Last Movie You Watched? the 8th

THE FUGITIVE (1993, directed by Andrew Davis). Overlong and farfetched but solidly entertaining thriller with more wisecracks and touches of humour than I'd remembered. Feels a bit like DIE HARD 2 without the action. Tommy Lee Jones is excellent, while Harrison Ford is Harrison Ford (which is certainly no bad thing, for if there's one thing Ford is good at it's being Ford), and the whole thing is tremendous fun, although its Best Picture nomination nowadays seems very surprising.

Independence Day (1996)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/

I remember watching this in 1996 with a few friends and we had a good time at the movie theater.

Now, almost 17 (gasp!) years later, I just re-watched it on Blu-Ray and I must say that not only this movie really sucks crapola;

there are so many plot holes in it and so many things wrong with it, I wouldn't even know where to start.

Now there is talk that there are 2 sequels in the works.

After all these years, does anyone even care at all about them?

I know I sure don't!

2/5

p.s. I must say that the Blu-Ray released in 2008 was pristine and very well done.

Hable con ella (2002, dir. Pedro Almodóvar)

Another Almodóvar film that tells an interesting story in an empathetic manner. The "silent film" bit is particularly well made.


Madame de... (1953, dir. Max Ophüls)

Very good drama about a woman's extramarital affair, her only "true love" in life (no worries, the film is far from being a melodrama!), and two earrings. Accomplished direction, good writing and acting (the film stars Vittorio de Sica, the director of Ladri di biciclette, the film I wasn't able to finish due to technical problems some weeks ago; hadn't known he was an actor as well). It was my first Ophüls.

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, dir. Paul Greengrass)

Not as good as the first two, it lacks more calmer and slower moments, and the ending isn't as emotionally satisfying as it could have been, but at least we get the answers, unlike in certain other films...
The fight in Tangier and the car chase are even closer to their equivalents in QOS (compared to the ones from SUPREMACY I mean).
It's a pretty decent action film, with good acting, and I'm not disappointed (as could have been the case with any of the two sequels).

Flight (2012)

Decent comeback from Zemeckis after his crappy animated films and probably Washington's best performance since Training Day. John Goodman doing his Big Lebowski impression again was great when he turns up but Denzel Washington is the main draw here.

Life Of Pi (2012)

Visually, this is one of the most impressive movies I have ever seen. Right from the beginning, the opening shots of the various animals at the zoo are shot beautifully. The 3D is also very effective. The shipwreck scene, which is quite long, was amazing to behold, with the water effects and animals floating. The Bengal tiger, named Richard Parker, is mostly CGI, but at times he looked so real and so up close that my hairs stood up. There are also other impressive scenes involving luminous jellyfish and agile flying fish.

The movie has several spiritual messages, due to Pi's multi-religious lifestyle, and that may turn off some viewers. The ending may also confuse viewers (I was left scratching my head for a while), but these are the only real flaws I find with the movie. Pi's story of survival is very engaging and beautiful to look at.

THE RAID: REDEMPTION (2011, directed by Gareth Evans). Stupendously brutal microbudget action thriller that does what it says on the tin with some flair. Unlike the superficially similar DREDD (in both films, cops infiltrate a high-rise slum controlled by crime bosses who lock the place down, trapping them), THE RAID: REDEMPTION doesn't simply deal in violence (although make no mistake: there's a superabundance of violence here, most of it served up with jawdropping martial arts choreography) but also offers some suspense, as well a hero with a modicum of humanity. That said, it's still no great shakes in the scheme of things, but it certainly achieves what it sets out to do and marks director Gareth Evans and star Iko Uwais as names to watch.

Flight ... well, the first half of it anyway. Film ground to a halt about an hour in, a member of cinema staff explained that something had 'overheated' and it would be 5 minutes before it had cooled down and be operational again. 10 Denzel-less minutes later, with the 'flow'of the film now utterly ruined for me and various points in the film being put up on the screen for us to say whether or not that's the point it stopped at, I angrily walked out and got a refund :x .

What I'd seen up to then had been decent enough.

bondfan06 wrote:

The Bengal tiger, named Richard Parker, is mostly CGI, but at times he looked so real and so up close that my hairs stood up.

That's because there were some scenes where a real tiger was used. But top marks for the CGI Richard Parker all the same, he looked astounding and it augurs well for animals in the future.

THE DICTATOR :2*:

To be sure, there are a few laughs to be found in the movie. Nothing gut-busting, but....I rented it for a $1.59 from Red Box, and it was worth every penny. But no more than that. Definitely a rental. Wouldn't purchase it, and am glad I didn't see it in the theater.

TERMINATOR SALVATION :2*:
For some reason I thought this was better when I saw it in the theater, but even at the time I knew it had its faults: namely, that Bale is not very sympathetic as John Connor; you almost end up disliking him.

The storyline lacks a decent, central villain, and then when the villain is "revealed" towards the end, it's laughable.

And it's clear that McG thinks that he's showing due reverence to James Cameron by picking bits and pieces out of those films and then adapting them to his own, but they hurt the film overall because it shows how very little of everything else that isn't Cameron simply doesn't work. "Star" feels like Newt, except without being central to the storyline. There's zero relationship between Star and Kyle Reese as Ripley had with Newt. The best thing about Salvation is Anton Yelchin's Kyle Reese, but he's basically MIA for the second half of the film.

Sam Worthington's character is all over the place; this is the fault of the writers and of McG. They gave Worthington shit and expected him to make Shinola. Why should we care about Worthington's character? All we really know about him is that he's a double or triple murderer, who wakes up 15 years later and finds out that his heart, brain, and a few other vital organs have been grafted onto an exoskeleton. He wants to "know who he is", and the film liberally steals from TOTAL RECALL near the end, when it's revealed that Marcus had been implanted as a way to get closer to the Resistance and, by extension, John Connor, but just as in TOTAL RECALL, the new Hauser/Marcus doesn't want to play along with the person that created his identity, and much like Frankenstein, he turns against his creator.

And don't even get me started with Moon Bloodgood's character; I would have shot her dead where she stood if she had fallen in love with a terminator, lied to others in order to get into the room with it, and then let it loose.

This is not a terrible film, but it's not a great film either, and I don't think it really moves the series forward any.

Watching THE SAND PEBBLES. Really dull to me. Not a big fan of Robert Wise after about 1960.

I loved it. One of my favourite Goldsmith scores.

Largo's Shark wrote:

I loved it. One of my favourite Goldsmith scores.

His score is great. And the Blu-ray looks terrific. But the movie just isn't engaging me at all.

SIDE EFFECTS (2013, dir. Steven Soderbergh)

While Soderbergh cites such erotic thrillers FATAL ATTRACTION and BODY HEAT as inspiration for SIDE EFFECTS, SIDE EFFECTS doesn't have much in the way of eroticism. Or thrills, either, for that matter.

Thomas Newman's score has been praised by many, but it's a bit too ambient for my tastes.

Armond did a controversial Walter Hill vs. Steven Soderbergh take-down in the latest City Arts issue, comparing BULLET TO THE HEAD with SIDE EFFECTS.

http://cityarts.info/2013/02/06/at-cinemas-crossroads/

P.S. Why no avie?

Is Soderbergh a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing? Making soulless facsimilies of every movie genre?

HAYWIRE made me want to put a bullet to the head.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

HAYWIRE made me want to put a bullet to the head.

It contained some of the most inept editing of any action film I've seen made in the last decade, including QUANTUM OF SOLACE. The fight on the beach was pathetic.

THE GREY (2012, directed by Joe Carnahan). A dull, preposterous and predictable thriller with some of the worst dialogue and most unengaging characters in recent memory. A painful experience.

Largo's Shark wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

HAYWIRE made me want to put a bullet to the head.

It contained some of the most inept editing of any action film I've seen made in the last decade, including QUANTUM OF SOLACE. The fight on the beach was pathetic.

I hated HAYWIRE. What an appalling waste of money (mine and the dough that financed this fiasco) and talent.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

HAYWIRE made me want to put a bullet to the head.

Say what you will, but I really like HAYWIRE. (I actually watched it again just before seeing SIDE EFFECTS.)

I watched CONTAGION a while back at a friend's place. It gave me a bad case of the Zzz's. Dunno how much I actually made it through. HAYWIRE took me two tries. And I barely remember any of it.

But I still like OUT OF SIGHT and THE LIMEY.

I kinda like THE LIMEY (even if it's a poor man's GET CARTER) - if only for Stamp and Fonda - despite of that annoying bald guy with the specs behind the camera.

Just re-watched Midway, one of my favorite World War 2 movies from when I was a kid.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074899/

3.5/5

Hehe!

That is not the same plane in the scene at the end of the movie when Charlton Heston was trying to land his shot up Dauntless on the Enterprise.




Video here:

if you just want to see the crash scene, skip forward to 2:47

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTSRiCvaxdw

QUOTING a comment posted at that YouTube video:

Quote :

In this scene, Charlton Heston climbs into a Douglas Dauntless, takes off in a Grumman Avenger, flies, sometimes in a Vought Vindicator, sometimes in a Douglas Dauntless, makes the final approach in a Curtiss Helldiver and crashes in a Grumman Panther (a jet!).

:roll:

During the same flight. He must have been extremely busy, no wonder he crashed...

:D

Quote :

At 1:42, the plane exploding after being hit by Japanese Anti-Aircraft carrier is a HE-111

Wow!

Those Luftwaffe pilots sure do get around!

:lol!:

j7wild wrote:

That is not the same plane in the scene at the end of the movie when Charlton Heston was trying to land his shot up Dauntless on the Enterprise.

Guess they changed it midway.

The Killing (1956, dir. Stanley Kubrick)

One of the best caper movies imaginable. Very clever, ironic, and well executed.

(Could be I got the cut version, even though I ordered an English DVD version - the writing on the back (and front) side is in English, but it also contains the dubbed version, which is only the second time I ever came across a DVD with these particular features; - what happens in the shooting scene? How long is it?)

Manhunter wrote:

The Killing (1956, dir. Stanley Kubrick)

(Could be I got the cut version,)

I have the Criterion edition in my collection.

The full movie is 85 min long.

How long is yours?

SPLIT IMAGE (1982, directed by Ted Kotcheff). This account of a teenager lured into a religious cult is very TV movie-ish in style - not that that's always a bad thing, of course. It isn't entirely convincing or coherent, and it's also a real mixed bag in terms of execution: quite a few scenes are marred by on-the-nose writing, hamfisted direction and hammy performances, yet strangely enough this film also has more than its share of well-crafted and well-acted moments. For all its flaws, it's a gripping, affecting and thought-provoking drama from start to finish, and, besides, it's hard to dislike any flick that brings together Karen Allen, Brian Dennehy, Peter Fonda and James Woods and also boasts a Bill Conti score. Something of a forgotten gem, SPLIT IMAGE is one of those movies that cries out for a remake on a larger canvas from a more auteurist and visually-minded director interested in fleshing out some of its characters and unexplored ideas. It would be interesting to see, for example, what Scorsese and Schrader would do with this material, or maybe Michael Mann - the latter might foreground the cult leader (Fonda) and his deprogrammer nemesis (Woods), setting up a relationship akin to that between De Niro and Pacino in HEAT.