Last Movie You Watched - 2020

Clearly this lockdown is getting to me and I'm losing all sense of criticism.... but I watched Casino Royale again - the 1967 version with David Niven... and I'm getting to quite like it!!


I know that its an unholy mess... and the stories of the making of it are legendary - Sellers walking out, checking film daily to make sure he had better lines than Orson Welles, script upon script upon script, to the point where there were at least three different directors who didn't communicate with each other, a film studio who though that flinging more money at it would make it right... all of that!

But after three or four watchings in recent years I now just accept the stupidity of it all and watch for all the stars... Woody Allen, Ronnie Corbett, Ursula Andress as well as David Niven. I like the silliness and the fact that it makes no sense.

The Bacharach score however is and always has been sublime IMO...
 
"I like the silliness and the fact that it makes no sense."

I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's up there with Starcrash and Spice World: The Movie as one of those films which everyone knows is awful but fills me with guilty pleasure.
 
one of those films which everyone knows is awful but fills me with guilty pleasure.
It is getting to that point with me.... but if you wanted a drug-filled summary of the 1960s, this might be it. The slogan of the movie should be "The film with more money than sense!"

I so disliked it the first time I saw it.....

And incidentally, there were 5 directors, not 3 as I said. (Actually there were more but some like Val Guest, did not want credit!). In the strange world of film finance I understand that the film STILL gives royalties to Sellers' daughter. In a crazy deal, Sellers was given, in addition to his very high fee, 3% of any future profit - for a movie he walked away from! Bonkers...
 
I showed Daughter Number One that trailer above and told her she has to watch it before The Magic Christian, which, for some reason, is on her Must See list:

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Bedazzled is a classic of its time/period as soon as you mentioned the hot mess version of Casino Royal two things happened. I thought of the scene where David Niven was on that antique up and down seat exercise device and then to the movie Bedazzled and also the film The Wrong Box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Box another oddball Peter Sellers performance
 
Bedazzled is a cracker and it still stands up - again avoid the remake. I mean I adore Brendan Fraser to bits but it's seriously not good. (Apart from one gag in the Central American drug dealer bit.)
 
I had forgotten there was a remake of Bedazzled... until now! :)

I will keep an eye out for the original.....
 
We watched Serpico this weekend. We could not remember if we had ever seen it all the way through, and as shown on tv back in the 70s it was probably edited.

These are all trivial observations. The early 70s fashions had us cracking up, especially some of the more ridiculous looking hats that Pacino wears (he wears a lot!). He also had mannerisms that just didn't seem very coplike to me, especially running during a chase scene. Pacino doesn't run like a trained cop, but maybe I've seen too many stereotypical cop movies over the years that influence how I think a cop should look when chasing criminals. LOL!
 
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This film is a total Hoot from 1958 the music is some of the very best movie music of the 1950s the horn solo as the longship returns home to its fiord is iconic and watching a young Kirk Douglas dance on the outstretched oars is amazing that they would risk their star on the stunt.
this can be thought of as a historical fantasy film given the liberties they took with period history as far as it was known at the time.

Strongly recommended as pure fun
 
One of my Dad's favourite movies! Always remember the running around on the oars of the longboat...
 
Go West. Starring Harpo, Chico and Groucho.

In the time of political and social horror I needed a release. Generally I have been streaming a series that deals with another sort of horror with humor and compassion. M*A*S*H*.
My wife compared it to her stint as a case worker for the NYC welfare department in Bedford Stuyvesant.
She and her colleagues did their best but made jokes about everything as a way of staying sane dealing with daily tragedy.
 
I watched Taste the Blood of Dracula 1970. I thought is was really good except for the ending.

After that, I watched The Scars of Dracula 1970. Not so good, but I enjoyed it anyway.
 
Last night I did one of my Dad things. I sat my 18 yr old daughter down and made her watch Ikarie XBI an early 1960s black and white Czechoslovakian SF film in which nothing much happens and what does happen happens very slowly. (It's based on a Stanslaw Lem book, what do you expect?) And she loved it. It's one of my all time favourite SF films.

I got to thinking about it after seeing this youtube video which chops up another groovy looking Czech movie (now in my Must Watch List) to accompany a great bit of 80s pop
and recognising one of the actors.
 
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