rate the last movie you saw

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mkaroly
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3106 Post by mkaroly »

I cry at the end of HOME ALONE 2....agree with your review Andy!

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Paul MacLean
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3107 Post by Paul MacLean »

AndyDursin wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2017 12:47 pm And unlike producer John Hughes' '80s output, Columbus intentionally designed the film so it does not appear at all like a product of its time -- there aren't many '90s fashions, there's no then-contemporary pop music, there aren't even gadgets that were trendy. It's something that's helped this film age well.
Not to get off-topic, but I appreciated how Columbus did this same thing in his two Harry Potter efforts -- in fact, excepting the sight of Uncle Vernon's car, those films could take place any time between the mid-70s and today. (Cuarron, and later Yates of course ruined this by putting the kids in trendy street clothes).

Anyway, I hate to admit it, but I have still never seen Home Alone! :oops:

I own the soundtracks for both the first and second movies (and love Williams' "invented Christmas carols"), but have never gotten around to watching the movie.

I partly avoided it because I was never a fan of any of John Hughes previous movies, plus at the time the film was released, there was so much else playing in theaters (Dances With Wolves, GoodFellas, Jacob's Ladder, The Russia House, etc., etc.) that I just never got around to it!

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AndyDursin
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3108 Post by AndyDursin »

Well its only been 27 years! There's still time! lol. GOODFELLAS also opened two months prior so you can't use that as an excuse! :wink:

Adjusted for inflation HOME ALONE would gross over $600 million today. Talk about a word of mouth hit -- the kind we don't have in 2017. I remember some girl in high school saw it at a sneak preview (remember those?) the week before it opened and was telling everyone how good it was. Williams' interest in the movie certainly spoke to what kind of a film it was -- talk about a prescient move on his part!

I remember reading this in the Globe back in 1990 -- he was dead on!
A couple of weeks ago, Williams was there composing the music for a film that will be coming out at Christmas called “Home Alone.” “I didn’t want to do a picture right now,” Williams said. “I’ve been working on a clarinet concerto. But a friend talked me into going to a screening and I just went dippy over the movie — it gave me the same feeling as ‘E.T.,’ though it’s a small picture, without that physical scope. I think the public is going to go crazy for this — it’s a story about an 8-year-old outwitting some very Dickensian villains. There’s a lot of music, about 50 minutes, built on five major themes.”
http://www.jwfan.com/?page_id=4534

Eric Paddon
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3109 Post by Eric Paddon »

Murder On The Orient Express (2017) 5.5 of 10

I caught this on its last day at the local 10-plex (I really had nothing else to do and circumstances made it impossible for me to do what I would have preferred on my off-day from caregiving which would have been going into NY). Doing any version of this story deals with the handicap that people know the outcome so that it must always try to be different. The Suchet TV version went that route as did the computer game (which Suchet voices) and so the question was whether in trying to be different would it still work?

The answer for me was mostly mixed. I welcomed the fact that at some point along the way, the breakdown of the larger conspiracy might result in one or two characters trying to take sole credit for everything and set up a new dynamic, but the execution of these details I felt were off a bit. And this adaptation IMO repeated one of the biggest mistakes of the 1974 film's script that inadvertently damaged the undercurrent of the story. In Christie's original novel, the murder victim Ratchett, had "beaten the rap" for his crime in America and thus was incapable of being touched by the law. But in both the 74 film and in this one, we are left with the fact that Ratchett merely *escaped* and thus was technically capable of being arrested and tried for his earlier crime, which ultimately has the effect of turning the murder into a less excusable "revenge" crime whereas in the original it was based more on the deeper point that the justice system had failed the innocent, so this was why the "good people" had felt they must take matters into their own hands to atone for that. That element IMO is needed in order for Poirot's final judgment to ring true.

Production wise, I was given a reminder of why movie-making is so inferior today. I had seen the trailer for this and when I spotted the lines and flash sequences that were in the trailer it struck me how unnatural and out of place they seemed in the film proper, as if the scenes had been constructed more for their potential as "Trailer bait" than whether they flowed naturally in the course of the movie. I suspect this is true of a lot of movies nowadays. The CGI needed to show the train leaving Istanbul and snowbound pales before the natural cinematography of the 74 original. While the 74 film has flaws, it's nonetheless something I can *believe* when I'm watching it. That can't be said here. Add to this the silliness of giving us the Count Andrenyi character doing action movie kick routines to express his displeasure with being photographed, the pointless PC reimagining of the Arbuthnot character (which as I suspected was done entirely to make social commentary asides) and the end result was in the end not horrible but still a misfire IMO. Branagh was competent but is no Suchet.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3110 Post by AndyDursin »

Thanks for the review Eric! I had a feeling it was going to turn out that way, regrettably. (Fortunately I just bought the remastered European Blu-Ray of the original instead!).

It's up on the front page, but here's my LAST JEDI non spoiler take:

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
6/10


Considering that directors are being thrown into Hyperspace left and right, one wonders what’s cooking over at Disney when Kathleen Kennedy and her fellow executives decided to leave Rian Johnson to his own devices with STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI. “Episode VIII” in the “official” saga is a poorly conceived, overwritten slog of a sequel that shows flashes of inspiration along with several embarrassing moments and one particular plot thread that should’ve been jettisoned altogether.

Picking up from the conclusion of the more satisfying (if less ambitious) J.J. Abrams-directed “The Force Awakens,” writer-director Johnson’s outing finds Rey (Daisy Ridley) trying to make contact with Luke Skywalker (an effective Mark Hamill) and convince him to help the Rebellion – err, Resistance – against the Empire – or First Order, as it’s now called. Meanwhile, bad-boy Kylo Ren’s (Adam Driver) allegiances are tested as he encounters supreme commander Snoke (a lame CGI creation embodied by Andy Serkis) while Leia’s efforts with the Resistance mostly revolve around convincing hot-head pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) to cool his jets. In the “We Didn’t Really Need To Shoot This Department,” John Boyega’s ex-stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) is back, partnered with a female mechanic (Kelly Marie Tran) as the duo fly to an intergalactic casino in order to find a safecracker (Benicio Del Toro) who can help shut down a First Order tracking device.

“The Last Jedi” manages to be both busy and boring at the same time – one misses the narrative economy of George Lucas’ storytelling throughout, so much that the movie feels less like a Star Wars movie and more like a typical Marvel product, with occasional moments that could be easily mistaken for outtakes from Luc Besson’s “The Fifth Element.” To his credit, Johnson doesn’t just recycle “The Empire Strikes Back” in his overwritten script (at least not nearly as much as Abrams’ predecessor repurposed the original “Star Wars”), but he still never seems to get it right, opening with a painful exchange between Poe and the First Order that’s dominated by humor totally foreign to this series, while cluttering the adventure with needless detours that detract from its more effective elements. Chief among the former are all the scenes between Finn and Tran’s Rose Tico, who end up in a subplot involving exploited animals and orphaned kids that feels like something out of another movie galaxy altogether (the entire casino sequence, in fact, would be awful in any cinematic universe). It’s debatable, though, what’s worse – that portion of the film or several wholly misjudged moments – one involving a free-floating “Space Leia” – that are simply baffling as to how they ended up in the final cut.

It’s not all trash-compactor material, at least. What works best are the scenes of Rey and Luke sparring – Ridley seems physically more adept here and Hamill gives easily the best performance of the original trilogy stars as a grizzled, though not altogether humorless, Skywalker. There’s even a cameo from another former Jedi that’s welcome and nicely executed, and when the movie stops to focus on them, the picture functions reasonably well.

Still, even there, all roads lead to one of the film’s – and this new trilogy’s – major problems, and that’s Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren. This would-be Vader’s tortured adventures are a real drag on the entire concept of the Disney movies: Kylo’s bad one moment, sad about his Mommy and Daddy the next – and his shifting allegiances are neither compelling nor convincing. With the “big bad” of this series being so unimpressive, it’s difficult to envision where a returning J.J. Abrams is going to make Episode IX relevant, especially when the plot strands left dangling here just aren’t very interesting.

A rewrite from a more capable filmmaker would’ve undoubtedly helped “The Last Jedi,” which somehow ends up a more individualistic piece than “The Force Awakens” but less satisfying on a number of levels. Concluding with a head-scratcher of a final scene that should’ve been excised like a number of misjudged moments before it (Coming in 2019 from Disney: “Little Orphan Jedi, Part I of XX”), it’s a movie that never gets out of its own way as it encounters too much of the Dark Side in an increasingly tired Galaxy Far, Far Away. (PG-13, 152 mins.)

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3111 Post by Eric Paddon »

Darkest Hour (2017) 6.9 of 10

-Yes, two theatrical films in three days for me which is a record in recent years but only because with the rest of the family prematurely gone I had to come up with something to do with my father and this was convenient. Oldman's performance is great and the recreations of Parliament are great and overall I don't have any real quibble with the film except for a couple things that represent again my complaint with modern filmmaking. Instead of telling a compelling piece of real history of Churchill's rise to power and the backbiting going on in these early weeks amidst the low point for Britain in the European war, there are times I feel like the film veers off too much into an actor's showcase concerned with showing Churchill in angst to give us Oldman's his "acting moments" of the type that would be great in one-man play but in this film after a while it had the effect of dragging the narrative of the storyline to a halt (which also isn't helped by that present-day trend to give us introspective moments where we see everything slowed down like when Churchill is riding through London and melancholy music is playing). Also, the one scene of the trapped British fort at Calais is given to us with a bit of directorial narcissism in the form of a continuous tracking shot of the commander then panning up to a God's eye view of German bombers dropping their load on it. It's utterly unnecessary.

-And then there's the film's one big fictionalization that represents modern Hollywood's obsession with its own form of social agenda telling and that's the scene of Churchill, on the verge of capitulating to Halifax that he'll open up the prospect of negotiations, going on the Underground and hearing the working class people tell him they'll never surrender etc. and this gives him the burst of confidence. This is nonsense. Churchill was never on the verge of going soft on negotiations and if this were made in the old days of filmmaking we'd see an unapologetic depiction of Churchill as a self-confident man holding fast because he *knows* his views would reflect the conscience of the people riding the Underground even if he never took a ride on it. To suggest he needs bucking up on this point by the masses comes off as a bit of modern-day Hollywood forcefeeding and it cost the film about another half point plus IMO.

-The depiction of Chamberlain is spot-on and the actor playing him looks even more like the real article than Oldman does as Churchill. I have not seen "The King's Speech" but the film sort of can work as an indirect sequel when George VI at one point admits his dislike for Churchill stemmed in part from Churchill's taking his brother's side on the marriage.


Battle Of Britain (1969) 6.9 of 10

-This was the perfect film to revisit on the heels of seeing the above since it represents "what happened next" in the story line. I get a reminder of how the more realistic attempts at recreation of aerial combat in the pre-CGI era hold up much better today compared to moments like the aforementioned tracking shot I cited in "Darkest Hour". When I see the aerial combat and bombardment taking place I find it more realistic and compelling and I see it as closer to the real thing.

-The film's big flaw though is that the script failed to give us a good through-line narrative. I think one mistake this film shares with "Tora! Tora! Tora!" which was released the next year is that there was an aversion to doing a big-scale WW2 film by *showing* dramatized the biggest giants of the war. In this case, we don't see Churchill, just as we don't see FDR in "Tora!" (and similarly, Dwight D. Eisenhower remains a totally lofty off-camera figure in "Patton"). It's as if somehow one generation removed from the war, there was a feeling that people wouldn't accept or believe in seeing these well-known personas dramatized and while that's understandable to a degree, it does have the long-term effect of weakening the film's ability to stand the test of time as a definitive telling of events.

-The all star cast is good but we don't see enough of the people to connect with them. You have to pay attention carefully to realize what happens to Michael Caine and others who have the potential to emerge a little more front and center don't appear on-camera enough to anchor the film better (despite its soapiness, it probably would have been better to trim out some of the extra characters and give us a little more of the Christopher Plummer-Susannah York marital strife since they were the only characters given a chance to do a little more). If "Darkest Hour" has too much introspection that slows the narrative down, "Battle Of Britain" could have used a dash more to keep from going too fast! (one area where "Battle" is the hands-down winner is music. Here, the old school triumphs with Goodwin's easy to remember march whereas the new school gives us one of those non-stop scores you never remember a note of when its over)

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Paul MacLean
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3112 Post by Paul MacLean »

Eric Paddon wrote: Sun Dec 24, 2017 12:59 pm -The all star cast is good but we don't see enough of the people to connect with them.
I like Battle of Britain, but I agree it suffers from having a cast of all "supporting" roles and no real "main characters". Agreed on the Plummer / York storyline. I also think Caine and Shaw should have been much more in the forefront. And then there are characters like Ian McShane, to whom so little screen time is devoted, it is almost a "throwaway moment" when he learns his family have been killed. Ralph Richardson is great -- but does have more than a single scene?

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3113 Post by Eric Paddon »

Witness To Murder (1954) 5 of 10

-One of my Kino Lorber discount blind buys. Despite the presence of Barbara Stanwyck and George Sanders in full villainy this film offers a reminder to me of how maddeningly frustrating "film noir" films can be for me. The notes plug the film as in the tradition of "Rear Window" which was released a month later, but frankly after watching this it's easy to see why this film got deservedly forgotten. Stanwyck, from her apartment across the street sees Sanders murdering a young woman he'd picked up. She calls the police but Sanders, who sees the police about to arrive gets the body out of his apartment to a conveniently vacant one next door before they arrive and he is able to play dumb and get them to believe Stanwyck just imagined the whole thing. So the film turns into an irritating exercise of no one believes Stanwyck while Sanders uses Gaslight techniques to make her seem insane. The fact that this hinges on the total STUPIDITY of the police to consider the possibility that Sanders may have been tipped off or to check an adjoining vacant apartment where a body could be conveniently hidden is what makes the film impossible to swallow, not to mention how we then have to see things grind to a halt at the halfway point when Stanwyck is hauled off to the mental hospital. Then, the film doesn't give us some needed forward momentum at its climax in terms of how Sanders scheme finally unravels as it instead wants to give us a showy set piece finale that is much too abrupt. "Rear Window" by contrast was much more relaxed and methodical and a joy to watch. This film, despite a good performance by Stanwyck is simply lousy.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3114 Post by Eric Paddon »

Krakatoa East Of Java (1969) 5 of 10

-I'd seen this once before in an imperfect DVD release a decade ago. I got the Kino Lorber Blu-Ray again at the discount price. Even though Irwin Allen has nothing to do with this, it comes off like a movie that embodies the worst features of Allen at the tail-end of his career in the late 70s in a film that superficially evokes his earlier 60s stuff like "Five Weeks In A Balloon". The end result is a mishmash that misfires on all levels. Reading that they filmed the F/X sequences first before they got a script in place and went through a lot of turnover behind the scenes production wise certainly explains why we end up with a film that for its opening 20 minutes hits all the wrong notes literally by pretending to be a musical as we get first a scene of children singing in school that goes on overly long as if to give us the entire song. This is followed by the bizarre visual of prisoners boarding a ship and being sent to the hold as it leaves port while playing on the soundtrack is a jarringly late 60s easy listening choral rendition of a pop love song. And then we get Barbara Werle as Brian Keith's songstress mistress breaking into a musical number with orchestral backing while she undresses. I think a lot of people coming in expecting action and adventure had to be going, "HUH?" at this point. The main motive of the plot, Skipper Maximilan Schell wanting to find a wreck near Krakatoa before eruption that has a fortune in pearls, is not presented clearly in this opening act because of all this musical divergence and then when we get it presented in the form of old flame Diane Baker revealing everything in an emotional breakdown scene it hits us with an even more "where did *this* come from?" Throw in a group of Japanese pearl divers wearing modern bikinis in the 19th century who seem to be able to hold their breath forever, while Schell is dumb enough to go diving and look for this while his prisoners are still aboard and able to break free, and muddled lessons in geography and implausible reasons of some characters to decide to foolishly ride out an impending tsunami on dry land only because we need to see a couple characters die, and the end result is something that even disaster movie buffs will squirm through in the end if they're trying to give it a try.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3115 Post by Eric Paddon »

Pickup On South Street (1953) 8 of 10

-Now here was a noir style movie that really landed! Richard Widmark as a pickpocket who ends up turning into a 50s style anti-hero when his pickpocketing becomes unwittingly tied into a Communist espionage plot. Jean Peters, who impressed more than Monroe in "Niagara" impresses me even more in this one as the bad girl pickpocket victim who ultimately ends up falling for him. Thelma Ritter got one of her six Oscar nominations for a role that is typically Ritter but one she shines in as always. Richard Kiley as the Communist baddie is good in the part but he does end up demonstrating why his talents were better suited to the stage than film. But the thing that really helps this film is that its great to see a quality product from Hollywood that depicts Communists as the bad guys and not in the way Hollywood would prefer to do as its pennance for the blacklist in decades to come. This allows the film to come off much better today (though I'm sure most critics who love the film will always say it works in spite of this element or will yak about how this was capitulating to trends of the day etc.).

-Years ago, I got the Intrada CD that paired Harline's score of this film with the music for the film I was more interested in getting "Dangerous Crossing". Now I can appreciate Harline's score in its own right!

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Paul MacLean
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3116 Post by Paul MacLean »

Home Alone **

After twenty-seven years I finally got around to seeing this holiday classic.

Full disclosure: I have never been a fan of John Hughes. I find his writing slick (yet at the same time clunky), as well as indulging sentimentality, and it caters far too much to the narcissism of youth. The recurrent theme in pretty-much all his films is that of spoiled, bratty, upper-middle class kids -- who want for nothing -- yet hate their parents for "ruining their lives" (said parents are perpetually depicted as out-of-touch dolts).

All the same, I genuinely wanted to like Home Alone (and I've owned -- and loved -- John Williams' score for years) so I came to it with an open mind. This film isn't nearly as heavy-handed as, say, The Breakfast Club, but still, the opening scenes were, for me, a case of "Here we go again". Once more we have a main character who is a dislikable brat (as are his siblings), while his parents (and aunt and uncle) are the usual clueless imbeciles.

The film also endeavors to balance heartwarming sentiment with slapstick comedy -- and the results are mixed. The tone of the comedy is so goofy and unrealistic (where did Kevin get all those mannequins?) it is hard to take the "meaningful" moments seriously. I also found the film kind of slow-moving (the toothbrush scene could have been cut), and the big climax is much-too plodding, both in terms of overall pacing and the cutting of specific action moments (which have little energy or suspense -- or laughs).

That said, all the scenes involving the old man who lives next door are absolutely wonderful, and genuinely touching -- even moving. (I suspect the church scene was written -- or at least "polished" -- by Chris Columbus.) Would that there were more such moments in the remainder of the picture. I also respected that the film shows Kevin seeking solace in church, and even saying grace before eating. That was unusual in movies even in 1990 (and these days you never see anything like that at all -- unless it's in one of those films with Kevin Sorbo! :lol: ). There aren't enough superlatives to describe John Williams' outstanding, melodic score, particularly his "invented" Christmas carols (of which "Somewhere In My Memory" has rightly gone on to become a perennial holiday song in itself).

But ultimately, Home Alone didn't completely work for me. I found the humor (and the way it relies on pratfalls rather than wit) kind of infantile, and not particularly clever. I suppose the film was aimed at kids, who get a laugh from people slipping on staircases, falling out of windows, etc. But I also found most of the characters either not very sympathetic, or just too ridiculous to believe, which made it difficult for me to identify with them. What appeal the film does possess is owed to Chris Columbus and John Williams, who are virtuosos in warmth and genuine sentiment, and helped offset the more crass Hughes.
Last edited by Paul MacLean on Thu Nov 29, 2018 1:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Monterey Jack
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3117 Post by Monterey Jack »

My last film of 2017...Raiders Of The Lost Ark (11/10 8))

Image

It never gets old.

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AndyDursin
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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3118 Post by AndyDursin »

Now THAT's one we can all agree on :D

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3119 Post by Monterey Jack »

AndyDursin wrote: Mon Jan 01, 2018 12:17 pm Now THAT's one we can all agree on :D
Some movies -- even very, very good movies -- you can watch two or three times, then never feel the particular urgency to sit through again, but Raiders is just that movie you can watch countless times, and it never feels stale, or "dated", or makes you impatient for it to get to the "good parts"...it's a movie that's ALL good parts. 8) Just like Die Hard, it's the movie that keeps on giving, and none of the sequels (despite how good some of them are) or rip-offs over the decades have ever managed to top it. And the funny parts ALWAYS make me laugh, no matter how many times I watch it (Indy's howl of agony after Marion clocks him in the chin with the swinging mirror is a particular fave :lol: ). It's one of my top-five action/adventure movies of the 80's (along with The Road Warrior, The Terminator, Aliens and Die Hard, and one of the most purely pleasurable movies of all time.

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Re: rate the last movie you saw

#3120 Post by Paul MacLean »

AndyDursin wrote: Mon Jan 01, 2018 12:17 pm Now THAT's one we can all agree on :D
Will you still be my friend even though I didn't love Home Alone? :(

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