Last Movie You Watched

[Karl Henning]

Going through the original sequels of The Planet of the Apes.

Last night:

Beneath The Planet of the Apes - 1970



Escape From The Planet of the Apes - 1971



Preferred Beneath over Escape.  I'll watch the other two this evening.

Beneath was the first I saw,  somehow. Still like it.

[DavidW]

If you've seen and liked the first Avatar, then a strong recommendation - I watched over two nights because of its length.  Dave

I beat you!  It took me three nights to watch it.  I just don't like it as much as everyone else.  It is like they took the first one and then drained all the humor out of it.  The first movie wasn't exactly subtle, but I felt absolutely slammed over the head with a brick with Cameron's eco-warnings and tired noble savage trope.

But... that being said... the third act still killed it.  Great action, drama, and better character arcs than the first  Now give me my Abyss remaster that I've been waiting for since the blu-ray format was announced!

[DavidW]

Going through the original sequels of The Planet of the Apes.

Last night:

Beneath The Planet of the Apes - 1970



Escape From The Planet of the Apes - 1971



Preferred Beneath over Escape.  I'll watch the other two this evening.

Funny enough there is going to be yet another reboot of the series.  And also with HBO Max remaking Harry Potter BUT WAY LONGER, I feel that Hollywood is starting to run dry of ideas.

[SimonNZ]

Excellent in almost every way. A model of what can be achieved on a tight budget - interiors that I at first thought were real and costumes convincingly Cromwell-era.

Some people may bump on it but I liked that Felicity Kendal didn'y go in for any fake moustache and many pose stuff, just wore mens clothes and left the rest to our suspension of disbelief. An unexpected treat of Trevor Peacock (Jim from Vicar of Dibley) as Feste - he's also in the BBC Henry VI as Talbot, and equally good in a much more serious role.

Searching around I found a series of long and thoughtful blog posts from one sharp viewer about each film in the series. Here is the one for this Twelfth Night:

http://bbcshakespeare.blogspot.com/2013/12/twelfth-night-series-2-episode-4.html

His thoughts on television comedy at the beginning I also find convincing.

[Madiel]

Thanks to awards season, Everything Everywhere All at Once is back in the cinema locally and I took the chance to finally see it, on the big screen.



And I had a great time. Of all the things I enjoyed about the film, two really stood out.

First off, the editors (and to a large extent directors) deserve every award they get. For a movie with so much going on, it was never muddled. The visual language for communicating which version of reality you're looking at is so clear, and the transitions are so well handled.

Secondly, Michelle Yeoh is fantastic. I confess to having wondered whether she could be up to the standard of someone like Cate Blanchett who is one of my idols, but it's a great performance. All sorts of emotions get communicated by her face when she isn't even speaking.

The rest of the cast does fine work too. Ke Huy Quan and James Hong, as her husband and father respectively, were particularly good at handling the shifts in the alternate versions of their characters.

The film is funny, touching, even a bit scary (a couple of the sequences showing what Jobu Tupaki was capable of really did make me think "oh shit that's dangerous"). In the latter stages it's sentimental as hell in a very American/Hollywood way I wouldn't necessarily respond to, but if you're going to be sentimental, wrap it up in this kind of chaos and it still works. Two of the fight scenes were a bit too cartoonish for my taste, but really those were the only times I wasn't totally engaged.

[DavidW]

Madiel, I'm glad that you loved it like I did.  It is easy for many here to approach it with far too analytical of a mindset and not be able to follow the emotional roller coaster and really get it.  Of course what helped for me was that when I watched it was just an indie darling and I came in with little pre-existing hype and expectations.

[Madiel]

Madiel, I'm glad that you loved it like I did.  It is easy for many here to approach it with far too analytical of a mindset and not be able to follow the emotional roller coaster and really get it.  Of course what helped for me was that when I watched it was just an indie darling and I came in with little pre-existing hype and expectations.

It's interesting to reflect on the attempts to describe its genre. Despite people thinking that "multiverse" means a Marvel/comics movie or sci-fi, to me it's far more apt to compare it to something like the Gwyneth Paltrow film Sliding Doors. It's a film about life choices.

The moment that really hit me hard in a way I didn't expect was when an alternate version of her husband says "in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you".

[Karl Henning]

Now give me my Abyss remaster that I've been waiting for since the blu-ray format was announced!

Oh, I'd be in!

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Funny enough there is going to be yet another reboot of the series.  And also with HBO Max remaking Harry Potter BUT WAY LONGER, I feel that Hollywood is starting to run dry of ideas.

HBO is remaking Harry Potter?!

PD

[SonicMan46]

Two favorite Deborah Kerr-Robert Mitchum films for me are Heaven Knows Mr. Allison and The Sundowners, both owned as mediocre DVD-Rs - last night bought the first one as an HD streamer from Amazon ($10); they have the other but only in SD format so will wait:

Heaven Knows Mr. Allison (1957) directed by John Huston; synopsis below - this was one of 6 'Best Actress' Oscar nominations for her (she won none).  As stated the film was made on Trinidad and Tobago when calypso music was a fad - Mitchum got 'hooked' and made a recording (last pic below) - I've listen to it several times on Spotify and was impressed - he even had the dialect down well - both recommended!     Dave

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison is a Color CinemaScope film that tells the story of two people stranded on a Japanese-occupied island in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. The film was adapted by John Huston and John Lee Mahin from the 1952 novel by Charles Shaw and was directed by Huston. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Deborah Kerr) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. The movie was filmed on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. (Source)

   

[DavidW]

HBO is remaking Harry Potter?!

PD

Yup they just announced it.  I find that annoying and odd since the last movie came out only 12 years ago.  I've seen worse though.  The Spiderman reboot of the reboot followed fast on the heels of the first reboot.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Yup they just announced it.  I find that annoying and odd since the last movie came out only 12 years ago.  I've seen worse though.  The Spiderman reboot of the reboot followed fast on the heels of the first reboot.

Are they talking about redoing all of the books or are trying to expand on some of the topics/themes that maybe weren't' talked about so much in the movies?

PD

[Daverz]

Thanks to awards season, Everything Everywhere All at Once is back in the cinema locally and I took the chance to finally see it, on the big screen.



And I had a great time. [snip]

You do have to accept a bit of Douglas Adams/Terry Pratchett style absurdity, but better that than Nolan-style pomposity.

[DavidW]

Are they talking about redoing all of the books or are trying to expand on some of the topics/themes that maybe weren't' talked about so much in the movies?

PD

7 seasons, 1 per book. So yes both.

[Cato]

Mrs. Cato was astonished by the emotional impact of this movie: the story of anti-Nazi Catholic conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter, who is up for canonization now.





She was doubly astonished - after we had walked out of the theater in 2019 - that the director was Terrence Malick, whose movie The Tree of Life she had disliked.  (It is an acquired taste    ).

[Karl Henning]

Mrs. Cato was astonished by the emotional impact of this movie: the story of anti-Nazi Catholic conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter, who is up for canonization now.





She was doubly astonished - after we had walked out of the theater in 2019 - that the director was Terrence Malick, whose movie The Tree of Life she had disliked.  (It is an acquired taste    ).

A magnificent film. I tell everyone I meet about it!

[relm1]

You know a movie that should be remade?  Contact.  Bob Zemeckis' 1997 film is very mediocre and leaves out some of what makes the novel great. 

[Madiel]

You do have to accept a bit of Douglas Adams/Terry Pratchett style absurdity, but better that than Nolan-style pomposity.

Ahem. I rather like the Nolan films I've seen. Including Inception which is another movie that does a great job of being clear as it transitions between different levels of consciousness.

[Madiel]

Luca



Even when Pixar is doing a fairly slight and inconsequential movie, it's diverting enough.

[DavidW]

I watched The Graduate.  A great movie but it couldn't be made today given that he stalks the girl and the "no means yes" message.