Which films have you seen lately Vol.22 Now with Smell-O-Vision.

[thetrooper]

Of course I mean Rachel. She’s divine no matter what.

Gene still a one trick pony

 

[Smellincoffee]

Dog Day Afternoon, 1975. Al Pacino plays a bank robber who just wanted some money for his partner's sex-reassignment surgery, but things go sideways. Evidently based on a true-ish story. The funny part was Pacino playing a character named "Sonny" besides the guy who played Fredo, making me wonder -- my boy, what have they done to my boy?!

 

[Kyriakos]

Freddo got Freddo'd anyway.

 

[GenMarshall]

I've watched Wreck-it-Ralph just recently. Lately I've been returning to this film as of late.

 

[Fippy]

Of course I mean Rachel. She’s divine no matter what.

Gene still a one trick pony

The Package (89) was one of my fav. films with him.
His Pony was the evil guy in power, you mean? He's not there.

 

[Yeekim]

The Count of Monte Cristo

French 2024 adaption of Alexandre Dumas' classic revenge tale. Very well made, beautifully shot.

Ditto.

Gladiator II

Feels more like a soft reboot than a sequel. It's entertaining, pompous and all that. But could they not have come up with an original story and title? I really expected this to be a much better written film than Scott's Napoleon, but that gap feels quite small.

6.5/10

Ditto. And it gets this high score only because I'm a sucker for history, even when it is brought to screen with inaccuracies and weakly scripted.

 

[Smellincoffee]

That Touch of Mink, 1962. Doris Day and Cary Grant star in a romantic comedy about a playboy who meets Doris Day, an out-of-work computer programmer, and falls for her completely. Unexpected cameos from Micky Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Roger Maris.

 

[Clubber Lang]

There will be Gladiator III, Aliens, a Western (First one) and more from Scotty...

Ridley Scott Will Never Stop Directing: “Shut Up and Go Make Another Movie”

The legendary director, who turns 87 this month, looks back on his five-decade career: From 'Alien' to 'Blade Runner' to his best film in years — 'Gladiator II.'

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Inside Ridley Scott’s Producing Empire: “Tell Me the Film in Two Sentences”

Behind the scenes of his production company Scott Free: How the iconic director picks his projects, and his one real business regret.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Everything Ridley Scott Has Said About ‘Gladiator III’

Here's what the visionary 'Gladiator II' director has said about his idea for a sequel to the action epic.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

 

[reddishrecue]

I was able to see Gladiator 2. It was a great movie.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Jim Abrahams, who pioneered spoof comedy films like Airplane and Naked Gun, dead at 80​

1980's Airplane is often called one of the best comedies of all time​

Jim Abrahams, one of the creators of wacky, slapstick comedy classics such as Airplane and the Naked Gun series, has died at the age of 80.

The writer and director died at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., his son Joseph told The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday.

In his work with brothers Jerry and David Zucker, Abrahams was a pioneer of the spoof comedy. The filmmaking trio, referred to as "ZAZ" for their last names, honed a style characterized by wild physical comedy, sight gags, double meanings and endless puns, helping to seal their place in comedy history.

Abrahams was born in Shorewood, Wis., in 1944 to Jewish parents and studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which the Zucker brothers also attended. The friends began their careers on stage in a sketch-revue show called Kentucky Fried Theatre, which later became their first film, 1977's Kentucky Fried Movie.

It was with their second film, Airplane, that Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker made their mark.

The parody plays on the dramatic, heightened environment of disaster films, pulling much of its dialogue and plot straight from the 1957 plane thriller Zero Hour!

In Airplane, a former military pilot has to land a commercial plane after everyone else on board falls ill due to food poisoning. Packed with jokes that come at a near-relentless pace — like references to the main character having a "drinking problem," which is then revealed as an inability to drink liquids without spilling them — the film was a critical and commercial success.

One of its most enduring scenes is the iconic exchange between two characters Ted Striker, played by Robert Hays and Dr. Rumack, played by Leslie Nielsen. When Striker is told he has to land the plane, he says "Surely, you can't be serious," to which Rumack responds, "I am serious — and don't call me Shirley."

The film, often called one of the best comedy films of all time, was selected in 2010 by the U.S. Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Registry due to its cultural impact.

Movie lovers and fans of Abrahams's work took to social media after the news of his death to honour the filmmaker, with many sharing scenes from his films in tribute.

"RIP, Jim Abrahams, 1/3 of the greatest comedy trio of all time," one user stated on X, calling Airplane, "stupid yet brilliant."

Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker created the short-lived TV series Police Squad in 1982, an idea that would later be resurrected as the Naked Gun film series.

The series followed hapless police detective Frank Drebin, played by the late Nielsen. Abrahams is credited as a writer and executive producer on the first film, 1988's The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, in which Drebin attempts to stop the assassination of Queen Elizabeth II during a baseball game. He was an executive producer on the following two films, The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.

Other key ZAZ films include 1984's absurd, gun-slinging musical Top Secret, starring Val Kilmer. According to film critic Roger Ebert, this was the filmmaking trio's best movie — though he also said describing the plot "would be an exercise in futility."

Abrahams also directed and wrote several films on his own, including Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux in the early 1990s, which parodied Top Gun, and 1998's spoof comedy Mafia!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/jim-abrahams-obit-1.7394888

 

[EvaDK]

Ditto.

Ditto.

Oh hey Patrick Swayze

 

[EgonSpengler]

When i started Red Dead Redemption 2 the early story/missions were set in the snow/mountains, so i watched the following snowy westerns -

Hateful 8 ( Talky Agatha Christie style who-dunnit western set mostly in a hut, i liked the ''shut the door!'' gag)
Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford's buffoonery adventures in the wilderness)
Ride The High Country (Peckinpah must of been sober and likely had a very tight studio leash around his neck)
The Revenant (Leo rocks a trampy beard and pretends to be very cold)
Day of the Outlaw (You will feel the cold and icy chills from this one once they leave town, really admired those horses...damn, they was tough)

Saved the following for RDR3 -

The Grand (Great) Silence (Snowy Spaghetti by Django director Sergio Corbucci and starring Kinski)
Seraphim Falls (Starring Neeson and 90s Bond)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller

My fav' snowy western of all time (Canada/Mounties though), Bronson go's Rambo out in the Rockies with Marvin on his tracks -



If you can handle 480p, you can watch it here :

Spoiler :

Might I suggest adding Wind River (2017) to your list? Trailer below.

Spoiler :

Runaway Jury (2003)

Meh, watched this before of course. Source (= book by Grisham) is a good read but the movie is mediocre at best. The Jewish goddess and Mojo Cusack quite good though.

I haven't seen this one, but I approve of both The Jewish Goddess and Mojo Cusack. It sounds like I like Hackman more than you do, but I do agree that, because he's from the generation of actors - De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, et al - who helped define such an important era of films, he could be seen as overrated. If you remove his place in history, is Hackman an objectively better actor than our contemporary actors? Prolly not.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Movies I've seen since whenever...

Loved 'em:
The End We Start From (2023) is based on a novel I enjoyed, and stars Jodie Comer in the aftermath of environmental disaster in England. It's very slow - it's not an action movie or a thriller - but I liked that. I've been listening to the score lately, too.
The China Syndrome (1979) was a rewatch, and it still holds up. Interestingly, this movie was released just 2 weeks before the accident at Three-Mile Island in Pennsylvania (and 7 years before Chernobyl).
Wild (2014) was also a rewatch. I've never read the book, and I don't really feel compelled to, but after The End We Start From I was in the mood for a "woman against nature" story, and this one hit the spot.

Did what it said on the tin:
Twisters (2024) is exactly what it looks like. I'm sure it would've been a more thrilling spectacle on a theater screen, but I'm still glad I didn't pay theater prices for it.
Alien: Covenant (2017) and Alien: Romulus (2024) in a double-feature. Horror movies just don't scare me anymore, for better or for worse, but these two were enjoyable enough, just as stylish sci-fi with good casts.
I gave all of these a 7/10. Solid, but unspectacular. Romulus was probably the one I enjoyed the most, out of these three, and is the one I can see myself watching again someday, although it mainly made me want to rewatch The Expanse. I guess you could say Romulus is a 7.5/10, but Letterboxd uses a 10-point system, and I couldn't quite give it an 8. If you're not already a fan of the Alien franchise, or if you haven't yet watched the first three movies, I wouldn't bother with these two yet.

Fine, I guess:
The Loveless (1981) was Kathryn Bigelow's first film, and also Willem Dafoe's first film. A couple of lines gave me a good laugh. "What's a guy gotta do to take this thing for a drive?" "Turn the key." It took a real turn, though, and ultimately left me feeling bummed out in a way I didn't appreciate.
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) made me laugh a lot, blowing past "the 6 Laughs Test" in minutes, but it was more like a standup comedy routine than a movie. It doesn't have a plot, so much as a premise. It was very enjoyable in the moment, but paper-thin and I can't imagine it'd be worth rewatching. There were two nice character moments, one with Logan and Laura, but you would only appreciate that scene if you'd already seen Logan, so even that one, nice moment is just referencing a much better movie.

Ugh:
The Voyeurs (2021). There was a moment in the film where I might've given it a 6/10, but by the end I pretty much just loathed it.

 

[Smellincoffee]

The Ruling Class, 1972. Peter O'Toole plays an absolutely insane scion of a prominent aristocratic family who inherits his father's title after his father's fake-suicide attempt accidentally turns into a real suicide. O'Toole is uncomfortably good at portraying someone who is stark raving mad, and the film's production aids to this: there's random singing, and sometimes we get visuals as the schizphrenic O'Toole might see him. Unequal amounts of funny/disturbing.

 

[Kyriakos]

Malignant.

The effects were nice. The story... not really.

 

[Smellincoffee]

The Sugarland Express, 1974. Big ol’ car chase. Spielberg and John William’s first collab.


The Boys Next Door, 1985. Charlie Sheen and that guy from Grease 2 are two graduates with no real plan for their lives. They decide to visit Los Angeles, and That Guy from Grease 2’s penchant for violence leads to increasingly anti-social behavior. And...murders.

 

[Takhisis]

The Pink Panther (1963)

Great as always.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Under the Silver Lake

This was a disgusting movie, and I'm not easily disgusted. I am more at home in a rundown and decayed industrial neighborhood that smells of cat urine, where your average man is driving a gold 4 door he bought cheaply second hand off gramma(or not driving at all, in my case)

This was the opposite of that.

Its depiction of Los Angeles is supremely decadent. The cult is merely a level higher in this respect. The whole city made me feel ashamed to be American. That a place like the movie's LA could even be imagined is shocking.

Not really sure why it got to me like that, but I felt like a brief glimpse of it was enough to convince me that yeah maybe America might be becoming Rome in its later years.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Scrooged, 1988. A Christmas Carol, but....presented as a comedy with Bill Murray. As a Christmas comedy, it was fun. As a adaptation of A Christmas Carol I didn't buy it at all. I never got a sense that Murray's character was changing -- and I know Murray is capable of conveying that kind of change, because he did it in Groundhog Day.

 

[Kyriakos]

Come true (2020; rewatch)
The girl is charming, and the atmosphere is good - helped by the electronic music.
But the reveal is just not handled well. Maybe it could have been kept the same, but needed different build-up to matter.