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What Is The Last Film You Watched? (Older Films)


Mr. Breathmask

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TNG did deserve a better send-off. Nemesis is so gloomy and the cast is just tired and bloated. I always get annoyed by the big deal they make about the Romulans helping the Federation when they had already made an alliance with them on DS9 and Shinzon is clearly insane and killing everyone with a Death Starship. I mean, the Romulans are private and occasionally treacherous (like all the space organizations in Trek, frankly), but they aren't evil villains.

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8 hours ago, Mr. Breathmask said:

Ocean's Twelve

A nice try, but when you suck all the fun out of a heist movie, this is what you end up with. Nice to hear some proper Dutch in an American production, though.

Why does everyone hate this one? I think it's better than the first.

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33 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

Why does everyone hate this one? I think it's better than the first.

 

On its own, Ocean's Twelve is actually alright. But a worthy follow-up to the fun and breezy Ocean's Eleven it is not.

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Just watched The Martian. Didn't people hate this movie here? I thought it was decent, worth a watch. Definitely science fiction: no movie based on contemporary science has ever stretched my belief systems as much as this one. It's outrageous stuff really, and the movie has sparked a new sub genre all on its own, which I'm calling Science Exaggeration (Sci-Ex). Because make no mistake there's some massive bullshit in this! But that's okay, because there's an honesty to it. Ridley Scott embues the whole thing with quite a bit of heart and it's a surprisingly very light experience, the disco soundtrack (didn't people here hate that too?) going all out to convey the warm and not really serious intentions of the film. In that way I might prefer it to Apollo 13. ***1/2 out of *****

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2 hours ago, Koray Savas said:

Why does everyone hate this one? I think it's better than the first.


Have never seen it, but apparently there's a moment in it where the fact that Julia Roberts' character looks like ... Julia Roberts is pointed out by the rest of the gang as something that can be used in their scheme.

Hmm ... if you're going to pull at that thread, surely Clooney's, Pitt's, Damon's etc. characters look like their famous counterparts too? Sometimes this 'meta' shit isn't a good idea.  

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3 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:


Have never seen it, but apparently there's a moment in it where the fact that Julia Roberts' character looks like ... Julia Roberts is pointed out by the rest of the gang as something that can be used in their scheme.

Hmm ... if you're going to pull at that thread, surely Clooney's, Pitt's, Damon's etc. characters look like their famous counterparts too? Sometimes this 'meta' shit isn't a good idea.  

Yeah but it was just a fun breaking the fourth wall moment. I really liked Vincent Cassel here, and Soderbergh's mix-and-match blend of filmmaking styles was really interesting visually.

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7 hours ago, Quintus said:

Just watched The Martian. Didn't people hate this movie here? I thought it was decent, worth a watch. Definitely science fiction: no movie based on contemporary science has ever stretched my belief systems as much as this one. It's outrageous stuff really, and the movie has sparked a new sub genre all on its own, which I'm calling Science Exaggeration (Sci-Ex). Because make no mistake there's some massive bullshit in this! But that's okay, because there's an honesty to it. Ridley Scott embues the whole thing with quite a bit of heart and it's a surprisingly very light experience, the disco soundtrack (didn't people here hate that too?) going all out to convey the warm and not really serious intentions of the film. In that way I might prefer it to Apollo 13. ***1/2 out of *****

 

I was surprised to learn that the storm at the beginning is apparently the biggest scientific stretch in the movie.

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I certainly didn't like The Martian, nor did TGP, if my memory serves me well. There are bound to be others around here. The first part was okay but the second part is terribly American. No wonder Jay loves it! No, the only sci-fi movie from last year that I liked was Ex Machina. 

 

 

 

 

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At no point did the movie try to kid us it was going for "gritty", so the US of A ending was a total given. It rounded it off quite pleasingly. And instead of pensioner Tom Hanks visiting Matt Damon's grave we had Matt Damon the awe inspiring role model and lecturer. It doesn't get much more American dreamy cheesy than that. 

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I'm talking about the whole second half, you know, the "NASA - Lets Get Him Home, Boys" part, bollemanneke, not just the ending. True, my version would have been entirely with Matt Damon alone on the planet (No boring NASA rescue mission) and, yes, it would have end more gloomier.

 

 

Alex 

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Nope! And that's the problem. The Martian is too concerned with what the audience at large wants. I always have liked directors and movies where the audience needs to follow the artist, not the other way around.

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9 minutes ago, Alexcremers said:

Nope! And that's the problem. The Martian is too concerned with what the audience at large wants. I always have liked directors and movies where the audience needs to follow the artist, not the other way around.

 

I think you'll succeed in showbiz!

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The Martian wasn't bad ... quite funny in places, the effects are absolutely impeccable, and it doesn't spend almost 3 hours gradually disappearing up its own arse (I'm looking at you, Interstellar). There's never the slightest doubt that Damon will be rescued though, so it lacks tension. 

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This movie ('The Martian') i found such a non-entity (as in boring, safe, overly glossy, derivative of other movies) that the most noteworthy fact is that septuagenarian Scott found it worthy of 2 years of his precious time. To direct stuff like 'Black Rain' in your 40's is one thing, but with 75...?

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4 hours ago, Quintus said:

At no point did the movie try to kid us it was going for "gritty", so the US of A ending was a total given. It rounded it off quite pleasingly. And instead of pensioner Tom Hanks visiting Matt Damon's grave we had Matt Damon the awe inspiring role model and lecturer. It doesn't get much more American dreamy cheesy than that. 

 

What's confusing about this is how it lines up with what I recall your opinion of Apollo 13 being, but of course correct me if I remember wrong.  A fictional lighthearted rescue mission gets a pass because it doesn't take itself seriously (a luxury afforded by the fictional nature of it - things could go however the storyteller wants), but one of the most grave and heroic moments of human exploration is deemed too gung-ho American (something I don't at all get from the film, but I thought you did) simply for showing what actually happened?

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2 minutes ago, publicist said:

This movie ('The Martian') i found such a non-entity (as in boring, safe, overly glossy, derivative of other movies) that the most noteworthy fact is that septuagenarian Scott found it worthy of 2 years of his precious time. To direct stuff like 'Black Rain' in your 40's is one thing, but with 75...?

 

Agreed! However, I'm willing to understand some of the positive reactions when we're talking about the first half of the movie. The second half is where the movie completely lost my interest. 

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It's not an offensive movie, made on a high level of technical expertise and so on. But in aid of what? As i understand it, there was a well-loved novel it was based on. Whatever its virtues, they didnt come through in the film (which in some scenes, like with the black guy suddenly having the saving idea had the fingerprints of an 80's A-TEAM episode).

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For me there was some doubt about whether Damon would be rescued or not. As for the second half, I thought it was a nice balance between the NASA storyline and him on the planet storyline. If you don't have at least two storylines, then result is  '127 hours'. God knows how I sat through that one.

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1 hour ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

 

What's confusing about this is how it lines up with what I recall your opinion of Apollo 13 being, but of course correct me if I remember wrong.  A fictional lighthearted rescue mission gets a pass because it doesn't take itself seriously (a luxury afforded by the fictional nature of it - things could go however the storyteller wants), but one of the most grave and heroic moments of human exploration is deemed too gung-ho American (something I don't at all get from the film, but I thought you did) simply for showing what actually happened?

 

I don't really see Apollo 13 as being gung ho though, it's a solidly made historical drama - through the Americana lens of Richie Cunningham. It's a very patriotic heart on sleeve sort of movie, and to people from across the pond it can be a tad po-faced with it, that's all. I can take American patriotism much better when it's handled by foreigners, like Paul Verhoeven for example. The Martian was closer to Armageddon (made by a Brit) than Apollo 13 really, its own spirited heroics dished out with a certain blithe and irreverence towards the gravely serious business of a historical NASA mission gone wrong. On a Saturday evening I found that flavour more to my taste in that particular instance. My own general disposition dictates that I'm more likely to be in the mood for a movie like The Martian over something dry and "important" like Apollo 13, which I have to be in a very specific frame of mind for, fleetingly so. 

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3 minutes ago, Quintus said:

 

I don't really see Apollo 13 as being gung ho though, it's a solidly made historical drama - through the Americana lens of Richie Cunningham. It's a very patriotic heart on sleeve sort of movie, and to people from across the pond it can be a tad po-faced with it, that's all.

 

James Horner takes most of the blame here.

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