Last Movie You Watched

[71 dB]

Blade Runner 2049

This movie certainly tries hard. Tries almost three hours, but somehow it all feels strangely empty and meaningless. There's a few well executed ideas here and there, but those alone don't make a great movie experience. I had quite a bit of difficulties to relate with the story or the people (mostly replicants actually) within the story. This movie falls into the traps of science fiction on big screen. It didn't even try to help the viewer to understand what the characters feel, why they feel the way they do and why they do the things they do. JOI was perhaps the most understandable "character", artificial intelligence wanting to be a real human being. In the end Deckard asks 'K' who he is to him. It was a good question, one that I had been asking myself and a good indicator of how lost this movie was with it's story. I also think the movie has too much violence. Violence for the sake of violence. The movie looks great. Visually this is great stuff. Hans Zimmer's music is mostly disappointing, even annoying. He is one of the most overrated movie composers imo. The whole movie I kept thinking how good the music would be if it was by Tangerine Dream. Camerawork was nice, calm and stylish. No too fast editing or stupid lenses. Finnish actress Krista Kosonen has a very small role and says a couple of lines in Finnish spoken language , something like "Tää jätkä on bladerunneri. Se on vaarallinen. Mennään pois." (This dude is a blade runner. He is dangerous. Let's leave.). So, the movie tries hard, but in the end it felt empty. What was this movie about and why should anyone care? Maybe it was just a very expensive and long SONY add? 

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[Biffo]

Blade Runner 2049

This movie certainly tries hard. Tries almost three hours, but somehow it all feels strangely empty and meaningless. There's a few well executed ideas here and there, but those alone don't make a great movie experience. I had quite a bit of difficulties to relate with the story or the people (mostly replicants actually) within the story. This movie falls into the traps of science fiction on big screen. It didn't even try to help the viewer to understand what the characters feel, why they feel the way they do and why they do the things they do. JOI was perhaps the most understandable "character", artificial intelligence wanting to be a real human being. In the end Deckard asks 'K' who he is to him. It was a good question, one that I had been asking myself and a good indicator of how lost this movie was with it's story. I also think the movie has too much violence. Violence for the sake of violence. The movie looks great. Visually this is great stuff. Hans Zimmer's music is mostly disappointing, even annoying. He is one of the most overrated movie composers imo. The whole movie I kept thinking how good the music would be if it was by Tangerine Dream. Camerawork was nice, calm and stylish. No too fast editing or stupid lenses. Finnish actress Krista Kosonen has a very small role and says a couple of lines in Finnish spoken language , something like "Tää jätkä on bladerunneri. Se on vaarallinen. Mennään pois." (This dude is a blade runner. He is dangerous. Let's leave.). So, the movie tries hard, but in the end it felt empty. What was this movie about and why should anyone care? Maybe it was just a very expensive and long SONY add? 

[asin]B07TQ8J8D3[/asin]

Congratulations on getting to the end, I bailed out after less than 20 minutes.

[Madiel]

I didn't know it was that long. Hmm. Though I do love another of Villeneuve's films, Arrival.

Also, I know who Krista Kosonen is, having just finished watching the TV series Bullets.

[71 dB]

Congratulations on getting to the end, I bailed out after less than 20 minutes.

I didn't have difficulties watching the whole movie. The camerawork is good. The visuals are great. The movie just isn't as good as I anticipated and especially the story/plot was disappointing. I am quite selective about movies and I try to avoid movies I expect not to like. If I start watching a movie, I often finish it even if the movie turns out poor, or if I stop watching it's halfway into the movie, not much sooner. Why stop at 20 minutes if the movies gets much better at 30 minutes?

Also, I know who Krista Kosonen is, having just finished watching the TV series Bullets.

Oh. Australians watch Nordic shows? Amazing.

[SonicMan46]

I didn't have difficulties watching the whole movie. The camerawork is good. The visuals are great. The movie just isn't as good as I anticipated and especially the story/plot was disappointing. I am quite selective about movies and I try to avoid movies I expect not to like. If I start watching a movie, I often finish it even if the movie turns out poor, or if I stop watching it's halfway into the movie, not much sooner. Why stop at 20 minutes if the movies gets much better at 30 minutes?
......................

Well, own the 'Final Cut' BD of the original Blade Runner which goes for about 2hrs - did stream the newer version in early 2018 and left a few comments in my 'Movies Seen' database - too long but not bad (probably for the same reasons above); however, did not make a purchase, so prefer to watch the older and shorter film -    Dave

[Karl Henning]

Well, own the 'Final Cut' BD of the original Blade Runner which goes for about 2hrs - did stream the newer version in early 2018 and left a few comments in my 'Movies Seen' database - too long but not bad (probably for the same reasons above); however, did not make a purchase, so prefer to watch the older and shorter film -    Dave

Love the original.

My viewing tonight: The Maltese Falcon & In a Lonely Place

[SonicMan46]

Love the original.

My viewing tonight: The Maltese Falcon & In a Lonely Place

Hi Karl - +1 - own a LOT of Bogey films, including those two - enjoy!  Dave

[drogulus]

     I recently watched Paul Thomas Anderson's first film Hard Eight. I rate it among his very best.

     https://www.youtube.com/v/sOPB9c4t0Ok&t=109s&ab_channel=SapirYakov

[Karl Henning]

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.

[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"