Last Movie you Watched?

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  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    edited January 2016 Posts: 40,963
    Did a random double billing of 'Street Kings' (highly entertaining action thriller with Keanu Reeves) and 'The Legend of Drunken Master' last night, the latter being one of the only Jackie Chan movies I had yet to see, surprisingly, and both were great. The finale of 'Drunken Master' still stands out in my mind, lengthy and very well choreographed.

    Still working on my list of films I've seen this year, and I'm now up to 12 on the 12th day of January. Looks like I'm on track for my goal if I continue at this pace!
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,789
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    'The Legend of Drunken Master'
    That's one of the few cases where I prefer the American version of a Chan film to the original Chinese one. It was dubbed very well, and the music in the finale is far superiour IMO.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,963
    @chrisisall, funny you mention the music, as it really stood out to me in the finale and fit the fight sequence so well, I loved it. The dubbing was well done, as well. I don't remember many character names, but Chan's mother-in-law in the film, I believe, was dubbed wonderfully. Lots of emotion in the voice work.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited January 2016 Posts: 17,789
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    Chan's mother-in-law in the film, I believe, was dubbed wonderfully. Lots of emotion in the voice work.
    Yes, they shelled out big bucks for that American release at the height of Chan's popularity here. And Anita Mui is known as the Chinese Lucille Ball. :))
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,963
    @Birdleson, those are my 'Carol' expectations: hyped so highly that I wonder if I'm really going to enjoy it as much as others seemed to. Then you have 'Joy,' which I enjoyed a lot more than others simply because it got surprisingly negative reviews, so I was expecting garbage.
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,715
    @Creasy47 how does 'Joy' compare to 'The Fighter' and 'Silver Linings Playbook'? I really loved those 2 films by the same director. Haven't seen 'American Hustle' yet, however.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,963
    I've yet to see 'The Fighter.' I'd say in recent years, my favorite of his has been 'Silver Linings Playbook,' and 'Joy' follows much more along the same line as it - a dysfunctional family and friend network all based around a main character and their goal. It has the same type of pacing to it, as well.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,789
    If s**t doesn't blow up in it, I won't watch it.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,963
    chrisisall wrote: »
    If s**t doesn't blow up in it, I won't watch it.

    You get to see Jennifer Lawrence fire a shotgun out of anger, if that counts...
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,789
    No, technically there has to be a large fireball or at least expanding energy cascades along with major structural damage or total annihilation.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,963
    chrisisall wrote: »
    No, technically there has to be a large fireball or at least expanding energy cascades along with major structural damage or total annihilation.

    'Man of Steel' is a film for you, then.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,789
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    chrisisall wrote: »
    No, technically there has to be a large fireball or at least expanding energy cascades along with major structural damage or total annihilation.

    'Man of Steel' is a film for you, then.
    Sorry, I need some sort of story too....
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,963
    chrisisall wrote: »
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    chrisisall wrote: »
    No, technically there has to be a large fireball or at least expanding energy cascades along with major structural damage or total annihilation.

    'Man of Steel' is a film for you, then.
    Sorry, I need some sort of story too....

    Then perhaps I can turn you over to 'Bad Boys 2'!
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,789
    I've tried watching movies where no s**t blows up and it never ends well. Steel Magnolias was my worst nightmare...
  • MrcogginsMrcoggins Following in the footsteps of Quentin Quigley.
    Posts: 3,144
    chrisisall wrote: »
    I've tried watching movies where no s**t blows up and it never ends well. Steel Magnolias was my worst nightmare...
    I have just told Mrs Coggins about your post best laugh we've had all day thanks .

  • edited January 2016 Posts: 1,098
    BAIN123 wrote: »
    chrisisall wrote: »
    Duel by Spielberg starring Dennis Weaver. This is the first time I've seen the uncut version, and widescreen to boot. Awesome movie. Every little detail is there- all of Spielberg's bag of tricks dumped into his first feature.

    I love that film.

    Yes, an excellent film, saw it recently over the xmas hols, as it was on UK TV.

    I remember seeing this TV movie when it was shown on the early 70's. I also remember well another American TV movie in the same decade called 'Killdozer', where an alien force strikes the blade of a bulldozer at a construction site, and then runs amok killing the construction workers.......remember that?

    Back to 'Due'l there has recently been a remake of this film, and many of the aspects were copied from Spielberg's original, but it is such a poor copy. In this version, a truck is menacing a young lady who is driving a high powered sports car. It was ridiculous because all she had to do was to push down on the accelerator pedal (gas pedal to non-English persons ;) ) to get away.

  • edited January 2016 Posts: 1,098
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Experiment In Terror
    Blake Edwards

    003.jpg

    Excellent suspense thriller, released in 1962. Glenn Ford and Ross Martin are excellent. Lee Remick, beautiful as ever, gives a very convincing portrayal. I love this movie.

    On recommendation of members here, i have just watched this film, it was very good.
    Surprisingly, i had never heard, or seen this film before.
    Glenn Ford was a very good actor, and did anyone notice that Clifton James (JW Pepper), had a role in this film.

    Glenn Ford, made another good film in the mid-60's which i must re-watch, it was called 'Rage' i think, where he gets bitten by an animal, and catches the rabies virus, and has to try to get help.

    For reference, those of you who are trying to find those rare films of yesteryear which havnt't been put on DVD, but you would like to watch again. Try this site, and its free.

    http://www.rarefilmm.com/
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    edited January 2016 Posts: 23,883
    mepal1 wrote: »
    Back to 'Due'l there has recently been a remake of this film, and many of the aspects were copied from Spielberg's original, but it is such a poor copy. In this version, a truck is menacing a young lady who is driving a high powered sports car. It was ridiculous because all she had to do was to push down on the accelerator pedal (gas pedal to non-English persons ;) ) to get away.
    I'm a big fan of the original Duel as well. I've not seen the remake you refer to, but do recommend a semi-remake called Joy Ride that came out about 15 yrs ago starring Paul Walker, Steve Zahn & Leelee Sobieski, with a screenplay by J.J. Abrams. It's not bad imho.
  • Posts: 5,993
    Just saw Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso. Loved it, just as I love all the works of his I've seen. That man is a master.
  • edited January 2016 Posts: 12,466
    Gerard wrote: »
    Just saw Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso. Loved it, just as I love all the works of his I've seen. That man is a master.

    want to be my friend? :)) I actually have to see that one still. I love his films so much - he's just one of the best film directors ever, of any medium.
  • ShardlakeShardlake Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
    edited January 2016 Posts: 4,043
    The Hateful Eight 2014

    The Hateful Eight is a bloody gory epic from Quentin Tarantino. The cast are on top form with Samuel Jackson delivering his usual quality for QT something he fails to do these days outside of work with his favourite director.

    Although Walton Goggins is on fiery form and proves adept at delivering Tarantino's dialogue and alongside Jackson and Jennifer Jason Leigh is the standout. Other regulars of the director Tim Roth and Michael Madsen are on fine form and Kurt Russell is brilliantly gruff and mean. As well as some smaller but no less pivotal roles, one taken by a current Hollywood heart throb.

    This being the first properly scored Tarantino film and he certainly isn't short changing us with his choice. None other than scoring maestro the legendary Ennio Morriconie. Granted he's used some cues from his score to John Carpenter's The Thing as well as music he provided for the The Exorcist 2 The Heretic but more than a good chunk of it is originally composed for the project as well as The White Stripes, David Hess and Roy Orbison that appear in a more expected way like in his previous work.

    Quentin wanted his favourite composer who is most famous for providing some of the most memorable Spaghetti Western music for most notably Sergio Leone. Though his score here bears more resemblance to some of his other work, his main title theme to Brian De Palma's The Untouchables comes to mind. Morriconie does a brilliant job of building the tension from the opening of the film as well as providing a menacing main theme. This for me is the highlight of the film and without it, it might not have been quite so effective if the director had gone down his usual trait of lifting existing music from other films. Quentin finally putting this element in the hands of someone else and not being scared to surrender it even if it is the genius that is Morriconie.

    Tarantino has made no secret of the fact that Carpenter's finest film was an influence so the composers using cues from that film seems a natural fit. Although we know the violence is coming this is more of a slow building up to the point the film burst into utter mayhem that could rival the House of Blue Leaves segment of Kill Bill Part 1 in the blood department. It's somewhat of a mystery that see's a mixture of not only The Thing, some scenes definitely have an echo of it, the brooding atmosphere but also the way the paranoia is so intense that it feeds back into the viewer and you come immersed in it, this is important, if you aren't drawn into it like some viewers are likely to be this will come offf as boring. Personally I felt it, maybe not as much as Carpenter's masterwork but enough to enjoy it and buy into the pretense of the piece. While it's a period piece the director said he found the script echoing some recent issues, some that Tarantino himself as been controversially linked with which are likely to be linked to the film and it's director for sometime after its release.

    That being said Tarantino's now regular cinematographer since Kill Bill Robert Richardson provides some stunning visions. Tarantino making a big deal that they utilised the Ultra Panavision 70 technique along with 65mm lenses that haven't been seen in decades to shoot the film and whether it be the snowy landscapes or the insides of Minnie's Haberdashery where most of the film takes place, this rarely used technique is more than effectively displayed.

    While I though it was an improvement on the uneven Django Unchained, this for me is not Jackie Brown, Inglourious Basterds, Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction level Tarantino. It's his first go at a mystery and the plot hole I mention is a niggle that even a discussion with someone who's seen the film twice still doesn't explain it away for me anyway. I do feel that a good twenty minutes could be trimmed off the film and it wouldn't harm the deliberate slow build of the piece. I do like the influence of Carpenter's The Thing on the piece and while it's not at the masterpiece level I believe that film to be, when he takes influence from other films and film makers in his previous films, he presents it with enough of distinctive style to still call it his own still.

    It's still refreshing to see the level artistry at work here. Not only the use of the lenses that do make vista's look spectacular and it would be seen as the obvious reason for employing the technique. The use of them is just as valid and effective in a closed location. Tarantino said he wanted to you not only to see the character he was focusing on in the sequence but to for you to see what the other protagonists are doing in the foreground in Minnie's Harberdashery. The camera captures this with so much detail and definitely begs a viewing of this on the big screen, yes I would have liked to catch this in it's road show version in 70 mm but the multiplex version I viewed still conveyed to me the effect I believe the director was going for.

    Also shooting on location in Telluride,Colorado to capture the weather conditions but then when they moved to shooting on set in Los Angeles still keeping that feel by using fridges on set to get the breath of the actors. Tarantino wants you to see the weather itself as a character like a foreboding monster outside that will devour anyone who steps outside which forces them all to stay inside. The beauty of this large canvas also shows the level of painstaking detail under took, whether it be in the costumes or the set dressing to give it that truly authentic feel. While I wouldn't put this up with his best work to a degree it shows as a film maker how much he's progressed from a technical stand point and that not only is it a story teller that he impresses.

    Even when not firing on all four cylinders a Quentin Tarantino when dipping his toes in new territory and not entirely succeeding is a more tantalising prospect than a good number of Hollywood directors in work today and that alone makes The Hateful Eight time not wasted.

    4/5
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,963
    @Shardlake, what plot hole did you notice?
  • ShardlakeShardlake Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 4,043
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    @Shardlake, what plot hole did you notice?
    Maybe my Wife and I missed something but the moment that Chris Mannix asks Oswald Mowbray about the warrant for the guy in Red Rock who murdered the previous Sheriff he produces it to prove his validity and also knows the name of the person.

    How does Roth's character know the name of the person and where did he get that warrant from as there is nothing about him assuming the genuine's hang man's identity or how he got that warrant.

    So if this can't be explained then this element of the film is a plot hole, unless we are just going on assumptions. The whole film is built on people being untrustworthy and not what they seem, even that story the Major tells the General about his son could be just him pushing his buttons to get a rise out of him, I guess we'll never know, it's a bit like Verbal Kint's story in The Usual Suspects, you just can't trust it.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    edited January 2016 Posts: 40,963
    @Shardlake, I thought that was a plot hole, as well. I kept an ear out for it in my second viewing and found that:
    When Jackson's character has the guys against the wall at the end as he goes about explaining who they are and what happened, he says something to "Oswaldo" about expecting to find the real Oswaldo dead, outside behind Minnie's somewhere. I took this as "Oswaldo" tracking down the real Oswaldo, either by happenstance or on purpose as part of the plan, realized who he was (if he didn't already know), and assumed his identity for when they got to Minnie's. I then took all of that as Jackson's character being half right; he was, in fact, dead somewhere and had his identity stolen, but he wasn't dead at Minnie's.
  • JohnHammond73JohnHammond73 Lancashire, UK
    edited January 2016 Posts: 4,151
    Superman 3 - The quality starts to drop dramatically with the Reeve Superman movies here. Has it's fun moments and the "battle" between Evil Supes and Clark Kent is an excellent part but it doesn't completely save this movie. Shame.
  • Posts: 12,466
    Superman 3 - The quality starts to drop dramatically with the Reeve Superman movies here. Has it's fun moments and the "battle" between Evil Supes and Clark Kent is an excellent part but it doesn't completely save this movie. Shame.

    Perfect summary; the junkyard battle was a genuinely great highlight that felt out of place in a bad movie. I still think that part probably makes it better than Superman IV - Quest for Peace. 1 and 2 are both very good.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Superman 3 is genuinely funny, and infinitely better than Quest for Peace of Crap.
  • ShardlakeShardlake Leeds, West Yorkshire, England
    Posts: 4,043
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    @Shardlake, I thought that was a plot hole, as well. I kept an ear out for it in my second viewing and found that:
    When Jackson's character has the guys against the wall at the end as he goes about explaining who they are and what happened, he says something to "Oswaldo" about expecting to find the real Oswaldo dead, outside behind Minnie's somewhere. I took this as "Oswaldo" tracking down the real Oswaldo, either by happenstance or on purpose as part of the plan, realized who he was (if he didn't already know), and assumed his identity for when they got to Minnie's. I then took all of that as Jackson's character being half right; he was, in fact, dead somewhere and had his identity stolen, but he wasn't dead at Minnie's.

    I know the scene you are suggesting but I'm not entirely convinced it explains it away. That being said this film has definitely stayed with me and I watched that interview he did with Christopher Nolan after a screening of the road show version and it made me look at the film even more favorably.

    I certainly didn't not like it, yes I was expecting probably better but I still think it was very good, I've a feeling it's one of those that will improve on subsequent viewings and also yield more details when viewed again, that will be the Blu ray for me though as another viewing on the big screen can't be justified at the cost of cinema tickets in the UK, I still want to catch The Revenant.

    I've revised my review a little as I felt elements deserved mentioning on reflection.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,963
    My explanation helps ease my mind on it, but you're right, it's not thoroughly explained and can be seen as a plot hole, of sorts. To me, it seems like a rather big deal to not have explained this rather large oversight in a movie that's already pushing past a three hour runtime.
  • Posts: 157
    I just watched Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps" loosely based on the book by John Buchan. It was a big deal in 1935, as was the book in 1915. Ian Fleming certainly borrowed some elements while shaping his Bond novels, so did the filmmakers in The Living Daylights - I'm thinking of Necros and the milk bottles, a nod, in my humble opinion.
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