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


Mr. Breathmask

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9 hours ago, Alexcremers said:

Flaws? Flaws, you say?!

 

Nothing too glaring, but there are a couple of scenes that don't work so well, and where did it get that dress, it's awful, and those shoes and that coat....

 

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Best scene in E.T. is the scene in the garage, with Elliott and Michael arguing over dad's shirt. No SFX, no E.T., no bombastic score, no zoom dolly, no flash editing or photography. Just two kids, talking.

"Old Spice" 

"Seabreeze"

Simplicity itself. Absolute magic.

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7 minutes ago, Strangways said:

Well, I've watched a fair amount but lately A Bridge Too Far, Battle of Britain and recently, The Quiller Memorandum. Always helps to work a John Barry scored film in someplace. 

 

"That's where you are Quiller; in the gap" :)

It's a great little film, isn't it? It's sort of like an American THE IPCRESS FILE.

A BRIDGE TOO FAR, is, simply, in a class of its own, and it's the only war film that I saw three times, at the cinema.

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Just now, Richard said:

 

"That's where you are Quiller; in the gap" :)

It's a great little film, isn't it? It's sort of like an American THE IPCRESS FILE.

A BRIDGE TOO FAR, is, simply, in a class of its own, and it's the only war film that I saw three times, at the cinema.

 

I like Quiller on a few levels, chiefly Berlin (or West Berlin in this case), feels quite atmospheric and then there's the John Barry music aiding it. The cast is great and there's Senta Berger in her prime. As someone said, the plot's nonsensical and a bit daft but it's enjoyable. This and Bridge at Remagen made me a fan of George Segal. 

 

Being the anniversary of Market-Garden I tend to view Bridge Too Far now and it's still a solid film. Right down to Hardy Kruger's exclamations as XXX Corps rolls across Nijmegen Bridge ("Who can stop them now?/No-one" or the human roadblock and John Addison's music for that scene. Arnhem was quite simply, a tragedy of colossal errors and I think Attenborough did a decent job trying to put it all on screen. Still, it gave him Gandhi, so he said.

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You want George Segal? Try A TOUCH OF CLASS. Heck, even ROLLERCOASTER is good, kitch fun.

On ABTF, Tony Gibbs did a miraculous job of tying all the disperate elements together, to form a cohesive whole. It's probably his best editing job.

What I like is the hubris, with which the Allies toddle off to Arnhem, only to get the asses well and truly handed to them.

It's a great film, and one to show the grandchildren (and mightily bored they will be :lol:).

 

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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

 

Briefly before I turned it off. This is just unwatchable. Angelina Jolie's fake accent is impossible to listen to, first of all. What Brit talks like that? None of them. It never excels beyond being a crappy movie geared towards geeky video gamer types that shouldn't even enjoy it. While the overrated Tomb Raider series of video games was pretty dull when I played it on the original Playstation, that doesn't excuse the movie for being more boring than Algebra 2.

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I'm on a Spielberg kick lately. After CE3K, I revisited some of his work I've already seen once, and starting with tomorrow, I'll chronologically watch most of his movies I've never seen, probably never even heard of before I joined here.

 

Jaws - Spielberg just wanted to make a movie and accidentally invented the modern blockbuster. It happens, I guess. This one starts off a bit iffy, but the second the Orca leaves dock, the movie and the score immediately turn from a 7 to a 9, raising it damn near masterpiece status. I get the urge to watch it again just by thinking about it.

 

Jurassic Park - I don't think it's a great one, but an important and very entertaining one. I can't put my finger on what my problem with it is, at all. The visual effects are still stunning, especially considering how Muren and Tippett basically reinvented filmmaking here. The "Welcome to Jurassic Park" scene made my jaw drop as if it was my first time seeing CGI, dinosaurs, or even this movie. It's a magnificent combination of buildup, character moments, effects, and score, of course. The T-Rex scenes also stand out as being near perfect. The characters are engaging, even Goldblum becomes sympathetic after the Rex fatally wounds him by biting his chest hair off.

 

Jurassic Park - The Lost World - Well that one was a bloody waste of time. The effects are lesser, and the script probably needed a draft or ten more. Every single character is an asshole or a retard, which could be forgiveable with a comedic fun tone, but this is a dark, gritty action movie, and most of the plot points actually depend on everyone being an idiot. This I really can't forgive. I also almost turned it off at the umpteenth terrible exposition scene, they're just horrible. The daughter's first scene and the cheekbone guy's 10 minute monologue where he explains his character, backstory and motivations to the viewer by looking at the camera were the worst offenders. It's lacking everything that made the original one great.

 

I love E.T., but I'm holding off on everything related until I get the LLL set. It's actually in my top 5 favourite movies of all time depending on my mood, and definitely in my top 5 favourite scores of all time.

 

I also love Schindler, but it's not one you just watch regularly for fun.

 

Catch Me If You Can and Terminal I hold in the same category of fun, fluffy movies one can watch anytime, but ultimately inconsequential. Parts of CMIYC are raised from that by the score, but that's it. Tintin also belongs here to an extent. The experimental nature of the production shows, and partly pulls it down (some character designs or camera moves), but it's just so damn fun! It actually made me read all Tintin books for the first time.

 

I don't think adressing the Indiana Jones movies belongs here, they're in a league of their own.

 

That's about it for every Spielberg film I ever saw. So buckle up for the Very First Impressions Spielberg-A-Thon and tune in next time for 1941!

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Jaws is pretty much a 10, relatively speaking.

 

The only knock I'd put on Jaws is that among the Spielberg "classics", Jaws (and to a lesser extent CE3K) feels the most dated.   It doesn't make the drama any less compelling, of course. And it may be my own thing, but mid-late 70's clothes, hair, etc. date a film for me more than something from the 60's or 80's does.

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Out of the two I'd say Close Encounters has dated most, particularly in regards to the score. The effects in Jaws are no more dated than they already were. A bit ropey but very effective regardless.

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I think the effects in Jaws are fine.  I'm pretty forgiving of practical effects, especially when they were done well and with care at the time.  I still think Star Wars (1977) looks better than the prequels. So storytelling in that regard goes a long way.  Best thing I can say about the effects in Jaws is, as many times as I've seen that movie, the shark is still working.

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32 minutes ago, Quintus said:

Out of the two I'd say Close Encounters has dated most, particularly in regards to the score. The effects in Jaws are no more dated than they already were. A bit ropey but very effective regardless.

 

How do you mean the CE3K score is dated?

 

Bruce never looked 100% realistic, but that never bothered me. Great looking movie monster.

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48 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

 

How do you mean the CE3K score is dated?

 

Bruce never looked 100% realistic, but that never bothered me. Great looking movie monster.

 

I already went over it a couple of weeks ago, maybe Jason can link you. It's a fantastic score btw.

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I just think JW's trademark neo-romantic sweep gets a bit overbearing in a couple of select parts. The music sounds less like a momentous moment in human history and more like the in-house performance of an awards ceremony orchestra in full glitz mode.

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You didn't mention the score when you watched it the other week Quint

 

On 8/18/2017 at 7:25 PM, Quintus said:

I watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind tonight and these days there are two things about the film that standout: the still barnstorming light show of the wondrous finale, and the extraordinary scenes of domestic life, often shown from the perspective of the children to raw, noisy and utterly realistic effect. Wrap it all up in a slow yet taut seventies thriller so very typical of the era, and you have an irrefutable classic of a film which holds up to modern scrutiny.

 

The print needs work though. The blu-ray retains the grain of the original and that's okay, but there's a whole lot of other noise in the image at times, some of it composite artifacts, some not, and that should really have been cleaned up during the last remaster.

 

 

 

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I enjoyed the exercise in style.  While Johnson's plots are often a bit of a muddle, his ability to craft rich character-driven individual scenes is second-to-none in my opinion.  I can't wait to see how this is applied in a more traditionally plot-driven blockbuster like a Star War.  JGL is great in Brick!!

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Do you dislike high school movies generally?  I thought this was such a cool fusion of a typical Hughesian/Clueless type movie if it was written by Dashiell Hammett.  Admittedly, I haven't seen it in a few years but I thought it was fun!

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I don't think Johnson is some genius filmmaker, but he's a solid and interesting one who clearly cares about story/character more than your typical blockbuster maker (I also think this about Abrams but JJ has an unfortunate obsession with mystery/twists).  I think RJ could be exactly what Star Wars needs!

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