rate the last movie you saw

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sprocket
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2896 Post by sprocket »

Short Circuit (1986) 7/10

This is one instance where a blatantly commercial product is greater than the sum of its parts due to the quality of the talent involved.

By blatantly commercial, I mean containing multiple (and overt) opportunities for product placement and channeling an ET-like vibe. The product placement wasn't half as bad because it sort of acted like an 1980s ad time capsule and was interesting in itself for that.

The film's main draw, the robot Number 5, designed by Syd Mead and realized by Eric Allard, is amazingly brought to life. No CGI was available, so everything was done in camera and it is surprising how much charisma the character is able to generate.

I did find Ally Sheedy's overly sunny character annoying, but also endearing. How could she not be upset when Number 5 trashes her kitchen? Was she on drugs? However, her delight at finding an "alien" in her food truck came across as genuine, and she had more scenes that worked for her character than not.

The other performance of note was by Austin Pendleton, the head "bad" guy who was also very sympathetic and basically working against the protagonists for the right reasons.

Short Circuit has a snappy script, likeable characters, creative and extremely polished special effects (check out the tracking map) and real sense of character. A product of its time, yes, but its a pity that today's filmmakers just aren't capable of creating something as good.

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AndyDursin
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2897 Post by AndyDursin »

X-MEN APOCALYPSE
5/10

The magic’s gone in this ninth (is that even possible?) X-Men film, easily the weakest from director Bryan Singer, who seemingly remained too long at the franchise party this time around.

The script by the usual suspects (Singer, Simon Kinberg, Michael Doughtery, Dan Harris) is set in the early ‘80s, where Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) remains in control of cultivating the world’s mutants...at least until an ancient mutant, Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), is woken from a centuries-long slumber, just in time to rally the bad and easily-swayed super-powered beings – including Magneto (Michael Fassbender) – in an all-out war against the X-crew. Speaking of them, fresh additions this time around include a young Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and Scott “Cyclops” Summers (Tye Sheridan), along with a new Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and fan favorite Psylocke (Olivia Munn), all of whom find themselves on different ends of the Mutant Vs. Mutant spectrum.

“Apocalypse” is a little bit difficult to peg in terms of what, specifically, went wrong here – the movie has the same visual trappings as its prior installments and is still certaintly watchable for comic book fans. Its main fault is that it’s basically tired – the repetitious character introductions, the prolonged climax, the end-of-the-world visual FX, all of it smacks of “been there done that.” What’s more, the film is littered with so many characters and episodic passages, that it’s no wonder Jennifer Lawrence gives a somnambulant performance as Mystique, nearly serving as a traffic cop to the various comings and goings and occasional cameo (you’ll never believe who Hugh Jackman appears as!) the film repeatedly throws at the viewer.

There’s no sense of momentum, not enough playfulness or even fun set-pieces here – only when Evan Peters’ Quicksilver shows up in a virtual reprise of his memorable “Days of Futures Past” introduction does the film perk up for a few minutes.

The ironic element here is that while Singer can’t resist another chance to take a shot at “X-Men: The Last Stand” (“the third one always sucks” quips one character), he’s here produced an installment that’s actually more disposable. With Lawrence’s contract apparently up and few prospects of a breakout star in the movie’s forgettable supporting cast, perhaps he should be more concerned with the series he’s making than the sequel he didn’t get a chance to.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2898 Post by AndyDursin »

LEGEND OF TARZAN
5.5/10

Likely the biggest waste of $180 million ever placed on-screen, this shoddy looking – if intermittently entertaining – attempt at resurrecting Edgar Rice Burroughs’ hero for modern audiences almost works.

A reportedly troubled production that overperformed at the box-office, “Legend of Tarzan” offers some smart tweaks to the old formula, reprising Tarzan’s origin through flashbacks while relaying how Lord Greystoke (Alexandar Skarsgard) is lured back to the Congo in what’s really a trap set by a conniving Belgian captain (Christoph Waltz) hungry for diamonds and a local warlord (Djimon Hounsou) thirsty for revenge.

Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer’s script tries to avoid racial stereotyping and smartly refrains from becoming overly P.C. as Tarzan is joined by an American envoy (Samuel L. Jackson) in his adventure, along with Greystoke’s wife Jane (Margot Robbie), who’s promptly abducted by Waltz’s Belgian bad guy and sets her husband off on a mission to save her.

“Harry Potter” helmer David Yates has packaged a slick but strange film that’s filled with pros and cons. On the one hand, Jackson’s affable character serves as an audience surrogate who interjects some much needed comic relief into the story – on the other, the film is occasionally morose and too downbeat, not to mention aesthetically unappealing. I’m not sure where the movie’s high price tag went, but the entire movie boasts a “digital” appearance that’s utterly unconvincing. At times the fake African backdrops (the movie was shot on greenscreen in the UK with only 2nd unit filming taking place overseas) look like a bad video game – at others, “arty” digital tweaking drains specific colors out of the image, to no dramatic effect at all (except to call attention to themselves). The picture also seems to have been editorially “massaged” to such a degree that it never establishes a clear line of momentum, something that should come as no surprise given the stories of poor test screenings and reshoots (apparently not handled by Yates, who left to shoot the upcoming Potter prequel) that reportedly took place prior to release.

Ultimately there are some smart touches to be found here – and it’s a shame Margot Robbie’s plucky, athletic Jane is buried in the era’s attire – but the film is too awkward and ultimately unsatisfying to really score.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2899 Post by Eric Paddon »

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978) 6 of 10

-I've been doing a lot of upgrading of DVD to Blu Ray especially when I can get rid of an old DVD that was double-sided as this one was. The film has some great atmospheric touches but it can't hold a candle to the original for a lot of reasons.

-First, the change from small-town to big city setting. While we get beautiful cinematography of SF, the problem is that unlike the original we are not really getting a good picture of lives being altered forever. When you see small-town America with its close-knit families and a close-knit community of people who have known each other for years and years changed, that is chilling. In the original we get to see a good deal of Dr. Bennell's life as it was with his neighbors etc. But in this cynical 70s version, we are seeing a tiny enclave in a big city and in typical post-Code film-making it isn't families and neighbors rent asunder but a group of people who frankly don't establish themselves in the beginning as people I can connect with. Sutherland's Bennell is not likable (I got the distinct impression on this first viewing in more than a decade that he's actually performing a shake-down job on the restaurant) and it's a BIG mistake to change the dynamic from the original in which the leading characters knew each other before and are trying to restart a romance before things start to happen. If you give me Brooke Adams already in a relationship that has some meaning to her before the changes happen, then I'm just not going to buy an on-the-fly romance with Sutherland that then happens in the panic and terror of what's happening. It makes what happens far less effective than the moment when Kevin McCarthy discovers Dana Wynter has changed.

-There is also some sloppy pacing in the mid-section resulting from a reshuffling of scenes from the original. Sutherland goes back to the Chinese laundry *after* we've had the duplicate bodies introduced. This should have happened *before* that scene when a reassuring, "Everything's okay now" helps build up the unease. At this point in the film it's not needed any longer except to clear up a loose end.

-I could live with the gross-out bit of the axe to the developing pod person, but the dog-face bit was just cheap and gratuitous and is a superficial way of getting Brooke Adams to lose her composure whereas in the original its a moment of genuine human emotion that causes Dana Wynter to blow the cover.

-And is the ending *really* that much of a surprise? Maybe if Sutherland had avoided being injected with the sedative, the viewer could still have some hope that he's been able to fight everything off, but honestly once it transitions to daylight and you've had the established points of (1) the sedative and (2) the dialogue about "he can't stay awake forever" while he's hiding under the stairs, it's so predictable ESPECIALLY with the several wasted minutes of Sutherland puttering about in his usual routine in silence. You already know, "Yep, he's gone." If they *really* wanted to shock the viewer, we should have gone to the next morning and had Veronica Cartwright encounter him right away. Coming on the heels of him destroying the whole greenhouse (a digression to note that had the small town setting remained and we'd had this scene of the greenhouse destruction, the viewer might have been lulled into thinking that the main part of the alien plan has been beaten. But in a big city setting it's so obvious that this isn't going to have much of an impact because the viewer knows this is just a drop in the bucket), the viewer *might* still believe we're headed toward a final potentially positive moment but with all the wasted time afterwards, sorry, it's just flat-out predictable and no matter how chilling the image might seem it doesn't pack as big an impact as it could have. (Of course I prefer the original's ending anyway because the whole act of God to turn things around is a theme I find more appropriate than the dark cynicism of this era, but even so, I would have applauded them for a well-constructed down ending if they'd tightened it up).

-Kevin McCarthy's cameo was a brilliant touch. Nimoy's performance reminds me a lot of his guest shot as a killer doctor on "Columbo" six years earlier.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2900 Post by AndyDursin »

EYE OF THE NEEDLE
8/10

Image

On Blu-Ray this month from Twilight Time is this superb 1981 UA adaptation of Ken Follet’s bestseller, starring Donald Sutherland as a ruthless German spy who gains pertinent information regarding the Allied invasion of Normandy. After getting shipwrecked on Storm Island en route to delivering the information to a U-Boat, Sutherland’s “Needle” comes across a lonely, frustrated wife (Kate Nelligan) of a would-be British fighter pilot (Christopher Cazenove), who was paralyzed in an accident on their wedding day.

A tasty potboiler that’s equal parts WWII espionage thriller and a strong character study of broken dreams on the part of both its heroine – and anti-hero – “Eye of the Needle” was directed by Richard Marquand in an effort that reportedly led George Lucas to hire him for “Return of the Jedi.” Marquand worked from a script by Stanley Mann, which takes its time establishing the central scenario so that when the dramatic fireworks between the central characters take hold in the film’s second half, the viewer really feels a palpable sense of tension as the film progresses to its conclusion.

The performances, of course, are also a big reason for the picture’s effectiveness. Sutherland is steely and crisp in a villainous turn, though he expresses enough humanity at times that you can see why he becomes an outlet for Nelligan’s pent-up disappointment. Nelligan, meanwhile, is spectacular in a performance both sympathetic and sultry, and all of the action is backed by Alan Hume’s cinematography of the movie’s location shooting on the Island of Mull, off Scotland’s west coast, and Miklos Rozsa’s superb dramatic score.

Twilight Time’s Blu-Ray is culled from a standard MGM licensed transfer that’s solid if a bit aged in its appearance. The 1080p (1.85) image is a bit noisy in places but still offers an appreciable upgrade from DVD, while the DTS MA mono sound is passable. Extras include a stereo isolated score track, the trailer, and a genial commentary with Nick Redman, Julie Kirgo and Jon Burlingame.

Fans should note this print of the film includes the film’s shorter ending – the longer alternate ending, which offers an enhanced stage for Rozsa’s score, was included in European MGM DVD releases.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2901 Post by Eric Paddon »

Capricorn One (1978) 7 of 10

-Went through Shout's Blu-Ray last night (and I am finding to my annoyance that if you have to stop it reboots to the beginning of the disc and doesn't resume playback!). This was the first time I was seeing the film itself in a number of years after watching it a LOT in the mid-80s in the early days of VHS. I think it is the best of Hyams' films I've seen because while post-Watergate cynicism plays a part, it doesn't IMO suffocate things inordinately and lets you enjoy the ride as much as possible. Plus, "Capricorn One" may rank as the ultimate case of a movie that *seems* like a disaster film but isn't. The all-star cast including two scene cameos, the memorable Goldsmith score. It has the feel of a movie that fits in the disaster canon without actually being one.

-Looking at the film more critically now I think its biggest flaw is some careless pacing in the plot especially for the first half of the film which details the faked flight and is spread out over a period of about five months. We cut from January and the launch day to two months later for the scene of NASA tech Robert Walden developing his first suspicion and then nothing else for another two months or so with the landing. I think honestly what the film could have used was an extra scene of the astronauts in this period locked away and pondering the enormity of what they're caught up in. True, we get a scene like this later before the TV transmission scene but we could have used another scene earlier on IMO. We could have used more development in this part then the rather pointless scenes in the final part of the conspirators trying to go after Gould (honestly this is the part of the film that makes no sense. They sabotage Gould's car and then go a couple months without making another move on him, then they take a shot at him when he's visiting the ghost town, but then after taking the trouble to frame him on a drug charge, they DON'T have him tailed after he gets bailed out by his boss before being fired?) Hyams IMO should have jettisoned some of these parts involving Gould and kept more in for the first part (we do know from Goldsmith's score there was a scene involving a fake transmission for a docking sequence during the flight that missed the cut).

-Also it's never made clear if David Huddleston's congressman is part of the conspiracy. We get a lot of attention on him in the first half that seemingly points to that, but Hyams never goes anywhere with it. That may have been done to let Holbrook stand more front and center as the film's villain.

-The slow-mo running at the end I have to admit looks sillier in widescreen than it did on cropped TV airings I first grew up with. Given how its a triumphal version of "Kay's theme" that's playing maybe showing Brenda Vaccaro bolting up and running toward Brolin would have been better.

-As the years go by the irony of former Mr. Streisand rescuing future Mr. Streisand stands out even more in this film.

-Flawed but still fun overall.

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Paul MacLean
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2902 Post by Paul MacLean »

AndyDursin wrote:EYE OF THE NEEDLE
8/10
I never saw this film -- the trailer struck me a re-hash of The Eagle Has Landed's sub-plot (Nazi spy Donald Sutherland has affair with lonely woman in the remote English countryside). But based on your review I'd be willing to give it a go!

Would you say the Region 2 DVD is the better bet, as it has the extended ending?

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2903 Post by AndyDursin »

It's good! Kate Nelligan was hot! 8)

I liked it better than EAGLE HAS LANDED personally. Much more of a straight line dramatic piece whereas that one had the "all star cast" WWII movie thing going for it. This is more an intimate, character-driven thriller, not an action movie. Maybe you have to be in the mood for it, but I guess I was! The love scene was pretty sultry, and Rozsa's music was solid if not overly memorable.

I'm torn on recommending the DVD because the Blu-Ray does have much better detail. I just wish the longer ending was on the disc. It doesn't change the resolution, but it adds a couple of beats making it seem less "abrupt" and gives Rozsa's score a few more moments to work its magic. Perhaps a UK release might attach it.

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Paul MacLean
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2904 Post by Paul MacLean »

I know I'm late to this party, but...

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

Or, more accurately, "The Richard Donner Fan Edit", because a re-cut of Superman II that relies on new (and rather cheap-looking) CGI shots, awkwardly tracks most of the scenes with John Williams' score from the first film (when Ken Thorne's adaptations of Williams' music were generally more effective) and jettisons a number of enjoyable sequences, far-more resembles a "fan edit" than a "directors cut".

I have to be honest, I always felt Superman II was a come-down from Superman: The Movie. It was considerably campier, and although I liked the way the Lois / Superman relationship was initially developed, and didn't care for the the way their story resolved. The lack of an original John Williams score was probably the biggest let-down of all.

Naturally I blamed these things on Richard Lester, for how else could one explain Superman II's silly (even ludicrous) moments than to point a finger at the director of Help? "Curse those Salkinds for firing Richard Donner" I used to think (especially as Williams reportedly turned down the film after the negative impression Lester made on him).

It was sobering in the extreme to discover Richard Donner was responsible for some of Superman II's most idiotic moments -- the prison break, the goofy scene where the kid falls into Niagara Falls, the guy on the roller skates, the nutty incongruities (the villains unfazed by direct hits from a bazooka, but Superman gimmacing when he's hit with a man hole lid).

Not only were these Donner's idea, but some of Superman II's more enjoyable sequences were actually directed by Lester. The whole Paris sequence is considerably more fun and entertaining than the "Previously in last week's episode" montage that opens the Donner cut. Ok, maybe Clark tripping on a bearskin rug is a bit lame, but it's better than Lois shooting Clark with a blank (wouldn't Superman be aware that no bullet struck his body?). Also, it's striking how much Margot Kidder aged between shooting that audition scene and the Lester scenes (Reeve is also also noticeably more scrawny in the audition footage.)

It's kind of neat to see the Brando scenes, but I have to admit it makes more sense for Superman to address his mother in the matter of Lois Lane.

The climax of the film simply repeats that of the first film, with Superman flying back in time and apparently preventing all the troubles which befell the Earth before they began. Ok, so why is it necessary to return to Canada to have it out with the bully in the diner? How can the owner of the diner recognize Clark, if Superman changed history so that none of the events in the film ever occurred?

This version strips-out a lot that made the theatrical cut enjoyable. Superman's flight to the tropical island was always a nice touch, and the villains defacing Mt. Rushmore is considerably more entertaining than a shot of the Washington Monument falling over. The longer climactic sequence in the Fortess of Solitude was also more satisfying. I also think the overall narrative pace of the Lester cut is smoother.

Of course I don't care for some of the scenes in either version. I still think it's gross to show Superman having sex, and the whole sequence with Lex / Miss Tessmacher at the Fortress of Solitude has always made me cringe (though it is worse in the Donner cut -- did we really need to hear the sound of a toilet flushing?)

For me, no Superman sequel is even close to the appeal and classic status of Superman: The Movie...although Superman VI does get points for its unintentional hilarity...


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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2905 Post by Eric Paddon »

I agree that recycling the ending of I for this version was a MAJOR mistake. If Donner had stayed with the project back in 78, they knew they couldn't use that ending but the fan-boys were trying so hard to not include anything that was done by Lester even if that meant sacrificing narrative coherence and yes, it creates an Olympic-sized plot-hole with the whole revenge on the bully bit. And doesn't this also mean they're in effect putting the villains back out in space as a threat that will come back again??

The Brando scenes was all I wanted to see all these years. But now that I've seen them all I think only the scene of him for the power restoration sequence is absolutely necessary. A Lester cut with *just* that one scene inserted would in fact flow quite well.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2906 Post by AndyDursin »

What's funny is that the collective fan-fueled narrative that Donner's II not only existed but that any and everything good about SUPERMAN - THE MOVIE was due to him, and him alone, was basically busted forever once the "Donner Cut" came out. Sure, it's not a completed work, but Paul's breakdown of the film (like I did in my review years back) shows his pulse on the material wasn't ALWAYS on target. I much, much prefer the Paris sequence to the discarded opening Donner shot, which is much more "cartoony" and silly. The Brando scenes are really the major element in the "Donner Cut", but I agree wholeheartedly, Superman learning about romance actually benefits from hearing about that stuff from his mother.

In fact, you no longer see the impassioned fanboy debates anymore -- more a shift and acknowledgement that, yeah, the theatrical II Lester completed is actually a good movie -- which, of course, everyone always thought when it first came out in '80 and '81. Back then the large majority of critics felt it was a superior film. I'm not sure it's superior, but it's certainly a terrific comic book movie in its own right. The Metropolis battle still holds its own as a superbly executed moment in the genre and the accent on romance, especially when so few modern comic book movies care about that, is refreshing.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2907 Post by Eric Paddon »

It was yet another of those projects where the journey to get there, which was to *see* this footage at least, was what drove the story. Much in the same way that we talk more about a classic film score before its released than when it is or hope for it. I really think though no one would have cared if we didn't have the element of never seeing the Brando scenes all those years because that was what made the Donner cut stand out, not what he had in mind for the opening scene or the ending or anything else. Brando's thing with the Salkinds was separate I believe from Donner, so if his thing had been settled and you'd had Brando's scenes appearing in the original cut there is no such thing as "Donner cut" ever (though maybe this other stuff turns up as supplements etc.)

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Paul MacLean
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2908 Post by Paul MacLean »

To me it's more of a glorified "special feature" than a complete film in its own right.

Further on the music, as much I love John Williams' score for Superman: The Movie, tracking the Donner Cut with cues from the first film came off very awkwardly, as they weren't written (or timed) to the scenes.

Ken Thorne may have been adapting Williams' existing music, but Thorne was a gifted composer and dramatist in his own right, and knew how to apply music for the maximum dramatic effect. I think Donner should have kept more of Thorne's adaptations, especially as a number of sequences are essentially the same in both films (the moon sequence, the Niagara Falls, scene, Supermen saving the woman and her baby from the falling antenna, etc.)
Last edited by Paul MacLean on Mon Oct 24, 2016 9:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2909 Post by AndyDursin »

Agreed. I think what happened though is that some fans started believing Donner's "vision" for SUPERMAN II existed literally on the cutting room floor, that what issues fans had with II were Lester's doing, and that it could all be reconstructed by cutting/pasting scenes from different sources. As we found out, that mythical version never existed to begin with, and a couple of the alterations Lester produced were -- gulp -- for the better. You're also right the Brando scenes had to do with the Salkinds. I believe in the commentary on SUPERMAN II that Illya Salkind gave (a really, really good listen btw), that he mentioned they were having contractual issues and just decided not to deal with him.

But, you can't reconstruct a movie that never existed to begin with, and unlike Superman, you can't turn back the clock to make it happen, either!

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I have the ability to see the material they didn't use, but at the same time, I think Warner Bros. would have been wiser to include the deleted/unused footage in a supplement and not tried to sell it as an actual dramatic work that doesn't function at all as such.

The tracked music was another major problem too, as Paul said...

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#2910 Post by Paul MacLean »

Oh, just one more thing...

In the Lester version, Superman relinquishes his powers before going to bed with Lois -- which I always took to mean that he could not have sexual relations with her while he was still a Kryptonian.*

However in the Donner cut they sleep together before Clark asks Jor-El about the possibility of life with Lois. So why does he need to ask permission to be with Lois (much less surrender his superpowers) if he's already had sex with her? Is Superman forbidden to marry or live in a monogamous relationship with Lois -- but free to sleep with her? :?

Oh, and in the Donner cut, why did Superman change into a dress shirt and slacks before seeking advice about Lois?



*This is a link to a very scientifically stringent -- and hilarious -- examination of Superman's sexuality, by science fiction writer Larry Niven...

http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html
Last edited by Paul MacLean on Thu Mar 30, 2017 10:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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