Tonight, I just saw the Best Picture Oscar Winner and the one that maybe -- just maybe -- should have won instead.
Of course, No Country for Old Men was wonderful in that quirky Cohen way. No surprise there. The brothers may not always fire on all cylinders, but they seem incapable of making a bad film.
But the film that absolutely blew me away was Gone Baby Gone. If that film is a hint of what Ben Affleck can do as a director, he ought to drop acting (and I don't think he's a bad actor at all) and get behind the camera full-time. Really an amazing movie, beautifully scripted, shot, acted. I haven't felt so uncomfortable at a film's final fadeout since In the Bedroom, which in my view should have swept every category in 2001. I had the same feeling after watching Gone Baby Gone, that the academy had made a terrible mistake (although No Country for Old Men was a worthier choice than Gladiator). If you haven't seen it, make sure you do.
HH, I saw both movies and I too enjoyed Gone Baby Gone more. By chance I happen to see Gone Baby Gone and The Assassination of Jeese James on back to back nights and was enthralled with the performance of Casey Affleck in both pictures. Completly different characters, but he captured the nuances of both of them. In my opinion he should have won best Supporting Actor.
One of my favorite horror films from childhood. The Robert Marasco novel goes into creepier detail but the film still packs a punch.
I find it odd that, again, the premise for this story is eerily similiar to The Shining's being that it involves a family (mom, dad & son) living in a haunted house as opposed to hotel and the goings-on within.
Marasco's novel came out three years before King's Shining yet the latter has reached cult status with its cinematic turn,while the other is nearly obscure with those not into horror films...
I remember as a boy after watching this, shivering & staring at my bedroom door from a crevice in my bedspread as if The Chauffeur were going to burst through with casket in hand just for me. )
Yes -- one of the classics from the post-Exorcist renaissance of A-list horror films. With Oliver Reed, which was a plus. I'll give you another one, which you probably already are familiar with: The Changeling, with George C. Scott. That one gives me the shivers every time. These films prove just how boring the modern-day slasher films really are.
Saw 300 on BluRay again last night. I really enjoyed the film - great action scenes and imaginatively photographed with a wildly varying color palette. A very interesting evolution of the sword and sandal epics I grew up on.
I love that film. Incredibly fun, it was one of the most entertaining epics I've ever seen. Is it a masterpiece? Of course not, but it annoys me a bit when people insult this and some other films as it seems to me that they are not able to just enjoy the film for what it is. Anyway, I think it is great fun with some superbly done battle sequences.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
Michel Gondry's inventive comedy in which a VHS rental store has all its tapes erased, forcing Mos Def and Jack Black to make their own versions of classics like Ghostbusters. Their remakes are the best thing about BKR, which as with Gondry's last film, The Science of Sleep, is unfocused and eventually quite irritating.
RogueAgentSpeeding in the Tumbler...Posts: 3,676MI6 Agent
One of my favorite horror films from childhood. The Robert Marasco novel goes into creepier detail but the film still packs a punch.
I find it odd that, again, the premise for this story is eerily similiar to The Shining's being that it involves a family (mom, dad & son) living in a haunted house as opposed to hotel and the goings-on within.
Marasco's novel came out three years before King's Shining yet the latter has reached cult status with its cinematic turn,while the other is nearly obscure with those not into horror films...
I remember as a boy after watching this, shivering & staring at my bedroom door from a crevice in my bedspread as if The Chauffeur were going to burst through with casket in hand just for me. )
Yes -- one of the classics from the post-Exorcist renaissance of A-list horror films. With Oliver Reed, which was a plus. I'll give you another one, which you probably already are familiar with: The Changeling, with George C. Scott. That one gives me the shivers every time. These films prove just how boring the modern-day slasher films really are.
Oliver Reed did a great job in B.O., High. His fear attacks were so convincing. B-)
Believe it or not, I've never seen The Changeling in its entirety because it's never on tv when you're looking for it or I just have bad timing and I miss it or catch in somewhere in the middle and I hate that. I can't even find it at a Blockbuster anywhere here which I think is odd; I'd love to check this out though.
Loving horror as I do, this is a major complaint that I have with the current genre. Moviemakers think gore is horrific...it's not in the fantasy sense. No one nowadays knows how to direct a scary movie by playing with the viewers' head, there's no camera trickery to make you wonder if you saw something that wasn't there or not. There's no timing.
It can be very frustrating that you leave a theatre unfullfilled nowadays because it's all pretty much sawing off appendages of horny teenagers & buckets of blood splashed everywhere as if that's supposed to make me jump in my seat. It's just turns my stomach is what it does. No one has imagination in horror anymore.
I've resorted to J-Horror alot now and even that formula is being remade by Hollywood and coming up short more times than I care to lament over.
Can someone please make an effective ghost story that we'll all be talking about twenty years from now with wide-eyed vigor? Doesn't look like it...
BTW Rogue, never mind Burnt Offerings; your Hulk vs. Godzilla signature pic - while an admitted work of genius - is giving me motion sickness...I can't look at the screen anymore. ) ) )
But you'd pay to see that wouldn't you? C'mon, Tony...
Mrs. Man Face: "You wouldn't hit a lady? Would you?"
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice isUNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
Holy S**t!...that moment, when we see Karen Black's face at the end---"I've been waiting for you..."---is one of the scariest moments I can recall...
Great, classic stuff. I need to score that one on DVD...
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Holy S**t!...that moment, when we see Karen Black's face at the end---"I've been waiting for you..."---is one of the scariest moments I can recall...
You didn't spoil the ending did you?
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
Dull period drama starring a young Brooke Shields, from the overrated and pompous Louis Malle. He fancied himself as an auteur back in the day, but his reputation has fallen a long way since then. Rightly so IMO.
This is getting a showing at the Prince Charles cinema in London.
It's the original double bill of the Tarantino/Rogriguez exploitation tribute, with two films, Project Terror and Death Proof, with spoof trailers in between!
Over here, they released the films as two separate movies, padding out Death Proof, which ruins the effect entirely.
I enjoyed it a lot, and Prince Charles is a great old style cinema, the type where Travolta in Get Shorty watches Orson Welles' movies. But it was packed out, and two Yank youths behind me were whooping up and hollering at their fave bits, as they do in the States, only this time it all added to the atmosphere of being in the US. {[]
It's great to watch some sleezy rubbish with no standards. However, there wasn't much sex, they had a joke saying 'missing reel' when things started to hot up, which was a bit mean. I wish Tarantino had done a Bond, he has that lust for life that the other directors haven't ever had. You can imagine Babs turning up her nose at it though "we're not having that" with Michael G Wilson sitting there like the university lecturer sent to interview Joel in Risky Business, while the house has turned into a knocking shop. )
I enjoyed the experience more than the movies, mind. They seemed a bit too self-knowing, I prefer to get immmersed in the experience/plot rather than stand back ironically. At least Quentin spoofs his foot fetish reputation in his film.
This is a Swedish crime film (with no connection to the American classic) which I recently watched on TV. I really enjoyed it, however I find that it's quite difficult to fully constentrate on films that I watch on TV, especially when I'm not the only person in the house. Nonetheless, is is very intriguing, and towards the end, is enormously suspencful. I would definitely recommend this film, especially to fans of Swedish crime films.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
Holy S**t!...that moment, when we see Karen Black's face at the end---"I've been waiting for you..."---is one of the scariest moments I can recall...
You didn't spoil the ending, did you?
Yup...spoilt a 30 year-old film. Sorry about that... {:)
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Yup...spoilt a 30 year-old film. Sorry about that... {:)
Well, it shouldn't really matter how old the film is. :v
Anyway, this should interest Bond fans. I recently saw The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is a French film based on the memoirs of a fashion magazine editor suffering Locked-In syndrome. Directed by Julian Schnabel, it stars Mathieu Amalric who will be playing the villain in QOS. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is superb; brilliantly acted and awesomely directed (Schnabel's direction is IMO almost as good as the Coens on No Country For Old Men), the film is heartwarming, heartbreaking and utterly fascinating. It really is a beautiful film and I would recommend it to anybody.
One warning; there are times when white subtitles appear on white screen.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
Well, it shouldn't really matter how old the film is. :v
You probably won't like learning, then, that Bogart and Ingrid Bergman aren't together at the end of Casablanca..to say nothing about Gable and Leigh when Gone With The Wind rolls credits
However, if I've ruined things for you, just when you were popping out to rent Burnt Offerings, I sincerely apologize. It's still quite worth seeing. Bette Davis is in it as well!
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
This early 80s oddity has Sean Connery miscast as Patrick Hale, a TV anchorman cum roving reporter who heads out to trouble spots with this TV camera and little else apparently. I can't really buy Connery in a role that George Clooney would be a shoe-in for today, it belongs more to a Cary Grant than Clark Gable type, Connery isn't smooth enough and doesn't convey the moral ambivalence of a media type. It does'nt fit.
My, it's dated. Tootling American soundtrack over long shots of US skyscrapers make it like something out of trash films of the 70s like The Bitch. They don't make 'em like that any more, thank goodness. It also has a truly rubbish opening 15 minutes, where you can't tell it it's meant to be funny or dramatic or not.
What redeems it a fair bit is how topical the satire is. Religious fundamentalism in the White House, tensions between the US and the Middle East, supposed weapons of mass destruction, the role of the media in escalating a crisis, plausible deniablity and suicide bombings on American soil all make this fairly relevant. Leslie Nielsen pops up, too.
It has its Bondian moments, too, with Connery narrating to the President the consequences of a nuclear bomb dropped in New York in a way that evokes a horror totally absent from his Bond thriller a year later, Never Say Never Again. It is a bit of a shame to see Connery give a finely nuanced performance, with all the vital anger and suspicion that put his Bond a notch above the others imo, in a film like this rather than the actual Bond film he returned for. At times you can really see him as the same guy who was in Diamonds Are Forever - he even has the clear diction he had back then, rather than the rather distracting, distinctive lishp he has from Never Say Never Again onwards.
Hitman
Moderately entertaining but highly derivative action flick, a hybrid of Face/Off and The Bourne Identity, two films I love, but his one ends up more like Val Kilmer's The Saint.
It starts off fine, it's about an anonymous hitman that Dougray Scott's Interpol agent is after. I'm not really sure why he is, not sure which bad guys he's killed, but Scott's injects some urgency into the chase. But we're meant to sympathise with this Jackal as it becomes clear he's being set up by his comrades, a gang of hitmen who are all bald and have a bar code tatooed onto the back of their heads. (Inconspicuous, right?)
Though it stars new Bond girl Olga whatshername, th is is the sort of hack action style the producers are trying to not to fall into (quite rightly imo), it starts off trashy fun but all gets a bit hollow, with loads of travel hopping. It rips off Bourne, with the same throbbing violin music in most scenes being a real irritant here, and even has him pick up East European bird who talks too much while he's on the run in his car, cross country. He puts her in the boot, so it borrows from Transporter as well. She unaccountably falls for him, even though he injects her with a sleep drug rather than shag her.
Then at the end, our hitman antihero gets away because the creepy US FBI types step in to snatch him from our Interpol types, like the finale of Lord Of War. What heroics!
I guess being based on a video game, it all might work viewing it from that perspective.
Body Heat, Lawrence Kasdan's sly 1981 tribute to the 1940s film noir crime thriller. Interesting to see William Hurt and Ted Danson when they were fresh-faced youths, Mickey Rourke before he looked like a train hit him, and Kathleen Turner when she was so sexy she could make you melt. What's depressing to me, though, is that the movie came out when I was in high school--and the contemporary clothing, hair, and automobile styles look ancient!
Vox clamantis in deserto
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,998Quartermasters
edited April 2008
"Lawrence of Arabia"
I never tire of this Sir David Lean classic about the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence---it's my second favourite film of all time (behind Kubrick's 2001)---starring Peter O'Toole, Jack Hawkins, Sir Alec Guinness, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Jose Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy and the magnificent Claude Rains...
Not much to say about this one that hasn't already been said: the breathtaking locations and cinematography, the haunting score, the stellar performances---and the (thankfully) pre-'MTV attention span' pace of the storytelling, which IMO is an effective device not only in reflecting the expanse of the desert itself, but also in giving the piece its epic nature.
The film's length also certainly heightens the sense of betrayal when, at the very end, the British diplomats arrive at Damascus and give the Arabs the hosing of the century (with the unwitting help of Lawrence, who's clearly heartbroken by it), arbitrarily drawing national boundaries in the sand over there which set up so much of the conflict that has occurred in the subsequent century. Timely resonance, indeed.
They don't make 'em like this anymore, and that's a tragedy.
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
The Chronicles of Narnia - My second viewing of this movie and I believe I enjoyed it even more this time. A wonderfully inventive story, great performances from the cast including Oscar winner Tilda Swinton as the White Witch and a cool epic battle at the end. Looking forward to the sequel Prince Caspian in May.
RogueAgentSpeeding in the Tumbler...Posts: 3,676MI6 Agent
edited April 2008
MIDNIGHT RUN
IMO, this is such an underrated action comedy starring Robert DeNiro, Charles Grodin & a cigarette-mugging FBI agent played by Yaphet Kotto.
I am glad that it was at least a critical success and I've always wanted to see a sequel to this...even if it doesn't/didn't sound like such a good idea.
"Glad to see me? I guess this must be the next life, John!"
The way DeNiro delivers that always cracks me up. )
Mrs. Man Face: "You wouldn't hit a lady? Would you?"
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice isUNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
IMO, this is such an underrated action comedy starring Robert DeNiro, Charles Grodin & a cigarette-mugging FBI agent played by Yaphet Kotto.
I am glad that it was at least a critical success and I've always wanted to see a sequel to this...even if it doesn't/didn't sound like such a good idea.
"Glad to see me? I guess this must be the next life, John!"
The way DeNiro delivers that always cracks me up. )
A superb film. This was in fact the film which introduced me to De Niro and which convinced that he is a GOD! I never tire of watching it; it is just an incredibly fun film.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
This is the Paul Verhoven WW2 thriller about the Dutch Resistance in 1944. A former cabaret singer infiltrates a Gestapo HQ by having an affair with a top officer, played by Sebastian Kock, who was the writer in The Lives of Others and gives another intelligent performance here.
It's a gripping, rip-roaring thriller though the tone encompasses Schindler's List, Secret Army (UK 30somethings may recall this grim Resistance drama from the late 1970s, as much a staple of Saturday TV as Match of the Day, The Dick Emery Show and Parkinson), 'Allo, 'Allo and a James Bond thriller.
Good stuff, but perhaps too many twists in the end and even in my sleepy state some of the players did some mighty silly things to advance drama or the plot. There's an evil fat Gestapo officer who would have made a great Le Chiffre. Sometime the film veers into Enigma/Charlotte Gray territory, not a good thing. It's not really Salon Kitty, which I had been expecting.
Remarkable drama from Sam Fuller. A young actress accidentally runs over a beautiful white German Shepherd. When the vet tells her it will be destroyed if the owner doesn't come forward, she takes it home with her. Impressed when the dog saves her from an intruder, she resolves to keep him, until she becomes aware that her dog has a tendency to attack black people. The reason for this sounds quite mad, but is apparently based on a real incident, in which a dog was trained by racists to attack coloured people.
OK -- I stand corrected. A while back I dissed Atonement saying the hoopla made it sound like an insufferable "chick flick," like The English Patient. I was very wrong. I saw it last night and it was a highly engrossing, powerful film.
This was a 1939 adventure flick with Cary Grant that somehow escaped my notice all of these years. The premise: Cary Grant's character runs a high-risk air cargo outfit in South America, with a band of adventurous pilots who make dangerous deliveries across the Andes. Opportunity and conflict arise when a replacement pilot shows up with a bit of bad history. It was an enjoyable film that had some deft dialogue and very interesting scenery. Even the airplane models on strings were well-done.
OK -- I stand corrected. A while back I dissed Atonement saying the hoopla made it sound like an insufferable "chick flick," like The English Patient. I was very wrong. I saw it last night and it was a highly engrossing, powerful film.
Translation: 'hopes was bawling his eyes out at the end! )
This is the Paul Verhoven WW2 thriller about the Dutch Resistance in 1944. A former cabaret singer infiltrates a Gestapo HQ by having an affair with a top officer, played by Sebastian Kock, who was the writer in The Lives of Others and gives another intelligent performance here.
It's a gripping, rip-roaring thriller though the tone encompasses Schindler's List, Secret Army (UK 30somethings may recall this grim Resistance drama from the late 1970s, as much a staple of Saturday TV as Match of the Day, The Dick Emery Show and Parkinson), 'Allo, 'Allo and a James Bond thriller.
Good stuff, but perhaps too many twists in the end and even in my sleepy state some of the players did some mighty silly things to advance drama or the plot. There's an evil fat Gestapo officer who would have made a great Le Chiffre. Sometime the film veers into Enigma/Charlotte Gray territory, not a good thing. It's not really Salon Kitty, which I had been expecting.
I liked this alot. Sebastian Kock's character was rather fantastical, and I'm not entirely sure how much of the film was based on real events, but I think it is a terrific film. I saw it twice, which says alot.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
Remarkable drama from Sam Fuller. A young actress accidentally runs over a beautiful white German Shepherd. When the vet tells her it will be destroyed if the owner doesn't come forward, she takes it home with her. Impressed when the dog saves her from an intruder, she resolves to keep him, until she becomes aware that her dog has a tendency to attack black people. The reason for this sounds quite mad, but is apparently based on a real incident, in which a dog was trained by racists to attack coloured people.
A great film from a great director. JD, I don't know if it is based on a true story. I do know however that it is a literature adaptation and apparently it is tamer than the novel.
"He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that’s an earthquake. and then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory." Death of a Salesman
OK -- I stand corrected. A while back I dissed Atonement saying the hoopla made it sound like an insufferable "chick flick," like The English Patient. I was very wrong. I saw it last night and it was a highly engrossing, powerful film.
Translation: 'hopes was bawling his eyes out at the end! )
No -- I was more surprised by the ending than saddened.
But I have been known to cry at movies. Like when former Chicago Bear and one-time leading NFL rusher Jim Brown is felled at the last minute by machine gun fire after dropping the grenades into the ventilation shafts of the bunker that all those Nazi officers were hiding in in The Dirty Dozen -- I cried like a baby and was morose for days afterward.
I maintain that Atonement should have won best picture. As HH said, it was highly engrossing and yes very moving. The performances were outstanding and the score was memorable. I enjoyed it far more than No Country For Old Men.
Comments
HH, I saw both movies and I too enjoyed Gone Baby Gone more. By chance I happen to see Gone Baby Gone and The Assassination of Jeese James on back to back nights and was enthralled with the performance of Casey Affleck in both pictures. Completly different characters, but he captured the nuances of both of them. In my opinion he should have won best Supporting Actor.
Yes -- one of the classics from the post-Exorcist renaissance of A-list horror films. With Oliver Reed, which was a plus. I'll give you another one, which you probably already are familiar with: The Changeling, with George C. Scott. That one gives me the shivers every time. These films prove just how boring the modern-day slasher films really are.
Michel Gondry's inventive comedy in which a VHS rental store has all its tapes erased, forcing Mos Def and Jack Black to make their own versions of classics like Ghostbusters. Their remakes are the best thing about BKR, which as with Gondry's last film, The Science of Sleep, is unfocused and eventually quite irritating.
Oliver Reed did a great job in B.O., High. His fear attacks were so convincing. B-)
Believe it or not, I've never seen The Changeling in its entirety because it's never on tv when you're looking for it or I just have bad timing and I miss it or catch in somewhere in the middle and I hate that. I can't even find it at a Blockbuster anywhere here which I think is odd; I'd love to check this out though.
Loving horror as I do, this is a major complaint that I have with the current genre. Moviemakers think gore is horrific...it's not in the fantasy sense. No one nowadays knows how to direct a scary movie by playing with the viewers' head, there's no camera trickery to make you wonder if you saw something that wasn't there or not. There's no timing.
It can be very frustrating that you leave a theatre unfullfilled nowadays because it's all pretty much sawing off appendages of horny teenagers & buckets of blood splashed everywhere as if that's supposed to make me jump in my seat. It's just turns my stomach is what it does. No one has imagination in horror anymore.
I've resorted to J-Horror alot now and even that formula is being remade by Hollywood and coming up short more times than I care to lament over.
Can someone please make an effective ghost story that we'll all be talking about twenty years from now with wide-eyed vigor? Doesn't look like it...
But you'd pay to see that wouldn't you? C'mon, Tony...
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice is UNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
Holy S**t!...that moment, when we see Karen Black's face at the end---"I've been waiting for you..."---is one of the scariest moments I can recall...
Great, classic stuff. I need to score that one on DVD...
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Dull period drama starring a young Brooke Shields, from the overrated and pompous Louis Malle. He fancied himself as an auteur back in the day, but his reputation has fallen a long way since then. Rightly so IMO.
This is getting a showing at the Prince Charles cinema in London.
It's the original double bill of the Tarantino/Rogriguez exploitation tribute, with two films, Project Terror and Death Proof, with spoof trailers in between!
Over here, they released the films as two separate movies, padding out Death Proof, which ruins the effect entirely.
I enjoyed it a lot, and Prince Charles is a great old style cinema, the type where Travolta in Get Shorty watches Orson Welles' movies. But it was packed out, and two Yank youths behind me were whooping up and hollering at their fave bits, as they do in the States, only this time it all added to the atmosphere of being in the US. {[]
It's great to watch some sleezy rubbish with no standards. However, there wasn't much sex, they had a joke saying 'missing reel' when things started to hot up, which was a bit mean. I wish Tarantino had done a Bond, he has that lust for life that the other directors haven't ever had. You can imagine Babs turning up her nose at it though "we're not having that" with Michael G Wilson sitting there like the university lecturer sent to interview Joel in Risky Business, while the house has turned into a knocking shop.
I enjoyed the experience more than the movies, mind. They seemed a bit too self-knowing, I prefer to get immmersed in the experience/plot rather than stand back ironically. At least Quentin spoofs his foot fetish reputation in his film.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
This is a Swedish crime film (with no connection to the American classic) which I recently watched on TV. I really enjoyed it, however I find that it's quite difficult to fully constentrate on films that I watch on TV, especially when I'm not the only person in the house. Nonetheless, is is very intriguing, and towards the end, is enormously suspencful. I would definitely recommend this film, especially to fans of Swedish crime films.
Yup...spoilt a 30 year-old film. Sorry about that... {:)
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Anyway, this should interest Bond fans. I recently saw The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is a French film based on the memoirs of a fashion magazine editor suffering Locked-In syndrome. Directed by Julian Schnabel, it stars Mathieu Amalric who will be playing the villain in QOS.
One warning; there are times when white subtitles appear on white screen.
You probably won't like learning, then, that Bogart and Ingrid Bergman aren't together at the end of Casablanca..to say nothing about Gable and Leigh when Gone With The Wind rolls credits
However, if I've ruined things for you, just when you were popping out to rent Burnt Offerings, I sincerely apologize. It's still quite worth seeing. Bette Davis is in it as well!
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
aka The Man With The Deadly Lens
This early 80s oddity has Sean Connery miscast as Patrick Hale, a TV anchorman cum roving reporter who heads out to trouble spots with this TV camera and little else apparently. I can't really buy Connery in a role that George Clooney would be a shoe-in for today, it belongs more to a Cary Grant than Clark Gable type, Connery isn't smooth enough and doesn't convey the moral ambivalence of a media type. It does'nt fit.
My, it's dated. Tootling American soundtrack over long shots of US skyscrapers make it like something out of trash films of the 70s like The Bitch. They don't make 'em like that any more, thank goodness. It also has a truly rubbish opening 15 minutes, where you can't tell it it's meant to be funny or dramatic or not.
What redeems it a fair bit is how topical the satire is. Religious fundamentalism in the White House, tensions between the US and the Middle East, supposed weapons of mass destruction, the role of the media in escalating a crisis, plausible deniablity and suicide bombings on American soil all make this fairly relevant. Leslie Nielsen pops up, too.
It has its Bondian moments, too, with Connery narrating to the President the consequences of a nuclear bomb dropped in New York in a way that evokes a horror totally absent from his Bond thriller a year later, Never Say Never Again. It is a bit of a shame to see Connery give a finely nuanced performance, with all the vital anger and suspicion that put his Bond a notch above the others imo, in a film like this rather than the actual Bond film he returned for. At times you can really see him as the same guy who was in Diamonds Are Forever - he even has the clear diction he had back then, rather than the rather distracting, distinctive lishp he has from Never Say Never Again onwards.
Hitman
Moderately entertaining but highly derivative action flick, a hybrid of Face/Off and The Bourne Identity, two films I love, but his one ends up more like Val Kilmer's The Saint.
It starts off fine, it's about an anonymous hitman that Dougray Scott's Interpol agent is after. I'm not really sure why he is, not sure which bad guys he's killed, but Scott's injects some urgency into the chase. But we're meant to sympathise with this Jackal as it becomes clear he's being set up by his comrades, a gang of hitmen who are all bald and have a bar code tatooed onto the back of their heads. (Inconspicuous, right?)
Though it stars new Bond girl Olga whatshername, th is is the sort of hack action style the producers are trying to not to fall into (quite rightly imo), it starts off trashy fun but all gets a bit hollow, with loads of travel hopping. It rips off Bourne, with the same throbbing violin music in most scenes being a real irritant here, and even has him pick up East European bird who talks too much while he's on the run in his car, cross country. He puts her in the boot, so it borrows from Transporter as well. She unaccountably falls for him, even though he injects her with a sleep drug rather than shag her.
I guess being based on a video game, it all might work viewing it from that perspective.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I never tire of this Sir David Lean classic about the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence---it's my second favourite film of all time (behind Kubrick's 2001)---starring Peter O'Toole, Jack Hawkins, Sir Alec Guinness, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Jose Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy and the magnificent Claude Rains...
Not much to say about this one that hasn't already been said: the breathtaking locations and cinematography, the haunting score, the stellar performances---and the (thankfully) pre-'MTV attention span' pace of the storytelling, which IMO is an effective device not only in reflecting the expanse of the desert itself, but also in giving the piece its epic nature.
The film's length also certainly heightens the sense of betrayal when, at the very end, the British diplomats arrive at Damascus and give the Arabs the hosing of the century (with the unwitting help of Lawrence, who's clearly heartbroken by it), arbitrarily drawing national boundaries in the sand over there which set up so much of the conflict that has occurred in the subsequent century. Timely resonance, indeed.
They don't make 'em like this anymore, and that's a tragedy.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
IMO, this is such an underrated action comedy starring Robert DeNiro, Charles Grodin & a cigarette-mugging FBI agent played by Yaphet Kotto.
I am glad that it was at least a critical success and I've always wanted to see a sequel to this...even if it doesn't/didn't sound like such a good idea.
"Glad to see me? I guess this must be the next life, John!"
The way DeNiro delivers that always cracks me up.
Batman: "The Hammer Of Justice is UNISEX!"
-Batman: The Brave & The Bold -
"Take a wild guess..."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
This is the Paul Verhoven WW2 thriller about the Dutch Resistance in 1944. A former cabaret singer infiltrates a Gestapo HQ by having an affair with a top officer, played by Sebastian Kock, who was the writer in The Lives of Others and gives another intelligent performance here.
It's a gripping, rip-roaring thriller though the tone encompasses Schindler's List, Secret Army (UK 30somethings may recall this grim Resistance drama from the late 1970s, as much a staple of Saturday TV as Match of the Day, The Dick Emery Show and Parkinson), 'Allo, 'Allo and a James Bond thriller.
Good stuff, but perhaps too many twists in the end and even in my sleepy state some of the players did some mighty silly things to advance drama or the plot. There's an evil fat Gestapo officer who would have made a great Le Chiffre. Sometime the film veers into Enigma/Charlotte Gray territory, not a good thing. It's not really Salon Kitty, which I had been expecting.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Remarkable drama from Sam Fuller. A young actress accidentally runs over a beautiful white German Shepherd. When the vet tells her it will be destroyed if the owner doesn't come forward, she takes it home with her. Impressed when the dog saves her from an intruder, she resolves to keep him, until she becomes aware that her dog has a tendency to attack black people. The reason for this sounds quite mad, but is apparently based on a real incident, in which a dog was trained by racists to attack coloured people.
This was a 1939 adventure flick with Cary Grant that somehow escaped my notice all of these years. The premise: Cary Grant's character runs a high-risk air cargo outfit in South America, with a band of adventurous pilots who make dangerous deliveries across the Andes. Opportunity and conflict arise when a replacement pilot shows up with a bit of bad history. It was an enjoyable film that had some deft dialogue and very interesting scenery. Even the airplane models on strings were well-done.
Translation: 'hopes was bawling his eyes out at the end!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
No -- I was more surprised by the ending than saddened.
But I have been known to cry at movies. Like when former Chicago Bear and one-time leading NFL rusher Jim Brown is felled at the last minute by machine gun fire after dropping the grenades into the ventilation shafts of the bunker that all those Nazi officers were hiding in in The Dirty Dozen -- I cried like a baby and was morose for days afterward.