating airplanes.

The sum result is a never-ending set of stunts that would be hard to believe even in a Batman movie.

Like I said, it’s suspenseful, but at two hours and 49 minutes it’s just way too much.
 
BTW, one addendum to the above…

Bringing back a minor character, William Donloe, from the very first movie? And giving him a decent role? What a nice touch! I mean, who expected that?
 
“Weapons” (HBO) is the weirdest horror movie. While there were several things I didn’t expect, the last thing I expected was a quasi-comedic denouement.

The basic idea is not unlike the Night Gallery episode “Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay”, isn’t it?
 
Thomas Veil said:
It’s definitely suspenseful, but “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning” (Paramount) is so over the top, so chock full of stunts and derring-do, that you ultimately won’t buy it.

Continuing the attempt to stop a Colossus-like AI from taking over the world, Ethan Hunt repeatedly is in extreme danger from everything from crushing ocean depths to falling out of sky high disintegrating airplanes.

The sum result is a never-ending set of stunts that would be hard to believe even in a Batman movie.

Like I said, it’s suspenseful, but at two hours and 49 minutes it’s just way too much.
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I did not finish it… 😐
 
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Ruthless People (1986)- I love this comedy.

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Treasure Island (1990)- A young Christian Bale, outstanding cast, nicely told, and might be my favorite Charlton Heston role. The only decent copy I’ve found of this movie has been Amazon Prime streaming.

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If you want a movie that will leave you feeling uneasy, “Annihilation” (Pluto) will do the trick.

I can see why people have a hard time trying to describe the plot, but put simply, something from space begins to mutate the area around where it lands. There’s some unforgettably freaky imagery.

Ultimately it reminded me of “Solaris” (2002). If you’ve seen both movies you’ll recognize some parallels. Both are good thought-provoking films.

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Planet of the Apes (1968)- (repeat story) I was 15 in 1968, the choices were Gone with the Wind or this, new in theaters. This won! Still stands up today, the first and the best of the series. The remake of the original comes close, but the 2nd and 3rd movie of this series was disappointing. 🤔

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"The Stunt Man" (DVD). Hard to find but worth it. It's about a really intense young man who hides from the law by assuming the identity of a stunt man who was just killed while helping make a WWI motion picture. But "The Fall Guy" this ain't.

The movie constantly plays with the idea of reality vs. illusion, both in special effects and the motivations of the characters. A complex triangle forms between the main character, Cameron, the leading lady and the director, and as the stunts Cameron is asked to perform grow more and more dangerous, he starts wondering whether the director is actually trying to kill him.

Steve Railsback plays Cameron, Barbara Hershey the leading lady, and Peter O'Toole is at his eccentric best as the director who loves tossing out lines like, "If God could to the tricks we can do, he'd be a happy man!" It's a fun movie.
 
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