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

[Elmo Lewis 7]

I watched Duel. I liked it as always - cool concept, superb execution and all that - but I always have the same problem with this movie. I always fail to connect with the protagonist. Matheson always likes to have weak and defenseless regular men facing great opposition, I get that, and that's a breath of fresh air with all the manly and resourceful protagonists out there. Maybe they were trying to differentiate David Mann from that stereotype, but if that's the case, they tried too hard. Mann comes across as a weaker than usual person, his unmanliness is stressed over and over. So when he goes all paranoid and freaks out at the end of the movie, it just feel like that's the character, not the symbol of legions of drivers out there.

Truth be told -- and I know we shouldn't read too much into the film's premise -- it struck me more like Death of a Salesman on wheels than the abstract piece of everyday horror it's supposed to be.

Does anybody else have problems feeling emotionally invested in this?

[A24 5,155]

Good point, Elmo. I think the 'victimized salesman' might be a metaphore for many Jewish victims of the Holocaust or 'victimhood' in general. The truck driver has no face because he's a symbol for the senseless aggressor.

Alex

[Rachael Foley 10,162]

Close Encounters.

[BloodBoal 8,711]

[Brónach 1,330]

The Secret of the Unicorn as well.

[Naïve Old Fart 13,020]

The Expendables

Its just a fun old fashion action film with an all-star cast. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

I bet the dead stuntman isn't.

[Datameister 2,586]

Despite myself, I watched a bit of Twilight on TV last night.

Never has teen romance seemed so utterly devoid of joy or excitement.

[Jilal 681]

Real Steel

The Adventures Of Tintin - The Secret Of The Unicorn

... (Review coming soon. Be prepared. This is going to be some serious shit).

You aren't going to disintegrate Snowy are you?

[Incanus 5,890]

Real Steel

The Adventures Of Tintin - The Secret Of The Unicorn

... (Review coming soon. Be prepared. This is going to be some serious shit).

You aren't going to disintegrate Snowy are you?

He is going to obliterate the whole film!

[Jay 46,241]

Sounds like he wishes he could obliviate his memories of it

[Incanus 5,890]

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have a lot to answer for! To BloodBoal that is. I am sure the infamous motorbike handles sliding down a cable will get a mention as sacrilege to the whole Tintin character.

[Brónach 1,330]

The people at my theater went audibly excited when that happened. That scene is like, cinema in your face!, including the music that goes with it.

[A24 5,155]

Thor: Not as bad as I expected. Yes, it's an average Marvel movie but I actually liked the moments that involved Anthony Hopkins (then again, he's probably my favorite actor). The film's biggest problem is that the story somehow feels rushed (the film would benifit from a longer cut) and the amazingly crappy soundtrack. Natalie Portman feels out of place. I didn't buy her slavish character for one second. It seems a little beneath her. Watch it for the kitschy golden sets on Asgart and Hopkins. **/****

[Quintus 6,494]

I enjoyed it much more than I expected to and vastly more relative to 90% of the latest spat of B-superhero flicks. And at least it didn't say here's nearly three hours of fighting robots or here's nearly three hours of incomprehensible pirate shenanigans. Now piss off. Yeah, me and my girl had a lot of harmless fun with Thor and our backsides weren't numb when we exited the theatre, which always adds an extra star from me.

Real Steel

The Adventures Of Tintin - The Secret Of The Unicorn

... (Review coming soon. Be prepared. This is going to be some serious shit).

You aren't going to disintegrate Snowy are you?

He is going to obliterate the whole film!

From what I can gather BloodBath's got shit taste anyway.

[BloodBoal 8,711]

[Quintus 6,494]

[Koray Savas 2,260]

Blood Simple

This is the first time I've seen the film, and it's pretty damn good. It's amazing how so much from later Coen films is derived from this one. It has bits of Fargo, No Country For Old Men, and The Big Lebowski.

What I wasn't expecting from this is how visual it is. There's very little dialogue overall, particularly in the last half of the film. The final scene is breathtaking filmmaking, and the final moment classic Coen brothers. The structure feels very much like No Country.

The transfer ranges from poor to very good. The opening shots looked terrible, while other shots had perfect black levels and grain. The film probably wasn't kept in good condition. There was a short introduction to the film that confused me. A man sitting reading a book and smoking a pipe telling us how important the film was in regards to independent filmmaking and how the boring parts have been cut out and how it's been restored. Not sure if this was supposed to be humorous fluff or not, but there's a commentary with the same dude.

[nightscape94 968]

It was also very low budget so I'm not sure how much better it's going to look, but it's an absolutely fantastic movie, and one of the Coen's very best movies.

[Koray Savas 2,260]

I agree, I wasn't expecting to love it so much.

[Marian Schedenig 11,694]

Tintin.

After this, I can only say: If Spielberg can make another Indy movie, without involving Lucas in the script - bring it on!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 12,383]

That will never happen. George Lucas is actually the driving force behind getting them made. Spielberg can take them or leave them.

[Marian Schedenig 11,694]

I still can wish, can't I? Tintin genuinely felt nearly like a sequel to Last Crusade.

[Brónach 1,330]

Tintin has a lot of stuff you can't make in a Indy film.

It didn't feel to me nearly as Jones as people make it seem,

[Marian Schedenig 11,694]

It did to me. Much more so than I'd expected.

[nightscape94 968]

War Horse

[A24 5,155]

Tintin has a lot of stuff you can't make in a Indy film.

Like what? And what about all "the stuff" that you can do in an Indiana Jones film? Or is that not important? Please, make you posts informative, Chaac!

Be creative! This is NOT Facebook!

Alex - be warned, the above slogan is patented!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 12,383]

Alex, are you going to see Kuifje?

[Brónach 1,330]

Tintin has a lot of stuff you can't make in a Indy film.

Like what? And what about all "the stuff" that you can do in an Indiana Jones film? Or is that not important? Please, make you posts informative, Chaac!

Be creative! This is NOT Facebook!

I'd happily extend myself now, it was just late then.

My idea is this. There's indeed Indy material in this film. However it manages to use its own medium and characteristics of the source material to create an identity for itself.

Let's look at the Indyesque stuff. It's all very superficial. There's a search for a something, and bad guys who want it. The main character finds other characters that are interwined in the mystery and help him go through it. It isn't scared to use any kind of comedy in an action sequence. The main character has a characteristic look.

However if you look at how the film is stylized and thought out, it's actually different from a Indiana Jones film. I think this happens for two reasons: 1) Tintin happens in an animated, stylized world, and it's the first animated film by its director. 2) Steven Spielberg's hability to process films has evolved through time and it's different now that it was in the 80's. He's been finding "new tools" and adding them to the bag. Also it seems to me that he's become more and more interested in trying to make stuff interesting throgh the way he plans even the simplest scene, either for finding meanings and metaphors (A.I.) or recreating huge situations of distress, or confusion (War of the Worlds comes to mind here).

In fact I wouldn't be suprised if he had done here in Tintin what he couldn't do physically in many other films. All Spielberg's traits are present, but exaggerated.

Now lets see. The film differenciates right from the start from Indiana Jones when it uses a funny animated opening without any dialogue to explain the main character, just visually, and using cool weird jazz music. If we remember the Indy films they present their characters in a prologue in a James Bond way. The other purpose I find on this opening is that is directed to the fans as if "See, we get it!".

Now there are many things that are different from Indy in a writing point of view but I'm going here with something different to that which was what I liked the most about the film, which is the visuals and the editing.

Several scenes present a dark athmospheric ambiance, like that of a XXth city that's just spot on to get lost into and find something weird! The digital lighting is just fantastic, and the use of fog as something just natural of the place.

The editing is insanely fast, it completely breaks the "slow" (very relatively speaking) pace and typical buildup and structure of an Indiana Jones film. The main character finds something that seems completely normal right at the start of the film, and then the film becomes a sucession of short scenes each one adding more trouble than the one before, going fast, faster, faster!! In a way its rythm is actually similar for the first half an hour to that of a Tintin book. Spielberg skips the introduction of two characters and introduces them quickly in a single shot in the opening scene so we don't inmediately know what they're doing, and the the pickpocket subplot is also introduced visually right at the start without a word.

The film elaborates constantly in transitions between scenes and shots that would be totally out of place in an Indiana Jones film. And, well, in an Indiana Jones film they don't put a 360º shot going over cars and under cars.

Another thing that's just not present in the Indy films are flashbacks or onirical sequences. Spielberg uses both the freedom of this animated world and evocations of the story to classic adventure tales to create very powerful imagery, mixing up the past and the future, inserting hallucinations with fantasy or humor on them, or reveal plot points!

Another thing the film does is taking Spielberg's fondness for long takes to its logical extreme in one of the climatic moments of the film whee it accentuates its own insanity instead of hiding it. In fact the whole film tries to make fun out of its own ways to add tension, which is done many times just visually.

Stuff like this. basically. Hell, there's slow-motion. When have you seen slow-motion in a Indiana Jones film?

And there's probably more, I think I'm stuck in the surface.

[Marian Schedenig 11,694]

In fact I wouldn't be suprised if he had done here in Tintin what he couldn't do physically in many other films.

You wouldn't be surprised? The falcon escape sequence is a perfect Indy set piece, only too over the top even for Indy, and pretty much impossible to do with live action. Were there actually any cuts in the whole sequence?

One of the most impressive things about the film is that it very much shows what a first rate live action director can do with 3D animation when keeping it relatively "un-cartoony".

[Quintus 6,494]

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

The best Spielberg family movie since Jurassic Park. Absolutely loved it and I plan on going a second time with my bro. As of now it's a 4/5 movie, but that might rise. Parts of it are magnificent, the thing really took me by surprise: I was not expecting a Spielberg of this calibre.

Speak more about it when our internet is hopefully reconnected soon.

[crocodile 9,724]

Glad you enjoyed it.

Karol

[Quintus 6,494]

Joey will love it, in spite of himself

Makes Indy IV look like a Uwe Boll movie.

[crocodile 9,724]

The thing I liked the most is that is it so unpretentious in its simplicity. It's not the kind of Spielberg with "they laugh at me because I'm not making serious films" complex. A really genuine effort from him, for a change.

Karol

[Quintus 6,494]

Absolutely. It feels like Spielberg with a vision, Spielberg attempting to impress. It feels like Spielberg without baggage. It was just so thrilling and funny - I'd forgotton how pitch-perfect his comedy head can be - in the adventure genre.

[crocodile 9,724]

My main concern was that the motion capture animation would add to the "deadness" of this project. But the irony is that this film feels more alive than most of his blockbuster work from the past decade. The new technology must have reinvigorated old man. He clearly had fun with the freedom of designing shots and transitions.

Karol

[Quintus 6,494]

Well, I thought the look of the thing in general was simply astonishing. The characters, the world, the incidental details in the background (and foreground). It was indeed a "living world"; not in the way often used to describe Avatar, but rather the believability of this heavily stylised 'universe' feeling cannily real. Unlike the colour-splash of Cameron's alien world, Tintin's aesthetic is altogether much more down-to-earth and human. That the considerable contrast of these fascinating, 'alive' visuals vs. the cartoony, unbelievable events and set-pieces on-screen doesn't completely unravel the movie is a real achievement. Far-fetched and often ridiculous, yes, but not once was I unconvinced by any of it. The execution was outstanding.

No, my only misgiving is in the pacing of the climax, or rather it's hasty, breathless insertion into the film. A breather was definitely needed between

the falcon chase and the crane battle finale.

I found the lack of a little downtime between the two scenes pretty damaging to the climax on the whole, which is a shame.

A mighty shame actually, when one considers the truly phenomenal editing job by Michael Kahn before that point. He was on fire with this, and perhaps in this instance is even more deserving of contribution kudos than John Williams himself - who's score was wonderful in the film, incidentally. Sticking with Kahn though, I was seriously blown away by the pace and structure of the images and storytelling - it was a Tintin comic brought to life - Kahn (and Spielberg) effectively creating an experience akin to the brisk turning of the large pages of a Tintin adventure, the transitions between those pages taking the form of brilliantly imaginative cinematic segues and expositional sleights of hand. Amazing. The pirate battle flashback especially was Spielberg showboating - a thing he's not managed for a while.

As an old Tintin reader and just a fan of these sorts of yarns, I couldn't have really asked for a better movie than this.

[Brónach 1,330]

I saw Jaws for the first time in years.

The film feels different to the way I remembered it.

I was enjoying it so much that I felt the climax came too soon. I was like "what, already???".

[Wojo 2,458]

That's what she said.

[Brónach 1,330]

Hmmm.

[Wojo 2,458]

Sorry. Cheap juvenile American humor.

[Trent B 354]

Green Latern

Okay I know there was a lot of heavy use of CG in this film, but it was warranted since a lot of the stuff they couldn't pull off in real life. However, as a film over all I actually enjoyed it. I can see why though some people were turned off by the film.

[Wojo 2,458]

I just watched Conan the Barbarian. The original. I had never seen it before. It functions best as a vehicle for the stupendous score.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 12,383]

It's a wonderfull semi-classic.

[Quintus 6,494]

Like Highlander, its appeal lies in its camp awfulness.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 12,383]

No, Conan is not camp. Stone and Milius treat Conan and his world seriously.

The second one is camp.

[Quintus 6,494]

Its campiness is the direct result of its earnest designs.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 12,383]

I disagree. With camp i think about something like Flash Gordon.

[Quintus 6,494]

Hmm, that's in-your-face camp, though. There's plenty of movies which aren't intended as anything like that, yet they have a camp 'quality' despite their motives. Superman 2 for instance is really quite camp. And Commando, The Running Man, stuff like that. Even parts of Robocop feel camp to me.

[Koray Savas 2,260]

Miller's Crossing

This finishes up all the recent Coen brothers Blu releases. Always a pleasure to watch, but probably one of their more subtle and nuanced films.

The American

Wish I had seen this in theaters, it was fantastic. A self-proclaimed Western homage by the director, it feels like a Leone film and The Third Man combined. Great cinematography and framing. It's a slow burn though, and I love it for that. It's unfortunate the studio marketed it as the latest action flick with explosions and shootouts, hence the 90 second trailers. It's a character study, and a good one at that.

[Xander Harris 9,673]

Hook and The Lost World: JP. Why does everyone hate these movies again? Umm, I love them.

I've officially decided that I prefer Lost World to Jurassic Park.