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


Mr. Breathmask

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Godzilla (2014). Perhaps the best monster blockbuster since... Jurassic Park? Extremely well paced, with a slew of nods and winks to JP, and some stunning set-pieces -- the opening sequence, the first MUTO awakening (closest thing we will ever get to the T-Rex escape), the bridge attack, and a wholly satisfying monster-on-monster carnage in the final battle, culminating in possibly the coolest monster kill in the history of cinema. 

 

It really helps that they filmed this almost entirely from the eye level of a bystander. It's one of the very few monster movies which captures the scale and size of the creatures. 

 

The human characters didn't bother me. They are there to simply anchor the point that we are powerless. About the only negative I can think of is Bryan Cranston, who really overacts here. 

 

Oh and killer opening titles too with fantastic music. I remember thinking it was Giacchino in Cloverfield mode...

 

4.5/5

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Overboard

 

This is one of those remakes that threatens to be far worse than it really is. It's certainly not good, but it gave me a good giggle or two. Who the hell is the guy in this? Was it made mostly for a Spanish audience? It reminds me of that 1931 Spanish remake of Dracula the way it seems like they just zombied an existing script/film and simply reshot it. It amuses me how mainstream American cinema likes to portray poor people - not as ghetto poor, but kinda cutesy poor, a jovial single mum working several jobs with three well behaved kids living in a huge house that just needs a fixer-upper or two. In the old one, Kurt Russell's house looked like a friggin hillbilly house! Oh this movie has a cheeky nod to the original that suggests they're set in the same universe.

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The Blue Bird

 

This is a terrible film. Fox obviously made it quickly, adding Shirley Temple in the hopes of recapturing the Wizard of Oz magic, but it’s preachy, treacly and the third-to-last scene involving unborn children comes as a real WTF moment.

 

The Technicolor photography looks dazzling and Alfred Newman’s score is pretty, but this is a dud.

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I remember the first Overboard to be surprisingly funny.

 

 

Don't understand the appraisal for the Godzilla movie with Bryan Cranston, though. 

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1 minute ago, Alexcremers said:

I remember the movie followed a military guy who was completely uninteresting. I did like the parachute scene.

 

The script made so many bafflingly wrong decisions, and the direction was just frustratingly numb. It's one of those movies where it's praised by people who want to like it but they're just kidding themselves. But at least the title character is awe-inspiring and lives up to his name and 50-year reputation, and the score is mostly amazing.

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The movie was really well shot and they filmed the monsters from the same POV as if they were real animals, mostly fromt the group up, which makes everything that much more believable. But the movie itself was so dull

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Watching Secret of the Ooze.  I forgot just how much of a step down this movie was from the first one.  Just compare the surprisingly gritty NYC crime opening of the first to the comic “New Yorkers eat a lot of pizza” montage of the second.  smdh 

 

Next!

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The Lost World: Jurassic Park

 

Screenshot_2019-05-26-23-19-34.png

 

There are some movies that have the ability to transform me into a giddy 10 year old, even at my advanced age. Unjustly maligned, The Lost World delivers exactly what one should expect. Spielberg, a master of his craft, has no pretensions. Lost World was not only a return to form, but as it would turn out, his last real popcorn movie.

 

There's no underlying message here. At least nothing beyond what you'd take from the first movie, the lesson we already know too well. By this time, you're just in it to see more dino action. It's not really worth taking a risk on this sort of material anyway. The atmosphere is generally brooding, but there is plenty of humor. Make no mistake, this is a popcorn affair, even if the tone seems to lean more toward being a horror flick at times. The script by the remarkably hit or miss David Koepp is sharp as a tack. The rhythmic playing of Williams is incredibly agreeable.

 

The various scenes of action and suspense are so expertly staged. You're on the edge of your seat so frequently. One wonders why Spielberg wastes his talent on boring dramas in the years since. We really have been missing out. But this wonderful time capsule will take you right back to the Spielberg we all know and love.

 

The cast is excellent. Some of them have arcs, some are just there to be there. There are so many characters, after all. They're all joining forces in the forest of Site B just to survive. Even the cinematography is first rate, though good luck getting a compliment from me in any subsequent movies, Kaminski. I would have to say literally every aspect of this movie is an improvement over the first for me.

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4 minutes ago, Dieter Stark said:

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

 

Screenshot_2019-05-26-23-19-34.png

 

There are some movies that have the ability to transform me into a giddy 10 year old, even at my advanced age. Unjustly maligned, The Lost World delivers exactly what one should expect. Spielberg, a master of his craft, has no pretensions. Lost World was not only a return to form, but as it would turn out, his last real popcorn movie.

 

There's no underlying message here. At least nothing beyond what you'd take from the first movie, the lesson we already know too well. By this time, you're just in it to see more dino action. It's not really worth taking a risk on this sort of material anyway. The atmosphere is generally brooding, but there is plenty of humor. Make no mistake, this is a popcorn affair, even if the tone seems to lean more toward being a horror flick at times. The script by the remarkably hit or miss David Koepp is sharp as a tack. The rhythmic playing of Williams is incredibly agreeable.

 

The various scenes of action and suspense are so expertly staged. You're on the edge of your seat so frequently. One wonders why Spielberg wastes his talent on boring dramas in the years since. We really have been missing out. But this wonderful time capsule will take you right back to the Spielberg we all know and love.

 

The cast is excellent. Some of them have arcs, some are just there to be there. There are so many characters, after all. They're all joining forces in the forest of Site B just to survive. Even the cinematography is first rate, though good luck getting a compliment from me in any subsequent movies, Kaminski. I would have to say literally every aspect of this movie is an improvement over the first for me.

 

It's pretty good.

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The theme for TLW is less Hollywood blockbuster (JP) and more 60s TV show a la Lost in Space and Land of the Giants. It's just got that adventurous "don't take it seriously" jazzy vibe about it that the hymnal JP does not.

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First Man

 

Did they shoot this on the moon? Sure looked real! Anyhoo was a bit of a slog, this one, but made up for it with stunning visuals and that finely grainy filmy documentary look, aiming for a different thingy to the glossiness of Apollo 13. But this Neil Armstrong bloke seemed like a grouchy, boring fella - the picked the right dude to play him it seems!

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But for the most part, its not a film that should look too grainy.

 

Most of it was shot in Super-35mm and some bits in 65mm IMAX.

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I think that the sets and the period designs gave it that since of the time, as it should. I didn't find a great amount of shots to be grainy though. Most were very clear and vivid, in fact, save for the moon approach scenes and such. That's to be expected. 

 

On this note, I highly recommend the new documentary Apollo 11, which employs completely real footage and recordings. It was a stunner, superbly redefining the doc genre while being tremendously informative. 

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Depends on the amount of grain.

 

Generally speaking, on slow 35mm film or larger the grain isn't distracting, and gives the film an organic look. On 16mm, its definitely distracting. Its why 1080p-digital looks better than 16mm, even though it technically has less detail.

 

I like 16mm for specific shots - like for the odd dream sequence or a sequence that needs to look doc-like - but not for a large portion of a film.

 

For instance, on First Man, the Super-16mm footage was so grainy that it was decided it was unsuitable for proper IMAX presentation.

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14 hours ago, Quintus said:

 

 

Thank you for posting that! I haven't listened to the theme in years and it was nice hearing a performance with more gusto than I'm used to, especially when they break it down in the middle. 

 

In high school, I used to love what is inarguably Spielberg's closest film to headbanging frat boys--being a pretty vocal advocate for it on here if I remember--, but I don't know if I will ever feel the desire to watch it again, even with all the great visceral visual vignettes Spielberg tossed in there with seemingly no effort. 

 

As many say, though, an amazing score by Williams. 

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