Last Movie You Watched

[SonicMan46]

David Lynch's Dune. I don't think it genuinely great, and it's certainly too well done for the "trashterpiece" category, but I've come back to thinking it very good.

Hey Karl - I've owned that 1984 movie from VHS > DVD > BD, the latter the best for color rendition and sound, as expected.  The initial reviews were mediocre to poor (Holen MaGroin, 3*/5*; Rotten Tomatoes, 52%; and Roger Ebert, just 1* and the most damning comments); BUT, I enjoy the film and the many guest characters - guess now a cult film?  For myself (and may be in a minority here?), I would probably do a 3 1/2*/5* - also just curious about the Amazonians, 4.5*/5*!  I've not read the book (listed as 700+ pages on Amazon Books), but wonder if a mini-series might be a better option?  Dave

[Karl Henning]

Hey Karl - I've owned that 1984 movie from VHS > DVD > BD, the latter the best for color rendition and sound, as expected.  The initial reviews were mediocre to poor (Holen MaGroin, 3*/5*; Rotten Tomatoes, 52%; and Roger Ebert, just 1* and the most damning comments); BUT, I enjoy the film and the many guest characters - guess now a cult film?  For myself (and may be in a minority here?), I would probably do a 3 1/2*/5* - also just curious about the Amazonians, 4.5*/5*!  I've not read the book (listed as 700+ pages on Amazon Books), but wonder if a mini-series might be a better option?  Dave

Cheers, Dave! You know, I like it enough to upgrade to BD, I think.

[André]

Stanley Kramer had a knack for social dramas. He laid it thick sometimes, but when he was on, boy! It worked brilliantly, as is the case here. Best actor Academy Award for Maximilian Schell - richly deserved. Footnote: actor Werner Klemperer (Otto's son) plays one of the indicted nazi judges. William 'Captain Kirk' Shatner plays an army captain. The whole cast list drips with A-list names.

[Todd]

Fat Maximus goes nuts and road rages on a poor, struggling mother and her son.  Along the way, he inflicts some serious harm on Liam McPoyle.  The brief eighty-two minute timing (plus credits) offers the once mighty Maximus the opportunity to chew the scenery for a paycheck.  It's so bad that it becomes an inadvertent comedy.

[SonicMan46]

 

Stanley Kramer had a knack for social dramas. He laid it thick sometimes, but when he was on, boy! It worked brilliantly, as is the case here. Best actor Academy Award for Maximilian Schell - richly deserved. Footnote: actor Werner Klemperer (Otto's son) plays one of the indicted nazi judges. William 'Captain Kirk' Shatner plays an army captain. The whole cast list drips with A-list names.

Hi André - several years ago I replaced my old DVD w/ the BD inserted above (well reviewed HERE) - being 3+ hrs long, we watched over 2 nights - looks like that release is 'sold out', plus checking my past Amazon orders, I paid $19.99 - great film w/ so many outstanding performances!  Dave

[Karl Henning]

Goldfinger

[Karl Henning]

Ghostbusters (with commentary)
and Ghostbusters II
I enjoy the sequel okay, but find myself grateful they never managed to organize a third.

[Mirror Image]

Ghostbusters (with commentary)
and Ghostbusters II
I enjoy the sequel okay, but find myself grateful they never managed to organize a third.

Yes, it's difficult to top the first one despite that by the time they got to the second one, technology had improved yet again.

[71 dB]

Blu-rays I have watched recently:

Images (Robert Altman, 1970)

I had difficulties understanding this movie. Nothing seemed to be real. Everything was dream-like. Good music from John Williams and the movie had style, but what was it's main message?

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Robocop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987)

I had never been into this movie much. The stop-motion animated ED-209 looks really silly thanks to it's design that is something 11 years old boys come up with while getting bored during a math class. Even Robocop himself looks silly and walks in a funny way. All that childish silliness is balanced by rather graphic violence giving the movie an age restriction of 18. However, I gave this movie another chance and watched in with open eyes. Under the silly visuality of ED-209/ Robocop and the graphic violence there is a decent movie after all under it all. The story isn't half-bad and contains even humanism the balances the otherwise cold and brutal sci-fi violence. Robocop is not a particularly great movie, but it's okay when you pay attention to the goodness it has to offer.

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Apollo 13 (Ron Howard, 1995)

This movie impressed me when I saw it long ago on TV and it still works for me. This movie looks insanely authentic. Everything looks so real and everything is shown in a realistic manner. Complex technical things are not explaned to the viewers. Instead we get to watch smart, highly educated/trained talented people do their job and figure out ourself what's happening. Ron Howard directs in a 70's style that makes everything coherent with the time everything happened. The special effect look realistic rather than eye-candy. The weightlessness in space is insanely real-looking. I don't have a clue how they did that! The only negative thing about this movie is the score: It's too militaristic in style as if it was music for a war movie. I understand they were after patriotic music, but they forgot to make is cosmic.

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Cohen & Tate (Eric Red, 1989)

I had never heard of this movie, but I watched the first 10 minutes of it on Youtube and it looked promising so I bought the Blu-ray. This turned out to be a roadmovies, but a good one! I liked this. Roy Scheider (Cohen) and Adam Balwin (Tate) are hired killers who have been hired to kidnap a 9 years old boy who has witnessed something to be taken to mobsters for questioning. Cohen is old and wise. Tate is young, crazy and a bit retarded. The kidnapped boy notices this and starts to make the two hired killers go against each other by agitating them cleverly. All of this mind-game was enjoyable to watch and felt original. Music by Bill Conti supports the suspense and action well.

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The Net (Irwin Winkler, 1995)

I thought I have seen this on TV back in the late 90's, but it didn't feel familiar. Perhaps I have only watch the TV-show based on this movie. Anyway, this was better than I unticipated. It is a strangely "cosy" movie that manages to tell a nightmarish story in a warm way. The computer/internet-related movies form these early days on internet are fun to watch. They are warnings about the theoretical threads of online crime. Now, 25 years later we live in a post Edward Snowden world were everybody knows privicy is long gone and Google knows everything about as. So, it's comforting to go back 25 years in time to an era were this stuff is perhaps happening to some people and companies like Google don't even exist yet. Sandra Bullock is very good as a panicking introvert computer nerd.

Related to this, in Finland we are in the middle of a really massive data breach case were hackers got the information of thousands of patients of a psychotherapy centre and the company (Valvomo) and the patients have been blackmailed.

https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/psychotherapy_centre_reveals_two_separate_data_breaches_of_sensitive_patient_information/11612453

[71 dB]

I watched on TV:

Harakiri (Masaki Kobayashi, 1962)

I am a huge fan of j-horror from the golden decade (1998-2008), but I haven't explored much older Japanese movies. This black and white movie is very slow except for the fight scenes in the end, but it's far from boring! The story is told cleverly. First the viewer is given the backbone of the story that looks mysterious. Then using blacklashes the story is exposed little by little and the story gets clear after which things escalate and we get the final fight scenes. Very stylistic camera work! Some visually stunning scenes. Music is by no other than Toru Takemitsu. The HD transfer looked amazingly good.

[Roasted Swan]

A musical film no less - "Song of Names".  My problem in these films is I always spend my time getting irritated about bad fake violin playing.  In this film what is different is that the central character - a young prodigy violinist from Warsaw whose family dies at Treblinka - is played by 3 actors as he grows up.  The young actor can clearly play the violin if not to the level implied.  The middle guy can't but they manage his playing shots quite carefully.  The problem comes with Clive Owen as the "old" violinist giving a redemptive concert.  Now here's the curiosity - in close up Owen fakes badly(!) - all the usual culprits of flattened fingers, stiff bow arm and wrist, bizarre attempt at vibrato etc etc.  BUT in medium shot suddenly his bow arm is freed up and the left hand has some dexterity.  I can only think that some CGI chicanery managed to put Owens' head (I kid you not!) onto an actual violinist's body.

The film itself is pretty powerful - whether it has any basis in truth I don't know - the idea is that victims of the camps were memorialised by survivors in song - literally a "song of names"

[Pohjolas Daughter]

A musical film no less - "Song of Names".  My problem in these films is I always spend my time getting irritated about bad fake violin playing.  In this film what is different is that the central character - a young prodigy violinist from Warsaw whose family dies at Treblinka - is played by 3 actors as he grows up.  The young actor can clearly play the violin if not to the level implied.  The middle guy can't but they manage his playing shots quite carefully.  The problem comes with Clive Owen as the "old" violinist giving a redemptive concert.  Now here's the curiosity - in close up Owen fakes badly(!) - all the usual culprits of flattened fingers, stiff bow arm and wrist, bizarre attempt at vibrato etc etc.  BUT in medium shot suddenly his bow arm is freed up and the left hand has some dexterity.  I can only think that some CGI chicanery managed to put Owens' head (I kid you not!) onto an actual violinist's body.

The film itself is pretty powerful - whether it has any basis in truth I don't know - the idea is that victims of the camps were memorialised by survivors in song - literally a "song of names"

Sounds like a powerful film indeed!

Looking around the 'net a bit I found this; however, it doesn't say anything about a 'song of names'.  http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/camps/death-camps/treblinka/

PD

[drogulus]

     Last night I rewatched Ronin after 20 or so years. It has lots of action and perhaps the most perfect realization of the McGuffin concept I have ever seen.

[George]

My girlfriend and I really enjoyed this last night.

[Carlo Gesualdo]

The Network 1976 classic that got banned of the air  from canada for saying too much , this movie is telling, you want reality you will get it, not stupid  truth that are bias. 

[SonicMan46]

Over the last few nights, two quite different films:

Shane (1953) w/ Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon deWilde, Jack Palance, and many other great character actors.  One of the classic westerns and third on the AFI list of the top 10 westerns (see bottom pic); nominated for 6 Oscars, including Palance and deWilde (a child in his first film role - actually, Susan thought he gave the best performance!) - more HERE, if interested.

Shawshank Redemption (1994) w/ Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and Bob Gunton - more HERE - exciting prison drama based on a Stephen King novel, much more in the link - I've been watching this film since its release.  Both of these movies highly recommended!  Dave

 

[Karl Henning]

Over the last few nights, two quite different films:

Shane (1953) w/ Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon deWilde, Jack Palance, and many other great character actors.  One of the classic westerns and third on the AFI list of the top 10 westerns (see bottom pic); nominated for 6 Oscars, including Palance and deWilde (a child in his first film role - actually, Susan thought he gave the best performance!) - more HERE, if interested.

Shawshank Redemption (1994) w/ Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and Bob Gunton - more HERE - exciting prison drama based on a Stephen King novel, much more in the link - I've been watching this film since its release.  Both of these movies highly recommended!  Dave

 

I'll gladly watch Shawshank again this evening

[Karl Henning]

I'll gladly watch Shawshank again this evening

And have done.

[Karl Henning]

The Last Boy Scout & Last Man Standing

[71 dB]

Burnt Offerings (Dan Curtis, 1976)

A family rents a mansion for the whole summer for only $900. Why is the rent so low? Because it's a house of horrors! This movie has good acting (Karen Black, Oliver Reed & Warren Betty). A lot of things are hinted, but ultimately very little is explaned. This is a solid creepy movie and even a precursor of Kubrick's The Shining.

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