Amph What was the last movie you saw?

The Michael York Musketeers are my favorites, possibly because they were the first ones I saw. The Gene Kelly version is a great Gene Kelly movie, very much a product of its time, if you like that era of film-making. There's one starring Sophie Marceau that I enjoyed on Netflix a couple years ago; it seemed the most French of any of the ones I've seen.

 

I don't care for Gene Kelly so that's probably not for me.

The Sophie Marceau version sounds interesting, and I searched for it on Netflix, but didn't see it.

Thanks for the rec, though. I'll keep an eye out for that one.

 

I don't see it on Netflix now either. It was titled Revenge of the Musketeers, or La Fille de d'Artagnan.

 

The Duel of the Century (1981) Probably the most unnecessary of the Chu Yuan / Gu Long cinematic adaptations. This features a kind of goofball detective swordsman trying to figure out why the title duel occurs. Note, said duel does not live up to the title and the plot is among the very thinnest I've seen in a Shaw Brothers film, but this time that backfires royally. It was boring across the board save for the five minutes Kwan Fung and his green-sequined poison palms were in action.

 

No, What We Do in the Shadows was my first real exposure to him. I remember hearing a bit of buzz for Eagle vs Shark when that came out, but other than that I really knew nothing about him. He's a great performer as well. His cameo in Wilderpeople is good, but his performance is maybe the best thing about Shadows. Wilderpeople did open wider than Shadows, I think. It should have gotten a huge release. I think I said in the review that I think even the most mainstream audience member would have loved it. I think word of mouth might have made it a real sleeper.

Wilderpeople seems more like the kind of movie that would get him the new Thor movie than Shadows. There are some surprisingly beautiful vista shots and good iconic framing of people against the skyline and even some well-shot action scenes. I'm skeptical about us actually getting his Thor; he's the kind of filmmaker that might pull an Edgar Wright/Ant-Man and bail if the studio starts cramping him too much. But I hope he doesn't. I'm super curious to see what he does with it.

 

Right. You must see 'Boy", it's even more newzealdish than Wilderpeople, but you won't miss what you don't get. I suspect you'll love it.

 

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies [Extended Edition] (2015).

I've kind of exhausted my big theses about these movies (and the highlights and lowlights haven't particularly changed) so, bullet points:

• Definitely better than the second one. Maybe the best of the lot, actually, since it basically takes the weird tensions I enjoyed in the first one and applies it to a long, long fight scene (as is the style these days). I had a lot of fun watching this movie and someday I'll be happy to watch it again.
• I've forgiven a lot of deviations from the source material in these movies but Bilbo not coming back with a lot of treasure isn't even in line with how rich he is in the film adaptation of Fellowship. C'mon, internal consistency is literally all I ask.
• Smaug dies in like, what, ten to fifteen minutes? The end of Desolation could've been much cleaner. Then again I think we all know this didn't have to be a trilogy.
• Thranduil telling Legolas to go find Aragorn was the stupidest ****ing thing like holy hell just cut that scene. Cut it.
• Hey, did you notice how an entire city got leveled and it was portrayed as both a serious event and one that resulted in the deaths of innocent bystanders? Can you imagine if a big budget movie tried to depict the same sort of event and then sycophants spent hundreds of pages worth of forum posts trying to convince people that no civilians were harmed in the entire sequence? Wouldn't that be a stupid waste of everyone's time? Wouldn't that just be the worst? Good thing that never happened, ever.

In conclusion, with respect to the whole trilogy, while nothing will ever truly replace the gold standard of adaptations of The Hobbit:

I found this a decent enough stab at a film attempt. Lots of weird liberties taken, never on the level of the LotR adaptations, but enjoyable enough when approached in a kind of vacuum that they will never actually get to reside in.

 

The 3 Worlds of Gulliver. An adaptation of Gulliver's Travels with special effects by the great Ray Harryhausen. I haven't read the book so I can't judge it as an adaptation, but own it's own it's a decent family film with some good special effects for the time.

 

To Each His Own

De Havilland is once again wonderful, and deserving the Best Actress Oscar she won for her performance. This one gives her a lot more to work with, it's a great script with just the right mix of struggle and hope, heartbreak and triumph. She still gets to play the innocent young woman in the beginning, but she also gets to grow desperate, a bit ruthless, and finally heartbroken, cold and detached...and back around to hopeful and finally triumphant. It's great catharsis, and I had a hard time holding the tears back.

With a lesser actress it could have been silly melodrama, but De Havilland makes it feel genuine.

 

The Blu-Ray really is a must for 'Caligari'. I've never seen a silent film look as polished as the restored release Kino put out for 'Caligari'. It makes the film so much creepier.

'Hud'

A very deep character study starring Paul Newman and Melvyn Douglas. Both are excellent but it is Newman who is the stand out. It's a nice sort of mix on the themes of rebellion from this era. Newman's Hud is an ambiguous character. The film very wisely only hints at the rift between the father and son characters. We don't know who is in the right of the conflict but that the conflict defines each of their lives.

 

I love that movie. Patricia Neal was wonderful in it, too. It also had the kid from Shane.

I love Patricia Neal. I love Paul Newman.

And I had no idea that was Melvyn Douglas. Didn't recognize him.

 

Double post.

 

this is the worst post in history its all wrong wrong wrong

Lester pretty much did, y'know. The book.

And the comedy is all organic and wonderful commentary on the swashbuckler. I don't know how anyone could find the torn carpet bit unfunny. But there you go.

 

You only thought the Mayor of Laketown was an unnecessary character! Obviously, you see it all now: he was used to set up the Assistant to the Mayor of Laketown character and frankly I wouldn't want to see TBot5A without his hilarious antics to lighten the mood!

This is maybe my favorite Newman performance. Raw, powerful and brilliant. And Newman's just completely fearless here; a lot of movie stars wouldn't have played a character that allows himself to be so unlikable, reprehensible even; or they would have tried to find some artificial ways to redeem him. Newman's just, you know, true to the character and honest. One of the greatest actors that ever lived.

 

Absolutely. Newman most importantly doesn't condemn the character even though he can be extremely unlikeable. That is the mark of a great actor. You cannot condemn the character you are going to play. Bad and seedy characters feel the same emotions. Newman does great work in the scene between Hud and his father. He actually generates a bit of sympathy for Hud especially where he rants about not being able to live up to his saintly father.

 

The best part is that the assistant goes through the basic character arc the actual Master of Laketown went through in the book (albeit killed off early, but a more restrained adaptation would probably also opt to kill him off in the Battle proper) so literally every goddamn scene with them in Desolation was worthless.

 

San Andreas Absolutely ridiculous film, but I really enjoyed it. Theres something very likable about The Rock and I find him very easy to watch. Thinking back to his debut in The Mummy 2 it amazes me what a star hes become, but I guess hes filled that void left by Arnie. I'm a sucker for a disaster movie, maybe its because I'm a child of the 80's and all the classic from the 70's were regularly on TV. Anyway the basic plot is theres an earthquake and The Rock rescues his ex wife and they go off to rescue their daughter, the stunning Alexandra Daddario. As in any disaster movie there are all the cliches in place. Some of the effects are fantastic and some not so great, but overall it was an easy way to spend 90 minutes.

 

'Room'
...and oh boy is it a tough one to review. On the one hand it features brilliant performances from Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay. It's also one of the most disgusting examples of emotional manipulation in a movie. Sexual violence and child abuse are charged topics and 'Room' is unethical storytelling. All of the rough scenes are immediately followed by little awe filled monologues by the little boy. 'Room' overdoes it in trying to fill the story with hopeful catharsis as soon as it possibly can. It does this while still trying to go for as many over the top sad scenes as possible. We get multiple instances of dramatic moments being so dramatic we get the piercing sounds instead of trusting the actors and the dialogue.The musical score is also totally lazy and uninspired. It has that same sad little piano melody that blends together in this kind of film as if the audience were Pavlov dogs.
I say this and yet as I said earlier I have to recommend it. Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay are excellent in the film. They both bring more sincerity to the material than the director or screenwriter do.

 

Every time I see the title of Room I assume someone forgot a definite article and am immediately confused by descriptions that don't involve Tommy Wiseau.

 

I don't understand how anyone can dislike the Lester Musketeers movies. They're just so delightful.

Glad to see the love for Hud, though. Newman is perfect as the bad boy -- he's simultaneously magnetic, with an aura of cool and charm, and repellantly selfish and bitter. The rebellious, tortured bad boy is a type Newman played very often in his youth, and so incredibly well, but this is probably the best he ever did it. It's certainly the most compellingly poisonous take on that character type. Hud and The Hustler are Newman's two highest points. (Also check out underrated director Martin Ritt's debut film, Edge of the City, starring John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier.)

Rope of Sand. Burt Lancaster stars as a hunting guide whose client took off into the prohibited desert around a South African diamond mine and stumbled across a massive find of diamonds. Lancaster went in to retrieve him, but on their way out they were caught by Paul Henreid's sadistic chief of security, who killed the client and tortured Lancaster for the location of the find, but couldn't make him talk. Two years later, Lancaster comes back to town to get his hunting license back; he never wanted the diamonds in the first place, but when Henreid menaces him again, he becomes determined to steal them. It's a noir-tinged adventure, and though the plot is total nonsense in moving from point A to B, it's entertaining thanks to Lancaster as a man who only becomes more obstinate the more he's prodded; Henreid as a cruel, grasping villain, a man defined by his overwhelming desire to move up within Cape Town society and his total inability to do so due to his own viciousness; Claude Rains as his two-faced boss, whose genteel demeanor barely conceals a glee in playing Henreid and Lancaster off against each other, humiliating his underling and trying to get the location of the diamonds at the same time; Corinne Calvet as the con woman Rains uses to manipulate both of them, who of course falls for Lancaster; and Peter Lorre as an eccentric black-market diamond mover. It's not really much of a movie but it's the kind that you watch just for the cast.

 

License to Drive (1988) - Plot; A 16 year old boy fails his drivers exam only to be approached by his dream girl for a date. His solution? Steal his Grandfather's mint condition Cadillac and take her out regardless.

A vehicle--no pun...okay, pun intended--for the two "Coreys" (Haim and Feldman), this is actually an energetic, quirky and surprisingly well made 80s teen comedy. I don't know that Haim was one of our great thespians, but he makes for a plucky and likeable hero here. It helps that he's surrounded by a talented and game supporting cast, including Carol Kane, Richard Masur and an impossibly gorgeous Heather Graham, who takes what would otherwise have simply been a one dimensional "Hot object of the hero's affections" role and makes her charming and likeable. It's far from a classic, but certainly worth checking out for those who are fans of the 80s teen genre and may have forgotten about it. - 6/10

 

Runaway Bus 1954 British comedy starring 2 of our national treasures, Frankie Howerd and Margaret Rutherford. Thick fog envelopes an airport, a relief bus is brought in to transport passengers to another airport where the weather is less bad. However a gang have stolen a fortune in gold bullion from the airport and have hidden it on the bus to smuggle it out. Who amongst the passengers is part of the gang and who is the mysterious ringleader of the gang called The Banker? I think this was Frankie Howerds debut movie, here he stars as the hapless relief driver of the bus. The film must have been made on a low budget as there is seemingly no outdoor sets as its all obscured with the thick fog. However I think that helps the film. Its very typical of its time. I could watch easy going heist comedies like this all day long from this era of British film making.

 

Faults 2014

Leland Orser is a washed-up cult deprogramer hired to bring back cult victim Mary Elizabeth Winstead to the arms of her family, body and soul.

Orser gives a great performance as a man on the edge, wonderfully pathetic and desperate, whilst Winstead is good as the disturbing, damaged cultist.

Worth watching if you're up for watching a film without explosions or car chases.

 

Bloody Parrot (1981) - Combine moments of Lucio Fulci gore, female nudity (usually the same character), a cannibal, a laughbly bad possession scene and throw Shaw Brothers stalwart Jason Pai Piao in to figure out what happened to the 13 cases of treasure meant for the Emperor and what do you get? This often incoherent mess that tries to mix gross out Euro horror, a tiny bit of Leatherface and flying and flipping swordsmen and woman into a valid storyline. I've read many reviews that warn this is one of most uneven go-for-broke Shaw Brothers films and now I can agree.

Debating if I have it in me to watch one more to wipe my memory of this.