Just saw mile 22 and loved it. A special unit has to get a defector to an extraction point 22 miles away . Non stop action and pretty brutal. Filmed interestingly some of it was drone footage
Tucker and Dale v Evil : ( on Netflix )
Very funny movie, two country boys due to a series of
Comic events are thought to be " Hillbilly kilkers" by a group
Of students. Some really funny scenes
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
High Anxiety, still laugh out loud at this, no matter how Many times I watch it. )
Thunderpussy you have official permission to be my film buddy.
High Anxiety is probably the Mel Brooks film that is most reliant on familiarity with what is being parodied. Nothing so accessible as farting cowboys or "it's good to be da king". But if you have to watch a couple dozen Hitchcock movies (plus One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and even the Spy Who Loved Me) to get the jokes in this one film, that's not such bad homework.
Reminds me I haven't seen Spellbound for a long time, that's the Hitchcock film that sort of forms the core of the plot.
Also High Anxiety is the Mel Brooks film where Madeleine Kahn gets the most screen time. Her appearances in the other films are basically extended cameos, and her appearance is always a showstopper, so good to finally see her in a proper costarring role. (she does very similar extended cameos in Wholly Moses and the Muppet Movie)
Now watching: Final Score with Dave Batistuta and Pierce Brosnan. It's Die Hard at a football match, and absolutely could not be more like DH if it tried.
It's also had a big fight in an elevator, which I haven't since Diamonds Are Forever. I'm not expecting a classic but will stick with it.
Watched the Predator trilogy for the first time ready to see The Predator. The best way I can describe them is that it's a fun little franchise. Each film offers something different (even Predators, which on the surface seems like a remake of the first film) and that definitely works in the trilogy's favour. All 3 films are solid 8/10s (an average rating I give to films), although for me, Predator 2 is easily the best of them.
This movie is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master, There will be blood, Boogie Nights). Daniel Day-Lewis plays the lead, I what he threathens to be his last movie. He plays Reynolds Woodcock ( ;%) who is a leading dressmaker in 1950's London, designing dresses for millionaire's wives, royalty and movie stars. He is an obsessive man, and people tip-toe around him so he can be creative. Alma is his muse and model who falls obsessive in love with Reynolds. Obviously this movie is a perfect companion piece to The Expenables II
To be seriousmb: this movie is superbly acted, shot, written etc. If you are willing to make the time and effort to see a thoughtful, emotionally driven and beautifully shot movie, this is worth it.
Watched the Predator trilogy for the first time ready to see The Predator. The best way I can describe them is that it's a fun little franchise. Each film offers something different (even Predators, which on the surface seems like a remake of the first film) and that definitely works in the trilogy's favour. All 3 films are solid 8/10s (an average rating I give to films), although for me, Predator 2 is easily the best of them.
I never saw Predators but I think Predator 2 tends not to get the credit it deserves for doing something interesting and different with the concept rather than just remaking the first film.
This movie is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master, There will be blood, Boogie Nights). Daniel Day-Lewis plays the lead, I what he threathens to be his last movie. He plays Reynolds Woodcock ( ;%) who is a leading dressmaker in 1950's London, designing dresses for millionaire's wives, royalty and movie stars. He is an obsessive man, and people tip-toe around him so he can be creative. Alma is his muse and model who falls obsessive in love with Reynolds. Obviously this movie is a perfect companion piece to The Expenables II
To be seriousmb: this movie is superbly acted, shot, written etc. If you are willing to make the time and effort to see a thoughtful, emotionally driven and beautifully shot movie, this is worth it.
I loved this film - it's very deliberately paced and establishes its period extremely well. On a personal level it helped that I knew some of the locations used, particularly the Yorkshire coastal resort of Robin Hoods Bay. In its own way it's a twisted love story in which an emotionally closed-off, obsessive man who views women on a surface level only, as objects for him to dress, meets a woman who will not put up with his crap finds a way to force Reynolds into making an emotional commitment to her.
Apparently Daniel Day-Lewis had a horrible time making the film, which is why he has announced his retirement from acting. Woodcock is not an unusual surname in Britain - there's even a branch of my own family with the name.
Shoutout also to Reynolds Woodcock's beautiful car, a 1955 Bristol 405.
Last two films seen: Quest For Love (1972). A pretty-well unique SF romance featuring Tom Bell as a physicist who finds himself transported into a different timeline when an experiment with a particle accelerator goes wrong. In his new life, he is a drunk, abusive but highly successful author in a 1972 when World War 2 never happened. He immediately falls in love with the wife of this new version of himself, who he has never met before. Trouble is, the version of him in this timeline is such a bastard that she hates him and wants a divorce.
Although few of the political implications of WW2 never happening are gone into (it's not that sort of film), an interesting amount of thought went into creating a 1972 in which technology and fashions changed little in thirty years without the impetus of six years of total war. Tom Bell carries the film, his spiky screen presence making it totally believable he could have been an abusive womaniser, but Bell has the range to pull of the romantic scenes. Joan Collins is the object of his affections and gives the standard Joan Collins performance. She's not the world's greatest actress and at times is clunkingly bad here, but she just about good enough - this was actually one of her favourite screen roles.
Also say Spike Lee's BlacKKKlansman (I think that's how you spell it), the best film I've seen this year. John David Washington plays an undercover cop in the early 70s who goes undercover in the Klu Klux Klan - quite a feat as he is a black man. He pulls it off by dealing with the Klan by telephone and drafting in a white Jewish officer (Adam Driver) to meet them face to face. What could have been a grim story is told with verve, intelligence and even a sense of fun - In a key scene Washington dresses just like Clarence Williams III from 70s cop show The Mod Squad.
After wrong-footing the audience with a TV cop show happy ending Lee takes the last ten minutes in a deadly serious direction, as our hero's triumph is undermined by his superiors and the story is brought to the present day with Donald Trump and Charlottesville - the latter event happened while the film was in pre-production.
Lee also takes well-aimed swipes at racism in Hollywood's history, with DW Griffiths' the Birth of a Nation given a deserved kicking. It's a vital film in movie history in terms of creating the grammar of film but the content of the thing is absolutely poisonous and was directly responsible for the revival of the KKK in the early 20th Century.
I have also watched the Finnish war movie Unknown Soldier (2017) I'll write a review later, but I'll post a clip. Antero Rokka is the manliest man in the very manly Finnish army. Here is a scene where he guns down a Soviet platoon. He can't do it alone, of course - he needs another soldier to reload for him
Jaws :
A film I love and have watched many times. This time however
I re-read the book again, which I haven't done since first seeing
The film in the cinema.
It was fun, to notice the small changes from book to film and
Do believe the Film is better than the book.
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (1977). First time seeing it all the way through in at least 25 years (if not more). I saw this theatrically in 1977 and several times in the 80s, so I had fond memories of it. In honor of Burt's passing, I gave it another go.
You know what? The movie's still a lot of fun. It's a paper thin plot held together (barely) by the charm/chemistry of the lead actors, but sometimes that's all you need. It helps that the movie is a masterwork in pacing and editing...it absolutely flies by, never really letting up in terms of getting you from point A to point B. While it does move fast, it never really sacrifices character.
Some 70s sexism and casual racism aside (mainly from Jackie Gleason's sheriff character), it's a lot of fun and worth checking out again if it's been a while. It's streaming right now on Amazon Prime for free.
I used to love these films as a kid, recently re watched the cannonball run 1 and 2 similar kind of thing to satb, great fun but for me just too much of the time.
One of the best final act climax sequences I’ve seen in years. I’d forgotten how good (and unusual) this movie now seems.
Tha last fifteen minutes is set up in a really odd and surprising way which kinda puts you off as you’re watching it. Van Helsing (Cushing) carries out a blood tranfusion on a woman. But he does it REALLY slowly. I thought it was so Cushing could show off his Dr Frankenstein medical skills.
But no. Director Terence Fisher was messing with our heads. Tricking us into a false sense of secutity.
Things move on. Aristotelian discovery and reversal in the story as we discover Dracula’s coffin is in the basement of this very house. Safety becomes danger in an unexpected but inevitable manner.
Before we know it everybody is rushing around shouting, chasing, getting locked in cellars. Woman gets abducted by the Big D.
Van Helsing and pal (Michael Gough) go haring after him, racing through the English countryside toward the German castle.
Arriving at the castle, Dracula tries to bury a woman alive in a hole in the ground. Looks very surprised when Van Helsing arrives by fast carriage.
Cue, running into castle, throwing things around, attempting some last minute strangling, using candlesticks as religious weapons, bright ideas arriving, running across tables, pulling down curtains, letting some light shed on the villain. Lee acts up a storm as he turns to dust.
Happy ending.
Now, that’s how you do a hero vs villain last act.
I'm watching "Spartacus" (1960).I won't review it here and now, I can just say I enjoy it a lot.
I would like to make two points:
- Stanley Kubrick took over directing after Anthony Mann quit after just two weeks of filming. Kubrick, a young director with no experience with big productions, needed only a weekend to prepare. One can only hope.... :v
-Lawrence Oliver and Timothy Dalton look and sound a lot like each other, especially when they are speaking softly.
One of the best final act climax sequences I’ve seen in years. I’d forgotten how good (and unusual) this movie now seems.
Tha last fifteen minutes is set up in a really odd and surprising way which kinda puts you off as you’re watching it. Van Helsing (Cushing) carries out a blood tranfusion on a woman. But he does it REALLY slowly. I thought it was so Cushing could show off his Dr Frankenstein medical skills.
But no. Director Terence Fisher was messing with our heads. Tricking us into a false sense of secutity.
Things move on. Aristotelian discovery and reversal in the story as we discover Dracula’s coffin is in the basement of this very house. Safety becomes danger in an unexpected but inevitable manner.
Before we know it everybody is rushing around shouting, chasing, getting locked in cellars. Woman gets abducted by the Big D.
Van Helsing and pal (Michael Gough) go haring after him, racing through the English countryside toward the German castle.
Arriving at the castle, Dracula tries to bury a woman alive in a hole in the ground. Looks very surprised when Van Helsing arrives by fast carriage.
Cue, running into castle, throwing things around, attempting some last minute strangling, using candlesticks as religious weapons, bright ideas arriving, running across tables, pulling down curtains, letting some light shed on the villain. Lee acts up a storm as he turns to dust.
Happy ending.
Now, that’s how you do a hero vs villain last act.
Jimmy Sangster's script for this is an absolute model in how to simplify a narrative for filming. Note how the action doesn't shift to Whitby to save having to mount ship scenes, so everything is a fairly short carriage-ride away.
Jimmy Sangster's script for this is an absolute model in how to simplify a narrative for filming. Note how the action doesn't shift to Whitby to save having to mount ship scenes, so everything is a fairly short carriage-ride away.
They start the story with Harker's arrival at Castle Dracula. And with him already on a mission to kill Dracula. None of the longer setup from the novel. Immediately into conflict and anticipation. Harker gets turned. Then Van Helsing arrives. Sangster strips the story down to a conflict between Dracula and Van Helsing. The surrounding characters from the novel are there, but their roles are simplified. Unity of action. Unity of setting.
The movie's script really is a perfect example of pure story extracted from the disparate elements in Stoker's original narrative. Sangster pulls out the core of the story and arranges it in set-pieces that are staged wonderfully well.
No wonder it made Hammer so much money at the time.
Watched 'Gone Girl' last night. One of the best thrillers I've seen in a long time. Rosamund Pike steals the show - she was brilliant. An intriguing plot and you're not sure which way this is going to go. Highly recommended. -{
"Everyone knows rock n' roll attained perfection in 1974; It's a scientific fact". - Homer J Simpson
Final Score :
Nothing new, a by the numbers Die Hard at a football match.
Entertaining enough to pass 90 minutes. There is a great
Fight in a kitchen with Bautista fighting a guy even bigger
Than him. With Pierce Brosnan making a guest appearance.
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
I watched "Marry Poppins" for the first time last night. It's a fun and inventive. The special effects must have been cutting edge back then. I still haven't seen "Brief Encounter", "A Matter of Life and Death", "Withnail & I" and several other British classics.
Comments
An enjoyable story of three pensioners who due to lack of
Money, decide to rob a bank. It's an easy going comedy
With a Stella cast.
Many times I watch it.
Very funny movie, two country boys due to a series of
Comic events are thought to be " Hillbilly kilkers" by a group
Of students. Some really funny scenes
Wow! Doesn't Tom look young in this
High Anxiety is probably the Mel Brooks film that is most reliant on familiarity with what is being parodied. Nothing so accessible as farting cowboys or "it's good to be da king". But if you have to watch a couple dozen Hitchcock movies (plus One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and even the Spy Who Loved Me) to get the jokes in this one film, that's not such bad homework.
Reminds me I haven't seen Spellbound for a long time, that's the Hitchcock film that sort of forms the core of the plot.
Also High Anxiety is the Mel Brooks film where Madeleine Kahn gets the most screen time. Her appearances in the other films are basically extended cameos, and her appearance is always a showstopper, so good to finally see her in a proper costarring role. (she does very similar extended cameos in Wholly Moses and the Muppet Movie)
It's also had a big fight in an elevator, which I haven't since Diamonds Are Forever. I'm not expecting a classic but will stick with it.
They are literally checking off bits from Die Hard to copy.
This movie is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master, There will be blood, Boogie Nights). Daniel Day-Lewis plays the lead, I what he threathens to be his last movie. He plays Reynolds Woodcock ( ;%) who is a leading dressmaker in 1950's London, designing dresses for millionaire's wives, royalty and movie stars. He is an obsessive man, and people tip-toe around him so he can be creative. Alma is his muse and model who falls obsessive in love with Reynolds. Obviously this movie is a perfect companion piece to The Expenables II
To be seriousmb: this movie is superbly acted, shot, written etc. If you are willing to make the time and effort to see a thoughtful, emotionally driven and beautifully shot movie, this is worth it.
I never saw Predators but I think Predator 2 tends not to get the credit it deserves for doing something interesting and different with the concept rather than just remaking the first film.
I loved this film - it's very deliberately paced and establishes its period extremely well. On a personal level it helped that I knew some of the locations used, particularly the Yorkshire coastal resort of Robin Hoods Bay. In its own way it's a twisted love story in which an emotionally closed-off, obsessive man who views women on a surface level only, as objects for him to dress, meets a woman who will not put up with his crap finds a way to force Reynolds into making an emotional commitment to her.
Apparently Daniel Day-Lewis had a horrible time making the film, which is why he has announced his retirement from acting. Woodcock is not an unusual surname in Britain - there's even a branch of my own family with the name.
Shoutout also to Reynolds Woodcock's beautiful car, a 1955 Bristol 405.
Although few of the political implications of WW2 never happening are gone into (it's not that sort of film), an interesting amount of thought went into creating a 1972 in which technology and fashions changed little in thirty years without the impetus of six years of total war. Tom Bell carries the film, his spiky screen presence making it totally believable he could have been an abusive womaniser, but Bell has the range to pull of the romantic scenes. Joan Collins is the object of his affections and gives the standard Joan Collins performance. She's not the world's greatest actress and at times is clunkingly bad here, but she just about good enough - this was actually one of her favourite screen roles.
Also say Spike Lee's BlacKKKlansman (I think that's how you spell it), the best film I've seen this year. John David Washington plays an undercover cop in the early 70s who goes undercover in the Klu Klux Klan - quite a feat as he is a black man. He pulls it off by dealing with the Klan by telephone and drafting in a white Jewish officer (Adam Driver) to meet them face to face. What could have been a grim story is told with verve, intelligence and even a sense of fun - In a key scene Washington dresses just like Clarence Williams III from 70s cop show The Mod Squad.
After wrong-footing the audience with a TV cop show happy ending Lee takes the last ten minutes in a deadly serious direction, as our hero's triumph is undermined by his superiors and the story is brought to the present day with Donald Trump and Charlottesville - the latter event happened while the film was in pre-production.
Lee also takes well-aimed swipes at racism in Hollywood's history, with DW Griffiths' the Birth of a Nation given a deserved kicking. It's a vital film in movie history in terms of creating the grammar of film but the content of the thing is absolutely poisonous and was directly responsible for the revival of the KKK in the early 20th Century.
Very, very well worth seeing.
Bless you heart, thank you! :x
Video:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=unknown+soldier+rokka+slaughters+platoon&&view=detail&mid=31DC114BB7991C80A96931DC114BB7991C80A969&&FORM=VRDGAR
Photo from nother scene were Rokka needs the help of one man to lob handgranades while he engages a few Soviet trenches.
A film I love and have watched many times. This time however
I re-read the book again, which I haven't done since first seeing
The film in the cinema.
It was fun, to notice the small changes from book to film and
Do believe the Film is better than the book.
The " I happen to have my young son in the car " bit is hilarious.
One of the best final act climax sequences I’ve seen in years. I’d forgotten how good (and unusual) this movie now seems.
Tha last fifteen minutes is set up in a really odd and surprising way which kinda puts you off as you’re watching it. Van Helsing (Cushing) carries out a blood tranfusion on a woman. But he does it REALLY slowly. I thought it was so Cushing could show off his Dr Frankenstein medical skills.
But no. Director Terence Fisher was messing with our heads. Tricking us into a false sense of secutity.
Things move on. Aristotelian discovery and reversal in the story as we discover Dracula’s coffin is in the basement of this very house. Safety becomes danger in an unexpected but inevitable manner.
Before we know it everybody is rushing around shouting, chasing, getting locked in cellars. Woman gets abducted by the Big D.
Van Helsing and pal (Michael Gough) go haring after him, racing through the English countryside toward the German castle.
Arriving at the castle, Dracula tries to bury a woman alive in a hole in the ground. Looks very surprised when Van Helsing arrives by fast carriage.
Cue, running into castle, throwing things around, attempting some last minute strangling, using candlesticks as religious weapons, bright ideas arriving, running across tables, pulling down curtains, letting some light shed on the villain. Lee acts up a storm as he turns to dust.
Happy ending.
Now, that’s how you do a hero vs villain last act.
I would like to make two points:
- Stanley Kubrick took over directing after Anthony Mann quit after just two weeks of filming. Kubrick, a young director with no experience with big productions, needed only a weekend to prepare. One can only hope.... :v
-Lawrence Oliver and Timothy Dalton look and sound a lot like each other, especially when they are speaking softly.
Directors, Spartacus was one .
Jimmy Sangster's script for this is an absolute model in how to simplify a narrative for filming. Note how the action doesn't shift to Whitby to save having to mount ship scenes, so everything is a fairly short carriage-ride away.
They start the story with Harker's arrival at Castle Dracula. And with him already on a mission to kill Dracula. None of the longer setup from the novel. Immediately into conflict and anticipation. Harker gets turned. Then Van Helsing arrives. Sangster strips the story down to a conflict between Dracula and Van Helsing. The surrounding characters from the novel are there, but their roles are simplified. Unity of action. Unity of setting.
The movie's script really is a perfect example of pure story extracted from the disparate elements in Stoker's original narrative. Sangster pulls out the core of the story and arranges it in set-pieces that are staged wonderfully well.
No wonder it made Hammer so much money at the time.
Nothing new, a by the numbers Die Hard at a football match.
Entertaining enough to pass 90 minutes. There is a great
Fight in a kitchen with Bautista fighting a guy even bigger
Than him. With Pierce Brosnan making a guest appearance.
Sunday afternoon.
A truly classic story, which everyone must know by now, and a Book I've read a few times
Since discovering it as a schoolboy.