Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Kedi (2016) – Ceyda Torun

The city of Istanbul is overrun with stray cats, cats with no owners, hundreds of thousands of cats. Istanbul has always been overrun with cats even when you go back a thousand years; no one is quite sure why, but the cats have become part of existence in the city. This film spends a little time with a few of those cats and, by extension, the people who are part of those cats’ respective territories. It’s a wonderful, transporting documentary. It’s beautifully shot, capturing the beauty of Istanbul wonderfully and it’s a striking reminder that what we often think of as “the Middle East” is a lot more than just endless deserts. This movie gives you a bit of the same buzz as an online kitten video does, but as the film spends time with various cats, they really come alive and suddenly you find yourself feeling a lot more than just the pleasure of seeing something adorable. The human characters are likewise interesting and ultimately the film kind of becomes about the redemptive role animals play in our lives. There’s an artist who creates genuinely gorgeous artworks inspired by cats. There’s the burly fisherman that feeds the cats in his area because he considers it a kind of divine duty after a meowing cat once led him into an alley where he discovered a lost wallet stuffed with money. Young, old, men, women, rich, poor, all of these people find their lives overrun with independent, self-reliant cats and what could easily be seen as a nuisance is viewed instead as a gift and consequently these people have their lives enriched. I’m not even a cat person, but I found myself really moved by this documentary. It’s just a pure pleasure. 4 stars.

tl;dr – documentary about cats that overrun Istanbul is cute, inspiring, transporting, beautiful and surprisingly moving as it explores the intersection of human & animal life. 4 stars.

 

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

It was pretty good, but then again, a movie has to be terrible for me to think it's horrible.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

 

Rogue1-and-a-half Very cool. I just found a recommend for a cat-crazy friend of mine.


Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) - Plot; A high school senior pursues a beautiful classmate while oblivious to his female best friend's romantic interest in him.

What could be called a Pretty in Pink rehash by writer John Hughes and director Howard Deutch actually plays more like a do over to me. Hughes was reportedly unhappy with the ultimate theatrical ending to Pretty in Pink, which came about because the original ending (with Molly Ringwald's character choosing her quirky best friend Duckie at the end) was poorly received by test audiences (ironically today many fans champion Duckie as the one Ringwald's Andie should have chosen). Here he switches up the genders, but keeps much of the basic plot in tact. Lead character Keith (Eric Stoltz) is a blue collar kid who falls for the beautiful and popular Amanda (Lea Thompson), herself a working class girl who has risen to her perch amongst the school's elite thanks to her looks and rich boyfriend, Hardy (played loathsomely by Craig Sheffer). The Duckie here is the tomboyish Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), and right from the start I was rooting for Watts over Amanda. That's not because Amanda is a bad person (more on this in a sec), but because it's so crystal clear to everyone but Keith that he and Watts are made for each other (I also happened to fall head over heels for Mary Stuart Masterson here ).

I've always loved Pretty in Pink, but in some ways I have to say Some Kind of Wonderful is an improvement. The former has a much stronger soundtrack (making excellent use of post-punk New Wave pop), and Ringwald makes for a more compelling lead than the somewhat stiff Stoltz, but Watts is a more sympathetic character than her Pretty in Pink counterpart (at least to me) and Sheffer makes for a far more boo-worthy villain than James Spader. What undermines things a bit is the ending. *Spoiler alert* Yeah, Keith and Watts end up together, but it lacks not only the iconic panache of Pink, Keith's fourth quarter revelation that he has romantic feelings for Watts (after the ever likeable and cheerworthy Amanda decides she needs to take some time for her self) feels too sudden. You've got to earn that moment, and they don't here. But overall I think Some Kind of Wonderful is a worthy and overlooked part of Hughes' classic 80s catalog. - 7/10

- Stoltz was famously replaced by Michael J. Fox several weeks into shooting Back to the Future, which featured his Some Kind of Wonderful costar Lea Thompson.

- The three main characters were all named as a Rolling Stones tribute (lead character Keith named after Keith Richards, Watts named after Charlie Watts and Amanda Jones after the Stones single "Miss Amanda Jones") as an inside joke by Hughes.

- Lea Thompson would go on to marry director Howard Deutch and have two daughters named Madelyn and Zoey, who are now actresses.

 

where did you see this ?

 

Inside Llewyn Davis. Fantastic. Oscar Isaac is, as always, totally compelling in the role of a penniless, couch-surfing 1960s folk singer who seems perpetually dumped on by fate, unable to have anything good happen to him, but who doesn't make it any easier for himself with a prickly personality and social gracelessness. Each of these, of course, feeds the other as we watch Llewyn bumble his way through several days of subdued desperation. It's a collection of incidents, but they're great incidents. I got a special kick out of Carey Mulligan as his ridiculously hostile ex (who takes no responsibility on her part for having slept with him). It's poignant, hilarious, and impeccably executed. Another brilliant Coen brothers movie.

Buy the trading cards!

 

Cop Land

James Mangold loves Martin Scrosese's actors.

 

Yakuza Apocalypse.



I don't see why I should have to tell you anything else about this movie. But if for some reason you need to know even more, it's a completely insane Takashi Miike movie about Yakuza vampires that never even bothers to try to be coherent and features a Yakuza-hunting martial arts frog and Yayan Ruhian. It's gloriously ridiculous. It's a total mess, but it's far too nuts for that to matter.

 

The Mask A real guilty pleasure movie for me, this and the first Ace Ventura are Jim Carrey at the top of his wacky game. Its hard to believe that this film is now 23 years old and was (I think) the debut of Cameron Diaz, who is absolutley stunning in this before she decided to lose even more weight for Hollywood. Overall very engaging throughout, held together by the glue of Carreys performance and some good supporting turns who all get on board with the cartoon craziness.

Live and Let Die I used to rank this as one of Moores better efforts, but over time I think its fallen way down the list for me. Its certainly not aged well, maybe thats an inherent thing from the 70's, but the story is pretty weak and the villain isn't particularly engaging either. I know the Moore era is much maligned, but theres still something to enjoy in his films (even if its not the full film) and they still hold a soft spot for me as they were Christmas day staples when I was growing up in the 80's, but I'd say he doesn't hit his stride as Bond until a few years later in 1977.

 

LOL. Froggy for the win. Gosh this is why I love Asian movies so much...the utter WTF of some of them. I will have to put that on my rent list (if possible.)

Which segues into a revisit of one of the strangest Shaw Brothers fantasies ever made...

The Snake Prince (1976)

So it's Romero from Snake Mountain (the title character who can magically turn from a giant, fake rubber snake into Ti Lung at his prime) and Juliet (Hei Qin the youngest daughter of a tribal elder from a community in the valley below Snake Mountain), but with weirdo 70s pop musical numbers subbing for rain dances (the valley being strangely lush for going through a severe drought) and hawking snowflake facial cream (hey where can I get some of that?!?)...

As you can expect Snake Prince is smitten with Qin but somehow knows you cannot force love (despite being up in Snake Mountain for a millennia perfecting his shape-shifting, skin shedding hoodoo. So after two failed attempts and knowing Qin's tribe needs water of which Snake Mountain can happily share, he bides his time until Qin's father journeys to the Prince's home driven along on a snake sled (two snakes bound together whoosing the old fellow toward their Master.) Of course you know the royal serpent's price for borrowing the water, little Miss Qin. She goes along with the whole thing marrying the royal and her community including her wicked older sisters gets the water. She and her mate have sex (the royal has to be in snake form to do so, cue big fake rubber snake wrapping itself around Lin Chen-Chi) but ultimately the young lady falls in love with her snake charmer.

Win-win right?

Well, once Qin makes the mistake of going home and bringing jewels from her hubby's massive stash, Qin's older sisters and some of the young men of the tribe get greedy as the sisters head back to the land of plenty. Things get worse when they find out Qin is pregnant. Oh, boo hiss with the abortion pill that forces the poor bride give to give birth to a giant snake egg with two little snake babies that cry like human infants. Seeing this, big bad sister stomps on them. Oh, c'mon.

Naturally this makes the Snake Prince go ballistic and things very quickly escalate into R&J territory.

Once a upon a time, this was my least favorite Shaw Brothers movie, now it's one of my favorites because of the absolutely ridiculous moments (let's face it this was made for young girls as it's one of the least violent movies Ti Lung ever made for the studio, plus his small demonstration of Kung Fu is largely inspired by the Three Stooges here. And when not in snake-skin-human transition the man is freakin' beautiful.) The song and dance numbers are unintentionally funny and everyone plays along for keeps. I think this one was one of the earliest WTF films ever shot at SB (that would be the bulk of the style they'd film come 1980 to their closure in 1987) and it works, if you're game.

Runs off to find yakuza apocalypse...

 

Let me know what your friend thinks about it? It does have subtitles, but I think it's a great entry into foreign cinema for people who aren't already into it. It's just really accessible and charming; I think it would be a great intro to foreign film for a child, actually.

It actually showed for a couple of weeks in a local art-house theater here where I live. I reckon not everyone is lucky enough to live near a theater where you can catch the latest Turkish cat documentary, which is too bad. It looks like it's currently exclusively streaming on YouTube Red which I guess is like a Netflix or Amazon Prime thing where you have to be a subscriber instead of just being able to buy or rent the movie individually. But the website indicates that it will be available for digital purchase from other platforms and it's also getting a Blu-ray release down the line. With some movies, it doesn't matter at all how you see it, but I would say that this one would look great on Blu-Ray, I have to say; it's such a beautifully shot and atmospheric movie. Anyway, hope you track it down somewhere. If you see it, let me know your thoughts.

 

Rogue1-and-a-half I told her about it and she said she'd definitely look it up. The indie/documentary presentation won't be an issue for her, as that's totally her milieu. She was always trying to drag me to see the latest indie feature or documentary when she lived here in town (we have several well regarded cinemas locally that cater to such fare), but for me, if the cats aren't wearing capes or flying spaceships, I'll probably pass . She's a procrastinator, but when/if she sees it, I'll pass along her thoughts.

 

Battle of the Bugle with Henry Fonda.

 

Lost in Translation (2003)
I was told it wasn’t funny and pointless.
Itwasn’t funny and pointless.


3/5

Miracles From Heaven (2016)
One of the better Christian drama movies. Doesn’t get too preachy till the end. No matter what you believe, her story is incredible.

4/5

300 (2006)
Have seen pieces of this before. Epic and entertaining. For some reason I had thought the 300 Spartans killed Xerxes and won the battle LOL. Really like the ‘ancient history with a smidgeon of fantasy because items we now consider fantastical were ‘real’ back then, similar to Game of Thrones. Would be nice to see more movies like that.
(Looks like the actress that plays the Queen also plays Cersei LOL)


5/5

 

alien covenant
this movie is absolutely stunning its were ridley scott really shines as a director the sets and all that are amazing and its a pretty fun movie overall a lot i love about it.but not a massive fan at the fact he bent his vision to go with a few whingers.

Spoiler

disapointed they dropped most of what happened in prometheus and then fan slapped the xenomorphs back in

fassbender was great again. 7.5/10

 

Yakuza Apocalypse (2015) I second everything in @Havac's review. Froggy was not in the film as much as I wanted though, because he was so funny and a delightful diversion from the rest of the Huh? within the movie. I prefer modern Chinese films to Japanese, which in my unique case is not saying much since I will gladly view older films from both countries any day over the current output. Gee, that sounds about right for every countries' genre films and me. Now if Miike ever makes a spinoff focusing on Fu Frog, yes, I will be there.

 

Twelve Angry Men - It came on TV the other day. I wasn't really watching it, I just overheard the little scene of Martin Balsam describing a football game that was affected by rain and a light builb went off. I hadn't actually watched the film in over a decade so I decided that the best way to treat it was to treat myself to the blu ray. Received it on Monday.

Watched it then watched it again with commentary. Then watched it again last night. Even better than I remembered it. 10/10

Spoiler

The part where the old man notices EG Marshall's nose irritating him is electrifying. I almost jumped up and cheered at the sight of EG's convictions crumbling underneath him. The performances are of course excellent all round.

I also love how Fonda's character doesn't get emotional about the more obvious prejudices and ignorance, but when the other jurors flatly refuse to even consider the possibility of a witness being mistaken.

 

I used to think LALD was my favourite.

Moore is my favourite Bond (the one I grew up with) so it's always going to be one of his. The Man With The Golden Gun is probably my fave now.

 

Moore was actually my favourite too as a kid, he was the one I saw the most as I'm sure his films were some of the main Xmas day premieres here in England throughout the late 70's and early 80's. My dad always used to say "Connerys better, wait til you see those". From Russia with Love is my favourite.

 

I think Live And Let Die is still the highest audience for a film broadcast on UK TV when it premiered one Christmas.

Almost the whole canon gets shown at least once a year now on ITV.

 

Arrival. Really good movie. I'm surprised it took me so long to getting around to watching it.

 

I think The Man with the Golden Gun was the first Bond I saw (Dad carted me around to see two of them in the 70s, definitely remember The Spy Who Loved Me.) Man... is my favorite Moore Bond film because of Christopher Lee, but Live and Let Die was pretty crazy. Now the one thing I enjoy from Live is Paul McCartney's theme song.

 

Deadpool: No Good Deed (2017) – David Leitch

The **** is a phone booth doing on a street corner?

How is Deadpool 2 going to measure up? The brilliance of Deadpool was, in large part, down to just how fresh, irreverent and unique the movie was; do we know too much about Deadpool for the second movie to be great? Not if this short is any indication. Look, it’s pretty obvious where this one’s going from the second Ryan Reynolds dashes into a phone booth to change into his costume before stopping a mugging. And it goes there. This short is basically everything you expect it to be, but the verve is still there. Granted this is only four minutes, not two hours, so pulling off an entire movie is going to be tougher, but this signals good things ahead for Deadpool. Even when you know the punchlines before they get there, you still laugh. Because Ryan Reynolds desperately convulsing in a phone booth just works and so does the increasingly frantic victim. What fun. 4 stars.

tl;dr – short is as silly, profane and irreverent as the title character needs to be; predictable, but still funny, this presages great things for Deadpool 2. 4 stars.

 

Stargate (1994) - Plot; A linguist and a team of soldiers use a mysterious ancient device to travel across the universe where they find the its creator, and a world of danger.

Stargate is not a film without its flaws. Despite the genre, plot and general tone, it lacks traditional action sequences, settling instead for short bursts of action that only come in fits and starts. The villain doesn't show up until the half way point, and though suitably motivated (self preservation), he is, to say the least, undercooked. His heroic counterparts are likewise one-dimensional, reduced to either archetypes or cannon fodder. That said, there's a real charm to Stargate. Mostly eschewing navel-gazing pathos, messages or agendas, it's a rather old fashioned adventure. It never rises to the level of its many inspirations, but it's a refreshingly straightforward escapist escapade. - 7/10

- The film is enhanced greatly by David Arnold's score, which does a better job of evoking and matching its inspirations than the film does.

- A box office hit when released (nearly $200 million globally against a $50 million budget), it never spawned a sequel, but did inspire three successful live-action TV series and an animated series.

 

For me, the most entertaining part of the film is the early stuff with Jackson being brought on board the project and quickly figuring out the gate symbols; once the bad guys show up (and I admit they do look very cool with their head-mask-things) the film loses its sense of wonder and becomes a fairly bland US troops against aliens shoot-out. When it's on TV I always watch the start, but rarely reach the end.