The Last Movie You Watched

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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

Post by John P. Drake »

Movies I watched this month:
  • Hobbs and Shaw (2019) - 8/10 ; Strong suit: Fun factor, the visual effects and the stars
  • Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019) - 7/10 ; Strong suit: The atmosphere and consistency
  • Deadfall (1968) - 6/10 ; Strong suit: Soundtrack, acting performances, visuals, cinematography and editing
  • The Marseille Contract (1974) - 7/10 ; Strong suit: The stars and the atmosphere
  • The Great Escape (1964) - 8/10 ; Strong suit: Ensemble cast and story
  • Get Carter (1971) - 9/10 ; Strong suit: Visual effects, cinematography, editing, atmosphere, Michael Caine
  • Get Carter (2000) - 7/10 ; Strong suit: Fun factor, Sylvester Stallone
  • Pulp (1972) - 6/10 ; Strong suit: Michael Caine
All of them were above enjoyable at the very least. Some good, some great, some slightly above the average.
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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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I want to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but haven't found the time yet.

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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

Post by John P. Drake »

Kristatos wrote:I want to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but haven't found the time yet.
I think you'll enjoy it. I had a lot of fun with it. It's a cinephile's love letter to the sixties.
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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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John P. Drake wrote:
Kristatos wrote:I want to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but haven't found the time yet.
I think you'll enjoy it. I had a lot of fun with it. It's a cinephile's love letter to the sixties.
Going to see it tomorrow. Did it have an intermission? Some Tarantino films do.

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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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Answer: no, it doesn't. Lucky I visited the concession stand before I went in.

Well, I enjoyed it. Maybe the whole was less than the sum of its parts, but there were some great scenes in there. And I do wonder whether the people claiming that it was disrespectful to Bruce Lee realised that Cliff (Brad Pitt) was daydreaming that whole sequence.

A few Bond nods in there: during the flashback with his wife on the boat, Brad Pitt emerges from below decks wearing a wetsuit like Connery's in Thunderball and holding what looks like a harpoon gun. There is a snatch of the fanfare from OHMSS (later reused in AVTAK) during the end credits. And Rick Dalton appears in a Eurospy movie that is explicitly described as a Bond knock-off by the narrator (Kurt Russell).
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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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Just got back from seeing Joker. Very intense, though not a movie I can imagine watching again and again, as the atmosphere is almost unbearably oppressive throughout. It will be interesting to see what sort of second weekend drop this has, as this will be an indicator of whether other people agree in this regard, or whether it's just me.

I certainly don't recommend it to anyone who has ever suffered from mental health issues and been let down by the system. I imagine it would be extremely traumatic to watch if that was the case.
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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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I thought it be like this from the trailers. Not sure


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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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You know? It may be that I'm entirely of a taste far different from the mainstream audiences, but I watched The Specialist (1994) last night (for probably the fourth of fifth time) and found myself enjoying it. Yet, we have had most of the people bombarding the film with negativity for reasons not visible in my eyes. Honestly, it's neither an epic nor a groundbreaking movie. However, I enjoyed it for what it was as the film happened to be entertaining with the four leads: Stallone, Woods, Stone, Roberts. Though, Rod Steiger was on auto-pilot mode. How come everyone rates it as a disaster of a movie when it's not? Something I'll never understand with movie critics.
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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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John P. Drake wrote:You know? It may be that I'm entirely of a taste far different from the mainstream audiences, but I watched The Specialist (1994) last night (for probably the fourth of fifth time) and found myself enjoying it. Yet, we have had most of the people bombarding the film with negativity for reasons not visible in my eyes. Honestly, it's neither an epic nor a groundbreaking movie. However, I enjoyed it for what it was as the film happened to be entertaining with the four leads: Stallone, Woods, Stone, Roberts. Though, Rod Steiger was on auto-pilot mode. How come everyone rates it as a disaster of a movie when it's not? Something I'll never understand with movie critics.
Do they? I remember the reviews not being great, but not terrible either. I thought it was enjoyable enough, but nothing special. Good John Barry score, though.

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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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Kristatos wrote:
John P. Drake wrote:You know? It may be that I'm entirely of a taste far different from the mainstream audiences, but I watched The Specialist (1994) last night (for probably the fourth of fifth time) and found myself enjoying it. Yet, we have had most of the people bombarding the film with negativity for reasons not visible in my eyes. Honestly, it's neither an epic nor a groundbreaking movie. However, I enjoyed it for what it was as the film happened to be entertaining with the four leads: Stallone, Woods, Stone, Roberts. Though, Rod Steiger was on auto-pilot mode. How come everyone rates it as a disaster of a movie when it's not? Something I'll never understand with movie critics.
Do they? I remember the reviews not being great, but not terrible either. I thought it was enjoyable enough, but nothing special. Good John Barry score, though.
Apparently they do.

I share the same opinion as you. It's not something great, but it's far from being terrible. An enjoyable neo-noir. What I love about Barry's score is that it didn't sound like it was written for a nineties film. While not something out of this world, it has that John Barry soul in it that makes his work all too satisfying. Makes me wonder what he would have done with GoldenEye. The "Did You Call Me?" track is nothing but a beautiful piece which gave me bit of Body Heat vibes (one of my favorite works of Barry's).
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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

Post by Capt. Sir Dominic Flandry »

The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

I watched this movie as a Halloween treat. This is the last Hammer horror with Christopher Lee as Dracula. I like the 70s setting and the strange atmosphere. Peter Cushing stars as Van Helsing which naturally improves the film.
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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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Capt. Sir Dominic Flandry wrote:The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

I watched this movie as a Halloween treat. This is the last Hammer horror with Christopher Lee as Dracula. I like the 70s setting and the strange atmosphere. Peter Cushing stars as Van Helsing which naturally improves the film.
I watched it recently as well. Hadn't seen it before, quite enjoyed it, even though Lee seemed to be playing Scaramanga rather than Dracula in places. He had kind of a Bond villain vibe in this one.

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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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JoJo Rabbit. Liked it..and was a bit emotional at the end.
I have no time for No Time To Die :lol:
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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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Just got back from seeing The Rise of Skywalker. At first, I thought I was going to hate it. The first 15 minutes or so are a hot mess. But it soon settled down. I'd say it's worth seeing, but it felt a bit mechanical, like JJ Abrams was going through a checklist of things to include. 5/10.

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The Last Movie You Watched

Post by Omega »

Saw joker on Vudu early release.

Joaquin Phoenix was incredible, emaciated for the role and the story is intense. Definitely would not recommend it for everybody.

I had trouble with the idea of his origins because it normally a mess narratively. But I found out I think in the 1950s DC tried to creat a backstory for him not too dissimilar, one with him losing a wife and child going nuts. (Before the values crusade to clean up comics to make them safe for children) And it could be part of this story too because we don’t know what caused him to be originally committed.
We also don’t know any of this story is real, it’s from his POV. It all could be real or none of it.

WB and dc definitely disowned this movie early on, its intro lacks the DC marvel kind of logo and WB used very old vintage logos to introduce the movie. And I think the studio name is old too, like when Sony uses the Columbia name when they know something might be controversial about a new movie.

Thing they got right about joker and Batman begins is there are many time where you see them act like who you know they are going to be before the moment they appear in full costume.

Joker always does unexpected things, letting people go who assumed they’d be killed and being violent to those who thought they were safe. Not targeting children for the most part, although he does kill robin. Chasing a guy who cut him off in traffic ignoring the Batman and police chase looking for him.

There are times in the movie where you can really see that he is sharper and more himself as he gets closer and closer to joker.
I don’t buy some of his weak personality but they may sell it better than I think after the first viewing, but I’m not sure if or when we’ll watch it again. It’s intense, and if someone easily gets into movies I’d tell them to skip it.








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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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I think the retro Warner Bros logo was to go with the period setting. They did the same thing with Argo, which was set in 1978.

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The Last Movie You Watched

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Was it? I thought there was something different about the name they used, like it was a studio name they didn’t use any more.


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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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This review sums up my feelings about The Rise of Skywalker perfectly: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusi ... lker-fails

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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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Kristatos wrote:This review sums up my feelings about The Rise of Skywalker perfectly: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusi ... lker-fails

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He has a point. My trouble with the film and the trilogy is there was no point to it. Some of this is because of choices made/allowed in last Jedi , killing Luke and keeping Princess Leia alive when the actor sadly died before movie release limited what could be done with any sequels.
But as many pointed out skywalker is a rehash of Star Wars greatest hits without actually creating/contributing anything new. That’s cinema formula to a point but lazy story telling that can leave the audience unfulfilled, as I feel. There just was no point to the 9 movies, the skywalker saga really is misnamed in this case. We were supposed to follow Anakin Skywalker on his path from decent man to Galaxy most ruthless, then redemption by the son/children he never knew he had, that’s 6 movies. Clumsy in the prequels, over all solid in the original trilogy, then becomes about something else in the last trilogy.

Honestly the most amazing part of the rise of skywalker may be how creditably JJ Abrams was able to recreate something George Lucas couldn’t do 22 years after the original Star Wars and over 7 years spent making a new trilogy.
That’s partly why I feel JJ Abrams hands were tied by last Jedi and Disney’s absolute need to get the cash machine back on track after missteps of sequels & spin offs quickly turned out turned off the built in fan base.

I still feel the force awakens was necessary to softly reboot the franchise to correct the trouble Lucas created with his prequels, unfortunately what should have been a one off homage to the original trilogy became a mass produced Norman Rockwell like paintings turned out by the dozen without the heart.

Something kennedy got wrong with her prequel stories rogue one and solo was trying to add meaning to the original movies. solo they tried to make the woke droid, falcon & solo’s lucky charm suddenly have meaning across 5 films that were never intended to be there.
Rogue one tries to make the story of how the Death Star plans were stolen and how rogue became a call sign for the rebellion, steroid Vader shows up and also added a creepy cgi Princess Leia at the end god good measure. None of this was Necessary

adding meaning to past stories works for marvel because they actually laid the groundwork little by little, sometimes with teasers, most of the time by actually having a story bible that covers the inclusion of future revelations. Part of the fun rewatching these popcorn movies is you can catch small things you dismissed the first time.

When others movie and tv series try to add new meaning to settled stories it’s not good, like how brofeld cheapens any meaning some found in casino royal.



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Re: The Last Movie You Watched

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We watched Gemini Man on early release. Verdict: did not suck
However many stars to indicate mediocre. (I forget how I used to rate them)


Not bad sci-fi, decent use of cutting edge cgi to make a kind of believable clone vs original story.
Good cast, good action, I don’t think it deserves the rotten tomatoes score.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (yes I looked up her name) was believable as agent and creditable in her fight scenes. Also she wasn’t given the obligatory sex scene with the “hero” as most movies in the genre do. In fact she may have never moved on to a romantic relationship by the end of the movie even though the story does develop that there are feelings there.
I looked up her career and found I like most of her roles. Actually looking forward to seeing her in birds of prey

Will smith was better than most of his phoned in roles. Not sure how they did cgi young smith, he may have acted those scenes out too or it might be Andy Serkis.


I heard some theatrical releases had a ridiculously high frame rate, they tried to do something like this for UHD TVs, it usually makes the picture have a cheaper feel, over corrected and too smooth. At least I find this option distracting, while some rave about how improved the picture is. I wonder if the frame rate the director chose caused some of the negative reviews





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