I've always been a fan of the duo, still laugh out loud at their films. -{
Watching " Smokey and the Bandit " Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Buford T. Justice
is simply a brilliant character, so many funny moments. apparently he
improvised most of his lines.
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
The Kaiser visited Hotel Øye every summer before "the Great War". There's a story (I don't know if it's true) that he visited the place as a priviate citizen after the war and ran into a local farmer he knew from earlier visits. When he was kaiser a visit was a big operation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZBVq9sTQG4
My sister had her wedding party at the hotel and sometimes we go there for Sunday lunch. Sorry. Got carried away ….. I'm a history nerd.
Shooter - the Mark Wahlberg thriller. It's going back a bit. Former AJB member Dan Same (whatever happened to him?) recommended it back in the day, said he liked generic action films. Shooter is that, it's very good but I imagine you might have been disappointed seeing it in the cinema, as it's a tad sub-Jason Bourne. Indeed, were it not for Bourne you'd have Matt Damon playing the role really. It follows the usual tropes, great cinematography however. Also some good tips on just how corrupt the entire State is, and how everyone is embedded and it's run by fear. To the extent that the lead character ever really prevailing is a tad fanciful, but there you go.
I remember being quite dismissive of Shooter when it came out. I was never a fan of Wahlberg, and I did find it a bit generic.
However, one section of the film which gave me unbridled pleasure was seeing Levon Helm (of The Band fame) in a cameo in the movie. I'm a huge fan of Helm as a musician, and enjoy seeing him in films as well. In fact, before I ever heard his music I knew him as Jack Ridley from one of my all-time favourite films, The Right Stuff.
I never saw the film Shooter but did watch the TV series. It started off quite well but then lost it so never finished the series. Put me off watching the film.
As The Beatles made a big hit with A Hard Day's Night, so their nearest competitor for a year, the Dave Clarke Five, got to make this black and white film a year later.
Actually the DC5 made it big in the US but are one of those bands that left no footprint. I mean, apart from the carbon one from their personalised jet. Never having any R&B grounding, not any pop art sensibility, they became one of those bands like The Hollies that get overlooked, assisted by the fact that Dave Clarke sort of buried the band once it finished. Their records don't get played now.
The film is all set to be the worst most bonkers movie every, it's mad. The Five don't play themselves, and never play instruments and only later did I find out they're meant to be stuntmen. They're working on a rubbish TV campaign for meat. DC5 hits get played over the soundtrack, often to shots of them boogying at parties.
It's really only Dave Clarke who stars, the other band members are so low key it's like they don't exist, they have no charm and don't get to 'do a turn'.
John Boorman directs and brings in all the gimmicks of the day. It's very dated and appears to have no point until you realise it's a 'goofing off' film like Ferris Bueller. Or like Ringo bunking off in A Hard Day's Night.
But as it went on I started to warm to it. That English actor who pops up as the voice of reason at the UN meeting in the pts of YOLT is in it, along with comic actress Yootha Joyce... It has a meandering charm almost not unlike Oh Lucky Man or Barry Lyndon. Some on the IMDB say it's better than A Hard Day's... and I can see their point because that film did have some comic naffness in it, I mean the stuff about old man Steptoe getting the kids to sneak him into the Beatles showing had the feel of a Tommy Trinder film in the 40s. This film, on the other hand, is very downbeat and has a real strangeness and cynicism about it.
Coming out a fortnight or so after his star turn in Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Brad Pitt's sci-fi film got somewhat panned for not being in the same mold, when it's not supposed to be.
A sort of cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Heart of Darkness, this sees Pitt's astronaut being sent on a mission to er, space, to find out the cause of these intergallactic space storms or something that threaten Earth with devastating effects. It seems to be something to do with a mission by a previous astronaut, who was his father.
Now the film looks and sounds great, and Pitt in a space suit makes us nostalgic for Connery in his YOLT get up, and it's the kind of film where you daydream a bit, get lost a bit, wondering how great it would be if Connery in his late 60s prime (sort of) did a film as good as this, not that Pitt is bad at all, he's very good.
But things do niggle a bit... Scorcese's youthanasia of old folk in his film The Irishman has brought some controversy, but something like this should be done here, and if it's not, perhaps I've missed the point. It just doesn't make sense.
as flashback clips of Pitt's father Tommy Lee Jones in famous astronaut mode show his as old as he is now, 85 if he's a day, when he was supposed to have gone missing, I dunno, 40 years ago or something.
What's more...
It's all about whether there's life out there... but Pitt and a couple of co-travellers attend a mayday where they're attacked by two space baboons... I mean what the hell are they doing up there if that's not alien life
The allegory is all I suppose, and a bit heavy handed, but I did like this film - probably best to see in the cinema on your own, however, without having to pick up on the audience's mood, which might amplify any objections. It's not a group think movie, really.
They're attacked by two space baboons... I mean what the hell are they doing up there if that's not alien life
They're not alien life per say, they're just baboons from Earth and on which experiments were carried out in space.
In my opinion, Ad Astra is probably my favorite film of this year, and perhaps one of the most important of this decade, because of its interrogations and reflexion.
Anna and the Apocalypse. My, but you Scots can make a funny movie--a high school musical about teen angst that turns into a zombie horror extravaganza! I enjoyed it very much, though it brings up a question I've had for years. . .why is it in teen movies, the geeks, losers, and outsiders are usually played by performers who would be drop-dead gorgeous (and popular) in the real world?
I've only seen one Fast & Furious film (the first one) and I'm afraid I fell asleep for a few minutes about half way through 8-) So you could argue that I haven't seen a Fast & Furious film at all.
KNIVES OUT! I know it's done as friendly trolling around here to say that Craig can't carry a non-Bond film, etc. But this one is a lot of fun if you're fans of murder mysteries. The characters are great. And Craig is fun in a role that allows him to stretch without falling into what could be an easy caricature.
Speaking of Craig's non-Bond film work, I would argue that, at this stage, only Connery has a more impressive list of movies he acted in outside the 007 franchise. Craig has been in some stinkers, no doubt, but he also has LAYER CAKE, GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, and now KNIVES OUT on his resume, plus strong supporting roles in some excellent movies (MUNICH, ROAD TO PERDITION).
I watched THE IRISHMAN last night on Netflix. It's long but it's oh so worth it. The de-aging doesn't quite gel in some scenes but it's highly effective most of the time. The effect only pulled me out of the movie a few times so I'd consider it to be successful.
It's great. DeNiro, Pesci, and Pacino are playing characters who are very different from what they've tackled before, so don't think of it as another GOODFELLAS or CASINO, although the movie is right up there with those in terms of quality. DeNiro does some of his career best acting here. there's a scene towards the end of the film where he's calling Pacino's wife that may be the best thing he's done since RAGING BULL. Pesci is wonderful, playing a genuinely nice guy without a lot of flash...very different from his other Scorsese output. Pacino is Pacino, reliably awesome.
Highly recommended.
Ditto. This film really builds as it goes.
True, the de-aging stuff is a technology yet to be perfected.
But that scene with DeNiro on the phone to Hoffa's wife...devastatingly good. And I was especially impressed with Pesci playing a tightly controlled character instead of the hotheads we associate him with.
I too watched The Irishman--snark that I am, I couldn't help but note that the technology makes actors in their 70s who are playing men in their 30s look like actors in their 50s playing men in their 30s--but I was also never bored by its massive running time. In some ways, this was like Scorcese looking back on his career as a maker of gangster films, sadly acknowledging that perhaps their time has passed.
Just got back from a Sunday afternoon screening of Knives Out and I found it most enjoyable...a well conceived and directed bit of smart yarn spinning. I'm not particularly a connoiseur of murder mysteries, but I have read a few of the Agatha Christie Poirot novels and this film does have a bit of that flavour. It also manages to simultaneously feel both old fashioned and contemporary, and the characters were all quite memorable - I particularly enjoyed Daniel Craig's performance as Southern gentleman detective Benoit Blanc. Seeing him on the big screen again has certainly whetted my appetite for No Time To Die. Knives Out is a film that I would recommend as worthy of your time and attention.
Just got back from a Sunday afternoon screening of Knives Out and I found it most enjoyable...a well conceived and directed bit of smart yarn spinning. I'm not particularly a connoiseur of murder mysteries, but I have read a few of the Agatha Christie Poirot novels and this film does have a bit of that flavour. It also manages to simultaneously feel both old fashioned and contemporary, and the characters were all quite memorable - I particularly enjoyed Daniel Craig's performance as Southern gentleman detective Benoit Blanc. Seeing him on the big screen again has certainly whetted my appetite for No Time To Die. Knives Out is a film that I would recommend as worthy of your time and attention.
I just saw this today and agree it was an excellent film, though strangely I found Daniel Craig to be the weakest aspect, not to say he was bad just my least favourite, his accent in particular was very distracting.
Got to say Ana De Armas was very good and bodes well for NTTD.
Japanese proverb say, "Bird never make nest in bare tree".
At the time, I thought it was better than any Bond film and I still do, not hard as the ones in the last 20 years haven't been too good imo.
The action scenes are Bond-style, they have that swagger and spectacle but nary a whiff of CGI that I can see ensures it's not dated at all in the last - gulp - 20 years. TND came out that year and was stale cheese, so did Titanic but though the CGI on that has dated, at the time it raised the bar in terms of spectacle and movie making.
Face/Off was like going to see Moonraker at the cinema as a nine-year-old kid. The direction and script and cinematography are great, oh and of course the score which I found very moving.
From a similar era, Minority Report. Spielberg is a real director on this, on subsequent efforts I found him a bit woolly - War Horse, for instance.
I suppose it has the same theme as F/O in that you have a cop type character with a dead son to offer hinterland. The setting is sort of Metropolis, the whole thing plays out like a Hitchcock chase thriller with John Williams giving nods to the music of North by Northwest. Cruise is always good in that young, urgent, out of his depth mode, but the surprise in this film was Colin Farrell.
It's good stuff, just some flaws or implausibilities in the last third - as with Jason Bourne, you do wonder how he manages to get back in the building when he's supposed to be persona non grata.
I too watched The Irishman--snark that I am, I couldn't help but note that the technology makes actors in their 70s who are playing men in their 30s look like actors in their 50s playing men in their 30s--but I was also never bored by its massive running time. In some ways, this was like Scorcese looking back on his career as a maker of gangster films, sadly acknowledging that perhaps their time has passed.
I don't know what they've done with DeNiro's eyes but I found it quite distracting.
I've only watched an hour and so far and I have to say it hasn't gripped me. I will carry on because I like so many of the actors involved (good to see Harvey Keitel in something that isn't a 'Direct Line' advert) and feel obliged to watch it now.
One of my biggest issues is Al Pacino. I've found him unwatchable for the last 25 years of his career. He just seems shout everything with bulging eyes. I think it started with Scent of A Woman.
One of my biggest issues is Al Pacino. I've found him unwatchable for the last 25 years of his career. He just seems shout everything with bulging eyes. I think it started with Scent of A Woman.
was he ever not shouty? he shouted all the way through Serpico and DogDay Afternoon. "Attica! Attica! Attica!"
A double bill of Under Siege 1 & 2. I hadn't watched them in years but picked up
a cheap Blu ray bundle, and really enjoyed them. They may be Die Hard copies but
the first is very good indeed, once you get past Steven Seagal's bad acting
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
Le Mans '66 - retitled in some venues as Ford v Ferrari!
Lovely, lovely film. Lovely cars, lovely sound, lovely photography...
It's enough to make you wish they'd do a Bond film like that, only to remember that The Man From UNCLE movie tried to do that, and it didn't do so much but look good.
Nice dialogue, by Jed Butterworth of Spectre fame, right? Seemed okay to me. However, one minor snark I will put in spoilers because the criticism only came to me after:
A dramatic flaw in Le Mans is that it's straightforward - Ford decide to take on Ferrari at racing. But it's not much of an underdog story, cos Ferrari are skint and Ford have loads of money. So the writers have to create spurious drama at times, and introduce office politics into things, rivalries within Ford - don't know if this really existed. That's a bit like the film Spectre, because face it we know Bond is going to win so instead we get office politics to mix things up, with 'C' and so on. It's okay but it does ring a bit false, or a bit soap opera.
Also, did Matt Damon's character have a wife or love life or anything?
Matt Damon has evolved into another kind of actor - older and a bit uglier, he looks like a guy from that time. It's a compliment. Christian Bale is great in this, you would not know him as the actor from American Psycho.
I'm not sure if some of the dramatic events in the film really happened. That does take the sheen off things a bit.
See it at the theatre if you have the chance. I would say that, as with Ad Astrad, if you caught this on the opening weekend you might just have been disappointed, but as a second bounce movie it's great stuff. The shots of the cars going at it is sublime stuff.
Comments
It's worth it. It's just a really sweet film about two beloved people.
Watching " Smokey and the Bandit " Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Buford T. Justice
is simply a brilliant character, so many funny moments.
improvised most of his lines.
It's about Kaiser Wilhelm's exhile in Holland during WW2.
Wasn't expecting much but really enjoyed it. Great cast and very understated.
I love Christopher Plummer. Such a brilliant actor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZBVq9sTQG4
My sister had her wedding party at the hotel and sometimes we go there for Sunday lunch. Sorry. Got carried away ….. I'm a history nerd.
[img]https://www.smp.no/incoming/article13872604.ece/j5la4c/ALTERNATES/w980-default/Hotel_Union_Øye.jpg[/img]
Roger Moore 1927-2017
However, one section of the film which gave me unbridled pleasure was seeing Levon Helm (of The Band fame) in a cameo in the movie. I'm a huge fan of Helm as a musician, and enjoy seeing him in films as well. In fact, before I ever heard his music I knew him as Jack Ridley from one of my all-time favourite films, The Right Stuff.
As The Beatles made a big hit with A Hard Day's Night, so their nearest competitor for a year, the Dave Clarke Five, got to make this black and white film a year later.
Actually the DC5 made it big in the US but are one of those bands that left no footprint. I mean, apart from the carbon one from their personalised jet. Never having any R&B grounding, not any pop art sensibility, they became one of those bands like The Hollies that get overlooked, assisted by the fact that Dave Clarke sort of buried the band once it finished. Their records don't get played now.
The film is all set to be the worst most bonkers movie every, it's mad. The Five don't play themselves, and never play instruments and only later did I find out they're meant to be stuntmen. They're working on a rubbish TV campaign for meat. DC5 hits get played over the soundtrack, often to shots of them boogying at parties.
It's really only Dave Clarke who stars, the other band members are so low key it's like they don't exist, they have no charm and don't get to 'do a turn'.
John Boorman directs and brings in all the gimmicks of the day. It's very dated and appears to have no point until you realise it's a 'goofing off' film like Ferris Bueller. Or like Ringo bunking off in A Hard Day's Night.
But as it went on I started to warm to it. That English actor who pops up as the voice of reason at the UN meeting in the pts of YOLT is in it, along with comic actress Yootha Joyce... It has a meandering charm almost not unlike Oh Lucky Man or Barry Lyndon. Some on the IMDB say it's better than A Hard Day's... and I can see their point because that film did have some comic naffness in it, I mean the stuff about old man Steptoe getting the kids to sneak him into the Beatles showing had the feel of a Tommy Trinder film in the 40s. This film, on the other hand, is very downbeat and has a real strangeness and cynicism about it.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Coming out a fortnight or so after his star turn in Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Brad Pitt's sci-fi film got somewhat panned for not being in the same mold, when it's not supposed to be.
A sort of cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Heart of Darkness, this sees Pitt's astronaut being sent on a mission to er, space, to find out the cause of these intergallactic space storms or something that threaten Earth with devastating effects. It seems to be something to do with a mission by a previous astronaut, who was his father.
Now the film looks and sounds great, and Pitt in a space suit makes us nostalgic for Connery in his YOLT get up, and it's the kind of film where you daydream a bit, get lost a bit, wondering how great it would be if Connery in his late 60s prime (sort of) did a film as good as this, not that Pitt is bad at all, he's very good.
But things do niggle a bit... Scorcese's youthanasia of old folk in his film The Irishman has brought some controversy, but something like this should be done here, and if it's not, perhaps I've missed the point. It just doesn't make sense.
What's more...
The allegory is all I suppose, and a bit heavy handed, but I did like this film - probably best to see in the cinema on your own, however, without having to pick up on the audience's mood, which might amplify any objections. It's not a group think movie, really.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
In my opinion, Ad Astra is probably my favorite film of this year, and perhaps one of the most important of this decade, because of its interrogations and reflexion.
I've been re-watching the Fast and Furious movies, I love these films so over the top, fun
entertainment -{ Just switch off and join the gang.
Speaking of Craig's non-Bond film work, I would argue that, at this stage, only Connery has a more impressive list of movies he acted in outside the 007 franchise. Craig has been in some stinkers, no doubt, but he also has LAYER CAKE, GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, and now KNIVES OUT on his resume, plus strong supporting roles in some excellent movies (MUNICH, ROAD TO PERDITION).
Ditto. This film really builds as it goes.
True, the de-aging stuff is a technology yet to be perfected.
But that scene with DeNiro on the phone to Hoffa's wife...devastatingly good. And I was especially impressed with Pesci playing a tightly controlled character instead of the hotheads we associate him with.
I just saw this today and agree it was an excellent film, though strangely I found Daniel Craig to be the weakest aspect, not to say he was bad just my least favourite, his accent in particular was very distracting.
Got to say Ana De Armas was very good and bodes well for NTTD.
Intense and nerve wracking. Deserves to be seen on the biggest screen you can find!
At the time, I thought it was better than any Bond film and I still do, not hard as the ones in the last 20 years haven't been too good imo.
The action scenes are Bond-style, they have that swagger and spectacle but nary a whiff of CGI that I can see ensures it's not dated at all in the last - gulp - 20 years.
TND came out that year and was stale cheese, so did Titanic but though the CGI on that has dated, at the time it raised the bar in terms of spectacle and movie making.
Face/Off was like going to see Moonraker at the cinema as a nine-year-old kid. The direction and script and cinematography are great, oh and of course the score which I found very moving.
From a similar era, Minority Report. Spielberg is a real director on this, on subsequent efforts I found him a bit woolly - War Horse, for instance.
I suppose it has the same theme as F/O in that you have a cop type character with a dead son to offer hinterland.
It's good stuff, just some flaws or implausibilities in the last third - as with Jason Bourne, you do wonder how he manages to get back in the building when he's supposed to be persona non grata.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I don't know what they've done with DeNiro's eyes but I found it quite distracting.
I've only watched an hour and so far and I have to say it hasn't gripped me. I will carry on because I like so many of the actors involved (good to see Harvey Keitel in something that isn't a 'Direct Line' advert) and feel obliged to watch it now.
One of my biggest issues is Al Pacino. I've found him unwatchable for the last 25 years of his career. He just seems shout everything with bulging eyes. I think it started with Scent of A Woman.
a cheap Blu ray bundle, and really enjoyed them. They may be Die Hard copies but
the first is very good indeed, once you get past Steven Seagal's bad acting
Lovely, lovely film. Lovely cars, lovely sound, lovely photography...
It's enough to make you wish they'd do a Bond film like that, only to remember that The Man From UNCLE movie tried to do that, and it didn't do so much but look good.
Nice dialogue, by Jed Butterworth of Spectre fame, right? Seemed okay to me. However, one minor snark I will put in spoilers because the criticism only came to me after:
Also, did Matt Damon's character have a wife or love life or anything?
Matt Damon has evolved into another kind of actor - older and a bit uglier, he looks like a guy from that time. It's a compliment. Christian Bale is great in this, you would not know him as the actor from American Psycho.
I'm not sure if some of the dramatic events in the film really happened. That does take the sheen off things a bit.
See it at the theatre if you have the chance. I would say that, as with Ad Astrad, if you caught this on the opening weekend you might just have been disappointed, but as a second bounce movie it's great stuff. The shots of the cars going at it is sublime stuff.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
when solving a puzzle.