Last Movie You Watched? Mark 9

INSIDE OUT (2015)

A wonderful return to form for Pixar.

The Man With The Golden Gun - by way of tribute to Christopher Lee. What sums this Bond flick up best is the amazing looping-through-360-degrees car-jump stunt unfortunately underscored with a 'comedy' sound-effect ... the good (Moore, Lee, Scaramanga's 'funhouse') is really good, but the bad (the crowbarring-in of Sheriff Pepper, another 'comedy' sound-effect as Bond grabs the Sumo wrestler's arse, all the shit with Nick-Nack on Scaramanga's junk towards the end) is really fucking bad.

Jurassic Park - still one of the most exciting adventure flicks there's ever been. Spielberg skilfully sets everything up during the first hour, teasing us with glimpses of the dinos ... and then the second hour is almost non-stop perilous thrills.

Jurassic World - the pinnacle of this series remains the original^, but this is still several notches above the second and third instalments.

I find it pretty on par with the other sequels, but still entertaining.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Jurassic World - the pinnacle of this series remains the original^, but this is still several notches above the second and third instalments.

I never felt as if the first Jurassic Park had enough of a bite to it; not enough people died; it didn't feel menacing enough. Not a problem with this one, as there's plenty of blood (not what I usually go for, but appropriate here) and a bit of gore.

I'm also one of the few who really liked the second film better than the first.

Anyway, JURASSIC WORLD clicks on all cylinders. Very little about it that goes wrong. My main worry going in was that the special effects might let the movie down, as they've gone almost entirely CGI in this film and no stop-motion or models or practical effects. But no worries. I totally bought into it and was even on edge a few times.

Chris Pratt sells the audience on the hardest aspect of the film (training the velociraptors). It could've gone badly, but the film pulls it off perfectly. Nothing corny or unbelievable about it. Pratt sells it.

Bryce Dallas Howard.....went in with lowered expectations mostly because I'd been led to believe she was Stacy Sutton 2.0, but again, no worries. She nails the role, the "controversy" over her running in high-heels and looking sexy is a non-issue. She has good chemistry with Pratt.

I liked the kids in this one, especially the younger one, who manages to cry pretty convincingly.

Easily an A+ and may see it again.

Stonehearst Asylum (2014, Dir. Brad Anderson)

Decent thriller inspired by an Edgar Allen Poe short. A young doctor arrives at an Asylum ran by Ben Kingsley, falls for Kate Beckinsale and finds out Ben Kingsley is really a mental patient who has taken over the asylum and the real superintendent is Michael Caine who is locked in the basement along with the rest of the staff. It's more so a commentary on the methods used to "cure" mental patients rather than a simple case of good guy vs. bad guy. Nothing too exciting.

The Aviator (2004, Dir. Martin Scorsese)
This on the other hand was very exciting. I really don't much go for biopics but it is a Scorsese film about Howard Hughes and Walmart had it for three bucks. Simply loved it. The film is packed wall to wall with good actors (I'm not a huge Jude Law fan but his depiction of Errol Flynn was quite amusing, plus Willem Dafoe was thrown into a scene which is always thumbs up in my book) and I wasn't as weirded out by seeing someone else play Katharine Hepburn (seeing someone play someone I've seen on screen tons of times is usually an awkward experience). Cate Blanchett did a fine job as everyone else did. I had my doubts about the film going in but I can say they were proven wrong.

Have always enjoyed The Aviator myself.

Just did Jersey Boys (Clint Eastwood). I enjoyed it… Nothing special and good to get a quick cut of Walken dancing at the end! Him aside, and maybe the actor playing Tommy, the three other leads were quite weak I thought, so had a bit of trouble buying into the story. Could have shaved off a few minutes as well.

3/5.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Jurassic World - the pinnacle of this series remains the original^, but this is still several notches above the second and third instalments.

I never felt as if the first Jurassic Park had enough of a bite to it; not enough people died; it didn't feel menacing enough. Not a problem with this one, as there's plenty of blood (not what I usually go for, but appropriate here) and a bit of gore.

I'm also one of the few who really liked the second film better than the first.

Anyway, JURASSIC WORLD clicks on all cylinders. Very little about it that goes wrong. My main worry going in was that the special effects might let the movie down, as they've gone almost entirely CGI in this film and no stop-motion or models or practical effects. But no worries. I totally bought into it and was even on edge a few times.

Chris Pratt sells the audience on the hardest aspect of the film (training the velociraptors). It could've gone badly, but the film pulls it off perfectly. Nothing corny or unbelievable about it. Pratt sells it.

Bryce Dallas Howard.....went in with lowered expectations mostly because I'd been led to believe she was Stacy Sutton 2.0, but again, no worries. She nails the role, the "controversy" over her running in high-heels and looking sexy is a non-issue. She has good chemistry with Pratt.

I liked the kids in this one, especially the younger one, who manages to cry pretty convincingly.

Easily an A+ and may see it again.

Yeah ... I had thought going in that the first of these movies to have a higher rating than PG might have upped the 'bloodiness' level a bit, and so it proved.

Harvey (1950)

wonderfully funny and engaging movie notable not only for James Stewart central performance but also the ensemble of character performers around him.

300 : Rise Of An Empire - like the first film, graphic-novel stylization wins out over historical accuracy/substance. But if you're prepared to roll with that, rollickingly bloody fun (including Eva Green clearly enjoying the opportunity to 'chew the scenery' as Artesmia and sportingly getting her kit off (again) ).

JURRASIC WORLD

If I wanted to watch a fucking cartoon, I'd watch the Road Runner drop an anvil on Wile E. Coyote's head. The reason why the original movie made you shit your pants is because the dinosaurs looked like actual physical beings. If you're gonna have a movie with terrible acting and writing, at least make sure your visual effects look real and the action is tense. Otherwise you're left viewing a series of Xbox cutscenes.

MacArthur

momentous events or people of WWII tended over time to receive either lavish or film star-laden treatment: Battle of Britain, Patton, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far etc and yet sitting a little awkwardly on the second shelf is MacArthur.
Always struck me as a glorified TV movie. There's something about how it looks for one thing, like there's vaseline on the lens sometimes or it's filmed in shadow and the production values let it down. It makes a fist of Leyte Gulf valiantly but otherwise it suffers (comparable in a way to the Big Red One whose D-Day sequence is often telling and yet whose body of film more than diminishes any such criticism).
What oh what makes this film something you could revisit?
Gregory Peck for one. Maybe not the tour de force George C. Scott gave Patton, Peck gives MacArthur as much in his way. I read Charlton Heston offered to do this film (for free even) and I thnk Heston might've edged it. (I still need to check out Emperor just to see what ol' Tommy Lee Jones did)
And then there's Jerry Goldsmith. Elevating a film that as I say looks much less than its sum. A march that matches Patton and moving pieces such as when MacArthur is reunited with the soldier Castro or later, General Wainwright aboard the Missouri.
If a war film needed a scorer, Goldsmith was it and then Ron Goodwin.

Similarly, based on Patton/MacArthur I found myself musing on what Goldsmith could've done for JFK -both the man and the film. As much as I like Williams' score, I think Goldsmith may have done something spectacular if he had ever done it (etc)

Mr Holmes - a pleasant change of pace from the summer blockbusters, this is a moving and gently amusing portrait of the 'world's greatest detective' in his dotage. Ian McKellen is unsurprisingly superb as the elderly Sherlock, battling his failing memory as he attempts to recall just what it was about his final case that led him to retire.

Before I Go To Sleep - granted, 'amnesiac attempts to piece things back together and doesn't like what he/she finds' isn't new ground for a psychological thriller. But this Nicole Kidman/Colin Firth/Mark Strong starrer is tense enough, and at a tight 88 minutes doesn't outstay its welcome.

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Kill me.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Fun just to see these great actors get into a verbal sparring, with profanity.

Jack Reacher (2012)

Solid crime thriller. Felt suitably old fashioned not just because of being reminiscent of conspiracy thrillers in the 70s, but the way the action is done is nicely restrained and low key. That whole car chase was done without a score underlining it, which is a rarity in films these days. I loved that kind of restraint. Cruise was good, and so was the cast. I'll miss all of them in the upcoming film, but I look forward to who Cruise recruits for it.

Didn't know a Reacher sequel had been greenlit.

The Sound Barrier

what this already had going for me, apart from being a Lean I had not yet seen, was Nigel Patrick. To me he was the Kenneth More that wasn't -affable, charming, gent type yes but kept it going long enough and was also versatile. Not to put ol' Kenny down but the two always strike me as similar.
Anyway. It tells the tale of how the sound barrier was broken though with a British slant -I don't think Lean was seeking to dash Yaeger's effort but somehow, it doesn't matter.
Like most good films of the time it's a documentary-type film with stoic types at the centre but like the best -Dam Busters, Night to Remember etc- it's well acted and these people are human. Even Ralph Richardson's patriach.
Patrick in my honest opinion is quietly superb. From that first moment he hears the jet engine, to when he's in the testing room seeing it that first time to his last moments there is a simple if understated way of doing things. Which made his death all the more shocking. Somehow you don't think he will die in the film and yet when it happens, you accept it however much it hurts.
And when that barrier is broken, you wish Patrick had been the one to do it but knew he was there in spirit...call me a sentimental fool but that's how it was.
Little tidbits -Denholm Elliot really was in the RAF during the war, in bombers -some of his 'liasons' are noted in Patrick Bishop's highly recommended "Bomber Boys" (and his companion piece, Fighter Boys which I so knackered during my dissertation in 2008 that when I got it signed by Bishop he chuckled and quizzed me on why it looked so shitty).
There's Dinah Sheridan, huzzar! And to my surprise, Leslie Phillips in a pre-Navy Lark world playing a straight-laced flight controller chap.
And being an early Lean film, Malcolm Arnold scores.

Was David Lean the best this country produced? Sometimes you wonder.

I also got to re-watch The Dam Busters. You look at this and Yangste Incident and quietly marvel that the same director did Logan's Run. Sort of like how the same man who directed Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday would direct Bullitt a few years later.
Nowadays it's all about Eric Coates' supreme march but let's not gloss over the acting and the story. Much of Operation Chastise remained classified so Paul Brickhill had only so much to work with and thus any historical fluffing is accidental and forgivable. The archive footage of the testing is seamlessly merged, the stoicism on show and yes the dog's called Nigger.
Nowadays the raid would be drowned in music, jerky camera work, CGI but in 1953 there wasn't such luxuries I suppose and the lack of music (almost like the car chase in Bullitt, dare I say) helps the raid along. It's tense, the effects good and yet at the end, you are sad and thoughtful...58 men did not return, some were PoW but most died.
Was it worth it? Now, we know that the majority of the thousands who died were slave labourers -Poles, Russians and Czechs etc, that most were German civilians and that the Germans got the factories going within a few weeks. But war is about taking chances and it gave the Nazis a bloody nose.

Now...I got to thinking having watched this after the first mentioned, what if Lean had directed Dam Busters. It's a superb film anyway but I can't help but imagine a slightly different film. Right up there with if he had directed Tora Tora Tora as apparently he was going to at one point. Or at least one segment.

What the film does have in abundance is well known faces. Robert Shaw a good few years previous to From Russia With Love with the most shocking barnet of hair. Patrick McGoohan as a RAF MP who inadvertently sends Nigger on his fateful way. George Baker, Nigel Stock and many more...

JURASSIC WORLD (2015)

A pretty fun ride that, in the end, plays like a very safe and by-the-numbers sequel. I suppose Trevorrow does a decent job of paying homage to the original film, but he really doesn't bring anything new to the table, and the whole thing just felt like a reminder of how good Spielberg's JP really is. Giacchino's work was especially disappointing, with the only good bits coming when he's ripping-off Williams.

...I did, however, really enjoy a sweaty Bryce Dallas Howard running around in heels and a tank top looking sexy as hell.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Fun just to see these great actors get into a verbal sparring, with profanity.

Saw it for the first time last year and was totally overwhelmed by it. Loved it! Can't wait to give it a rewatch.

Good to see Jonathan Pryce in something else as well.

FieldsMan wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Fun just to see these great actors get into a verbal sparring, with profanity.

Saw it for the first time last year and was totally overwhelmed by it. Loved it! Can't wait to give it a rewatch.

Good to see Jonathan Pryce in something else as well.

should watch, if you haven't, Brazil Fieldsy, you want Pryce in something else that is the film

The Nutty Professor

no, not that heinous 'remake' with Eddie Murphy, the original with the master Jerry Lewis. A study in good and bad, Lewis saw something deeper in this film but if anything he shows some versatility in doing the Jekyll and Hyde routine. There's touches of class, there's laugh out loud moments and pathos. The climax of the film is doubly classy
But if you prefer, then let's gaze upon Stella Stevens. Shiver my nurglers.

Terminator 2 (Special Edition) - surely this series' high-water mark. Bravura action, pioneering CGI (before it bloody well took over) and a nice dash of humour.

Ted 2 - this and its predecessor are arguably the best of Seth McFarlane's recent output. It's a tad overlong (admittedly something I find myself thinking about most comedies that run past 90 minutes), but is at least as gleefully puerile and politically incorrect as the first film.