What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Worf]

"Guardians of the Galaxy" - Great movie and great fun. Sorry I missed this one on the big screen. I was done collecting comics when this crew came about but I was familiar with Dax and Gamora before from some of the Captain Marvell books. I'd heard that it was the highest grossing film last year and now I know why. Marvelous special effects, surprisingly good acting and laugh out loud funny at times. I enjoyed it way more'n I thought. Very reminiscent of "Firefly" even down the leather jackets!

Worf

 

[Zombie_61]

Being more'n passing familiar with the Burroughs novels I found the movie quite enjoyable. The film was a minor bust primarily because of poor marketing by Disney... why leave the word "Mars" out of the title? Why not sell it for the fantasy it is?

Worf

The most often repeated story was that Disney had done some research and determined movies with the word "Mars" in the title performed poorly at the box office, so they shortened the title to simply John Carter. Clearly they created their own poor box office performance by doing so, because people who were unfamiliar with Burroughs' novels and hadn't seen the trailers had no idea what the movie was about--with a title like "John Carter" it could just as easily have been about a store clerk in Des Moines who was going through a mid-life crisis. lol

 

[dh66]

Being more'n passing familiar with the Burroughs novels I found the movie quite enjoyable. The film was a minor bust primarily because of poor marketing by Disney... why leave the word "Mars" out of the title? Why not sell it for the fantasy it is?

Worf

The most often repeated story was that Disney had done some research and determined movies with the word "Mars" in the title performed poorly at the box office, so they shortened the title to simply John Carter. Clearly they created their own poor box office performance by doing so, because people who were unfamiliar with Burroughs' novels and hadn't seen the trailers had no idea what the movie was about--with a title like "John Carter" it could just as easily have been about a store clerk in Des Moines who was going through a mid-life crisis. lol

The John Carter books were some of my favorites as a young'un, and maybe the Disney did undermarket the film, but I also wonder how much of today's box office audience still know or even care about Burroughs' "other" hero. Heck, I don't even imagine the ape man would be that big of a draw these days. Last time he saw much real success, it was probably due more to Bo Derek's bosom.

 

[dh66]

Oh, and for what it's worth.....I really enjoyed John Carter. So did my kids, enough that my older boys were inspired to read the books.

And ANYTHING that inspires a kid to read is a good thing.

 

[Fading Fast]

You guys are encouraging me to give "John Carter" a try. Considering how little I think of most Hollywood blockbusters (I knew I had veered away from mainstream taste back when I hated "Titanic"), I shouldn't let a movie's failure at the box office influence me as much as it sometimes does.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Not having read any of the John Carter books - but having been aware of them since I joined the Science Fiction Book Club in 1969 - I was MASSIVELY underwhelmed by the film. Besides having a number of charisma-free actors in the lead roles, it just played like an awfully generic planetary romance. All of its major story beats have been done with more panache in everything from fifties comics and SF on to Star Wars, and beyond. Sure, I recognize that a lot of those tropes were originated by Burroughs in the Barsoom series, but that's a historical footnote to me... and unknown and uninteresting to today's much younger moviegoers.

Without going in already having affection for the characters and story, it was a weak film in a too-familiar genre. Not using Mars in the title was a mistake, and Disney's not having a major marketing campaign to educate the public about the story's primary importance in creating the modern SF film landscape was a stupidly missed opportunity. (*) I'm not surprised that it flopped.

(* How about TV spots with talking heads interspersed with the effects footage: Lucas, Spielberg, Cameron, Abrams, Stan Lee, George RR Martin, Neil Gaiman, etc., saying, "I loved Burrough's John Carter books... they were so imaginative and influential... when I started writing Avatar <or whatever>, I was hoping for the same sense of wondrous discovery in this new world that always blew me away with John Carter!"?)

 

[Zombie_61]

The John Carter books were some of my favorites as a young'un, and maybe the Disney did undermarket the film, but I also wonder how much of today's box office audience still know or even care about Burroughs' "other" hero. Heck, I don't even imagine the ape man would be that big of a draw these days. Last time he saw much real success, it was probably due more to Bo Derek's bosom.

Surely you're forgetting about Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and Disney's animated Tarzan (1999), both of which were released after the Bo Derek debacle and performed rather well at the box office.

I think the main problem with translating characters like John Carter and Tarzan from the written page to the silver screen is the filmmakers and not Burroughs' novels. Every one of these "artistes" think they have a better idea, so they start making changes to the characters and their backstories and we end up with action movies featuring a pretty guy with a laser gun shooting at three-eyed aliens, or some muscle-bound half-wit in a loincloth yodeling his way through a studio-backlot jungle. Even Greystoke, which to date is arguably the closest we've gotten to a faithful movie version of Burroughs' character, made John Clayton a Scottish Lord rather than an English Lord, and had him meeting Jane Porter after he'd been "rescued" from his jungle home and returned to civilization, both changes made for no good reason other than that's how the filmmakers wanted it. :eusa_doh: Note to filmmakers: There's a reason these characters and their stories have been so popular over the decades; if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[dh66]

Surely you're forgetting about Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and Disney's animated Tarzan (1999)............

I was trying my best

'Greystoke-the Legend of Tarzan' was,of course, far better than 'Tarzan, the Ape Man', but that's not really saying much. I grew up with the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies on Saturday morning t.v., so for better or for worse, that's my subconscious benchmark. The 80s revival versions were a bit like watching Johnny Depp nail the coffin shut on poor Jay Silverheels. (Maybe not quite that bad)
I think part of my enjoyment of 'John Carter' was that there were no bigger boots to fill. It was my first time to see it visualized. There was nothing for it to live up to.

 

[Worf]

"The Giant Behemoth" - TCM was on an all British SciFi kick yesterday and I caught this one. Halfway through it all it struck me that this movie was a complete retelling of an earlier film 1953's "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" , with a little bit of "Godzilla" thrown in for seasoning. Nooklear testing revives and irradiates some giant beasty from a bygone era. It wakes up kills fish, fishermen, ferry boats and proceeds to the nearest large city to stomp and irradiate and burn. In this instance London instead of New York or Tokyo! The only real twist is that Willis O'Brian, Ray Harryhausen's mentor does the special effects for this film, giving us that rare instance where the teacher emulates the pupil. Same ending, kill the radiation spewing monster with MORE radiation. Sheeeya! Is there no shame in the movie makin' business?

Worf

 

[jamespowers]

Surely you're forgetting about Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and Disney's animated Tarzan (1999), both of which were released after the Bo Derek debacle and performed rather well at the box office.

I think the main problem with translating characters like John Carter and Tarzan from the written page to the silver screen is the filmmakers and not Burroughs' novels. Every one of these "artistes" think they have a better idea, so they start making changes to the characters and their backstories and we end up with action movies featuring a pretty guy with a laser gun shooting at three-eyed aliens, or some muscle-bound half-wit in a loincloth yodeling his way through a studio-backlot jungle. Even Greystoke, which to date is arguably the closest we've gotten to a faithful movie version of Burroughs' character, made John Clayton a Scottish Lord rather than an English Lord, and had him meeting Jane Porter after he'd been "rescued" from his jungle home and returned to civilization, both changes made for no good reason other than that's how the filmmakers wanted it. :eusa_doh: Note to filmmakers: There's a reason these characters and their stories have been so popular over the decades; if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Filmmakers are always solutions looking for a problem.

 

[Fading Fast]

I caught ten minutes of "X - The Unknown" on TCM last night, but had to leave - looked like a very good mid-50s British Sci-Fi (done in that incredibly gorgeous British B&W of the era). Is anyone familiar with it / is it worth looking for when it comes on again?

 

[Black Dahlia]

I watched David Lynch's 'Lost Highway'
X
BD

 

[dh66]

I watched David Lynch's 'Lost Highway'
X
BD

Hard to go wrong with anything by David Lynch.

 

[Wally_Hood]

The Tunnel, aka The Transatlantic Tunnel (1935) with Richard Dix as the engineer who plans and oversees the construction of a tunnel from the US to the UK. Made in England by the Gaumont studios. The romantic back stories tend to be melodramatic, but the sets and effects are amazing; think of some of the visuals in Things to Come. Set somewhere in an indeterminate future, sort of 1940 plus a few years. Television phones are the size of juke boxes. George Arliss is the prime minister, and Walter Huston is the president. Well worth a watch.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Sitting thru a screening of "While We're Young," with the execrable Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, who used to be better than this. Directed by Noah Baumbach, a man who has made a long line of films in which I've wanted to punch every single character in the face.

 

[Haversack]

The past couple of nights I watched two movies from the '50s I had not seen before. One was The Sweet Smell of Success and the other was War and Peace.

TSSoS made me wonder if there was anything specific that Walter Winchell did to Burt Lancaster. I was also surprised to see that the director was Alexander Mackendrick, (better known for directing the Ealing comedies The Man in the White Suit, Whisky Galore, and The Ladykillers.) A great thing about the movie is that it was almost entirely shot on location.

I was pleasantly surprised by War and Peace. Although a Vista-Vision epic that is over 3 1/2 hours long, it held my interest. It had the essence of Tolstoy's characters and how they developed, and I enjoyed noting all that they got right in the costumes, sets, and history. The sound suffered as it was filmed silent and all sound added later in studio.

 

[cw3pa]

"The Wind and The Lion" (1975) on DVD. Good action movie.

 

[dh66]

Finally got around to looking at the last Hobbit movie. Glad I'm done with all that now.

 

[swanson_eyes]

Sadie Thompson. It was loooong, but I loved it, even if I had to read a screen. Gloria was fabulous. She didn't need words; she had a face.

 

[Fading Fast]

The past couple of nights I watched two movies from the '50s I had not seen before. One was The Sweet Smell of Success and the other was War and Peace.

TSSoS made me wonder if there was anything specific that Walter Winchell did to Burt Lancaster. I was also surprised to see that the director was Alexander Mackendrick, (better known for directing the Ealing comedies The Man in the White Suit, Whisky Galore, and The Ladykillers.) A great thing about the movie is that it was almost entirely shot on location.

I was pleasantly surprised by War and Peace. Although a Vista-Vision epic that is over 3 1/2 hours long, it held my interest. It had the essence of Tolstoy's characters and how they developed, and I enjoyed noting all that they got right in the costumes, sets, and history. The sound suffered as it was filmed silent and all sound added later in studio.

"The Sweet Smell of Success" has a modern feel to me - the rapid dialogue, location shooting (as you pointed out) and the characters' disillusionment and ensuing sarcasm all seem very today. It almost seems like a "next step" movie to "All About Eve" which also feels more modern than its time.

N.B Lizzie, I'm not sure how you really feel about the characters in Noah Baumbach's films.