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

TCM was playing silent Greta Garbo movies and I caught Torrent (1926). I don't really like silent films, I have a hard time tolerating title cards constantly cutting up the action, but I really enjoyed Torrent due to Garbo, the visuals, and the music, which were all I really needed. I didn't need to cut to title cards for obvious bits of dialogue. I didn't really need dialogue at all. I wish I had a version with the title cards either removed or replaced with subtitles.

I didn't love it when it first came out, I think my expectations were too high, but it is pretty solid for what it is. I think Leguizamo and Wong actually do a pretty convincing job, especially when you consider how far against type they're playing. The same could be said for Russell, who is convincing as a Jack Ryan type nerd rather than action hero.

It also deserves a ton of credit for killing Steven Seagal entirely against his will.

 

King Kong 2005

Alright I had been watching some rewatching some clips of this movie on YouTube and so I got the itch to sit down and rewatch it.

This movie's reputation has soured in recent years, for reasons I think that have to do with the current state of popular culture and movie making. But I'll discuss that later.

King Kong 2005 is very much a homage to the original 1933 version and is pretty clear a love letter to the original.

What this movie does well is set up the beauty and the beast love story between Ann Darrow and Kong-they are both immensely lonely figures. Sad figures. Also Carl Denham(Jack Black) is a far less reputable figure, but he does want to produce art. Same with Jack Driscoll-Ann's love interest and a playright who seems discontented with the current state of the industry and the emphasis on shallow moneymaking. He is even accused of being a Bolshevik in the movie.

The movie loves its details and the aesthetic style is very maximalist and baroque. The movie is definitely very long but I think this serves it more than it hinders it.

The movie has wonderfully imagined scenery, the bug pit scene is terrifying to this day, the dinosaurs are impressive, and the natives ghost like but also menacing in a memorable way. The score is excellent and the main plot which can be summed up in a few sentences-"beauty killed the beast", "Carl has the unfailing ability to destroy everything he loves".

Why does this movie have a more negative reputation these days? One of the main concerns is run time and bloat. While movies should never endeavor to be too long I don think this is the case here, nor do I think the movie is bloated.

One criticism implied more often than spoken I have noticed is that movie takes itself too seriously. And this is where I discuss the current state of filmmaking. Current movies have a tendency to wink at the audience and wrap themselves up in their own pastiche and bombastic-ness.

I will say it simply-this movie is an artistic masterpiece. A loving homage, a memorable story, with an enduring motif, with enough action set pieces and baroque scenery for the scope of its ambition. The movie I think is disliked by some circles because it endeavors to be more. More artistic, more serious, more ambitious. More moving. More pathos.

Audiences today have notoriously short attention spans, and this has carried over to critics as well. Artistic quality has declined as movies become ever more empty spectacles without a hint of theme or emotional resonance lasting longer than the take between two quips.

The 2017 movie's understated message is "this is just a silly action, flick, you know why your here, and I don't want to bore you or make you think, or even feel".

9.5/10.

Wonderful movie, but underappreciated and maligned by those who lack the artistic sense to see its merit. Funnily enough-this is in the movie itself, with Carl Denham berating the producers for their lack of imagination and utter artistic bankruptcy and focus on the shallow.

 

Yeah. I haven’t seen it in awhile either, but King Kong is actually a pretty good pulp adventure film, it’s just overshadowed by Lord of the Rings, hence it tends be somewhat underrated.

 

I think what the movie really requires is patience, it doesn't rush things but takes time to establish the setting, the two main human characters(Ann and Carl), as well introduce the rest.

I have seen people argue the first hour was unnecessary and I disagree-we learn about Ann Darrow's character, her utter disappointment, and the sense that life has failed her, as well as her love of things tragic and moving, we meet Carl Denham a an who considers himself a visionary but is viewed negatively by his superiors, is somewhat amoral at best when it comes to doing what he wants and is utterly desperate-a lot of the scenes where Carl insists the death of a crewmember matters, or the way he fights to hold on to the camera don't make as much sense unless the viewer realizes just how much Carl needs this to succeed. Else he's ruined and likely going to jail.

I'd say the secondary character most well handled is Englehorn-he's not a pleasant man by any means, but he's willing to save people even when he doesn't have to, and its clear he doesn't like having to put up with Denham's deceptions and the fact his men are dying on a rescue mission that is probably doomed.

On rewatch-the ice skating scene is very moving, and shows the depth of the bond Ann has forged with Kong.

The movie makes Kong into a tragic figure-where at the end, your rooting for him to smash those airplanes. I think that is where it succeeds in the end.

 

If anyone remembers nothing else about Executive Decision, it's that Seagal is offed early. That was actually quite shocking at the time, as Seagal was still a somewhat viable box office draw (though his star fell and fell fast after Executive Decision) and action hero. I went in fully expecting he and Russell to team up and take out the bad guys together. It was a nice feint, and by removing the heretofore indestructible Seagal, it suddenly ups the stakes and puts our remaining heroes in a precarious position. Not sure if it would still play as well these days, w/Seagal more of a punchline than a puncher. A kid watching now might say "Huh, the straight to DVD dude is dead. Maybe now they have a chance.".

 

Re-watched Little Miss Sunshine, great movie, both funny and tragic, and has some social criticism. All the actors play their roles very well too. It has a really dysfunctional family, and everyone has some kind of proplem. But in the end they all manage to stick together.

 

Yeah, if you think about it, they had to kill off Seagal because he would have clotheslined his way through every single person on the plane, including the passengers, the attendants, and the pilots. You can't escape a Seagal clothesline in such close quarters.



There's no movie if you get Seagal on that plane, it would be over in two minutes.

That's probably how the idea to kill off Seagal came about. Everyone trying to figure how you prevent Seagal from totally destroying every terrorist on the plane within two minutes. They couldn't figure out a way to work in Seagal's kryptonite, as there wasn't really enough room for running on the plane, so they just killed him off.

 

After Seagal was apparently killed off, I spent the rest of the movie waiting for him to come back. I figured he was hanging onto the outside of the plane and would climb back inside and do what he does at the last minute. Sure, it would be totally unbelievable and a stupid plot point, but that would fit in with the rest of the story.

 

Interestingly enough, Executive Decision came out the same year as Scream, and like Seagal's death in the former, Drew Barrymore's death in the latter was as equally as shocking and certainly raised the stakes in both films. Any time my wife is flipping through the channels and sees that Executive Decision is on, she'll stop and watch it. She loves the film. I'm glad there was never a sequel to this film, nor Air Force One.

 

Oh, I watched Garbo's The Temptress (1926) and enjoyed it. I'm gonna try to check out her other silent films.

 

Wonder Park

 

That's a good comparison. I think when a film starts off by killing off a "name" it suddenly makes everyone else in the movie fair game. No one is "safe", and that takes the audience out of their comfort zone. I re-watched the original Mission: Impossible last week and it similarly kills off a handful of familiar "names" in the first act, including Emilio Estevez and, for a time, Jon Voigt.

Not sure where you could go w/an AF1 sequel. Maybe set it aboard Marine One and have Ford and the terrorists running around inside a helicopter for 2 hrs. ? "Get off my chopper!".

 

Tears of the Sun (2003)
Bruce Willis leads Navy SEALs trying to rescue Americans from war-torn Africa. It should have been a powerful and moving glimpse of the horrors of genocide, but it just didn't work. Characters were flat clichés of their jobs, plot was simple and predictable, dialog was wooden, acting was forced. And the military tactics were embarrassingly bad, I mean, Rambo would have scoffed at the stupid things these supposedly elite soldiers were doing.

 

Currently watching The Thing From Another World (1951 original) on the Horror Channel.

 

A Quiet Place .

I was looking forward to this , but it wasn't much .
This is the one where aliens attack you if you make any sudden sound , so it should've had a lot of tension etc. but didn't .
It's rather like The Birds or Day of the Triffids .

 

The Best of Enemies

 

The crowd I saw this with collectively exclaimed “Holy $*#@!” when that happened. It was a great twist. I still enjoy the film. The last time mom and I watched, we polished off a box of ice cream bon bons in under five minutes (suspense eating).

And speaking of the always awesome Mr. Russell, watched Escape from New York again during my commutes yesterday. Perfection.

 

Was this before Seagal went from aikido master to amateur sumo wrestler?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The Night has Eyes 1942, 2 school mistresses, Doris and Marian, decide to make a pilgrimage to the Yorkshire moors a year after their fellow teacher Evelyn disappeared there. But they get caught in a storm and end up sheltering at the isolated country house of Steven (James Mason). He’s reluctant to let them stay, one of the conditions being that they must lock their door. Marian senses something is wrong in the house and feels the presence of Evelyn, whereas Doris thinks it’s a load of rubbish.

Steven is a famous musical composer, shellshocked in the war and now he’s shut himself away, looked after by his housekeeper and her husband. He’s hiding a secret that his housekeeper hints at but doesn’t fully reveal, until one night Marian discovers him staggering around having killed the housekeepers pet. The secret he’s been hiding is a murderous urge that he can’t control brought on by the mental scars of war that appears on very full moon. Marian believes she can help him and talks of paying for specialist doctors until the housekeeper reveals that her friend Evelyn was there a year ago and they think Steven killed her during one of his blackouts.

One night Marian creeps around the house and finds the housekeeper and her husband planting a dead animal and the twist is revealed. Steven isn’t mad at all, it’s all been a plan from them to get his money. They killed Evelyn a year ago and plan to do the same to Marian until Steven comes to the rescue.

An old school atmospheric thriller in the vein of something like Rebecca. I’m a big fan of these studio bound black and white films shrouded in fog, I think it lends something to them.

 

I'm pleased you enjoyed it! Silent moves are an acquired taste, to be sure, and as a fan, seeing The Artist win awards in 2011 made me happy. Sunrise (1927) many believe to be the acme of silent filmmaking and needs hardly any intertitles.

The last movie I saw was 1933's She Had To Say Yes, a pre-code with more double entendres than you could shake a stick at. Sensational and really to the point about women's choices of mates, without the option of saying not to mate at all.

 

War Flowers (2012)
Watched this on Amazon Prime after reading the description and watching the trailer. It's not a very interesting movie, and the dialogue - particularly the little girl - leaves much to be desired. I guess I'm dating myself but I still find it hard to picture Christina Ricci as the mother of a child; I still see her as little Wednesday Addams and even Winona Ryder's little sister in Mermaids. In this movie she's the young mother living on a plantation in the South near the tail end of the Civil War. She hasn't seen her husband in a long time, and circumstances lead the battles onto her own property. Eventually a critically wounded Northern soldier finds sanctuary in her home, and you could probably guess what happens next. We've seen Civil War stories like this before; but I guess one more isn't hurting anyone. I just had a hard time with the dialogue. In the last decade or so, I've just had such a hard time watching child actors perform in significant movie roles. It's almost ironic, considering Christina Ricci was a great child actress herself and pretty much made her mark at around the age of the little girl in this movie.

 

Life of the Party .
2018
Melissa McCarthy's husband dumps her and she goes back to college to finish her degree . It's quite old-fashioned in a way , good natured comedy , if you like McCarthy you'll probably like it , one of her better films.

 

Definitely several chins ago. Watching these 90s martial arts action stars slog their way through direct-to-name-your-format today it's easy to forget that when they burst onto the scene they actually had a genuine star power. Jean Claude Van Damme and Seagal were polar opposites in nearly every way imaginable, from looks to personality to martial arts style, but they both had an "it" quality. W/Van Damme his downfall was drugs. W/his easy charm, good looks and surprising versatility (which he showed once Hollywood let him grow beyond the "Dude in a karate tournament" genre), he seemed poised to be the karate version of Schwarzenegger. Alas. W/Seagal it seems his more limited range and continent-sized ego are to blame. Watching him mumble his way through his movies w/all the enthusiasm of a sick turtle these days is downright painful.


The Rock (1996) - Plot; A group of embittered Special Forces soldiers take control of Alcatraz prison and hold the city of San Francisco to ransom w/rockets filled w/a deadly nerve gas. W/few options and time ticking away, the government seeks the help of a former prisoner who once broke out of the infamous prison on a mission to retake it and stop the terrorists before it's too late.

Michael Bay. No director in Hollywood history has had more success making films that nearly everyone claims to hate. But Bay has one film on his resume that even his harshest critics admit to liking, if only as a guilty pleasure. 1996's The Rock. Starring a rounding third base Sean Connery and a freshly post-Oscar Nic Cage, it has nearly all of Bay's signatures, but like a bad steak smothered in A-1 sauce, they're easier to choke down here. A lot of the credit goes to the cast. Connery is still working at the apex of his star power while Cage is still a few years away from falling into self parody and brings his manic charms bear. The best performance, however, is from the always great Ed Harris as the sympathetic defacto villain of the piece.

The Rock isn't great cinema, and for my money it's not Bay's best or even most entertaining film, but it is a slick, lean and fun actioner that scratches a few different itches on a lazy Saturday afternoon. 6.5/10