Last Movie You Watched? 6.0

Chuck Norris doesn't deserve to sniff Lee Marvin's shit.

Loomis wrote:

STILL WALKING. Tender, touching and often blackly funny, Hirokazu Koreeda's fly-on-the-wall family drama carries obvious echoes of Ozu and Mike Leigh, yet still feels fresh and is utterly captivating from beginning to end. Superbly directed and acted, this is a wonderful, universal and probably timeless film that may well go down as one of the classics of the past decade (along with the same director's NOBODY KNOWS).

I need to see more Koreeda.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL :4*:

Well, I had a free movie coming to me, so I chose this one. I have to admit, it's the best of the MI movies so far, but that's necessarily saying much, because the first two felt very gimmicky.

This movie seems like a much more straight-forward storytelling instead of a lot of the plot twists and tricks Brian DePalma used, or the love-affair John Woo's camera had with Tom Cruise's hair. Tom Cruise actually feels as if he's playing a real character instead of just playing a variation of himself. Paula Patton is the best of the female leads the series has had so far, Simon Pegg is finally given a real job to do, and even Jeremy Renner's inclusion didn't distract from the movie. It's also fairly brave of Cruise to allow himself to be shown like he was on screen, because he's clearly gotten older and a little flabbier. Not saying he's entering Val Kilmer-territory, but Cruise is definitely no spring chicken anymore.

But one of the things I liked about the movie was that a lot of the stunt-work seemed real and not faked in front of a green screen. Even on a smaller screen, Hunt's scaling of the Burg Khalifa was impressive, and there was a good mix of him using both gadgets and real tension that the gadget was failing him and he'd have to use his wits and athletic ability.

Plot was, as usual with these type films, sometimes challenging to follow, but I hung in there, and the story thankfully avoided most of the cliches from the earlier three films of having double-agents trying to destroy the IMF. One cliche that needs to be stopped is having Hunt run from an explosion or a sandstorm....in fact, just have him stop running period. I have never seen a more awkward running stance in my entire life. Were there no stunt men to show Cruise how to run properly? He puts his hands up against his shoulders like he's in some sort of karate stance. Weird.

Good movie, though.

Harmsway wrote:

Loomis wrote:

STILL WALKING. Tender, touching and often blackly funny, Hirokazu Koreeda's fly-on-the-wall family drama carries obvious echoes of Ozu and Mike Leigh, yet still feels fresh and is utterly captivating from beginning to end. Superbly directed and acted, this is a wonderful, universal and probably timeless film that may well go down as one of the classics of the past decade (along with the same director's NOBODY KNOWS).

I need to see more Koreeda.

Which of his films have you seen?

I myself have seen: AFTER LIFE (which I enjoyed), MABAROSI (which I didn't really care for, but then again I don't think I was in the right frame of mind for it when I sat down to it a few years ago - I think I need to give it another go), NOBODY KNOWS (which I was utterly blown away by) and STILL WALKING.

Along with China's Jia Zhangke, Koreeda seems to have been at the forefront of the recent new wave of cinematic genius in East Asia - which means, of course, that these guys are among the most exciting directors working anywhere in the world today.

CJB wrote:

Hilly wrote:

Titanic (1996)
... Dodgy CGI.

Thought you were talking about Cameron's version for a sec. The CGI in that one does indeed look Nintendo 64-ish to contemporary eyes - and that was circa 2006 when I last saw it.

And yet the original Star Wars flicks, with their miniatures and whatnot, remain terrific in appearance. Just goes to show that heavy CGI has a very short shelf life.

Certainly, Titanic '97 has stupid CGI but this TV thing was embarassing at points. I think the only time it seemed alright was the Carpathia rescue. I know it's a TV miniseries but...

Valid point on Star Wars. Makes you wonder just what else lies in store for the Saga.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

A really well made sci-fi film, the situation for our heroes becomes more and more hopeless. The creeping horror is well evoked by the director. A splendid low-budget horror flick.
I just didn't get how Becky could have turned into an alien life form after such a short time of sleeping; I had thought a big bean had to be near the person that it transforms itself into. If I could find out how to explain this, I'd be very happy with the film.

Loomis wrote:

Harmsway wrote:

Loomis wrote:

STILL WALKING. Tender, touching and often blackly funny, Hirokazu Koreeda's fly-on-the-wall family drama carries obvious echoes of Ozu and Mike Leigh, yet still feels fresh and is utterly captivating from beginning to end. Superbly directed and acted, this is a wonderful, universal and probably timeless film that may well go down as one of the classics of the past decade (along with the same director's NOBODY KNOWS).

I need to see more Koreeda.

Which of his films have you seen?

Just NOBODY KNOWS, which I found incredibly impressive.

Loomis wrote:

Along with China's Jia Zhangke, Koreeda seems to have been at the forefront of the recent new wave of cinematic genius in East Asia - which means, of course, that these guys are among the most exciting directors working anywhere in the world today.

As far as I'm concerned, the contemporary cinema of the Far East consistently outshines that of the West.

Harmsway wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, the contemporary cinema of the Far East consistently outshines that of the West.

Definitely. Of the crop of the past decade or so, I was particularly struck by the following films:

China:
THE WORLD (2004) and STILL LIFE (2006) by Jia Zhangke.

Japan:
ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU (2001) by Shunji Iwai.
CAFE LUMIERE (2003) by Hou Hsiao-Hsien.
DEPARTURES (2008) by Yojiro Takita.
EUREKA (2000) by Shinji Aoyama.
NOBODY KNOWS (2004) and STILL WALKING (2008) by Hirokazu Koreeda.
TOKYO SONATA (2008) by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

South Korea:
THE CHASER (2008) by Na Hong-jin.
OLDBOY (2003) by Park Chan-wook.
SPRING, SUMMER, WINTER, FALL... AND SPRING (2003) by Kim Ki-duk.

Thailand:
LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE (2003) by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang.
UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES (2010) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Not all of the above are genuinely great films (although a few of them are), but they're all well worth seeing.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

I think I might need to see it again ... the BARRAGE of gore towards the end coming after the up-to-then relatively restrained amount for modern horror and the 'reveal' as to what the whole set-up is actually for kinda threw me for a loop first time round.

I was not surprised at all by anything that went down, as I thought the film pretty much spelled out what-was-going-on, as it went along.

If you know Whedon he's got an obsession with

Spoiler:

Well, was never a Buffy/Angel fan ... I do have the boxset of Firefly, but have never gotten around to watching it. Which seeing as I HAVE seen and enjoyed Serenity, I guess I should do sometime.

The Lavender Hill Mob

remaining a highly entertaining movie helped largely by the partnership of Messrs Guinness and Holloway. Along for the ride John Gregson, Audrey Hepburn in an early if not first film appearance and Robert Shaw...oh so briefly seen.

The Terminator

Still one of my favorite movies of all time. It's tense, relentless, and keeps you at the end of your seat. Where the hell did this James Cameron go?

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Oh.

To be honest, T2 does improve upon a few things. It's more introspective and the actors take their roles more seriously. On the other hand, it's really bloated. Kinda like Aliens. Come to think of it, every Cameron movie since then has had a really long run time. Does True Lies really need to be 140 minutes long? He seems to write really long, detailed scripts and either can't or won't distill them down.

This is the first time I watched the Theatrical cut end to end. I like bits better than the Special Edition. The whole "Switch the CPU to Learning Mode" scene should have been in their from the start, but most of the other SE material could be safely ditched without detracting from the whole.

Blue-o-meter:

1) The Terminator
2) Terminator 2: Judgment Day
3) Aliens

Agreed. The Theatrical Cut of Aliens is so much better because it's cut down, and it stands with Terminator as being a great movie.

Everything since is just bloated and overdrawn. You're bang-on -- why the hell does "True Lies" need to be that long? "True Lies" should be 100 minutes!

ALIENS a great movie?

Bitch please.

Sorry -- to clarify, a great movie in the context of the Cameron canon, not, say, in the wider context of cinema as a whole or even the smaller contexts of sci-fi, military action, horror, or the Alien series itself.

Tubes wrote:

The Terminator

Still one of my favorite movies of all time. It's tense, relentless, and keeps you at the end of your seat. Where the hell did this James Cameron go?

The bank.

I haven't really been posting in this thread, though I've been watching films. Saw Ford's THE LONG VOYAGE HOME, which I enjoyed. Gregg Toland FTW.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

True Lies" should be 100 minutes!

That sounds like a challenge, Sykes.

KING KONG '05 should be 100 minutes.

KING KONG '05 is 100 minutes. It's called KING KONG '33.

And yeah, the instant I posted that I thought about doing a re-edit of TRUE LIES, but the fact of the matter is that really dislike that movie, so why spend the time on it?

True Lies could've done without the wife-possibly-having-an-affair crap in the middle of the movie.

Sykes has 1234 posts.

He should stop posting and keep that number forever.

I should've stopped at 69.

(o)(o)

8===D