Last Movie you Watched?

Loomis wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

dr. strangelove wrote:

HANNA(2011)
Joe Wright, director

I wanna see that. I think I'm one of the few fans of Wright 'round these parts.

I'd like to see HANNA. I thought the trailer was surprisingly good, given that the whole "high concept" - i.e. Jason Bourne as a teenage girl - immediately causes one to roll one's eyes.

sounds like a cocktail of
"La Femme Nikita"
"Kick Ass"
and "Bourne"

whether it's any good or not all depends on the director I suppose

Seve wrote:

Mulholland Drive

MULHOLLAND was originally supposed to become a TV series, and when that didn't happen, Lynch had essentially a leftover open-ended pilot. Hence there were lots of lil things llke the diner folk you mention, plus Robert Forster, who would probably have been regular characters (if you can call anybody in a Lynch film regular.)

Story is that Lynch had a dream and used that to come up with the ending as it now stands, calling back the principals to do a goodly amount of shooting (most all of act 3, I guess.)

I remain convinced that Naomi Watts' scene with Chad Everett is entirely responsible for her ensuing career. Can't imagine she'll ever hit notes so clearly, and get something so damned RIGHT.

trevanian wrote:

Seve wrote:

Mulholland Drive

MULHOLLAND was originally supposed to become a TV series, and when that didn't happen, Lynch had essentially a leftover open-ended pilot. Hence there were lots of lil things llke the diner folk you mention, plus Robert Forster, who would probably have been regular characters (if you can call anybody in a Lynch film regular.)

Story is that Lynch had a dream and used that to come up with the ending as it now stands, calling back the principals to do a goodly amount of shooting (most all of act 3, I guess.)

I remain convinced that Naomi Watts' scene with Chad Everett is entirely responsible for her ensuing career. Can't imagine she'll ever hit notes so clearly, and get something so damned RIGHT.

suddenly it all falls into place!
interesting
thanks for posting

Love the flick. Dig Watts. Quite delicious.

Dirty Harry

Good stuff. Thanks for reading my review.

Watched the trailers and almost fell over laughing at this:



Partly because he looks like my grandpa. No, not just because he's old. ...But check out that bicep at 1:07!

Never saw any of the sequels. But... Eastwood and Neeson? In the same flick? No wonder a 7th movie was never made, the series could never survive after that much badassery. Had Bronson been in it the world would have blown up.

I wanna have another Harrython. My last one was in '06. I ranked them thusly:

1. DIRTY HARRY
2. MAGNUM FORCE
3. SUDDEN IMPACT
4. THE DEAD POOL
5. THE ENFORCER

General thoughts:

DIRTY HARRY
Classic.

MAGNUM FORCE
Solid follow up. BADASS theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi6XbwwbJ1g

THE ENFORCER
Mired in 70's malaise, feels like stuff was cut, and lacking Lalo Schifrin.

SUDDEN IMPACT
Sondra Locke was a lousy actress, and it has a devastating impact on the film.

THE DEAD POOL
Watchable, if a bit tired. Love the remote control car bit.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Never saw any of the sequels. But... Eastwood and Neeson? In the same flick? No wonder a 7th movie was never made, the series could never survive after that much badassery. Had Bronson been in it the world would have blown up.

Not just Neeson, but Neeson with a raccoon's tail hanging off of his fucking head.

The 80s.

Harmsway wrote:

Sharky wrote:

Loomis wrote:

(Talking of trailers, I checked out the PROMETHEUS teaser - thought it looked dire.)

There is no PROMETHEUS teaser. All you're probably seeing is a lot of fan concocted rubbish.

Yup.

You're right. I was fooled, embarrassingly enough. :oops:

Watched a lot of shit on the back of seats in the last few weeks. (Hanna, Paul, Battle: Los Angeles, Bridesmaids, some others I've already forgotten.) We live In a society that has managed to make flight boring, which is no mean achievement.

Also watched some ape shit in the cinemas in the last few weeks (Rise of...), though Captain America aka Rocketeer 2 was quite good, despite the grafted-on 3D. Only film I'd recommend is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which is as near perfect an adaptation as I've seen. An absorbing but essentially static story has been made visually interesting by Tomas Alfredson, which makes him quite a talent.

Glad to hear your endorsement of TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY. Definitely one of my must-see films of the year (along with MYSTERIES OF LISBON and FAUST).

People were walking out throughout the screening. TTSS's plot requires close attention and most people go the cinema to use their phones, squeeze tit, or eat. (I was once impressed by a guy who could do all three simultaneously.)

Is it as turgid PC as these IMDB reviewers say?

Quote :

No tension, tedious political correctness, 14 September 2011
Author: Neville Little from United Kingdom

It's obviously not easy to boil such a complex story down to movie length. Clearly there was no option but to go for a total re-write. Even the most ardent Le Carre fans must understand that. This is a brave attempt, but the movie is strangely devoid of tension. The characters are drab too, not nearly as well observed as those in the old 1979 TV series. A couple of things interested me: why was it necessary to turn Smiley's actively heterosexual sidekick Peter Guillam gay? And why, when Smiley was remembering his one encounter with Soviet spy master Karla, did he have to be given the extra line that the "Americans had got to him first and torn his fingernails out?" This leaden political correctness and tedious anti-Americanism seemed pointless as well as irritating.

Quote :

Pointless, 14 September 2011
Author: mdrocioscott from United Kingdom

I was in Venice last week so saw this film before its general release. I've been inspired to write the review because of the sheer volume of PR the producers are throwing at this movie ahead of its UK release, making out that it the greatest thing since Citizen Cane and a sure-fire Oscar winner.

My main feeling at the end of the film was, "What was the point of that? Why on earth would someone want to remake a 70s spy drama as a carbon copy of countless BBC efforts". There was no attempt to bring anything new to the genre, no hint that they might be making some comment about the modern world (or even the Cold War world) or telling us something we didn't know. If you are over thirty (and you're the target audience) you have seen this all before. The roles are not exactly taxing for the actors who get to speak in their usual RADA accents and be as stiffly upper-lipped as possible.

The plot itself is pretty silly (yes, I know it's based on all the Kim Philby type cases but I'm referring to the specific twists and turns of the storyline) and the pace of the action plodding.

It's by no means the worst film ever made, just completely unnecessary and on the whole not entertaining

"Citizen Cane?" :suspect:

Sharky wrote:

Is it as turgid PC as these IMDB reviewers say?

No, those scenes are there, but they are asides. TTSS is beautifully acted, intelligent and well directed. These days that's the holy grail.

If it makes you feel any better, there are some tits - a woman breastfeeding a child gets shot in the face.

Mr. Brown wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

Never saw any of the sequels. But... Eastwood and Neeson? In the same flick? No wonder a 7th movie was never made, the series could never survive after that much badassery. Had Bronson been in it the world would have blown up.

Not just Neeson, but Neeson with a raccoon's tail hanging off of his fucking head.

Neeson is so mild in it that they might as well had Roger Moore playing the director. In fact, everybody is mild in it. And I have a theory on this ...

Warner wanted to get their money back very fast on this, so right before it came out, they cut a half-hour to get more showings in each day. At the time, Eastwood was incensed (according to TV stories and newspaper stuff I read at the time in the pre-'net era), but I've not seen anything written about it in the last couple decades, so I guess he just shrugged his shoulders and dropped the magnum holster at the door.

I assume they either cut a whole subplot or they just sliced into everybody equally to shrink the film down that much; certainly Clarkson doesn't have much. I saw it in the theater and was very disappointed with everything except the r/c car and the presence of Evan Kim, who I had wrongly thought was going to have a career by that time, nearly a decade after A FISTFUL OF YEN in KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE.

NOTORIOUS

Good story, well filmed. Good acting throughout, particularly Rains and Bergman. Grant is very decent, too.

Victim (1961)
Dir. Basil Dearden

A mightily impressive work, at least from a directorial point of view. The only other film from Dearden's back catalogue that I've seen is The Man Who Haunted Himself which remains one of my upmost favourite films. Victim is a different beast entirely but it's just as well crafted. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't bowled over by Dirk Bogarde's performance ; he's one of my favourite actors but I prefer him in more comical parts. I think he was more comfortable as an actor when he could afford to lark about like Cary Grant. He does a fine job here, but the scenes between him and Sylvia Sims, upon the confrontation regarding his homosexuality, don't work as well as they should and I can't place why. But that's a minor criticism in the grand scheme of things. Everything else is utterly superb from the cinematography (black and white has rarely looked so good), the supporting cast, the writing and the rest. But the direction is where the film really shines. Like Radio On (best first-watch film I've seen this year), it's a brilliant study of isolation and regret. Very, very good.

:4*:



Gambit (1966)
Dir. Ronald Neame

Caine got the part of thief Harry Tristan Dean after Shirley MacLaine saw him in Alfie and he's back as the typical cockney charmer of his early career. In a daft plot that sees Dean hire MacLaine's exotic dancer to help him in the audacious theft of an ancient antiquity from charismatic billionaire Herbet Lom (excellent), everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong in a frequently amusing fashion. It's fun, lively, Caine and MacClaine are a great pairing but the conclusion is too anti-climatic to be clever. Worth a punt for the two (well, three) leads but relatively inessential.

:3*:

Finished up Superman III after watching the first half on Monday. Camp gold for me. A real guilty pleasure.

Wish I had the boxset of the scores.

G section wrote:

Victim (1961)
Dir. Basil Dearden

A mightily impressive work, at least from a directorial point of view.

Without even trying, we wound up seeing a lot of Dearden films in the last couple of years. I didn't know his name, but all of a sudden (probably on a netflix page) I went a-ha!

For me, he has a stretch roughly akin to Frankenheimer's MANCHURIAN to SECONDS or THE FIXER run, where from the late 50s into the mid 60s he is absolute gold, plussing up okay material and making better stuff really shine.

It runs cold after that nifty ALTERED STATES precursor MIND BENDERS with Mary Ure and Bogarde, but I'm thinking of looking into his earliest films to see what other gems may be out there.

Taxi Driver
watched the movie then the making of doco
I was surprised how negative the views of the writer, director and actors were toward the main character
all of them considered him a psychopath and a ticking time bomb who would eventually go on another killing spree
one even described him as "almost despicable"
whereas I considered him to be a relatively normal man who has been disoriented, disillusioned, dislocated and disconnected from mainstream society by his war experiences
a man at a cross roads in his life who could go either way
who somewhat by chance ends up taking the road toward redemption and recovery, rather than the one toward damnation
when his rage is diverted toward the skanks who exploit underage girls in the sex trade, rather than the aspiring political candidate
the positive affirmation he receives as a result, in particular the letter from the family inviting him back into society
the way he seems to be more comfortable in the final scenes, with the other taxi drivers, one of the guys rather than on the fringe
the way Cybil Shepherd's character's reappearance signals her reappraisal and unspoken apology to him
personally I found it a positive ending

Seve wrote:

Taxi Driver
watched the movie then the making of doco I was surprised how negative the views of the writer, director and actors were toward the main character all of them considered him a psychopath and a ticking time bomb who would eventually go on another killing spree one even described him as "almost despicable" whereas I considered him to be a relatively normal man who has been disoriented, disillusioned, dislocated and disconnected from mainstream society by his war experiences a man at a cross roads in his life who could go either way who somewhat by chance ends up taking the road toward redemption and recovery, rather than the one toward damnation when his rage is diverted toward the skanks who exploit underage girls in the sex trade, rather than the aspiring political candidate the positive affirmation he receives as a result, in particular the letter from the family inviting him back into society the way he seems to be more comfortable in the final scenes, with the other taxi drivers, one of the guys rather than on the fringe the way Cybil Shepherd's character's reappearance signals her reappraisal and unspoken apology to him personally I found it a positive ending

Talk about a long sentence.

The ending's always struck as pretty ambiguous. Is it real, or is it Travis's final dream before dying? Somehow I always thought Schrader intended it to be the later. Could be wrong though.

Sharky wrote:

The ending's always struck as pretty ambiguous. Is it real, or is it Travis's final dream before dying? Somehow I always thought Schrader intended it to be the later. Could be wrong though.

I was just reading through SCHRADER ON SCHRADER. Given his comments, it doesn't seem that that reading was intended.

The ending connected to the beginning, according to Schrader. I recall him saying (in the DVD commentary) that Travis gets off as the hero the first time, but when it happens again, it's not going to turn out that way. The chemtone colors of the beginning and the ending were used to connect the two.

Just came back from the latest attempt at Jane Eyre. Nicely done and ditching the 'I can see again!' ending was wise. Don't think modern audiences would buy that.