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

[LSH 968]

9 hours ago, Edmilson said:

JNH's score was pretty good, a mix between his 90s thriller music (like The Fugitive) and Christopher Young-like horror. 

 

Yeah, that's a pretty good description. I've got the CD somewhere collecting dust... I'll have to give it another listen. Thanks for the reminder.

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Zodiac. 

 

I’m not saying it was boring because the second half definitely had my attention, but I still think it was too long and there’s something… off about it that I can’t really define right now. Some characters are rather stupid and I can’t help thinking this case could have been solved if one or two people had done their jobs more thoroughly. John Carroll and Chloë Sevigny were great, but Paul’s storyline is rather disjointed and why did that film canister guy got all creepy if he wasn’t involved? And why did it take me two hours before I realised I had already watched this one in secondary school?

The sound mix is excellent, but most of the music is really weird. What is it with Fincher and strange musical choices?

[bruce marshall 1,315]

On 01/03/2022 at 10:13 AM, Disco Stu said:

Jamie Lee Curtis, one of the few who has been open about her experiences with plastic surgery and has come out against it

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/10/jamie-lee-curtis-plastic-surgery-wiping-out-beauty-social-media-fast-company-interview

The biggest reason I kept my PLAYBOY mags from the 80s and have been binging Italian films from the Seventies.

Beautiful women.

I find modern women to be grotesque , even YOUNG ones!

At least in media.

They ALL look terrible.

And, they have no One to blame but themselves despite their whiney claims of being " forced"  or " pressured" to look young.

Very sad😣😒

[Naïve Old Fart 9,498]

8 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Zodiac.

ZODIAC was my favourite film of 2007.

 

8 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

The sound mix is excellent...

That's Ren Klyce for ya! A fantastic sound designer.

 

9 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

What is it with Fincher and strange musical choices?

I know, right?! Haircut 100 in SE7EN? It shouldn't work, but, somehow, it does.

[bruce marshall 1,315]

The only way to hear the great Morricone score- including the song in ENGLISH.

 

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Click.

I still really like it. There’s some crude jokes in it that I didn’t really care for that much, but what I love is how it turns from comedy to melodrama at the end. It also reminded me of a few things I needed to be reminded of and the final scene with the grandfather still really moves me very deeply. All the actors are great too, but especially Jennifer Coolidge was a really nice surprise. Still not a fan of Julie Kavner, but Sandler never disappoints. The only minor problem is that his kids never really react properly to Michael’s increased absences.

The score is very short, but equally effective, especially the final cues.

[Sweeping Strings 2,344]

The Missionary - Eighties British comedy starring Michael Palin (who also wrote the screenplay) as the Rev Charles Fortescue, who in 1906 returns to England after 10 years of missionary work in Africa to be given a new assignment by the Bishop Of London (Denholm Elliott) - to set up a mission for the 'fallen women' who ply their trade in London's Docklands. It's not long before the Rev Fortescue is finding the pleasures of the flesh difficult to resist ... 

As you'd expect from something written by Palin, reliably chucklesome with a supporting cast full of stalwart British character actors (Maggie Smith, Trevor Howard, Michael Hordern, Graham Crowden, David Suchet).  

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

Looks like a warm up to A Private Function. At least the main cast does.

[filmmusic 1,823]

Air Force One

Good action flick with Harrison Ford and a Jerry Goldsmith score on autopilot, but I thought that the visual effects of

Spoiler

the plane crashing into the sea

was terrible!

[Tom Guernsey 2,280]

1 hour ago, filmmusic said:

Air Force One

Good action flick with Harrison Ford and a Jerry Goldsmith score on autopilot, but I thought that the visual effects of

  Reveal hidden contents

the plane crashing into the sea

was terrible!

Autopilot. Haha. Very good. Although I would submit that, even on on autopilot (not the inflatable Airplane! sort), Jerry's writing was nothing less than impressive... this analysis of The Hijacking is well worth a watch:

 

 

However, I can't deny your comments on the final FX scene - absolutely dreadful. I wonder if they ran out of money!?

[filmmusic 1,823]

1 hour ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Autopilot. Haha. Very good. Although I would submit that, even on on autopilot (not the inflatable Airplane! sort), Jerry's writing was nothing less than impressive

yes, I agree. I didn't say it to downgrade the score. Even on autopilot, it's better than most scores of today's blockbusters.

I characterised it as such comparing to the rest of his output.

[Tom Guernsey 2,280]

12 minutes ago, filmmusic said:

yes, I agree. I didn't say it to downgrade the score. Even on autopilot, it's better than most scores of today's blockbusters.

I characterised it as such comparing to the rest of his output.

Oh for sure, but I know what you mean, it's one of those many action scores he did through his career which are expertly crafted even if they don't stand out in the top tier of his output. I made the mistake of watching that video again after I posted and it reminded me just how impressively crafted that cue actually is. Sure, there are only a handful of elements, but how he passes between those elements - the chaotic gun fight music, the hints of the heroic theme, the quieter sections where he pulls it back for dialogue and the tolling, bell like motif when the terrorists succeed - is impressive, especially with his off kilter time signatures (7/8, the odd 5/8 bar). Easy to forget that JW isn't the only composer who writes/wrote thematic action music as here there are clear motifs and ideas representing the different aspects of the sequence and it's an effective musical tussle between those elements. 

 

Two other things... the directing/editing of this sequence is pretty damn great, which obviously helps with the music, and the FX work is top notch (unless the aforementioned finale shot). I assume there are numerous model effects intercut with live action footage of a real 747 but I'd be hard pressed to pick them out, aside from rationalising which shots would almost certainly be too difficult/dangerous to stage with a real aircraft. However, it also highlights one of the issues of using CGI, you can show anything whereas this at least plausibly looks like it could have been captured by real cameras. I can imagine these days the camera flying all over the place thus immediately indicating that it must be fake. Admittedly that can be great for a specific type of effect (like the escape from the city sequence in Spielberg's War of the Worlds where the camera moves about in and out of the car) but often it just enhances the level of fakery - see the Jurassic World movies versus the original JP movies as an example, but I digress... again!

[filmmusic 1,823]

Another one from the golden 1993 year!

Masterpiece with so much attention to detail in production values, and a magnificent score which I hope gets expanded soon!

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Battle of the sexes.

 

That was unexpectedly pretty good. The second half lost me for a moment, but I’m so glad I kept watching. Never knew about this whole match either. All the actors are great and it was pretty amusing to see Elizabeth Shue in something that wasn’t Back to the Future.

This was also my first Nicholas Britell score. The use of piano and organs (!) in the tense and final cues was outstanding and there’s an electronically arranged Bach piece that serves as source music and which is equally interesting. The romantic cues were all unforgivably bad, however. No idea what happened there, they could have been so much more. The logo music is also in mono, for some reason, but most of the songs are excellent. How did this movie fail at the box office? People have no taste.

[Jay 37,287]

Yea I liked that movie too!

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

Highlander, for the first time.

 

 

This was surely one of the most ridiculous things I've ever watched. The story is paper thin to the point of being a MacGuffin, the plot practically non-existent, the dialogue barely on par with a bad porn film. The casting is ridiculous - Lambert isn't any more believable in the modern day scenes than in old Scotland, although Clancy Brown is at least fun and does what he can in a role that has about as much substance as a 90s video game end boss. The women's only real function is as a vehicle of sexism from everyone, including the hero protagonist. The editing must have been done by a pair of dice, the effects (and makeup!) are mostly laughable. The cinematography mostly didn't seem much better, although there are a handful of stunning shots. Even the iconic Queen songs sometimes feel awkwardly out of place (what's with Princes of the Universe over the top epicness accompanying just a static sequence of main title texts on a black background?). Kamen's score at least has moments where it gives you a glimpse of how good his Robin Hood might have been if he'd had enough time to write it.

 

With plenty of alcohol this might make an adequate double feature with the Holiday Special, but I'm at a total loss as to where the film gets its cult status from.

 

(One reason why I figured I should see it someday is to find out *why* there can be only one. Now I've seen it, and I still don't know).

[A24 4,326]

Time for a reboot? 

 

PS: If you want to know the true meaning of awful, go and watch Highlander II: The Quickening (hehehehe)

 

 

[Glóin the Dark 1,218]

I remember the days when Highlander was an electrifying novelty.

 

I rewatched it around a decade ago and found its brilliance still coming through even though it felt very dated. The next time I watched, perhaps last year, it had gone from being dated to quite stale.

 

I've noticed something similar with several 80s films lately. Even if they're still good or even great, many of them have a general idiom which I now have to accept with a huge dollop of goodwill in order to swallow. I watched Amadeus last week and, by contrast, it's as fresh as ever.

[Sweeping Strings 2,344]

I remember a review of the time saying that Highlander was enjoyable 'if taken with a skipful rather than a pinch of salt', which is a nice way of summing it up. 

II is indeed a steaming pile, seem to remember III was a marginal improvement. Didn't bother with any subsequent movies or the spin-off TV show (a hero who decapitates his enemies appearing on network TV, whose standards of the time didn't allow decapitations to be shown. GENIUS). 

Reboot with Cavill is probably gonna be *dark 'n' gritty*, on a streaming platform I don't want to subscribe to ... or both. Meh.         

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

5 hours ago, AC1 said:

PS: If you want to know the true meaning of awful, go and watch Highlander II: The Quickening (hehehehe)

 

I did read up on the trivia at IMDb and it seems that even die-hard fans who consider the first film a masterpiece say that the sequels suck and treat them as non-canon. I can't even begin to imagine how bad they must be.

 

Funny thing about the FAQ: There are lots of story-related "why this" and "how that" questions, with lengthy answers that never explain anything (because the film doesn't). They're immortal because they are. They have to kill each other in the future, because they have to. There can be only one because Sean Connery said so. Nobody questions it, or complains.

 

I wasn't surprised to find out that the director had mostly done music videos before this film - in fact I was half expecting it.

[Glóin the Dark 1,218]

Never mind explanations for immortality or the principle of mandatory uniqueness; the biggest unanswered question is how McLeod hadn't already been ostracised from his clan on account of that accent.

[publicist 4,643]

1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

I wasn't surprised to find out that the director had mostly done music videos before this film - in fact I was half expecting it.

 

Let's forever be thankful that he at least did one bad movie that enabled Jerry Goldsmith to write a dark superhero score.

[A24 4,326]

1 hour ago, Glóin the Dark said:

Never mind explanations for immortality or the principle of mandatory uniqueness; the biggest unanswered question is how McLeod hadn't already been ostracised from his clan on account of that accent.

 

Maybe he was the only immortal in the clan?

[Glóin the Dark 1,218]

But we know that immortals can have Scottish accents, because the Egyptian one does...

[A24 4,326]

15 minutes ago, Glóin the Dark said:

But we know that immortals can have Scottish accents, because the Egyptian one does...

 

Perfectly explainable! He lived a long time in Scotland and adapted to its culture.

[Glóin the Dark 1,218]

Now it's all beginning to make sense.

[Marian Schedenig 8,173]

4 hours ago, publicist said:

Let's forever be thankful that he at least did one bad movie that enabled Jerry Goldsmith to write a dark superhero score.

 

I wasn't aware he did The Shadow. 

[bollemanneke 3,337]

The witches of Eastwick.

 

What better moment to watch this one on the evening of the Maestro’s second Vienna concert? But more about the score in a bit. Michelle Pfeiffer took some getting used to, but then it obviously clicked. I don’t like Cher, but Nicholson’s performance is, of course, unrivalled. Veronica Cartwright is fantastic too, but they definitely lost me in the second half. I love witches and witchcraft, but didn’t like the creepy element. And I absolutely don’t need a vaccine against women.

Now, the score. I’m so happy that John Williams was able to do this one given the subject matter. Most of the music was top-notch, but the opening cue really didn’t work for me. Maybe that’s just because I am so used to hearing that marvellous Devil’s Dance without knowing its context (discovering that context was amazing, incidentally), but the melody is so firmly grounded in the minor key for me that it just sounds very jarring in major, even if the idea was to make the ominous sound alluring. All the source music, including the terrible marching band cue, is terrific and Mike Matessino had better overrule JW’s possible objections to including it in an expanded presentation. Speaking of which, is there an isolated score for this movie or am I misremembering things? One stand-out moment in the source music was when the orchestra started accompanying the cello and the fanfare version of Mozart’s Night Music needs a very special mention too. I do think that some of the wizarding music sounded too much like Smee’s Plan, but loved how Nicholson whistled part of the dance. And I’m going to read the novel. I think. Don’t quote me on that.

[Jay 37,287]

It's a weird movie

 

8 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

is there an isolated score for this movie

 

Yea

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0790732262/

[bruce marshall 1,315]

Last of the Mobile Hot Shots

 

Has there ever been a good adaptation of Tennesse Williams other than STREETCAR ( look who I'm asking!)?

😝

[Sweeping Strings 2,344]

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - sure, like everything Tarantino's done for a while now this is overlong (and like Inglourious Basterds, also has a wish-fulfilment rewriting of history). But DiCaprio and Pitt make a great double-act as a washed-up actor and his best-buddy stunt double, Margot Robbie is a delight as Sharon Tate, Damian Lewis' cameo as Steve McQueen is a hoot and QT's affection for Tinseltown in the late Sixties shines through.

[bruce marshall 1,315]

I was really disappointed with OUTIH.

Lesser QT.

[Holko 9,499]

With [Redacted] happening near my country, I thought I'd give Come And See a second try and stick with it this time. And holy hell did this masterpiece succeed in depressing me about this revolting gaggle of animals that we are. I found the cinematography and acting really impressive but just like with Schindler's List, it's the real footage of real people doing real things at the end that truly got me; though in a very different way obviously.

[bruce marshall 1,315]

I watched that last year.

[A24 4,326]

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is Tarantino's best movie since Jackie Brown. 

[Quintus 5,399]

9 hours ago, Holko said:

With [Redacted] happening near my country, I thought I'd give Come And See a second try and stick with it this time. And holy hell did this masterpiece succeed in depressing me about this revolting gaggle of animals that we are. I found the cinematography and acting really impressive but just like with Schindler's List, it's the real footage of real people doing real things at the end that truly got me; though in a very different way obviously.

 

 

[bruce marshall 1,315]

[Tom Guernsey 2,280]

With the recent bit of discussion about John Carter (of Mars), I decided to give it another watch via the magic of Disney+. I found myself really enjoying it and even more disappointed that it turned out (relatively) to be a massive flop. There was clearly quite a lot of hubris, from director Andrew Stanton downwards and I can totally understand why general audiences would have felt it looked like something they’d seen before via Star Wars, Dune and so on. Having said that, Barsoom (Mars) is superbly realised with plenty of epic location filming and absolutely terrific FX which sell fully realised characters as much as they do the usual creatures and flying ships. Only a couple of oddly poorly composited blue screen sequences stick out. Seems like lead Taylor Kitsch got some stick at that time but he’s perfectly decent enough and surrounded by a fine supporting cast (and frankly his acting is massively better then some of the leads in classic creature features like the 80s Clash of the Titans for example). Michael Giacchino’s score is great and remains a favourite. Shame we never got to see the sequels. 

[Sweeping Strings 2,344]

7 hours ago, AC1 said:

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is Tarantino's best movie since Jackie Brown. 

It may be the first of his movies where the trademark ultraviolence is more jarring than before ... I get that Tarantino probably feels like the murderous Manson Family members deserved to be beaten/dog-mauled/flame-throwered to death but the rest of the movie is pretty amiable and good-natured. He seems to feel a need to remind us that the guy who made Reservoir Dogs is still within him.   

[Edmilson 7,392]

Over the last few days I binged all 4 Scream movies (the fifth is not in a streaming I subscribe to yet).

 

The first one is pretty good, by far the best of the bunch. The second is good too, although it does get a little messy and convoluted by the end. The third is the worst of the franchise, it begins nicely but it gets pretty bad and boring, it doesn't live up to the standars of its two predecessors. And the fourth was a nice surprise, I was expecting something as bad as the third one, and although the beginning is a little slow, it does pick up with a cool climax and a shocking villain revelation.

 

Overall, it's probably the most consistent slasher franchise in Hollywood, avoiding the massive drops in quality that plagued the likes of Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

The first one is just one of those movies that so completely captures the feeling of its pop culture era.

[A24 4,326]

1 hour ago, Sweeping Strings said:

 He seems to feel a need to remind us that the guy who made Reservoir Dogs is still within him.   

 

And yet, Reservoir Dogs and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood couldn't be more different. 

[JNHFan2000 2,944]

2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Over the last few days I binged all 4 Scream movies (the fifth is not in a streaming I subscribe to yet).

 

The first one is pretty good, by far the best of the bunch. The second is good too, although it does get a little messy and convoluted by the end. The third is the worst of the franchise, it begins nicely but it gets pretty bad and boring, it doesn't live up to the standars of its two predecessors. And the fourth was a nice surprise, I was expecting something as bad as the third one, and although the beginning is a little slow, it does pick up with a cool climax and a shocking villain revelation.

 

Overall, it's probably the most consistent slasher franchise in Hollywood, avoiding the massive drops in quality that plagued the likes of Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc.

I personally feel like the 5th film is the second best of the Scream films.

The kills are really well done, and there are a few sequences with a lot of suspense and payoffs.

The killers are a geniune big surprise. And the return of the original trio is done is a way that feels organic.

I'm a big Scream fan, and I was so happy with all the small call backs in the film. It's truly well made, and feels like Wes Craven was at the helm.

Terrific film! Some parts surpass the original

[Edmilson 7,392]

Great! I'll watch it as soon as it drops in a streaming service.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

14 hours ago, AC1 said:

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is Tarantino's best movie since Jackie Brown. 

It's worse than everything that he has done since Jackie Brown except The Hateful Eight. Whoever thinks that this is a movie that matches his earlier qualities or comes close to Django Unchained or Inglourious Basterds hasn't understood a thing.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I loved it.  No idea where I'd place it in his oeuvre, but I loved it.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

It was quite nice, but the rest of his oeuvre is insanely great. Hollywood is Tarantino on auto-pilot, not many of the qualities that made him the genius that he is rightfully seen as by film critics are left in his last two films. I rewatched Django and Basterds, recently - these are impressive and important works of his!

[bruce marshall 1,315]

5 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

It's worse than everything that he has done since Jackie Brown except The Hateful Eight. Whoever thinks that this is a movie that matches his earlier qualities or comes close to Django Unchained or Inglourious Basterds hasn't understood a thing.

H8 is his BEST film!

Followed by DJANGO and JACKIE.

[LSH 968]

59 minutes ago, bruce marshall said:

H8 is his BEST film!

Followed by DJANGO and JACKIE.

 

JACKIE BROWN is so good. I watched it again recently because it happened to be on TV.

 

I think it ranks third... after PULP FICTION (2nd) and RESERVOIR DOGS (1st).

 

But TRUE ROMANCE can be squeezed in there somewhere.

[bruce marshall 1,315]

It's a very satisfying film.

It's atypical of his work as it's adapted from a book.

 

I like DOGS much better than PULP, which I never really cared for.