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What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

Seb Lucas

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,562
Location
Australia
I'd even use a pre-CGI date. As a caveat, it is not as if movie action (most of the time) was ever realistic. Anyone who's ever been in a true fist fight know how unrealistic all the punching in the face is in movies (even back in the '30s) - the ramifications are much more dramatic in real life than is shown in most movies. The same with kicking (especially a body on the ground) and gunfights were always exaggerate in many ways.

That said, and I have no particular date or movie, but the late '60s and, definitely, by the '70s, seemed to be where it all started to get amped up and it's just become more and more unbelievable since.

If you compare any of the first three Bond films, to the last three, the difference in incredible. The action in the first films was, of course, exaggerated, but IMO, you could kid yourself into believing it. Now, it's so beyond believable that to watch the movies today, you have to have a separate category in your mind for "movie action."

It just doesn't work for me. I can stretch my imagination enough for the movie up until the mid-'60s, but after that, most action adventure is too far fetch for me to really enjoy it. Don't get me wrong, I'll watch some of it (but less and less each year), but the extremeness of it leaves me feeling detached and, quite often, bored.

Yes. I don't think anyone credible argues that before CGI action films were realistic. The whole point of most action films is to provide unbelievable sequences that appear plausible. Certainly many 1980's action films failed this challenge and as a consequence I tended to avoid the Stallone, Arnie films for the most part. Die Hard got away with it and really it was this kind of action film that made the Bond films of the period look camp, dull and kitsch.

Someone with some spare time and critical acumen needs to do some thinking about all this but I would argue that a brilliant action film is almost as hard to make as a brilliant comedy. Both genres are tough to do well. For me Raiders of the Lost Ark (for instance) works incredibly well and feels plausible because of its sober tone and way it is filmed, while the later Indy films became less and less interesting and plausible, the tone became camp and knowing and the effects stupid.

What CGI has done for me is make scripts less interesting because much of the filmmaker's thinking seems to be based around the action choreography. And that action has become so OTT and ridiculous that it is very hard for me to connect with characters or story (such as they are). It's almost as if superhero films (to take one example) are just a form of ritualistic action choreography where the plot is incidental because the battle is everything.
 
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Messages
17,196
Location
New York City
"No Time for Comedy" 1940 with Jimmy Stewart, Rosalind Russell and Charles Ruggles
  • Stewart made several very good rom-com-like movies ("Made for Each Other," "Shop Around the Corner," "You Can't Take it with You" and others) around this time with this one being the weakest, but one still worth watching if for no other reason than the sniper-sharp performance of Ruth Hussey and the scene-stealing one of Charles Ruggles
  • Stewart plays a "hick" playwright who comes to NYC for the premier of his first produced play, marries the star - Russell - and then puts their marriage at risk after several subsequent and successful, but "unsatisfying to him" comedies has Stewart trying to be taken more seriously which propels him into the arms of a flighty patron with a feet-firmly-on-the-ground wealthy husband - Ruggles
  • It's pretty standard code-era screwballness saved by Russell's pitch-perfect delivery of one smart-and-funny line after another that are as good as any served up in the '30s, while Ruggles matches her dry delivery for dry deliver and wit for wit as these two put-upon rational spouses try to hold their marriages together while their respective spouses spin off into flights of fancy and "artistic" visions
  • That's pretty much it except for another outstanding performance by Louise Beavers given a chance to somewhat break out of the stereotypical "colored-maid" role she and many black actresses were, sadly, limited to at the time. Yes, she plays a made, but she - like Sam in "Casablanca -" is clearly smarter and more level headed in a crisis than her "boss" (Stewart) and even gets to say some crypto lines of racial protest (you need to see below the surface, but they are definitely there)
  • I'll watch this one again, not because it's great, but to see the outstanding performances of Russell, Ruggles and Beavers
 

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,206
Location
Troy, New York, USA
Jurassic World 2 I'll have to see again at some point; when I saw it in the cinema they switched off the air con halfway through and I fell asleep in the heat and missed most of the plot. Same thing happened with Black Panther - not a judgement on either film, just the sad fact that my body cannot cope with this insufferable heatwave.

As to JW 2 no you don't I mean need to see it again. Not worth it, stupid, silly.... garbage, rubbage, offal.... Did I mention it stinks?

Worf
 

HanauMan

Practically Family
Messages
809
Location
Inverness, Scotland
As a kid I enjoyed the DC Green Lantern comics so I watched the 2011 film of the same name last night on TV.

Big mistake. The plot was stupid and it seemed that it was just a (lame) excuse to throw in way too much CGI stuff. This happens every time I watch one of these Marvel / DC inspired films. Dumbed down plot lines and a mass of CGI. It always makes me wonder whether the people that make these films were ever actually fans of the source comics, or even if they had ever actually read one of them.
 
Messages
17,196
Location
New York City
"Disobedience" 2017 with Rachael Weisz and Rachael McAdams

Three former childhood friends, raised in an Orthodox Jewish community, reunite upon the death of one of the three's father. Of the three friends - two women and a man - years ago, one of the women moved away and gave up her religion while the other two married.

(Spoiler Alert) The two women are lesbians and had some shared sexual experiences as teenagers, but now, the married one hides her lesbianism from the Orthodox community (her husband kind of knows, but thinks it's behind her). The reunion brings all these old passions and conflicts to the surface.

This is an hour-and-half, at most, movie, stretched to almost two hours making it drag in spots. Also, it takes too long to get to its conflict and, then, after nodding appropriately at all of today's accepted ways to view the morals and values in question, chooses the least believable of the three possible resolutions.

The other challenge is that Rachael Weisz looks and is about ten years older than Rachael McAdams which is confusing at first as they are supposed to be childhood friends. Once you put that aside, you are left with an okay movie that plays it politically safe while going on too long.
 
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Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,078
Location
London, UK
Over the weekend I watched the Netflix production 1922, based on the Stephen King novella of the same name. Nicely done. Also watched the Will Ferrell Land of the Lost . It was fun enough, if forgettable. Lovely to hear dear Leonard Nimoy's voice again.
 

MisterCairo

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,005
Location
Gads Hill, Ontario
As to JW 2 no you don't I mean need to see it again. Not worth it, stupid, silly.... garbage, rubbage, offal.... Did I mention it stinks?

Worf

Is that the one where some people go to an island full of dinosaurs and then have to escape from the dinosaurs, being aware that on multiple prior occasions, people went to the island full of dinosaurs and found themselves having to escape from the dinosaurs?

Or am I confusing it with some other movie?
 
Messages
17,196
Location
New York City
"Loose Ankles" 1930 staring Loretta Young and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
  • Really early pre-code talkie still finding its technological way but fascinating for its modern feel as two young party girls don't care about what the adults / society say about them - they feel like modern "screw authority" teenagers
  • "Loose Ankles" seems to have been a term for sex in general, but (based on some web searching) also a description of wanton / "easy" woman - cool phrase
  • Loretta Young was seventeen when this was made and looks as if she was beamed in from a world of perfectly smooth, lit-from-behind glowing skin and incredibly lithe young women - life has not yet left One. Single. Mark. at seventeen.
 
Messages
12,734
Location
Northern California
Mission Impossible: Fallout
Not as entertaining as some of the previous in the series, but more entertaining than a lot of that we have seen at the theater. Some very well done action/fight scenes.
:D
 

Doctor Strange

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,246
Location
Hudson Valley, NY
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, a recent biopic about the last couple of years of actress Gloria Grahame in the late 1970s with Annette Bening. She gives an interesting performance, making no attempt to really look like Grahame, but she nails her vocal mannerisms quite well in places.

Alas, it's not as interesting as it sounds and I don't really recommend it unless you're a special fan of Grahame or Bening.
 

Doctor Strange

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,246
Location
Hudson Valley, NY
Victoria & Abdul, recent drama with Judi Dench about the last years of Queen Victoria. I'm usually a sucker for any period piece about British royalty, but despite an excellent cast this one just kind of laid there. Not recommended.
 

MisterCairo

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,005
Location
Gads Hill, Ontario
Victoria & Abdul, recent drama with Judi Dench about the last years of Queen Victoria. I'm usually a sucker for any period piece about British royalty, but despite an excellent cast this one just kind of laid there. Not recommended.

There are only so many "Mrs. Brown" type movies starring Judi Dench as good Queen Vic one can watch. Based on true events, granted, but the "ordinary dudes the Queen hung out with" genre of films is limited. And for good reason...
 

MisterCairo

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,005
Location
Gads Hill, Ontario
Just once, just once I'd like to see Judi Dench or Helen Mirren or Maggie Smith as a royal scullery maid.

Helen Mirren played a housekeeper in Gosford Park, and Maggie Smith was brilliantly lower middle class in A Private Function. And of course, Dame Judi was a secretarial supply firm owner in As Time Goes By. They've done some turns as normal.
 

Harp

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,508
Location
Chicago, IL US
A few weeks back it was Steve McQueen week on TCM and I PVR's them all. Slowly working my way through his body of work. Never was a huge fan but I have to admit in the right role he was very good. He certainly had a certain screen charisma.

The Cincinnati Kid and The Sand Pebbles are my favorite McQueen films. He had credibility as actor and as a man.
 

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