Amph What was the last movie you saw? (Ver. 2)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Enjoyed it at the cinema, enjoyed it on Blu-ray. I love the pacing of this film, and absolutely do not get bored. Not a film that needed to be made, but I'm glad they made it all the same.

 

Zeppelin (1971) If you like zeppelins, it's a pretty cool movie. If not, it's an ordinary WW1 action film with a Boys' Own Adventure plot that doesn't stand close scrutiny. Michael York and Elke Sommer managed to hint at real characters even though the script didn't give them much to work with, and lots of character actors did their characters again. The FX and model work are pretty good for its era. I like the score, too.

 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

This is a tough one to judge. It gave me a lot to think about during and after the film. I’ll get the biggest achievement out of the way first: the acting. Wow wee! This is no doubt one of the most well acted films I’ve ever seen. Easily. Not just the cast, but the supporting cast as well. Every single one of them. Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson all give outstanding performances. Very real and raw acting, full of emotion. Rockwell stands out the most to me, mostly because of his character transformation.

The actual story is interesting enough to keep you involved the entire time. The ending may not sit well with some, but I thought it worked. Sometimes not giving you what you want can leave more of an impact. It pretty much deals with every dark theme you can think of. Profanity. Murder. Rape. Racism. Brutality. Abuse. Suicide. It really goes all out, yet it manages to fit in a good amount of humour and still handle everything well. You’ve got to have some pretty good writers behind the film to make that happen in a tasteful way.

The cinematography stood out to me quite a bit. There were some really nice shots. The score worked well, especially when they used that western style music. So technically, it was pretty damn good.

But yeah. I don’t know. I’m torn. I certainly liked it, but I didn’t love it. I just feel like there needed to be something more and I can’t quite put a finger on what that “more” is yet. I know there were some deeper meanings behind it, and maybe I didn’t appreciate them as much as some others did.

7/10.

 

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, together for the first time! This is an atmospheric, and sometimes quiet, western that builds up the tension until the explosive climax. It's very similar to High Noon. However, High Noon fails with the godawful soundtrack and Gary Cooper's blandness, while this one mostly succeeds with the charisma of John Wayne, and the intensity of Jimmy Stewart's performance. They're both really good in this one, and this is saying something since I normally loathe Wayne.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 This is mainly carried by the characters and their interactions rather than the story, I liked the family moral to it, but still overall I found it weak and not as interesting as the first film. They twisted things on its head with the reveal about Ego and Peters mother, which I thought was an good aspect of the story and of course it lead to Peter appreciating who had been his dad in the absence of his real one. But I'm not really a big fan of these huge god like beings that Marvels likes to use, I just can't get into them and I didn't feel like I cared what Ego was up to, so it all just leads to the usual big effects sequence at the end that is something that grates on me about the superhero genre of films. The side story of Rocket stealing some batteries from whoever the golden race was a distraction, and when they turn up for the end battle I felt there were no stakes with them as I don't think they were established enough for me to care about them, it was just an excuse to get the effects battle in. But like I said for me the driving force behind this is the characters, they are good together and as an ensemble they make it very likeable and easy to get in to. Some of the humour works, a bit of it doesn't, but I laughed at it a lot. I find that the soundtrack becomes very annoying and intrusive too, like its trying to be too hard to be cool. Overall some good ideas and characters but equally quite forgettable too.

I'm no comic book expert so can someone enlighten me as to the significance of the end credit scenes with Stallone and his crew and also the being they called Adam.

 

@AndyLGR Well, Stallone (Stakar Ogord) and his team are more or less the original Guardians. The team consists of Stakar Ogord, Aleta Orgord (Stakar’s wife), Charlie-27, Martinex, Krugarr and Mainframe. A few of these characters played major roles in the older Guardians comics.

Adam is Adam Warlock. One of the most powerful characters in the entire Marvel Universe. He’ll obviously start as a bad guy, but end up joining the team if they follow the comics, since he’s a superhero.

 

Thank you.

 

Cinderella (2015)

Inspired by both the fairy tale and Disney's animated classic, there are a few differences: first, it's not a musical, although "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" and "Bippity Boppity Boo" are sung during the credits by Lily James (Cinderella) and Helena Bonham Carter (the Fairy Godmother); second, Lady Tremaine (the stepmother, played by Cate Blanchett) is more blatant in her attempts to stop Cinderella from going to the ball, whereas the original stepmother was more subtle and cunning; third, like the animated classic, some of the animals do have names (Gus Gus, the mouse, and Lucifer, the cat), although they don't play nearly as big of roles as in the animated classic, except for a couple of instances; finally, the Grand Duke became the secondary antagonist. In the original, he was loyal to the kind and supportive of the prince's wish to find and marry Cinderella; here, he conspires with Lady Tremaine to arrange an "advantageous" marriage for the prince with an implied threat to Cinderella.

 

Or as an indifferent being as in the comic

 

WHAT THE ****

 

The Last Witchhunter (2015) I've been wanting to see this for awhile now. I much prefer the middle ages sequences to the modern. It was exactly what I expected. I wanted to like it, but Vin Diesel either works in a role or he does not. I almost felt like I could buy Kaulder in the past, but definitely not in the present.

 

Seconded, 'High Noon' in my opinion is as close to perfect as a movie can get...



Give this another view and if you still think the music in it is godawful I can call you wrong again

 

Not so long ago I bought the space version of High Noon on blu ray, Outland starring Sean Connery as a Marshall on a mining operation out in space. Worth a watch for anyone who likes 70's/80's industrial looking bleak sci-fi.

 

High Noon is my favorite Western.
It's brilliant how the actual run time of the picture mirrors the events in the story and the lesson of how nearly everyone deserts him in the end and how he must face it alone is impactful on many levels. Great cast, story, cinematography, sets, and score. Must rewatch this one soon.

 

Thor: Ragnarok (2017) - Plot; Imprisoned on a far away planet and forced to fight in gladiatorial contests, Thor must escape his bonds if he's to return home and save Asgard from the wicked Hela.

Of the solo Marvel film series, the Mighty Thor has probably fared the worst. A solid, if unspectacular, first entry was followed by a middling and utterly forgettable sequel. Ironically what the God of Thunder needed was a spark. Enter director Taika Waititi. Infusing the film with a quirky, offbeat sense of humor and a neon-soaked color palate, he finally allows Marvel's stuffiest Avenger to lighten up. For his part Hemsworth has always done well with the drier aspects of the character, but he clearly seems to enjoy getting a chance to loose up his armor a bit here. Just as in Planet Hulk (which inspired some aspects of this story), Hulk is much more articulate this go 'round. It allows the green guy to actually be a character and not just a mascot when he's not Bruce Banner. New character Valkyrie isn't just a token "tough girl", but a layered and fun counterpart for Thor.

Where the film stumbles a bit is with its villain. Make no mistake, Cate Blanchett is great as Hela, but by whisking Thor half way across the galaxy for 3/4 of the film, she's given nothing to do but bide her time demonstrating her villainy in a series of ultimately meaningless cut-aways. She all but disappears for long stretches of the film, and at times I forgot she was even in it. But once Thor returns to Asgard everything clicks into place and it races to a satisfying enough finish that checks all the boxes.

Thor Ragnarok isn't a great film, but it's a reasonably fun one, and perhaps just the sugary snack we needed before the heavy full course meal of Infinity War. - 7/10

 

I disagree as I found the Asgard part of the story to be the weak link. The director was clearly more at home with the fun romp on Sakaar than the more serious drama in Asgard, and I think the film would have been better without the Hela throw-down at the tail end of the film that destroys Thor's home to little emotional effect.

I really enjoyed the movie, but imo it would have been better as a lightweight action comedy set on Sakaar that ended with the defeat of Goldblum's Grandmaster.

 

I agree w/you here. The Asgard/Hela/Ragnarok stuff felt like a completely different movie and it felt grafted together w/the Sakaar story. I think they felt it needed the fate of Asgard stuff to give it weight and stakes when a simple fun romp would've sufficed.

That said, once it dovetails back together I thought it worked generically well. But generic is the key word.

What bums me out is that if/when Marvel/Disney ever get the rights to do another standalone Hulk movie, Planet Hulk would've been a great basis for it. Alas...

 

I feel the same way about the way that the previous Thor films have used just enough Simonson Thor plotlines to prevent further adaptations, but didn't stick closely enough to do them justice. Oh, and the Avengers New York fight with the aliens in Avengers1 looks to me to be taken from Simonson's Thor, too, where Surtur's minions invade New York through a warp-gate and the Avengers have to fight them off.

 

The only thing I didn't like about the Asgard scene was the quick dispatch of the Warriors Three.

Gotta love the play that was in homage to Loki at the beginning of the film though.

 

That was very funny. Looking forward to seeing the movie again when it is released on disc over here.

 

Together Again (1944)

A romantic comedy directed by Charles Vidor and starring Irene Dunne and her usual charm. I love Irene Dunne. Oh, and Charles Boyer is in it, too. Thankfully they have much better chemistry here than they did in Love Affair. It's well-written with a few proto-feminist points, even if it is ultimately old fashioned. Brief cameo by Alfalfa, he appears as an elevator boy.

If you like Ms. Dunne or these old comedies, definitely check this one out.


One thing I legitimately love about this era are the ladies' hats! So ostentatious! Here an OTT one is used with awareness and humor...but I legitimately love them.

 

Escape Room I'm not really a big horror movie fan but the mrs wanted to watch this one. It starts off with 2 middle eastern guys trekking for 2 days out into the desert to bury a mysterious box so that no one can discover it, to ensure that no one knows its burial place one guy kills the other and turns the gun on himself.

Cut to America and the owner of an escape room is disappointed that their business isn't getting more publicity, so off he goes to a strange antique shop (owned by Sean Young) looking for something to spice up his escape room business. What does he see in there? You've guessed it the mysterious box from the first scene. He wants it, she won't let him have it because if opened it contains an unspeakable demon. She goes to take a call and the WTF moment in this scene is the phone call, you hear her say to the caller, "no don't get him wet and don't feed him after midnight" which just made me wonder what was the point of that? To tie it in to something coming out in the future or was it just a nod to an antique shop and Mogwai? Anyway whilst her back is turned he steals the box and leaves.

In the meantime a group of 4 people are going to the escape room as a gift for one of the guys. The patrons will be locked in the room and they have to solve the clues around the room to unlock the door in the allotted time. To make things a little more scary for the customers they have a big guy playing the part of a deranged killer with a sack over his head, holding a large pair of scissors whos attached to the wall by a chain, this chain loosens every 5 minutes so he can reach more of the room and slowly get closer to the customers and scare them as they're trying to solve the puzzle. However the owner returns with the mysterious looking box and puts it in the room and opens it.......... ooooooohhhhhh the demons now taken over the actor and so he becomes a deranged killer for real.

The 4 people start the game and try to solve the puzzles, they don't take the guy in the sack mask seriously until he kills one of them, then the stakes become real as they have to solve the puzzles before he can reach them and kill them all. The owner becomes concerned when the camera goes down in the room, so he watchs the footage back and sees the masked man cut the wires to the camera in the room, scenes like that I find strangely unsettling as looks directly into the camera. He goes to the room, opens it, sees the dead bodies but the demon flings him out and the owner rushes to call the cops.

Eventually one of them escapes, the cops are killed and kill the masked man, but not before the demon transfers to the owner and he walks off and leaves. It ends with the potential of a sequel with the box being returned to Sean Young who claims the demon never forgets a face and will be back to kill whoever was there.

The concept of it sounds scary being trapped in a room with a killer and the ticking clock of the chain loosening further every 5 minutes was a good idea. But overall its not really much of a scary horror film. Quite average really.

 

Star Crash (1978)
A Star Wars rip-off with wooden acting and wooden dubbing that don't always fit the supposed speakers mimics. Beside some of the clothing and that the not-Luke Skywalker is a women (who is able to make sexy clothing you thought only possible in illustrations work) so is there nothing wort taking from it.

 

Just watched The Cloverfield Paradox on Netflix

I think JJ Abrams is trying to mess with peoples minds!