Amph At The Movies (film discussion thread)

Not that you asked for my opinion but...

Oh Near Dark is fantastic. The "cure" is a little silly and the young vamp is annoying, but seeing Jeanette Goldstein, Bill Paxton and Lance Herinksen as redneck vampires is fantastic. There's one moment in a bar I swear I will steal when I get the urge to write a screenplay that can use that moment. Never looked at spurs the same way again.

The Devils earns some of its hype as a taboo movie I suppose (though I found it more boring and disliked being around the characters, which was probably the point). I was pretty stunned to see it on iTunes last year. Still, I wish I would have rented it rather than wasted the money on it.

What Dario Argento have you not seen yet? I can guide you beyond here (Pro Tip: skip anything past Two Evil Eyes (1990) for Argento's own work and for his writing, Michele Soavi's The Sect (1991) Personally, though I think Dario's last great movie was Tenebrae (1982).

For me, I wind up getting obsessed by an actor or director and try to see as much as I can; lately I've been going back and forth between Italy (my long time love) and Hong Kong. Back toward Italy now after almost exhausting what I want to see from Shaw Brothers actors and directors. What I like is there's always someone or something new to stumble across.

RE: AFI 100 that's so cool.

It's true we have so much available at our fingertips. It's great.

I've seen some Bunuel (forgot the titles though). My European focus has always been Italy, U.K., and then Spain.

Yep, I've known about Warner Brothers Archives for years (which reminds me I need to upgrade my copy of A Quiet Place in the Country to Shout Factory's blu ray, along with some other things). I think other U.S. film studios did something similar to Warner Brothers, but Shout Factory is picking up some rights from Warner for blu rays so you might want to keep an eye on them.

I'd like to see more boutique companies offer digital (thank goodness Blue Underground does and Arrow do too, but the rights are always iffy). I'd be very happy if Code Red/Scorpion Releasing went digital as well (they offer some stuff on Amazon Prime, but nothing I am interested in seeing or owning. Yes, I want those Michele Soavi releases in digital HD too.)

I love that there's an audience for everything and that people can discover all kinds of things almost immediately.

 

Only seen Suspiria thus far. Interested in checking out Inferno and Opera.

 

Inferno is a sequel to Suspiria, I have grown to almost love it (save for the cat scene). Opera is akin to being the greatest hits of his earlier work in the giallo sub genre, and features some of Dario’s most gruesome murder set pieces. Like Lucio Fulci before him, the ending of Opera makes no sense, but that is okay. I kind of like it, but the gore is a bit much even for me.

I would be curious to hear what you think of Inferno and Opera.

 

Some pieces on The new Predator, Halloween, and Suspiria remake. From this years cinemacon I believe.

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/04...e-first-trailer-for-shane-blacks-the-predator

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/04...en-the-first-terrifying-trailer-for-halloween

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/04...uld-not-have-shown-the-first-suspiria-footage

 

Next top five list from the Filmspotting podcast was a double top five: Best & Worst Sequels.

I'll just throw them out there because we're all thinking them: Godfather II - best; Godfather III - worst. I do think there are some things to like in Godfather III, but it's still pretty wretched. I do think it's interesting in this glut of franchises we're in now to kind of consider the entire concept of a sequel. I mean, for instance, Avengers: Infinity War. People don't really use the word "sequel" anymore for movies like that. But it's literally a sequential follow-up to . . . what is it, eighteen MCU movies that came before it.

Regardless, when I think of really great sequels, I think about movies that actually improved on the one(s) that came before it. I'd say both Batman Begins and Before Sunrise are very good films, but The Dark Knight and Before Sunset absolutely blow both of them out of the water. Also, The Empire Strikes Back.

When it comes to bad ones, I was thinking about franchises again and how Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was a dreadful sequel to Man of Steel. And if we're allowing for franchises, Wonder Woman was an incredibly great sequel if you consider how it improves on the films that came before it in the series. Also, the Filmspotting list itself reminded me of a sequel that I had basically completely forgotten about: Hannibal, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs. Now that one is brutally bad. Good score. Terrible movie.

This is probably a conversation we've all had a lot, so we might not have as much to talk about as we did with the previous couple of lists, but maybe we can come up with a few that don't get talked about as often. Any sequels you particularly love or particularly hate?

 

@Rogue1-and-a-half - yes I think about sequels in that sense too, if they improved upon the film prior.

Some Sequels that work for me:

Aliens
Captain America Civil War
Captain America The Winter Soldier
Empire Strikes Back
For a Few Dollars More

Some Sequels that do not work for me:

Escape from L.A.
Thor The Dark World
Return of the Jedi
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
Mother of Tears


I suspect I will have to add Thor:Ragnarok to the sequels that work for me, as Thor's turn in Infinity War makes me want to revisit that movie with as little bias as possible (I loved Thor in Thor:Ragnarok, but need to give the film awhirl again as I may have been too nitpicky with some storybeats and characters). This is what I like about some MCU movies. I am constantly having to reevaluate certain films that I felt iffy with on the first viewing.

 

Among most of the trilogies, the 2nd one usually is their best movie.

 

I really loved the idea of Halloween II which is for it to start immediately on the very night of the first Halloween. Well, I guess, technically they even overlap with Halloween II starting before Halloween has ended. I ended up really disliking the movie itself, but that's a great hook for a sequel.

 

To be fair, @Slowpokeking said among most of the trilogies and that the 2nd movie is usually (key words being most and usually). There are exceptions, of course.

 

I'll raise you Avengers Age of Ultron.

 

Shrek
Godfather
Star Wars
Nolan's Batman
Spider Man
Captain America
Reeve's Superman

It's easy to see a lot of them. The 2nd one is good usually because it doesn't have to tell the origin or bring the ending, also after the first installment, they know what the audience want and what they hate. Too bad DECU went opposite after MoS.

 

MIB2

 

I thought this was a pretty good sequel.

 

Each Toy Story improved on the one before it which is a very rare phenomenon. My friends ask me how many "Toy Story 3's" I give a new movie as some sort of rating system they made up for me.

 

In general, sequels are not usually as good as the original. There are exceptions of course. The Godfather Part 2 and The Empire Strikes Back are always cited. And more recently, The Dark Knight as well.

Even with exceptionally great sequels, like Aliens or The Two Towers, they do not usually top the first installment, for me. Just my opinion, as I prefer Alien and Fellowship of the Ring to the second installments.

And since it was brought up earlier, I must say that I like Attack of the Clones more than The Phantom Menace. There seems to be some assumption out there that AotC is the "worst" SW film ever, but some would beg to differ.

 

I am one of those people who still digs a lot of Attack of the Clones (I think the romance is the only thing that misses the mark). Adore Ewan and Christopher Lee in it...for that alone, I agree with you.

Recently, I'd say Captain America has the best sequels (Winter Soldier is, for me, one of the best movies to come out in the last five years, if not the last twenty).

 

I have to agree with Slowpoke here. It used to be that studios took one movie at a time, as opposed to now where a trilogy is planned before the first one is even out. If the first one did well, studios would take a gamble on a sequel to capitalise on the pop culture currency. But back then, there was an audience expectation that sequels would be disappointing hackjobs scrambled together to cash in on name recognition. And studios knew this. So in the rare instances where they felt confident to try a third instalment, it was because for some strange reason, the second one had managed to sustain or even surpass the first one in box office and/or popular reception and word of mouth. And then, the third would also usually drop the ball hard.

I think the major franchises that reached trilogy or beyond generally support this trend:

The Godfather part 2, TESB, Aliens, Superman 2, Lethal Weapon 2, Terminator 2, Blade 2, X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight.

Some buck this trend, like Indiana Jones, where I think the third is widely held in higher regard than the second. That one is perhaps more due to Lucas swimming in cash, so he could afford to take a chance on it. But generally, it used to be that the second had to outperform the first for studios to dare try a third outing, and if it managed to do that, it was generally because the quality held up to or even exceeded expectations. Back to the Future is a special case, since the two sequels were shot in one go when the first did well. I think that was unheard of back then to do that.

Basically, my logic is that the second in a trilogy would necessarily have had to be as good or better than the first, otherwise a third would never have been able to exist in the first place.

 

Emmanuelle 2 is pretty good .

 

The bad part of this movie is that it had the potential to be a very good movie. Where it got me was the ending. This particular movie more than TLJ should have been 2 hours and at least 45 minutes. The cut jedi star fighter's from the Battle of Geonosis, the lack of a space battle to show how the Acclimatiors were able to land, the cut droid control ship scene with all those extra jedi fighting really took its toll. The battle at the end had all these weird out of place cuts and edits that just killed it for me. Then the lightsaber fight scene between Anakin and Dooku was a bit rushed. I remember that any liked the Yoda v Dooku fight but it really wasn't that great on screen, it was just better than Obi Wan vs Dooku and then Anakin vs Dooku. If that movie could have done those parts better, it would have been a very good movie. All those investigation scenes and stuff like that was intriguing, in fact, I was able to over look the corny romance lines as long as the ending was justified. It wasn't. The only way to probably get a portion of it is by reading the movie novelization. There you have a way better Anakin v Dooku scene, a decent Obi-Wan v Dooku and of course the Yoda v Dooku. But more important, there is a snippet on a space battle that should have occurred. All those ships up there are not for show, and they didn't use no cloaking device either.

 

If there's one thing I could say about AOTC; that Yoda v Dooku scene boosted the movie substantially. Yes, you might say it was fanservice (just as some might suggest the Vader hallway scene at the end of R1 was); but it was still refreshing to see.

 

Yes. I think that tops my list of sequels I hate.

 

Wow, so John Woo is remaking one of his own movies for Universal and Lupita is in talks to take over Chow Yun-Fat's role. Could be interesting.