Last Movie You Watched

[steve ridgway]

That sounds particularly interesting; we lived very close to the Buttershaw Estate for a year and walked through it (there are some nice woods and countryside on the south side). Bradford was a strange, racially divided place, although we found both populations very friendly in casual encounters and some unusually open and honest. People round here wouldn't just tell you on first meeting that they had the big Akita dog to stop their junkie sister and boyfriend from robbing them and the dents in their car were from said boyfriend kicking it.

[SimonNZ]

^ I watched that with a friend for the second time in two days tonight, and he admired it as much as I did.

Interesting you should mention how candid the people are, because one of the remarkable things about the film is how open and honest the family are about these snowballing tragedies.

[aligreto]

Page Eight





This is the story of political intrigue and it is an example of what British film can excel in. It was not high budget, has no special effects but has an excellent and credible story line and very good acting.

[Florestan]

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ

(Not the first time).

I very much appreciate the authenticity given by being spoken in Aramaic and Latin, although it shows that the actors are struggling with these languages --- there is no single fluent line in the whole movie, except for one liners. They all speak as in a foreign language read (very well, admittedly) at first sight. Then there is the faithful account of how neither Pontius Pilate nor Herod Antipas found any fault with Him and deferred the whole matter strictly and exclusively to the Sanhedrin and the Jewish crowd (quite possibly the first referendum ever). And then the carrying of the cross by Simon of Cyrene. All those are pluses.

The minuses, now.

The sadistic --- sorry, I find no other way to put it --- side of the movie is wholly repellent to me. Firstly, the Gospels allow for no such extreme reading. Secondly, if Jesus Christ had indeed suffered such hard flogging, He'd have died long before He'd even take up the cross. Thirdly, the whole point of this vivid description is moot --- Jesus Christ Himself said while on the cross: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!. Fourthly (and this is a point made by Giovanni Papini in his Life of Christ, with which I happen to concur) --- the Romans themselves were not prone to such mockery and debauchery in the face of impending death, and it's hard to understand how and why the troop could have behaved the way they did --- unless one takes into account that they were unwitting tools of the Divine Mercy.

Bottom line, an impressive, albeit flawed, movie. AFAIC, Zefirelli's movie remains unsurpassed and unsurpassable.

[Karl Henning]

Impressive but flawed is entirely fair.

[aligreto]

Page Eight





This is the story of political intrigue and it is an example of what British film can excel in. It was not high budget, has no special effects but has an excellent and credible story line and very good acting.

Turks & Caicos





This is the sequel to the excellent film Page Eight. This sequel is, as often happens with these things, a disaster. There is no character development, the story line is good but badly managed and the dialogue is actually appalling.

[milk]

I could only take about 20 minutes of this hullabaloo. I'm gonna use a word here that I've never used before. I'm just going to try this word on and see if it works: jejune. 

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Victor/Victoria


Watched it, because we were looking for films that won "Best Original Score".
For the whole time watching this saucy little flick, I had entirely forgotten that it was, of course, a remake of the 1933 Viktor und Viktoria... which is probably the film that I wanted to see, when picking this one... but didn't think of. Seems very forward, these days - but also cute and quaint... but times were so different back in the early 80s, that I suspect that I can't quite understand how it would have come across in its time.

[Brahmsian]

Soylent Green

This is why I don't like green pea soup. 

[Brahmsian]

Soylent Green

I was curious as to who had conducted the symphonic music (Tchaikovsky 6, Beethoven 6).  It was Gerald Fried.

[steve ridgway]

We've decided to try Netflix and I've just watched Oblivion on it, starring Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman, an excellent Sci-Fi film.

[Karl Henning]

I was curious as to who had conducted the symphonic music (Tchaikovsky 6, Beethoven 6).  It was Gerald Fried.

Interesting.

[Karl Henning]

We've decided to try Netflix and I've just watched Oblivion on it, starring Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman, an excellent Sci-Fi film.

Interesting, too.

[Karl Henning]

Thread Duty: I Am Legend.

[arpeggio]

Just saw Richard Jewell on cable.   It was much better than I thought it would be.

[SimonNZ]

We've decided to try Netflix and I've just watched Oblivion on it, starring Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman, an excellent Sci-Fi film.

(repeating something I said on a different forum some time back)

Oblivion? That's the one with Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurilenko? You say Tom Cruise was in that as well?

[steve ridgway]

Oblivion? That's the one with Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurilenko? You say Tom Cruise was in that as well?

Oh yes, he's very much in it. I saw it's coming off Netflix shortly and thought I'd better watch it straight away.

[SimonNZ]

(I was trying to joke that I was so fixated on Andrea and Olga that I didn't even notice Tom)

[George]

[SimonNZ]

Is there a commentary with the Criterion edition of that?