To be clear, we enjoyed KELLY'S HEROES. I had some issues with the fundamental morality of what they were doing, but I didn't let that get in the way of my enjoyment of the film. It's pretty entertaining overall. I personally prefer WHERE EAGLES DARE when it comes to the Eastwood WW2 films (also directed by Brian G. Hutton), but this is a good one.
Oh yes, the amorality (or even immorality) is key to the plot. Looting by civilians is punishable by death, their commanding officer has disappeared off with a yacht, but the much put-upon ordinary soldiers are somewhere in the middle, risking their lives on the front-line for standard army pay.
The comedy comes from the disconnection of the upper ranks from the fighting men, as well as the larcenous nature of almost everyone in the film, but the film would have been much more powerful had it been made clear that this was not 'nazi gold', but, as you say, gold stolen from the victims of the nazis.
I don't think this movie was very funny. There were few people in the audience and none of them were with me, but I still think it was rarely funny. And is that much and brutal violence really fitting in a comedy?
But in spite of this the movie was pretty good
Why? The plot was good, really. The fight scenes and action scenes were also good. I actually think this would have been a better movie if they had made it as a spy thriller with some (hopefully better) humour.
Sam Heughan plays a MI6 agent here. He even has Bondian hair and a tux in the last part of the movie. He is also convincing i the action scenes. Based on this movie he could be a good future James Bond. If he was 5-10 years younger I'd even go as far as to say Sam Heughan would be my favourite!
To be clear, we enjoyed KELLY'S HEROES. I had some issues with the fundamental morality of what they were doing, but I didn't let that get in the way of my enjoyment of the film.
did you see The Monuments Men, which deals with similar issues in a more responsible way, returning stolen Nazi art to its rightful owners? certainly had a damn fine cast
did you see The Monuments Men, which deals with similar issues in a more responsible way, returning stolen Nazi art to its rightful owners? certainly had a damn fine cast
I've seen it. Fine cast indeed, but a damn crashing bore of a movie.
Mission Impossible: Fallout on its last day for the moment at the BFI Imax Waterloo. I sat on the back row, on the left, imo the best seat as further down is a bit overwhelming.
I liked it, but not as much as most everyone else seems to have done.
I was begrudgingly entertained, I mean the action is very exciting and on your seat, impressive stuff. But it's also not credible or really believable, I mean driving a bike at high speed against opposing traffic in rush hour, or skipping the red lights at high speed repeatedly, y'know... I realise I may be missing the point here, like the middle-aged guy who went to see The Spy Who Loved Me and snorted: 'An underwater car? Rubbish!' but there you go. I suppose the whole comic book thing has altered the mean for what action scenes require these days.
The other begrudging part is that you find yourself thinking, wow, that should have been in a Bond movie. I mean, the London set piece with St Paul's is terrific, yet all the London settings in recent Bonds and they came up with nothing as good as that. You do get the feeling the point of the MI films from the beginning was to ****-a-snoop at Bond and say, hey, we can do better! Which is a fair point, but you sort of have divided loyalties. What's more, some of these MI films really are just based around the two big set pieces and the rest is just pure McGuffin.
That said, even the main villain in MI is very much like the modern Blofeld and is in exactly the same situation as we left Blofeld at the end of Spectre. It is hard to say what the Bond series would do about that one, and I think in some ways his organisation, though explained by a lot of yadda yadda yadda at the opening, works better than Quantum/Solace and is more ominous. What's more if I recall, Spectre came out a year before the last MI and now the next MI is out, so a) They have not wasted any time and b) They are knocking them out at the rate of Bonds of yore. Plus, this latest one follows on from the last film, so you get the sense of some future planning, unlike with Bonds which hey! get in a new script, new director, oh hello they've walked.
I mean, with the gap he's had, Craig could have done lots of stuff, but we've had a stage performance and an extended cameo in that heist movie. He seemed busier before he was Bond, with stuff like Layer Cake and Enduring Love.
For all that, I find the MI films of late entertaining but ersatz. There is a hollowness there, a lack of warmth. The most moving moment involved a French police woman.
I could have watched Vanessa Kirby (the White Widow) get up to mischief for the full duration and have been just as entertained! I suppose she's a follow on from the Vanessa Redgrave character in the first film.
Ocean's Eight.
I do enjoy a good Heist movie, and Ocean's Eight delivers, all the usual twists we expect from a film like this, so
no surprises, but great fun.
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
The Meg - not my choice, but we're on holiday and there's only that and Ant Man and The Wasp on at the local flea-pit. The former film is terrific fun with an especially enjoyable score that brings back memories of great old TV themes like Mission: Impossible and UFO.
The Meg is rather less enjoyable - it's a big, dumb summer action movie, but the plot is terribly contrived, acting and dialogue second-rate and it seems to last forever. It's watchable, but nothing like as exciting or funny as it thinks it is. Jason Statham needs better material.
The girl with the dragon tattoo (2011) directed by David Fincher
It pains me to compare this movie to The Snowman. Both are movies based on popular Nordic crime novels directed by very good directors. Both are Hollywood productions shot in the country the books comes from, but this movie is everything The Snowman should have been.
There is of course the big issues like letting the story make sense and creating tension. Dragon Tattoo did it well, The Snowman forgot to do it. There are also the smaller choices. Michael Fassbender didn't even brother to read the book. I'll bet Daniel Craig did. In the Snowman the made the odd choice of removing local colour. The police cars were marked "Police" and not "Politi", names and places were prounounced in English, not Norwegian, even the name of the central character. In Dragon Tattoo all names are pronounced in Swedish (and pretty well). Everyone speaks with a slight Swedish accent, the only exeption being Daniel Craig. Why? He seems to speak American English well enough.
In spite of this I think Craig did a fine job. The movie is really well made and deserved to be more successfull.
It was pretty successful Number24. Unsure why it wasn't more so. Maybe because it was made only 2 years after the original?
Regardless, I really enjoyed it and as you say Craig played the part of Blomkvist very well. Not once did I think of him as James Bond when watching the film. I did however enjoy the Swedish version more. I guess I knew how it ended when the American version came out. Still they were both an excellent watch and both Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara were brilliant as Lisbeth Salander - my new favourite heroine.
If you haven't seen it yet, 'The Girl Who Played with Fire' (the second in the trilogy) is also excellent. Once I finish reading 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest' I'll watch the film and give a quick review. -{
"Everyone knows rock n' roll attained perfection in 1974; It's a scientific fact". - Homer J Simpson
It was pretty successful Number24. Unsure why it wasn't more so. Maybe because it was made only 2 years after the original?
-{
I gather the film took a fairly respectable amount of money, but director David Fincher's working methods were so time-consuming and expensive that it was very expensive to make and didn't make enough money for a sequel to be thought worthwhile. There was talk of a follow-up for some time with a different director but it came to nothing.
It was pretty successful Number24. Unsure why it wasn't more so. Maybe because it was made only 2 years after the original?
-{
I gather the film took a fairly respectable amount of money, but director David Fincher's working methods were so time-consuming and expensive that it was very expensive to make and didn't make enough money for a sequel to be thought worthwhile. There was talk of a follow-up for some time with a different director but it came to nothing.
There will be a follow up called 'The Girl in the Spider's Web' that will be released later this year in Sweden in late October and in the US early November. The film is directed by Fede Alvarez and Claire Foy takes on the role of Lisbeth Salander.
"Everyone knows rock n' roll attained perfection in 1974; It's a scientific fact". - Homer J Simpson
Did my ****-a-snoop reference in my MI review get flagged up by censors?!
Edit: Apparently!
Anyway, returning to that briefly, I have to say that Cruise's apparent willingness to do his own stunts counts a lot. The scene on a helicopter owes much to the pts of FYEO, the difference being you really believe Cruise is up there, struggling to get a hold, while Moore's thing is different. That said, and this is crucial, the Bond action scenes are relaxing and enjoyable, and less frenetic. You fear for the hero less, perhaps because you are meant to enjoy being him, being Bond! It's escapism. The only time I think we really fear for Bond in action is in near the beginning of CR, when he has to make that high jump from one building to another. Are there any others?
Did my ****-a-snoop reference in my MI review get flagged up by censors?!
Edit: Apparently!
Anyway, returning to that briefly, I have to say that Cruise's apparent willingness to do his own stunts counts a lot. The scene on a helicopter owes much to the pts of FYEO, the difference being you really believe Cruise is up there, struggling to get a hold, while Moore's thing is different. That said, and this is crucial, the Bond action scenes are relaxing and enjoyable, and less frenetic. You fear for the hero less, perhaps because you are meant to enjoy being him, being Bond! It's escapism. The only time I think we really fear for Bond in action is in near the beginning of CR, when he has to make that high jump from one building to another. Are there any others?
The scene in Goldfinger when Bond is about to have his nuts split in two (as well as the rest of him) would be one. Even Connery was concerned; among many of his female admirers.
"Everyone knows rock n' roll attained perfection in 1974; It's a scientific fact". - Homer J Simpson
It was pretty successful Number24. Unsure why it wasn't more so. Maybe because it was made only 2 years after the original?
-{
I gather the film took a fairly respectable amount of money, but director David Fincher's working methods were so time-consuming and expensive that it was very expensive to make and didn't make enough money for a sequel to be thought worthwhile. There was talk of a follow-up for some time with a different director but it came to nothing.
There will be a follow up called 'The Girl in the Spider's Web' that will be released later this year in Sweden in late October and in the US early November. The film is directed by Fede Alvarez and Claire Foy takes on the role of Lisbeth Salander.
Strange that they've skipped the rest of the books in the original sequence and gone to the David Lagercrantz continuation novels. I wonder if it's due to an issue with the film rights.
I gather the film took a fairly respectable amount of money, but director David Fincher's working methods were so time-consuming and expensive that it was very expensive to make and didn't make enough money for a sequel to be thought worthwhile. There was talk of a follow-up for some time with a different director but it came to nothing.
There will be a follow up called 'The Girl in the Spider's Web' that will be released later this year in Sweden in late October and in the US early November. The film is directed by Fede Alvarez and Claire Foy takes on the role of Lisbeth Salander.
Strange that they've skipped the rest of the books in the original sequence and gone to the David Lagercrantz continuation novels. I wonder if it's due to an issue with the film rights.
"The girl with the dragon tattoo" wasn't successfull enough for the rest of the trilogy to be made in English with Daniel Craig in the male lead. My guess is that the film company still has the rights for them, so someone else is filming the Lagerkraz novels. I might see "Spider's web" because Synnøve Macody Lund is in it B-)
A very entertaining and star-studded version of Agatha Christie's mystery novel. Better than I remembered it. The only thing I disliked was the pretty racist portrayal of Mr Chaudrey.
For Bond fans there is Lois Chiles in an important part.
I also noticed the scene in the Karnak temple ruins where two people are almost killed by a stone pushed from the top of the gigant collums - just like in TSWLM (1977). My guess is the Bond scriptwriters stole the idea from the novel.
Poirot is also threathened by a poisonous snake, smuggled in to kill him, while he's standing in front of the bathroom mirror - much like LALD!
Haven't seen a 3D movie in a long time. Since Godzilla a few years ago. Got used to it pretty quickly.
Liked the Jaws references. "Pippin" the little doggie in the water being endangered by the Meg. The boat being dragged backwards by the giant shark. Chum in the water. Was waiting for something like " we're going to need a bigger boat" but they didn't go for that one.
I thought the whole thing worked pretty well, actually. Better than I expected it to be.
With the cash it is making, I think we'll see another.
Statham should be the next Bond. I think we're ready for a bald Bond who whispers alot. )
Impressive stuff, the director has now been touted for Bond but though I did think, these aerial shots would be great for a Bond film, that said there wouldn't be many laughs. A bit like Nolan in that respect, and the soundtrack had that same groaning noise on it we had with his Batman films in particular the Bane scene.
That remainds me, when's that Emily Blunt Mary Poppins film coming out?
The story is from a sci-fi novel by Orson Scot Card. Tactics, training, motivation, stratigy and ethnics are central themes, so the US Marines reccomend the book for their officers.
Aliens attacked the earth a generation ago and now a new attack is expected. Promising children are trained to be commanders because young minds learn and develop faster. Ender Wiggins is the most promising of all. His brother was kicked out of the program because he's a psycopath and his sister because she had too much empathy and Ender struggles between those sides of his personality.
I like the movie for the same reasons the USMC like the book. Also, in a time when actors in action movies train to be bodybuilders months before filming, it's refreshing to see a war movie (of sorts) where the lead (Asa Butterfield) is a skinny kid.
The director is Gavin Hood also made the terrific "Eye in the sky" and "Rendition" (also about the dillemas of modern war) and "X-men origins:Wolverine". I wouldn't mind it if Gavin Hood made a Bond movie.
Comments
Oh yes, the amorality (or even immorality) is key to the plot. Looting by civilians is punishable by death, their commanding officer has disappeared off with a yacht, but the much put-upon ordinary soldiers are somewhere in the middle, risking their lives on the front-line for standard army pay.
The comedy comes from the disconnection of the upper ranks from the fighting men, as well as the larcenous nature of almost everyone in the film, but the film would have been much more powerful had it been made clear that this was not 'nazi gold', but, as you say, gold stolen from the victims of the nazis.
Industrial death camps, .... I can forgive a little
Bit of a heist.
I don't think this movie was very funny. There were few people in the audience and none of them were with me, but I still think it was rarely funny. And is that much and brutal violence really fitting in a comedy?
But in spite of this the movie was pretty good
Why? The plot was good, really. The fight scenes and action scenes were also good. I actually think this would have been a better movie if they had made it as a spy thriller with some (hopefully better) humour.
Sam Heughan plays a MI6 agent here. He even has Bondian hair and a tux in the last part of the movie. He is also convincing i the action scenes. Based on this movie he could be a good future James Bond. If he was 5-10 years younger I'd even go as far as to say Sam Heughan would be my favourite!
I've seen it. Fine cast indeed, but a damn crashing bore of a movie.
Not a great movie, bit it is an enjoyable one -{
I liked it, but not as much as most everyone else seems to have done.
I was begrudgingly entertained, I mean the action is very exciting and on your seat, impressive stuff. But it's also not credible or really believable, I mean driving a bike at high speed against opposing traffic in rush hour, or skipping the red lights at high speed repeatedly, y'know... I realise I may be missing the point here, like the middle-aged guy who went to see The Spy Who Loved Me and snorted: 'An underwater car? Rubbish!' but there you go. I suppose the whole comic book thing has altered the mean for what action scenes require these days.
The other begrudging part is that you find yourself thinking, wow, that should have been in a Bond movie. I mean, the London set piece with St Paul's is terrific, yet all the London settings in recent Bonds and they came up with nothing as good as that. You do get the feeling the point of the MI films from the beginning was to ****-a-snoop at Bond and say, hey, we can do better! Which is a fair point, but you sort of have divided loyalties. What's more, some of these MI films really are just based around the two big set pieces and the rest is just pure McGuffin.
That said, even the main villain in MI is very much like the modern Blofeld and is in exactly the same situation as we left Blofeld at the end of Spectre. It is hard to say what the Bond series would do about that one, and I think in some ways his organisation, though explained by a lot of yadda yadda yadda at the opening, works better than Quantum/Solace and is more ominous. What's more if I recall, Spectre came out a year before the last MI and now the next MI is out, so a) They have not wasted any time and b) They are knocking them out at the rate of Bonds of yore. Plus, this latest one follows on from the last film, so you get the sense of some future planning, unlike with Bonds which hey! get in a new script, new director, oh hello they've walked.
I mean, with the gap he's had, Craig could have done lots of stuff, but we've had a stage performance and an extended cameo in that heist movie. He seemed busier before he was Bond, with stuff like Layer Cake and Enduring Love.
For all that, I find the MI films of late entertaining but ersatz. There is a hollowness there, a lack of warmth. The most moving moment involved a French police woman.
I could have watched Vanessa Kirby (the White Widow) get up to mischief for the full duration and have been just as entertained! I suppose she's a follow on from the Vanessa Redgrave character in the first film.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I do enjoy a good Heist movie, and Ocean's Eight delivers, all the usual twists we expect from a film like this, so
no surprises, but great fun.
The Meg is rather less enjoyable - it's a big, dumb summer action movie, but the plot is terribly contrived, acting and dialogue second-rate and it seems to last forever. It's watchable, but nothing like as exciting or funny as it thinks it is. Jason Statham needs better material.
It pains me to compare this movie to The Snowman. Both are movies based on popular Nordic crime novels directed by very good directors. Both are Hollywood productions shot in the country the books comes from, but this movie is everything The Snowman should have been.
There is of course the big issues like letting the story make sense and creating tension. Dragon Tattoo did it well, The Snowman forgot to do it. There are also the smaller choices. Michael Fassbender didn't even brother to read the book. I'll bet Daniel Craig did. In the Snowman the made the odd choice of removing local colour. The police cars were marked "Police" and not "Politi", names and places were prounounced in English, not Norwegian, even the name of the central character. In Dragon Tattoo all names are pronounced in Swedish (and pretty well). Everyone speaks with a slight Swedish accent, the only exeption being Daniel Craig. Why? He seems to speak American English well enough.
In spite of this I think Craig did a fine job. The movie is really well made and deserved to be more successfull.
Regardless, I really enjoyed it and as you say Craig played the part of Blomkvist very well. Not once did I think of him as James Bond when watching the film. I did however enjoy the Swedish version more. I guess I knew how it ended when the American version came out. Still they were both an excellent watch and both Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara were brilliant as Lisbeth Salander - my new favourite heroine.
If you haven't seen it yet, 'The Girl Who Played with Fire' (the second in the trilogy) is also excellent. Once I finish reading 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest' I'll watch the film and give a quick review. -{
I gather the film took a fairly respectable amount of money, but director David Fincher's working methods were so time-consuming and expensive that it was very expensive to make and didn't make enough money for a sequel to be thought worthwhile. There was talk of a follow-up for some time with a different director but it came to nothing.
Brilliant Movie, with a fantastic cast, Denzel Washington , Russell Crowe , Chiwetel Ejiofor and
Josh Brolin.
There will be a follow up called 'The Girl in the Spider's Web' that will be released later this year in Sweden in late October and in the US early November. The film is directed by Fede Alvarez and Claire Foy takes on the role of Lisbeth Salander.
Edit: Apparently!
Anyway, returning to that briefly, I have to say that Cruise's apparent willingness to do his own stunts counts a lot. The scene on a helicopter owes much to the pts of FYEO, the difference being you really believe Cruise is up there, struggling to get a hold, while Moore's thing is different. That said, and this is crucial, the Bond action scenes are relaxing and enjoyable, and less frenetic. You fear for the hero less, perhaps because you are meant to enjoy being him, being Bond! It's escapism. The only time I think we really fear for Bond in action is in near the beginning of CR, when he has to make that high jump from one building to another. Are there any others?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Strange that they've skipped the rest of the books in the original sequence and gone to the David Lagercrantz continuation novels. I wonder if it's due to an issue with the film rights.
http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo/53893/what-went-wrong-with-2011s-the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo
"The girl with the dragon tattoo" wasn't successfull enough for the rest of the trilogy to be made in English with Daniel Craig in the male lead. My guess is that the film company still has the rights for them, so someone else is filming the Lagerkraz novels. I might see "Spider's web" because Synnøve Macody Lund is in it B-)
Not a great movie, but please check out the title sequence (starts immediately)- John Barry + Maurice Binder! Might seem pleasantly familiar....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR4-PADx-V0
I think I watched this one. Indeed it has an excellent theme and title sequence, but I don't remember anything else about it.
An enjoyable Victorian Horror/thriller, as a policeman tries to catch a " Jack the Ripper " type killer.
A very entertaining and star-studded version of Agatha Christie's mystery novel. Better than I remembered it. The only thing I disliked was the pretty racist portrayal of Mr Chaudrey.
For Bond fans there is Lois Chiles in an important part.
I also noticed the scene in the Karnak temple ruins where two people are almost killed by a stone pushed from the top of the gigant collums - just like in TSWLM (1977). My guess is the Bond scriptwriters stole the idea from the novel.
Poirot is also threathened by a poisonous snake, smuggled in to kill him, while he's standing in front of the bathroom mirror - much like LALD!
Haven't seen a 3D movie in a long time. Since Godzilla a few years ago. Got used to it pretty quickly.
Liked the Jaws references. "Pippin" the little doggie in the water being endangered by the Meg. The boat being dragged backwards by the giant shark. Chum in the water. Was waiting for something like " we're going to need a bigger boat" but they didn't go for that one.
I thought the whole thing worked pretty well, actually. Better than I expected it to be.
With the cash it is making, I think we'll see another.
Statham should be the next Bond. I think we're ready for a bald Bond who whispers alot.
Impressive stuff, the director has now been touted for Bond but though I did think, these aerial shots would be great for a Bond film, that said there wouldn't be many laughs. A bit like Nolan in that respect, and the soundtrack had that same groaning noise on it we had with his Batman films in particular the Bane scene.
That remainds me, when's that Emily Blunt Mary Poppins film coming out?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The story is from a sci-fi novel by Orson Scot Card. Tactics, training, motivation, stratigy and ethnics are central themes, so the US Marines reccomend the book for their officers.
Aliens attacked the earth a generation ago and now a new attack is expected. Promising children are trained to be commanders because young minds learn and develop faster. Ender Wiggins is the most promising of all. His brother was kicked out of the program because he's a psycopath and his sister because she had too much empathy and Ender struggles between those sides of his personality.
I like the movie for the same reasons the USMC like the book. Also, in a time when actors in action movies train to be bodybuilders months before filming, it's refreshing to see a war movie (of sorts) where the lead (Asa Butterfield) is a skinny kid.
The director is Gavin Hood also made the terrific "Eye in the sky" and "Rendition" (also about the dillemas of modern war) and "X-men origins:Wolverine". I wouldn't mind it if Gavin Hood made a Bond movie.