Movies, Movies, Movies!

[Set2Stun]

Watched 28 Years Later last night. Plenty to like about it, lots of creepy, nasty content. And tension, of course. Some really great performances, especially from Jodie Comer.

The ending had me absolutely baffled, but then I quickly remembered that I'd heard there was a planned sequel or two. Leaving it like that as a standalone would've been completely mental.

 

[Kiraann]

In response to the season (Halloween), I’ve been watching several old Hammer vampire flicks. I should specify, the later films from roughly from 1969 on.

 

[JLT]

Question - Which is the best LotR movie?

I think it has to be Fellowship.

My vote would go to Return of the King. Of the three, Jackson was at his most adventurous in both using special effects and wringing emotions out of the audience. And it has the "I am no man" scene, and the "This is NOT that day" scene where Aragorn rallies his army for a final blow against the enemy.

DVD's are basically worthless now

I'm still a big fan of DVDs, because of all the added features, particularly the director's commentaries. It's practically a course in filmography, as you learn about their decisions on such things as pacing and editing, and even lighting and sound design. Now that they have a wealth of methods of digital manipulation at their disposal, I find their comments especially illuminating. Peter Jackson's commentaries are, I think, the gold standard in this sort of thing, but I urge all and sundry to track down the DVD or Blu-ray versions of Casablanca with Roger Ebert's commentary. He used to teach a course on the film and examined it practically frame by frame.

I also urge you to look for the DVDs of This is Spinal Tap with an added commentary track by the band itself, deriding the "director" for his choices. It's almost a second film itself.

By the way, I watched The Third Man last night. It's a masterpiece. The ending is unforgettable.

 

[Set2Stun]

Théoden King's speech before the cavalry charge gets me every time. It's hard to rank any of the movies as they're all so good.

I'm back into physical media after being annoyed enough times trying to find a particular movie I want to watch on the many streaming services. My heavy hitter rewatch movies I try to get on Blu Ray, or 4K if the price is right (it often is not). It's easy to find some really great flicks on Blu Ray at around $7.99 CAD, and the quality is much better than what you will see on a stream that claims 1080p quality.

 

[X Equestris]

Since it’s the spooky season, I’ve been exploring some horror movies.

Frankenstein was an interesting watch, if not too horrific by modern standards. Baron Frankenstein ended up being a surprisingly entertaining character. I don’t think you could devise a more curmudgeonly old man.

By contrast, The Thing has some downright grotesque visual effects, which still hold up really well some forty years later.

I’ve got a few more horror classics in mind for Halloween, namely The Wolf Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

 

[JLT]

Our two go-to movies for Halloween are Young Frankenstein and Nightmare before Christmas. (But the latter also works as a Christmas movie if you're up to your ears in the usual fare for that season.)

 

[Pik]

I had this film on psp million years ago

 

[Set2Stun]

Hahaha I actually saw that in theatres as a kid. I thought Piper was going to be a big star.

 

[DLC]

ngl that looks pretty embarrassing, dancing drink pourers? aim for the stars kids.

 

[Pik]

What are you watching these days?

 

[DLC]

I rarely watch anything that doesn't involve a football, but I remember seeing ads for that coyote movie way back. I could make no sense of what it might be about beyond hot girls pour drinks. Am I remembering wrong that Tom Cruise made a similar film called Bartender or something, I forget. Jesus we just want a beer after a hard day marking cattle lady, don't get it everywhere.

 

[Homer Potvin]

Bartender

Cocktail. Great movie but very dated as far as mixology goes. When I do training about culinary evolution, I show scenes from that movie and from old Cheers episodes to highlight how modern bars are like cities on the moon compared to the past. When Sex and the City made cosmopolitans popular, it launched the specialty martini movement, which led to proprietary cocktail menus, which changed the industry.

 

[JLT]

This thread got me thinking about two things:

1. There are a few DVDs that my wife and I re-watch at least yearly. They are Princess Bride, Knives Out, Dogma and Galaxy Quest, and we never tire of watching them. They're just the things to drive the doldrums away. I can also add This is Spinal Tap and the Godfather movies to that list for myself, although my wife doesn't care for them.

2. How many good movies are actually about writers and the writing process? I can think of only one: Adaptation. There are other movies about writers, like Trumbo and A Fine Madness, but they really don't get into the writer's head, so to speak. Only Adaptation is a look at the writing process itself. (A friend of mine watched the movie but entirely missed the point of it, and thought the plot was "implausible." Well, yeah. That was what the movie was about.)

Can anybody add to this list?

 

[JLT]

Cocktail. Great movie but very dated as far as mixology goes. When I do training about culinary evolution, I show scenes from that movie and from old Cheers episodes to highlight how modern bars are like cities on the moon compared to the past. When Sex and the City made cosmopolitans popular, it launched the specialty martini movement, which led to proprietary cocktail menus, which changed the industry.

And let us nod in passing to Malachy McCourt, writer/actor/activist/entrepreneur. The brother of Frank McCourt, who wrote Angela's Ashes, he claims credit for establishing the first singles bar in New York.

 

[Set2Stun]

First thought was Barton Fink, thought I only saw it once, and quite a few years ago.

 

[Pik]

I rarely watch anything that doesn't involve a football, but I remember seeing ads for that coyote movie way back. I could make no sense of what it might be about beyond hot girls pour drinks. Am I remembering wrong that Tom Cruise made a similar film called Bartender or something, I forget. Jesus we just want a beer after a hard day marking cattle lady, don't get it everywhere.

Yep there is, I just watched the trailer. Don't know if it's similar, it has more of an 80s vibe but could have influenced CU.

 

[Pik]

still need to watch this

 

[Rath Darkblade]

So, yesterday I watched The Dark Knight when it came on TV. (The one with Christian Bale as Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker). I wasn't too impressed. It was incredibly over-full of constant explosions and shoot-outs. Pew, pew, pew-pew-pew!

After the Joker destroyed his third building, I found myself yawning and thinking "What, again?"

The plot was a simple "Joker wants to expose Batman's identity and humiliate him" ... and that's basically it. For that kind of plot, the film was far too long. It was entertaining, for sure, but it didn't need to be 2.5 hours to make that point. It would've been more entertaining as a 5-minute cartoon short.

Sorry to be a downer. But while that movie was playing, a nearby channel (9GEM, I think) was playing From Russia With Love with a young Sean Connery as James Bond. I liked that film better, it had heart as well as a coherent plot, and only one (I counted) explosion ... which was connected to the plot.

Apologies if that strikes anyone as me being a complaining old fart. ;-P That's just my opinion. I'm sure everyone has theirs.

 

[JLT]

So, yesterday I watched The Dark Knight when it came on TV. (The one with Christian Bale as Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker). I wasn't too impressed. It was incredibly over-full of constant explosions and shoot-outs. Pew, pew, pew-pew-pew!

In the main, I agree, except that I thought that Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was masterful. He approached the character as like that of a cat with a mouse, interested seeing how he could play with his victims before killing them. You could actually see a fierce intelligence in operation, however perverted the result was. Unlike many actors with similar roles (I'm thinking of the role of Moriarty in the recent BBC "Sherlock" series, but there are others), I think he nailed the mentality. No wonder he got the Oscar for that.

Sorry to be a downer. But while that movie was playing, a nearby channel (9GEM, I think) was playing From Russia With Love with a young Sean Connery as James Bond. I liked that film better, it had heart as well as a coherent plot, and only one (I counted) explosion ... which was connected to the plot.

Didn't the chase boats explode during the flight-from-Trieste scene? Or did they just burn?

I think that From Russia with Love and Goldfinger were the high points of Connery's Bond career. And Robert Shaw had a great performance as the Russian assassin. Connery and Shaw would act together again in Robin and Marian, in another classic fight seem that really seemed like an exhausting brawl rather than the choreographed stuff we see nowadays in the Bourne movies.

Question: If James Bond and Jason Bourne had a fight, who would win?* This is the same argument we had as kids when we were debating about whether Batman and the Phantom would win in a fight.. Later generations, of course, would argue about who would win... Data from Star Trek or the Terminator.

*Answer: If the James Bond was the Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, or Timothy Dalton version, then Jason Bourne would win. If Bond was the Daniel Craig or Sean Connery version, I'd put my money on them instead.

 

[Naomasa298]

I think that From Russia with Love and Goldfinger were the high points of Connery's Bond career.

Maryam D'Abo was the high point of Dalton's Bond career.