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

Discussion in 'Community' started by Violent Violet Menace, Nov 17, 2017.

  1. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    Reunion in France. An early Jules Dassin film featuring John Wayne and Joan Crawford, this wartime drama is unfortunately a waste of its talent. Crawford plays a French socialite in occupied France who finds out her fiancé is a collaborator. She disdains him and instead tries to help downed aviator Wayne, only to find out the fiancé is a double agent for the Resistance.

    This lacks the pop of most wartime films; it feels like a very mediocre high-society melodrama dressed up with a war plotline. The script is too flaccid and effete for Dassin to give it any energy. There is an interesting artifact of its early-war production in its opening act, set in 1940, which reflects the complacency of the “Phony War” period in which war had been declared but very little had happened, a phase of the war that’s almost totally forgotten nowadays. But that’s the only thing in the film that’s interesting. The rest of it is just a bland Crawford melodrama with an escape at the end. Dassin would go on to be one of the great noir directors, but this is one you can skip.
     
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  2. SHAD0W-JEDI

    SHAD0W-JEDI Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    May 20, 2002
    IN BRUGES (2008)

    This is one of those movies I have heard mentions of for years, but had never seen. Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell play two London hitmen who, after a particularly messy job, are sent to hide out in the quaint town of Bruges, in Belgium, to await further orders from their boss, played by Ralph Fiennes. Gleeson's character rather enjoys the town and the experience - the cobblestone streets, medieval churches and buildings, etc - while Farrell is decidedly less enthusiastic. Their "vacation" takes a turn when their boss does finally reach out, with new instructions.

    I liked this a lot and was impressed at how deftly it could switch gears from dark comedy to crime drama (although a dark sense of humor is rarely absent, throughout). Gleeson and Farrell are terrific as the hitmen-Odd Couple, selling you on the idea that despite them being very very different, there is a real connection between them. Ralph Fiennes is - what a shock! - fantastic as their boss, a mercurial and menacing character who can on a dime switch from rage to surprising sensitivity to chilly politeness (all leavened with a generous portion of f-bombs, regardless). I'm a sucker for flawed or even evil characters who have moral codes, and the exploration of how they square that with what they do, and this movie has quite a bit of that, sometimes exploring that directly and sometimes obliquely. Just know that this is definitely a DARK comedy -- there are some moments of real violence and its aftermath amidst the wry fun.

    Definitely worth a look!
     
  3. AndyLGR

    AndyLGR Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 1, 2014
    Such a great film, perfect cast, setting, score and story. They certainly don't make them like this anymore.... well they did try to remake this and it didn't turn out great, The Truth About Charlie in the 2000's I think.
     
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  4. pronker

    pronker Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2007
    Limite (1931) Starring Raul Schnoor, Olga Breno and Tatiana Rey; directed by Mario Peixoto. This is an art film to end all art films, so prepare for 120 minutes of lengthy, involving takes on three people adrift at sea in a leaky rowboat whose stories are told (partway, at least) in flashback. Thirty minutes in, I gave up following the story to concentrate on the images: negative shots of palm trees, sparkling diamonds of sunshine on riffled ocean waves, and Dutch angles, Brazilian angles and for all I know Burkina Faso angles. No hope exists on any of the three protagonists' faces; this reflects the title, I guess? They've reached their limit of endurance. An extra hurdle is Olga's and Tatiana's strong resemblance in face, figure, hairdo, etc. in the flashbacks so I had trouble there, too. The Cinemateca Brasiliera, which preserves Brazilian audiovisual presentations, declared it the best Brazilian film of all time. It's silent.

    The film's production story remains at least as interesting as the film itself because Peixoto's wealth led to a life filled with artistically no limits: he wrote poems, a novel plus short stories, filmed just this one film to completion, and shortly before his death, admitted that he himself authored a translation of an article by "Eisenstein" praising Limite. Limite survived in a single copy which 1970s efforts restored (another restoration in 2010), so the film I watched on Turner Classic Movies contained a few grainy, burned out bits, yet it's watchable. You can try hard to follow the story, or give up to admire camera angles as well as glorious music (Borodin, Satie, Debussy, among others).
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2023
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  5. Count Yubnub

    Count Yubnub Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 1, 2012
    Well, upon reflection 4 is indeed too low. I still don't think it's perfect but it's very, very, very good. I'll raise to 4.5.

    I've been giving a lot of 4.5's...
     
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  6. CT-867-5309

    CT-867-5309 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2011
    Everything Everywhere All At Once

    Obviously I had heard great things, but this was really good in a way I didn't expect. I had heard about the wacky hijinks (Ha. Hijinks. Three dotted letters in a row.), and while a few of them were laugh out loud funny, I did get tired of them. They're not really what makes the movie so good. There were times when I was getting very fatigued, losing interest, and what kept me interested, what drew me in from the start, was the personal family drama. I really wanted less action, fewer weaponized sex toys, fewer wacky alternate universes, and more mother-daughter time. They could have thrown all the action and multiverse stuff out entirely, and there would still be a really good movie there, though the multiverse stuff obviously adds a lot heavy stuff to the family drama and makes it better. It's a big part of it from the very beginning, with husband and wife having existential crises, reconsidering their lives together, and what might have been. The action was basically just a distraction to me, but that's not really a complaint, it means the drama was working and making me want more. The action also serves to bring several side characters to life. Despite the silliness of the action, it has a big point to serve.

    I talked about it with someone who gave up on it, and the chat helped me realize that if you don't get hooked by the family drama, then you probably won't enjoy this. It jus becomes a bunch of nonsense. Without that family conflict, it's just another stupid movie that thinks it's really clever and hilarious for doing random crap, like Bullet Train.
     
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  7. Sarge

    Sarge Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Oct 4, 1998
    Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
    I wasn't - quite - bored through most of it, but it wasn't really working very well for me either. Then something unusual happened. Unlike most superhero movies in general and DC movies in particular, the final battle and climax were more enjoyable than the rest of the movie. That's all but unprecedented.

    Taste the what?
     
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  8. Count Yubnub

    Count Yubnub Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 1, 2012
    The Blood of a Poet (Le sang d'un poète) (dir. Jean Cocteau, 1930)

    A series of dreamlike, poetic sequences without any real overarching narrative. It doesn't make sense to summarize the plots as there really isn't one. But it begins with a man who's drawing a face; when the mouth of the drawing begins to move, he tries to rub it off, only to now see a mouth in the palm of his hand. Next he touches himself everywhere (presumably letting the mouth kiss him everywhere). The next morning he rubs his hand on a statue, so now the mouth is on the statue. The statue urges him to try and go through a mirror, which he does (in a scene that seems to be referenced in The Matrix). And so on and so forth; this was roughly the first 15 minutes of a one-hour film.

    [​IMG]

    Despite the straightforward narrative, the images that we see are highly symbolic in nature. To me personally, much of it seemed to evoke references to Greek myths, and perhaps pertaining to the relationship between art and artist, but that's speculative.

    This film is the first one in the Orphic trilogy (at least Criterion is marketing these films as a trilogy), which also include Orpheus (1950) and Testament of Orpheus (1960). I'm interested in watching those as well at some point.

    I've seen one other film by Cocteau, Beauty and the Beast from 1946 (obviously that one had a clear narrative structure); I liked that one as well.

    Rating: 4 disembodied limbs of a hermaphrodite out of 5.
     
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  9. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    Wish they had kept that to just one use (the second one). Seemed like overkill to use it twice so closely together. Would have had more impact for the second one if they hadn't just used it.


    -Nightmare Classics 104: The Eyes of the Panther (1989) [YouTube]:

    Concluding the short-lived, 4-episode Showtime series from Shelly Duvall that I first started reviewing back in November. This installment features Daphne Zuniga (Spaceballs, Melrose Place), John Stockwell (Cougar in Top Gun) and C. Thomas Howell (Has appeared in E.T., Red Dawn, Gettysburg, Gods and Generals and a ton of other film and TV projects. Notable for being the runner-up to Eric Stoltz to play Marty McFly). John Debney (Iron Man 2) provides the score for this one as well. The story is sort of a proto-werewolf story… kinda. It’s actually really unclear throughout this story about whether or not Daphne’s character, Irene, actually transforms into a panther or just has some kind psychic or symbiotic link with a supernatural feline that cursed her in the womb. And it only gets more confusing by the end of the story.

    As such, there’s never a transformation moment, just a lot of cutaways and swaps. But we do get some actually fun little moments of cat-like behavior, hisses and snarls from her (the moment in the general store being the most memorable and interestingly shot). The rest is implied through shots of the panther prancing around (which, yes, still a dangerous animal, but makes attempts to force any chase scenes through back and forth cuttings of the panther and its fleeing prey unintentionally amusing).

    [​IMG]

    Oh, and unless i missed a throwaway detail, the episode takes an uneasy amount of time confirming that Irene’s mother was already pregnant with her when initially confronted (and cursed) by the panther- leaving the viewer with the implication that the husband raped his catatonic wife to give birth to Irene to try to snap her out of it. Thankfully, that ends up not being the case, but they really should have clarified that point sooner.

    The old age makeup being used for Stockwell in the frame story doesn’t really work. His “old man” performance is not good and also undermines the narration (why does he has a vaguely southern accent as an old man?). They really should have just cast an older actor who had the right voice for the task.He wouldn’t have to do the fake old man walk or mention in dialogue that he’s old several times (he only has 2 or 3 scenes, mind you). It’s like they’re trying to sell the audience on him being old by saying so, not by making us actually believe it.

    There’s also the question of graves both existing and not existing, or just plain going unaddressed that feels like either dropped or added plotlines.

    It has a shooting style typical of cable fare at the time, with unnaturally bright, quickly lit night scenes casting strong shadows and silhouettes (there’s even a scene where a character we’ve not seen before is lost entirely in the shadow being cast by the guy next to him- you’d think they’d have worked that out in the blocking or done another take).

    There are a couple unintentionally funny moments resulting from quick contradictions:

    -“I’ll always be here.” (immediately leaves for town)
    -“Now, go get some sleep” (proceeds to make a ton of noise tearing down wooden planks from the window with a hammer)

    Reading up on the source material, it seems this adaptation made a few big changes to the original story. Kind of ends up in the same place, but in the original there’s no frame story, two characters die under different circumstances and/or timing and there’s a greater emphasis on whether these things are actually happening or if the male lead character is actually insane.

    I don’t think this one is really worth revisiting in this form, outside of seeing Daphne in something else in the late 80’s besides Spaceballs (she’s done other work, but nothing I’ve actually seen). There’s definitely some potential to take this premise and reinvent it into something more consistent, robust and complex, but you’d need to end up with something only loosely based on the original premise, rather than a direct adaptation.



    (As a reminder, the episode is only ~50min long, but the YT video duplicates most of the episode afterwards for some reason)
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2023
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  10. SHAD0W-JEDI

    SHAD0W-JEDI Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    May 20, 2002
    THE FABLEMANS (2022)

    I am a big believer in "to each his/her own", meaning there are movies I love that others loathe, and vice versa...and to me, that's why they make chocolate and vanilla. By way of saying I LIKED this movie, but I didn't LOVE it, and I know there are some...many?... who are VERY taken with it.

    Part of it, honestly, could be my expectations, shaped by the advertising I saw. Basically, I expected a warm, whimsical, light "love letter" to the movies, showing (sorta) how young Steven Spielberg fell in love with movies, and making them (I was a little unclear if the movie was meant to be overtly biographical or just obliquely). And to be sure, all those elements are here. However, the movie is at least equally about the challenges and pain that come from the particular ...quirks?... of the title family. To avoid being too spoilerish, I will just say that the Mom has...issues. Lots of issues. The ensuing family drama -- not something I generally seek out in my choice of movies -- is a much greater part of this movie than I expected (frankly, had NO expectations of that). It's hardly a DARK movie, but it's not the whimsical movie the advertising sets you (or me, at least) up to expect.

    In some ways, the movie being presented largely from the perspective of the son also presents limitations. For example, the father seems to be a generally good, well-meaning and long-suffering man, who is perhaps a bit "too practical" for the "artsier" members of his family (although again, in a very loving and generally understanding way). Given some of what we learn about the mother, there is probably a lot more to him, or their story, but we get little of that...and if we assume that we largely know what the son can know or see, that makes some sense.

    That all being said...it's good and I think if you go into it seeing it as a family drama woven around a sorta-Steven Spielbergish young man, you may end up liking it more than I did.

    PS - Out of curiosity I rewatched the previews. I wanted to see if I remembered them wrong, or was characterizing them unfairly. I don't think so. I am not saying you are left expecting something silly and raucously funny, by any means. There are hints as to some of the "drama" although I am, of course, seeing the previews after having seen the movie. However, I feel the previews very much undersell how much of the movie is about the family's issues and tensions and conflicts. The preview, to me, suggests that the son's primary challenges derive him "needing to follow his dream" and maybe having obstacles. As noted above, there is some of that in the movie, but I don't think that is really "what this movie is mostly about".
     
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  11. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 27, 2000

    As someone who grew up making movies as my past time, I absolutely loved Fabelmans. But I also understand why most people won't relate to it that way.
     
  12. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    Scandal. A relatively early Kurosawa effort, Scandal lacks the visual poetry of his best work, but it’s excellent all the same. Its story revolves around a rebellious painter, Toshiro Mifune, who meets popular singer Yoshiko Yamaguchi and gives her a lift on his motorcycle. When paparazzi snap a photo of his friendly visit to her hotel room and a tabloid prints the story that they are lovers, the idealistic Mifune is outraged at the baseless lies and petty rumormongering, even as he and Yamaguchi develop an understated and complicating attraction, and they sue the tabloid with the help of sympathetic, poor lawyer Takashi Shimura. Mifune takes a shine to Shimura, despite his status as a schlubby, hapless sad-sack, because of his adorable sick daughter and the sense that he is a decent man deep down. But Shimura takes a bribe to bungle the case.

    The movie, which got its origin in Kurosawa’s contempt for the sleazy tabloid media emerging in postwar Japan, thus finds its heart less in Mifune’s battle for the truth than in Shimura’s battle for his own soul. It’s Shimura’s brilliant portrayal of a weak man’s self-loathing that elevates the film to another level, as he agonizes over his sense of worthlessness, but cannot bring himself to be the man he would like to be. The scene in which he confesses his broken nature to his angelic daughter is devastating.

    This isn’t Kurosawa at his best, but it’s still an excellent depiction of human frailty meeting proud idealism. Even as it exposes the dark and twisted nature of human souls, it finds beauty in human interactions. Whether it’s a few hicks fascinated by Mifune’s painting, Mifune driving through a slum with a Christmas tree on the back of his motorcycle to bring joy to a sick girl, or a pair of self-loathing but boozily repentant drunks leading a bar in Auld Lang Syne in Japanese on Christmas night, the film is full of beautiful moments of human connection that refute the corrupt cynicism of the tabloid publisher. It’s a wonderful film.
     
  13. Rylo Ken

    Rylo Ken Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Dec 19, 2015
    The Wild Bunch

    I haven't seen this movie in thirty years. I'd forgotten so much about it. It's not as old as I am, but it still seems ancient and modern at the same time. One, how old all the actors look (were). Holden and Borgnine etc. I know they're supposed to be aging criminals, but I think of aging gangsters as men in their 30s. Holden was only 50 at the time but he somehow managed to look 70. Two, it still surprises. To this day you don't see a lot of movies where every time a man fires a gun, he hits an unarmed women, either by accident or intentionally. It's such a disturbing and compelling contrast to something like the contemporaneous superficially similar Butch Cassidy. Even in supposedly raw classics like Unforgiven you only really hear Clint describing killing women and children. He doesn't do it onscreen. I'm a fan of Unforgiven, but it remains a timid and somewhat trite film next to the Wild Bunch. The early scene when the angry townies try to get the railroad henchman to care that he has deliberately shot through a parade of tent revival Christians to try to kill Holden's gang sets a tone that has never quite been duplicated in any other movie I've seen.
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2023
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  14. Dagobahsystem

    Dagobahsystem Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 25, 2015
    The Deep
    1977

    This film is alright, the highlights are the underwater cinematography. Robert Shaw is great. Nolte and Bisset are fine. The story is ok. There are a couple cool explosions, but I was hoping this would be better.

    It's no Jaws in any case, but decent I reckon.
     
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  15. Jedi_Sith_Smuggler_Droid

    Jedi_Sith_Smuggler_Droid Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 13, 2014
    Creed III

    Another good entry in the Rocky series. It was on par with the other films more and less.

    I’m not sure how the plot could have happened if Rocky was in the movie. Rock would have seen what was happening and been way ahead of it to give Adonis the correct advice to navigate the situation.

    Michale B. Jordon directed this movie. His character this time felt like a director. He’s managing other boxers now. Has this big house and is enjoying be a well to icon while balancing family.

    Jonathan Majors was superb as always. And the times Jordan doesn’t feel like a director are when he’s acting opposite Majors. Which is also part of the plot as these two character’s relationship goes back to childhood.

    While Majors is the antagonist of the movie I found him very sympathetic even when he had few truly villainous moments.

    I often found Adonis to be more the problem. His big shot life and business man goals had him out of touch with his past. That created an unusual dynamic watching the movie and is probably the most interesting part.
     
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  16. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 27, 2000

    Peckinpah was unmatched in unmitigated violence.
     
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  17. Guidman

    Guidman Skywalker Saga Mod and Trivia Host star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 29, 2016
    John Wick 4
    Everything I'd expect a John Wick movie to be. Donnie Yen kicks a bunch of ass and Ian McShane is still perfect as Winston. The choreography continues to be wild and inventive. Some of the sets were really great too: the Osaka Hotel and Berlin club looked sweet. There's one tracking shot (I couldn't tell if it was with a drone) that was brutally awesome.

    Like most movies today, it probably didn't need to be as long as it was. A wave or so of bad guys in each action sequence probably could have been cut. The deaths of Unnamed Guy #73 and #94 weren't that different. For a close to three-hour film, it did move pretty quick though.
     
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  18. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    He Ran All the Way. A short, taut noir with a strong premise, this is a great little film. John Garfield, in his final role, plays a troubled hoodlum who goes on the run after a botched robbery. He comes across Shelley Winters, flirts with her, and walks her home. Paranoid, he takes her and her whole family hostage when he thinks he sees cops outside, holing up for days with no plan to get out as he becomes increasingly unstable.

    Garfield gives a striking performance as an unloved, anxiety-ridden loser who desperately latches on to Winters, incapable of seeing that this terrified girl is telling him what he wants to hear, alternating between paranoid rage and whining that he can’t understand why the family he’s taken hostage won’t love him, rapidly deteriorating as he tries to keep himself on top of an unstable situation he refuses to leave and seems to think can go on indefinitely. The whole film runs on him, and he’s excellent. It’s a crisply-shot, jangling, high-impact film, a tight noir web of fear and misguided longing.
     
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  19. cubman987

    cubman987 Friendly Neighborhood Saga/Music/Fun & Games Mod star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 7, 2014
    John Wick 4 - holy **** was that fun.
     
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  20. AndyLGR

    AndyLGR Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 1, 2014
    Its all a bit underwhelming I think, no where near as tense as it could have been IMO. Wasn't it written by Peter Benchley too?
     
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  21. Dagobahsystem

    Dagobahsystem Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 25, 2015
    Indeed.
     
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  22. gezvader28

    gezvader28 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 22, 2003
    Even the poster was a Jaws rip-off.
     
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  23. JEDI-SOLO

    JEDI-SOLO Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Feb 12, 2002
    Oh sweet Prime has Maverick up. I’m finally watching this movie!
     
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  24. PCCViking

    PCCViking Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2014
    John Wick: Chapter 4

    Good, but too long.
     
  25. Adam of Nuchtern

    Adam of Nuchtern Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    [​IMG]

    John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
    Directed by: Chad Stahelski

    "This hit goes out to you, Mr. Wick."

    Exhausting in the best way possible. Buster Keaton would've loved it.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2023
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