Last Movie You Watched

[Bogey]

Loved it!  Great character development.  Excellent sets (though a bit too "settish" at times).  Nice pacing (though our son said it dragged a bit here and there).  And, unlike most films these days, did not need a hand to hand fight scene to end the movie.   In fact, I wish Spielberg would just quit the crappy BIG movie stuff and move into more of a story telling theme like this one, as he is one of the best at this.  Might be my favorite Hanks film of all time, but I need a few more viewings.  By the way, the extras on this are not to be missed. 

[Bogey]

"I'd rather direct than produce. Any day. And twice on Sunday."- Steven Spielberg

Really?

Upcoming Direction

2018 Ready Player One  (pre-production)
2016 The BFG (post-production)
Indiana Jones 5 (announced)
It's What I Do (announced)
Montezuma (rumored) (announced)

Upcoming Producing

Untitled Jurassic World Sequel (executive producer) (announced)
2018 Ready Player One (producer) (pre-production)
2017 Transformers 5 (executive producer) (pre-production)
2016 The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun (producer) (announced)
2016 The BFG (producer) (post-production)
2016 All the Way (TV Movie) (executive producer) (filming)
  Gremlins 3 (executive producer) (announced)
  Halo (TV Series) (executive producer) (pre-production)
  Indiana Jones 5 (producer) (announced)
  It's What I Do (producer) (announced)
  Real Steel 2 (executive producer) (announced)
  Robopocalypse (producer) (announced)
  The Talisman (TV Mini-Series) (executive producer) (announced)
  Untitled Third Tintin Film (executive producer) (announced)

[George]

My explanation, Bill:

You Can't Always Get What You Want - Jagger/Richards

[Todd]

I don't make movies, so I don't know for certain, but doesn't directing take more time than producing, especially "executive" producing?  (Does anyone know what executive producing is?)

[Daverz]

Here is my status on the nominees

Big Short - really enjoyed, would be happy if it won
Bridge of Spies - enjoyed plenty, but they could do better
Brooklyn - enjoyed, but it has flaws
Mad Max: Fury Road - really enjoyed, would be happy if it won
The Martian - enjoyed, but it has flaws
The Revenant - have not seen
Room - have not seen
Spotlight - really enjoyed, would be happy if it won

I'd like to see the Big Short.  Of those I've seen:

Bridge of Spies: Enjoyed this low key film.  None of Spielberg's usual indulgence that often takes me out of the film. 
Mad Max: Of the nominated films I've seen, I'd give this the award.  I think it actually tried to do something really interesting and new with some old tropes.
Spotlight: Solid.
The Martian: Enjoyable, good special effects.  But I thought the original novel was "fan service", and so is the film.

[Bogey]

I don't make movies, so I don't know for certain, but doesn't directing take more time than producing, especially "executive" producing?  (Does anyone know what executive producing is?)

Not sure myself, Todd.  Just looks as if even at the level of "movie making" that Spielberg is at, he cannot turn down the production piece as much as he might like to.

[kishnevi]

I don't make movies, so I don't know for certain, but doesn't directing take more time than producing, especially "executive" producing?  (Does anyone know what executive producing is?)

As I understand it, producers arrange the money, location, logistics, and some casting, and much of the off screen stuff such as selecting the composer of the film score...but once shooting starts the director is much more involved.   Until the producer makes a suggestion about how to direct.

So Spielberg can be rather hands off....just lending his name to a project to help it get financial backing....all the way up to heavily involved but wanting the directing credit to go to someone else. 

But I suspect he will spend far more time on the five he is directing  than the nine he is not.

[Brian]

Producers have a TON of grunt work to do - in essence, when you make a movie, you have a company of hundreds of people working on it. The director is the artistic leader on the final product, but the producer has to run the company.

[Karl Henning]

I fairly well enjoyed the commentary on Aliens, although it was a crowd of people, and at times I wasn't sure just who was talking.

Apropos Brian's post, though, one of the commentators was Gale Ann Hurd, Cameron's wife at the time, and producer of the movie.  Maybe that was why the marriage did not endure . . . (everything was quite cordial and festive on the commentary).

[Karl Henning]

Actually, no: I haven't watched this one yet.  But I've reserved a copy at the BPL.

http://www.youtube.com/v/tcJCzPB8FGQ

[Karl Henning]

http://www.youtube.com/v/wWD8gW9cbYQ

[SimonNZ]

Watched again last night, fourth or fifth viewing: Bringing Out The Dead.

Not my all-time favorite Scorsese, that would be After Hours, but a serious contender.

[SonicMan46]

Tonight, I've been watching some old films from the TCM channel recorded on my DVR - movies that I've seen before but has been a long while!

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) w/ Fredric March, Alexis Smith, Donald Crisp, and many others - a pretty traditional bio for the era, but March does quite well w/ a nice mixture of Twain's personal life, writings, and speeches - recommended if of interest.

Anna & the King of Siam (1946) w/ Rex Harrison, Irene Dunne, & Lee J. Cobb - now Harrison & Cobb playing natives of Siam might seem a little far-fetched, but seems to work fine w/ the make-up - Irene & Rex are excellent together - I don't much like the1956 musical although the R & H music is superb IMO - if you've not seen this film and want a different 'take' based more on the book, then highly recommended.  Dave

 

[listener]

from the Shaw Brothers (HK)  1983
USURPERS OF THE EMPEROR'S POWER    dir Hua Shan.
Liu Yung, Liu Hsueh-hua, Mok Siu-chung (Max Mok), Chao Kuo
Very fast story pacing, film cutting, warriors' reflexes keep the running time down to a breathlessn84 minutes.  Rape, beheading, impaling, impersonations and an occasional touch of humour put this high on the list of this genre.  The Archimedes principle and Burnham Wood are in the plot.

[Karl Henning]

^But the bit where the robot-guns do their thing is pretty amazing. I wish that was in the standard edition.

I'm going to retract this:

Presently: scenes deleted from Aliens. Interesting viewing, but they would have made the movie impossibly long. (Newt sees her dad smothered by a facehugger.)

Last night I saw most of the 1992 (?) edition of the movie, which restored the deleted scenes;  "most of" for my own time constraints, not because I found the experience too long    While I do surprise myself a little by finding the pacing of the "expanded" movie fine, I wonder if I do prefer the fact that in the theatrical release, the colony "starts out" as a ghost town, as it sets a certain tone for the arrival of, erm, Ripley and the Colonial Marines.

[Drasko]

There are more than occasional flashes of extraordinary visual beauty, as one would expect from Sorrentino, but the script is overly speechy and the dialogue is stiff in a manner showing Sorrentino the writer not being quite comfortable in English.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Actually, no: I haven't watched this one yet.  But I've reserved a copy at the BPL.

http://www.youtube.com/v/tcJCzPB8FGQ

Alien 3 is one of those guilty pleasures to me. I fully recognize it may not be a good movie but I am still unable to not enjoy much of it.

[SonicMan46]

Last night, I was in the mood for some African safari type films of old w/ a love twist - so watched the two below:

King Solomon's Mines (1950) w/ Stewart Granger & Deborah Kerr; "filming took place at the following locations in Africa: Murchison Falls in Uganda; Astrida, "the land of giant Watusis"; Volcano Country and Stanleyville in the Belgian Congo; Tanganyika; and Rumuruti and Machakos in Kenya (Wiki Source)."  These types of films w/ close contact to the animals are now by-gone history - Granger & Kerr (w/ her red hair!) are excellent together.

Mogambo (1953) w/ Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, & Grace Kelly; again much "filming was done on location in Okalataka, French Congo; Mount Kenya, Thika, Kenya — Mt Longonot and Lake Naivasha, both in the Kenyan Rift Valley and Fourteen Falls near Thika are seen as backdrops — Kagera River, Tanganyika; Isoila, Uganda (Wiki Source)."  Yet another excellent 'on location' film w/ plenty of African animals, plus a complicated love relationship w/ an aging Gable - if you like these African location films of yesteryear, then both highly recommended; of course, Bogart & Hepburn in The African Queen (1951) is yet another from that era - and all in great technicolor.  Dave

 

[Karl Henning]

Alien 3 is one of those guilty pleasures to me. I fully recognize it may not be a good movie but I am still unable to not enjoy much of it.

My brother got the "quadrilogy" (I guess nobody in marketing thought of the word tetralogy) because the price was right (or maybe it was the "quadrilogy"-plus-Prometheus...?) on Blu-ray, so he is going to lend me 3 and Rez.  When they land, I shall watch them for the first time.

I've really been surprised at how many times I've watched Aliens in the past two weeks.  I even know who Ferro and Spunkmeyer are! 

Thread Duty:

Last night I re-watched Braveheart . . . or we might say, watched for the first time, since I had never seen the opening 20 minutes.  I know it's bogus history in favor of sweet epic narration, but I do like it, and it doesn't feel like a three-hour movie.  I cannot help enjoying MacGoohan as "Longshanks" (gawd, was the Prince of Wales really such an utter cheese-straw?), especially when he invites his son's High Counselor to, erm, an early retirement.

[Karl Henning]

Bring on The Banana Splits!

Thread Duty:

Last night, the remake of Planet of the Apes.  I shouldn't have paid it any mind, except that a chap at the office (normally the sober sort) recommended it.  Well, I had to watch it, out of curiosity over the rec, if for no other reason.  I want to go back and watch "the original" (which itself was a scaling-back from Rod Serling's first adaptation of Pierre Boulle's La Planète des singes), but my initial impression is, that I enjoyed the re-make rather better.  It tickled me that Tim Burton teased out both a Deus ex machina and a twist ending, though I certainly saw the twist a-coming.

If I had to choose one reason for my possibly-heretical preference for the newer movie, it would be that (long ago though I saw it), my overwhelming impression is that what drove Heston's character for survival was hate.

Among my questions from recent viewing:

Helena Bonham Carter's visit to Thade in the camp is, arguably, plausible (though I do not find myself terribly convinced).  Why would Thade have a branding iron in the fire at the ready 24/7?  Even in an armed camp the eve before an assault?

The pod has a cruising range (and, power, generally) to take Mark Wahlberg from the apely planet, all the way to Earth?  Really?

I suppose it is possible that the apes could overcome their fear of fire, but not of bodies of water;  but again, it seems something of a scriptwriter's caprice.

I think I am re-gravitating a bit.  Not that I like the Burton remake any less (well, I haven't watched it again since), but my irrational enmity to the original is abating.  Checking out the DVD from the BPL helped, with Heston's first lines, which feel strongly like untampered-with Serling.  So I am planning to revisit Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

Dr. Zaius: I see you've brought the female of your species. I didn't realize that man could be monogamous.

George Taylor: On this planet, it's easy.

(Oh, those weren't Heston's first lines, of course.)