Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

Discussion in 'Movies, TV and Music' started by Val1, May 4, 2012.

  1. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
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    12 year old Val1 was a lot tougher then 12 year old mwulf67...
     
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  2. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
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    my reaction was similar long ago. it was a mechanical shark. as soon as you see it, the suspense is totally gone.

    i do understand how the situation was intense and frightening for the people in the movie, but how/why the audience would be scared escapes me.
     
  3. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

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    #6428 mwulf67, Sep 7, 2017
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2017
    Yeah, I really think Spielberg should re-release it, re-do the special effects…make Jaws shoot first….

    A perennial top 100 movies and you guys are dinging it over technical and budgetary limitation of 1977?

    Can’t understand why audiences in 1977, with 3 TV channels, no internet, and only place to watch the movie the big screen…might have found it pretty damn scary?
     
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  4. NER_MCFC

    NER_MCFC Member

    May 23, 2001
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    Also, there was in 1975 no such thing as a shark movie. I remember that a thoroughly mediocre Cornell Wilde heist movie got a fairly wide release on the strength of one good shark scene. Hollywood was that desperate to cash in on the craze that Jaws created.
     
  5. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    "Jaws" works very well because Verna Fields understood very early on in the editing process that she had to be careful in how long she put the mechanical shark on screen. Perhaps more so than Spielberg did initially. She had to convince him that less was more in most cases.

    Also, the movie's best and most chilling scene doesn't require any mechanical shark. Just Robert Shaw at his finest (he himself wrote the third version of this scene).

     
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  6. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
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    Jaws? Has anybody else seen the original version?

    [​IMG]
     
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  7. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

    Sep 24, 2014
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    Your're gonna need a bigger car....
     
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  8. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Arguably still his best movie.
     
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  9. Val1

    Val1 Member+

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    Mar 12, 2004
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    I don't think it was that the shark was mechanical... I mean, like wulf, I'd love to see Spielberg redo this movie with Jurassic Park mechanicals and CGI, but the wussiness of the shark isn't the issue. For me at least. I mean, Klatuu is just a guy in a shiny suit in The Day the Earth Stood Still, and King Kong, he was animitronic, wasn't he?

    I guess it's more the scale of the shark. It was one shark in one bay. That doesn't scare me as much as bazillions of birds in, well, Birds. As BG said, the best scene is Quint's tale. And that has nothing to do with the shark.
     
  10. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
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    I'm dinging the movie because it didn't scare me.

    Alien terrorized me. Two years later.
     
  11. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Narcos - Season 3 (2017)

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    Javier Pena is rehabiliated and sent back to Colombia. With the Medellin Cartel dismantled and Pablo Escobar dead, he turns his attention to the four-headed monster that is the Cali Cartel.

    Season 3 of this show was quite enjoyable. I had feared that the lack of an electrifying performer like Wagner Moura in his role as Pablo Escobar would harm this show, but even though the Cali Cartel lacks a Pablo or even a Pablo-lite figure, it's still a good watch. Not all of the season three omissions are bad either, since the weakest aspect of the first two seasons - Boyd Holbrook's Murphy - is missing. Pedro Pascal as Javier Pena is a much better narrator and audience stand-in. I also thought that Matias Varela did an excellent job as Jorge Salcedo.
     
  12. Ismitje

    Ismitje Super Moderator

    Dec 30, 2000
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    I recorded this at the beginning of summer and just watched it: If You're Not in the Obituary, Eat Breakfast.

    [​IMG]

    This is an HBO Documentary production featuring people 90+ who are still kicking ass. Of course, it helps that they all have health and money and healthcare, but they are pretty much all interesting people and I enjoyed watching them in something new, celebratory, and fun. Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Norman Lear, and loads of other folks (Reiner acts as the host).
     
  13. ellaspy

    ellaspy New Member

    Arsenal FC
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    Sep 4, 2017
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    Stalked by my Neighbor
    Director: Doug Campbell

    I just simply love the flow of the story, but it is actually usual.
     
  14. spejic

    spejic Cautionary example

    Mar 1, 1999
    San Rafael, CA
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    [​IMG]

    The In-Laws (1979)

    Just few days before his daughter wedding, mild-mannered Manhattan dentist Sheldon finally gets to meet Vince, the father of the groom - a world traveling eccentric full of unbelievable stories. Whom we saw rob a US Treasury Department armored car of currency print plates in the movie's prologue. But don't worry, it's for a good cause. He just needs a little of Sheldon's help. Whether Shelly wants to give it or not.

    Mined from the same vein as The Producers, with writing and acting to match. Peter Falk's dialog and his delivery are incredibly funny, and as the danger mounts it increases its incongruity to the situation, which just compounds Alan Arkin's character's incredulity. You have to know a bit of 70's culture to understand the General's taste in art or know why the wedding cake is so hilarious, but 90% of this will work on any audience. I had a good time, and I wonder why it isn't more well known.
     
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  15. fischerw

    fischerw Member+

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    I nearly quit watching Narcos after the first two episodes of Season 1 because Muprhy was such a boring character, and the narration was aimed at least perceptive viewers. I'm glad I stuck with it, because season 1 improved the longer it went on and season 2 was even better. I'm glad season 3 is good-- I look forward to checking it out.
     
  16. mwulf67

    mwulf67 Member+

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    That’s cool you weren’t personally scared…I don’t recall being personally terrorized by Alien – there was no visceral fear that a little alien might burst out my chest….but it’s still a very good, cool ass, and effectively “scary” movie….vmmv…

    However, I think when a reviewer (and I use the term loosely) admits he can’t fathom why millions of people might have enjoyed something he didn’t or doesn’t (and in this case, being “scared” or some variation of the concept, is part of the enjoyment of a movies like Jaws), the review loses a bit of credibility…

    The scene where the kid on the raft is attacked …pure visceral terror for me (and you barely see the shark)…but once again, vmmv…
     
  17. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
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    I'm not saying that I didn't like the film. I'm only reporting that once the shark is shown in all its mechanical glory, all the menace evaporated. If other viewers were frightened, OK.
     
  18. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Aug 19, 2002
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    The Big Sick (2017)
    Dir. Michael Showalter

    [​IMG]

    Kumail, an aspiring stand-up comedian in Chicago, juggles his professional struggles to make it in the comedy business with his family life. His Pakistani-American parents want him to marry a Muslim girl and are perpetually trying to set him up with single Pakistani-American young women. Kumail is not interested in the arranged marriage thing but is afraid to admit as much to his parents for fear of being cast out of the family. One night, during a stand-up routine, a woman who quasi-heckles him ends up as his one-night stand after they bond over a few drinks. The one-nighter eventually turns into a real relationship, but things get rather complicated when Emily becomes seriously ill and Kumail's deception towards his parents unravels shortly after he meets Emily's parents.

    A romantic comedy that is more of a romantic dramedy. This was very well-reviewed and a box office hit (in relation to its budget), not at all undeserved, though I think this movie's success is more a case of very good casting than it is the writing being truly outstanding. Kumail Nanjiani and his real-life wife Emily V. Gordon wrote the screenplay, supposedly largely based on their personal experiences, but I don't see how this movie works half as well without Zoe Kazan in the role of Emily and Holly Hunter and Ray Romano especially, in the role of Emily's parents. The latter two are perhaps the most perfectly cast pair of parents since Tony Danza and Glenne Headly in "Don Jon".
     
  19. Ismitje

    Ismitje Super Moderator

    Dec 30, 2000
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    My father-in-law loves this movie, and as a marriage counselor who always spoke of how problematic in-laws could be, he had a particularly good time watching it. He also taught a marriage class for newlyweds through the LDS Church Education System in Salt Lake City (usually around 30 couples in a class), and one day when he was going to miss a session, he suggested some of us go to the class and just show this movie. We were aghast; how could you show this movie in that setting, what with the artwork in particular? He had totally forgotten. But The In-Laws would have been the end of that teaching gig, I am sure.
     
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  20. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
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    :"Serpentine, serpentine!"
     
  21. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Aug 19, 2002
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    Kiss of Death (1947)
    Dir. Henry Hathaway

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    A career criminal is caught as part of a jewelry heist crew. His three associates manage to escape. The assistant D.A. gives him the chance to give up his partners in exchange for a reduced sentence, but the man keeps his mouth shut, thus getting 15 to 20 years, on the assumption that his former associates will take care of his family, a wife and two young daughters. Three years into his prison term, he learns that his wife has committed suicide due to money trouble. Realizing that his former partners haven't kept up their end of the bargain, he contacts the assistant D.A. and tells him he is willing to play ball. The assistant D.A. agrees to help him, but he has to give him more than just the three other members of the jewelry heist crew.

    A classic film noir that I somehow managed to miss until now. Famous for being Richard Widmark's first screen credit. It's a remarkable performance in a role that is ahead of its time somewhat - the only contemporary equivalent I can think of is the killer in "This Gun for Hire" - but Richard Widmark plays a different type of psychopath here (sneering, sadistic, visibly insane, the very definition of chaotic evil). At times, the performance is like the Joker in its embryonic state (which is possibly a conscious decision on Widmark's part as he was apparently a comic book fan who loved Batman). This film is also noteworthy for having been shot completely on location in and around NYC (in that regard it reminded me a bit of "The Naked City"). It also features Karl Malden in an early, small role as one of the men working for the assistant D.A.
     
  22. NER_MCFC

    NER_MCFC Member

    May 23, 2001
    Cambridge, MA
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    Koyaanisqatsi
    [​IMG]

    I've seen this movie on a big screen twice now, thirty plus years apart. The magnificent Philip Glass score is timeless, but I was surprised by how different the imagery felt. Some things, like collapsing buildings and exploding rockets, have gained new contexts since 1983. Others were intensely contemporary when the film was made and now feel like archival material. Still a hell of an experience though.
     
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  23. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
    Dir. Joachim Ronning & Espen Sandberg

    [​IMG]

    Henry Turner, the now adult son of Will Turner, attempts to find a way to break the curse that has imprisoned his father as the captain of The Flying Dutchman, against his father's wishes. At the same time, Carina Smyth, a young woman whose interest in astronomy has led to her being accused of witchcraft, is trying to find out more about her long-lost father through her search for the trident of Poseidon, which she hopes to discover using the clues left in a book that supposedly belonged to her dad. The pair of them meet each other as they each search for some help in their respective quests and find it in the unlikely form of Captain Jack Sparrow. Sparrow himself has fallen on hard times and is trying to evade another cursed nemesis: Captain Salazar, a former pirate hunter for the Spanish navy whom the young Jack Sparrow defeated through subterfuge.

    These sequels are an exercise in diminished returns, but if I appraise them each on their own merits, I do believe that the two original sequels are the worst two films in the series. This film, along with "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides", at least attempts to find its own direction (not that either film truly succeeds in that). This might be the second best film in the series, but that is faint praise. The first one was not a masterpiece, but an effective, retro and occasionally funny action-adventure. Each new film has failed to live up to its simple qualities.

    In terms of the new cast members, Javier Bardem is overqualified by a mile to play the villain in this sort of fare, Brenton Thwaites is a bit lightweight as the audience stand-in but Kaya Scodelario does possess a plucky charm that makes her outshine her romantic partner in this film.

    If you hated the other sequels in this franchise, you will probably also hate this.
     
  24. NORML

    NORML Member+

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    #6449 NORML, Sep 12, 2017
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2017
    Bushwick - 2017

    Red Dawn set in New York. Dave Bautista befriends a young woman who inadvertently comes home to Bushwick just an unknown war is breaking out in the neighborhood.

    While the plot was weak, characters were forgettable, and action never got going; the camera work at least worked. I doubt they shot everything with one camera in one long shoot, the editing made it appear as though it was. That one long shot with no cuts made ya feel like you were in the middle of an invasion with little time to gather your thoughts.
     
  25. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Aug 19, 2002
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    The Axe Murders of Villisca (2016)
    Dir. Tony E. Valenzuela

    [​IMG]

    A troubled teenager who is nearing high school graduation has few prospects beyond getting his diploma, other than a vague job offer from his uncle in Montana. His best friend is a year older, the former school outcast who was outed as gay by his peers and ostracized and bullied by the popular clique. Together they have a Youtube channel devoted to the supernatural and are thus amateur ghost hunters. On the eve of the protagonists departure to Montana, his best friend convinces him to do one last show for their Youtube channel: they will visit the nearby Villisca house, where eight people were brutally slaughtered in 1912. Against his best friend's wishes, they bring a third party along for the visit: a new arrival at the high school, a Chicago native who has become a social outcast herself after a sex video of hers was uploaded to social media by some cruel classmates. The trio take the official Villisca house tour, but after they discover that it is a rather boring affair, they instead decide to stay until after dark and then sneak back into the house to make a more gritty little episode. Naturally, things go very badly for them after that.

    A pretty basic haunted house horror film. Not bad by any means, certainly not by the standards of low-budget horror. The three protagonists are played by better actors than you'd usually get in this kind of fare. The slow build-up in tension works up until the first big reveal. This needed a better third act, but that is a flaw it shares with many films of this type.
     

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