CinemaInternational

Still a smalled drop on monday than all but one of the other top 15 titles....

Absolutely. So majestic. Written by Bill Conti, who did the music for Rocky, The Right Stuff, For Your Eyes Only, and The Karate Kid.

Shelley Duvall is especially good in it, but so is Sissy Spacek. It's a weird, hypnotic type of film that is like a dream or nightmare. Another Altman saga of the late 70s that was better than reputation might say was A Perfect Couple. Got a bit too bagged down in (admittedly very good) music in the second half, but it was a charmingly flaky romantic comedy with nice performances from Paul Dooley and Marta Heflin.

Just want to point out a rare TCM airing of Children of a Lesser God late tonight. Exceptional film and a must-see. First TCM airing in 10 years.

I looked at bits from that again today, after being disappointed with a certain film that happened to have an ELO song in it. made me think of Xanadu, so I went back to look at some of the musical numbers in it. I really liked it before, but now I think even some of my reservations are disappearing. It's strange, but the film seemingly manages the triple feat of being of its time (via the roller disco, hair, and clothes), of the 40s (gene Kelly, the Kelly/Newton-John dance scene, the gentle fantasy plotline), and of even times after it was made (with its go for broke technical exuberance it seems to anticipate things like Moulin Rouge) That makes it a pretty special film.....

Strange you should say that. I remember seeing Siskel and Ebert review that film in a clip on the internet, and that they both said no to the film but said the first 15 minutes were hilarious.

If I'd have to guess myself and I'm going with ones with low average scores on a movie website, and one thing I notice is that most classics have solid scores, so most of these tend to be in the 80s and 90s...... (and yes, you can tell I like romances and musicals): The Emperor Waltz (1948) The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (1961) Finian's Rainbow (1968) Topaz (1969) Lost Horizon (1973) The Great Gatsby (1974) Mame (1974) [Not as good as Rosalind's of course, but still an entertaining time..... especially when Bea Arthur is around] A Star is Born (1976) [I think I've seen people like this one though, but it seems relatively few still. It's better than the most recent take.] Agatha (1979) The Formula (1980) Kiss me Goodbye (1982) Mrs Soffel (1984) A Chorus Line (1985) The Morning After (1986) Legal Eagles (1986) Black Widow (1987) Ishtar (1987) Moon Over Parador (1988) Cookie (1989) Always (1989) Havana (1990) The Russia House (1990) A Show of Force (1990) The Cemetery Club (1993) Intersection (1994) Love Affair (1994) First Knight (1995) The Muse (1999) Elizabethtown (2005) Labor Day (2013) Rules Don't Apply (2016) The Little Stranger (2018) There are others, including at least one I'm embarrassed to say about, because it was a kid's film that was near universally despised (and yes, the Universal is a bit of a hint, because that was the company behind it)

Another one was a takeoff on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, with Steve martin as Richard Dreyfuss and Tim Conray as an alien. Betty White was also in the skit and when Conroy came out in the alien getup, she said "That shape.... that form.... he could be the Pillsbury doughboy!"

Everybody has some. And instead of doing another thread like the one involving films you dislike/hate that everybody seemingly loves, it seemed appropriate to tackle the other side of the aisle. Feel free to choose some from any era.

Whenever I hear the organ music, I think of Carol Burnett's As the Stomach Turns. They had a funny one where Carol Channing played Jinx, the world's unluckiest woman. Widowed many times, set sail on the Andrea Doria, and according to the narrator at the end, "Will she be able to close her charge account at Forest Lawn?"

The prime time soap I am most familiar with (albeit only the first three years, as that was all that was put on DVD) is Falcon Crest..... Jane Wyman made a great lead, and the cast around here was great too, especially Margaret Ladd as her eccentric daughter.

It pulled in $3 million from 461 screens, and had the second highest per-screen average of the weekend. It's doing fine.

And Ask any Girl (1959) and Where Were You When the Lights Went Out (1968) have evaporated into thin air. Despite being MGM, neither has been on TCM and they have not been seen since 90s VHS releases.

He did but not very often. Such cases were in The Spy Who Loved Me, GoldenEye and The World is Not Enough. Thunderball I think it was somebody else's bullet.

Some others that are not on DVD or Blu-Ray (some are in streaming): The Royal Family of Broadway (1930) The Big Pond (1930) The Dark Angel (1935) Roseanna McCoy (1949) The Mating Season (1951) I Want You (1951) Beware My Lovely (1952) The Rat Race (1960, streaming for free currently at Amazon) The Pleasure of His Company (1961) My Six Loves (1963) Penelope (1966, airing on TCM this week) Angel in My Pocket (1969) The Happy Ending (1969) Limbo (1972) Citizens Band/Handle with Care (1977) Daniel (1983) Compromising Positions (1985) Macaroni (1985) Zelly and Me (1988)

Not yet really. Only Toy Story 4. More will follow in the next few months.

One thing also that I think should also be addressed about the reception of films today, is how the mixed review in papers and on websites devoted to film are much rarer than they used to be. metacritic is an example of that. That's a website that rates movies on a weighted critical average, with 1 being the lowest and 100 the highest (its all based on the star rating or tenor of the review). In the 90s, most films, even the most praised ones, would top out in the high 70s to low 80s. Most films were in the middle ground of the 40s and 50s scores (banded in Yellow). Now, the most praised ones place in the 90s and up to even near 100, whereas even some films that not many people like are given scores in the 50s.

I don't have anything against her; Selma was a solid film. But a statement like that is an example I feel of 2010s hyperbole. There are certain actors and actresses and certain directors who are presented with rapturous praise after hitting it out of the park with the critics after doing one film. Afterwards they are given all this laudatory attention.... until they do something that isn't so popular or bottoms out, and then everyone screams they are overrated and their career fades away. I'm tired of that type of whiplash......

Universal and Paramount say hi. Signed CI, who just spent $3.99 on Amazon video to see a 60s Paramount title......

I always felt that Moonraker had one of the most disturbing deaths in the series: When Michael Lonsdale lets the dobermans loose on the person he regards as being a traitor......

Honestly, I don't find any ranking system to really work for me online. Rotten Tomatoes is only really applicable for films from 1998 on, and on sites like IMDb, the majority of the films place between 5.0 and 7.5.

It's a cute film, but I don't get all the outrage over a remake (even though I do think that it would be nice if Hollywood didn't make as many of them, but fat chance on that). I only saw it once.

Not many from Disney's experimental early 80s phase I see.....

Coming October