Showing 21 - 30 of 36 posts found matching keyword: william powell

Even more movies! (Some good, some less so.)

22. (769.) Jack Reacher (2012)
Spoiler alert: About halfway through this movie I turned to my Dad and said, "there's only one black guy in this whole movie. Surely they're not going to make him the bad guy." Guess what.

23. (770.) For the Defense (1930)
William Powell can do no wrong! This melodrama is about a lawyer living life close to the edge and the people who take advantage. A character so sleazy shouldn't be so charming, Powell!

24. (771.) All the King's Men (1949)
I'd seen the last 30 minutes of this movie years ago, and it was nice to see it from the beginning. It has a very Sunset Boulevard vibe to it, and I love Sunset Boulevard.

25. (772.) Pride and Prejudice (1940)
Jane Austen has a way of writing that really brings you into the life of the characters and makes them feel real. This film, while clearly expensive, fails to convey that depth. Not terrible, but the book is far more satisfying.

26. (773.) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
Way, way more enjoyable than the the other absurdist Luis Bunuel movie I watched earlier in the month, The Exterminating Angel. It's just as angry about the human condition, but somehow less bitter.

27. (774.) Shall We Dance (2004)
I had no intention of watching this Richard Gere comedy; it just happened to be on television as I was doing some other work. I'm glad I didn't change the channel. It was cute (thanks mainly to the presence of the always amazing Stanley Tucci).

28. (775.) Week-End at the Waldorf (1945)
This slice-of-life drama takes place exclusively in New York's Waldorf hotel and frequently feels like an advertisement. But so far as product placement-as-cinema goes, it's plenty entertaining.

More to come.

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The end of the 2014 movie list.

205. (742.) Out of Africa (1985)
This wasn't nearly as pretentious and boring as I feared. Redford was the weak part, but that just proves no one can stand against the immortal Meryl Streep.

206. (743.) Marnie (1964)
Sean Connery, rapist? Ugh. Even Alfred Hitchcock has a few stinkers in the resume. The highlight of the film was Bruce Dern's brief cameo as the sailor/child molester. Ick.

207. (744.) The Male Animal (1942)
The backers of the university football program are so powerful, they divert public funds to stadiums, tell the faculty what they can and cannot teach, and accuse their detractors of being un-American. A completely unrealistic story in 2014.

208. (745.) A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
As much as I enjoy Shakespeare's tragedies, I'm no fan of his comedies, including any production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I thought Dick Powell was especially miscast in the lead, but he wasn't nearly so bad as Mickey Rooney as Puck. Ye, gods. Great sets and special effects for the era, but I fast-forwarded through most of the dialogue.

209. (746.) Gambit (1966)
Micheal Caine and Shirley MacClaine in a heist picture? Sign me up! Every bit as enjoyable as expected. Recommended.

210. (747.) Heavenly Bodies (1984)
Have I mentioned that I love fad exploitation films? The climax of this film involves an aerobics dance-off that makes so little sense, the movie doesn't try explaining it. Outside the aerobics (and the required nods to Flashdance), this is a romance film with lots of on-screen female nudity so that the guys won't walk out. Good choice, director.

Drink Coke! (Heavenly Bodies)

(That Coke machine is a very prominent part of the set, but I didn't really notice the product placement until two girls in leotards walked past the camera just to show us the can in their hands.)

And that wraps up the list of 210 films seen in 2014. For the record, the actor most seen in 2014 was William Powell (as he was in 2012), followed by the late James Garner.

When I started this project in 2012, I thought watching 150 new-to-me movies was going to be a hard target to reach. But without much trying, I'm routinely getting over 200 each year. Will that streak continue in 2015? We'll find out in 12 more months.

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Where was I? "162"?

162. (699.) Double Wedding (1937)
More William Powell and Myrna Loy romantic comedy. A good one, too. (As if there are any that aren't.) I will see them all, oh yes, I will.

163. (700.) Ziegfeld Follies (1945)
More William Powell as Florenz Ziefeld. Ok, so he only played the role twice, but now I've seen both. Frankly, the standout scene in this vaudeville-style movie isn't the dance with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, although that is pretty good, but a comedy routine by Red Skelton, which is just amazing. (Keenan Wynn and Fanny Brice have comedy skits in the movie as well, but they both fall far short of the bar that Skelton sets.)

164. (701.) The Lego Movie (2014)
Maybe I expected too much, but this movie bored me. I never forgot that I was watching a 2-hour toy commercial. (And I'm hardly one to criticize someone else for being misogynistic, but ouch. Cringe-worthy. I hadn't realized Legos were only for boys.)

166. (703.) Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
Now this was the movie I was hoping Lego was. I kicked myself for not figuring the Big Bad earlier than the reveal, but I didn't mind a bit. Lots of fun visual and vocal gags in this great animated Disney movie. (How could Disney go from this to Frozen a year-and-a-half later? Blech!)

167. (704.) Detective Story (1951)
Maybe I watch too much noir, but this story was on rails. Too obvious at every turn, the only thing that made this worth watching was Kirk Douglas' powerful on-screen charisma.

168. (705.) Dinner at Eight (1933)
I watched this entire comedy of manners feeling that everything was exposition for the titular dinner. "When will the dinner start?" I kept wondering. The dinner starts just before the closing credits roll! If there was a settlement to any of the story's many, many conflicts, I missed them. (As everyone goes to dinner, there is a sensation of detente, but not resolution.)

169. (706.) Battleship (2012)
Oh, this is a Big, Stupid Action Movie. But it knows its place. It never strives to be anything other than a Big, Stupid Action Movie. The writers and director competently put all the pieces and place and hit all the necessary character notes to achieve the desired outcome. (Yeah! Take that, aliens!) I was very surprisingly entertained throughout. You should take notes, Micheal Bay. (I think this has all the makings of a cult classic.)

170. (707.) Love in the Afternoon (1957)
The rising action was a little slow for my tastes, and the age difference between the male lead, Gary Cooper (playing a 60-year-old man), and the female lead, Audrey Hepburn (playing a college student), was too disparate for me to tolerate. I guess it's a rule that if you want to make a movie focusing on inappropriate March-December sexual relationships, you have to cast Chevalier? (Fun fact: GiGi turns my stomach!)

And that's all my movies watched in September.

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What's the best way to kick off Football and Batman month? That's right, with movies! August movies, part 2 of 3:

142. (679.) Queen of Outer Space (1958)
Really stupid and really boring. But I think everyone involved knew it. Except maybe Zsa Zsa Gabor. She seemed to be taking this story about a race of women living on Venus hell-bent on destroying all "mankind" on Earth a little too seriously.

143. (680.) High Pressure (1932)
William Powell plays a con man in the world of big business. It's almost a documentary about how Capitalism works in 2014.

144. (681.) Von Richthofen and Brown (1971)
This Roger Corman movie was also titled The Red Baron for obvious reasons. I've read reviews of the film that praise the flying shots and pan everything else. Personally, I felt the flying was the boring part, and the campy scenes on the ground were the good stuff. To each his own, I guess. Speaking of actors who take themselves too seriously: Don Stroud.

145. (682.) Predators (2010)
A worthy sequel to one of cinema's greatest sci-fi/action movies. Exactly what you want when you go to a movie with "predator" in the title.

146. (683.) Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Ed, the manager of a local comic shop, described this movie as "charming." I thought that was a ridiculous thing to say about a giant budget Disney movie, but it turned out to be pretty accurate. Charming, indeed.

147. (684.) Hotel (1967)
I loved this movie. That took me by surprise. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting to love this movie. Great, great stuff.

UPDATE 2021-04-03: Hotel was just on TCM, and I didn't remember that I had seen it. I couldn't remember the plot or details. I just knew that it was on my list and that I'd said I liked it. So I watched it again. And I still love it. For future reference: Rod Taylor is the general manager of an outdated, doomed New Orleans hotel during its last days filled with a sad sack thief, a conniving house detective, a kept woman, and a fallen nobleman. Worth watching again in 7 more years.

More to come.

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Ok, while dodging raindrops as I try to finish painting the house, I've increased the June movie count to 20 so far. I covered 7 last week. Here's 7 more:

86. (623.) Taxi (2004)
This movie performed so poorly at the box office that it essentially killed Jimmy Fallon's nascent film career as a leading man before it could get off the ground. It's not good.

87. (624.) Panic in Year Zero! (1962)
Actor/Director Ray Milland (of Lost Weekend) gives us a b-movie about life in California after nuclear war. It's surprisingly boring.

88. (625.) Twelve O'Clock High (1949)
I'm so thankful that I didn't have to go to war. Twelve O'Clock High makes it pretty clear that no one wins, even the survivors. It's pretty good.

89. (626.) The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936)
I cannot get enough William Powell. Here he's playing someone very similar to his Thin Man Nick Charles persona. It's very entertaining.

90. (627.) The Wizard of Oz (1925)
This, the second film adaptation of the book, is a very loose adaptation, indeed. Dorothy is the rightful Princess of Oz, the Scarecrow is a farmhand, and most of them die in the end. It is not a successful reworking.

91. (628.) Orpheus (1950)
A French retelling of the Greek myth, Orpheus is an art film that, like so many other art films, is a little too self-indulgent. It's worth a look.

92. (629.) No Strings Attached (2011)
I complained that Friends with Benefits spent too much time pretending not to be a Romantic Comedy. This film makes no such pretension, and if anything makes its mistake by embracing the genre too closely. It's formulaic.

More to come.

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I ended up watching nineteen movies in March. I've already covered the first 8, so here's the second batch of 6 more.

34. (571.) The Slender Thread (1965)
A race against time to save a woman who can't communicate. The portions with Anne Bancroft are boring, but Poitier is his usual, awesome self.

35. (572.) Speed (1936)
No, this is not the Keanu Reeves version, but the Jimmy Stewart version. In Mark Evanier's obituary of Jimmy Stewart, he recounts a conversation with Stewart in which the movie star said, "I don't remember a thing about it but apparently, I made it." It was apparently Stewart's first starring role, but it isn't very memorable.

36. (573.) It Happens Every Spring (1949)
An unknown breaks into big league baseball as the "next big thing" with an unusual background. (See also: The Natural, The Rookie, Rookie of the Year, Major League, etc.) Pretty entertaining, although I always think of Lost Weekend when I see Ray Milland, so its weird to see him play The Absent-Minded Professor. Otherwise, a fun hour-and-a-half.

37. (574.) Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Mom made me watch it. I didn't want to. It's every bit as violent as its reputation, but I still didn't enjoy it.

38. (575.) Run, Fatboy, Run (2007)
David Schwimmer's directorial debut is hit and miss. It's almost like the director didn't know who his audience was, so he threw everything he could think on the screen. It's not bad, just schizophrenic.

39. (576.) The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937)
I love William Powell, but this film tried my patience. Part romance, part spy thriller, part comedy, it spends just a little too long on each element to be really satisfying.

More to come.

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Thanks to the Olympics, I barely saw any new movies in February.

18. (555.) The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937)
This was just a little caper-slash-romance featuring Joan Crawford, William Powell, and Robert Montgomery.

19. (556.) Runaway Train (1985)
Ugh. I hate it when my action movies try to teach me a lesson about Life. That star Jon Voight landed an Academy Award nomination for this film underscores why I don't care for Oscar.

20. (557.) Lady for a Day (1933)
This was Frank Capra all the way, and I only watched it to torture myself. The movie is about a mendicant woman who puts on a big show to get her daughter married to nobility. Of course, the final curtain falls before the woman has to return to life on the street. Don't dwell on reality, right, Capra?

21. (558.) RoboCop (2014)
You know you've failed when a movie with a plastic model antagonist is more insightful than your film. Like so many modern movies, this film wants to be "realistic" in its treatment of a cyborg police officer. "Realism" all too often is a code word for having no sense of humor. This film's only saving grace is the over-the-top performance by Samuel L. Jackson.

22. (559.) The Gambler (1980)
I suspect that no one ever told Kenny Rogers "no." They should have.

23. (560.) The Paper Chase (1973)
As a child, I remember HBO really promoting the hell out of this movie. It's really not that good. Not quite a coming-of-age story, its year-in-the-life format does little to show us anything deeper about the human condition other than "don't be a robot" and "stop and smell the roses sometime." Emerson it's not.

24. (561.) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
I know now why I avoided this movie so long. I probably should have avoided it longer. I really hate watching movies about bad people doing bad things. I want to see the bad people punished.

25. (562.) The Sunshine Boys (1975)
Man, Walter Matthau was terrific. I understand why I didn't like him as a kid: you need some life experience to see his characters underneath all of their artificial crust.

Eight movies is the lowest in any month since I started tracking in 2012. The second lowest was 10 in August 2012. You remember what happened that month? The Olympics. If there were three more days in February, I might have gotten to 10 this Olympiad, too.

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The final batch of movies watched in 2013:

223. (530.) Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
Terrific Otto Preminger directed psychological suspense movie with a weird tinge of incest. Hitchcock quality. Highly recommended.

224. (531.) Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
The first Myrna Loy/William Powell movie, and the movie that John Dillinger had just watched before Federal Agents gunned him down. It felt a little cliche for my taste, but it's always hard to tell how much of that cliche comes from others who have copycatted this. I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

225. (532.) Grand Central Murder (1942)
A wacky whodunnit, this film would have served as a fine undercard with a bigger production. Lots of comedy for a relatively straightforward murder mystery.

226. (533.) The Roaring Twenties (1939)
This movie title gives us the phrase we now associate with the decade of bootleggers. It's fun to see Bogart play a bad guy.

227. (534.) Miami Vice (2006)
Not as bad as I'd been lead to believe. This film has style and artificial pathos to spare, but it could have used an injection of humanity. Everyone is so serious! (And Colin Farrell's southern accent...? No. Just no.)

228. (535.) Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941)
A Hitchcock comedy that is a little heavy on the suggestive and innuendo for the period That's not a knock, it's just a fact. Maybe I'm too prudish.

229. (536.) Frozen (2013)
Friend Cooper called and asked me to go to the movie, and this is what he chose. The film is front-loaded with exposition, mostly delivered in song. Once the singing slows down, the movie takes off, and I enjoyed myself. (I'm a sucker for Kristen Bell.)

230. (537.) Taking Woodstock (2009)
I don't know how much of this comedy was factual, but I can't imagine that it was too much. Best in Show aside, Eugene Levy so rarely appears in real documentaries.

That's 230 new-to-me movies in 2013, a vast majority of which were comedies (68). The actor I saw the most was Tom Conway, the actress, Myrna Loy (for the second year in a row). Alfred Hitchcock was by far the director I saw most often: 10 different movies! (I thought I had seen a lot of Hitchcock's movies before now. The man was prolific.) The writer's work most watched was Preston Sturges, who I came to sincerely appreciate. And, of course, the most common production studio was MGM. (Thank you, Turner Classic Movies!)

So what'll be playing in 2014?

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I went out of town for 2 weeks in August, but I still had time to watch 22 movies. So let's start knocking them out.

129. (436.) Hollywood Hotel (1937)
This movie is the original source for the song "Hooray for Hollywood." The song kicks off the movie, and quite frankly, is the best thing about it. (The rest of the movie isn't bad. It's just not as good as the opening scene.) I hate it when movies give you their best scene up front. I'm always left disappointed that I spend the next two hours waiting for something better than the opener. Oh, well. I guess since everyone knows the song but not this movie, it all worked out in the end.

130. (437.) Oldboy (2003)
Watched on the recommendation of a friend because an American remake is in the works. I don't know that I care to see it again. The movie cheats its storytelling. This is a necessary deception. If it were to be honest, the "shock" of the climax would be ruined. I don't know if the discovery of the climactic revelation soured me on the movie, but I found the post-climax events to be the worst part of the film.

131. (438.) Double Harness (1933)
William Powell can salvage the most boring movies. I paid more time watching costumes and kitchen appliances than I did to the one-note story. If it wasn't for Powell, I wouldn't have gotten through it at all.

132. (439.) True Grit (2010)
I respect the Brothers Coen, but this isn't better than the John Wayne version. Who thought it a good idea that Jeff Bridges mumble all his lines?

133. (440.) Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
I know I've said it before, but Preston Sturges really can do no wrong.

134. (441.) Expendables 2 (2012)
Stupid, straightforward action flick. They may all be old men, but seeing Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Willis share screen time during a firefight is surprisingly satisfying.

135. (442.) Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2010)
Another derivative "monsters live among us" movie, a la Hellboy, Men in Black, Twilight, and Underworld. A detective to the underworld? I think I wrote some similar fan fiction when I was in high school. That said, Brandon Routh is very likable.

136. (443.) The Hunger Games (2012)
Speaking of derivative....

137. (444.) Mister Roberts (1955)
I tried to watch this last year and couldn't get past the first 30 minutes. (I am no fan of Jack Lemmon.) I picked it back up where I left off and watched the rest of it. I still don't really like it, but at least I've seen it. (The ending feels particularly unnecessary, but then so does almost all teh rest of it.)

138. (445.) Jersey Girls (2004)
So Ben Affleck is going to be Batman? Really? In this movie he jokingly calls his street sweeper the Batmobile. I know the line was a joke, but if it is any indication of Affleck's Batman, I think I can do without.

139. (446.) The Benchwarmers (2006)
Dad recommended it. It was better than I was expecting. I'm pretty sure that's not saying much. Let's just say that Rob Schneider as the former high school jock/bully stretched suspension of disbelief a little too far, even for an Adam Sandler farce.

Eleven more coming soon.

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And this is everything else I watched in June, my catch-all category, I guess.

89. (396.) Evan Almighty (2007)
Chock full of name comedians and character actors, but still really, unforgivably terrible. I demand to know who thought any part of this movie was a good idea.

93. (400.) It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)
Stop motion horror animation by the recently deceased Ray Harryhausen. Not exactly must-see material — what this film really lacks is a proper ending — but the special effects do look far more convincing than what you might see in Zack Snyder's CGI movies these days.

95. (402.) Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Dustin Hoffman plays a supporting role in both Huckabees and this metafictional film, the two of which were my favorite movies in June. Coincidence? I'm naming Hoffman my Star of the Month. (Seriously, I'm no big fan of Maggie Gyllenhaal, but I didn't even mind her in this film.) Also recommended.

99. (406.) Libeled Lady (1936)
A classic 30s screwball comedy with Myrna Loy, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, and Jean Harlow. I know that Harlow was the big sex symbol of her day, but it's really Loy who sizzles onscreen. Also also recommended.

100. (407.) The Return of Peter Grimm (1935)
Not too long ago, I watched On Borrowed Time and The Cockeyed Miracle. This film is essentially the same story (dead man intervenes in the lives of the still-living), but manages to make it exceedingly boring. Next time Peter Grimm goes away, I hope he'll stay there.

101. (408.) How to Steal the World (1968)
A movie made out of the final episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. The highlight of the movie is the opening title sequence. I don't mean that to be snarky; the opening title sequence is really a lot of fun. It's not that the rest of the movie isn't entertaining, it's just slow-developing with a lot of improbable sequences, such as when heroes Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin escape a firing squad because, well, just because. There's a particularly dumb scene where Leslie Nielsen is rendered mostly brain dead that must take 10 minutes.

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To be continued...

 

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