Last Movie You Watched

Started by Drasko, April 06, 2007, 07:51:03 AM

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Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: SonicMan46 on June 03, 2020, 03:56:31 PM
Boy, looks like we lost nearly a week's worth of movie posts!  :(

Over 2 nights, I watched a new Criterion release of a classic from the early 60s:

The Great Escape (1963) - outstanding Criterion restoration w/ plenty of specials - more HERE - Dave :)


Oh, I loved that movie growing up (and still do).  I was so intrigued by the story that I borrowed the book that it was based on from the library (by Paul Brickhill).   :)
Pohjolas Daughter

SonicMan46

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on June 04, 2020, 07:10:35 AM
Oh, I loved that movie growing up (and still do).  I was so intrigued by the story that I borrowed the book that it was based on from the library (by Paul Brickhill).   :)

In the 'Supplements' there was a lot of discussion about the author of the book and also how the story was changed w/ a number of characters having 'multiple personalities', plus the introduction of the Americans - actually there were no Americans of the 76 who escaped (Source).  For me, the length of the film is too long (170+ minutes) - 30 mins or so could have been edited out (e.g. half of the prolonged motorcycle scenes w/ McQueen) - BUT still a great watch and Criterion's restoration from a 4K master is superb - Criterion DVD/BDs often go on sale for half price @ their website, Barnes & Noble, and likely elsewhere, so if you want to own the film, then wait for a sale.  Dave :)

Karl Henning

Quote from: SonicMan46 on June 04, 2020, 08:14:06 AM
In the 'Supplements' there was a lot of discussion about the author of the book and also how the story was changed w/ a number of characters having 'multiple personalities', plus the introduction of the Americans - actually there were no Americans of the 76 who escaped (Source).  For me, the length of the film is too long (170+ minutes) - 30 mins or so could have been edited out (e.g. half of the prolonged motorcycle scenes w/ McQueen) - BUT still a great watch and Criterion's restoration from a 4K master is superb - Criterion DVD/BDs often go on sale for half price @ their website, Barnes & Noble, and likely elsewhere, so if you want to own the film, then wait for a sale.  Dave :)

Most interesting, Dave (and P.D.) I don't believe I've seen it.  The BPL musy have it.


TD: The Timothy Dalton Bond appearances, Living Daylights & License to Kill
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

TheGSMoeller


SimonNZ

^What did you make of that? I watched about ten minutes before deciding it wasn't what I wanted whatever night that was, and keep forgetting to get back to it.

SurprisedByBeauty

Got around to seeing The Hobbit, half out of desperation. And goodness, they are bad.
The same scene, in different costumes and different variations, over and over: Choreographed orc-slaughter-porn courtesy of two elves. Permanently implausible escapes. And last-second-to-the-rescue saves. It's like a bad copy of a Bond movie, transplanted into Middle Earth.

Madiel

Quote from: SurprisedByBeauty on June 05, 2020, 12:51:19 AM
Got around to seeing The Hobbit, half out of desperation. And goodness, they are bad.
The same scene, in different costumes and different variations, over and over: Choreographed orc-slaughter-porn courtesy of two elves. Permanently implausible escapes. And last-second-to-the-rescue saves. It's like a bad copy of a Bond movie, transplanted into Middle Earth.

Yes. I saw the first one and promptly vowed to ignore the others. Trying to turn The Hobbit into The Lord of the Rings is so profoundly misconceived... but I suspect the financial rewards were reaped anyway.
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

SurprisedByBeauty

Quote from: Madiel on June 05, 2020, 04:22:29 AM
Yes. I saw the first one and promptly vowed to ignore the others. Trying to turn The Hobbit into The Lord of the Rings is so profoundly misconceived... but I suspect the financial rewards were reaped anyway.

I was so unwise as to continue to watch the second one. But can't bring myself to watch the third. Yes, the films did very well, financially. But were apparently always a ramshackle project, after Del Torro bailed out and Peter Jackson took over on short notice.

Karl Henning

Quote from: Madiel on June 05, 2020, 04:22:29 AM
Yes. I saw the first one and promptly vowed to ignore the others. Trying to turn The Hobbit into The Lord of the Rings is so profoundly misconceived... but I suspect the financial rewards were reaped anyway.

I do not claim any special virtue in my vow not to watch them at all.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Christo

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 05, 2020, 05:04:05 AM
I do not claim any special virtue in my vow not to watch them at all.
I couldn't stand Lord of the Rings for more than 15 minutes either, and quickly forgot why, except that I found it boring from the start. Long ago I revelled in the books, but I didn't recognize them on the screen.  :(
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

JBS

Quote from: SurprisedByBeauty on June 05, 2020, 12:51:19 AM
Got around to seeing The Hobbit, half out of desperation. And goodness, they are bad.
The same scene, in different costumes and different variations, over and over: Choreographed orc-slaughter-porn courtesy of two elves. Permanently implausible escapes. And last-second-to-the-rescue saves. It's like a bad copy of a Bond movie, transplanted into Middle Earth.

To be fair, the original book had a few  "Permanently implausible escapes. And last-second-to-the-rescue saves. "  But Jackson apparently develops something briefly mentioned as back history in TLotR into major sequences (the Dol Goldur scenes).

I have actually only seen scattered scenes from the Hobbit films.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

SonicMan46

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 04, 2020, 12:52:42 PM
Most interesting, Dave (and P.D.) I don't believe I've seen it.  The BPL musy have it.


TD: The Timothy Dalton Bond appearances, Living Daylights & License to Kill

Hi Karl - I own a single film from each of the Bond actors (except for Lazenby) - The Living Daylights is my favorite - can never get enough of the 'girl w/ the cello' - really enjoy the screenwriting for the two and their 'romantic' interaction in the movie.  Dave :)

 

Biffo

Quote from: JBS on June 05, 2020, 06:23:16 AM
To be fair, the original book had a few  "Permanently implausible escapes. And last-second-to-the-rescue saves. "  But Jackson apparently develops something briefly mentioned as back history in TLotR into major sequences (the Dol Goldur scenes).

I have actually only seen scattered scenes from the Hobbit films.

Lucky you! I was unwise enough to buy all three even after I thought the first one was tiresome and overblown. A charity shop was their final destination.

I enjoyed the LOTR movies but then I have never been fanatical about the books; I read them as a teenager but never again. 

SurprisedByBeauty

Quote from: Christo on June 05, 2020, 05:13:56 AM
I couldn't stand Lord of the Rings for more than 15 minutes either, and quickly forgot why, except that I found it boring from the start. Long ago I revelled in the books, but I didn't recognize them on the screen.  :(

Oh, I think the Lord of the Rings is better for many reasons. Firstly, I was younger when I watched it. Secondly, an epic film befits an epic novel. But an epic film does not necessarily befit a fairly short coming-of-age story for young boys, set in a similar universe. And it certainly doesn't work, when you press three random thirds of the novel into a cookie-cutter Hollywood scheme, just chock-full of achingly dramatic action. It's like no one ever learned from the mistakes the made on The World is not Enough, which was an anodyne action movie that looked like it had escaped from the cutting room floor of the BORN-Trilogy reject pile.

Incidentally, now that we are on Bond: Your Top Three WORST Bond films are?


Quantum of Solace
Die Another Day

One is dumb beyond words and the other an incomprehensible fiery mess, dragged down to hell by the writer's strike.

The World Is Not Enough
Honorable mention: A View to a Kill


The best, meanwhile, I think, could reasonably include:

Casino Royale
From Russia with Love
Golden Eye
For Your Eyes Only
and
Thunderball

(No disrespect to Lazenby and Dalton; both underrated by far, I think... and well above average films, all three... but especially Living Daylights and In her MSS. But maybe not in either case quite as memorable a jolt in the arm of the franchise as Casino & Golden Eye. And I must say, despite a certain 'cuteness' of the ski-chasing scenes, as seen from today's perspective, IHMSS really was very good on recent re-watching.

Karl Henning

Quote from: SonicMan46 on June 05, 2020, 07:30:23 AM
Hi Karl - I own a single film from each of the Bond actors (except for Lazenby) - The Living Daylights is my favorite - can never get enough of the 'girl w/ the cello' - really enjoy the screenwriting for the two and their 'romantic' interaction in the movie.  Dave :)

 

"They're looking for a foreign car with a man and a woman" ... "And a cello"
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

SurprisedByBeauty

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 05, 2020, 10:36:45 AM
"They're looking for a foreign car with a man and a woman" ... "And a cello"

Probably known trivia (or by anyone who's read all the books*:

The Living Daylights in Ian Fleming is actually just a short story -- and ends with Bond shooting the window frame where she stands... 'scaring the living daylights out of her'. The rest is all screenplay.

*I have; out of curious interest and collector's habit: Very mixed bag, those. From awesome to cringe-worthy to faux-experimental, Fleming was inconsistent and not a frightfully great writer... but he could tell a good story when he was on a roll. And some are just excellent descriptions of how and what someone like Fleming, in the time he lived in, assumed the high-live must have been like. Polyester shirts and always ice-cold champagne. (Which is a crime, if you are drinking the good stuff.)

Karl Henning

Quote from: SurprisedByBeauty on June 05, 2020, 10:57:58 AM
Probably known trivia (or by anyone who's read all the books*:

The Living Daylights in Ian Fleming is actually just a short story -- and ends with Bond shooting the window frame where she stands... 'scaring the living daylights out of her'. The rest is all screenplay.

*I have; out of curious interest and collector's habit: Very mixed bag, those. From awesome to cringe-worthy to faux-experimental, Fleming was inconsistent and not a frightfully great writer... but he could tell a good story when he was on a roll. And some are just excellent descriptions of how and what someone like Fleming, in the time he lived in, assumed the high-live must have been like. Polyester shirts and always ice-cold champagne. (Which is a crime, if you are drinking the good stuff.)

Interesting. The only books I've read are Casino Royale, which I thought all right, and Live and Let Die, which suffers horribly from embedded racism
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 04, 2020, 12:52:42 PM
Most interesting, Dave (and P.D.) I don't believe I've seen it.  The BPL musy have it.


TD: The Timothy Dalton Bond appearances, Living Daylights & License to Kill
Karl,

Do you mean the movie or the book (or both)?  Just curious.   :)

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: SonicMan46 on June 04, 2020, 08:14:06 AM
In the 'Supplements' there was a lot of discussion about the author of the book and also how the story was changed w/ a number of characters having 'multiple personalities', plus the introduction of the Americans - actually there were no Americans of the 76 who escaped (Source).  For me, the length of the film is too long (170+ minutes) - 30 mins or so could have been edited out (e.g. half of the prolonged motorcycle scenes w/ McQueen) - BUT still a great watch and Criterion's restoration from a 4K master is superb - Criterion DVD/BDs often go on sale for half price @ their website, Barnes & Noble, and likely elsewhere, so if you want to own the film, then wait for a sale.  Dave :)
Regarding the length:  At least when I first saw it on t.v., they only showed it in two segments.  Think that lately though, they show it in its entirety.

By the way, have you ever watched the claymation movie "Chicken Run" which I quite enjoyed.  It uses a lot of special movie theme music and references to movies like "The Great Escape" and "The Seven Samurai".

Best,

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Karl Henning

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on June 05, 2020, 11:15:53 AM
Regarding the length:  At least when I first saw it on t.v., they only showed it in two segments.  Think that lately though, they show it in its entirety.

By the way, have you ever watched the claymation movie "Chicken Run" which I quite enjoyed.  It uses a lot of special movie theme music and references to movies like "The Great Escape" and "The Seven Samurai".

Best,

PD

Chicken Run is good fun!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot