Last Movie You Watched? the 8th

Sukkar banat (2007, dir. Nadine Labaki)

A somewhat lightweight romantic dramedy, but made with a heart, otherwise I would not have been able to finish it. Set in Beirut, it's a quite amusing tale slightly reminiscent of Almodóvar:


Ashes of Time (1994, dir. Wong Kar Wai)

In spite of the switch between storylines and a character confusion, I enjoyed it. A visually striking and at least somewhat compelling film, this is my second favourite Wong film so far (behind MOOD, obviously). Needs a second viewing soon (which I'm sure will help to enhance my enjoyment of it).

Silver Lining Playbook - a very good movie that is more than your average romcom. Both Bradley and Lawernece are indeed amazing.

Zardoz, starring Sean Connery, 1974.
From the very weird mind of writer/director John Boorman
"The gun is good. The penis is bad" Thus spake Zardoz (fake God) and off we go. Sean has never been fiercer, as the Brutal, Zed, serving as a dedicated Zardoz executioner of pesky fellow humans, whilst decked out in red-thong and hip-wader ensemble.
This film is Connery's Planet of the Apes. Not to be outdone by fellow hairy beast actor, Chuck Heston, our Bond-boy Connery is also locked in a cage and treated like a barbarian animal by curious mutant Immortal types, who poke, prod and study him. But ultimately the red thong and six-shooter prevail.
Would make a good double-bill with Apes except that the first Apes is a cinema classic, while Zardoz is one of the dumbest films ever made.


Darby O'Gill and the Little People, Walt Disney, starring Sean Connery, 1959.Connery stars as Michael McBride, a strapping young Dubliner who saves the girl's family farm from the town bully. Movie finishes with a great barfight as Michael (the strapping young Connery) soundly thrashes bully Pony,knocking him cold and scolding the philistine for not believing in the little people. Darby O'Gill and Michael depart arm-in-arm, joining Katie (Bond-girl forerunner Janet Munro) outside in the wagon for a happy ending, with Michael and Katie singing a final duet together of "Pretty Irish Girl"
Heartwarming Mr. Kidd. Moving Mr. Wint.
Sean sings!!! and way better than fellow Irish Brozzer (Sean says he has Irish blood as well as Scotts blood) in Mama Mia.
Lots of leprechauns dancing and prancing about too. Great fun!
Michael McBride, the valiant pub brawler vs Zed the Zardoz Brutal would make a good fight. Wholesome Sean vs Animal Sean. McBride would have youth on his side but Zed was pretty nasty.

Shame you didn't like Zardoz, tiff. Personally, I divide my life into pre-Zardoz and post-Zardoz eras.

Also:

Great mashup! Very funny. Zardoz, one of Sean's great Bond movies!

CJB wrote:

Shame you didn't like Zardoz, tiff. Personally, I divide my life into pre-Zardoz and post-Zardoz eras.

Oh I liked it enough. I like to poke fun at it. Sean was awesome, especially when he negotiated the deal where he gets all the worldly knowledge from the Immortal women,in exchange for "having to" inseminate them all. The penis is no longer evil.
And Rampling and her posse demanded these terms! Not even Bond had it this easy.

Chisum

nothing remarkable. Just another Western really. I was more struck by how Geoffrey Duell resembled his late brother Pete (who I know primarily for Alias Smith and Jones) or how Glenn Corbett resembles Chris Pine (vice versa) and so on.

Watching Life Of Pi

Oh boy... another movie with a deceiving trailer.

This movie is not about a boy and a tiger stuck on a boat, adrift in the middle of nowhere on the Ocean.

I am only 12 minutes into it and this is another religion and god preaching movie!!

Vera Cruz

more like it. For one (or two) things it had Lancaster and Cooper not to mention Cesar Romero. Quite a good main theme actually.

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (2012, directed by Benh Zeitlin). A watchable but strangely unengaging blend of kitchen sink drama (Louisiana-style) and PAN'S LABYRINTH-esque fantasy (although the latter element is given so little screentime and feels so tacked-on, so redundant and - worst of all - so prosaic that it should probably have been left out altogether). It's like a fly-on-the-wall documentary - and one that's made with admirable directorial detachment and some visual flair - occasionally gatecrashed by a third-rate Spielberg imitator who can't or won't take his foot off the sentimentality pedal. There are some good moments but the film is rarely as compelling as it ought to be or as emotionally affecting as it wants to be.

Quote :

admirable directorial detachment

What on earth's admirable about that?

Bravo, LS.

Loomis wrote:

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (2012, directed by Benh Zeitlin). A watchable but strangely unengaging blend of kitchen sink drama (Louisiana-style) and PAN'S LABYRINTH-esque fantasy (although the latter element is given so little screentime and feels so tacked-on, so redundant and - worst of all - so prosaic that it should probably have been left out altogether). It's like a fly-on-the-wall documentary - and one that's made with admirable directorial detachment and some visual flair - occasionally gatecrashed by a third-rate Spielberg imitator who can't or won't take his foot off the sentimentality pedal. There are some good moments but the film is rarely as compelling as it ought to be or as emotionally affecting as it wants to be.

Nice blurb. You communicate a graspable sense of the film, for those of us that know not much about it, other than it was nominated for awards. I would like to see this film, but only if there is quality footage of wild animals, but I suspect maybe not.

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090180/

Just watched the Blu-Ray tonight.

I've seen this movie several times before but never like this.

A beautiful pristine Blu-Ray transfer that accentuate the hues of green and orange and blue and yellow which brings the seedy underground atmosphere of the City of Angels to life.

Of all the movies that came out in the 80's, nothing symbolizes that era like this film and the movies of the time by Michael Mann and the Gibson/Pfeiffer Tequila Sunrise.

A Dark, Gritty, Violent, Compelling Lean Mean Taut Crime Thriller featuring the worst of the sordid and immoral characters on both sides of the law.

In your face photography and a stylish soundtrack by Wang Chung makes this film an under-rated gem.

Keep your eye out for Frasier's Jane Leeves as the lesbian lover of Bianca, Willem Dafoe's girlfriend.

They don't make great movies like this anymore!

5/5

Largo's Shark wrote:

Quote :

admirable directorial detachment

What on earth's admirable about that?

I don't mean "detachment" in the sense of "lack of interest" but in the sense of direction that stays out of the film's way (as Billy Wilder once said: "The best director is the one you don't see."). Direction that sticks (during these particular sections of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, anyway) to fly-on-the-wall observation, with the director refraining from inserting his own opinions, politics, emotions, etc., and also refraining from needless visual or other flourishes. The sort of direction, in other words, that permits character and milieu to come to the fore.

13 ASSASSINS (2010, dir. Takashi Miike)

Despite sharing subject matter--samurai--I do not think Miike's 13 ASSASSINS and HARA-KIRI benefit from being associated with one another, as they were in the American press. Some critics, like Calum Marsh, are disappointed that HARA-KIRI was not another 13 ASSASSINS. I, in going from HARA-KIRI to 13 ASSASSINS, am disappointed that 13 ASSASSINS was not another HARA-KIRI.

Skyfall (2012, dir. Sam Mendes)

Watched it with my brother. The central villain character is unbelievable - his motivations, the fact that he meanders between supposedly brutal lover and suppressed faggot, his ludicrously incredible seeming computer wizardry super powers, his antics when he has the chance to finally kill M in the chapel, when in the Parliamentary interrogation room he had seemed determined and able to just shoot her dead. The ludicrous plot points of Silva knowing everything beforehand, from being caught by Bond, knowing that Q would use the MI6 computer to analyse his own one, the fact that he would be held prison in a cell that was also linked to MI6 computer (when MI6 was residing in a provisional HQ, below the ground, when they might as well have locked him into an old-fashioned, but still safe cell with non-electric doors), him knowing that Bond would catch him at the exact spot where Silva had planted a bomb, at the exact time when an empty tube train was driving by above that spot; the implausibility of Silva breaking into the town hall so easily; the fact that so much is ripped off from other films (6 plot points from TWINE re-hashed; some central points of the second act stolen from TDK; my brother too immediately said the ending was taken from A-Team and Silva being caught in the glass cell from LAMBS; the fact that Bond's character arc has 29 (!) strong similarities to ROCKY BALBOA (there is a whole thread about it, you cannot deny it).
There are other things I don't like, like Bond not preventing Patrice from shooting an innocent guy - my brother told me he could not understand why Bond didn't do anything; his behaviour is inhumane, it goes against human nature. There is no reason for him to stay in the dark, because he eventually attacks Patrice anyway shortly after, and when he trades the chip he gets active and gets noticed anyway. Marlohe acts well, but the dialogue is pretty meh, it wants to sound smarter than the writers actually are (a P&W problem). The same is true of a lot of the dialogue, particularly the ham-fisted one in the razor blade scene - old dog, how original. It also doesn't make sense for Bond to go to his parents' house in order to stop a terrorist who has been presented as unbeatable and fiendishly dangerous (I won't repeat all my arguments). I also don't like the NuQ and Moneypenny origin stories, they don't suit the characters at all, and are hamfisted (as far as MP is concerned, definitely). Having her be a field agent is a dumb idea. She is forced into the casino scene, which leads me to another big complaint that runs throughout the whole film - the shoved-in humour (most of the time bad humour) every other second, even at places where Bond is in danger, fighting the devil, or when the focus should be on characters (like Severine), Bond's reaction to the exploding DB 5, his quip about never having liked the house, the ejector seat "joke", the lame banter between Bond and Eve (casino, shaving scene, at the new HQ etc.) and many other poor attempts at having humour for crowd-pleasing's sake.
The whole part in which Bond gets killed (no-one survives that fall), is leading a purposeless life on a remote island (the scorpions nonsense, reminds me of the mongoose stuff from CR), and Bond getting informed about the attack on MI6 via CNN. The agents identity on one hard-drive plot nonsense (stolen from MISSION IMPOSSIBLE), the you-tube nonsense, the unconvincing and dull Bond is an old dog/examination part, Bond once again breaking into M's flat. There is even more than all of the above-mentioned (Superman-Bond hanging to the elevator), but I want to come to an end now.
Probably the only thing that has improved on my cinema viewing is the cinematography, thanks to the Blu. (I bought it, because amazon had a really good offer). It has a nice look to it and some fine shots, but isn't much better than in most of the Bond films. The QOS cinematography is superior. They cannot sell the locations anywhere near as good as they used to, in most of what they did in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, but in general, the look is certainly something to follow in the films to come. Some of the deliberately dour atmosphere I do not like, and the idea of having a sniper and fistfight scene only lit by neon lights doesn't work either, it simply doesn't look good, and the incidents of the brawl are hardly discernible.
The score sounds like the result of a co-operation between Arnold and Zimmer-the-Man.
People always told me that in other scenarios than the Scotland one Silva would have smelled a rat (which isn't necessarily so, it depends on the exact details of such an alternative scenario), but why Silva doesn't smell a rat when he is flying over Scotland, completely undisturbed by air control, is way beyond me...
They've used the backdrop of Bond's old family lodge for a mere crazy shoot-out and mega explosions action crapfest, without telling us anything new or significant about Bond and his past. The unimaginative psychological examination with the lame cliché of word associations sets up the notion that Bond must have experienced something disturbing back at the place (or that something about the mysterious SKYFALL irks Bond a lot), but in the end we do not get any answers. And why does Silva say it all had to end in the Bond family chapel - he doesn't have any connections to the family, or does he? And why the mother complex?
There are more things that irk me, but the ones mentioned should suffice.
The only scene that is really good is the one following the overrated and somewhat dull long-shot introduction of Silva, the Wilhelm Tell scene, with the nice choice of music - but only up to the point when tremble-handed, out-of-depth Bond shoots several of Silva's gunman almost simultaneously, and Silva gets caught, and the film descends into unimaginative, nonsensical action film madness.


Head-On (2004, dir. Fatih Akin)


Good little film about young Turkish people living in Germany (the so-called third generation). It mixes the portrayal of every day struggle with an originally told love story. The female main character has developed some psychic issues, mostly resulting from the tension between the morally strict Muslim background and her own sexual desires. But the film tackles some other issues as well, it's hard in its portrayal of violence and hardships, but also full of good humour. It does make good use of I FEEL YOU, which is always very welcome. So, a really good movie.


Spellbound (1945, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

To save some time, I'l just say it's a fine film with focus on characters and mystery. Good old-fashioned and smart Hitch entertainment.

I sense a tsuanmi, rumbling in the distance.

Manhunter wrote:

There are more things that irk me, but the ones mentioned should suffice.

No, go on.

Manhunter wrote:

Spellbound (1945, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

To save some time, I'l just say it's a fine film with focus on characters and mystery. Good old-fashioned and smart Hitch entertainment.

I wish you had chosen to "save some time" on SKYFALL rather than SPELLBOUND.

Loomis wrote:

Largo's Shark wrote:

Quote :

admirable directorial detachment

What on earth's admirable about that?

I don't mean "detachment" in the sense of "lack of interest" but in the sense of direction that stays out of the film's way (as Billy Wilder once said: "The best director is the one you don't see."). Direction that sticks (during these particular sections of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, anyway) to fly-on-the-wall observation, with the director refraining from inserting his own opinions, politics, emotions, etc., and also refraining from needless visual or other flourishes. The sort of direction, in other words, that permits character and milieu to come to the fore.

That kind of direction is one of my biggest issues with contemporary (mostly American) indie films. A lack of affect, and a sort of moral, ethical and intellectual cowardice. Prozac cinema.

Todd Haynes, George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Olivier Assayas, Anton Corbijn, Gus Vant Sant, Steven Soderbergh, Nicolas Winding Refn, Steve McQueen, Richard Linklater, Michael Haneke, Marc Forster, Sofia Coppola, David Fincher all suffer from this bourgie aloofness. No stomach. No conviction.

The closest literary analogue would be Bret Easton Ellis.

Harmsway wrote:

Manhunter wrote:

Spellbound (1945, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

To save some time, I'l just say it's a fine film with focus on characters and mystery. Good old-fashioned and smart Hitch entertainment.

I wish you had chosen to "save some time" on SKYFALL rather than SPELLBOUND.

A-Fucking-Men.

Hilly wrote:

I sense a tsuanmi, rumbling in the distance.

Don't worry. I've just put him on ignore.

Largo's Shark wrote:

Hilly wrote:

I sense a tsuanmi, rumbling in the distance.

Don't worry. I've just put him on ignore.

Ha, makes sense. A setting I'm coming close to using myself.

---

Gladiator

Pfft. Didn't feel particularly swayed by it. If anything that swayed me was Oliver Reed. Every time he's on screen...there's something about him. Like Richard Harris, he gets on with it and quietly says 'I'm an acting'. Less said about Zimmer, some of it reminded me of Pearl Harbour and the Holst rip-offs are just that.

Just happened to be by the tv last night when Collateral started...with both Tom Cruise and Jaime Fox.

I thought I'd be changing the channel after a chatty conversation in the cab with Fox and Jada Pinky but it got good after Cruise jumped in the cab. In fact, Cruise wasn't bad as a psycho hitman - he had an interesting personality that made the film worth watching. Hard to believe he is so reviled in real life because some of his movies are actually good.

Fox wasn't bad either...read he got nominated for Best Supporting Actor in this film (I thought Cruise was the supporting actor since Fox has way more screen time). This film was from 2004, 9 years before Fox made his shitty comments about the superiority of black entertainers. If you can briefly put that out of your mind, it was a good watch. Might get it on dvd...I spotted it for under 5 bucks.

8½ (1963, directed by Federico Fellini). Dreamlike, haunting, witty, poignant and pretty much flat-out stunning in every department.