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


Mr. Breathmask

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10 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

The thing with Pulp Fiction is, before Pulp Fiction there was nothing like Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction changed the way, gangster movies were made. Before there was Scorsese and his Mafia films and chinese hong kong movies, that nobody watched in the western hemisphere (also that was changed by Pulp Fiction). If you are young and late to the party and first saw a bunch of all these other movies, that were influenced by Pulp Fiction, it might not be that spectacular. But this is the original. 

No, I'm not young. I had seen Pulp Fiction maybe a couple of years after it was released, on TV. I don't remember anything now, I'll give it another chance.

As I'll give another chance to Reservoir dogs and watch it another time after a couple of years.

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

Oh man, I'd say you quit just before all the cleverness really started paying off.  It is a bit of a struggle to get through at first, for sure


Lost patience when it switched to the 'behind the scenes' stuff ... the cast and crew's home lives, and all that. It probably didn't help that I thought what I watched before it (Stakeland) wasn't all that either.  

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Scott Pilgrim Vs The World Review | Movie - Empire

 

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

 

I hadn't seen this film since it came out, and remembered almost nothing about it so this was practically like a first watch.  Wow, what a cast this film has!  Michael Cera is perfect as the lead, Anna Kendrick is funny as his sister, Ellen Wong and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are great as two competing love interests, Kieran Culkin is funny as his roommate, and of course Satya Bhabha, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Mae Whitman, the Katayanagi twins and Jason Schwartzman are great as the 7 Evil Exes.  Aubrey Plaza is really funny too, and I didn't realize the film was PG13 instead of R until she started swearing and got bleeped with a black bar over her mouth, that was commented on within the movie :lol:   There's also a funny cameo with Thomas Jane and Clifton Collins Jr, Alison Pill was really funny as the stoic drummer, and there's also Brie Larson in the mix as well.  What a cast!

 

I think while this film is many things - a comic book movie, a martial arts movie, a coming of age tale, a romance... what I appreciated the most was its comedy!  There are so many individual funny lines and scenes, and so many quick and subtle recurring jokes.  It's paced perfectly, never lingering on any scene longer than it has to.  Some sequences really stand out - Chris Evans' scene was sooo funny, he was so great, and Mae Whitman brough such a fun energy to her scenes (I wish she got more work).  Schwarzman was really perfectly cast as the final villain, he does douchey characters so well.  Everyone was good.


I think I like this and Baby Driver Edgar Wright more than Cornetto trilogy Edgar Wright!  I hope he makes another comedy next after getting Last Night In Soho out of his system

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On 17/11/2022 at 4:16 PM, AC1 said:

I remembering liking those Jack Nicholson rom-coms.

Don't get me wrong, Alex; I admired the performances, and all, and it might just be better than the fawning TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, but on the whole, I found it all a bit calculated. Oscar bait before the term was conceived.

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Blade - saw my local arthouse cinema was showing this as part of their 'In Dreams Be Monsters' season, so I thought 'That'll do me for a Saturday night' (their bar was doing a themed drink ... 'Bloody Spritz', consisting of vodka grenadine and lemonade. Had a couple during the film, very nice).

Somewhat of a novelty as it's a movie featuring a Marvel character from a time when there wasn't about 10 of those released every year (and 18/R-rated, to boot). Some of the late 90s CGI didn't hold up too well, but overall the action was still pretty damn good with Wesley Snipes clearly enjoying himself as the titular vampire hunter and Kris Kristoffersen perfect as his grizzled compadre.

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On 17/11/2022 at 12:36 AM, filmmusic said:

Michael Jackson's Thriller in 4K!

Hope it's released on disc along with other Jackson video clips.


Thriller was upgrade to 4K just the other day. Might’ve been the day you posted this even. Maybe that’s why you watched it. 😉

 

For any one who is a fan, it’s super cool to see in a quality that’s up to todays standards. Check it out!
 

 

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Just felt like watching No Time to Die tonight. I really enjoy this Bond movie. Yeah, it feels like it wants to be everything at once but I am really entertained all the way through so who cares. Great action setpieces, fantastic cast, good villain and, yeah, really strong Zimmer score. It's fun times at the movies.

 

Karol

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2 hours ago, crocodile said:

really strong Steve Mazzaro score.

Fixed ;)

 

Even Zimmer himself admits Mazzaro did most of the work. Still, I don't know why HZ received solo credit on this one instead of "Music By Hans Zimmer and Steve Mazzaro" or "Themes by Hans Zimmer, Score by Steve Mazzaro".

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2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Fixed ;)

 

Even Zimmer himself admits Mazzaro did most of the work. Still, I don't know why HZ received solo credit on this one instead of "Music By Hans Zimmer and Steve Mazzaro" or "Themes by Hans Zimmer, Score by Steve Mazzaro".

 

Must've done a seamless job if he can quote HZ scores that he didn't work on (TTRL, Batman Begins). :P (Though in fairness, a decent chunk of it sounds like some of the Goblin material from TASM2, which Steve definitely would've been credited on.)

 

Once again, I sincerely wonder what people think actually happens on the production of these if they're so darn confident that it could've only been the work of the co-writer most of the time. Admittedly, I do think Mazzaro doing The Rhythm Section right before was likely his test for EON, but quite frankly unless you know for absolute certain that the temp track was nothing but random Zimmer cues, has he really made anything as distinctly HZ when he's actually credited solo on a project? Make it make sense to me.

 

Also, some of it must be Zimmer if he thinks it's good enough to play NTTD tracks for his current live tour (though it could just be his excuse to play the Bond theme mostly).

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Darkman (7/11) Movie CLIP - The Pink Elephant (1990) HD on Make a GIF

 

Darkman


This movie is bonkers!  I had seen it as a kid but retained no memory of it at all; I had misremembered that it was some kind of moody, noir-y, low budget affair with a lot of brooding.  But it's really all over the place with tons of actors hamming it up and crazy sequences where a bunch of images fly at your face suddenly and wild action sequences.  It's full of the quirky Sam Raimi-ness I recently quite enjoyed in Dr. Strange 2 as well.

 

It's also CRAZILY paced.  It does what a 2 hour movie does in under 90 minutes - this is largely because the film jumps right from the act 2 climax into the act 3 climax without any of the usual buildup that would happen in between.

 

Bruce Campbell's cameo is great.  It's a shame him, Neeson, and Raimi didn't get to do a proper sequel (I never saw the direct-to-video ones Universal pumped out)

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Really good movie, I've been meaning to watch this for ages. The way this McDonagh guy can create sizzling surreal drama out of the seemingly most mundane circumstances is really impressive. I mean, seriously, I am trying to picture him pitching his movies to financiers. 😂 The three films I've seen of his, including the most recent one, are all excellent.

 

 

 

Karol

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Youth (2015)

 

YOUTH-UK-POSTER-900x0-c-default.png

 

Nicely shot (remarkably sharp, it's so digital) comedy-drama about a retired composer. Some good acting moments with Caine but especially Keitel. Sadly, the film didn't grab me and that's probably because of the style, personality and the choices made by the director. The almost kitschy poetic warmth of the film doesn't quite appeal to me. It's on Prime.

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5 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

I had planned to watch it, tomorrow.

Thanks a lot for ruining my entire weekend.

:sarcasm:

 

Did I spoil anything?

 

BTW, isn't Michael Caine (on the poster left) looking better and better these days?

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5 hours ago, AC1 said:

I liked it but it didn't stick around. I remember it had some early Coen brothers dark comedy influences.

 

Billboards is when I consciously noticed it, but really all his films have a strong Coens vibe to them (his first three at least, I haven't seen Banshees yet). I don't think casting McDormand in Billboards was a concidence in that context.

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On 22/11/2022 at 5:05 PM, Jay said:

Darkman (7/11) Movie CLIP - The Pink Elephant (1990) HD on Make a GIF

 

Darkman


This movie is bonkers!  I had seen it as a kid but retained no memory of it at all; I had misremembered that it was some kind of moody, noir-y, low budget affair with a lot of brooding.  But it's really all over the place with tons of actors hamming it up and crazy sequences where a bunch of images fly at your face suddenly and wild action sequences.  It's full of the quirky Sam Raimi-ness I recently quite enjoyed in Dr. Strange 2 as well.

 

It's also CRAZILY paced.  It does what a 2 hour movie does in under 90 minutes - this is largely because the film jumps right from the act 2 climax into the act 3 climax without any of the usual buildup that would happen in between.

 

Bruce Campbell's cameo is great.  It's a shame him, Neeson, and Raimi didn't get to do a proper sequel (I never saw the direct-to-video ones Universal pumped out)


If The Phantom Of The Opera was an action movie, kinda. It's a lot of fun, and may well have played a part in Raimi getting hired for the Spidey flicks.  

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On 25/11/2022 at 6:29 AM, AC1 said:

I liked it but it didn't stick around. I remember it had some early Coen brothers dark comedy influences.

Yes, that is because of the setting. I would say his latest film is better.

 

Karol

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An officer and a gentleman.

 

Good enough. The girls grew on me. Gere had one bad moment. Also thought the ending was rather  clumsy: the relationship between Foley and Mayo feels not sufficiently resolved, although I guess you could argue that it does, but I definitely wanted a longer romantic ending scene. This was good, but not enough. Just five more minutes.

Great music (Dire Straits) and nice score, though it overemphasised the main theme and was afraid to go into more interesting territory, or rather, darker territory. The themeless intimate cues were great.

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Rosemary's baby.

 

Hmm, well… apart from the fact that everybody occasionally spoke in that monotonous way that plagues every old movie, I liked it most of the time and I was really hooked by the end. But then I asked myself, why did Dr Hill act the way he did? Is that what your typical 1960s doctor would have done? And then, the final scene came and of course it had to degenerate into pure crap as every horror movie seems to do. Why, why couldn’t she just have turned out to really have gone crazy? And what kind of a husband is that guy?

The score is… interesting? Apart from that downright disgusting jazzy trumpet cue that underscores Rome (what a pet name) trying to escape.

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image.png

 

Finally got around my Criterion edition of what is probably Wilder's most unpleasant film, 'Ace in the Hole', which is to say it's unflinching in its bleak analysis of human nature in the guise of a desert film noir, often mistaken for being a scathing indictment of US media, but that's just the coathanger.

 

A man is buried in a mine collapse. He has to die because an ambitious and unscrupulous reporter, Kirk Douglas in a gloriously over-the-top performance - deliberately delays the rescue operation in order to achieve his great comeback through sensational reporting by making lots of copy with his very own 'human interest' story.

 

The movie was beyond unpopular in 1951, because there was no one to root for, certainly not the gloating public or the local economy, being in a most blissful mood for the money windfall the spectators bring in and finally, figures of authority, forget it. It was only decades later that we have wholly accepted not only the draw of bad news but the prurient public appetites they satisfy as well (Nightcrawler updated the story for the 21st century). 

 

It's really not a film to like, but there's so much acid brilliance in the dialogue (it's Wilder and has such hard-edged lines as 'I don't go to church. Kneeing bags my Nylons') and even in its tiniest nuances, you should watch it once at least. I love how Wilder frames Douglas when he finds his victim trapped: from below where the poor guy lies the camera looks up and sees a badly lit through a hole Douglas face with the granite chin staring down, and he looks like a ghoul who's out for his victim.

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Ace in the Hole is one of the Wilders I still haven't seen, and I realise that until reading this, I didn't even know anything about it (save the title, director/writer, and actor). I really should catch up with it. I loved Nightcrawler.

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36 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Ace in the Hole is one of the Wilders I still haven't seen, and I realise that until reading this, I didn't even know anything about it (save the title, director/writer, and actor). I really should catch up with it. I loved Nightcrawler.

 

I didn't love 'Nightcrawler' either, but it's good to have them. What's remarkable about Hole is how Wilder ties all the people together, even the trapped guy was out to rob sacred artifacts for his own benefit when fate beckoned. And nowadays, where even our public tv stations who pride themselves on their journalistic integrity don't particularly object using Twitter shitstorms as regular news source, the hustling duplicity on all sides is out in the open.

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Tomorrow Never Dies - the annual festive rewatch of OHMSS will happen soon, but last night I took a notion for this one. In the wake of No Time To Die, it was frankly a pleasure to watch a Bond just interested in presenting 2 hours of snappy escapism - the action, hot women, globe-trotting, villain with a suitably grandiosely evil plot for nothing but his own selfish gain, outrageous gadgetry and groansome one-liners/smutty innuendoes are all present and correct. 

Brosnan is visibly more relaxed and confident than in Goldeneye ... the stuff with the villain's wife with whom he was previously involved is a little more 'brooding' than of old, but it's nowhere near the level of same in the Craig flicks. It's true that the film seems to lose something in its second half, but overall this is very solid 007 and easily Brosnan's second best entry.    

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The aforementioned Goldeneye, which proved that the end of the Cold War and the advent of political correctness notwithstanding there was still an audience for the 'sexist misogynist dinosaur'. 

For me, the order of Brosnan's 4 (from best to worst) matches the order in which they were released. 

Oh, and I forgot TND's music (silly of me, considering the recent thread about the expanded score release) ... it is, of course, excellent. And Christ, what a joy to hear 2 proper songs by 2 proper singers (Sheryl Crow's title track and KD Lang's Surrender) after Sam 'ooh, mind my pronouns!' Smith and Billie 'sorry love, didn't quite catch that?' Eilish.  

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35 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

... the first being...?

 

Goldeneye?

 

9 minutes ago, Sweeping Strings said:

The aforementioned Goldeneye, which proved that the end of the Cold War and the advent of political correctness notwithstanding there was still an audience for the 'sexist misogynist dinosaur'. 

For me, the order of Brosnan's 4 (from best to worst) matches the order in which they were released. 

 

Yup!

 

For me the order (in descending order) is Goldeneye, The World is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies, and (farrrrrrrrther down) Die Another Day.

 

I usually say that there are things that TND, TWINE and (Q help us!) DAD do better than Goldenye. But Goldeneye was the most balanced and polished all the way through.

 

I tend to forget that the first third or so of DIe Another Day is terrific. Then we get to the snow palace and it all goes to hell.

 

I was just thinking this morning of a quote I heard from Michael Wilson. It might be on the TND commentary. "We always set out to make From Russia With Love and we end up making Thunderball." (Funny enough, my two favorite Connery Bonds.)

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Besides preferring TND to Goldeneye, my biggest Brosnan hot take is that TWINE is actually the worst of his four.

 

So yeah my ranking is

 

1. Tomorrow Never Dies

2. Goldeneye

3. Die Another Day

4. The World is Not Enough

 

Theme songs from the era ranked:

 

1. The World is Not Enough

2. Surrender

3. Tomorrow Never Dies

4. Goldeneye

5. Die Another Day

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TWINE should be great (a terrorist who can't feel pain actually turning out to be the lover/henchman of the series' first female lead villain who was prepared to sacrifice her own father and who intends to kill M, etc) but it all feels kinda limp in the execution (like the car being remote control and rocket-firing again, but not in as fun and exciting a way than in TND for example).     

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I like Carlyle quite a bit as an actor, but he was a complete dud as a Bond villain, just dull and dour.

 

Now, Die Another Day has a villain problem too, but he at least is entertainingly stupid.

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25 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

 

Goldeneye?

 

 

Yup!

 

For me the order (in descending order) is Goldeneye, The World is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies, and (farrrrrrrrther down) Die Another Day.

 

I usually say that there are things that TND, TWINE and (Q help us!) DAD do better than Goldenye. But Goldeneye was the most balanced and polished all the way through.

 

I tend to forget that the first third or so of DIe Another Day is terrific. Then we get to the snow palace and it all goes to hell.

 

I was just thinking this morning of a quote I heard from Michael Wilson. It might be on the TND commentary. "We always set out to make From Russia With Love and we end up making Thunderball." (Funny enough, my two favorite Connery Bonds.)


A recent Guardian article reassessing DAD on its 20th anniversary mentions that it's caught between the daft, escapist pre 9-11 action movie era and the gritty geopolitical one that followed (the Bourne series, etc). So you've it beginning with Bond captured and tortured for over a year, being part of a prisoner exchange and then being told by M that she no longer trusts him ... but then we end up at DNA-changing technology, an invisible car and dodgy CGI parasurfing.       

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My take on TWINE is that they had a character / emotion driven story (and it was the first time they made M part of the plot proper) that worked gangbusters for the most part. But then every 25 minutes or so they said "Aw hell, lets blow something up!"

 

(In TWINE when she says "You'll miss me" and after he shoots her he says "I never miss" has got to be the only Bond quip that can make you choke up. His delivery is amazing.)

 

Die Another Day had the same problem, but rather than alternating they did classic Fleming (The Man with the Golden Gun, anyone?) up front and then went full Roger Moore on the back half. That last half is the only Brosnan performance I don't love. And I'm so mad that it was the last we saw of him. Although Brosnan and Cleese were wonderful.

 

PB deserved better.

 

48 minutes ago, Sweeping Strings said:

A recent Guardian article reassessing DAD on its 20th anniversary mentions that it's caught between the daft, escapist pre 9-11 action movie era and the gritty geopolitical one that followed (the Bourne series, etc). So you've it beginning with Bond captured and tortured for over a year, being part of a prisoner exchange and then being told by M that she no longer trusts him ... but then we end up at DNA-changing technology, an invisible car and dodgy CGI parasurfing. 

 

I didn't think the tone shift was a reaction to 9/11 (unless it was to make it LIGHTER on the back half). I suppose I could see Michael Masden's CIA as a contemporary nod. I always took the bonkers half as EON losing it's nerve. Or at least not knowing how to get that Goldenye balance back. (Ugh. I forgot about the parasurfing.)

 

The acting talent in Brosnan's baddies is amazing. (I love Lost in Space so I'm giving it to Toby Stephens retroactively.) But the only one who IMHO really makes it work is Sean Bean. I adore Jonathan Pryce but he didn't wow me in TND. And Carlyle is wasted. Although now that I think on it, Sophie Marceau is perfect.

 

EDIT: I just realized this isn't one of the Bond threads. I suppose we should go elsewhere.

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A Christmas Story (1983)

I honestly don't see what everyone sees in it and it's so highly regarded.

7.9 at imdb??

I like the Christmas atmosphere, but aside of that... I don't know.. The worst for me was the boy's funny illusions.

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27 minutes ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Die Hard and Die Hard 2 - annual festive rewatch. Not much else to say that hasn't been before.

I want to watch them too but my home cinema is out for repair and I don't want to watch them with my monitor's little speakers...:|

That's why I watch only old movies that have mono or stereo audio.

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Star trek: insurrection.

 

To answer the question that nobody asked me once and for all: Which one is better, Star Trek or Star Wars? STAR TREK. I need to rewatch this one to fully grasp all the action sequences and to get a little more comfortable in the mechanics of this universe, but it’s so much more engaging than bad actors being directed badly or haphazardly planned stories with sentimental and pointless endings (yes, TROS, looking at you.) Patrick Stewart is still great and how I wish he could have stayed with Donna Murphy. Yet another reminder of an Irish acquaintance who invited me for dinner last month.

The score is really very good and I loved the gentle Ba’ku cues. Goldsmith really should have got together with Williams’ people some time to explain how you record scores. Why does all his output sound so lively and echoey and vibrant while most of JW’s LA scores sound much too dry?

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