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


Mr. Breathmask

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Alexander (Oliver Stone, 2004)

 

The Suicide Squad of 2000s historical epics. You can just feel Oliver Stone behind the camera, choking at the sheer scale of the thing. The Battle of Gaugamela, brought to us after a belaboured and unnecessary framing device, features a couple of nice shots and satisfying battlefield violence. Sadly, the pre-battle speech and Colin Farrel's delivery of it are a pale imitation of Braveheart and The Return of the King. Worse still, in spite of cue-cards helping us, the course of the battle and the strategies used by the warring sides are rendered utterly incomprehensible. The only battle that works is the tail-end of the battle Hydaspes, seen through the dazed eyes of a beaten Alexander.

 

Sadly, this is a paradigm for the entire film. Has a nice cameo from Christopher Plummer as Aristotle and a beautiful on-screen realization of ancient Babylon, but that's basically it. ** out of *****

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36 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

Here's the Origins of the Nick Young Confused Face Meme | Confused face,  Reactions meme, What meme

Yeah, I listened to it yesterday. Has some great great bits but IMO lots of unengaging filler and weird noises, not well flowing short tracks stopping and starting without getting anywhere, no proper ending etc. I did make myself a 58 minute edit.

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Saving Private Ryan

 

SavingRyanAmblinEnt.jpg

 

 I think the cast was older than me when I first saw the movie but now they are all so young. 

 

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Both Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan end with the same message. Saving lives results into even more life (the descendants in the background).

 

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The first time the main theme is played is absolutely heartbreaking, but then when John repeats the theme, while making it it bigger and louder, that's when it becomes less effective for me. Especially the climactic high note of the choir feels too much. YMMV.

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The howling wolves at the end really do threaten to ruin the cue (Hymn to the Fallen). It's a shame because the melody itself is so intricate and lovely. I was never too keen on the mournful brass intro either though. 

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8 hours ago, AC1 said:

Saving lives results into even more life (the descendants in the background).

Wait what?

8 hours ago, AC1 said:

The first time the main theme is played is absolutely heartbreaking, but then when John repeats the theme, while making it it bigger and louder, that's when it becomes less effective for me. Especially the climactic high note of the choir feels too much.

I agree.

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45 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

Wait what?

 

Both movies end with life, life that resulted because of the actions took by Oskar Schindler and John H. Miller (Tom Hanks), life that's paying tribute to the grave of the one that saved them. Granted, you only see the survivors at the end of Schindler's List (and not the descendants of the survivors) but we know they are more than 8500 of them across the US. 

 

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The remaining survivors at the end of Schindler's List.

 

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The survivor of Saving Private Ryan (and his descendants) pays tribute at the grave of Tom H. Miller.

 

 

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Survivors in Schindler's List placing a stone on Schindler's grave.

 

 

And thus both movies have the same message in the end: You did not kill us, you did not win.

 

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Tombstone - pacy and action-packed telling of the Gunfight At The OK Corral/Wyatt Earp saga. Amongst a pretty 'heavyweight' cast (Kurt Russell, Bill Paxton, Sam Elliott, Michael Biehn, Billy Zane, a cameo by Charlton Heston and narration by Robert Mitchum), Val Kilmer is particularly good as a tuberculosis-stricken but dryly funny Doc Holliday.

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The game.

 

This was a movie I’d wanted to watch for a long time. At first I felt exhilarated and was preparing to love it. I don’t know what made me change my mind in the end, the clown or Deborah Kara Unger. Maybe both. Or maybe something else. Who cares? Michael Douglas is absolutely fantastic and I also really liked Peter Donat. Armin Mueller-Stahl was a really nice surprise too. My God, is that guy still alive? He sounds ancient in everything I see him in. As the second half started, it really went downhill. Highlight was the brothers fighting. My goodness, I thought IMDB’s ratings were more reliable than Rotten Tomatoes… turned it off when I had to choose between this crap and replying to my mother’s e-mail.

I still find it weird to hear Howard Shore music that isn’t connected to Middle Earth. This score was as effective as Silence of the Lambs, but I also suddenly found it ridiculously creepy and serious, thought that only happened after I stopped caring about the movie. Ping, ping, ping, ping!

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On 10/17/2020 at 6:21 AM, PuhgreÞiviÞm said:

He hates the transience of the piano strikes and the dynamics of the recording.

 

Thank you for knowing what a transient is, it doesn't get much reaction with a lot of musician colleagues of mine, strangely.

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Movie wise they were pretty poorly directed but I think Daniel Radcliffe in Imperium could be a good actor if he had a good director. What I mean is he deserves something better. He is really short though ...

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3 minutes ago, PuhgreÞiviÞm said:

These are progressive times where it's acceptable for a woman to be taller than a man. 

 

Or he can borrow Tom Cruise's platform shoes!

 

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On 10/10/2020 at 5:09 PM, bruce marshall said:

Slasher is NOT horror!

 

Exactly.

 

I just saw the 1931 Dracula on tv.... and I though this John Harker look so handsome and he looks so... gay (gaydar activated!)...

 

So I spend the whole movie scotched on wikipedia's, discovering that the whole "monsters" industry at Hollywood in the 30s was handled by gays...

 

Boris Karloff too? Dear....

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5 hours ago, Bespin said:

So I spend the whole movie scotched on wikipedia's, discovering that the whole "monsters" industry at Hollywood in the 30s was handled by gays...

 

Boris Karloff too? Dear....

I've never read any literature to suggest that William Henry Pratt was gay. James Whale, on the other hand...

Bes, have you seen GODS AND MONSTERS?

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In The Loop - essentially the big-screen version of the Beeb political-com The Thick Of It, this keeps the laughs coming whilst feeling like focus has been lost slightly when Peter Capaldi's magnificently angry spin doctor Malcolm Tucker with his barrage of creative, sweary threats/insults is off-screen.

Borat - in a way I'm surprised about the just-released Amazon Prime sequel, due to the fact that the titular character is a comedy creation of Sacha Baron Cohen's is now much more widely known therefore making duping people that bit more difficult, and also due to these hyper-offended times we live in.

Ah well ... this first film is for me still one of the funniest films ever made, with Cohen's fearlessness in his devotion to character making for jaw-dropping hilarity throughout.

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13 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

I've never read any literature to suggest that William Henry Pratt was gay. James Whale, on the other hand...

Sorry, I wanted to talk about the John Harker character, played by Charles Manner.

 

Yes, I saw God's and monsters, but didn't make the link that it was inspired by the late years of the true James Whale, the father of Frankenstein.

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@Naïve Old Fart I just rewatched Gods and monsters... Well this time with my old man eyes...  Great movie, truly. And truly pathetic, as Whale ended his life at 67yo, drowning himself in his pool.

 

I read that he always lived an "openly gay" life. Not common for a man who shined in the 20s and 30s.

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boogie-nights.jpg

 

Boogie Nights

 

Popped up on Netflix, so gave it another go. It's a great film that unabashedly celebrates its influences, and has some fantastic energy and set-pieces to boot. But I can't help but feel that it ultimately ranks on the lower end of PTA's films. Which is really a testament to him as a filmmaker. 

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While I loved it, either me or the movie did lose focus at a certain point during the last time I watched it. And if it's not 'focus', then perhaps the film reached a point of saturation? After all, it's quite a long running time. 

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