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


Mr. Breathmask

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Arrival

 

An intelligent, well-made sci-fi drama. Really striking cinematography and excellent use of sound.

 

**** and 1/2 out of *****

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The Pride and The Passion

Rather overblown 1950s historical drama dealing with Spanish resistance against Napoleon's France staring Cary Grant as a British captain/agent, Frank Sinatra as a Spanish rebel, and Sophia Loren as the object of their affection. 

Acting not all that bad, production quite good.  Story, so-so.  Music is all over the place to me.  

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Last Flag Flying - Solid film about returning soldiers and the effects. Despite the premise, it's actually quite funny and lighthearted at points, though it never forgets about the effects of war, and how it changes people. A good Linklater effort. - 7.5 / 10

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Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders

 

Now this is proper Batman, fighting crazy crooks, flirting with Catwoman, corny one-liners, and all that. I like all the self-referential stuff, and even has a jab at the ending to The Dark Knight Rises. This is where DC excels for some reason.

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Batman and Harley Quinn

 

Not as good, not by a long shot. But it makes up for it with this one scene that gave me the biggest uncontrollable laugh I've had in ages, and believe me I don't laugh at movies often!

 

 

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After rewatching the Indy Trilogy, I put on the abomination as background noise while papercrafting after not having seen it for... 9 years? And despite all my previous hate for it, it's not THAT bad. It's nowhere near AotC level, but I'd place it under TPM and the first 2 Hobbits in the order of trilogy-ruiners. Some of it in the beginning was entertaining. 

 

The three main problems: the story is stupid, I don't think this needs elaboration. Now, on its own, this doesn't seem like a valid complaint (ToD is also dumb as hell) until combined with the next problem:

 

It's not fun at all. It can be quite boring, in fact. It's hard to get invested because the characters have no relatable flavours or shortcomings, and the stakes are nonexistent. Examples: in Raiders, the very first time you hear of the Ark, you're completely excited and invested because of Indy and Marcus' reactions. That scene is awesome. We also see this excited professor-trait of Indy's later: the Map Room, Approaching the Stones, the Venice library and the grave of Sir Richard... There's no scene like those in this movie. Indy sounds almost bored when discovering Orellana.

In all the other movies, Indy gets shot, beat up, tired, tortured, Voodoo-dolled, and it takes a toll on him, you can see the effects of his injuries. This makes him relatable and his triumph all the more joyous. In this one, the greatest extent of his flaws is "ow my back, I'm old now haha". The action setpieces are not at all engaging when nothing happens to your heroes and they laugh as they defy physics and logic. Desert Chase still made me anxious for him, it's a perfect setpiece.

 

And thirdly: It looks bloody horrendous. Forget the CG prairie dogs, ants, monkeys and aliens, a normal school scene is lit like the sun is bursting in the background. Instead of the amazing, believable, natural landscapes being one of the main positives like in the last 3, here we get overprocessed, bloomy looks, 300GW lights on the actor's faces on one side, vomit-golden overexposed skies instead of beautiful blue ones, and it makes all the location-shooting and sets look like they were done in vain, because the end result may as well have been the actors studio-greescreened into bad CG locations.

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7 minutes ago, John said:

It's not bad.

 

Oh, its fairly bad.

 

Not outright terrible, but quite bad nonetheless.

 

Its just unnecessary, as is its upcoming sequel. I've rewatched The Last Crusade recently, and its such a beautiful end to the Indy series, that to follow it up with another film is just wrong.

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It's hardly a classic, but it's certainly not the worst sequel ever made. Unlike the Star Wars prequels and the Hobbit trilogy, it's a follow-up that doesn't feel like it's on an island all by itself. At least KOTCS didn't twist its franchise into an unrecognizable shape like those films did. For all its flaws, it's unmistakably Indy.

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Which is what makes it all the more disheartening: that it is a sequel and not a prequel.

 

So this is what became of our hero since The Last Crusade? Great...:crymore::angry:

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2 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

So this is what became of our hero since The Last Crusade? Great...:angry:

 

What would you have preferred Indy to be after Crusade? He is very much the same character that he was in the previous films.

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Nothing. We didn't need to see anything after that. He made up with his dad, found the Holy Grail, which is the Holy Grail of McGuffins and rode off into the sunset. End of story.

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Indy is essentially a live-action cartoon character. It's not like he had a good deal of development or depth to begin with.

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Mannequin

 

I've wanted to see this for years, and finally got my chance - thank you, cable TV! I couldn't find any fault with this. It's a total bizarro world 1980s romantic fantasy about a sensitive guy who's down on his luck, wears a great leather jacket, and creates probably the greatest sex goddess of the era as his muse (and damsel in distress!). Certainly not realistic, but definitely relatable!

 

And for such a popular film, you'd think a soundtrack album would have been assembled and released at the time, but I can't find any evidence one such exists, which is a shame because it features some amazing songs and a kooky score.

 

Love this film!

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It was a sweet love story, plus a cold and calculating ex-girlfriend, James Spader looking like a campy Gestapo officer, a hilarious erectile dysfunction gag, and two cute dogs. I imagine this was a big crowd pleaser in '87.

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It's got one of the more memorable Ebert pans, which gives it a kind of infamy in my book

 

Quote

This movie is a real curiosity. It's dead. I don't mean it's bad.

 

A lot of bad movies are fairly throbbing with life. "Mannequin" is dead. The wake lasts 1 1/2 hours, and then we can leave the theater.

 

Halfway through, I was ready for someone to lead us in reciting the rosary.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mannequin-1987

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Mannequin was one of the banes of my life back when my sister had it on video (along with Dirty DancingPretty WomanCocktail and perhaps some others the memories of which I've suppressed).

 

I've always thought Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was alright. Not outstandingly good, but a lot better than the level of vitriol directed at it would suggest. The real abomination of the series is the soporific Temple of Doom one. Come to think of it, I believe that one was my sister's favourite...

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4 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

The real abomination of the series is the soporific Temple of Doom one.

 

Yeah, I don't really care for that film, either.

 

But Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is much worse.

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It does push the envelope a bit in the way it depicts the characters escape from the plane; the "James bond opening" isn't as strong as in the other two; the actual plot kicks in much later in the story than in the other two; and the anchiliary characters (Willie and occasionaly Short-round) can be irritating.

 

Otherwise, its fine.

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31 minutes ago, Holko said:

Temple of Doom, for me, is one of the most fun and entertaining movies of all time.

 

Yes!

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16 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

the "James bond opening" isn't as strong as in the other two

 

LIES!

 

I don't want to keep overusing this word, so I'll just spit it all out here and promise to stop:

Anything Goes is fun as hell, the way the Shanghai sequence is shot is just so fun, the way it's choreographed is fun, the way it's scored is incredibly fun; It's different in tone to the other two, but just as strong in my opinion and sets your expectations for the next two hours perfectly.

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I love the original trilogy to pieces completely, but consider the 4th to be a truly bad film not worth my time at all. The score is good, though!

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35 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

...the "James bond opening" isn't as strong as in the other two...

 

I have no clue what you're rambling on about: the nightclub scene in Temple of Doom is one of, if not the finest opening sequence of any action movie.

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Temple of Doom sparked and grabbed hold of my imagination more than the other two when I was a youngster (under 10).  I would rewind the raft jump sequence and watch over and over.  And of course all kids love the monkey brains and baby snakes and whatnot.  Bugs were more scary to me than snakes, so I preferred the bug scene to the Raiders snake scene.  The minecart sequence perfectly dovetailed with my contemporary love of the Donkey Kong Country games.

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Willie
Plane Crash SFX
Goofy Portrayal of Indian Culture
Goofy Humour (The Hammer scene etc.)

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