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


Mr. Breathmask

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1941 is Spielberg at the height of his filmmaking powers - while the film suffers from an outrageously bloated and unfocused script, there are scenes in it (the whole USO riot, the paint factory, the ferris wheel, the Douglas home invasion) that are brilliantly shot and conceptualized. It's just not working as a simple 'comedy' and Spielberg never had the balls to make an all-out surreal movie or a really dark one, although he comes close sometimes. So it's just kind of useless.

HOOK, on the other hand, i see here always praised for the wrong reasons. Its pre-fabricated plastic McDonald's magic, cheap Little House on the Prairie-style turns on emotion, the L. A. youth gang kinds etc. just destroy any real charm of Barrie's original and reduce it to bad afternoon tv. It's Spielberg extremely unsure of himself falling bad on his worst bag of tricks. Williams did valiantly but essentially repeated past successes here. This is no awards stuff.

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I could probably still enjoy bits and bobs of Hook purely on a nostalgia level (I really loved it when it came out), but it is pretty awful overall. Still, I think the London scenes are genuinely well done and Hoffman was always a good novelty to see in full panto mode regardless of his miscast but unfairly bashed arch nemesis.

Besides, I'd still rather endure that bad movie over War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones 4.

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WAR OF THE WORLDS i find really good, its paranoia is brilliantly, desperately done - if i block out the last 20 minutes. A shame that Spielberg always uses those opportunistic writers on his blockbusterstuff. There is a great movie waiting in there, strait-jacketed by test audience spoonfeeding.

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My problem with WOTW is that to me its storytelling is utterly unconvincing. And the basement scene (where Tom is going to kill someone) feels like it's right of a Shyamalan movie.

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I swear down, in the cinema with it's very loud surround sound, the thunder scene was one of the most frightening things I'd seen in a modern blockbuster. It was pure Spielberg.

I think part of my resentment of that film is borne out of bitterness.

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If you look at Jaws or Alien, there's very little killing or destruction, most of it is anticipation. The threat is invisible. Perhaps WOTW needs to be made that way. That's why the beginning of the film is so great.

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Hmm, but there's hundreds killed in the wotw opener. The movie drops off immediately after the marvelous highway escape for me. My problems with the movie are with garbage script and cheap ass resolution.

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Hmm, but there's hundreds killed in the wotw opener. The movie drops off immediately after the marvelous highway escape for me. My problems with the movie are with garbage script and cheap ass resolution.

It probably has the worst, most anti-climactic ending I've ever seen. It makes the whole movie feel like such a gigantic waste of time.

Oh, and I don't care if it's 'exactly like in the book'. Different rules apply to movies.

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I think it's obvious that Spielberg somehow channels 9/11 angst within these movies, but uses lame Hollywood scripts as a kind of safety net. The stuff with the corpses in the river and the burning train are pretty intense and show a master at work.

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Hmm, but there's hundreds killed in the wotw opener.

Eh, that's how the film opens to you? I was talking about the film before that. I already thought it was strange that we would agree on something. The world is back to normal again. The killing is not interesting to me, the anticipation is. The killing kills the mystery.

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Eh? I thought it was weird that you would converse normally with a person without dropping in your usual snide remarks. The world is back to normal again. It's H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, Alex, where millions die. A Spielberg blockbuster version no less. If you went in hoping for a movie which spent two hours building anticipation while skipping over the human extermination parts then more fool you for watching it in the first place and I can only conclude that you're even more fucking clueless than I thought.

Lee - who went into Jurassic Park hoping to see dinosaurs eating people and not Kubrickian ruminations on what it means to be a T-Rex.

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A bit late but I'll throw in another heap of praise for 1941. I'm begging for a properly reastered DVD of the film.

Hook is one of my least watched and listened to film and score in the Williams / Spielberg catalogue. In fact the only music I wanted is the final duel between Hook and Pan.

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Moonrise Kingdom

I'm trying to get why people adore this movie, and so I'm forcing myself to watch it again. To me, it feels childish, creepy, and cartoonish -- and everything I dislike about it is magnified even more with the second viewing. And Desplat's cutesy score just aggravates things.

I think more of these modern 'art' filmmakers (von Trier, Wes Anderson, et al) just look to alienate moviegoers than actually tell stories.

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I think you're mistaking wonderment for childish, coming-of-age for creepy, and abstract for cartoonish. Oh, and musical precision for cutesy.

It's the best film of the year, and if Anderson is not your thing why force it? All his films essentially contain those same ingredients. And if you haven't notice, that cartoony abstract palette of gorgeous art direction is kinda the point. Might want to look at the covers for his films.

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dave rented it and OMG what a piece of shit. I can't say I sat through it completely because it was terrible from the beginning.

Wes Anderson.....don't get the love.

Dave liked it, personally that in itself is spousal abuse.

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I didn't realize it was Desplat. Artsy fartsy filmmakers often call upon his aid, or so it seems. That's funny, because, don't they know he's a Williams fanboy?! ;)

BTW, what is so "abstract" about Moonrise Kingdom? I don't get it. Yes, quirky, playful, that I do I get, but abstract? I don't think so.

The Andromeda Strain (1971): I haven't seen this one for like 35 years. Almost as boring as watching a military instruction film. The film would've been a lot better if the cast wasn't so busy explaining every frame of the film.

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4/10

Mulholland Falls: Nick Nolte and L.A. Noir ... A golden combination. Love it!

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8/10

Alex

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BTW, what is so "abstract" about Moonrise Kingdom? I don't get it. Yes, quirky, playful, that I do I get, but abstract? I don't think so.

It's a 'connect or don't' movie - as Joey proves eloquently as always - but i think it is gorgeous to look at. Anderson has cultivated a certain limp quirkiness that dances on my nerves. It's coming-of-age of people i mainly want to shake in the hope to wake them from their quirk coma (meaning i certainly wouldn't choose Anderson for social interaction, either).

But i accept that he has an unique voice and that is more than can be said for the assembly-line entertainment product like AVENGERS or TRANSFORMERS.

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Well, I don't connect to Wes Anderson's style, and because of that, I flunked Moonrise Kingdom. It's all very personal of course. I don't really superconnect with Michel Gondry, another expert at doing quirky and playful, either but I do prefer him over Wes.

Alex

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"Batman Returns" in Bluray (yesterday evening. today evening: "Home Alone 2")

One of my 10 most favourite films ever..

Which reminds me, how bad is The Dark Knight Rises.

What was the purpose of the Catwoman role in that film? None!

Here, the catwoman has a very psychologically perplex and fully developed character, a meaning to the plot.

Not to talk about the masterful performance of Michelle Pfeiffer!

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The Dark Knight Rises is so superior to Batman Returns which is not a pleasant film.

Watched Christmas Vacation with the family. I'm the only one who doesn't just love it.

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Unlike most comedy directors, he actually has a strong visual style. I admire it, and have a deep affection for The Life Aquatic.

I love that film.

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Prometheus

Basically this is a remake of Alien, but with far more dense plotting that in the very end, doesn't lead anywhere.

The crew of a ship land on a distant planet, venture into a structure and bring back something that tries to kill them.

Wasn't Prometheus supposed to be a different film, only lightly connected to Alien?

The film starts out by asking profound, but very predictable questions. By the time it gets to the halfway point the plot gets stuck in characters acting out of their own sneeky motivations, and ends with a CGI laden finale that is neither believable nor exiting.

The plot of finding your God, who then tries to kill you was taken straight from Star Trek V, and was done better there.

In it's core this is a bad movie, The plot is dull and predictable, and not very well executed. There are a lot of characters, but they are mostly one-dimensional and boring. The art direction and effects are well done, but that's basically it. None of the visuals or sets astonished me.

Maybe that's the problem with the CGI era. We have seen so many breathtaking, 100% perfect effects that we take them for granted, and need something more for them to have meaning.

Rapace as Shaw is a bit annoying, but acvtually of some interest. (Rapace looks like Weaver in some shots and was probably cast for that reason)

Fassbender makes for an enigmatic David. Bringing a lot more to the role the the scripts gives him.

Theron makes for a good ice-queen, but so one-dimensional. You neither care about or dislike her.

The main question is...what is the point? What is the point of this film? I found myself asking that while watching and that is never a good sign.

The nods to Alien were supposed to be subtle, but we have people getting sprayed by corrosive blood, eggs getting implanted, people being killed in horrid ways, and just before the End Credits a real Alien shows up, just so we don't miss the point....

There's just no reason for this film to have been made.

* out of ****

I love that film.

Then we are brothers!

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I don't know why Ridley Scott lied , he should have been upfront and said, "yes, I'm making a prequel to Alien."

True, but even at that level it resembled Cameron's Aliens more to me then Scott's own film.

The script is terrible btw, you don't make profound sci-fi by having so many redundancy in characters and plot threads.

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I think you're mistaking wonderment for childish, coming-of-age for creepy, and abstract for cartoonish. Oh, and musical precision for cutesy.

It's the best film of the year, and if Anderson is not your thing why force it? All his films essentially contain those same ingredients. And if you haven't notice, that cartoony abstract palette of gorgeous art direction is kinda the point. Might want to look at the covers for his films.

I liked the film, but "best film of the year" is an outlandish claim.

That said, I can understand gripes about Anderson. To me, he's pretty much a one-trick pony; all his films feel like the same to me, the same style. I don't feel like he is advancing as a film maker. And Desplat's score felt like a rehash of Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I didn't really like to begin with.

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Seems like filmmakers can't be auteurs anymore. Honestly, how many great directors change up their style so much from film to film? Malick, Leone, Kubrick, Hitchcock... these are all directors that are instantly identifiable. Even Michael Bay is, he just needs to get away from the screenplay.

In these situations it's a love or hate. I don't expect a director to fix something that isn't broken, particularly when no one else in the industry is doing what they're doing.

Moonrise Kingdom and Seven Psychopaths are my two favorite films of the year. The Master falls into third place. There are still plenty I have yet to see.

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Seems like filmmakers can't be auteurs anymore. Honestly, how many great directors change up their style so much from film to film? Malick, Leone, Kubrick, Hitchcock... these are all directors that are instantly identifiable. Even Michael Bay is, he just needs to get away from the screenplay.

I know what auteur film making is, and I recognize Wes Anderson is a strong example, but I feel no variety when I watch his films. The directors you mentioned are easily recognizable - I just don't feel like I'm watching the same film every time I watch one of theirs. Wes Anderson's style is so thick and specific that I feel it requires some variation now and then; he just hasn't done that.

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