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

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Just now, Chen G. said:

Its not the character that's interesting so much as the concept of the films.

 

Its the adventure serial of the 21st century, and people watch it as a vehicle for adventurous setpieces and action, rather than for engaging with the characters. 

Omg Ive died and have come back as Ripley in Alien's 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

There's an almost mythic quality to the character in the first two movies. Last Crusade humanizes him a bit more. It even establishes that his relic hunting is all to gain his father's approval.

 

I can't for the life of me understand how Joey can't have any fun with it.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

6 minutes ago, Horner's Dynamic Range said:

There's an almost mythic quality to the character in the first two movies. Last Crusade humanizes him a bit more. It even establishes that his relic hunting is all to gain his father's approval.

 

I can't for the life of me understand how Joey can't have any fun with it.

I can't for the life of me understand how you think I can't have fun with it. My God I'm like the fucking Pied Piper getting discussion going. Watch out lemmings there is a cliff ahead.

 

Still shaking my head that Indiana Jones isn't  an interesting character or that the popularity of the films is do to set and production design.

[Chen G. 3,949]

19 minutes ago, JoeinAR said:

the popularity of the films is do to set and production design.

 

Who said that?!

 

I said it was the setpieces. i.e. the action sequences and adventure tropes, and the general style of it.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

56 minutes ago, JoeinAR said:

Omg Ive died and have come back as Ripley in Alien's 

 

The way we're dragging out another discussion on the Indiana Jones movies, you're gonna be more like Ripley from Alien Resurrection! 

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Just now, Chen G. said:

 

Who said that?!

 

I said it was the setpieces. i.e. the action sequences and adventure tropes.

Pardon me. Either way it was a poor choice of words for you. And wrong

 

Well at least it wasn't another In Search of Noah's Ark 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Joe is bored and lonely on New Year's Day obviously

[JoeinAR 1,949]

20 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

 

The way we're dragging out another discussion on the Indiana Jones movies, you're gonna be more like Ripley from Alien Resurrection! 

Kill me, killll meeeeeeee.meeeeeeee 

18 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Joe is bored and lonely on New Year's Day obviously

New Years Day is tomorrow. I never get bored. That's for lesser people.

 

 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Nudity!

[JoeinAR 1,949]

4 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Nudity!

Only someone so sex starved would notice!

[Wojo 2,453]

2 hours ago, JoeinAR said:

How can these two be mistaken for one another? 

Robert Blossom was in Close Encounters, Amazing Stories Ghost Train, and Home Alone, Robert Jordan was the movies  1st Dirk Pitt in Raise the Titanic.

 

By "he," I meant the Grail Knight, not the old man from Home Alone. I'm not that blind. 

[Sir Hilary Bray 235]

Empire Strikes Back, the original version

 

Didn't really twig how much music was added or changed for the Special Edition until now but so wrapped up in the viewing. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,516]

1 hour ago, JoeinAR said:

New Years Day is tomorrow. I never get bored. That's for lesser people.

#Joe was never being boring. He was never being bored#

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Surely Joe was bored like the best of them?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones

 

 

The saga continued May 2002. Episode One introduced a new Star Wars trilogy to a new generation, with Luke Skywalker's father as a little boy taking the first steps on his journey to becoming a Jedi Knight and eventually Darth Vader.

 

This chapter is set roughly a decade later as Obi-Wan struggles to rein in his impetuous student and there is a serious threat of galactic civil war. Compounding matters, ex-Queen Padme is being targeted by mysterious forces and the collective wisdom of the Jedi council decides to assign Anakin to protect her while Obi-Wan investigates her would-be assassins.

 

Obi-Wan takes his spiffy new space fighter and mullet hairstyle to a dreary world of cloners. The good news is that he's expected. The bad news is that they've created an army of clones for the Republic and no one seems to know why. As the plot unfolds, Obi discovers that ex-Jedi Count Dooku has formed a rebellion with an army of robots. Meanwhile, Anakin spends much of his time making the moves on Padme and who can blame him.

 

It's obvious where all this is headed, but it takes a while to get there. Attack is a movie that gets bogged down in talky scenes (It goes back and forth between Anakin/Padme and Obi for an hour) and is notorious for some real clunkers when it comes to Lucas sayings. He does include some memorable sci-fi action scenes to break up the monotony. There's a flying car chase through the Blade Runner-esque city, a Spielbergian fight between Obi and Fett and a subsequent space chase with great sound design. Still, the constant flip-flopping through scenes of talking grows a bit tiresome. Where's the Star War?

 

There is one extremely effective hiatus from the main story which proves crucial to the plot. Anakin is tormented by nightmares of his mother and they take Padme's sleek starship to Tatooine to find out just what is going on. In the original movie, the desert planet scenes were like a space western. The return visits in Jedi and Phantom feel decidedly more middle eastern, but Clones is a return to form, with Anakin visiting the family farm, setting out across the desert in scenes reminiscent of The Searchers and eventually returning with Mother's body and a dark secret. At this point, Padme effectively replaces Mother for Anakin and not in a Norman Bates or Oedipus way.

 

The movie really picks up steam in the last 40 minutes, with Harryhausen and Edgar Rice Burroughs homages galore as the heroes battle monsters and a robot army in a gladiator arena. The climactic scenes certainly deliver the fast-paced action and drama you expect from the Star Wars series, although as noted a good chunk of earlier running time drags. Clones sets up so much in the closing minutes, you want it to keep going. If only we could exchange the earlier stuff for more at the end. But I guess that's what sequels are for.

 

Public opinion of Clones has shifted rather remarkably over the years. At the time of its release, audiences were much kinder and seemed to consider it an improvement over Phantom. While it is in many ways, I think George's talky scenes in the previous one were stronger than here. Once again, the wide array of alien locales we get to visit absolutely blows away the cheap sets and obviously Earthly settings from the old movies, although it's become trendy to bash the special effects. Curiously, the choppy faster pacing of the edited IMAX version actually did the movie a disservice.

 

The movie is notorious also for its weird performances. Ewan is good, Chris Lee and the other veterans are what you'd expect (There is some standout voice acting for the eclectic alien cast including Obi's buddy at the diner, the cloners and of course, the venerable Frank Oz, who sounds less Grover-like than in Menace), but Hayden (Doing a bizarre sort of James Dean thing) and Natalie are rather wooden and monotone much of the time. It seems like lazy ADR might be messing up their lines, but I don't know. I don't hold Star Wars to that high a standard because they're popcorn space movies that have never featured particularly great performances from the human characters. It's a space opera, after all.

 

[Chen G. 3,949]

To me, the issue of the film is more complicated. The launching-off point of the film is a pair of assasination attempts on Padme: it both sets Obi-Wan on a journey to investigate the identity of her attacker, and sets Anakin to protect her, during which their “romance” blossoms.

 

However, after those two plot-lines are set into motion, NO FURTHER ASSASINATION ATTEMPTS ARE MADE ON PADME’s LIFE, which I find maddening.

 

It both completely saps the tension from under the romantic scenes, and the urgency from Obi-Wan’s investigation, as well as losing the tissue that connects these two plot-lines: when Lucas cuts between them, it feels like he’s cutting between two different films.

 

Adding at least one more assasination attempt would have added so much tension to this film! How come no-one thought of that?!

 

My second issue has to do with the way the characters treat each other: not just Anakin being seriously creepy towards Padme, but also Obi-Wan being kind of an overly-strict dick towards his student, which is to say nothing of Yoda and whatever character L. Jackson is playing.

 

I also don’t particularly care for the action. I don’t mind that the Jedi fighting style is dynamic (like it was in The Phantom Menace) and I don’t mind them surviving some implausible feats without physical harm, but when they leap the height of skyscrapers and land without a scratch on ‘em it stretches credulity too much for me. The action also just isn’t spread out through the picture.

 

There is also the issue involving the introduction of Dooku, which I regard as utterly ineffective. He’s basically mentioned in the opening crawl (itself no less boring that that of the previous film), and upon the first assasination attempt his name is brought up and than immediately dismissed, only for the suspicion to be proven true at the midpoint.

 

And lastly, there’s Lucas’ directing: not just of the actors, but also of the camera: really, all his Star Wars aren’t something to look twice at with regards to camerawork and lighting.

[Faleel 5,346]

2 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

 

However, after those two plot-lines are set into motion, NO FURTHER ASSASINATION ATTEMPTS ARE MADE ON PADME’s LIFE, which I find maddening.

Harder to assasinate someone who is in hiding disguised as a refugee.




Why am I defending this?

[Nick Parker 3,040]

So, uh, anyone watch Jacob's Ladder? Might be a new favorite, for me.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

1 hour ago, Faleel J.M. said:

Harder to assasinate someone who is in hiding disguised as a refugee.




Why am I defending this?

 

The better question is, why tear it apart? Red Letter Media did it to comedic effect, but people take the nitpicking too far.

 

It's okay to enjoy Episode II because it's still chock full of all the sci-fi worlds, weird aliens, space action and memorable characters that make the genre enjoyable. As Ed Wood might say, it's about the bigger picture, not the finer details. Clones is more or less a standard Star War popcorn flick at its best, it's just that the politics, plotting and talky scenes drag it down a bit. Just take a shot every time someone says m'lady and you'll be fine during the rather bloated middle act.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Yes and no. I mean, I don’t care for it in the slightest (although I don’t hate it outright), and to be perfectly honest, I can’t ever truly relate to those who do - I just don’t see the upshot, as it were. 

 

I don’t think I nitpicked it: all the issues I stated were pervasive throughout the course of the picture. Being that I wasn’t on the bandwagon of scorning the prequels, having only first watched this series in 2015, I think I’m more objective on the matter than most.

 

Having said that, if the positive aspects of the film are enough for you to enjoy it, than that’s great: it means you can glean enjoyment from one movie more than I can. So of course it’s okay to enjoy it.

 

At any rate, a complete train-wreck it ain’t. Not quite, anyway.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

2 hours ago, Chen G. said:

At any rate, a complete train-wreck it ain’t. Not quite, anyway.

 

You gotta be kidding me!

[A24 4,331]

How can it be? Dynamic still managed to enjoy it, even after the umpteenth time.

[Chen G. 3,949]

48 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

You gotta be kidding me!

 

The older I get, the less enjoyment I get from hating on a movie. There's no point in it, really.

 

I think Attack of the Clones is about as bad as these kinds of films get. But is it truly awful? No, not quite.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Well, its not awful like ethnic cleansing, but AOTC is a shockingly bad film. 

[Chen G. 3,949]

I seem to recall I gave it a *1/5 out of *****. So yeah, bad movie. Not awful.

 

But if someone genuinely enjoys it - more power to them.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Its boring, that makes it awful.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,516]

6 hours ago, Nick Parker said:

So, uh, anyone watch Jacob's Ladder? Might be a new favorite, for me.

I saw JACOB'S LADDER at the cinema, Nick, in nineteen ninety whenever. I liked it. Have you noticed that Rubin's work always deals with death, in some way (BRAINSTORM/MY LIFE)?

[Chen G. 3,949]

Well, you know...

 

"All human stories are practically only about one thing, aren't they? DEATH."

- JRR Tolkien.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

No.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

4 minutes ago, Richard said:

I saw JACOB'S LADDER at the cinema, Nick, in nineteen ninety whenever. I liked it. Have you noticed that Rubin's work always deals with death, in some way (BRAINSTORM/MY LIFE)?

 

This was the first film of his that I've seen! At its heart, Jacob's Ladder is a very simple and intimate story,  but the amount of metaphors, visual richness, and unexplained elements really give you a lot to mull over, and make further viewings very enticing. 

 

I was very impressed with Jarre's score: given the abstract and surreal nature of the film, I was worried that the music would be too "conventional", and would hurt its uniqueness, but Jarre made some weird music for this movie! Well, the music itself isn't so weird, but its placement and use is really off-putting, and it's excellent. 

 

 

Just now, Stefancos said:

No.

 

Ha, was just about to say the same. 

[publicist 4,643]

 

You'd think with all the $ Jurassic World made, a competent screenplay for another entry in the ripe franchise should have been affordable, but alas. It's on-a-napkin writing solidly based on two entries - 1. volcano eruption and 2. dinosaurs siege mansion (the honours belong to Colin Trevorrow) - and you be damned if a computer didn't fill in the rest. In this sorry contraption nothing ever really works, the whole movie - at any given point - feels at least 30% off. The aims of Jurassic Park were never particularly high, so you know what damning statement it is that the best things in it are the cadaverous leftovers of the last four movies (the image of a child hiding under a bedsheet with a claw clutching at it is the only memorable idea here). 

 

With Spielberg, you had plot holes and silliness but you couldn't accuse him of cheating you: he accommodated some breathtaking action and spectacle sequences through bad writing. Today, we've seen so much already it would have been mandatory to come up with clever bits of action to draw you in - you've seen the spectacle a gazillion times before -, to soften the blow of characters acting like idiots but you are left here with characters acting like idiots without the clever bits. Giacchino's jerky score (it's not spotted, it's doused) is the icing on this particular cake. Either waddling in ancient trailer music clichés (a volcano explosion is a particularly grating example of apocalyptic choir bereft of any personality) or hitting the action in often rather peculiar ways (the score seems to have wandered over from another movie) he's the perfect fit for this. But, as first chore of 2019, i made it through!

[Glóin the Dark 1,220]

6 hours ago, Chen G. said:

I gave it a *1/5 out of *****.

 

One and a fifth? Now that's precision rating!

[Marian Schedenig 8,192]

21 hours ago, JoeinAR said:

The villains in Least Crusade are weak ineffective and not particularly chilling. I understand why some find this more appealing. Its definitely paint by number for the unimaginative. Everything is spelled out. No thinking needed.

 

I don't recall having to think much to understand ToD, either.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

19 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Yes and no. I mean, I don’t care for it in the slightest (although I don’t hate it outright), and to be perfectly honest, I can’t ever truly relate to those who do - I just don’t see the upshot, as it were. 

 

I don’t think I nitpicked it: all the issues I stated were pervasive throughout the course of the picture. Being that I wasn’t on the bandwagon of scorning the prequels, having only first watched this series in 2015, I think I’m more objective on the matter than most.😂🤣😅

 

Having said that, if the positive aspects of the film are enough for you to enjoy it, than that’s great: it means you can glean enjoyment from one movie more than I can. So of course it’s okay to enjoy it.

 

At any rate, a complete train-wreck it ain’t. Not quite, anyway.

It is an absolute piece of garbage.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I like it.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

10 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

I don't recall having to think much to understand ToD, either.

I seriously doubt you had much knowledge of the history of the thugee. You most like had plenty of first hand knowledge of the villains in LC.

[Wojo 2,453]

So TLC just ended up on the (new!) Paramount Network, and Raiders just started. A few observations. 

 

With all the ornate golden and jeweled chalices to select from, I wonder if Elsa deliberately chose an obviously falsehood grail just to kill Donovan. Possibly it proved a theory, since Indy represented one do-over if Donovan's was wrong. 

 

I also wonder what the threshold between drinking from a wrong cup and a right cup is. The Grail Knight had 700 years to kill. Suppose he drinks from a bad grail, then saves himself with the correct one. It's definitely more entertaining and exciting than masturbating in the desert for that long since, well, sand... 

 

As for Raiders... Indy walks into the jungle with two other men for long enough to need a frying pan in their gear, yet the getaway airplane only has an empty seat for one passenger. No wonder why both men tried to kill Indy. 

[Nick Parker 3,040]

26 minutes ago, Wojism said:

As for Raiders... Indy walks into the jungle with two other men for long enough to need a frying pan in their gear, yet the getaway airplane only has an empty seat for one passenger. No wonder why both men tried to kill Indy. 

 

Oh my god, this totally explains why I hate that movie! My immersion was completely ruined. When will filmmakers stop being so lazy? 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I like the music when Elsa selects the wrong cup. The score gives the impression it might be the real cup, although in my opinion Spielberg's direction makes it obvious she's betraying him. So what the fuck. Brilliant track and scene.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Ah yes that sloppy scene where you see the clearly modern machined bottom of the cup. 

But yeah the music is okay.

[Wojo 2,453]

The musical edit right after Connery says "Illuminayshun" is terrible. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

2 hours ago, JoeinAR said:

Ah yes that sloppy scene where you see the clearly modern machined bottom of the cup. 

But yeah the music is okay.

 

Nobody will ever notice that! Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture.

 

Joey:

 

[A24 4,331]

31 minutes ago, Horner's Dynamic Range said:

 

Filmmaking is not about one tiny detail. It's about the big picture.

 

 

Fixed!

[JoeinAR 1,949]

It is most certainly about the small details. Especially when the director is known for how his films looks and his care for continuity in a fictional historical action adventure comedy.

 

It wouldn't have happened if a better director like Cameron had made the film.

[Chen G. 3,949]

It’s about the big picture. Braveheart won best cinematography, although quite a few shots in it are out of focus. The departed won best editing despite being two-and-a-half hours long and rife with continuity errors.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

19 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

It’s about the big picture. Braveheart won best cinematography, although quite a few shots in it are out of focus. The departed won best editing despite being two-and-a-half hours long and rife with continuity errors.

Well it is a scorsese film 

[A24 4,331]

 

Every movie has continuity mistakes. 

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Possibly but the goal is to have none.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

That's not a goal.

[SteveMc 2,674]

It is a creed to live by.