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

[bollemanneke 3,342]

Home alone 2.

 

'Tis not the season, but this film has been on my must-watch list for a long time and nothing else of interest was on, so I spent this sunny evening watching a holiday movie. It's certainly not bad, but if it does one thing, it's highlighting that Home Alone's short running time probably contributed to its greatness. This one is just too long. I'm sure there's a good movie hidden inside it, but some things just do not work: the scene with Mr Duncan is long-winded, Tim Curry is annoying, the only good thing about the pigeon lady is that she has an Irish accent and the ridiculously long battle with the burglars is utterly boring. Also, about that final, stupid burglars are funny and all that, but this is an insult to them (and Marv talks too much). Other than that, it's very good. Catherine O'Hara is hilarious when she starts cackling madly as the family reflects on how this is the second time they've lost Kevin. This confirms my theory that Kate is a dangerous woman not to be messed with and certainly not to be trusted with children. I wonder when she'll finally move in for the kill. And poor Kevin still trying to please her, bless him. Bringing Johnny back seemed a bad idea at first, but the pay-off was amusing enough.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! MERRY CHRISTMAS! JOHN WILLIAMS, YOU'RE A FUCKING GENIUS! What a carol! That also leads me to the very few problems I had with this fantastic score: the Merry Christmas fanfare should have been referenced more often instrumentally before the choral glory kicks in during the credits, I would also have liked some more Star of Bethlehem references and the opening and very ending of the film are scored rather awkwardly while the overall recording souds too different from the first movie. Other than that, the two new carols are simply stunning, the extended holiday flight sequence is a delight, but nothing beats that marvellous chase from the toy store to the hotel. I love how this melody returns during the troll fight in Harry Potter 1. This score truly is a magical miracle.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Home Alone 2 is the best Home Alone sequel.

[Bespin 8,480]

1 minute ago, Ghostbusters II said:

Home Alone 2 is the best Home Alone sequel.

 

That's the only one.

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

3 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

I love how this melody returns during the troll fight in Harry Potter 1.

 

 

It actually bothers me in Potter. In HA2, it has a clear enough Williams touch (and the intentional Christmas/Nutcracker parallels) to feel justified. But the Potter bit reminds too much of Tchaikovsky AND HA2.

[bollemanneke 3,342]

Ah, that doesn't bother me at all. I can't get it out of my head now.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Spider-Man 2

[Marian Schedenig 8,191]

Casino Royale (2006). It's been a few years since my previous watch. I was surprised how good it looks more often than not. It's overshadowed in the Craig era by Deakins's Skyfall, but aside from that, it's a very fine looking film. Most of all though it excels at telling its story visually. There are extensive suspense & action sequences (e.g. the Miami airport part) that go a long way with hardly any dialogue, and yet manage to tell a clear and gripping story. Even the characters are clearly defined in a similar way. The juxtaposition in the first action set piece between the agile base jumper and the blut but tenacious, quick thinking & focused Bond who is careful not to harm the innocent but otherwise doesn't give a shit about the collateral damage he causes goes a long way in defining Craig's Bond when he has hardly uttered a word yet. It helps of course that Craig's acting is spot on.

 

I'll revisit Skyfall soon, but I would be surprised if it manages do dethrone Casino Royale as the best of the Craig Bonds (and perhaps the best of the entire series) for me (it hasn't on previous watches).

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I like Quantum of Solace.

[SteveMc 2,674]

17 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

I'll revisit Skyfall soon, but I would be surprised if it manages do dethrone Casino Royale as the best of the Craig Bonds (and perhaps the best of the entire series) for me (it hasn't on previous watches).

Skyfall is overrated.  Too high-brow a film for the franchise on one hand, and a bit clumsy in story and theme on the other.  Casino Royale strikes an admirable balance.  

 

K-19: The Widowmaker

Well acted submarine drama.  I liked the denouement particularly.  Bigelow's direction provides some quite fluid and tense sequences.  Shot with finesse by Cronenweth.  Badlet's score is also more than serviceable.

3/4

 

L.A. Confidential

Oh, now this is a good one.  The exquisite performances and on point costumes and mise-en-scene really carry this it.  I don't think it is completely perfect. The story, though intriguing, feels a little contrived, takes some doing to follow.  But, again, the character writing and the actors really sell it, make you believe all of it.   Some great bits of humor, too.  Goldsmith's score works very well.

4/4  

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,515]

Have you a valediction, kiddo?

[SteveMc 2,674]

3 minutes ago, Richard said:

Have you a validation, kiddo?

Valediction or validation?

If the former, Rollo Tomasi.

 

If the latter, that's why I'm posting here people!

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,515]

Of course, it's "valediction". Corrected. I'll just stick to quoting '70s disaster movies, and not try to be smart 

[A24 4,331]

Know your place, Richard.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Kingdom of Heaven.

 

God, Sir Ridley Scot is a good producer! the period setting is utterly convincing. Combined with the smooth camerawork (outside of the puzzling use of slow-motion in the action sequences) and good performances, one can simply dissappear into the time of the crusades, which is quite a nice thing for a Middle-Eastern history Graduate and/or live within two-hours drive of Hattin.

 

Good film. Not Braveheart or The Lord of the Rings' good (even though it tries its darndest to be) but good.

 

**** out of *****

[Brundlefly 2,385]

12 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Kingdom of Heaven.

 

God, Sir Ridley Scot is a good producer! the period setting is utterly convincing. Combined with the smooth camerawork (outside of the puzzling use of slow-motion in the action sequences) and good performances, one can simply dissappear into the time of the crusades, which is quite a nice thing for a Middle-Eastern history Graduate.

 

Good film. Not Braveheart or The Lord of the Rings' good (even though it tries its darndest to be) but good.

 

**** out of *****

It exceeds Braveheart, Gladiator and The Patriot by a mile.

[Chen G. 3,949]

Very few things exceed Braveheart; and if they do, they only do so by mere inches. 😉

 

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Shouldn't  you be say centimeters rather than inches(sounds so American).

[Chen G. 3,949]

Yeah, we use the metric system here.

 

Milimeters would be even more appropriate, though. 😉

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Every bit helps.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

The Mummy (1999, Full Screen DVD, Sony Trinitron WEGA)

 

The first 10 minutes of this movie feature a hot chick in a g-string, tongue choppage and Brendan Fraser smashing a guy on a horse with a shotgun, all while pounding Goldsmith music is blaring on the soundtrack. The rest of the movie lives up to this. It's got a sexy power couple, great supporting characters, charming computer graphics, so much murder it's ridiculous and tons more of the Goldsmith music. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

An Ox and a Moon...

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

8 hours ago, Ghostbusters II said:

The Mummy (1999, Full Screen DVD, Sony Trinitron WEGA)

 

The first 10 minutes of this movie feature a hot chick in a g-string, tongue choppage and Brendan Fraser smashing a guy on a horse with a shotgun, all while pounding Goldsmith music is blaring on the soundtrack. The rest of the movie lives up to this. It's got a sexy power couple, great supporting characters, charming computer graphics, so much murder it's ridiculous and tons more of the Goldsmith music. 

 

Does it have a DTS track?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

The Mummy didn't get a DTS track until Universal released the two-disc Ultimate Edition the following year. That release was weird because its picture quality suffered from having so many commentaries (including a bizarre solo commentary by Brendan Frasier) crammed into the disc, plus the DTS track. The original DVD just looked better.

[Sweeping Strings 2,354]

On 3/31/2019 at 10:39 PM, Marian Schedenig said:

Casino Royale (2006). It's been a few years since my previous watch. I was surprised how good it looks more often than not. It's overshadowed in the Craig era by Deakins's Skyfall, but aside from that, it's a very fine looking film. Most of all though it excels at telling its story visually. There are extensive suspense & action sequences (e.g. the Miami airport part) that go a long way with hardly any dialogue, and yet manage to tell a clear and gripping story. Even the characters are clearly defined in a similar way. The juxtaposition in the first action set piece between the agile base jumper and the blut but tenacious, quick thinking & focused Bond who is careful not to harm the innocent but otherwise doesn't give a shit about the collateral damage he causes goes a long way in defining Craig's Bond when he has hardly uttered a word yet. It helps of course that Craig's acting is spot on.

 

I'll revisit Skyfall soon, but I would be surprised if it manages do dethrone Casino Royale as the best of the Craig Bonds (and perhaps the best of the entire series) for me (it hasn't on previous watches).

 

I prefer Skyfall ... it doesn't have CR's length/pacing issues and we're past the 'Bond Begins' stuff by then, so you're not sat there thinking 'Stroppy petulance is a 'bad look' for a man in his late 30s, 007'.      

[A24 4,331]

37 minutes ago, Sweeping Strings said:

 

I prefer Skyfall 

 

Me too. Revisiting CR was a bit of a letdown for me, especially the melodrama revolving around Eva Green.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

James Bond shouldn't wallow in his sorrows over some shiela.

[A24 4,331]

He should leave the wallowing to Timothy Dalton. A true James Bond has a heart of stone.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Bond and Vesper go to the same place Anakin and Padme did.

[Sweeping Strings 2,354]

The 'first time Bond's fallen in love' thing would probably have been a better fit for the twentysomething-at-the-time Henry Cavill, the other candidate left at the end of the CR casting process.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Spider-Man 3

 

It's one of my favorite movies and trilogies.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

On 4/2/2019 at 3:02 AM, Chen G. said:

Yeah, we use the metric system here.

 

Milimeters would be even more appropriate, though. 😉

 

I use imperial for TV size and people's height, and metric for geographical distance and skyscraper height.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

On 4/2/2019 at 5:02 PM, Alexcremers said:

He should leave the wallowing to Timothy Dalton. A true James Bond has a heart of stone.

 

Not in the Fleming books.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

The books aren't Canon.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Is Never Say Never Again actually in the same universe as the Connery EON films or does he play a different Bond in that film?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

None of this makes sense.

[Quintus 5,399]

Never Make Sense Again

[Naïve Old Fart 9,515]

12 hours ago, dougie said:

Is Never Say Never Again actually in the same universe as the Connery EON films or does he play a different Bond in that film?

"No", and "no". Because of the legal wranglings over THUNDERBALL, McClory somehow ended up with the rights to remake the film. NSNA is not Eon, and therefore, not canon.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Thunderball and SPECTRE are Kevin McGlory!

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

6 minutes ago, Richard said:

"No", and "no". Because of the legal wranglings over THUNDERBALL, McClory somehow ended up with the rights to remake the film. NSNA is not Eon, and therefore, not canon.

 

I know it's not EON, but is the Bond that Connery plays in NSNA an older version of the Connery Bond he already played from 1962 to 1971? As part of some offshoot continuity that exists in parallel with the EON films? Or is he a new Bond character entirely who doesn't share any of the history whatsoever with his own Bond from the EON films?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

007 Multiverse!

[Nick Parker 3,040]

James Bond: Into the Martiniverse?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Is Daniel Craig's Bond a younger version of Connery's or...Moore's? Are the pre-Craig Bonds all connected?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Is Judi Dench playing the same M in the Craig films as she does in the Brosnan films?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I'm so confused!

[Sweeping Strings 2,354]

The continuity from Dr No to Die Another Day is admittedly pretty loose at times, but I believe that Connery to Brosnan are all playing the one man and we're just meant to accept that he only ages from roughly his mid-thirties to about fifty and then loops back again.

Then Craig has the reboot timeline, so Bond's intelligence career starts from scratch but in the modern day. It's probably best not to dwell too deeply on Dench playing M to both Brosnan's veteran agent and Craig's rookie one, lol. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,055]

In the Craig films, Dench is playing a different person playing M.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

What?

[SteveMc 2,674]

Inception: License To Kill (In dreams)

[bollemanneke 3,342]

The Shawshank redemption.

 

Very good. I still have trouble liking Tim Robbins, the Tommy subplot and Red's move to Mexico continue to feel rather unrealistic, but luckily, Morgan Freeman is here to compensate for all that.

Thomas Newman does what he always does: he writes music that is so effective, moving and emotional that no words can describe how good it actually is.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,515]

3 hours ago, dougie said:

 

I know it's not EON, but is the Bond that Connery plays in NSNA an older version of the Connery Bond he already played from 1962 to 1971? As part of some offshoot continuity that exists in parallel with the EON films? Or is he a new Bond character entirely who doesn't share any of the history whatsoever with his own Bond from the EON films?

NSNA is Schrödinger's Bond: he both is, and isn't, the same 007.