rate the last movie you saw

[AndyDursin]

Those McClure AIP films, and especially the Edgar Rice Borroughs ones, are really kind of tedious. I tried sitting through them a year or two ago and they weren't so great.

A few years back I imported WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS (is that the title? lol, I forget) from Amazon UK because that one's not available here, and sadly, it wasn't very good either.

[mkaroly]

UNSTOPPABLE (2010): 6.5/10. Denzel Washington is too good of an actor for this B-movie stuff, but he makes acting look so effortless and he's such a solid actor that I found the movie overall more entertaining than expected. Aside from Washington and Pine, the rest of the characters were reminiscent of characters one would see in a 70s disaster film...their acting was over the top and very one-dimensional, and there were no surprises in the movie, but I was entertained. Corporate bigwigs get the short end of the stick here (no surprises), but I really didn't care because I have lately found that managers and executives can be extremely foolish and arrogant. It's a straight-forward, predictable action-drama that follows disaster film conventions, but it's still entertaining.

Oh yeah....and then there was the score by Harry Gregson-Williams. One word: hack. The Zimmer-DARK NIGHT "theme" (I use that term loosely) makes appearances throughout the film (you'll recognize it when you hear it). Hack. Total hack. Score STUNK.

[Paul MacLean]

"
Hopefully "Land That Time Forgot" and its sequel won't try my patience as much.

The Land That Time Forgot isn't particularly good, but it's visually interesting (considering it's budget). I don't remember much at all about The People That Time Forgot though, except that it had a very good score by John Scott.

[John Johnson]

"
Hopefully "Land That Time Forgot" and its sequel won't try my patience as much.

The Land That Time Forgot isn't particularly good, but it's visually interesting (considering it's budget). I don't remember much at all about The People That Time Forgot though, except that it had a very good score by John Scott.

The Land That Time Forgot is a 1975 fantasy/adventure film based upon the 1918 novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The screenplay was written by Michael Moorcock. The film was produced by Britain's Amicus Productions and directed by Kevin Connor. The cast included Doug McClure, John McEnery, Keith Barron, Susan Penhaligon, Anthony Ainley and character actor Declan Mulholland.

The U-boat and ships were models and the dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals were puppets, rather than stop-motion.

The film was a sleeper hit and inspired Amicus to make two more Burroughs adaptations, At the Earth's Core (1976), with McClure, Peter Cushing, and Caroline Munro, and The People That Time Forgot (1977), a direct sequel to Land starring Patrick Wayne, Sarah Douglas, and McClure in a cameo appearance. All three films were distributed in the United States by American International Pictures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_T ... got_(film)

[Monterey Jack]

Red Dawn (1984): 2.5/10

Hilarious, like Hot Shots! played totally straight. Another film from my youth I never saw until now, and boy, has it aged poorly.

Great Poledouris score, of course.

[Eric Paddon]

I went through Land and People last night. Both are better films than "At The Earth's Core" simply by virtue of the fact that Core was totally studio-bound and got insufferably claustrophobic after a bit whereas the other two films knew how to mix in location filming to create a better atmosphere. The chief problem I had with both films is that they had better beginnings than endings and in the case of "Land" the buildup was rather slow in that the earlier part of the film of them all still aboard the submarine ended up holding my attention more than when they arrived and went ashore.

The strings on the pterodactyl were rather obvious in the scene when McClure is running from it. I have also read that John McEnrey was totally dubbed as the U-Boat captain because supposedly his faux German accent just sounded goofy and I can believe it. The voice that comes out of him sounds nothing like him.

When I saw "People" I was surprised at first because the one time I caught this on TV years ago (on TBS I think) I can distinctly remember the film opening with a recap of "Land" with footage from it before going into the main movie. I was expecting to see this again and I guess that must have been an alternate cut.

No more than a 6 for either one. They probably would have come off better if made in the 50s or 60s than in the 70s.

[Paul MacLean]

Recently I was going through (and throwing out) my old VHS tapes which I'd recorded off the TV (just in case there was anything worth keeping) and I found I'd unintentionally recorded The Land That Time Forgot years ago.

The strings on the pterodactyl were rather obvious in the scene when McClure is running from it.

I liked the shots of the pterodactyls flying around when it's obvious it was three puppets who are just going around in a circle!

I have also read that John McEnrey was totally dubbed as the U-Boat captain because supposedly his faux German accent just sounded goofy and I can believe it. The voice that comes out of him sounds nothing like him.

Yeah, he was dubbed by Anton Diffring (even for VOs, that poor guy never got cast as anything other than a German officer!).

One thing I did like was the use of the Isle of Skye for the final scenes, as it really does look like a primeval landscape (it was also used in Dragonslayer).

[mkaroly]

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY - 10/10. Seeing the BR edition of this film has reinvigorated my enjoyment and love for this film. I still marvel at the special effects and the amount of time and effort that went into the conception and making of this film. I still find the movie thoroughly entertaining, thought-provoking, and engrossing even though it has been analyzed to death. Of the supplementals on the BR, I did find myself disagreeing with a lot of what the female art critic said (how she got interviewed over others is a mystery to me). After watching it a couple of times I feel that it still packs a good punch and has relevance today.

I did sync up Alex North's score as detailed in the Intrada booklet. I'll admit up front that I am so used to the music in the film as it is now that I can't really be objective to a high degree, but I really didn't care for North's score and would consider myself one of those who believe Kubrick made the right choice in sticking to the pieces he used in the film. The one cue I did like of North's was the "Space Talk" cue which was supposed to have played underneath Dr. Floyd's phone call to his daughter. Kubrick could have put that in there and it would not have detracted from the scene in the film. Otherwise, North's score is so dense and "distant" or "alien" that it just doesn't fit well IMO. For example, the "Moon Rocket Bus" cue, while certainly sounding mysterious, made the moon seem "alien" and unfamiliar. I suppose in the context of the 60s that made sense but the cue didn't work for me.

In watching the film again I was also struck by the moments of silence that permeated the film. In the first half the silence (i.e. no musical underscore) build suspense or added a bit of tension to what was going on, even on the space station. I think Kubrick's decision to use breathing effects for a lot of the second half of the film again built a lot of tension and worked wonders that (arguably) a music score would have weighed down. The same goes for the final shots when Dan Bowman was evolving into the Star Child...the echos of footsteps and the clanking of silverware did more than music could have done (if North or anyone had decided to score those scenes). In fairness to North, I would have loved to see what he could have scored for the star gate sequence, but we'll never know.

Overall, this is a really good film and I still enjoy it.

[John Johnson]

[/quote]

Yeah, he was dubbed by Anton Diffring (even for VOs, that poor guy never got cast as anything other than a German officer!).

[/quote]

His final performance was again as a Nazi character, for the BBC in the 1988 Doctor Who serial Silver Nemesis, in which he agreed to appear because the recording coincided with the Wimbledon Championships which he wanted to watch.

[Eric Paddon]

I passed the time on my Amtrak to Washington and back today by watching these films.

Scrooge (1970). I've mentioned before the problems I have with it, but for me Christmas season is not complete unless I give every version of the story I have on DVD a view at least once. Nowadays since I regard this and the 1938 one as my least two favorite overall I view them earlier. I still like much of the score, but the deviations from the Dickens text in key areas still tend to bug me with more repeat viewing. And the Hell scene we could have done without entirely.

Related to that is the fact that I think Alec Guinness may be the worst Marley I have ever seen on-screen. This is especially true of his impishness in the Hell scene which tends to reinforce the impression of his first scene that he has no real pity in him for Scrooge at all, and that he's just enjoying a chance to see him squirm.


Family Plot (1976). I ordered the CD and of course that drove home the point that I had not watched this in probably about 15-20 years! It comes off good but the one part of the lazy writing (I will forgive the MacGuffin aspects of how non-essential characters conveniently remember key details from the distant past to move the action along like the headstone maker suddenly recalling everything about Ed Lauter from ten years ago) that bothered me was how after Dern hears the rumor that maybe "Eddie Shoebridge" set the fire himself that killed his parents, shouldn't he and Harris start to act with caution that maybe if they find this guy, they'll find a murderer? I'm talking about long before Lauter sabotages the car and then tries to run them over.

[AndyDursin]

...and that's my favorite version too! Or, close to it.

Something tells me you have yet to see the Zemeckis version if you think SCROOGE is your least favorite lol.

[Eric Paddon]

LOL. Nope, don't plan on seeing that. For me, I only deal with these versions of the story each year:

1938 (Owen)
1951 (Sim)
1970 (Finney)
1984 (Scott)

I also enjoy the radio drama done by Focus On The Family Radio Theatre, which gained permission to use portions of the 1951 movie script for their version. I think all in all five tellings of the story each Christmas is sufficient.

And I wouldn't say "Scrooge" is my least favorite version since I really don't want to revisit Stewart's version again after one viewing years ago.

[AndyDursin]

Stewart's version was meh, I'm sure his stage performance is more compelling.

Once I get home I will do the MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL and then the Alan Menken musicalization with Kelsey Grammer that was quite excellent. Then work my way through the other renditions if time merits.

The 84 Scott version just made it to Blu Ray but Fox never sent review screeners, regrettably. I did buy the Sim version on Blu-Ray last month when it was on sale but haven't seen how it fares in HD yet.

[Eric Paddon]

"Ten Little Indians" (1987). This is a Russian version of the Christie novel that I saw on YouTube. I have heard people gush about this for years because it's the first film version to use the original ending of the novel which for some reason seems to thrill a lot of people. But in watching it, what I saw was a version that only reinforces why the original ending is NOT a good cinematic ending. To me, it makes a lot more sense and makes the killer a lot more repulsive ultimately if there are two innocent parties caught up in all this demonstrating that this killer who has taken on a God complex in the name of justice is in the end, quite fallible and thus has no pretentions to justify his acts, and that the two innocents can still be alive in the end. This kind of ending can be done to charming and whimsical effect like in the brilliant 1945 original or it could also be done with more dramatic credibility like in Christie's original stage play adaptation (which I have heard has unfortunately also succumbed to this present day obsession with bleakness by being rewritten in recent years to also reinstate the novel's ending)

I'll set aside the fact as well that the Russian actors were all terrible with stiff as a board performances until the final moment when the killer suddenly after seeing the results of his handiwork come to fruition starts to go into Snidely Whiplash mode with evil laughter galore (all he needed to do was twirl his moustache to make it complete). The script as I saw it in its subtitled format, observed a slavish devotion to the dialogue from the novel and in the process ignored the fact that much of the book's dialogue just doesn't come off well in the live action medium. Staying faithful to the source material is well and good but a true innovator for the big screen IMO has to be willing to give the dialogue a more fresh approach.

I had more fun with the computer game version of the story that even changes the identity of the murderer!

[mkaroly]

PSYCHO (1960) - 10/10. Just watched it on BR the other day....what an amazing job they did on this film. It's absolutely gorgeous. I'd love it if they went back and did the same for Rear Window and Vertigo. Anwyay, this film is still as entertaining and disturbing as it must have been when it was first released. Hitchocok was unique in his ability to use camera movements to build tension and suspense; the shower scene is still disturbing and causes discomfort; the acting from Perkins and Leigh especially still hold up well. When Vera Miles discovers Mother in the basement and Perkins comes down dressed as Mother with that goofy, ecstatic look on his face, it was still disturbing. The only thing I kind of cringed at watching it this time was the explanation scene towards the end...I understand its purpose but I didn't like the overacting by the psychiatrist and how that sequence kind of brought the film to a dead halt. It's still an amazing movie and holds up really well.