The Last Movie You Watched?

[url]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/843/enfer20120copyright20je.jpg/[/url] [size=12pt]L’enfer [/size] (1994, Claude Chabrol)

A luckily married hotel owner is obsessed by the idea that his young and sexy wife is cheating on him. At first the young woman is amused and flattered, but the situation soon becomes unbearable … and far worse.

Not on a par with Chabrol’s masterpieces from the sixties and seventies, but still a poignant study of paranoia and the ‘discrete fears of the bourgeoisie’, with a tremendous performance by François Cluzet as the obsessed husband. The original script was written by Henri-Georges Clouzot (for Romy Schneider) but his movie never came off the ground. Chabrol rewrote the entire script (he explains things in an extra on the Belgian disc), skipping Clouzot’s experiments with storytelling, and reshaping the female part for Emanuelle Béart (a completely diffferent actress). Béart is the ideal choice to represent the object of Cluzot’s obsessions. Despite Chabrol’s rewritings, there are still a few troubles on script level: the story is a bit too straightforward for Chabrol to keep up the tension from start to finish (and basically it’s a one-man-plus-one-sexy-woman show), but the final 10-15 minutes are tremendously suspenseful and among the best things he’s ever done.

3+ (out of 5)

Phil, have you seen the recent OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, a very funny spoof of those films as well as Euro Spy movies in general?

I haven’t John, no. But it’s on my Christmas wish list.

Hatari… 1962. Pretty-good John Wayne/Howard Hawks collaboration about a game-preserve that catches animals for international zoo’s. The premise is as politically-incorrect as it gets, but was the norm in the 60’s. The first 20-minutes are absolutely stunning… trying to capture an elusive rhino on wide-open tundra. Unfortunately, the film slowly begins to spiral into various melodramatic side-plots and predictable ‘cute animal’ situations. -The scene where everybody-but-Wayne attempts to milk goats to feed an orphan-elephant is almost unwatchable. The casting of Red Buttons as Wayne’s ‘catch’-driver and comic-foil never really works. Hardy Kruger and Bruce Cabot are excellent, as usual. Elsa Martinelli’s and Michelle Girardon’s performances are a welcome relief from Wayne’s typical ‘strong-woman’ leads, but both eventually become disappointingly ‘boy crazy’. The film is definitely worth seeing, especially for Wayne’s stuntwork; strapped-to-the-hood of a speeding truck, wielding drop-loops over various running beasts.

I like the 0SS 117 movies, especially those with Frederic Stafford, but I didn’t like this spoof from 2006

Watched Karate Warriors and thought it was very qood. I’ll have to go back and rewatch the Street Fighter movies with Sonny Chiba, been a while since I’ve seen any of them.

Silent Running - I remember my dad going wild for this when I was a kid, all I can remember about it was the little robots. Anyway I quite enjoyed it, there’s something really nice about it but it’s hard to put it into words what it is. The blu ray disc looks absolutely gorgeous. Even though it is a tame film I can’t see how it got a U certificate though as he kills a few people, two offscreen but one you see him do, If I didn’t know what certificate it was before watching I would have thought it would have been a PG.

pretty good eco-scifi :), Bruce Dern is not very likeable hero, but that´s an asset
and those huge spaceships must look great on bluray

[quote=“tomas, post:6208, topic:1923”]pretty good eco-scifi :), Bruce Dern is not very likeable hero, but that´s an asset
and those huge spaceships must look great on bluray[/quote]

I’ve seen it in cinema, the only thing I liked then, were those gigantic spaceships.
If I’m not mistaken there’s a scene with Dern, the camera then zooming out, revealing how huge the space ship is.

[quote=“scherpschutter, post:6209, topic:1923”]I’ve seen it in cinema, the only thing I liked then, were those gigantic spaceships.
If I’m not mistaken there’s a scene with Dern, the camera then zooming out, revealing how huge the space ship is.[/quote]

i don´t remember exactly this zooming out :slight_smile: - but i love ending - there´s great shot of a spaceship, or precisely that dome detached from destroyed ship (by Dern) and we see tiny lights in the dome, which is dissapearing into the darkness

How come? Did you feel it wasn’t very fond of the films it was spoofing?

2019: After the Fall of New York
A real classic directed by Sergio Martino. It’s fun to watch even cause of the trash look. It references several post apocalyptic movies which is quite enjoyable. Not to forget George Eastman in an unforgettable role as Big Ape with false beard. :slight_smile:

[quote=“scherpschutter, post:6209, topic:1923”]If I’m not mistaken there’s a scene with Dern, the camera then zooming out, revealing how huge the space ship is.[/quote]Yeah, right at the end.

I don’t know, I thought it wasn’t funny, and being funny is very important as far as spoofs are concerned.
Spoofs: Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, and overall I think they work best when the original is a bit ponderous and takes itself (as a genre movie) very serious. For me that was the reason Aiplane! worked so well: those disaster movies were ridiculous melodramas, and therefore the ideal kind of movies to make fun of. For me spoofs of Bond or OSS usually don’t work because the films already have a slight ‘spoofy’ aspect, they’re already slightly tongue-in-cheek (the Matt Helm movies probably showed the only way how to make fun of them: by elaborating the tongue-in-cheek aspects, but respecting the genre conventions, Matt Helm remained an ace of a secret agent, wasn’t presented as a complete idiot). That German Winnetou spoof, Manitou’s Shoe, worked because these Winnetou movies were so dead-serious and sentimental.

my favorite spoof is Galaxy Quest, although it´s not that kind of spoof like Airplane
but great parody of Star Trek, much better than (T)raumschiff Surprise

…and Spaceballs is also great ;D

[quote=“tomas, post:6215, topic:1923”]my favorite spoof is Galaxy Quest[/quote]I didn’t think it was that good myself, my favourite spoof has got to be Blazing Saddles.

For me Blazing Saddles and Airplane!, two movies I return to every now and then.

I lke spoofs/parody films, Austin Powers (beter than Bond actually) and all that, but for me the best one got to be “This is Spinal Tap”, a spoof that made others

For me it’s Duck Soup and It’s a Mad,Mad,Mad,Mad World.