what is the last movie you have watched? (films, history, Josh Brolin)

[AllenTrendin]

RAJA RANI tamil Movie 2013 released

[TheKiwi]

"Charlie Countryman"

[merv1225]

"No Good Deed"... good implausible popcorn movie.

[cmptrwlt]

American Sniper. The character and the story are not very interesting. I have seen much better movies about modern warfare, PTSD and so on. The Hurt Locker, for instance, is far superior. Better luck next time, Eastwood.

[Chava61]

The Grand Budapest Hotel which I found to be a strange movie.

[Rudy53420]

Chef (2014)

[loves2read]

Saw "Unbroken"--not that impressive and while it would be almost impossible to cramb all of Louie's biography into a 2 hr movie, Jolie could have extended the time line and challenged the distributors who don't like to show longer movies since they can't turn over the house as often...
We had just listened to the full audio book version on long two day drive from FL to TX--and so were familair with the inconsistencies from book to script--

the life of Louie Z is truly unbelievable--but there were many other men of his generation who went through similar circumstances (except maybe as an Olympic participant)...there were thousands of Pacific pows who suffered as he did and survived the war to suffer from PTSD afterwards...
the book made that pretty plain==not so the movie--
I thought it was a poor script and having 4 writers might be the reason why-
in the book Louie and his pal Phil are pretty much ordered to volunteer for a survivor search mission when they are on their way into town on leave--Louie was in civilian shirt and pants and didn't change--he wore the same clothing all through the raft time and the pow camps--and was attatched to his shirt which he washed and tried to preserve after arriving back in Hawaii after the war--
tragically it was inadvertantly thown away by someone when he had gone out--
yet in the movie he is wearing his AAF uniform---like no one would believe he was an officer w/o a uniform...
there are other changes in the story that apparently happen to conserve time and speed the story along--
but it is like a great soup or stew that is just watered down too much--it lacks flavor...

the CGI battle scenes were top notch--likely because someone with more technical skill was involved--
wasn't impressed with the lead--and there was little character insight really for any of the others involved--
we learn almost nothing about the men he fights with or goes through internment...
just surface...
and the one factor I think Jolie missed completely was showing the incredible hunger these men lived with day in and day out for years--they were basically starved to death...
there is really only one scene in the pow camp where they are shown stealing rice--and none where the guards are shown stealing prisoners' food or Red Cross packages which was a constant scourge to the men...
There is only one guard who really is shown as evil--which was not the case at all--
so even though many Japanese object to the film for how it denegrates Japan--it doesn't go far enough in depicting the dispicable behavior and total inhumanity shown by 99% of the Japanese guards...

[calnbs]

[quote=loves2read;37957723]
There is only one guard who really is shown as evil--which was not the case at all--
so even though many Japanese object to the film for how it denegrates Japan--it doesn't go far enough in depicting the dispicable behavior and total inhumanity shown by 99% of the Japanese guards...[/quote]

Yeah, I remember when I first watch The Rape of Nanking. My freaking goodness. The unimaginable, unthinkable, most evil of all evil. The rapes, the torture, killing of civilians, especailly babies in horrific, horrific ways. I often wonder how the hell did they got to where they were in WW2, considering how much Japanese pride themselves when it comes to HONOR.

In WW2, Japanese military have no honor, the way they treated civilians and POWs. The Japanese military did not deserve any mercy. Every high ranking officers should have been hung or shot; especially who gave out those orders or completely ignoring those horrific situation.

[oeccscclhjhn]

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988)

Directed by Charlotte Zwerin (co-director of Salesman (1969), Gimme Shelter (1970)

Spoiler

Like most movies that depict a descent into madness, it's a slow burn. Black Narcissus. Fritz Lang's M. Kurosawa's I Live in Fear. But this is real life.

Thelonious Monk. Straight, No Chaser. Great album. Distinctive music. I've never heard anyone else play like he does - no one. His timing skips over the notes you expect to hear and only plays / picks the ones between them. At first you think - that sounds odd. That sounds off. Then it clicks, the genius.

Extensive footage from a German crew following him between 1967 and 1968; live performances, back stage, bus rides, in the studio. Essential for any jazz fan.

[loves2read]

I think it was very difficult for the American mind in general to absorb the idea that so many thousands of people would act that way toward others--
the concentration camps as well as the atrocities Japanese committed toward enemy soldiers and especially civilians...
one of the last comments in the book Unbroken was from a Japanese prisoner of war for the Americans who was totally astonished by how well he was treated after capture--he called it "lucky imprisonment"...
no American could/would say that about the Japanese...
the need to pacify the Japanese people to aid the occupation and rebuilding of Japan put paid to any truly harsh recriminations and that is why there is so much disbelief and lack of responsibility in today's Japan I guess...
we didn't shove what they did down their throats after the war--
we gave them baseball and helped create new industry for them...much faster economic healing than Germany where half the country was under Russian rule (no easy thing, that)...