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


Mr. Breathmask

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Doctor Sleep

 

Obi Wan Kenobi and a young Jedi girl go on a mission to defeat a Sith cult that is torturing and murdering young padawan.

 

Seriously, though, this movie is very underwhelming.

 

(slight spoilers to follow)

 

Which is too bad, because I'm a fan of director Mike Flanagan, who released the wonderful Netflix minisseries The Haunting on Hill House. And I'm a fan of the book The Shining as well. When I read, knowing about how Stephen King's life was by that point, I realized it was a deeply personal story for him. He saw himself on Jack Torrance: dealing with financial problems and alcoholism, while trying to maintain a house and a young son. So that book was a way for him to deal with his personal demons, and his fear of failing and maybe even hurting his family. So I understood why he got so upset when Kubrick took his personal story and turned into his own arthouse movie - though it can be argued that the success of the movie The Shining brought new fans and readers for King's books.

 

But on Doctor Sleep, written decades later, now that King is a rich and iconic writer, he expands the lore on The Shining on a lot of boring, convoluted ways. Now there's this group of incompetent, moronic hippies killing shining children, but when they meet one more powerful, they are taken down with laughable ease.

 

For the most part, the movie follows three groups of characters, Ewan McGregor's Danny Torrance, now a drunk man just like his father, powerful "shiner" Abra and cult leader Rose with her group of idiots. And amazingly all three of these storylines are mind numbingly boring. 

 

The movie only gets slightly interesting after over an hour, when McGregor and the girl team up to face the cultists, though the incompetence of the villains robs the movie of much of its tension.

 

Anyway, it's well directed by Flanagan. McGregor is pretty good and there's some great scenes (the best one with Danny on the Overlook Hotel bar). But this is still a very dull movie, and overlong as well, they could seriously have cut lots of screentime devoted to boring stuff. It 2 was very long as well, but at least it was fun on it's own daft way.

 

3/5

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4 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Which is too bad, because I'm a fan of director Mike Flanagan, who released the wonderful Netflix minisseries The Haunting on Hill House.

Everything he has done before seems to be very solid horror.

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Finding dory.

 

Pretty good and sometimes amusing and moving, if a little derivative. Everything is great, except Alebrt Brooks, Dory’s dad and Hank’s final twist. Oh my God, I just realised they made this sequel 13 years after the original!

 

I needed a few seconds to get into Thomas Newman’s score for some reason, but it was obviously great most of the time, although I wished he would have done a little more during the really emotional moments.

 

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The Handmaiden

 

This is my first film of Park Chan-wook of Oldboy fame. I was surprised by how elegantly restrained the first act was. It felt like I was watching an Ivory-Merchant film set in Korea. Then it broke into its more subversive erotic thriller tropes, with twists and turns reminiscent of Parasite Bong Joon-ho's brand of narrative storytelling. By the third act, the film gets a little outlandishly indulgent, but it holds the ship together. It is remarkably sensual and not in an exploitive way, thanks in large part to the lead playing Lady Hideko, who oozes repressed longing in every glance. And for all its perversions, the whole thing is surprisingly sweet. With everything from framing, sets and score so earnestly realized, it's hard not to be swayed by this one.

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Variation on the vampire movie. It could have been a 6/10 (even though some of it was iffy, often due to McGregor's limited range) but the ending, which reprises or recreates all the iconic elements of The Shining, was a mistake. Where The Shining is still something of a mystery, Doctor Sleep chooses to be straightforward and blunt. 5/10

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Catch Me If You Can

A very fun movie, yet with a lot of depth.  Spielberg directs with a sure touch, keeping a delicate balance between the sheer entertainment of Frank's exploits and their darker origins and consequences.  DiCaprio does a remarkable job of making him really come across as just a kid.  And the script ties all themes together very well, and subtly, like having Frank "deliver the mail" in prison, referencing his dad's last job. 

It just works. 

Kaminski's cinematography gets a little too Kaminski sometimes, however.

 

4/4 

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3 minutes ago, SteveMc said:

It's the best paced movie he has done in the last 20 years.

 

1 minute ago, Koray Savas said:

I wouldn’t say that, as it’s about 20 minutes too long, but it is very good. I enjoy rewatching it much more than Spielberg’s other 00s flicks. 

 

I knew a bloke years ago who insisted it wasn't long enough and lamented that it didn't feature all the trial stuff that was prominent in the book. I told him he was mad and the film was about the chase and would've got boring with all that irrelevant courtroom crap.

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11 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

I wouldn’t say that, as it’s about 20 minutes too long

Really doesn't have any superfluous scenes, so not sure how Spielberg could have cut things down.

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2 hours ago, Koray Savas said:

I wouldn’t say that, as it’s about 20 minutes too long, but it is very good. I enjoy rewatching it much more than Spielberg’s other 00s flicks. 

 

That part.

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Tintin is a little frantic for my taste.

Lincoln, well, I felt it kind of dragged along.  Probably did not help that I watched it late one evening after a long day.  I'll have to revisit it someday.

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Even if you're not one for the period political drama genre, the pacing, or Day Lewis' titanic method performance, Kushner's screenplay and Williams' score alone are worthy of much glorification! I assure you that Lincoln is one of those movies that improves with each viewing. I very often find myself rewatching the House of Representatives scenes just for sheer fun. 

 

Tintin tends to feel like Raiders-lite, and it's probably too light on its feet for its own good most of the time. Still frolicking fun I suppose, but hardly a match for Spielberg's best in my book. 

 

As for Catch Me If You Can, it really is a great movie and certainly makes my top 10 Spielrberg list. 

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4 hours ago, Romão said:

I did enjoy Lincoln the first time around ...

 

I stopped watching because it's too focused on politics and it bored the hell out of me. 

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1 hour ago, publicist said:

... just waiting for DiscoStu's extolment of its moth-eaten ministrational folksy wisdom.

 

Disco loves American history lessons.

 

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1 hour ago, Quintus said:

Then something about Empire of the Sun being Spielberg's best. And then perhaps a little something on Blade Runner.

EMPIRE OF THE SUN, is, without a single hint of a shadow of a doubt, among his very greatest, and finest, triumphs. For me, it's right up there, with RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, JAWS, E.T., and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND.

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8 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Fuck art, let's dance.

 

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.

 

9 minutes ago, Holko said:

What is art?

 

When something is signed by a famous artist. 

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2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Are videogames art? And what about comic books, are they?

 

Not according to Oscar Wilde who claimed that "All art is quite useless". 

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