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What is the Last Film You Watched? - Part II


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I saw Willow last night. This was the movie that introduced me to George Lucas - which explains why I had to so little expectations when I saw the Star Wars films. I have to admit I did like the music, though. Made me feel like I was watching Amadeus.

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Equilibrium

pretty much a visual gun orgy, I fount it hard to get past some of the plot holes but it was a nice popcorn flick.

Lord of War

Loved the script, another bearable Cage performance (this and Matchstick Men) and I love Niccol's directing and visual style. Score was good too.

Max-Continuing his movie watching streak with Dark City, 12 Monkeys, Raging Bull and Citizen Kane

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Lord of War

Loved the script, another bearable Cage performance (this and Matchstick Men) and I love Niccol's directing and visual style. Score was good too.

One of my favorites from last year.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? Funny but the film has some weaker moments here and there. I guess it's a little too much of the same. A bit like chewing too long on the same gum. The same level of excellence of Miller's Crossing it reaches not.

True. But I say that a not bad Coen Brothers film is still a very good time at the cinemas.

Saw The Bone Collector. An okay thriller, that keeps you entertained for two hours, which is just about all a film like this needs to do, IMO.

One odd thing, though: if the killer followed all the murders in the book in chronological order, why did they need the clues at the last crime scene to figure out where the next murder was going to take place. Couldn't they have checked the book?

I hated the movie. Kept you reasonably interested for a couple of hours, and than pull the murderer out of left field, someone who barely had any part in the film until now. It's like, the movie was so concentrated on you not guessing who done it, that it forgot to connect the guy to the story "Jeff did it! you wouldn't have guessed that, right? oh, who is Jeff? he's the guy who our hero annoyed before this story. Yup. We're pretty clever for pulling that one on you. Never suspected a thing, and it was Jeff all along."

I saw RoTK. I'd say that compared to what it could and should have been, this film has one of the all time worst endings ever.

Still, the film is excellent overall. ***1/2 out of ****.

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Equilibrium

pretty much a visual gun orgy, I fount it hard to get past some of the plot holes but it was a nice popcorn flick.

It felt quite like a B-movie to me.

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Lord of War

Loved the script, another bearable Cage performance (this and Matchstick Men) and I love Niccol's directing and visual style. Score was good too.

One of my favorites from last year.

Definately one of mine now, just ordered the score too.

It felt quite like a B-movie to me.

I can see that

Watched Dark City. Weird. There's a lot more substance in here than in I, Robot, but for all the great noir aspects and subtext in it, there were parts that for me diminished the film a little bit (The final battle was one for me, just seemed weird). Loved Sutherland in it as well as Connelly, Hurt and whoever the guy was that played the main character.

Edit: Also the constant hammering of that theme whenever some event happens started to get old pretty fast

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I must see it again. As I've made known 'round these parts, the first two viewing left me very, very impressed indeed.

I saw City of God for the second time. I saw it when it came out in the theaters, and was dumbfounded by the experience. The kind of film that made me just sit down and intake once it was over. And seeing it again, it was the same thing all over again. I just found myself sitting there saying "wow" to myself. Without a doubt, one of the greatest motion pictures ever. For the two in the back who haven't seen it yet, drop all else and go see it. Now.

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I must see it again. As I've made known 'round these parts, the first two viewing left me very, very impressed indeed.

Yeah I was impressed with it. Just to clarify my statements above, I thought it was very powerful and I just felt the need to nitpick.

Max-who hasn't seen City of God yet

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My movie watching is getting interupted by 40-50 episodes of Star Trek and Star Trek Voyager which just came in from the library.

Justin - Who has about a week to watch them all. :mrgreen:

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I saw City of God for the second time..

Fantastic film, great movie-going experience. I caught this at an art house theatre during it's release, and bought it immediately upon its distribution on DVD. I have since watched it several times. I expect more terrific things from this director, and The Constant Gardener is another prime example that we have one of the modern greats on our hands.

Tim

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I just watched Junebug. The tone takes a few scenes to adjust to because the characters, especially the ones played by Amy Adams and Benjamin McKenzie, are so eccentric and odd, that they seem out of place. But the more you watch the film the more you come to realize the reasons they came to be that way. All of the characters seem ultra-real and everything they do is serviced by their personalities, nothing seems forced.

Great film, and now I really hope Adams wins for Best Supporting Actress. She deserves it, her performace is amazing.

Tim

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Mulholland Drive. With the exception of Blue Velvet my favorite David Lynch film. Had to see it twice to make sense of it though. There is so much detail in the film. Stunning.

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Saw Zathura recently - surpassed my expectations. Possible DVD candidate here 8O

Saw it too yesterday. Eh, my kid liked it.

Hey... the kid within me liked it.

Plus it had the great Tim Robbins and uhum...Kristen Stewart....

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It's THE artistic movie for the blue collar man. I don't think much of it.

It is even more disastrous when you realize that 12 Monkeys comes from La jetée.

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Saw Capote. Very interesting, but.....I felt that I had already seen the movie just by reading a summary. It unfolds nicely, looks good, and is very well-acted, but the basic dramatic stuff didn't carry as much of a punch, because I already heard and imagined what it might be.

Still, a very interesting film about art and artists. Hoffman was fantastic, as was to be expected. I'm thrilled that he pulled it off, I doubted I'd be able to stand two hours of an actor immitating Capote. Catherine Keener was okay, but not in the least bit remarkable. The guy playing Perry was good, as were Bob Balaban and Chris Cooper. I was dissapointed that Bruce Greenwood wasn't given more to do.

It's not a ***1/2 movie, but I dont' think *** does it justice. I'll wait to see it again, and maybe form a more concrete opinion.

Crash is still my clear favorite in this oscar race (Still haven't seen Goodnight and Good Luck, though, and that looks like it could be great).

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Crash is still my clear favorite in this oscar race

Couldn't agree with you more (lock? ho hum).

Still haven't seen Goodnight and Good Luck, though, and that looks like it could be great.

It's a great film, it goes by very quickly, gets the message across very clearly, and I'm glad it got recognized, but it's not quite in the same league as Crash.

Tim

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Saw Capote. Very interesting, but.....I felt that I had already seen the movie just by reading a summary. It unfolds nicely, looks good, and is very well-acted, but the basic dramatic stuff didn't carry as much of a punch, because I already heard and imagined what it might be.

 Still, a very interesting film about art and artists. Hoffman was fantastic, as was to be expected. I'm thrilled that he pulled it off, I doubted I'd be able to stand two hours of an actor immitating Capote. Catherine Keener was okay, but not in the least bit remarkable. The guy playing Perry was good, as were Bob Balaban and Chris Cooper. I was dissapointed that Bruce Greenwood wasn't given more to do.

 It's not a ***1/2 movie, but I dont' think *** does it justice. I'll wait to see it again, and maybe form a more concrete opinion.

I agree. I just finished watching it, and even though it was the 98-minute cut of the film, it felt terribly slow. Not mind-numbingly slow, just... slow, for the little ammount of events taking place in the overall plot. Philip Seymour-Hoffman pulls a great performance but it's a little grading watching him in every scene of the movie. He doesn't do much to make the Capote character "likeable", as he's too focused on "memorable".

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The Weather Man

Solid effort by Verbinski, a really unlikely film to be put out by Paramount. Great work from Caine and Cage (mostly the same performance he does in most flicks but whatever). Zimmer's score sounded began sounding like Matchstick Men but it grew on me, I'm really liking his smaller stuff as opposed to his bigger orchestral crap.

edit: Anybody know if a soundtrack has been released for it?

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I've been on Pink Panther kick since the DVDs were released individually at $9.99 from last years boxed set and Universal reissued Return Of The Pink Panther in anamorphic widescreen.

So this past week I've watched:

The Pink Panther

A Shot In The Dark

Return Of The Pink Panther

The Pink Panther Strikes Again

Revenge Of The Pink Panther

It's a shame Peter Sellers passed away in his 50's because the man was a brilliant comedian although I think Revenge Of The Pink Panther should have been the last because you can feel the formula starting to wear thin in that film. I laughed just as hard as I did when i first saw these films back in the 70's.

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Saw Paradise Now. Good film, certainly thought provoking. While I don't feel it offers any earth shattering views, it does do a great job of showing the circumstances that would make two people decide to become suicide bombers. The film feels very real. As is sometimes the case, I think Roger Ebert gave a very good review of it (albight from a different perspective). One think I think he was particularly right about, is the question of motivation....if you are interested, go to his review, and read the first and last paragraphs in particular. He makes a good point, I think.

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Just finishing off Voyager season 3. Can't wait for the Borg to show their ugly faces!

Anyway, to get me back into watching movies I'll be going on a demonic journey featuring The Exorcist and The Omen Trilogy.

Justin - Mainly viewing the later for the scores.

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Saw Paradise Now. Good film, certainly thought provoking. While I don't feel it offers any earth shattering views, it does do a great job of showing the circumstances that would make two people decide to become suicide bombers.

Did you ever see The Terrorist?

Tim

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No, but I heard about it, and wanted to check it out. Thanks for reminding me about it, it just went on my to buy list on Amazon.

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Capote.

Very well acted, a bit slow at times, but always engrossing. Wonderful cinematography and camera work, but this one more film that doesn't hand you the purpose of the story in a platter. I love it when the two hours you spend watching a movie are not more fascinating that the next few days you spend thinking about it. Some movies just stick and linger in your mind. That was the case with Munich, and, in a lesses scale, with Capote.

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It's a shame Peter Sellers passed away in his 50's because the man was a brilliant comedian although I think Revenge Of The Pink Panther should have been the last because you can feel the formula starting to wear thin in that film.

Amen... specifically about him passing way too soon.

I find the first film to be incredibly tedious, except for the parts with Sellers.

Double amen to that. You have to blame Edwards for that mess.

I recently watched The Life and Death of Peter Sellers and it felt to me as if the film made a mockery of him. Indeed he was eccentric, but it was quite unflattering at times.

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The local TV channels have been showing all kinds of oscar movies recently, and I caught a couple, two supposed classcis that I hadn't seen before.

First one was Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. This was totally different than what I expected. A film about race in the 60's......I thought it might be a bit tame, but I never expected it to be this light. It's a piece of fluff. Nothing really serious is dealt with, it has all the staples of a 60's comedy- the main titles with the chorus singing a flulfy song about love, the loud, often intrusive, overly comical music- it even has the dumbest of all things, two pointless characters breaking into some terrible 60's dancing for no reason what so ever.

The only wholly believable characters in the film are the actors portraying Poitier's parents. Katherine Houghton is utterly unbelievable, and does not strike me as a very good actress. Poitier himself is far too perfect for most of the film.....until that one scene with his father, where he says terrible and stupid things that are radically out of character.

Hepburn is good, even though she doesn't have that much to do here, she's solid, she's Katherine Hepburn. I guess that used to be enough to give someone an oscar.

But, of course, the real star of this film is Tracy. One of my two all time favorite actors, he is just wonderful here, as always. I think it's fitting that in his last film, Spencer Tracy plays, well, Spencer Tracy! When he talks about his love for Hepburn at the end, it really is very emotional. A fantastic way to end a career.

In the end, a nominal *** out of ****, with a post script, saying that I do not see myself ever seeing this film again, which is a feeling I hate after seeing a film. It is so often true, but when I specificaly feel that....it bums be out.

On to the second film. From Here To Eternity. What a stupid film. I thought it was some serious love story.....it's just a trashy melodrama, that is utterly unconvincing at every single turn. Can someone please tell me why on earth there was a war in this film?

I'd rather watch Pearl Harbor again. At least that has good effects. The only thing I liked about it was Donna Reed. She's one of my favorite Golden Age actresses. And her character was just as dumb as the rest of the film (and what the hell was that closing scene about?). Fred Zinneman has dissapointed me before, but even then- High Noon is still a good film (overrated though it is). This one's for the garbage disposal.

Aside from that, I saw two comedies that I enjoyed:

The first one was Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle. I saw it once, found it utterly hillarious while inebriated, but never saw myself seeing it again. Well, a friend hadn't seen it, so I saw it again, this time sober. It is still a pretty funny film.

And, last, but certainly not least (the polar opposite, in fact), I saw what is in my opinion the very best comedy in the history of film- Some like it hot. I've loved this film for a long time. Saw it with a very jaded friend who'd neve seen it before (we were looking for a film, and I offered a bunch of Billy Wilder films he said 'but those are all old movies.....'. To his credit, he chose to see Titus out of the newer films I offered, but I felt it was my duty to make sure he saw some Wilder films). We both loved it, both agreed it was as good as any comedy in existance. I love seeing a favorite comedy with new people.

What a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful film. My favorite by Wilder. So hillarious in so many different ways....the biggest part of my holy triumtive of favorite comedies (the other two being This is Spinal Tap! and The Producers).

Morlock- who decided in this viewing that Jack Lemmon is one of favorite actors

Morlock 2- who will be humming Adalph Deutch's beautiful theme for days

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Starsky & Hutch

The 2004 remake starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.

Pretty funny, Stiller and wilson work well together in their 25th film.

A few funny scenes, like the one were Stiller shoots the pony, but it could have used a few more big laughs.

The original Starsky & Hutch show up for a nice cameo near the end.

Vaugh is OK as the villian, though a bit underused.

What the hell was Juliette Lewis doing in this film?

Overall a nice way to spend 101 minutes, nothing more, nothing less.

The DVD has a nice featurette that is a parody of the usual collective asskissing that happens in these Making Off docu's

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I revisited the House Of Flying Daggers. It's still a nice film, but I somehow feel that they should've left the love story, with its intrigues, a little more simple. This was a perfect opportunity to tell a simple tale about love, honest and without too many surprise angles. As it is now, the angles get the upperhand and that's a pity. The result? The first hour is stronger than the second one.

----------------

Alex Cremers

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Saw Goodnight and Good Luck. Excellent at what it does. A really fine motion picture. However, one thing that I would have liked more of, is more personal stuff. There are two 'human intereest' subplots in the film. The first, of Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarckson is amiable enough, but is very much detached from the rest of the story (though it is resolved nicely). The second, Ray Wise's, seems too forced. I didn't care enough about Hollenback.

That said, the filmis not an exsamination of the personal lives of these people, so it is not crucial to the success of the film. And the film does succeed. It is a sparse film, nothing too showy in it. It goes for a semi-docudrama feel.

The actors are all superb, Strathairn being an inspired choice for Murrow. I've seen some criticism of the choice to not have an actor portray McArthy, but have him speak for himself, but I found no fault with it. It was expertly and convincingly done.

Overall, one of the finest films of 2005. Straight, to the point, and unambiguous.***1/2 out of ****.

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Much better than the previous ones, that's for sure. But makeup still looks terrible, particularly the two blue characters. Action stuff seems to look a bit banal. But I can't wait for Magneto's return. McKellen was such a wonderful presence in X2, I can't wait for him here.

Morlock- who doesn't really like any of the X-Men, save the Professor

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Hostel, very bad movie. not good, not scary, not gross, not engaging, not a value for your money.

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