Last Movie you Watched?

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Eh...it was alright. I found Professor X's character a bit annoying though. Too much moralizing and preaching. I identified more with Magneto than Professor X. Some people just deserve to die, and Kevin Bacon's character was one of them.

And as long as January Jones is given roles of frosty, ice cold, aloof, bitchy women to play she'll do just fine; but apparently any sort of character that requires her to emote or show feeling beyond apathy or indifference may just be out of her range.

Miss Jones emotes with her tits and there's a certain skill in that. I still shudder at the memory of Meryl Streep -I don't know how many times I had to tell her to put her clothes back on.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Eh...it was alright. I found Professor X's character a bit annoying though. Too much moralizing and preaching. I identified more with Magneto than Professor X. Some people just deserve to die, and Kevin Bacon's character was one of them.

And as long as January Jones is given roles of frosty, ice cold, aloof, bitchy women to play she'll do just fine; but apparently any sort of character that requires her to emote or show feeling beyond apathy or indifference may just be out of her range.

The entire film seem constructed as a an advert for Magneto, for a supposedly ensemble piece it was dreadfully biassed and heavy handed particularly that painfully contrived ending. I did like the film overall and thought Fassbender was great but that appaling lack of balance (imo) is pretty much the antithesis of waht makes the X Men interesting in the first place.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Eh...it was alright. I found Professor X's character a bit annoying though. Too much moralizing and preaching. I identified more with Magneto than Professor X. Some people just deserve to die, and Kevin Bacon's character was one of them.

I empathised with Magneto...such as when he went after the Nazis who were affiliated with his mother's death (that scene in the bar) and especially when he sensed the combined armies were turning their missiles on the mutants. Plus, Fassbender was better looking and didn't come across as a wimp.

Could see myself siding with him if I could shoot lightning out of my ass.

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

Could see myself siding with him if I could shoot lightning out of my ass.

I've suddenly developed asstraphobia.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

Could see myself siding with him if I could shoot lightning out of my ass.

I've suddenly developed asstraphobia.

Easy cure, assume 69 position with a curvy wench with great gluteus maximus...

Gisele Bundchen is my therapist.

I don't intend to be cured anytime soon.

Jaws 3 laughably bad, turgid even. Looked naff to boot.

Good Night, and Good Luck.- this is more like it. One of several good points is the merging of archive footage into the film but also that McCarthy is never played by an actor. Apparently some people's criticism of the film was that the actor playing McCarthy over did too much not realising it was Mac in action. The way Bobby Kennedy looked on one of the committees suggests he too had just watched Jaws 3 before this film.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Gisele Bundchen is my therapist.

I don't intend to be cured anytime soon.

If you can lick the tip of your nose with your tongue I don't think she'll be complaining either.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

Mr. Brown wrote:

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

David Koepp needs to retire.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Of all the words of mice and men.

I hadn't seen these films in several years. I can't even remember what year it would have been.

To start, the Star Wars Saga has supposedly become about the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. On that score, it fails utterly in my eyes. We're never presented with an Anakin heroic enough for us to give a **** when he falls, and he falls for stupid reasons. Then there's redemption. Redemption to what, being an insufferable t***? Even if he's redeemed, he's Hitler in space. Oh, he had a change of heart. Nice for him. I'm sure that'll console the millions of people on Alderaan who are dead. Okay, fine, he kills the Emperor. But only when someone he loves is threatened. He killed the Jedi to save Padme and he killed the Emperor to save Luke, so where's the change? I guess he gives his life to save Luke, so that'll suffice for now in my thinking.

Anakin's story has always been a tricky idea. It should have been front and center in the Prequels, but they became about the backdrop that the original merely mentioned. It became about the politics and all of that stuff. Anakin is just along for the ride, a secondary element until Episode III, when it's too late to start making up for lost time.

I don't want kick off a huge Star Wars discussion, but my general idea would be to have EP1 be set five years later in the timeline than it currently is. War is already brewing, or at least discontent, and Anakin is about 15. He's a slave on Tatooine, and is discovered by Kenobi. Kenobi is already a Jedi. I'd ditch Qui-Gon Jinn and maybe cast Neeson as Dooku so Dooku could actually fight. My feeling is that Anakin comes from being a slave and he never shakes it off. He grew up powerless. Maybe when we meet him we see his mother killed as he's powerless to stop it. His greatest fear is being powerless, but he grows to be an effective Jedi Knight in EP2.

EP2 sees him become a Jedi Knight at the end of the film, and he saves the day perhaps by using abilities from the Dark side. I'd also include the Force ghost thing as some long lost Jedi ability that is rediscovered and plays a role in EP3.

But enough of that ****.

There are pros and cons about the films. TPM actually feels like a film, partly I'm sure because it wasn't shot digital. AOTC feels the leanest to me, and feels the most to me like it doesn't have entirely too much **** going on for a two-hour movie. To my surprise I enjoyed ROTS. It had energy, unlike the other two. I still think it gets things very wrong, but it worked for me as sort of an entertaining Saturday morning cartoon.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Mr. Brown wrote:

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

David Koepp needs to retire.

I think he did well with CARLITO'S WAY.

Of the prequels the least changes I'd give is TMP. Dialogue, characterizations, motives need improvements. The politics should have been cut for sure, I'd focus more on the Queen trying to save her planet, the detour on Coruscant being shortened. Terence Stamp was wasted, rather just cut him out entirely.

I'd keep Qui-Gon, but have Obi-Wan play a larger role instead of being a nonentity he was.

II would be a bit of the same, but Anakin should be doing more heroic stuff instead of just moping around. He should be likable, which makes the slaughtering of those Arabs more horrifying. With III, well that would barely resemble what we got.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

Mr. Brown wrote:

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE

David Koepp needs to retire.

I think he did well with CARLITO'S WAY.

Hadn't seen that yet. I liked JURASSIC PARK and WAR OF THE WORLDS but that has less to do with his script writing.

APARTMENT ZERO, M:I, SNAKE EYES, and PANIC ROOM are all good films, in my opinion.

I don't know if that has to do with Koepp at all, though, or just the men who helmed the projects.

I'm still not sure what I think about CARLITO'S WAY.

M:I is okay, I think a better script would have boosted it. I do dig De Palma's style, he's got that all set, but he needed something better to work with IMO. And a better climax.

I love CARLITO'S WAY. It's sorta like THE GODFATHER PART III, but I like it a lot more. It's more mature and human than SCARFACE.

And it beats the hell out of M:I.

And it has one of my very favorite endings from any film. I think the film is classy and has a lot of heart, actually.

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

Plus, Fassbender....didn't come across as a wimp.

I think you hit upon something. Charles Xavier does just that: comes across as a wimp. Look, if you can't get "vengeance" against a Nazi who can you get vengeance against? Charles screaming "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" as he sees what Magneto is about to do is over-dramatic and it rung hollow. Charles keeps telling Magneto to "be the better man" against the Nazis....and against the dozens of ships that have just sent cruise missiles to destroy them...Really?

What really came across to me in that movie was that Charles Xavier represented liberal Hollywood writer's elitist, non-violent, pussified world view of how to deal with bullies, aggressors and other threats of violence.

Sometimes a villain comes along in life that is so despicable, so evil, so black-hearted, so ruthless and vindictive, that there simply can be no room in my heart for forgiveness or "understanding"; that person simply needs to be executed. Real life villains like Moamar Qhadaffi, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein deserved exactly what they got, and yet if you could insert Magneto and Professor X into our current world situations, you'd have Professor X telling Magneto not to harm any of those guys because it only lowers Magneto down to their level....that Magneto needs to be "the better man". Yeah, well, what Magneto drops into the toilet twice a day is a better man than Bin Laden would ever be, so that's hardly a fair argument for Professor Xavier to make.

By giving us such a flawed decision to make (killing a Nazi or not killing a Nazi), the X-Men writers essentially tilt the balance of the audience's feelings towards Magneto, not against him, yet Magneto is supposed to be a villain himself.

I'm just getting awfully tired of these Hollywood movies that pretentiously try to lecture people about what is justice and what constitutes vengeance, like BATMAN BEGINS, THE DARK KNIGHT, SPIDERMAN 3, and now X-MEN FIRST CLASS.

Mr. Brown wrote:

APARTMENT ZERO

You've seen that, Brown? :o Terrific but very obscure little thriller.

I Know Where I'm Going

effectively charming and unassuming Powell & Pressburger film made such by the combined talents of Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey. Something about Livesey that quite simply is excellent to watch. Does for the Hebrides what Whiskey Galore did...well, for the Hebrides.

Erica Ambler wrote:

Mr. Brown wrote:

APARTMENT ZERO

You've seen that, Brown? :o Terrific but very obscure little thriller.

Yeah, I think I checked it out after you recommended or mentioned it someplace, somewhere, actually.

Seems like Martin Donovan hasn't done anything interesting since and David Koepp's never worked on a better film.

Decent score as well.



It's on YouConsume, but the quality is poor.

A pair of first name Best Picture winners.

Rocky (1976)

I hate boxing movies, but I enjoyed this one. To me it succeeds because of the sincerity of the performances. Not my favorite film of '76 by far, though. It's one of those "inspirational" movies that the Oscars cum to, but I have to say that I thought this particular one worked pretty well. Now only if Rocky was retarded and had a stuttering problem...

Marty (1955)

Pleasant enough film. Came from a teleplay, and it feels like a teleplay - with a budget. But it worked well enough for what it is. Borgnine must have been happy to get a starring, romantic role considering he looks like a real life Star Wars alien.

AI: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Leonard Maltin (who for some reason lists in it his Movie Guide as ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AI - I've never seen it referred to by that title elsewhere) dismisses this as "a curious and uncomfortable hybrid of Kubrick and Spielberg sensibilities", but since when is it a bad thing for a film to be "curious"? Yes, I know that Maltin means it in the sense of "strange" rather than "questioning", but to my mind those are both excellent qualities for a film to have, and AI definitely has 'em.

Also, ought one to assume that AI was ever supposed to be "comfortable" fare? And why would that be desirable? Certainly, I believe that the last thing on Spielberg's mind was making (yet another) safe, conservative summer blockbuster, and thank goodness for that. Go watch INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE instead if yer just wants yer Spielberg comfort food.

Now, AI does indeed merge Spielberg and Kubrick, but it gives us the best of both filmmakers (both of them great filmmakers, let's not forget - there's a widely-held and wrongheaded perception that AI has value only insofar as it manages to conjure the ghost of old Stanley, which is bollocks), with additional nods (both in its story of the humanisation of a robot and in its epic canvas of cutting-edge VFX - man, this is one dazzling Blu-ray) to TERMINATOR 2. It's a film of genuine emotional engagement, astounding craftsmanship, imaginative visuals (a particular favourite of mine being the reflection of the falling David suggesting a tear on Gigolo Joe's face), and big ideas. It is very possibly the most ambitious work of Spielberg's career.

It's not entirely perfect. Story logic isn't always watertight (not that story logic is all that important here, but still....), and the film is overlong and slow-starting. The first fifty minutes are by some distance the least compelling and could have used a serious trim. Which may, ironically, be the result of Spielberg sticking too closely to Kubrick's wishes, and not the result of his letting his own, erm, Spielbergishness run riot. As Spielberg told the critic Joe Leydon: "People pretend to think they know Stanley Kubrick, and think they know me, when most of them don't know either of us. And what's really funny about that is, all the parts of A.I. that people assume were Stanley's were mine. And all the parts of A.I. that people accuse me of sweetening and softening and sentimentalizing were all Stanley's. The teddy bear was Stanley's. The whole last 20 minutes of the movie was completely Stanley's. The whole first 35, 40 minutes of the film – all the stuff in the house – was word for word, from Stanley's screenplay. This was Stanley's vision.

"Eighty percent of the critics got it all mixed up. But I could see why. Because, obviously, I've done a lot of movies where people have cried and have been sentimental. And I've been accused of sentimentalizing hard-core material. But in fact it was Stanley who did the sweetest parts of A.I., not me. I'm the guy who did the dark center of the movie, with the Flesh Fair and everything else. That's why he wanted me to make the movie in the first place. He said, 'This is much closer to your sensibilities than my own.'"

Indeed, AI often brings to mind other Spielberg successes more than it conjures memories of Kubrick. The story is, essentially, E.T. in reverse, while there are reminders of JURASSIC PARK (the DNA gimmick at the end) and even SCHINDLER'S LIST (the Flesh Fair). The Flesh Fair episode is the point at which AI really starts to take off. One of the most remarkable sequences in the Spielberg canon, it manages to be both horrifying and blackly funny. It's not the film's emotional highpoint (rightly, that comes at the end), but it's certainly its intellectual one and also a significant improvement on the thematically similar but talky and stagey scene with William Hurt and co. right at the start.

Ultimately, AI is a fascinating and moving film that shows its director at the top of his game (fine performances by Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law, too, and a wonderful score by John Williams). I don't believe that Kubrick would have done a better job.

Third first name Best Picture winner of the day...

Rebecca (1940)

I liked it very much. Having seen it all the way through now I'm not sure it would actually place in my Top 10 for Hitch, if I had a Top 10 for Hitch. But I did like a lot of things in it. That Joan Fontaine is a peach.