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

[filmmusic 1,842]

 

Not as good as The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, but still quite impressive at times, for its time.

Oscar for best sound, which was quite engaging through the actual earthquake scene.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,552]

Did you watch it with the Sensurround track?

[Schilkeman 964]

19 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Did you watch it with the Sensurround track?

I have my kids sit behind my chair, and kick it at the appropriate times. Works for any movie, really.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,552]

Feel-around! 

[filmmusic 1,842]

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Did you watch it with the Sensurround track?

No. 

With the Sensurround audio the dialogue was coming from the 2 front speakers and I didn't like it.

So I used the regular DTS-MA 5.1, where the dialogue was coming from the center speaker.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,552]

Fair enough.

[filmmusic 1,842]

 

The Lover (1992)

Beautiful aesthetically film, but with the downside of starring Jane March who I thought was bad.

I wonder, didn't the film cause a scandal since it touches the subject of pedophilia? (the role of March is supposed to be a 15 1/2 years old girl)

[A24 4,346]

7 hours ago, filmmusic said:

 

I wonder, didn't the film cause a scandal since it touches the subject of pedophilia? (the role of March is supposed to be a 15 1/2 years old girl)

 

If it was released today we would have seen whole villages being burned down.

 

[filmmusic 1,842]

 

I want to love this film but I can't.

I find it silly, with a bad score and bad acting, and as I've said in the other thread, I cannot understand the hype and the high ratings.

Perhaps @Datameister you would care to explain what's good about it?

I prefer other 80s fairytales like Labyrinth, Willow or even Legend!

[Naïve Old Fart 9,552]

LEGEND; LABYRINTH; WILLOW.

 

THE PRINCESS BRIDE leaves them all behind 

[Datameister 2,044]

4 hours ago, filmmusic said:

 

I want to love this film but I can't.

I find it silly, with a bad score and bad acting, and as I've said in the other thread, I cannot understand the hype and the high ratings.

Perhaps @Datameister you would care to explain what's good about it?

I prefer other 80s fairytales like Labyrinth, Willow or even Legend!

I wish I could explain it. It's definitely silly. There's a real sense of cheesiness from the 80s synths, and the acting gets campy at times. Yet for me it's totally a comfort food film. Just makes me happy to watch it.

[Chen G. 3,950]

5 hours ago, filmmusic said:

I want to love this film but I can't.

I find it silly, with a bad score and bad acting, and as I've said in the other thread, I cannot understand the hype and the high ratings.

 

I'm on the same boat here.

 

For me, it plays as some kind of middle ground between parody and an straight-faced adventure story. If it leaned harder into parody and made more fun at itself, it would have hit closer to home for me.

[A24 4,346]

'80s Fantasy fairy tales? There can be only one!

 

 

[Chen G. 3,950]

No thanks.

 

I’m rather fond of Dragonslayer, though.

[A24 4,346]

I don't think I ever successfully finished watching that one. I do remember North reusing some of his musical ideas from his rejected 2001: ASO score. 

[Chen G. 3,950]

3 minutes ago, AC1 said:

I do remember North reusing some of his musical ideas from his rejected 2001: ASO score. 

 

I believe so, yes.

 

Its not a great movie, I wouldn't say: they could have done better than casting MacNicol, I would say, and the whole finale where Sir Ralph Richardson basically turns into a James Bond-like trigger bomb is unforgivable.

 

But the movie is also boundlessly inventive, and has the best movie dragon this side of Smaug.

[A24 4,346]

Wasn't there also some kind of Star Wars vibe/influence? You know, with a chosen one (to slay the dragon) and a mentor/wizard like figure? 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,552]

42 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

But the movie is also boundlessly inventive, and has the best movie dragon

 

Sorted 

[Nick1Ø66 4,722]

Not sure if it's as good as Dragonslayer, but Ladyhawke is great, despite that unfortunate sword & score.  Genuinely moving story and solid performances by the leads. And as far as fantasy films go (like Dragonslayer) not a terrible representation of medieval life.

 

I'd put it in the solid "B" tier of 80's fantasy, below classics like Conan & Excalibur, but certainly better than Legend or Labyrinth. 

 

2 hours ago, AC1 said:

Wasn't there also some kind of Star Wars vibe/influence? You know, with a chosen one (to slay the dragon) and a mentor/wizard like figure? 

 

Yeah. Peter Macnicol (an odd casting choice, to be sure) is sort of a stand-in for Luke Skywalker (as I recall he is in fact a wizard's apprentice) with Ralph Richardson in the Obi-Wan role. The comparison only goes so far though, and the similarities to Star Wars are mostly superficial.

 

 

[Sweeping Strings 2,363]

3 hours ago, AC1 said:

'80s Fantasy fairy tales? There can be only one!

 

 

That tagline wouldn't stand a chance nowadays. The yoof would never look up from their phones for long enough to read it. 

[Brónach 1,302]

23 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Not sure if it's as good as Dragonslayer, but Ladyhawke is great, despite that unfortunate sword.  Genuinely moving story and solid performances by the leads. And as far as fantasy films go (like Dragonslayer) not a terrible representation of medieval life.

 

I'd put it in the solid "B" tier of 80's fantasy, below classics like Conan & Excalibur, but certainly better than Legend or Labyrinth.

 

you may enjoy the film Irati from last year. (i mean, or not, i don't know)

[Chen G. 3,950]

3 hours ago, AC1 said:

Wasn't there also some kind of Star Wars vibe/influence? You know, with a chosen one (to slay the dragon) and a mentor/wizard like figure? 

 

Nitpicky perhaps, but certainly as far as the public (including Dragonslayer's scribes) were aware, Luke wasn't a "Chosen One" until The Empire Strikes Back aired, by which point the story of Dragonslayer was I believe in the can. Until that time, Luke was an everyman. I think the similarities of Galen and Ulrich to Luke and Ben ultimately go back to the roots of all four characters in Bilbo and Gandalf.

 

Strictly speaking, the film that jump-started the fantasy genre in the 1980s was Excalibur: it was released almost at the same time as Dragonslayer and made far more money. And if Excalibur was influenced by Star Wars, it was in a little bit more roundabout way.

 

70mm showings of the Star Wars films were often a programme with a short: Star Wars with Duck Dodgers in the 24-1/2^th Century, Return of the Jedi with Dilemma and The Empire Strikes Back with Black Angel. Roger Christian who directed Black Angel said John Boorman showed the film to his entire crew before Excalibur, and if you watch both you can definitely see that the visual style of Excalibur owes something to this short. So, in a sense, the fantasy genre sprang from a short shown with The Empire Strikes Back.

 

Also, if you read drafts of Boorman's script from before he attended The Empire Strikes Back, the whole bit about "The Dragon" is missing: he added that afterwards, a very thinly-veiled pastiche of the Force, particularly as described by Yoda.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,552]

I remember seeing BLACK ANGEL, as a support to THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

 

Fun fact: in the UK, THE SNOWMAN was going to support E.T. Spielberg, however, viewed it, and vetoed, saying that it was too similar to his film 

[Chen G. 3,950]

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

I remember seeing BLACK ANGEL, as a support to THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

 

That's something we can't bring into account now. Its funny reading all these reviews of Star Wars from 1977 reviewing the film as though it were a parody (seriously) but when you watch it AFTER Duck Dogders it makes more sense. Likewise, we can talk about The Empire Strikes Back feeling more serious, but when you watch it after having seen the decidedly nightmarish, downbeat Black Angel, it feels a hullva lot more serious! Dilemma is a little bit of an odd one out, but I guess its non-dialogue, computer-animated nature and its anti-war message would have appealed to Lucas.

[A24 4,346]

8 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Nitpicky perhaps, but certainly as far as the public (including Dragonslayer's scribes) were aware, Luke wasn't a "Chosen One" until The Empire Strikes Back aired, by which point the story of Dragonslayer was I believe in the can. Luke was an everyman. I think the similarities of Galen and Ulrich to Luke and Ben ultimately go back to the roots of all four characters in Bilbo and Gandalf.

 

 

 

Even before it was pointed out in a sequel, Luke is already 'the chosen one' archetype in A New Hope because of the Hero's Journey story template, which I'm sure Dragonslayer is adapting as well. 

[Chen G. 3,950]

1 hour ago, AC1 said:

Luke is already 'the chosen one' archetype in A New Hope because of the Hero's Journey story template, which I'm sure Dragonslayer is adapting as well. 

 

 

Three things:

 

One, the "Hero's Journey" is a scam. If you actually try and read Campbell's inane, rambling book and try to take any heroic story and fit it into that mould you'll find nothing fits quite right: the order of the steps is almost never just like Campbell describes it and that's because Campbell was a hack. His theorem had long been decried as cherry-picked, overly-generalized and amateurish.

 

Two, if there's a story that REALLY doesn't fit the Hero's Journey mould at all, its Star Wars. The Hero's Journey is: 

1. The Normal World
2. Call to Adventure
3. Refusal of the Call
4. Supernatural aid
5. Crossing the Threshold
6. Belly of the Whale
7. Road of Trials x 3
8. Meeting with the Goddess
9. Temptress
10. Atonment with the Father figure
11. Apotheosis
12. Ultimate Boon
13. Refusal of the Call to return
14. Magic Flight
15. Rescue from without
16. Crossing of the Return Threshold
17. Master of Two Worlds
18. Freedom to Live

Star Wars is 1, 2, 4, 3, 5, 6, 7a, 7b, 10, 11, 18. It doesn't follow the structure AT ALL.

 

And third, I do not for one minute believe Lucas actually read Campbell: its well beyond his level of erduition, and it doesn't leave any traceable mark on his writing. Lucas did read a (far, far lighter) column about motifs in fairytales on The New Yorker by Bruno Bettelheim (which, talk about hacks!) and he refers to it in story conferences, he quotes from it verbatim in his notes (see below), he seemingly gave his copy to Lucasfilm's Carol Titelman, and most important, you can point to certain elements in Star Wars and in Return of the Jedi and say "THAT's the influence of Bettelheim."

 

Its why he changed to epigraph to "A long time ago" (right after reading the column), its why he gave the cinematography a slight gauziness, its why he refused to let Kasdan kill Lando off, why the Ewoks are so cutesy (because, he kept on saying during the story conferences, "This is a fairytale!"), etc...

 

He may have also read a review of Star Wars from Psychology Today that compared his film to Bettelheim's theorem, and talked about how Vader is "The Evil Father", and I don't need to tell what influence that may have had on his writing. He doesn't refer to this article, but his notes pick-up its post-hoc etymology.

 

Bruno Bettelheim, Uses of Enchantment, 1977 (mostly from an except published in the New Yorker, 6 December 1975, and almost entirely lifted from G.K. Chesterton's On Household Gods and Goblins, 1928.)	Conrad Kottak, Star Wars: Social Science Fiction, in Psychology Today, February 1978	George Lucas' notes, circa 1980
The fairy tale presented in a simple, homely way; no demands are made on the listener. This prevents even the smallest child from feeling compelled to act in specific ways, and he is never made to feel inferior. Far from making demands, the fairy tale reassures, gives hope for the future, and holds out the promise of a happy ending.   [...] Fairy tales, unlike any other form of literature, direct the child to discover his identity and calling, and they also suggest what experiences are needed to develop his character further. Fairy tales intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one’s reach despite adversity—but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity.   [...] children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy. [...] It seems particularly appropriate to a child that exactly what the evildoer wishes to inflict on the hero should be the bad person’s fate [...] At this age, from four until puberty, what the child needs most is to be presented with symbolic images which reassure him that there is a happy solution to his oedipal problems   [...] The good fairy godmother watches over the child’s fate, ready to assert her power when critically needed [... little Red Riding Hood] tells him, the wolf is a passing manifestation—Grandma will return triumphant. [...the sister in Seven Ravens] travels to the end of the world and makes a great sacrifice to undo the spell put on them."	aspects of Luke’s father are represented as a good father who is dead (Luke’s real father), a good father who is alive, but ambiguously dead by the movie’s end (Ben Kenobi), and a father who is totally evil and survives, probably for Star Wars II (Darth Vader, whose very name bears the phonetic resemblance to “Dark Father”)."	Present [story] in a simple, homely way … This prevents even the smallest child from feeling compelled to act in specific ways and he is never made to feel inferior … Reassures, gives hope for the future, and holds out the promise of a happy ending … Discover identity and calling … Intimate that a rewarding, good life is within one’s reach despite adversity—but only if one does not shy away from the hazardous struggles without which one can never achieve true identity. Children are innocent and love justice. While most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy … Need symbolic images which reassure them that there is a happy ending, solution to the Oedipal problems … What the evildoer wishes to inflict on the hero should be the bad person’s fate.”   [...] Somewhere the good father (Ben) watches over the child's fate, ready to assert his power when critically needed. Father changes into Darth Vader, who is a passing manifestation, and will return triumphant. Luke travels to the end of the world and makes sacrifice to undo the spell on his father.    [... later, in story conferences with Kasdan and Marquand:]  The whole concept of the original film is that Luke redeems his father, which is the classic fairytale: a good father/bad father who the good son will turn back into the good father.

 

Lucas also read Tales of Power by Carlos Castaneda (yet another hack!), and in the third draft synopsis, The "Old Man" (Obi Wan) is described "like Don Juan" from Castaneda's book, and this quirky, Don Juan like characterization was then transferred to Yoda and influenced lines like "Luminous beings are we" (Castaneda verbatim) and ideas like "Life Day." And, again, Lucas talks about it in story conferences, in interviews immediately after Star Wars, some of his notes pick-up something of Castaneda's style, etc...

 

But the much-harder-to-read Campbell? Nowhere to be seen, and there's nothing in Lucas' films that you can point at and say: "Aha, he got this from Campbell!" like you can do with just about any other source for Star Wars. At least, you figure, Lucas could take some strange names from Campbell's book, but guess what? There are none.

 

 Curious, very curious...

[Nick1Ø66 4,722]

Chen, can you show me on the doll where George Lucas hurt you?

[Jurassic Shark 12,088]

Someone's got too much spare time.

[Chen G. 3,950]

I...I just like playing detective, okay? 

[Jurassic Shark 12,088]

47 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

If you actually try and read Campbell's inane, rambling book and try to take any heroic story and fit it into that mould you'll find nothing fits quite right

 

Just like the sonata form...

 

1 minute ago, Chen G. said:

I...I just like playing detective, okay? 

 

Who died?

[Chen G. 3,950]

16 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Who died?

 

Nobody, and I totally don't have a 250-page writeup with footnotes about it all... 

[Jurassic Shark 12,088]

30 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Nobody, and I totally don't have a 250-page writeup with footnotes about it all... 

 

You should publish!

[Chen G. 3,950]

2 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

You should publish!

 

I'm still working on the footnotes!

[Nick1Ø66 4,722]

4 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

You should publish!

I think Chen should release his Lucas expose’ and Mattris should release his book manifesto on the same day. Star Wars fandom would implode.

[Brónach 1,302]

Chen is like those gossip shows but for George Lucas

[Jurassic Shark 12,088]

5 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

And as far as fantasy films go (like Dragonslayer) not a terrible representation of medieval life.

 

C'mon, you're not that old.

[Chen G. 3,950]

14 minutes ago, Brónach said:

Chen is like those gossip shows but for George Lucas

 

That's for Rings of Power (I've got some news on the JWFan discord, and they're a doozy!).

 

For Lucas, its more like a very serious-minded work of art history: there's an abstract, a foreword styled like my thesis, citations for absolutely everything (which is mroe than a little time-consuming), etc...

[Brónach 1,302]

a jwfan discord, that sounds hilarious

[Chen G. 3,950]

4 minutes ago, Brónach said:

that sounds hilarious

 

It is!

[Jurassic Shark 12,088]

Indeed, but unintentionally. 

[Nick1Ø66 4,722]

6 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

C'mon, you're not that old.

It’s not the years…

[Chen G. 3,950]

Oh, and I forgot, the best fantasy film of the 1980s is Syberberg's Parsifal.

[Nick1Ø66 4,722]

How do your countrymen feel about your obsession with Wagner?

 

I mean...

[Chen G. 3,950]

16 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

How do your countrymen feel about your obsession with Wagner?

 

The same way as they do about James Levine, Daniel Barenboim, Kirill Petrenko, Justav Mahler, Jeffrey Swann, Stephen Fry and many other Jewish Wagnerites. And lets not forget about the father of Zionism himself, Herzel, who had the first Zionist convention open with the overture of Tannhauser!

 

There's far worst antisemitism in Voltaire, Dostoyevski, Dickens (and David Lean's excellent film adaptation) and others, and we live with it just fine.

[Nick1Ø66 4,722]

Yeah but I think half those people are dead, and to my knowledge none live in Israel! I'm just thinking fan club meetings must be awfully lonely.

[Chen G. 3,950]

When enough pints are down, my mates may be perplexed at my breaking into some Kurwenal or Wanderer passages... And I cite a lot of Wagner's poetry to Lakhitia.

 

I challenge anyone - jewish or not - not to be drawn-in by a good Walkure.

[Nick1Ø66 4,722]

Have you seen the Wagner vs. Verdi debate w/Stephen Fry? Quite entertaining. 

Spoiler:

Spoiler

Wagner wins

Of course he does.

[Chen G. 3,950]

Yes! With a pretty good Wotans Abscheid (by far my favourite passage in all of Wagner) from Sir John Tomlinson.

[filmmusic 1,842]

 

I like this kind of coming of age movies (especially anime).

I remember I had seen this in my childhood or teens and I had cried my eyes out.

Delightful score also by James Newton Howard, but unfortunately it hasn't got a release.

Has anyone seen part 2? Is it worth seeing it?

[Naïve Old Fart 9,552]

3 hours ago, filmmusic said:

Has anyone seen part 2? Is it worth seeing it?

 

No.