Last Movie You Watched

[James]

Over the years I must have started this one six or seven times and never made it through.  Went to the well again the other night and still had to push the ejector seat button.  I may never realize its touted genius.

I bought this one too .. I agree, I managed to sit through it once, but it's a total bore-fest and dated. Ideal length for a movie is under 2 hours, 90 minutes is perfect.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Kind of rehash of first trilogy on speed. Far too much is condensed into one movie. Too many events make every one of them fail to properly resonate, and all the characters are severely underwritten. With some serious script pruning coulda' been a contender.

I just finished watching this a few minutes ago. I can see where you are coming from, definitely....I do think that the film needs two other movies afterwards to elaborate on things further. I liked this movie, more than I liked A New Hope anyway!

[Cato]

Over the years I must have started this one six or seven times and never made it through.  Went to the well again the other night and still had to push the ejector seat button.  I may never realize its touted genius.

I bought this one too .. I agree, I managed to sit through it once, but it's a total bore-fest and dated. Ideal length for a movie is under 2 hours, 90 minutes is perfect.

Wow!  This has been an all-around fave of mine for years!  Even the scenes with the politicians (Claude Rains at his puckish best!) I found interesting and well done.

As far as length, the length should depend on the story, and some stories might need 3 hours or more.  I think of Sergei Bondarchuk's film of War and Peace and its c. 8-hour length.

However...

De gustibus non est disputandum!

[North Star]

Wow!  This has been an all-around fave of mine for years!  Even the scenes with the politicians (Claude Rains at his puckish best!) I found interesting and well done.

As far as length, the length should depend on the story, and some stories might need 3 hours or more.  I think of Sergei Bondarchuk's film of War and Peace and its c. 8-hour length.

However...

De gustibus non est disputandum!

Have you seen Sátántangó? 

(I haven't seen LOA in years but I recall quite enjoying it, and not finding it overly long.)

[Cato]

Have you seen Sátántangó? 

No:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111341/

[Karl Henning]

Over the years I must have started this one six or seven times and never made it through.  Went to the well again the other night and still had to push the ejector seat button.  I may never realize its touted genius.

Interesting, Bill!  And you are certainly giving it a fighting chance 

Thread Duty:

Finished two last night:  on my own, Family Plot, and with the girls, Mr. Turner.


With the landing of the 15-Blu-ray Hitchcock box, more than half of the movies in which I have never yet watched (!!) I thought I'd make it easy for myself by working my way backwards chronologically.  I like all the tried-&-true elements of the Hitchcock oeuvre probably as much as anybody, but I also found the novelties (keeping in mind that this is the first time I have watched anything that Hitchcock filmed later than Marnie) fresh and engaging.  I love the cast, and the fact that they are (were) all "non stars";  and as I remarked last night, I got a charge of entertainment out of a movie combining Hitchcock's direction with a Columbo score.  I later learnt who it was scored the film, and maybe it is my favorite John Williams score (and I may not be kidding).  Still very tame compared to our day, but it was amusing to note how much less oblique than in the earlier movies, was the odd bit of sexually charged dialogue.  Just as I had discovered in The Trouble With Harry, a great little movie.


Mr. Turner, however, was 87% bitter disappointment.  It runs two and a half hours, and if they had cut an hour's worth of the pointless, ahistorical (by the writer/director's own admission), tawdry cupboard sex, it would at least have made 90 minutes of worthwhile viewing.  Practically the first thing we see the titular artist do, is brusquely grope his housekeeper, before quite settling to work on a canvas. Faugh, doubl-faugh.  After two hours and a half, the viewer has not learnt anything of reliable interest about the artist's life or character: Timothy Spall pinches his face up into a parakeet scowl which may owe much to John Cleese's Twit of the Year contestant (no really, probably 85% of his facial closeups make you wonder if he found a hamster turd in his steak-&-kidney pie);  and almost all his lines in the last 60 minutes of the movie are indistinct grunts.  Nor have you learnt much of anything (and after two and half hours!) about his work.


I watched perhaps half of the "making of" featurette, and they had an artist on the production team, to create the "unfinished canvas' props.  But they didn't consult the artist on any number of elements in the script, such as where Turner supposedly spits on a canvas in order to make an adjustment.  That drew an audible snort from the artists in my life;  because unless Turner had some as-yet-unknown medical condition which made his saliva an oil solvent, that bit of bogus stagecraft doesn't help the artist half a damn.


Very pleased that we did not go see this in the cinema, where it would have been an insufferable letdown.  The beautifully photographed landscapes were too few, and too little, to come anywhere redeeming the enterprise.

[Karl Henning]

Ideal length for a movie is under 2 hours, 90 minutes is perfect.

What an extraordinarily artistic remark.

Wow!  This has been an all-around fave of mine for years!  Even the scenes with the politicians (Claude Rains at his puckish best!) I found interesting and well done.

Ditto.

[drogulus]

Mr. Turner, however, was 87% bitter disappointment.

     I liked the film a little more than that. Spall is a favorite of mine, if I don't like a film I'll find someone else to blame.

     

     Never before in film history has a pineapple been so well deployed.

[Todd]

Bridge of Spies.  Extremely well crafted, as one would expect from Spielberg and crew.  The use of barrel distortion heavy wide angle lenses becomes a bit tiresome, and the bridge of the title is one nice looking set - I guess no one wanted to risk braving the elements.  The tiny homage to Kubrick is a nice touch.  (Spartacus is on the marquee of a German movie theater.)  Tom Hanks is good.  Mark Rylance is very good.  The best of the three Oscar nominees for best picture from last year that I've seen, but hardly a movie for the ages. 

[Brian]

the bridge of the title is one nice looking set - I guess no one wanted to risk braving the elements.

I, for one, thought the bridge set looked kind of bogus and soundstage-bound.

But we were both wrong.

They filmed that on the real bridge.

(See German-language source citations 41-45.)

[drogulus]

     I don't know what it's like to be unable to finish a film because it bores me. It happens sometimes with really bad films, but even then not often. People must be very different about boredom in some way. I'm not easily bored by a film even when I'm not liking it.

     The traditional "problem" with LOA is that, like the Ottoman Empire and the Arab revolt, it disintegrates into chaos. The film is truer to history than drama.

[Todd]

They filmed that on the real bridge.

Interesting.  I assumed they did establishing shots and such forth on the bridge, but parts of the last scene smack of soundstage filming.  I wonder if they mixed location and studio for the final cut.  In any event, however they filmed it, it looks like a soundstage set.

[James]

     I don't know what it's like to be unable to finish a film because it bores me. It happens sometimes with really bad films, but even then not often. People must be very different about boredom in some way. I'm not easily bored by a film even when I'm not liking it.

     The traditional "problem" with LOA is that, like the Ottoman Empire and the Arab revolt, it disintegrates into chaos. The film is truer to history than drama.

Many films are long winded & dull .. I struggle to physically sit through most of them in truth.

Thankfully, at home I can spread it out over several days.

[Karl Henning]

     I don't know what it's like to be unable to finish a film because it bores me. It happens sometimes with really bad films, but even then not often. People must be very different about boredom in some way. I'm not easily bored by a film even when I'm not liking it.

I know there's a movie I did not bother finishing, not terribly long ago.  But (and not that I mind this) I don't seem to remember it in the least.

[Bogey]

Bridge of Spies.  Extremely well crafted, as one would expect from Spielberg and crew.  The use of barrel distortion heavy wide angle lenses becomes a bit tiresome, and the bridge of the title is one nice looking set - I guess no one wanted to risk braving the elements.  The tiny homage to Kubrick is a nice touch.  (Spartacus is on the marquee of a German movie theater.)  Tom Hanks is good.  Mark Rylance is very good.  The best of the three Oscar nominees for best picture from last year that I've seen, but hardly a movie for the ages.

Enjoyed this one thoroughly.  I will revisit this one sooner than later.

[SonicMan46]

Wow!  This has been an all-around fave of mine for years!  Even the scenes with the politicians (Claude Rains at his puckish best!) I found interesting and well done.

As far as length, the length should depend on the story, and some stories might need 3 hours or more.  I think of Sergei Bondarchuk's film of War and Peace and its c. 8-hour length.

Well, I'm w/ Cato on Lawrence of Arabia - bought the BD last year w/ a marvelous AV restoration - the sound is CD quality; BUT, I did watch over two evenings -    Dave

[Bogey]

Sam Peckinpah's effort here reminded me a bit of a Tarantino films.  Kept me watching, but one watch should do.  Much prefer Ford, Hawkes, Mann and even Leone for multiple watches.

[SonicMan46]

Enjoyed this one thoroughly.  I will revisit this one sooner than later.  RE: Bridge of Spies

Bill - we saw that film last fall when visiting our son in Carmel, Indiana - he took us to a neat new theater there - an in-house brewery, restaurant, & large screen movie house, so we ordered a little lunch, some home brews, and watched Bridge of Spies - looking forward to returning.  Earlier this year, I decided to purchase the BD of the film (from our fav review site, 5/5 for video; 4.8/5 audio).  Dave

[Bogey]

Well, I'm w/ Cato on Lawrence of Arabia - bought the BD last year w/ a marvelous AV restoration - the sound is CD quality; BUT, I did watch over two evenings -    Dave

I remember how much you liked it.  That is why I gave it another go.  Very rarely do I hit the eject button on movies, but it just wore me down to that point.

[Brian]

Interesting.  I assumed they did establishing shots and such forth on the bridge, but parts of the last scene smack of soundstage filming.  I wonder if they mixed location and studio for the final cut.  In any event, however they filmed it, it looks like a soundstage set.

Part of me wonders if Janusz Kaminski's particular "wall of light" Kinkade-painting cinematography contributes to the fakeness of the look. He really goes overboard on it in this movie - a friend of mine says that when Hanks interrogates Rylance, from the light streaming in, it looks like the interrogation room "is directly in front of the sun itself." And in that last bridge set piece, there's so much light/fog that it looks like it has to be fake. But it could just be Kaminski running up his usual eight-figure electric bill.

I think this is also why Lincoln looks like it was shot entirely in four or five little rooms.