It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Frank Miller's work and Alan Moore's as well (even beyond Batman) was certainly what changed everything, but the comics weren't as strong a factor in Batman's change into a bigger icon than the films. The films everyone could flock to see and the film got all these big promotional teasers and events to push it into the public consciousness. Comics have always been more niche-based by design, and so they fly under the radar. A few people may know about Batman: Year One or The Dark Knight Returns, but I think far more will know Burton's Batman, and have at least seen it once or at the very least know of its impact. It's one of those films that spoke for the culture of the time.
Decent film with some good war scenes. Gary Cooper was born for the lead role.
Yes i am, very good film!
I love it too. A very anti-western kind of film that changed how the genre was viewed. I know John Wayne despised it, as he didn't think the townspeople acted like real people would in his idea of America. As a bit of cynic, I love the film and for how brave it was for the time.
Good noir film. Can't recall ever seeing snowy locations in a film-noir, loved it in this one.
The Gunfighter (1950)
A lot of talk and no action. I mean, what is a western without a shootout?
A snowy noir sounds cool. I might seek that one out.
And yeah, with a title like The Gunfighter you'd expect at least a little something!
No, I haven't, just going off what you said. I really haven't explored the American Westerns, just the Spaghettis. It's not really my genre. But I see someone described it as a dark noirish Western.
The real change came with the comics from Denny O Neil and Neal Adams in the late 60s, early 70s. Before that we had Batman, kids stuff. They were the ones who introduced THE BATMAN, another universe entirely. They did the same for Green Lantern/Green Arrow. They changed the DC universe as we know it.
Miller and Moore et al took it a step further of course.
Ahead of it's time re the 80s tribute boom, hard for me to be a fair judge as I'm a sucker for the wonderful soundtrack. But there is much to like. Some wonderful cameos, decent supporting characters and a level of "heart" missing from future Sandler movies. Plus Barrymore perfectly cast as the fairytale princess.
Very, very fun, full of great actors, and the Mark Knopfler score was a big bonus.
Don Coscarelli's five PHANTASM films, made between 1979 and 2016, are among my favourite horror films ever. They may not be scary by any modern standards, nor are they expertly made, but the surreal experience combined with some effective gore and splatter scenes works the magic for me. I get a strong vibe of Argento's masterpiece SUSPIRIA, combined with elements of the western, road movie and ghost house genre. As with the atmospheric Italian horror films of Argento, Fulci, Bava and Soavi, many more questions are raised than actually answered, and some of that has to do with the simple fact that budget constraints and studio interference forced Coscarelli to impose script rewrites on his films while already in production.
The result of that was first of all PHANTASM, a compromised 85 minute cut distilled from 3 hours of footage, with a sometimes screwed-up in-film story logic. However, this only adds to the dreamy quality of the film, almost enhancing the sense of being at times disconnected from the real world. This isn't the only example of setbacks leading to good things by the way; many of the unused scenes were effectively recycled in the fourth film.
Speaking of the sequels, continuity is a strong element of the series. Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm are present in every film in the series, even the most recent one. (Angus Scrimm passed away soon after shooting his scenes.) A. Michael Baldwin could have been in all 5 movies but was replaced, under studio demands, by James LeGros for the 1988 sequel PHANTASM II. A serious miscalculation on behalf of the studios by the way, as this resulted in some heavy backlash from the fans. Baldwin, unrelated to the famous brothers, was asked back by Coscarelly for 1994's PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD and he even co-produced PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION in 1998. For a while it looked as if four films in the series was going to be it. But Coscarelli never forgot about his beloved PHANTASM and finally produced and co-wrote PHANTASM V: RAVAGER, which was released last year.
Five dreamy, eerie, sometimes funny, sometimes gruesome but always surreal horror films about two men's fight against the mysterious Tall Man, his "Lurkers" (scary Jawas), Zombies and of course flying killer balls is what the PHANTASM Pentalogy delivers. Offering a more or less consistent quality--which is pretty rare among horror series--and many cool ideas and concepts, it's a film series with many loyal fans. And I'm certainly one of them.
Very true, but to this day I think the people who sort of know about Denny still only think of him as the guy that killed Robin, if they know that at all. Which is a shame, because he was one of the main writers responsible for taking Kane's original violent vigilante and giving him a revamp with greater attention to character, theme and drama more attuned to who we see Batman to be today.
Mask of Phantasm is such a superb animated movie. Probably the best animated one of the lot.
And it probably contains the most heartbreaking Bruce moment at the gravesite that makes me tear up every time.
Ant-Man
Ant-Man was actually better. Somewhat reminded me of the first Iron Man.
I was taken with the first, but this was just as bad as the second. Qui-Gon Jinn is accused of murdering his ex-wife Jean Grey, but he (spoiler alert )didn t do it. I was bored.
The original was brilliant, and managed to do what only LA Confidential has done n my opinion. Adapt a brilliant book for the screen, and add to it. Trainspotting the book is fantastic, but John Hodge did the impossible, simplified it for the screen without diminishing any of the books power, message or ethos.
Compare to the print and film versions of The Shipping News as a counterpoint.
Despite the same director, screenwriter and cast T2 : Trainspotting is simply nowhere near the level of the first one. The original novel Trainspotting was basically a series of vignettes, involving the same loose group of friends and acquaintances. Hodge managed to turn this into a tight screenplay, with a clearly discernible beginning middle and end. T2 does the opposite, and the film comes across as a series of vignettes that have little commonality other than the protagonists. Subplot after subplot is introduced and they are virtually all are entirely disregarded by the end of it.
Instead we get flashbacks - lots of flashbacks -, lashings of the Boyle "style", pointless homages to the original up to and including a 2017 version of the "Choose Life" monlogue. Hodges script explains, adds or resolves virtually nothing. The performances are almost entirely average, Ewen Bremner aside. The soundtrack is excellent, but reuses tracks from the original. A metaphor for the film as a whole really.
The film has all the power of a Sex Pistols reunion, and only marginally better production values. Proof positive some things are best left alone.
A QoS alike, IMO.
Those two sequels are some of the worst movies I've ever seen.
PERDITA DURANGO
Rosie Perez and a creepy-as-hell Javier Bardem star in this weird 1997 crime flick, directed by Álex de la Iglesia, which I decided to watch for no other reason than to learn more about the titular character. No, I've never read Barry Gifford's books but Perdita Durango is featured, albeit in what can at best be called a cameo, in Lynch's WILD AT HEART, played in that film by his then wife Isabella Rossellini. And though you won't get many compliments for that film out of me, there's something particularly intriguing about Perdita that makes a movie much more focused on her character a virtual must-see.
Perdita Durango is one helluva pistols packing mama; you don't mess with her. One day she encounters the larger-than-life madman Romeo whose explosive persona and deadly voodoo-like rituals she finds enchanting. They pair up and quickly find themselves abducting a young and in every way "innocent" couple of lilly-white tweens. Initially abusing their two victims, Perdita and Romeo eventually inspire the young ones in more than one sense. While a case of the old Stockholm syndrome is gradually growing in this odd togetherness situation, both Romeo's partners in crime and some ambitious police officers give him and Perdita a lot of heat to worry about.
The uncensored version of this curious tale feels like a strange fusion between NATURAL BORN KILLERS and FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. That said, it's not quite as brutal as "NBK", which I find downright uncomfortable to watch, nor does it stray off into fantasy land as the Rodriguez film does. Instead, it's a series of amusing WTF's combined with brilliant performances from a young Bardem and the late James Gandolfini. Rosie Perez is not exactly my cup of tea but her performance is without fault. PERDITA DURANGO is an intriguing film with a lot to digest. But it all tastes very good.
Recommended.
Darth Maul was the true culprit, I'm sure.