What Movie Have You Seen Today?

I do love F for Fake. I gather it was mauled by critics and audiences when it came out, but, for me, it’s the single finest example of the flawed narrator in cinema.

‘The Odessa File’ - Great stuff.

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And a great triple bill with Marathon Man and The Boys From Brazil.

All made with a few years of one another…the 70s were great!

On a tangent, I watched Ready Player One.

First 2 acts are Spielberg at his best. The story and it’s rendering are exciting, with that childlike charm of ET and Close Encounters that lead you by the hand into an adventure making you feel like it’s been made just for you.

The concept is pop-genius allowing for cherished classics of music, cinema and video games to be thrown together into this sublime conctail.

Sadly and all to innevitably it stumbles through its third act as the story’s real world demands more and more screen time with far too obviously cast and drawn stock support characters. However, the 2 leads and Meddleson’s villain are great throughout.

And very annoyingly a wonderfully teased 80s pop classic that scored the trailer in breath taking fashion does not feature in the movie, leaving one feeling robbed (a feeling some here may be familiar with after Spectre’s credits rolled without the theme from OHMSS having been heard).

All in all well worth the 2 and a quarter hours.

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Indeed on the 70’s. Gave my dentist a copy of Marathon Man (he hadn’t ever seen it) and he called me a day later to give me Hell. :joy:

Thinking about a few others from the era. French Connection 1 & 2 may be next. Strongly considering Three Days of the Condor just because but also The Yakuza.

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The Yakuza for sure. Watched it last week …magical

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Yes, The Yakuza is one of my all-time favorites. What an intelligent film and such an effective slow build to a great action climax. The Yakuza and Jeremiah Johnson show what a sure hand Sydney Pollack had with action, a genre he only occasionally stepped into.

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It’s such a mood piece , great characters , cracking script. Yes one of mine too

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Here are some of the horror movies I have watched recently:-

Get Out (2017) – very impressive thriller combined with social commentary

Hereditary (2018) – saw this in the cinema, and it was certainly a visual experience. Goes a bit crazy towards the end

Lights Out (2016) – I liked this one – pretty creepy, very small cast and mostly centres on 2 buildings and 2 or 3 rooms, so a bit claustrophobic but that was probably the idea

Babadook (2014) – OK, Australian horror. Nothing special

The Conjuring (2013) – I really liked this one, it was creepy for the first hour. Like a lot of these, it goes a bit nuts towards the end but well worth it for the journey

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Continuing with my recent 70’s preferences, another favorite and only partially due to the score by John Barry, “The Deep” - 29 year old Jacqueline Bisset doesn’t hurt either and Shaw is diamond in the rough/salty bastard excellent.

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MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974)

What an utterly delightful film. I can’t wrap my head around that Hercule Poirot and Kinkade from SKYFALL are both Albert Finney. What a marvelous actors. What a marvelous film.

I quite like the recent adaptation with Kennth Branagh but this one will never be topped.

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Sigh… Gotta dig that one up.

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Had to watch Bullitt, Le Magnifique, St. Ives and The Deep. What a beautiful woman. Should have been in a Bond film in the 70s.

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Watched Rope last night… Brilliant, James Stewart was a phenomenal actor

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Saw that one in the theater when I was a teen. Might have watched it once more on cable, but she definitely made an impression. Jacqueline Bissett. Even the name is sexy.

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She was in Casino Royale (1967):disappointed_relieved:
I always thought she would have made a great Octopussy ( always found Maude Adams a little wooden in the movie, although she was the highlight of TMWTGG IMO )

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Now you’ve given me a reason to crack open that Blu Ray of Casino Royale '67. :grin:

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CR 67’s on Amazon Prime right now, too, if anyone’s interested.

I just watched “The Longest Yard” (the real one, from 1974). It still holds up remarkably well after all these years, partly because it’s set mostly in a prison, where time kind of stands still anyway.

Given how he more or less frittered away his talent on silly stuff over time, it’s easy to forget what a great performer Burt Reynolds really was. He certainly had charisma to spare. The whole thing comes off as a huge love letter to football (American style) and what it can mean to notions of manhood, fraternity, honor and respect (self- and otherwise). With the caveat that I’m not really a football fan, I’d say it remains the best football movie I’ve ever seen.

It’s also cool that the film doesn’t give us a “pat” ending. We don’t know what ends up happening to Reynold’s character in the long run (he’s threatened with a decades-long stretch in prison for not honoring a deal made with the warden) but in a way it doesn’t matter, as prison life has helped him achieve a sort of self-actualization that escaped him in the outside world. Meanwhile the warden, who’s always prided himself on being the most powerful man in his world, is brought low by his own base nature. Tomorrow and for many tomorrows to follow, life could be Hell for Burt and his team, but this day made it all worth it.

The whole story can be seen as a meditation on the choice we all face between doing what will make things easy or comfortable for us, regardless of the cost to our souls, or being true to ourselves and our sense of what’s right, even if it costs us everything. Heady stuff for a 70s comedy starring a guy who once lampooned his own limitations as an actor by saying his next project would be “Hamlet…but in a car going 130 miles an hour, in the South.”

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Sounds like Tom Hardy in Locke: 65 miles an hour, in Wales.

Circa mid 70s Burt Reynolds made some great movies, Deliverance,White Lightning and its sequel Gator and Hustle. At that time, before light comedy truly got its claws into him, the Bond casting rumour makes sense and he’d have been great in the role…

One of Reynolds’ biggest regrets was not playing James Bond. His excuse? That the public wouldn’t accept an American playing 007 — and he said as much to producer Cubby Broccoli, who offered him the role after Sean Connery retired. “It was a stupid thing to say,” Reynolds told USA Today in 2015. “I could’ve done it and I could’ve done it well.”

He also side-stepped Michael Corleone and Han Solo!

Although, some of that light comedy i’m a big fan of, such as Nickelodeon 1976 and particularly The End 1978

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No one is worth that torture :wink:

The End is a remarkable movie , he directed it too if memory serves. I also really enjoyed Shamus

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