Last Movie You Watched? the 8th

CHILDREN OF MEN again. Last night, but I already feel like watching it again. Had choice on next article between covering GRAVITY or the new Greengrass/Hanks film,and even though it hard to get Cuaron's DP to do interviews sometime, I figure it is still worth the risk to try for GRAVITY. If I can get Cuaron and Lubezki both on the phone, that will be pretty exciting.

On the CoM extras, there is a philosopher type guy who mentions that certain movies don't create alternate reality; instead they create a reality that feels truer than the one you live in, making it feel like you're in the alternate or fauxverse. Played it back over & over again, it just hits some part of my brain in a great way when I hear this guy say that, kinda ties into the end of DS9's FAR BEYOND THE STARS, plus my own thoughts about reality derailing during the 60s and thus depriving me of my MAJOR MATT MASON / 2001 future.

TONY ROME



Any movie bookended by two comlpetely gratuitous shots of Jill St. John's ass is all right in my books.

Gold.

strangely there is no attraction to the film that I found even with Roger Moore (Sir) and Bradford Dillman (not-Sir) in the film. It's just...there. Goes along with no real purpose beyond...what. Elmer Bernstein's score is not too bad though with shades of his McQ score. The final scene involving Dillman's running around and death by car is unintentionally hilarious perhaps not aided by [John Glen] editing.

I saw GOLD on a double bill at the Plaza Twin theater in Campbell, CA, playing with THE WIND & THE LION (apparently my stepfather thought it was a Bond double feature) and I gotta say, for a 14 year-old it was S-L-O-W going. Always liked the score, I even audiotaped the opening credits when it ran on tv a couple years later, and used to play the song till the cassette came apart in the early 80s, but have never had the urge to rewatch.

Does the movie have a serious issue with too much diffusion, or am I confusing Susannah York in this with Susannah York in SUPERMAN?

Nieces took me to see World War Z

I actually liked it... :face: 

Going back later this week, Mr. Dog wants to see it

Stand Up Guys - amusing Mob comedy with Al Pacino and Christopher Walken as ageing ex-gangsters (Walken has been sent by their score-settling old 'boss' to shoot Pacino the morning after his release from prison). It's not gonna set the world on fire, but it's a pleasure to watch the old 'stagers' trade banter. And there's some poignant reflections on growing older in there, too.

trevanian wrote:

Does the movie have a serious issue with too much diffusion, or am I confusing Susannah York in this with Susannah York in SUPERMAN?

a little with both. She's largely pointless in the film here until she has to fly Moore to the mine.

Zulu Dawn

intended as a prequel to Zulu, depicting the Battle of Isandlwana that happened the morning of the day the Battle of Rorke's Drift occurred. A few big names (Lancaster, O'Toole, Mills, Elliott etc) but it's no Zulu. Apart from the scenery it lacks much bite. Elmer Bernstein is AWOL for much of this. It's a way of passing the time I suppose.

Dredd - 2nd viewing, and I still reckon it captures the ultraviolent and blackly comic (no pun intended) spirit of the 2000AD strip a lot better than the mid-90s Stallone effort.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Dredd - 2nd viewing, and I still reckon it captures the ultraviolent and blackly comic (no pun intended) spirit of the 2000AD strip a lot better than the mid-90s Stallone effort.

Agreed, it scores by keeping it simple and to the point though I wish they had picked someone a little older and prettier as Anderson.

lachesis wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Dredd - 2nd viewing, and I still reckon it captures the ultraviolent and blackly comic (no pun intended) spirit of the 2000AD strip a lot better than the mid-90s Stallone effort.

Agreed, it scores by keeping it simple and to the point though I wish they had picked someone a little older and prettier as Anderson.

Well she's supposed to be a rookie in the film, so of course she's young -- and as for "prettier", hell, I dunno what actress you were seeing because I know I was smitten.

I don't know much about the source, but the actress felt right for the kind of role she was taking on and I thought she was pretty enough for it. Kind of like Nancy Allen in RoboCop, she's pretty, yet you can believe she's a cop. As opposed to Heather Locklear playing cop on TJ HOOKER.

As Good as It Gets

mano-got to love Nicholson even if large parts were something else entirely. Halfway in thinking the music sounded like Nine Months, quelle surprise- Hans Zimmer. It barely featured. All Nicholson.

Python wrote:

I don't know much about the source, but the actress felt right for the kind of role she was taking on and I thought she was pretty enough for it. Kind of like Nancy Allen in RoboCop, she's pretty, yet you can believe she's a cop. As opposed to Heather Locklear playing cop on TJ HOOKER.

I just read someplace that Stephanie Zimbalist had to bow out of ROBO because of STEELE's last renewal. Not sure if she'd've have worked any better than Allen, the only feature i ever saw her in was a terrible mummy movie with Heston called THE AWAKENING, pre-STEELE..

trevanian wrote:

Python wrote:

I don't know much about the source, but the actress felt right for the kind of role she was taking on and I thought she was pretty enough for it. Kind of like Nancy Allen in RoboCop, she's pretty, yet you can believe she's a cop. As opposed to Heather Locklear playing cop on TJ HOOKER.

I just read someplace that Stephanie Zimbalist had to bow out of ROBO because of STEELE's last renewal. Not sure if she'd've have worked any better than Allen, the only feature i ever saw her in was a terrible mummy movie with Heston called THE AWAKENING, pre-STEELE..

Well, that's two bird with one stone I suppose. Instead of Zimbalist, we get Allen. Instead of Brosnan, we get Dalton. Win win.

AMERICAN GANGSTER (2007, directed by Ridley Scott). A megamix of/love letter to CARLITO'S WAY, THE DEER HUNTER, DONNIE BRASCO, THE FRENCH CONNECTION, THE GODFATHER, GOODFELLAS, THE SOPRANOS and so on, this crime epic offers little in the way of freshness and sometimes seems low on believability. Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington are good, as usual, but don't quite bring their A game. On the other hand, Scott does, and consequently AMERICAN GANGSTER is exceptionally stylish and eminently watchable - one of his best films, in fact. New York of the late 1960s and early 1970s is brought to grungy, MIDNIGHT COWBOYish life by superb costume and production design, and there's also terrific cinematography by the late Harris Savides.

WHITE HOUSE DOWN (2013)

This is the only 2013 release I've seen so far. It was really dumb but definitely entertaining and even kind of terrifying. I liked it. But I also like Roland Emmerich movies because I don't hate having fun. Maybe I'm an idiot moron, too.

PASSION (2013, dir. Brian De Palma)

Very clever.

Warm Bodies

Romero and Juliet. Even with a balcony scene. Seriously brilliant. Loved it. Nicholas Hoult is unfeasibly pretty. Seriously. I've seen more masculine women. I've seen lots of women not as pretty.

Still. You had to laugh when Julie holds up the blu ray of Zombie Flesh Eaters to compare the picture with R.

M (1931, dir. Fritz Lang)

As worthy a contender for "The Greatest Film of All Time" as I've ever seen. M is staggeringly, jaw-droppingly brilliant.

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (2013, dir. Peter Strickland)

Vivid stuff. Strickland's fascination with analog film machinery and horror cinema here goes further than Scott Derrickson took things in last year's SINISTER, and the result is quite startling. However, its sense of aural and visual disorientation so permeates the film that it dilutes its effect; BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO would benefit from clearer narrative guideposts in which to anchor all the weirdness.

Manhunter (1986)

My first viewing. Really dug this one a lot. Different from LAMBS, but still very good in its distinct way. Definitely above HANNIBAL.

Did you finish the HANNIBAL TV series, Python?

I still need to catch up on that, but it intrigued me enough to finally give MANHUNER a watch.

You should finish it. It reignited my enthusiasm for Harris' novels, but greatly diminished my affection for the films.