"The Three Worlds of Gulliver" (1960) - Kerwin Mathews, June Thorburn
(featuring Ray Harryhausen animation and cinematographic techniques)

This one tears me between enjoyment for the Ray part and being aghast at the liberties taken with the Swift tale. In researching the background, I found that June Thorburn died in 1967, almost 50 yrs ago! That certainly dates this effort.

"Blithe Spirit" (1945)

A little too silly for my taste, but I'll forgive anything because of Margaret Rutherford's performance as Madame Arcati - it's delightful.

Anger Management, Adam Sandler.

It wasn't as good as I hoped.

Loved "In Bruges" (but then, I'm quite quirky lol)

Agony: Unless you're a big fan of BARbara or Kris, don't bother. The original will always be the best.

Hubby bought the most recent Bond flick. Weird how they tried to amalgamate the old characters into an era 30 years later, but entertaining just the same. My favourite Bond (aside from the inimitable Connery) is STILL Timothy Dalton though. Under-rated actor in general, never mind just his Bond movie. Best Heathcliff ever in my opinion.

I don't mind Kris, but I can't really stand Barbra, so I think I'll give it a pass, then.

Red Dawn - 2012 remake.

"The Watchmen - The Complete Motion Comic"
All voiced by one person, this unique animation style is quite entertaining! It looks mostly like a comic book but the figures have some parts that move and the text balloons move to help give some perspective to the 2D art. This is the graphic novel story the live action movie "The Watchmen" was based on. There are 12 half hour episodes.


"Amazon Women on the Moon" - a campy adult sketch comedy film strung together out of many appearances by up and coming comic actors of the early 80s and some old pros (one scene has Rip Taylor, Slappy White, Jackie Vernon, Steve Allen, Henny Youngman and George Callas). This shows that some comedy is just timely and loses its bite in time and some is the opposite, timeless, and still amuses even thirty years in the future. Spoiler alert: ....We save two of the Amazon Women!

"Key Largo" (1948) Directed by John Huston.

Wow! I finally see what all the fuss about! Not only do you have Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore all in one movie, you have a really tight, exciting plot and a story that touches one some very important themes about heroism and survival. I can't believe I've never seen this one before! It's not really film noir (even though I see it described as such in some places), but it has some really dark psychology suffused through it.

Definitely recommend this one. Can't believe it wasn't nominated for Best Picture or that the stars didn't get something for their performances. Only Claire Trevor won an Oscar, for Best Supporting Actress as the gun moll Gaye Dawn.

"Tin Man" (an '07 SyFy mini-series released as a 4.5 hr DVD)
with: Zooey Deschanel, Neal McDonough, Alan Cumming, Raoul Trujillo, Kathleen Robertson, and Richard Dreyfuss
The cast alone makes this a good watch. What's it about? It is an imaginative retelling of some of the content of L. Frank Baum's work which is so much more than the '39 movie presented. It isn't a musical. It does have a lot of CGI content (the bonus material says there are over 1,500 generated images!). I guess a real fan of Baum enjoys all the attempts to bring his ideas forward. I think this ranks up there with "The Wiz" in enjoyment. It certainly has whet my whistle to seeing the upcoming "Oz the Great and Powerful".

'It's a Good Day to Die Hard' - not as good as the last one because it really is over the top. But if you like extended car chases and things blowing up, you will enjoy this.

We really liked "Tin Man" at our house - we have been Oz fans for years. My daughter read every Oz book two or three times.

I watched "Singing In the Rain" again the other day. It's still as good as it was when I first saw it. We all quoted the entire movie....

"Super Capers" - Justin Whalin, Danielle Harris, Christine Lakin, Michael Rooker, Doug Jones, Ray Griggs (=Director too), Samuel LLoyd, Adam West

Funny movie with a lot of Christian Comedy. The hero, played by Whalin (of fame for being Jimmy Olsen across from Dean Cain's and Terry Hatcher's roles as "Lois and Clark ..."), searching for his superpower, discovers that while others have super minds, can freeze things or have other super strengths, his turns out to be the power of prayer. He asks God to do damage to his evil opponents! And God comes through. Then other funny stuff happens. It was made with a lot of campy comic hero homages.

Edit to add: I forgot to mention that one of Hollywood's hardest and longest working character actors, Clint Howard, plays a major role in the first act of the movie. Any film with him in it is worth watching.

I saw for the twenty fifth time The Alamo ( John Wayne's version ) and I enjoyed it a lot. I even know some dialogs by heart. Superb performances by John Wayne a Steve MacQueen.

A suspenseful thriller from Alfred Hitchcock:

"Dial M for Murder"
Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Bob Cummings, John Williams(actor), Anthony Dawson

You know the whole story as it unfolds, no mystery, but Hitchcock manages to keep you riveted to the goings on. Trivial note: the four lead characters all have double consonants in their last names! (Leo Britt and Patrick Allen were also in the cast) How did Dawson get in there?

Yes, love that film.

Mehaul, have you seen "A Perfect Murder" (Michael Douglas & Gwyneth Paltrow)? It's the re-make of Dial M. Of course it doesn't have the charm of the original but it does have suspense and does shake things up enough to make it a worthy re-make. I enjoyed it anyway.

I love that one, too - it's amazing how dynamic a film it is, considering it mostly takes place in the one room.

Yes. Like Rope. And Rear Window. Fantastic films.

Have "Rope" (nobody touch my chest, he he he), will get "A Perfect Murder" and "Rear Window".

I've recently watched "Chasing Mavericks" (2012) over the weekend for the second time.

It is just as good as it was in theaters. Gerard Butler did great in this documentary of surfer Jay Moriarty's famous ride of some of the largest waves in the world; the mavericks.

Great film, and I implore all to watch it, if you like that sort of film. I really enjoyed it, though it may not have done so well in box office...

"Bridesmaids"

Loved it!

I'd been avoiding it -- with a name like that I was wary that it was really a rom-com or chick-flick, but it's not frothy and it's not tame - it's just proper funny! It's the antidote to chick-flicks/rom-coms. There are proper laugh-out-louds in there, I mean the type that take you by surprise and come out as a belly-shaking-guffaw. Women are funny as hell.

"Ozma of OZ" (1987) - Narrated by Margot Kidder - A Japanese anime redubbed and put together in Canada from episodes into a single film. It tells essentially the same story done two years earlier in "Return to Oz". It has the Baum characters: Ozma, Jack Pumpkinhead, Mr Mouse, the Nome King, Billina the chicken, Tik-Tok the robot, the Wheelers, Princess Langwidere, the Prince of Ev, Kaliko (the Nome King's chief aide) and the usual four: Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Lion. Ozma and Jack only appear in a few scenes and are unimportant in this tale. I found it interesting that the Japanese thought nothing of animating Dorothy with low stockings held up by garters exposed by her waist high skirt.

"Princess Diaries" - Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews
A tween finds out she's really a princess. Good for all those tweens who dream of being princesses I guess, but not for me. Even theextra bonus bits were self congratulatory and boring. "My wig came off in a scene" says Anne and when the scene comes up, Julie won't stop yapping so's Anne can point out the goof!

Here's a good one with excellent Bonus stuff:

"Casablanca"
See cast and reviews listed in all the top ten movie lists.
The DVD Bonus (outstanding) had Bacall doing a Boggie Biography. There are two commentary tracks to listen to (one is critic Ebert and the other is historian Behlmer). This is one of what everyone says is a great film that I hadn't seen before. Others on my yet to see list are (sans "s) Citizen Kane, High Sierra, Mary Poppins, Bambi, Sophie's Choice, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Big Sleep (I've seen the remakes and variations of the theme), all the Marx Brothers and more I suppose. You got a list, I probably haven't seen some of them. The end credits on movies have registry numbers on them and we're around film number 50,000 being issued!

Let's do some math. 50,000 films times 90 minutes(ave. 1.5 hrs) per film is 75,000 hours of film divided by 25 hours in a day (thank you fast forward!) gives 3,000 days but if you want sleep, double it to 6,000 days divided by 300 days per year (equipment downtime not viewer burnout) leaves 20 years of straight awake popcorn eating time consumption. That's do-able, right?

"Dirty Dancing" - Wish I'd seen this before twenty-five years had gone by.

The last film I watched was J.Edgar by Clint Eastwood with Leonardo Di Caprio. Though it was too long it caught my attention because of the traits of personality of the main character which were unknown to me.

I watched Stay Alive a few days ago, and I'm halfway through Hunger. Both are really good horror movies. Developed plot, good acting, nice gore. Two thumbs up from me.

Tron
- Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Barnard Hughe

House
- William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, Kay Lenz, Mary Stavin

House II: The Second Story
- Arye Gross, Jonathan Stark, Royal Dano, Bill Maher, John Ratzenburger, Amy Yasbeck

Murder on the Orient Express
- Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Martin Balsam, Vanessa Redgrave

Couldn't ask for a more enjoyable group of distractions, er, did I leave the kettle on?

"Triple Cross" (1966) starring a very young and handsome Christopher Plummer as a dashing safecracker who becomes an agent for the Nazis (double cross) and then an agent for the Brits (triple cross). I think they sort of modeled it on the Bond movies, in that there is implication that he's a ladies' man, but it's based on a true story of a real-life safe-cracking double-agent, and it's not over the top in the least. Yul Brynner plays a rather sympathetic Nazi colonel, if you can imagine. Fun film.

I was taken to the cinema to see "Les Misérables".

I understand why it was done the way it was, but why sell it as a musical when the singing is not "that important"?

You mean you were "Cabbaged" at the movies?


"Designing Woman" p/o TCM Classic: Lauren Bacall - Gregory Peck, Paula Gray - For those who like the Doris Day type of romantic comedies.

"Dark Passage" p/o TCM Classic Legends: Lauren Bacall w/ Humphrey Bogart - A true Film Noir done with some interesting experimental cinematography.

"Blood Alley" p/o TCM Classic Legends: Lauren Bacall w/ John Wayne - A drag and waste of time. Produced by Wayne who was an actor not a producer. He was doing this as part of his anti-Communist push and he hired Bacall who was wife to Bogart who led a contingent to Washington to speak out against McCarthy? Was Wayne bi-polar? Anita Ekberg gets a big intro credit spot and is hard to find in the actual movie.

"Key Largo" p/o TCM Classic Legends: Lauren Bacall w/ Humphrey Bogart, E G Robinson, Lionel Barrymore - Can't touch this classic with the right words of praise.

"Hollywoodland" - Adrian Brody, Ben Affleck, Bob Hoskins, Diane Lane, Kathleen Robertson - Just how did Superman die? Was he off-ed by a jilted lover, the lover's media mogul/mob husband, his cronies or was it the suicide of a man whose alcohol damaged brain couldn't handle rejection in his career field? Affleck looks so much like George Reeves at times it's uncanny.