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Is it? :O
I believe you. Could have sworn it was Daniels.
I definitely had to check! That would have been wild, would have loved for him to be in this as well.
Not a bad film in any way, but it still feels like a waste of time. Unmemorable, uninteresting, unoriginal. Tom Hanks is just using the same three expressions as always. The little girl did well, though.
Mirrors my thoughts exactly; it wasn't the worst thing ever but incredibly unremarkable and doesn't bring anything new or inventive to such a long-lasting genre.
I fully support Zack Snyder and Justice League, even though I’m not the biggest fan of either. It just feels right for him (like Donner and his team), to finish their project as much as they intended. I feel that Joel Schumacher (RIP) should have Batman Forever release the original version of his, with the footage that he intended. Get Akiva Goldsman involved! And let David Ayer release his full Suicide Squad cut. DC comics seem to do better with director’s cuts. They just feel right.
Yes, I bought a few of them singly secondhand but I'm pretty sure I have the boxset somewhere too that I bought years ago. I wanted to watch the second one, Magnum Force, as I remember seeing a little bit of it on TV as a youngster and being intrigued by the vigilante angle. It has quite a twist ending which I didn't see coming either. I've read it's considered the best film in the series and I could well believe it! Sudden Impact is next on my to watch list.
I wanted to see this earlier, then forgot all about it until seeing News Of The World, which has the same actress. This one was a lot better. Pretty strong social drama.
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
2 great films i'm sure most people on this site have watched.
Does anyone not like them ?
Spider-Man 2 is better than the first one.
I concur!
And I hated the 3rd film!
I had never seen this before, despite knowing the story and the differences between it and the theatrical cut. I quite liked it. It was good, but a different kind of good. However, if I had to choose, I'd like go with the theatrical cut. It just has an intoxicating energy to it that the Director's Cut substitutes for something a bit meaner and more low-key in comparison.
A friend of mine invited me to watch this film as part of a ZOOM meetup and I was shocked to discover it's... quite good?
The marketing for this was so appalling. Every trailer and poster made it look so bafflingly awful that I would have never paid money to see this.
Glad I was convinced to check it out though because it's a genuinely sweet and silly little film that never overstayed its welcome. Not amazing, but a nice light-hearted riff on old Marx Brothers films, 70s Disco musicals, and even 60s spy films.
Considering the film's low budget (I couldn't find any official numbers but everything I read suggests it was in the $5-$10 million range) it has some decent sets, including a nice Bond-esque villain lair.
Great visuals and music but the Monolith angle is pretentious.
Anyone like the Monolith inclusion in the film ?
Its really only the first two Dirty Harry movies that I like! Especially the first which is an out and out classic.
I believe the Chuck Norris thriller 'Code of Silence' was offered to Clint as a Dirty Harry movie but he turned it down!
The Dead Pool was on one evening on TV I switched it off after half hour! Its awful!
Yes, agreed, that was a good scene. The second film, Magnum Force, was directed by Ted Post who went on to direct two episodes of the fifth season of Columbo in the 1970s ('A Case of Immunity' and 'A Matter of Honor'). It's been the best of the two Dirty Harry films I've seen do far although I've still not seen the first film in the series. I intend to watch Sudden Impact next. What are people's thoughts on that one?
It's pretty rubbish. Taking Harry out of San Francisco, though interesting on paper, didn't work for me. It lacks the energy and wit of the previous films, and the villains were very dull.
It's still not quite as bad as The Dead Pool, though.
That's a pity. I guess it's a case of diminishing returns when it comes to the Dirty Harry film series then?
I remember seeing a scene where a lady kept pouring sugar into Harry's coffee as a way to let him know the shop was being held hostage. I wonder if that was Sudden Impact?
It's also a pity that The Dead Pool is so poorly received. I was looking forward to that one as it sounds like an interesting premise at least. I believe I'm right in saying that it's the one where Liam Neeson has a role?
I prefer other films in the series, but I really like how Sudden Impact brings back the grit of the original film. You can tell Eastwood directed it, and was influenced by Siegel. The camera work, the night shooting... quite reminiscent of the first film (cinematographer Bruce Surtees is back, too). There is a scene with Michael V. Gazzo that is quintessential Dirty Harry. I like the story and how the different characters are intertwined. The main villain is an absolute creep, which is good in the sense that one is just waiting for Callahan to put a bullet in him, but he's certainly not as interesting to watch as Scorpio from the original film, or the cops from Magnum Force. I believe actor Paul Drake now works as a martial arts teacher.
That's correct.
I'll offer a dissenting opinion here and say The Dead Pool is my second favorite Dirty Harry film. I didn't particularly care for it at first, but I really like it now. It's the most lighthearted of the five films. I think it's great fun and as you say, the premise is interesting. The scene in prison with Butcher Hicks and Janero is hilarious. I like Harry's new partner, Quan, with his martial arts skills. And yes, Neeson is in the film. He plays a horror film director. His scenes are fairly enjoyable.
This Benjamin Christensen film is magnificently weird and fascinating.
It definitely is that case for me, I would say. The first two are excellent, the third is enjoyable though undeniably lesser in comparison, and the last two just really aren't very good.
That scene you recall surely is from Sudden Impact. One of the better scenes in the film, but even that is just a remix of that iconic scene from the first film. Eastwood directed the film himself, so you can see why there was an almost experimental vibe to it. He wanted to do something different with the series if not the character. Unfortunately, it just didn't work for me.
Neeson does have a role in The Dead Pool, you're right. There's also a small role for a young Jim Carrey, too!
I fail to see how the monolith could be pretentious. The various monoliths have such exact dimensions that they demonstrate the aliens' advanced intellect. The monoliths monitor, record, transmit and guide; they are the instruments with which the aliens study and catalogue us and announce themselves whenever they feel we are ready for the next step in our evolution. The monoliths are crucial in understanding that there is an active albeit elusive third party at play in us jumping through the various stages of our own advancement. The one on the Moon was put there ages ago, for us to find when we had finally managed to develop the knowledge and wisdom to undertake an enterprise such as landing on the Moon. (It is essentially this discovery story that had formed the basis for Clarke's story 'The Sentinel' from which he himself took inspiration when writing 2001 along with Kubrick.) The Lunar monolith then guides humanity towards the other one, beyond Jupiter (Saturn in the original book). The Jovian one then guides Bowman through the space-time tunnel after which he is 'recycled' as the space baby. The way I see it, the monoliths are basically the ultimate fulcrum mechanisms that push mankind to higher states of intellect, one step at a time.
Why do you feel it is a pretentious thing to include in the film, @007InAction?
I have read the Arthur C. Clarke book series in my youth, the Monolith works on many levels and is integral to the story and the advancement of humanity literally and metaphorically.
Over the past five decades, the monoliths of ‘2OO1’ have become a kind of pop-culture short-hand for “the alien”, “the mysterious” or “the unknowable” – something that mankind can’t really understand until we have evolved. Hence all of the stories about those mysterious monolith-like objects that popped up in late 2020 – all cited ‘2OO1’. Within the context of the film, we can - as others have pointed out - see them as tools that have some type of purpose. Exactly what that purpose is, is, of course, not spelled out directly (sequels not withstanding).
Kubrick actually spent some time towards the end of 2OO1’s production attempting to come up with designs for what the alien race behind the monoliths would look like. However, none of them looked “right” to Kubrick and he decided to let the mystery of the monoliths speak for itself. **
Film critic John Simon (he didn’t like the film BTW) once described 2OO1 as a “shaggy God story” and it is possible to construct a neo-religious interpretation of what the monolith’s purposes are. One of my favorite stories about ‘2OO1’ concerns the patron at one 1968 showing, running up to the screen as the monolith appeared at the final and declaring: “It’s God, it’s God.”
I’ve seen ‘2OO1’ more times (by far) than any other film over the years, and it still fills me with absolute awe.
** In the novel, written concurrent with the film’s production, Arthur C. Clark describes this race as having evolved into beings of pure energy. The monoliths are tools.
The film doesn't explain what they are ,where they came from ,what they do, so in order to try to understand everything about the placement of them in the film it requires the audience to do some research to find out what the hell they are.
So it's not a stand alone film imo, it requires people who are interested in what they are supposed to be to read the works of clarke or luckily nowadays they can do some internet research for a possible explanation.
What percentage of movie watchers would do that ? and what percentage of them could not care less ? is debatable but i would guess most people could not care less what they are as most people go to the movies to be entertained, not perplexed imo ? that's why i think it's pretentious.
Not that there's anything wrong with making a film that confuses the audience once in a while, like some nolan films.
It is a interesting idea on what they did but not in the least believable especially compared to other sci-fi films.
But i think the film is rated highly for it's great visuals and music rather than the intriguing Monoliths ?