main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Discussion in 'Community' started by TheEmperorsProtege, Aug 15, 2004.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    Home Alone:

    I love watching this one with kids, because they really appreciate the slapstick, as well as the dumb bad guys getting their asses kicked by an 8-year-old. I used to show the French version to my middle school students when I was in the classroom; half the lines still go through my head in French.

    The soundtrack is really good and adds a serious note to an otherwise straight-comedy movie; that and the talk Kevin had in the church with the neighbor.

    The house-rigging was great. All we needed was Legos. Those sons of *****es hurt under bare feet.

    The family gathering at the beginning looked a lot like family gatherings when I was growing up, with people, including a lot of kids, crowded in a tight space and arguing. :p

    Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern were awesome as the "bandits". I enjoyed John Heard too.

    One part that gets overlooked but always makes me laugh is Kevin being chased by the burglars and hiding in the Nativity scene.

    "I think he went in the church." "I'm not going in there." "Me either."

    Apparently nobody in Chicago has seen "Angels with Filthy Souls" except Kevin. Not that it matters because the way he used the movie clips was funny.
     
  2. Chancellor_Ewok

    Chancellor_Ewok Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2004

    Seconded. Extremely creepy in places and very authentic looking, plus I loved the idea of a secret Moon mission gone catastrophically wrong.

    Just got in from Catching Fire. Substantial improvement over The Hunger Games.
     
  3. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    Yeah, I really love it. I think Hopkins is really great; he totally captures the way that Nixon was just totally uncomfortable in his own skin. He's just so perfectly awkward. I like a lot of the supporting cast too; it's fun to see David Hyde Pierce as John Dean and words cannot describe the brilliance of J.T. Walsh and James Woods as Haldeman & Erlichman. There's that one really long scene where the camera follows them through the halls during a conversation. So great.

    But I think it all really builds to that climactic scene between Nixon and Paul Sorvino's eerily dead-on Kissinger. I mean, Nixon is just flat out hated by a lot of people and so it was really amazing at the end when he breaks down and weeps and it just hurts so damn bad. It might just be the hardest thing a film director has ever done, making me cry for Richard gosh-darn Nixon, but Stone pulled it off. It's so amazing; you expect the film to be a screed against Nixon, but it's really intensely sympathetic towards him.

    I think it's a much more emotionally vivid and gripping movie than JFK in just about every way. And there's nothing in Nixon nearly as absurd as the Tommy Lee Jones/Kevin Bacon scenes in JFK. And then there's Williams' score, which is one of his great underrated scores. It's just so insular and minimalist in its own way, but also just deeply tragic. It's a really uncharacteristic score for Williams and I really love it.

    Did you see the Director's Cut? It's like four hours long, but I like it even more than the theatrical cut.
     
    CloneUncleOwen likes this.
  4. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2002
    End of Watch. Ehhhhhhh, Gyllenhaal and the other guy gave it their all, but this movie really didn't deserve it. The black and Mexican gangsters were stereotypes that weren't fleshed out one bit-- one guy literally calls himself "Evil." The two main characters were pretty much thugs and the movie didn't seem to have a problem with that so long as they saved people and danced at teenagers' parties once in a while. The gangsters weren't really given that pass. The whole thing felt procedural. Like, we were supposed to care about these two cops and their lives on and off the job, but I didn't. Most of the time, they felt shallow. Although a few of their conversations helped give them a bit more depth, it wasn't enough.

    Oh, and the "documentary" style filmed with in-universe cameras. What the hell was the point of that contrivance? It took me out of the film that seemingly every group had a character with a ****ing video camera, or that the police car interior was apparently covered with them. And it didn't really matter, since there were plenty of traditional camera angles shot by camera operators who weren't supposed to actually be there.
     
    Life likes this.
  5. Life

    Life Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    It reminds me of that opening monologue by the videogame prince with the unknown name: "Most people think time is like a river, that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the face of time, and let me tell you; time is an ocean in a storm."

    Coincidentally, I have also seen a movie involving time travel today. The Time Traveler's Wife
    It has its flaws and obvious logical shortcomings, but it still charmed me. Some moments and dialogue feel horribly contrived, as if it was written by one of those middle-aged women who write those supermarket pulp romance novels. The unique premise of the story is the hook here, but the love story is really the heart of the film. You just have to be able to go along with some lapses in plausibility for it to work. And here I don't mean the premise itself, but rather people's reactions to it, which is sort of swept under the rug. Overall, I enjoyed it though. Well chuffed.
     
  6. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    While we're talking about the flow of time, I should mention that I saw the new Richard Curtis (Love, Actually) movie, About Time, yesterday. It was darn good. Richard Curtis has some kind of gift to make really sappy love stories that I, as a guy, can genuinely get caught up in. He makes chick flicks that guys can love. Well, this guy anyway.
     
  7. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

    A really great experience through and through, and fortunately, none of the actors seemed like they were just there to be "catching paychecks".
     
  8. Chancellor_Ewok

    Chancellor_Ewok Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2004

    Agreed. A significant improvement over The Hunger Games. Excellent film.
     
  9. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    I am a little perplexed over why book 3 has been split into two parts.
     
  10. Chancellor_Ewok

    Chancellor_Ewok Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2004

    Because of Harry Potter and the Mountain of Money? :p
     
    Rogue1-and-a-half likes this.
  11. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2002
    Yeah, Harry Potter started that trend in part because Deathly Hallows had enough material to sustain two films (not that I'm really a fan of any of the film adaptations). The rest of the popular tween/teen series that have followed suit don't seem to have that justification.
     
    CloneUncleOwen likes this.
  12. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    In defense of this series, I've often heard that Hungry Games Number Three is nigh unfilmable. Perhaps adding an extra movie well help to rationalize the plot into something that works better on the big screen?
     
  13. duende

    duende Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 28, 2006
    i watched catching fire in the imax format. i wasn't planning to see it at all, but a friend of a friend backed out at the last minute and i agreed to go. i wasn't expecting much - i had watched most of the first film and found it too harry potterish. i also felt they could have shaped it into a much more unsettling experience, but blew it. that said, i felt this one was much improved. my friend had told me that it was supposed to be "empire strikes back"-ish in terms of its relation to the first film, and i generally agree with that assessment. drama, emotions, and intensity are revved up. the dialogue and staging feels more natural. jenna malone in particular was really good. she really went for it and it paid off big time. i wish there was more philip semen hoffmans as well, but i guess he'll be in the third and fourth films so it's fine. stanley tucci did a good job channeling some of those tim and eric holiday special types. catnips looks like a statue. how can a person look so much like a statue?
     
  14. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
     
    Rogue1-and-a-half likes this.
  15. duende

    duende Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 28, 2006
  16. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Star Wars: A New Hope on VHS
     
    Juke Skywalker likes this.
  17. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    [face_tee_hee]
     
    Juliet316 likes this.
  18. Drac39

    Drac39 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 9, 2002
    'The Evil of Frankenstein' , review from imdb

    Hammer and Universal told the same stories but they told them in vastly different ways. 'Evil of Frankenstein' marks the one time the two companies collaborated on a classic property. 'Evil of Frankenstein' has a lot of love for what Universal did. It is full of fun visual cues that fans of both companies are bound to get a smile from. The entertainment a horror fan gets from 'Evil of Frankenstein' unfortunately ends there. The Hammer Horror series was always weak on developing stories and it may be the most noticeable in 'Evil of Frankenstein'. This film has a definite problem, it tries so hard to be in the spirit of Universal that it forgets what made the Hammer films great. Peter Cushing is the soul of British horror and this narrative throws him completely to the side.

    Hammer and Universal's Frankenstein films were very different. Frankly I think Hammer's concept for a series is much more interesting than Universal's was. Old Boris Karloff was 100% on the money when he predicted that Frankenstein films would reduce the monster to being nothing more than a prop devoid of soul laying on a lab table. By the end of the series it required no acting talent to play the creature anymore. Hammer went in a different direction and followed the creator and not the creature. It's a clever idea and as the series progressed it allowed for a character that descended into deeper madness as he performed bizarre experiments. It also didn't hurt that the creator was the great Peter Cushing. Cushing is in a class of his own. Every line he reads has so much gravitas and cunning. He gives absolutely enthralling and electric performances even as he is forced to deliver the same expository horror lines over and over again. Cushing creates a character when the scripts through the nuances when the scripts offer nothing in terms of character development.

    Cushing's Frankenstein is the draw. This film thinks the monster and the laboratory are. Are they enough to sustain a picture? No not really. This is the best looking Hammer film in terms of what they are able to do with sets and size but that hardly impresses me. 'Curse of Frankenstein' shows all of it's extremely low budget and yet it is very entertaining because Cushing transcends everything in his performance. So while it is nice to see there be more visually cool things for the people to play with I feel that there is no substance. A large part of the problems with the film is that the monster is so damned boring and awkward looking. Jack Pierce's designs are imitated somewhat but the make-up designer has no concept of subtlety. The monster looks as though he is completely covered in hardened paper mache. What nonsense. Kiwi Kingston is no Karloff. He mumbles around. The one thing Hammer failed to understand is that this role requires an actor with some talent to play. Kingston's monster is the only monster in the series to be the star of the film over Cushing. Unfortunately he is the worst monster Cushing ever stitched together.

    There is one interesting Universal homage that actually kind of works. Peter Woodthrope plays Zoltan, a sleazy hypnotist, who makes the monster his slave and instrument of revenge. This is when the film started to interest me. It is a brilliant homage to Ygor and 'Son of Frankenstein'. The problem is is that Woodthrope and the script in general play it too safe and do not do anything new with this idea. This is a pretty tame film as Hammer standards are concerned. I would wish that Zoltan was more of a sexual pervert and had a deeper blood lust. This is a character that could have been brought to life perfectly if the film were made only a few years later when Hammer were less shy about pushing the envelope with violence and nudity. Good idea and okay performance from Woodthrope but in the end this subplot is wasted potential. I don't imagine it could have been truly gripping with Kingston as the monster.

    Any enjoyment one gets from this film will come from seeing the homages to Universal. They entertain. I on the other hand wanted more Peter Cushing and a monster that was not a giant block.
     
  19. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    Black Book (2007)

    It's a Paul Verhoven movie through and through. Subtle as a sledgehammer, incredibly violent, and full of bewbs. Needless to say, it's a very effective WWII thriller with some really great performances even if it is a little too long.

    Hitchcock (2012)

    A huge treat for film buffs and die-hard Alfred Hitchcock fans such as myself. It's just a lot of fun.
     
  20. tom

    tom Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Mar 14, 2004
    adventureland. it triggered some dormant 80's nostalgia. loved that kristen stewart drove a pacer. overall it was nothing spectacular, but it was cute and sweet and i enjoyed it.
     
  21. Mortimer Snerd

    Mortimer Snerd Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 27, 2012

    Exactly. To be fair, there haven't been many films that have sucked as much as "This is the End" sucked. Especially considering how genuinely entertaining it COULD have been.
     
  22. Darth_Invidious

    Darth_Invidious Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 21, 1999
    Man of Steel. Admittedly, I think I enjoyed it more re-watching it from the comfort of my couch. But it still has plenty of problematic details that stop me from calling it "Best Superman Movie" ever, though I suspect those issues are simply due to the inability to complete let go of the past and accept something...different. Not necessarily better, but different. I sincerely hope there is considerably fallout from Kal-El's disastrous debut in the sequel am eager to see how this new Superman deals with it.
     
  23. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    They'll deal with it with more destroyed buildings and whatnot.
     
  24. burrisjedimaster1

    burrisjedimaster1 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2002
  25. Bacon164

    Bacon164 Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Mar 22, 2005
    as a film buff and die-hard Hitchcock fan, that movie was painful.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.