Last Movie you Watched?

A double bill of Thunderbirds (2004) and McHale's Navy (1997)



Both are great Bond movies. Both have supervillians (Ben Kingsley and Tim
Curry), lead babes (Sophia Myles and Debra Messing) and lots of action.



The Thunderbird Island set-up rivals the best of Bond! Awesome. I give both films, honoray Bond-film status.

Sharky wrote:

Olivier's never mechanical, by any means. It's often stylised and theatrical, but always with conviction. That last factor separates good acting from bad acting.

Well, the last point wasn't at Olivier himself. I did like him in MARATHON MAN.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Sharky wrote:

Olivier's never mechanical, by any means. It's often stylised and theatrical, but always with conviction. That last factor separates good acting from bad acting.

Well, the last point wasn't at Olivier himself.

Ah, right. I can't talk for everyone in HAMLET, but generally I was impressed.

Man on the Moon (1999)

quite a good movie if not solely for Jim Carrey's performance as Andy Kaufman, quite extraordinary really. The Latka/Tony Clifton impersonations were as spot on as you're likely to get. Enjoyable to see the Taxi cast (minus Danza) reunited for some kind of reenactment of the show. Kind of funny how they are clearly older yet 'doing' the show as if for the first time, likewise Jerry Lawler, Letterman and idiot Shaeffer for the Letterman Show incident.

and completing tonights double

Jurassic Park III

pfft...No force on heaven or earth is ever going to get me on that island, the Alan Grant attitude is what I have. Once I watch the first one I tend to progress to here. Like Lost World it's good to have some kind of connection to previous events in this case the 'Dino Tour' at Isla Sorna, Grant's telling of the audience "or San Diego...of which i wasn't there" and so on. What I find favourable is seeing Ellie Satler though when I first saw the film I thought for a minute that Grant and Satler had gotten together but of course we can't have that. I'll say this Laura Dern looks fine. Mightily. Anyway, she's back if only for a few lines and that brief chatter of the Park is good. "Do you remember the sounds they made?"
Sam Neill tends to have an 'too old for this shit' feel or maybe it's how Alan Grant would've been (does tend to have the best lines). As Dom DeLuise would have said, "It's a living."
Bad points are numerous. Plot is stupid, watery at best with a been there done that feel sometimes. Something about it all makes me think of a TV movie. A TV movie with passable CGI. It's 98mins to boot.
It does tend to splash on the Site B stuff in Lost World.
Musically it's neither here nor there, the best bits tend to be those involving the Jurassic Park theme i.e. "Dinosaur Flyby" and "Brachiosar on the Bank"
oh and Enterprise's Hoshi Sato's in it. Yay, whipee...yawn



-"...you liked dinosaurs then."
-"Back then they hadn't tried to eat me yet."

Ted Bundy (Bright, 2002)

Stayed with an old friend yesterday. This is her favourite film. :shock:

Reminded me of J7wild.

Hanna (2011)

Theres 2 hours of my life I won't get back, a distinct case of style over content, story and music curtesy of Manatee's....meh 5/10

lachesis wrote:

Hanna (2011)

Theres 2 hours of my life I won't get back, a distinct case of style over content, story and music curtesy of Manatee's....meh 5/10

I tend to agree with your assessment. Much style over content. The movie did start out with promise though and then really didn't deliver.

Bugsy

Stylistically impressive but overlong portrait of the famous gangster.I've never been a big fan of Warren Beatty as an actor or as a person but this role is perfect for him. It is almost as if we are watching a biography of Beatty if he were a gangster. He's a selfish crazy womanizer in the film, not much of a stretch but there was this odd enjoyment I go out of it for that reason. The supporting roles are filled with great actors doing fine work but the film rests on Beatty's performance and for the most part he delivers. As most biopics do this one plays with the facts but still tells an interesting story that's well directed it just could have used a little pruning.

I'll probably have to see Dick Tracy to compare it more effectively.

The Parallax View

I presumed that The Parallax View was going to be another horribly dated and hokey dirty government thriller (and that car chase towards the beginning definitely leaned that way) where one little guy blows the doors off of a government conspiracy. If nothing else, The Parallax View showed me how nice it is to be wrong sometimes. Warren Beatty's performance definitely has me understanding the whole Warren Beatty Thing (at least late 60s/early 70s era Beatty.) But for as subdued and enjoyable as Beatty's performance was, Gordon Willis' cinematography is the standout here. Every shot from the last 20 minutes of this movie heightens the sense of anxiety and paranoia.Michael Small's score is also effectively atmospheric.

A part of Small's score turns up in MARATHON MAN at a penetrating moment near mid-film. I love PARALLAX, though admittedly there are some oddly staged action bits early on.

IMMORTAL BELOVED (1994, dir. Bernard Rose)

Dreadful.

Yep. I can't for the life of me grasp the praise that movie gets. A disgrace to Beethoven the man, and Beethoven the composer.

I own a bust of Beethoven (yes, really), and the bust was scowling at the television set the entire time. But, of course, the bust scowls at everything.

Same here. My father (got it from one of his piano exams) passed it on to me when I was young. Sadly it's a bit chipped (I'll let Santa explain), but you can just about make out ol' Ludwig's mug.

Would you fellas say that Ludwig was the greatest composer ever, and if not who would you anoint as the king? (Or queen?)

Loomis wrote:

Would you fellas say that Ludwig was the greatest composer ever, and if not who would you anoint as the king? (Or queen?)

Beethoven is one of the greatest musical geniuses, but the king is unarguably Johann Sebastian Bach.

Harmsway wrote:

Loomis wrote:

Would you fellas say that Ludwig was the greatest composer ever, and if not who would you anoint as the king? (Or queen?)

Beethoven is one of the greatest musical geniuses, but the king is unarguably Johann Sebastian Bach.

Some would suggest Handel.

Sharky wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

Loomis wrote:

Would you fellas say that Ludwig was the greatest composer ever, and if not who would you anoint as the king? (Or queen?)

Beethoven is one of the greatest musical geniuses, but the king is unarguably Johann Sebastian Bach.

Some would suggest Handel.

Including Beethoven himself.

Admittedly, when choosing the greatest composer, one finds oneself in the position of choosing among gods. But while Handel undoubtedly belongs in the pantheon, it is my deep conviction that Bach rules over all.

Hmmm.... I know squat about classical music. I don't even own a single classical CD. I guess I've got some listening to do. The question, though, is: where does one start?

Best to ask Harms if you want the orthodox approach.

Loomis wrote:

I guess I've got some listening to do. The question, though, is: where does one start?

You start with what you like, I'd say. Sure, anyone could write up a list of famous masterpieces, but I'd recommend you just find a gateway drug and go from there. We do have a classical music thread, so we should probably continue that discussion there, but before I make any recommendations it would probably be helpful to know what classic music you've heard and responded to, or even just which classically-styled soundtracks you've found compelling.

I also recommend looking at the Music you want to use in a film thread. Some interesting stuff there.

Harmsway wrote:

Loomis wrote:

I guess I've got some listening to do. The question, though, is: where does one start?

You start with what you like, I'd say. Sure, anyone could write up a list of famous masterpieces, but I'd recommend you just find a gateway drug and go from there. We do have a classical music thread, so we should probably continue that discussion there, but before I make any recommendations it would probably be helpful to know what classic music you've heard and responded to, or even just which classically-styled soundtracks you've found compelling.

Okay. Tell you what, let's go over to the other thread. I'll C&P your reply there and we'll resume the discussion there.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Ted Bundy (Bright, 2002)

Stayed with an old friend yesterday. This is her favourite film. :shock:

Reminded me of J7wild.

This should have been the movie's theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW_Sm_iSoxY#t=23s

Hilly wrote:

Jurassic Park III

Haven't seen those in a decade, but JPIII automatically fails because it's more fun to watch Jeff Goldblum react to dinosaurs than it is to watch Sam Neill react to dinosaurs.

Had he been alive, it should have been JURASSIC PARK III: BOB PECK KILLS DINOSAURS and be about Muldoon's twin brother, also called Muldoon, avenging his brother's death by going to the island and killing every single dinosaur on it. And getting Laura Dern.

It'd be like DEATH WISH, with dinosaurs.

Loomis wrote:

Would you fellas say that Ludwig was the greatest composer ever, and if not who would you anoint as the king? (Or queen?)

Completely subjective. Ask ten people and you'll get ten different answers. He's undoubtedly an incredibly important composer because he's a "crossover" type composer that helped usher in a new era of music. A lot of academics will credit his Eroica symphony with being the first piece of the Romantic period (although some suggest Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique is more fitting of that title). He's also interesting because the progression from classical to romantic is very evident in his body of work. Some of his early music is most definitely classical, and some of his his late string quartets and even parts of the the 9th (and others) are incredibly modern. There's no doubt, however that he belongs in the pantheon of all-time great composers, along with JS Bach, Handel, Brahms, Wagner, Shostakovich, and numerous others.

As far as a good place to start...I'd suggest finding the musical era you most identify with (be it Renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, modern, atonal, post-modern, whatever) and then pick a few famous composers from that era, and then go from there. Once you have a base of what you know you like, you can then branch out from there a check out other stuff you may be into.

/thread hijack, haha 8)

Shostakovitch is NOT one of the great composers, by any means. Prokofiev s***s him out for breakfast.