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

Yes they were robots. They even point out that the kid had contact with humans which is why they are studying him.

 

I'll break, David.

I cry every time.

Such a beautiful film. In my Top Five Spielberg for sure.

 

I haven’t seen AI in a long time… a long time. I remember loving the ending.

 

My guess will be that film(AI) will age well. But some people seem to really dislike it for some reason. Maybe the contrast in tones. I've also heard people say the mother thing got a little weird.

 

Side note: for the rare person who don't know, it's Spielberg-does-Kubrick. It was originally a Stanley Kubrick project that Spielberg took over after Kubrick died, and much of the film is basically Spielberg's homage to Kubrick, as far as I understand things.

From WIki:

I'm guessing it'll be released on 4k in the not-too-distant future. Whenever that happens I'l watch it again.

BTW, I found this article from a few months ago, where Haley Joel Osment reflects back on the making of the film, which is a fun read.

 

The Kid Brother. Harold Lloyd plays a sensitive, intelligent, and hapless youth who gets a hard time from his father and brothers for being the runt of the litter. But of course, he gets romance, adventure, and the chance to grow into a hero when a shady medicine show rolls into town. It’s amusing and warm, with plenty of gags and some actual character development. Like many silent comedies, it’s overlong, but it’s quite pleasant.

 

No Time To Die. I broke my 21 month movie theater fast to see this with the kids. We were nearly alone in the theater, so that was great. We had reclining seats, but there was still too much gunfire for a decent nap. I can’t emphasize enough how stupid this movie is. Stupid and stylish. What I loved about Roger Moore, the greatest of the Bonds, was how he let the audience know that he knew how dumb his movies were. Craig pits his gravitas against the dumbness of his movies and always loses. Roger Moore could not have been more delighted or entertained by the epic dumbness of the proceedings. How did I get to be so lucky to be the star of this big dumb movie? Look how dumb it is. Isn’t it great? That’s Roger Moore.

 

Gremlins 2: The New Batch
1990

Fun comedy spoof of sequels and culture; it's quite meta in places while retaining the period charm as it were. Enjoyable references to other films including its own predecessor and features exciting practical effects with funny monsters and cute, even heroic Gizmo.

Glad I finally saw this one as I've been a fan of the original for years.

 

I am one that didn’t care at all for the abrupt tonal shift. The Kubrick part was better than the Spielberg parts per se. it’s one of those films that started strong and then fizzled badly for me.

 

"Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace", a German-made Holmes movie from 1962. Basically, Holmes tries to stop Moriarty from stealing a valuable necklace, while trying to convince a dim Scotland Yard inspector (Cooper, not Lestrade) that Moriarty is a criminal mastermind. To be blunt, this is one of the worst Sherlock Holmes movies I've ever seen (and that includes that Wil Ferrel movie and the Peter Cook/Dudley Moore version of "Hound of the Baskervilles"). They're not really sure what time period it's supposed to be set in (the Victorian era, with cars, traffic cops and telephones?), the musical score is really inappropriate (sound more like a spy flick than a mystery), the plot makes little sense, and it has a rather downbeat ending. Plus Watson (played by Thorley Walters) is a bigger dunce than is usually portrayed. The oddest thing is that Holmes is played by Christopher Lee, and his voice was dubbed in both the German version (though he was fluent in German) and the English version. (HUH?!) Another bit of confusion is that the screenwriter was Curt Siodmak (who wrote some of the best Universal horror movies) and the co-director was Terrence Fisher (who directed some of the best Hammer Horror movies). I expected more from them.
I watched the Rifftrax version of this, with commentary by Bridget Nelson and Matthew J. Elliot. The jokes were very funny, though I was surprised that the presence of Leon Askin as one of Moriarty's goons didn't inspire a single Gen. Burkhalter reference.

 

This sounds remarkably Riff-able. I can't think of what Burkhalter used as a catchphrase, though, other than the usual 'I'll send you to the eastern front!!'

 

The Education of Charlie Banks 2007
Surprisingly good movie directed by Fred Durst. Yes that Fred Durst. Kids growing up in 70's NYC, two are rich and one is a street kid. Jessie Eisenberg plays one of the kids. Jason Ritter (son of John Ritter) is very good as the street kid. The 2 rich kids are at a New England college and the street kid comes to visit, and drama ensues. An interesting movie, reminded me of A Separate Peace a bit. Eisenberg plays the smartest/most nervous guy in the room as he always does. But he's good in the role.

 

The Grudge(Sarah-Michelle gellar version)
This one had mixed reviews and is far from a great movie. Its decent though and works for me as another Fall horror entry. The timeline shifts are jolting at first and they dont necessarily work. But, the film has some good, scary moments & the cast is actually solid too. Again, this isnt going to win any awards and the original Japanese version is a better film but this is an OK version on its own, IMO.

 

I'm sure they could've thrown in one, "Klink, shut up." Or wondered when Hochstetter was going to show up.
One other one they missed: at one point, Holmes (disguised as a dockside crook) nails a thug in the hand with a dart. The thug pulls out the dart and sucks on the bloody wound. Someone could've quipped, "Hey, stop that! That's Lee's shtick!"

 

I'm a huge fan of A.I. The performances are really fantastic and I find it deeply moving. I will say, since no one above mentioned it, that I think this is one of John Williams' most underrated scores. That main theme is just devastatingly beautiful. It's less overt than Williams often is, more interior, and I really love it.

 

I have always liked AI. I don't care who knows it.

 

The 1923 silent version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". It's a remarkably well-produced movie, with Lon Chaney dominating the story with his powerful performance as Quasimodo. And the fact that he did it under a load of makeup is astonishing.
I saw this at the Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway, NJ. It was shown with live organ accompaniment, which I prefer for silent films over orchestral scores. Special kudos to organist Ben Model. First, because his performance was largely improvised, based on a few notes and previewing the movie. And second because the print was not in good shape, so at times he basically had to just wing it and fill time until the picture was back on screen.
Plus the program opened with an organ mini-concert (played by Eric Fadher) and the silent, surreal Felix the Cat cartoon "Woos Whoopee".

 

Halloween Kills (2021)

Went opening night, I enjoyed this, but it's nowhere near as good as the 1978 original or the 2018 film. It's miles better than all the other sequels (I do have a soft spot for III and H20) but the main issues that I have are that the plot moves at a snails pace and Jamie Lee Curtis is given next to nothing to do. It just felt like set up for the inevitable third film, due out next year.

Sadly, I think I enjoyed this more than No Time to Die.

 

Am I to infer from this review that Roger Moore makes a surprise appearance in the film? Possibly/probably as the villain or something?

 

The Grand Budapest Hotel. This seems to be Wes Anderson’s most critically hailed picture, and his most financially successful, but I find it’s my least favorite of his (which doesn’t mean I don’t love it). A part of the problem is that I think a lot of people engage with Anderson on a fairly superficial level. For them, the attraction is the perfectly curated visuals, the droll humor, the whimsical settings, the outstanding casts. The tweeness is the point, and that ends up being all they really see: all the approved signifiers of immaculate New Yorker-reading taste. So they tend to be enjoyed, but as delightful trifles, exercises in good taste for its own sake. But while all those elements of Anderson’s style are wonderful, I find they’re really extraneous; the real point of his movies is their outstanding emotional depth, the way they mingle comedy and pathos for genuinely touching insights into our humanity and for that word I keep coming back to, catharsis.

This film is, I would argue, Anderson’s most exceptional film as a delightful trifle, a twee exercise in whimsy and good taste. It’s gorgeous, hilarious, star-studded, full of tour-de-force cinematic setpieces, and riddled with intricacies like its story-within-a-story-within-a-story and accompanying shifting aspect ratios. By all means, it’s a great film, and a fun one. But it’s also the least emotionally accessible of Anderson’s films.

For one thing, Anderson’s other films all revolve around people in positions of uncertainty. They are not sure what their path forward is, or what value their life has had, or how to deal with their troubles. They have strong and affecting emotional problems for the story to engage with. The Grand Budapest Hotel’s characters are not uncertain. Gustave knows exactly who he is, and Zero is recalling the glory days of his youth with a beloved mentor laying his path out before him. His emotional burdens as an older man are only alluded to, and kept carefully out of the story. It’s a storytelling technique meant to suggest depth of emotion — he doesn’t want to talk about the topics — but it also denies us the chance for real emotional engagement with them, and keeps his relationship with Agatha sidelined so it has less impact. The story ends up with very little emotional content. It is still a delightful coming-of-age caper, but it just doesn’t have the resonance to me that Anderson’s other, deeper work does.

That said, it’s still an absolute confection of a movie, an uproariously silly, immaculately crafted romp that I enjoy more every time I watch it. The whole cast knocks it out of the park, from Tony Revolori to fun new additions in small roles like Jude Law, Tom Wilkinson, and F. Murray Abraham, all the way to old friends like Jeff Goldblum and Adrian Brody, who is especially fun as a ridiculously intense villain. He gets to just go out of his mind and he’s having a ball with it. But no one is more of a pleasure than Ralph Fiennes. It seems bizarre to talk of an actor as well-established and respected as Fiennes giving a revelatory performance at this stage in his career, but with such an image as a serious actor, it’s a real joy to see him cut loose in an unusually daffy comic role like this and just dominate the film from beginning to end. It’s indicative of just how good Anderson is that this wonderful movie, which would be a highlight in anyone else’s career, has to come last in my affections for his films.

 

Four Sided Triangle 1953
D: Terence Fisher

I'd never seen this before .
2 scientists create a machine that can duplicate pretty much anything , they're both in love with the same woman , she marries one and the other becomes obsessed with the idea of duplicating her so he can have her too.

It's very stuffy , British middle-class , stiff upper-lip and all that . Fisher tries to inject a bit of excitement during the duplication scenes (shades of his Frankenstein to come ) .

they don't do much with the material tho , it's a damn interesting premise and would be ripe for a remake where they could get into the emotions and ideas a lot more .

 

Violet Evergarden The Movie (2020)

Grave of The Fireflies. Your Name. Wolf Children. Maquia When The Promised Flower Blooms. Four animated films that have moved me more than just about any Live Action film could. Add this one to the list. It took just about a year for the film to finally get released on Netflix, and it was sure as hell worth the wait. It's not necessarily a film you can truly appreciate without having seen the series, but they do their best to get you caught up. This is certainly must-see film of all fans of the series; and if you haven't seen the series, now's as good a time as ever!

Spoiler

The film starts off rather strangely; an unfamiliar young woman is talking with her parents about her grandmother. Slowly you begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together as it's revealed that her grandmother was the little girl whose mother had Violet write 50 letters to for each birthday after she died (Episode10, which I'd recommend seeing a psychiatrist if it didn't move you). The film appears to be a resolution to Violet's story; however I have seen that there is a second season of the series and hopefully it will come to Netflix soon.

 

633 Squadron on BBC2. One of my favorite films - mostly down to the music.

 

He probably would've made a more interesting villain than what we actually got. More so on a technical aspect if anything. Nightmarish CGI and actual footage from outtakes, think Carrie Fisher in TROS but much much worse.

Wait, @Rylo Ken, you're just saying all this about Sir Roger Moore because You-Know-Who is no longer with us, aren't you? Mustn't.

 

Now watching Big Trouble in Little China on one of the movie channels.