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

[Jay 37,374]

It's great

[Naïve Old Fart 9,554]

1 hour ago, filmmusic said:

 

I'm not so keen on comedies, nor do I laugh, but I LOVE holiday films, so I enjoy this one too.

I have very fond memories of watching this at my local movie theater, when I was living in America. I loved it in '89, and I love it now.

[bollemanneke 3,352]

Home Alone. "She's got her own earrings. Dangly ones." My takeaway from this viewing so far.

[Jay 37,374]

Christmas Vacation

 

Noticed some set decoration I had never noticed before thanks to seeing it on a larger TV than I had ever seen it on before:

 

Audrey's room has a big poster that is a close up of a cat's face, while Rusty's room has a poster of a turtle banging another turtle

 

The fridge in their shed has a huge picture of a burger, fries, and a soda that takes up the entire side of it

 

Clark's office at work is full of crazy stuff. There's a bowl full of huge wooden pears by the window, a glass case on his desk with some kind of deconstructed apple in it, etc. His boss's office has hourglasses of various sizes on his desk (which is more of a table than a desk...)

 

At Christmas Eve dinner they have some weird asparagus thing on the dinner table, it's super tall and has pearl onions stuck to it!? 

 

The Griswold's attic has no insulation at all, and that circular vent/window that's just open to the outside! They'd be infested with rodents and bats, and all the heat in the house would just be directly lost through the attic!

 

In Wal Mart, Clark puts some light bulbs down and Eddie immediately crushes them with more dog food

[filmmusic 1,843]

Home Alone

My favourite Christmas film. I don't know how and why, this film was so original and I love all the Christmas atmosphere and the score of course.

No doubt it became so successful.

[Jay 37,374]

Home Alone

 

I never noticed before there's a line at the beginning that explains why they have a doggy door. 

 

Or the extent to which Joe Pesci makes silly noises to avoid swearing (even though Marv says "shit" once) 

[Sweeping Strings 2,365]

Elf - amiably daft and sweet seasonal fun. The Will Ferrell movie for people who don't like Will Ferrell.

Skyfall - the 'Not exactly Christmas, is it?' line felt like reason enough. Craig's best, an excellent blend of new and old-school Bond.

[Tallguy 3,402]

Our Christmas Movies were Top Gun: Maverick (which doesn't fit this category) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

 

PotC is just about a perfect movie. Like Raiders of the Lost Ark perfect. And I don't think there's a bad performance in the film. (OK, there probably aren't many bad performances in the series. Acting talent has never been a problem.)

[JNHFan2000 2,969]

8 hours ago, Tallguy said:

Our Christmas Movies were Top Gun: Maverick (which doesn't fit this category) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

 

PotC is just about a perfect movie. Like Raiders of the Lost Ark perfect. And I don't think there's a bad performance in the film. (OK, there probably aren't many bad performances in the series. Acting talent has never been a problem.)

So glad to see the love for POTC. It's one of my favourite filmseries ever and the first 3 are very dear to me. Depp is perfect in these and I still feel he should've won an Oscar for it.

And the effects in 2 & 3 are still better than some effects today. Davy Jones is incredibly well realased and one of the best and most complicated movie villains with and incredible performance by Bill Nighy!

Love love love these films.

[Tallguy 3,402]

17 hours ago, JNHFan2000 said:

So glad to see the love for POTC. It's one of my favourite filmseries ever and the first 3 are very dear to me. Depp is perfect in these and I still feel he should've won an Oscar for it.

And the effects in 2 & 3 are still better than some effects today. Davy Jones is incredibly well realased and one of the best and most complicated movie villains with and incredible performance by Bill Nighy!

Love love love these films.

 

We watched Dead Man's Chest last night. Far better than I remember it. It's the weakest of the three original films, but that doesn't mean it's weak. And Jack is better in this than he will be in the next one.

 

Yes, Davy Jones is still a marvel. I put him and Thanos as the two greatest digital characters ever, with Davy going for the win. Nighy is astounding and then ILM just ran with it.

 

Norrington is by far my favorite thing in this movie. A real pity that they couldn't figure out an equally interesting third iteration for him in At World's End. Davenport is excellent. ("So it would seem" has been one of my verbal ticks for a good long while now.)

 

I love the way they set these movies up as ginormous Rube Goldberg machines with all of the pieces tossed up in the air and all landing in exactly the right places. There are so many beats that start in 1, get repeated and 2, and reach a fulfillment in 3. It asks a fair amount of commitment from the viewer but I was all on board.

[filmmusic 1,843]

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Not as good and original as the first one, but still fun and with a masterful Williams score. Especially that presto, to the Plaza!

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Mission Impossible Fallout. Outstanding. It's both a fantastic action film mixed with an old fashioned love story. It's one of my favorite films of the last 10 years.

[Edmilson 7,474]

Too bad the score is bland and generic. It would've been a much better movie had Kraemer scored it.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

The score is serviceable which is not high praise but in this day and age where mediocre is as high as you get, with the exception of our Lord and maestro, John Williams, the film succeeds well based on the acting storytelling and visuals.

[Matt C 455]

Ella Enchanted

 

It's lightweight fun and Anne Hathaway is always a delight to watch -- but the Shrek style placement of modern songs grinds the movie to a halt. This movie could've been the next Stardust had Tommy O'Haver avoided the songs completely. Nick Glennie-Smith's score is lovely too.

[LSH 969]

8 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Too bad the score is bland and generic. It would've been a much better movie had Kraemer scored it.

 

Kraemer was royally fucked over. His score for Rogue Nation was so good, it should have been an obvious shoe-in for the next one.

[Sweeping Strings 2,365]

The Meg - Jason Statham vs a giant prehistoric shark, basically. Like one of those cheapo B-movie creature features that used to litter the SyFy/Horror Channel schedules, but with a bigger budget and better cast. It made for a pleasantly undemanding way to pass a New Year's Day afternoon as I continued to recover from the previous night's drunken excesses.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,554]

1 hour ago, Sweeping Strings said:

...I continued to recover from the previous night's drunken excesses.

More information, please.

[Tallguy 3,402]

Well we wrapped up Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on New Years Eve.

This is my favorite Zimmer score, hands down. The Wedding is probably my favorite Zimmer track. As the saying goes "They don't score movies like this anymore." I'm sure every time a movie scores music to picture this specifically and this broadly the composer could be accused of being "tongue in cheek" or "winking at the audience". This goes back to Star Wars, and probably further. And yet it always such a crowd pleaser. Are we just that dumb, or are composers not as smart as they think they are?

As I mentioned before I love how almost all of the balls thrown in the air (or the things that they decided to retroactively make into balls thrown in the air from the first movie) almost all land. I take a weird delight in knowing (and pointing out) that Norrington's sword that Will made in the first movie changes hands through the film until it ends up killing Will.

It would be nice to see the four hour version of this movie that resolves what happened with Becket and Jack and Jack and Davy Jones and maybe tells us what Governor Swan's death was supposed to mean.

Admiral Norrington's story is badly handled. He's a stooge here and he never was in either of the other films. He's actually smart because that makes Jack look smarter. Not here. Here he seems bewildered by Becket which is very out of step from where we left him in the last film.

Back in the plus column, the story of Tia Dalma / Calypso feels organic and earned. It isn't telegraphed in P2 even though there is certainly foreshadowing. And it doesn't just feel bolted on here. It's one of those mysteries that is obvious enough to make sense but enough of a surprise to be satisfying. Even if you figure it out ahead of time, it's satisfying when you do. It doesn't feel like you're cheated of the big reveal. And Naomie Harris is delightful. Her and Nighy manage to make the story almost tragic.

The re-introduction of all of the characters at the start of the film is masterful. The only sequel that comes close to giving everyone a Big Entrance to almost every character that is even close is Return of the Jedi. I was surprised at how happy I was to see Pintel and Ragetti since I wasn't that fond of them in the first film. But they were much better used in the second.

Speaking of Master Ragetti: I love what they figured out what to do with this character in this and the last film. He becomes The Man with the Answers. When he steps up and tells Barbossa "You're doing it wrong" is one of the high moments of the film for me and certainly for the character.

The only series I can think of that stuck its landing this well is the MCU with Endgame. Maybe Back to the Future? Sadly not Star Wars.

This was time well spent. Drink up, me hearties! Yo ho!

[Hurmm 91]

Yeah all three of the original POTC movies are fantastic in their own rights. I thought so when I first watched it and was perplexed as to how bad the reception was to the sequels. 

 

Fantastic special effects to this day, great performances, tonally fun and irreverent, and with some of the best action staging in recent memory (Verbinski is excellent in this – even the Lone Ranger has terrific action). 

 

Anything after At World's End is forgettable. 

[Sweeping Strings 2,365]

22 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

More information, please.

Oh, it was just here in the house 'solo' ... I had an invite from friends to go round to theirs, but it was dependent on how one of their mothers was doing because she's recently been undergoing radiotherapy. Turns out it had affected her breathing, and friend profusely apologised for deciding that she therefore (quite rightly, of course) just wouldn't feel right leaving her Mum on her own on NYE. 

I had wine with dinner, about 7 pints of various 5%+ strength ales and a prosecco at midnight ... yeah, I was drunk alright. Bottled water, Nurofen, toasted soda farls filled with bacon and ketchup and tea/coffee were all a great help in my recovery (as was going back to bed for another hour-and-a-half or so after I'd taken the painkillers with the bottled water). 

Blood Simple - the Coens' debut feature, a tremendously moody noir. Featuring great sleazebag turns from M. Emmet Walsh and Dan Hedaya, and Frances McDormand at her most toothsome.

Mile 22 - I have enjoyed previous movies that Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg have made together, but this actioner is edited even more frantically than the Bournes and QOS combined ... it felt like I was watching an anxiety attack play out or something. Quite thankful it was only 90 minutes long, to be honest.

Black Dynamite - enjoyable spoof of the blaxploitation genre with 'jive turkeys', funky soundtrack, stickin' it to 'The Man', shootouts and gratuitously topless hotties all present and correct.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,554]

Geez, Louise, @Sweeping Strings, it sounds like you had a good night!

 

I did my usual NYE stuff: finished watching a DVD ("they offer unparalleled picture and sound quality", it says 'ere ), in bed by 10, asleep by 10:30, woken up at 3, needing a slash (curse my bladder!), then back to sleep, until 8:30. Yep: I'm boring 

[Bespin 8,484]

I watched an older movie, Fire in the Sky (1993) (score by Mark Isham). I vaguely remember having seen this film which certainly has lengths, but still some interesting scenes. I was watching it mostly for the score.

[A24 4,347]

3 hours ago, Bespin said:

I watched an older movie ...

 

My god! Don't tell your friends!

[Matt C 455]

Guardians (2017)

 

This makes Josh Trank's Fantastic 4 movie look like Citizen Kane. The short running time (91 minutes) is a blessing but the script is vague, villain is boring and the main four heroes ill-defined -- and it feels a LOT was cut out of the final product. That said, director Sarik Andreasyan has a good handle on VFX and his cast is pretty enough. But the movie is painfully boring.

 

Where's the Rifftrax when you need one?

[rough cut 1,714]

Disenchanted (2022) IMDb

There is a wonderful film called Enchanted (2007) IMDb and if you haven’t seen it - go see it now, it’s great. It’s a fantastic, light hearted fantasy that pokes fun at its genre without being nasty or sarcastic.

 

The sequel, however, misses the mark. It’s loud and obnoxious and too cartoony (in the wrong places). I couldn’t help but thinking that the plot was similar to Wanda Vision but without the moral implications. I guess because it’s a movie made for kids, but it still felt as if there was a piece of the puzzle missing - even for a kids movie.

 

Maybe I had too high hopes, but it fell flat.

 

If you’re in the mood for some innocent movie magic, go watch the movie Godmothered (2020) IMDb instead. It is a much more enjoyable movie than Disenchanted. I remember thinking when I saw it that it was a spiritual sequel to Enchanted.

 

[Tallguy 3,402]

18 hours ago, Matt C said:

This makes Josh Trank's Fantastic 4 movie look like Citizen Kane.

 

I liked that movie. It was just missing an hour for some reason. (Important safety tip: If you don't think your studio's movie is going to be good, cutting huge amounts of run time rarely if ever fixes it.)

[filmmusic 1,843]

Enjoyable film with very good visual effects for its time, and a great atonal score by Rosenman.

[Matt C 455]

Spider-Man (2002)

 

I can't believe it's over two decades old. Some sections haven't aged well (like the blatantly obvious wig Kirsten Dunst wears) and some of the more campier scenes like Green Goblin terrorizing Aunt May. I always had a soft spot for Tobey Maguire's Peter since he was a soft-spoken, nerdy, and dorky Peter (as opposed to teen idol Andrew Garfield or Holland's Tony Stark fanboy). Willem Dafoe goes into Speed 2: Cruise Control camp villain mode as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin (he's actually better in No Way Home) while James Franco is rather anonymous as his son. Sam Raimi handles the emotional scenes well (Kirsten and Tobey still click as love interests), even though the ending is still frustratingly downbeat. Elfman's score is entertaining and the main theme is one of his best.

 

While this and Singer's X-Men paved the way for the superhero genre to explode in popularity over the following decades, I think the far superior Spider-Man 2 turbocharged it.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,554]

12 hours ago, filmmusic said:

Enjoyable film with very good visual effects for its time, and a great atonal score by Rosenman.

If memory serves, the Blu has an iso score.

[filmmusic 1,843]

40 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

If memory serves, the Blu has an iso score.

Yes, it does.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Bone Tomahawk

 

This might be my favorite performance from Richard Jenkins. The entire cast is great, sans Lili Simmons.

 

Some parts from the ending went a bit overboard, in my opinion, but the entire build to the climax was excellent.

 

Kinda wish they committed to having no score, as the 5 minutes or so of what’s there wasn’t necessary. The original end titles song was a weird one too. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,554]

No love for THE VISITOR, Koray?

Imho, his best work, is in SIX FEET UNDER.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Haven’t seen either. 

[Jay 37,374]

Hehe, Bone Tomahawk is a cool/fun/gross movie

[Naïve Old Fart 9,554]

1 hour ago, Koray Savas said:

Haven’t seen either. 

You should.

[filmmusic 1,843]

Today is Elvis Presley's birthday, so after watching Elvis (2022) some nights ago, I thought to watch a couple of his films tonight.

Finished Jailhouse Rock (1957).

Mediocre movie at best, but there is something about that man, that shines!

Now on to King Creole (1958).

[LSH 969]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

gross

 

Man, that one bit. Haunted me for a few days.

[Jay 37,374]

I bet!

[Tallguy 3,402]

The Burbs! I finally saw it! One of the most Joe Dante movies I have ever seen. Including Gremlins 2.

 

It's like "The Joe Dante Players proudly present The Burbs with special guest Tom Hanks and featuring Carrie Fisher!" 

 

Goldsmith sounds like he is having such a good time! I'm still not sure I want the whole score but I can certainly understand the people who do. 

 

It has the father of the lead actress of the first Jurassic Park and the grandfather of the lead actress of the first Jurassic World. 

[crocodile 8,020]

King Kong from 1976. This movie is just strange. Jessica Lange's character changes personality every scene and horny Kong is just bizarre. Good score though.

 

Karol

[Naïve Old Fart 9,554]

Agreed, @crocodile.

It's a guilty pleasure, of mine.

The score is top-5 Barry, for me, and anything with The Dude, deserves to be watched.

[Sweeping Strings 2,365]

15 hours ago, Tallguy said:

The Burbs! I finally saw it! One of the most Joe Dante movies I have ever seen. Including Gremlins 2.

 

It's like "The Joe Dante Players proudly present The Burbs with special guest Tom Hanks and featuring Carrie Fisher!" 

 

Goldsmith sounds like he is having such a good time! I'm still not sure I want the whole score but I can certainly understand the people who do. 

 

It has the father of the lead actress of the first Jurassic Park and the grandfather of the lead actress of the first Jurassic World. 

Many years since I last saw that ... it kinda wants to have its cake and eat it too in that it satirises suburbanite suspicion towards anyone who moves into their area and doesn't 'fit in', but then reveals that the new neighbours actually ARE up to weird stuff (wonder if that was a studio-forced compromise?).  

[Tallguy 3,402]

50 minutes ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Many years since I last saw that ... it kinda wants to have its cake and eat it too in that it satirises suburbanite suspicion towards anyone who moves into their area and doesn't 'fit in', but then reveals that the new neighbours actually ARE up to weird stuff (wonder if that was a studio-forced compromise?).  

 

I gather the compromise was that they don't kill Hanks at the end. (Which I REALLY thought they were going to do and frankly that would have been far too dark for me.) The other changes were that the trunk full of evidence was going to be dead cheerleaders (yikes) or the two garbage guys, Miller and Picardo. Which would have been perfect, IMHO.

 

It's not the the old neighbors aren't still crazy. It's just that the new ones are too.

[filmmusic 1,843]

3 hours ago, crocodile said:

King Kong from 1976. This movie is just strange. Jessica Lange's character changes personality every scene and horny Kong is just bizarre. Good score though.

 

Karol

It's the first King Kong film I ever saw, so naturally I love it!

If only the 4K release wasn't tealed! So, I remained with my Shout collector's bluray.

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=17850&d2=15873&s1=202496&s2=168139&i=3&l=0

 

[Tallguy 3,402]

5 minutes ago, filmmusic said:

It's the first King Kong film I ever saw, so naturally I love it!

 

I keep thinking that will be the case, but it's so terrible and 1933 and 2005 are so good. And it's even got Jeff Bridges! I LOVE Jeff Bridges!

 

But Barry's score is amazing.

[Andy 4,147]

I can't NOT love Kong 76.  The marketing with perhaps one of the top 3 movie posters of all time.

 

Am image so strong, it somehow gets into my young psyche, and permeates the whole affair.  That, and the John Barry make up for any shortcomings.  It's got a lot going for it, even Rick Baker in the monkey suit.  And Introducing Jessica Lange?  Yeah, I love this movie.  Thank you, Dino DeLaurentiis.

[Tallguy 3,402]

It does have Kong fighting a snake.

 

And yes, that poster is amazing.

 

Mind you, this was the decade that gave us posters like this:

[Andy 4,147]

[Tallguy 3,402]

Could have been worse. He could have gone to Chicago.