What movies have you seen recently?

[SPTO]

Hennesy (1975)

FANTASTIC movie that I didn't know about until recently that i'm glad I got to watch. This movie stars Rod Steiger and Lee Remick is also in the cast as well. The movie centers of Steiger as an Irishman who has IRA ties who becomes unhinged after his wife and young child are killed in the midst of violence. He intends to blow up the opening of parliament killing the queen and the rest of the MPs in the building.

Scotland Yard gets involved in the case with a rather obsessive investigator named Hollis in charge. Hollis had gone undercover a couple years earlier and barely escaped with his life after the IRA ferreted him and his confederates out. On the other side of things Steiger's friend and IRA bigwig sees the political implications of what Steiger intends to do and actively tries to stop Steiger from achieving his goals.

Things get messy as Hollis doesn't trust the IRA folks and Steiger proves himself elusive. The movie has the tone and feel of The Day of the Jackal but on a smaller budget as this was produced by American International Pictures. Despite that, this is a well crafted and tense film that holds your interest throughout even if the politics of the story is a little wobbly as about a decade later the IRA very nearly assassinated Margaret Thatcher.

[JayBee74]

Quote: Originally Posted by SPTO

Hennesy (1975) FANTASTIC movie that I didn't know about until recently that i'm glad I got to watch.

Heard about it. I might check it out.

Another couple of Lee Remick movies to look at would be Days of Wine and Roses (with Jack Lemmon) and Anatomy Of A Murder (with Jimmy Stewart). Heavy duty films, particulary for the times.

Remick got an Oscar nom for Days Of Wine And Roses. She died way too young.

[redsox4evur]

Kingsman. I watched this while doing some homework yesterday so I definitely missed parts of it. But I will go back and watch it in full at some point. Thought it was a good movie but don't wanna make a full judgement until I actually fully watch it.

[SPTO]

Quote: Originally Posted by JayBee74

Heard about it. I might check it out. Another couple of Lee Remick movies to look at would be Days of Wine and Roses (with Jack Lemmon) and Anatomy Of A Murder (with Jimmy Stewart). Heavy duty films, particulary for the times. Remick got an Oscar nom for Days Of Wine And Roses. She died way too young.

Both are great movies. Wine and Roses hits hard for me and I don't even have a drinking issue. That movie tackled alcoholism in a way that you may not get these days.

[Lilian Gagnier]

The last one I watched is Captain America: Civil War.

[Lieutenant Dan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Lilian Gagnier

The last one I watched is Captain America: Civil War.

Really good film...can you provide some of your thoughts on it?

[SPTO]

S.O.B. (1981)

No, it doesn't stand for "sonofabee" but rather "standard operational BS". This is Blake Edwards' biting satire of Hollywood and a film that in some ways i'm quite surprised was ever released. I guess one reason why it did get out is that most of the characters are so broad that you can't exactly pin down who they're supposed to be lampooning except for a couple of them. Robert Vaughan clearly modeled on Paramount executive Bob Evans while Felix Farmer, so very well played by Richard Mulligan (the older guy in my avatar these days) was a very loose adaptation of Edwards himself at one point in his career.

There is also the brilliant case of Julie Andrews as Edwards decided to have art imitate life as her character was a squeaky clean actress who was most known for light fluffy family fare who ends up by circumstances not totally of her own choosing doing a nude scene for the first time in her career. In fact, there's a scene in the movie where she and Mulligan have at it and she's hollering and screaming at him for buying back the film rights with half of her money and she's throwing things, cussing and just generally acting profane while Mulligan is ecstatic and screaming about how this would make his new vision of his failed film a 200 million dollar box office smash seeing the sweet, pure Andrews being filthy!

This isn't the perfect film by any stretch as it's a bit uneven. The first half hour or so is a little too chaotic. In fact, the first half of the movie has a manic energy and most of it takes place at Mulligan's house with the major set piece being a big ol' orgy/party. I kind of get the sense Edwards was using that to do a more "adult" version of his great '60s film The Party. There's also the touchy subject matter of Mulligan who's completely depressed and out of his mind due to his movie Night Wind being his first and Hollywood's biggest box office bomb ever. A lot of the comedy to start the movie centers on Mulligan trying to kill himself. It's always a bit dicey when you're using suicide as a means to generate comedy but to Edwards' credit the people that surround Mulligan during this are definitely the bigger focus than Mulligan offing himself.

Let's talk about Mulligan's three true friends in life because for the last third of the movie they form a kind of Three Musketeers bond and do right by Mulligan. Culley (played by the great William Holden in his last film role. There's a scene where he tries to tell Felix that there are more exciting ways to kill yourself and ironically that's what happened with him as he got sloshed, fell in the bathroom and bled to death) is the director of Night Wind and is Mulligan's best friend in life, Dr. Irving Finegarten the family doctor and definite quack who is half functioning drunk and half philosophical rogue and finally Ben Coogan who is Andrews' press agent but by last third of the movie has a moment of clarity with the Hollywood System. These three guys are quite funny in their roles in varying ways and there's a great set piece near the end of the movie where all three of them work together which had me in stitches.

This movie is definitely worth the watch and I daresay one should watch it at least twice as a lot of subtext can get lost amidst the chaos of the situation and physical comedy. The film's fine cast took what could've been an overwritten mess and turned into a diamond in the rough.

Highly recommended especially for those looking for movies which poke a finger at the Hollywood Establishment.

[mestevo]

Burnt.

It's Bradley Cooper's version of John Favreau's Chef, absent the excellent pacing and coherently woven together storylines. The cast makes it watchable, otherwise anything outside of the core loss and redemption of Bradley's professional career doesn't work very well.

Will surely watch again sometime and add to our Amazon library when it's on sale, but it's a C+ movie despite another good performance from Cooper. Fans of his shouldn't shy away, fans of good movies should consider their options.