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

[Sweeping Strings 2,346]

'Some bollocks about a secret society' - how conspiracy theorists make me feel, neatly summed up there. 

[Brundlefly 2,385]

James Bond

 

I have recently been bingewatching the older James Bond films of which I've many seen for the very first time, starting with Dr. No and (at least for now) ending with Licence to Kill. A few Thoughts:

 

First of all, I love Sean Connery as Bond, there's no one to beat his elegance and his sex appeal. He's just the classic James Bond. At the same time, he's given us the most cringeworthy sexist moments of the whole franchise. I really like the more grounded interpretation of George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights - also two of the best films. It is interesting that Dalton's interpretation switches from rather heartfelt to rather grimming between his two performances. The later resembles the Bond that is later portrayed by Daniel Craig in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. My least favourite Bond actor is Roger Moore, but that might be due to the fact that the James Bond films he's been in are the most frivolous and partly shoddy films of the entire franchise.

 

The stunts and special effects get much better and look more realistic from For Your Eyes Only onwards. And by the way, I have a soft spot for that film, the Bond girl is quite unique, the final sequence is exquisitely filmed and the Bill Conti score is great.

 

The best directed film is From Russia with Love which has moments that remind you of Hitchcock (the train sequence). The films that qualify for worst direction are spread all over the Roger Moore era. However, overall, I don't think that the quality between the films is as huge as many people like to imply. I don't consider Goldfinger a masterpiece and I don't consider Moonraker or Octopussy total trash.

 

The funny thing about Moonraker is that it is largely a gaudy copy of The Spy Who Loved Me, the main difference being the finale taking place in space and not underwater.

 

I was kinda shocked about the level of graphic violence in Licence to Kill. They obviously tried to copy the harder-than-nails 80s action genre. It kinda disturbed me since I did not really expect that. Still, after all I've heard about the film I was positively surprised.

 

My favourite film is From Russia with Love. My least favourite film is Live or Let Die. From the rambling plot to the racist and insensitive portrayal of black people it is a very unfortunate entrance to the Moore era.

 

My favourite Bond girl is Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. She's intelligent and sexy and her role is essential to the course of the plot. Bond girls don't need to be depicted as manly heroines, but they should be more than just decoration.

 

If I had to rank the films up until that point, it would probably look like this:

1. From Russia with Love
2. Goldfinger
3. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
4. You Only Live Twice
5. The Living Daylights
6. Diamonds Are Forever
7. Thunderball
8. Licence to Kill
9. For Your Eyes Only
10. The Man with the Golden Gun
11. Dr. No
12. The Spy Who Loved Me
13. A View to a Kill
14. Octopussy
15. Moonraker
16. Live or Let Die

 

And if I had to rank my favourite Bond actors, I would be like this:

1. Sean Connery
2. Daniel Craig
3. Timothy Dalton
4. George Lazenby
5. Pierce Brosnan
6. Roger Moore

[Jay 37,318]

4 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

or

and

[Sweeping Strings 2,346]

48 Hrs - ah, the 'buddy-buddy' action-thriller with shootouts that actually spill blood, copious swearing, punch-ups, wisecracks and some tits ... I fancy we will never see their like again, what with the action genre mostly consisting of superheroes/now rarely wanting to stray outside of a 12A/PG-13 rating. 

Ah well, this passed 90 minutes quite agreeably.   

[Naïve Old Fart 9,507]

It's quite an effective movie... and, in 1982, it was very successful. I like it. Avoid the sequel.

[A24 4,326]

Lone detective -> buddy cops

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,507]

Some buddy-buddy cop movies work. LETHAL WEAPON is a fine example.

[A24 4,326]

I think I'm the only JWFaner whose life isn't changed by that movie.

[Sweeping Strings 2,346]

5 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

It's quite an effective movie... and, in 1982, it was very successful. I like it. Avoid the sequel.

They're both currently on All4.

I'd imagine the first one was probably a help in getting Murphy cast in Beverly Hills Cop. Extraordinary to think that it was originally meant to star Stallone.  

[Jay 37,318]

 

Personal Shopper

 

Wow, this was a very interesting ghost story / thriller / drama hodgepodge.  Kristen Stewart stars as an American living in Paris whose twin brother recently passed away, and she is trying to get a sign from him now that he's on the other side, and they had agreed before his death that they'd do so.  They both considered themselves mediums, and both have the same genetic heart defect.  She also works for a supermodel as her personal shopper and sort-of assistant, and one of the model's boyfriends is about to be dumped by her before her busband finds out.  Stewart also starts getting messages from an unknown number, that appears to be a spirit, who provokes her into bending some rules in her life, like wearing her boss's expensive outfits and sleeping in her bed... to start.

There's a lot going on in this movie!  But somehow it glides through things with relative ease, and keeps things interesting as various mysteries develop and various ghosts appear.  The ending is pretty cool, I dug it.

 

Interesting flick!  It's directed by Olivier Assayas, and now I really want to see his prior film with Stewart, Clouds of Sils Maria.

 

It's on Kanopy or AMC+

[Edmilson 7,394]

6 hours ago, AC1 said:

I think I'm the only JWFaner whose life isn't changed by that movie.

I've seen the first three LW movies and I thought they were okay, decent entertainment. Dunno why I haven't seen 4 yet, but it seems like the worst of the franchise (despite having Jet Li).

[A24 4,326]

I've seen 1 and 2. Maybe 3. While they might be entertaining during viewing, it's not the kind of movie that entertains me afterwards. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,507]

1 - 3 are varying degrees of good. 4 is shite.

No idea what 5 will be like.

[Sweeping Strings 2,346]

Danny Glover's famous line might undergo a slight updating in it ... 'I've gotten too old for this shit', maybe? 

[Jurassic Shark 12,033]

18 hours ago, AC1 said:

I think I'm the only JWFaner whose life isn't changed by that movie.

 

You just haven't noticed.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,507]

18 hours ago, AC1 said:

I think I'm the only JWFaner whose life isn't changed by that movie.

You will Alex. You will become a true believer - mwhahahahaha!!!!!

[A24 4,326]

Well, I admit I sometimes I want to talk movies only to find out everyone is once again talking about Lethal Weapon, and in a way, that might be considered as pretty life-changing: I wanted to talk movies but JWfan is holding me back!

 

[Bespin 8,480]

I'm preparing myself to watch the latest Spider-Man movie featuring the "three" actors who portrayed the hero in the last decades...

 

So I (re)watched Tobey Maguire trilogy. I found that the first one aged badly... the 2nd remains the best one, altough Alfred Molina remains a strange casting for this kind of movie. The two eyes of James Franco clearly can't open the same size (oh and nice hair dying in the first movie!). The third, where Spidey becomes dark (yawn, like the dark Superman was, many years ago)... soulless villains... re-yawn.

 

I realized I never saw the two Andrew Garfield movies. Now I know why. When watching the first one, the playing of Garfield remembered me more Norman Bates from Psycho than Peter Parker from Spider-Man! Ouch.

 

Anyway, I'm here, in the not always "amazing" world of our neighborhood friend...

 

I saw all the previous Tom Holland movies as Spider-Man, he's the best one, for his playing and of course his lovely butt.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Molina remains my favorite baddie in a superhero film.

[bollemanneke 3,338]

Spider-man 2.

 

Much better than the first movie. Maguire has moments that are both brilliant and terrible, but he’s mostly good. Didn’t like Dunst that much this time and Harris is still annoying. Molina was unrecognisable at first, but very good. Didn’t like some of the humour and hero talk, but then that scene on the train came and, well, you know. JK Simmons is still fantastic, but why, oh why, did they have to include that stupid Green Goblin scene? Stay out of my evenings, Willem Dafoe. Is Spider-Man 3 two hours of inane laughter again?

The score is also better. There’s one fantastic cue for Octavius in his lab (those horns!) and the train scene is gorgeous. Also, I finally know what Elfman’s Spider-Man theme sounds like after four years. And that scene in the church! Dare… Dare I hope for the organ to be on the OST? I sure wish it had ended with the romantic kiss, though, didn’t need that final scene at all.

[Holko 9,499]

Black Sunday. Pretty good tense movie with some good acting moments and fantastic cinematography... until the ending is so weak and payoffless that it pushes the whole thing down to an OK. Lots of unused score though... Hmmm...

[Faleel 5,340]

8 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Spider-man 2.

 

There’s one fantastic cue for Octavius in his lab (those horns!)

Is that one of the Young cues?

[bollemanneke 3,338]

I have absolutely no idea.

[Sweeping Strings 2,346]

20 hours ago, Bespin said:

I'm preparing myself to watch the latest Spider-Man movie featuring the "three" actors who portrayed the hero in the last decades...

 

So I (re)watched Tobey Maguire trilogy. I found that the first one aged badly... the 2nd remains the best one, altough Alfred Molina remains a strange casting for this kind of movie. The two eyes of James Franco clearly can't open the same size (oh and nice hair dying in the first movie!). The third, where Spidey becomes dark (yawn, like the dark Superman was, many years ago)... soulless villains... re-yawn.

 

I realized I never saw the two Andrew Garfield movies. Now I know why. When watching the first one, the playing of Garfield remembered me more Norman Bates from Psycho than Peter Parker from Spider-Man! Ouch.

 

Anyway, I'm here, in the not always "amazing" world of our neighborhood friend...

 

I saw all the previous Tom Holland movies as Spider-Man, he's the best one, for his playing and of course his lovely butt.

I think the Garfield ones only exist because Sony would've lost the rights to the character without making them. They (and the 3rd Maguire movie) are best forgotten.   

[bollemanneke 3,338]

Garfield 1 is good! And it has James Horner. And Emma Stone.

[Andy 4,089]

On 14/1/2023 at 12:37 PM, Jay said:

Neytiri is practically naked the whole movie, showing of tons of sideboob throughout most of the picture

 

Im glad it’s not just me. I felt pervy for noticing. 

[Bespin 8,480]

The success of this movie finally explained.

[Bespin 8,480]

Ok, so I'm done with Spider-Man!

 

The one with the 3 spideys was ok, not more. The surprise for me was that the old vilains came back too...

 

I think Holland did his job well with his trilogy, was it his final movie as Spider-Man?

[Edmilson 7,394]

53 minutes ago, Bespin said:

I think Holland did his job well with his trilogy, was it his final movie as Spider-Man?

IIRC, there's a fourth Holland Spiderman movie scheduled for July 2024.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Good thing too, that ending set up a new paradigm for the character, we have to get new stories

[Jay 37,318]

17 hours ago, Bespin said:

Ok, so I'm done with Spider-Man!

 

The one with the 3 spideys was ok, not more. The surprise for me was that the old vilains came back too...

 

Surprise?  They're all on the poster

 

17 hours ago, Bespin said:

I think Holland did his job well with his trilogy, was it his final movie as Spider-Man?

 

Nope, they're doing a college trilogy now that they've done the high school trilogy. 

 

Also, Holland also played Spider-man in Captain America 3, Avengers 3 and 4, and some kind of cameo in Venom 2 (I haven't seen that one).

 

And there's also a Disney+ animated series coming about this Spider-man's first two years of high school, but I guess Holland isn't voicing him there even though its his version of the character

[Tallguy 3,380]

On 22/01/2023 at 6:26 AM, Sweeping Strings said:

I think the Garfield ones only exist because Sony would've lost the rights to the character without making them. They (and the 3rd Maguire movie) are best forgotten.   

 

Amazing Spider-Man is better than the Rami films. Amazing Spider-Man 2? Yeah, what you said.

[Sweeping Strings 2,346]

I like the first 2 Raimis (the 3rd one is a clunky, overstuffed mess) and all 3 of the Tom Holland ones. My abiding memory of the second Garfield one is it grinding to a lifeless halt during the 'relationship' scenes. Ugh.    

[A24 4,326]

Ford v Ferrari (2019)

 

 

The film addresses the viewers as being very average. Didn't like Christian Bale as Ken Miles. Luckily the races were filmed impressively. 5/10 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,507]

5 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

I like the first 2 Raimis (the 3rd one is a clunky, overstuffed mess)...

The only thing I remembered about Spidey 3 is that it had good sound. Sorry (shrug).

[Edmilson 7,394]

Spider-Man 3 is better written, has a better score and is overall a better movie than both Amazing SM flicks.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,507]

I'll happily confess that I've not seen either ASM films. My problem is Garfield. I can't get past him being a cry-baby at having his idea, and company position, usurped. He acts (literally and figuratively) like an eight year old who had his crayons stolen. I really should watch more Garfield, I guess, if only to redress the balance.

 

[Faleel 5,340]

2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Spider-Man 3 is better written, has a better score and is overall a better movie than both Amazing SM flicks.

And thanks to the Editors cut, we can hear it (mostly) in context!

[HunterTech 987]

1 hour ago, Clockwork Angel said:

And thanks to the Editors cut, we can hear it (mostly) in context!

 

Plus the 4K release, since every copy of it currently includes it as an extra audio track. So you get the extra benefit of restored CY score in both edited and unedited forms!

 

It does intrigue me that Murawski still kept one instance of SM1 tracking (when Harry enters the final battle) for both, since I wouldn't think the originally written cue to be ill-fitting in the part that got dialed out. I suppose it could use more intensity, but then using music from when the Goblin was definitely being villainous is an odd way of patching that.

[Faleel 5,340]

Ooh that's so cool!

[Tallguy 3,380]

16 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

I can't get past him being a cry-baby at having his idea, and company position, usurped. He acts (literally and figuratively) like an eight year old who had his crayons stolen.

 

Are... we talking about the Facebook thing?

 

ASM had a not very good villain and because of that a not very good final battle. But all of the Spider-Man stuff at the heart of it might even be better than the Holland movies. (No. Sorry. Homecoming is just perfect.) Peter, Gwen, Captain Stacey, Ben, May, hell even Flash Thompson are all great. And this is the quipiest Spidey ever in the movies. More than Holland. WAAAAY more than Maguire.

 

In the 60's comics Peter was not just this sweet, wholesome kid. Even after Uncle Ben he was a nerd with a chip on his shoulder. Nice guy, but definitely mad about a lot of things. Of the three Spidey actors Garfield is the only one who got that. Or at least the only one who was written for that.

 

I mean, really. As much as I adore Tom Holland, can you ever imagine him NOT stopping a bank robber?

[Andy 4,089]

I can’t forgive ASM for dragging out the origin story AGAIN.  This was SONY’s The Dark Knight, and Garfield was directed to be appropriately dour, whiny, and generally not fun to watch.  The Lee/Ditko/Romita run of comics are my favorite comics ever.  Maybe the lack of peppy fun wasn’t entirely Garfield’s fault (he did better in No Way Home), but he certainly didn’t give a performance that’s spirited wall crawler fun. 

[Bespin 8,480]

I rewatched Alien (1979) yesterday on bluray, I think the last time I saw Alien that was on VHS.

 

And when I say "saw", I mean "didn't saw", because back then, with the old TVs and VHS, it's was a movie where all we can see is black scenes... and white ghosts (do you remember that effect of "ghosts" on old TVs? They had difficulties to deal with movies with high contrasts, i.e. very black parts and very white parts in the same image... "ghosts"... make your researches!).

 

Anyway, I think that's a movie that aged badly. Visually it's now perfect, we "see" everything, and there is no ghosts, yeah. Hey people are smoking in the spaceship... ha ha ha!

 

But, but, thanks to that damn cat.

 

Seriously, what the hell a cat doing in space?? 

 

Well, the cat is responsible for at least two big "AHHH!!!" scenes.

 

That was lame for a Scifi movie, even in 1979.

 

I end my review here! AlienS tonight.

 

I don't remember... is it the cat that bring back another Alien, or is it already in the body of Ripley?

 

MEEEEOWWW!!!!

 

 

[Tallguy 3,380]

2 minutes ago, Bespin said:

Anyway, I think that's a movie that aged badly. Visually it's now perfect, we "see" everything, and there is no ghosts, yeah.

 

Well. It's not like it became a hit on VHS. It was a hit on the BIG SCREEN. And yes, we could see things.

 

War of the Worlds (2005): I did not like this movie much when it came out. But this thing is aging like fine wine. It is by FAR the scariest movie that Spielberg has ever made. I'm not worried about sharks. I'm not afraid of dinosaurs. But crowds of people at the end of the world? WHILE it's the end of the world? While I'm trying to take care of kids? Terrifying.

 

I still don't like the look of the movies that Spielberg was making in the 2000's. It has this soft virtual look. It's like he discovered that if 90% of his shot is going to be effects anyway that he can do anything. And he was wrong. Either effects caught up with him, he got better at it, or he abandoned it. In the case of WotW, I think I just got used to it.

 

Two things that I hate more and more every time: WHY did the aliens bury the machines 1000 years ago again? Why didn't they just attack then?

 

And: Tom Cruise is the ONLY PERSON IN BOSTON who sees that the shields on the tripods are down?

 

Otherwise, top notch. And Cruise is really good. The Maestro stays almost entirely out of the way.

[Jay 37,318]

 

Clouds of Sils Maria

 

Huh.  After seeing Personal Shopper (see above), I really wanted to check out Olivier Assayas's previous film that was also starring Kristen Stewart, and now that I have, I am surprised by some choices he made in the later film. In this film Kristen Stewart is the personal assistant to a famous actress, which was so similar to working for the supermodel in the their film, I wonder why he repeated that? 

 

The real character arc this time isn't Stewart's though, it's Juliet Binoche as the actress she works for.  Binoche is middle aged, and asked to play the older character in a new revival of the play, where she was now play the older character in the play, with Chloë Grace Moretz (not playing herself) taking on her former role as the younger character.  As Binoche prepares through several long line-reading practices with Stewart, the line blurs between what happens to the two ladies in the play, and what is happening with Binoche and Stewart.  But then the movie takes a sudden turn I was not expecting and I'm not sure how I feel about it.  It almost felt like a first draft of a story that just got film, unsure of its message or point.  But the acting was good, and some scenic shots of Switzerland are awesome.

Strange flick.  I liked Personal Shopper better

 

It's on Kanopy and AMC+

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I haven't seen Blue in the Face (1995) but this fantastic scene with Michael J. Fox and Giancarlo Esposito makes me want to.

 

 

[filmmusic 1,823]

 

Very good neo-noir mystery film, with great atmosphere. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,507]

It's a very good film. It's, also, Parker's most cinematic film.

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

Angel Heart scared the living daylights out of me the first time I saw it.  So much so that I hated it. 

 

Today, I think it's brilliant, dark, and still scary. Totally underappreciated, forgotten horror classic.

[Marian Schedenig 8,176]

It's got a rather unique atmosphere and some terrific cinematography. It's scary, but I never found it *that* scary - that honour would go to the somewhat (I think, though I couldn't tell you why) similar Jacob's Ladder, which I couldn't finish the first time I watched it.