What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[NotThePars]

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) dir. Peter Jackson

Watched this again for the first time in about 7-8 years as I’ve been rinsing the rubbish Middle Earth games.

Just a classic blockbuster isn’t it? Maybe the last truly great franchise. This movie warped my expectations of blockbusters in the same way (and in the same year!) as 9/11 did for the news. Feel deep for kids who have to settle for lazy garbage like the MCU when we got this and the sequels.

10/10

[Paul Kersey]

Escape from Alcatraz 

Clint Eastwood stars in this account of a real life escape bid from "The Rock".

This is probably the best prison movie going. It's dark, atmospheric, it oozes menace and has sparse dialogue. My only complaint is that, like many prison films, it protrays the prison staff as evil while glossing over the crimes committed by the prisoners. 

A very good film to watch late at night with the lights turned off.

9/10

[velo army]

On 22/09/2021 at 21:31, BFTD said:

I'll be seeing the new Bond film next weekend, and it just occurred to me that I've only seen Casino Royale of Daniel Craig's entries...even that was back when it first came out. Between that and the fact that BigFatTabbyBoy has apparently never seen a Bond film (), I figure it's probably time to work through them.

Casino Royale (DVD) - remembered this being good, but it was actually even better than that. A real stonking start for Daniel Craig, with a ripsnorting, snappy tale that reinvented the way the series and character are presented, without doing too much differently in the way of story. Funny to think about the outrage over the new Bond before the film was released, as Craig is excellent as the ice-cold assassin, giving the character a palpable sense that there's just something missing behind the eyes. A terrific thriller, full of tension and remarkably, properly funny.

Quantum of Solace (DVD) - and then we have to get what's generally agreed to be the worst out of the way. Craig is still on good form, and there's some lovely warm, vivid cinematography, but the story is mediocre, with a deeply underwhelming villain, and the revenge aspect was frankly done better in Licence to Kill. The film has a choppy feel to it, and it's quite easy to lose track of what's happening at any given point due to disinterest. The action scenes are also appallingly edited in that post-millennial blockbuster way, with perpetually shaking camera, constant cuts, and a general lack of coherent movement that leaves the audience only barely aware of what's taking place.

It has its moments though, and the performances are again better than you'd likely expect from the Bond franchise, with the returning Judi Dench and Jeffrey Wright standing out in their brief time onscreen. Overall, though, it's about as forgettable as any of the prior films.

Had to twist BFTB's arm to watch these, as he'd no interest in Bond whatsoever, but he's quite keen to see Skyfall now so I think we have a convert.

I loved Skyfall. Don't let him watch Spectre though. That was worse than QoS (which I actually liked as a slow burning piece of continuity) and is one of the laziest Bond films out there. Game of Thrones levels of incompetence.

On the subject of Bond, I watched Goldfinger recently and there are parts of that which are simply awful. The "seduction" of Pussy Galore is basically sexual assault. I cringed hard at that. And the final fight between Bond and Odd-job is laughably bad. It reminded me of the fight between the two male leads in Bridget Jones' diary. 

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, velo army said:

On the subject of Bond, I watched Goldfinger recently and there are parts of that which are simply awful. The "seduction" of Pussy Galore is basically sexual assault. I cringed hard at that. And the final fight between Bond and Odd-job is laughably bad. It reminded me of the fight between the two male leads in Bridget Jones' diary. 

There's a lot of moaning about "woke Bond" at the moment, before the new film has even come out, and I noticed Goldfinger's barn scene is cited as an example of something that the woke mafia would never allow these days.

Obviously Bond has always been a superhero fantasy for men, but you do have to wonder why some men are outraged that it no longer includes the whole "no means yes" fallacy instead of, say, women actively pursuing a shag from Bond because he's just so cool and handsome, and all that jazz.

[Shandon Par]

Big congratulations to the set designers who created Skyfall house/castle or whatever it was. Half-expected Austin Powers to turn up and say to the viewer “isn’t it remarkable how little a cardboard mock Tudor mansion on a moor in England looks like a Scottish castle?”.

[BFTD]

Jaws (cinema) - an innocent shark is accused of murder after a young woman is killed by a rogue bunch of crabs on the New England shoreline.

Really enjoying seeing classic films on the big screen at the moment. Jaws was my favourite film as a wee boy, and the same goes for my son, so a good time was had by all. What I didn't expect was how involving it was, despite having seen it literally dozens of times in the house, and I was so wrapped up in the story that I'd forgotten about Quint's fate until it was actually happening, and it was every bit as unpleasant as the first time round. It really can't be overstated quite how good that film is; an absolute masterpiece of tension.

There's just no comparison between watching these films at home or in the cinema, by the way.

[scottsdad]

Very jealous of @BFTD - if I had known it was on at the cinema, I would have taken the wife and son. They are big Jaws fans - Scott memorised the Indianapolis speech for his Nat 5 in Drama.

Here's reverse Jaws...

[sfha]

On 23/09/2021 at 14:37, scottsdad said:

Doctor Strange (2016) 3/10

Feeble superhero movie. Cumberbatch spends the first half of the film acting like House, even sounding like him in places. Then overnight he's got amazing magical powers. Pisspoor story. Loads of CGI and Mads Mikkelsen cannot save this. 

I never liked Dr Strange in the comics and was surprised they made a film of it.

[sfha]

5 hours ago, BFTD said:

Jaws (cinema) - It really can't be overstated quite how good that film is; an absolute masterpiece of tension.

^^^^

My dad took the whole family to see this in the pictures in 1975 and, unknown to us, we walked in half way through it. Just as well at that time you would just stay in your seat at the end and watch it over again!

 

 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

18 hours ago, Shandon Par said:

Big congratulations to the set designers who created Skyfall house/castle or whatever it was. Half-expected Austin Powers to turn up and say to the viewer “isn’t it remarkable how little a cardboard mock Tudor mansion on a moor in England looks like a Scottish castle?”.

Is that you turning up to price the exterior paint job?

[BFTD]

2 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Very jealous of @BFTD - if I had known it was on at the cinema, I would have taken the wife and son. They are big Jaws fans - Scott memorised the Indianapolis speech for his Nat 5 in Drama.

Here's reverse Jaws...

Keep an eye on the listings at the Stirling Vue - they're still showing a fair number of old films right now.

I had to take the wean to an appointment in Stirling during one of the brief gaps between lockdowns, and noticed that they were still open - literally all they were showing were classics, and I was raging that I had other things to do and wouldn't have an excuse to travel to Stirling again for a while. That day alone, they were showing Alien, Aliens, Predator, The Silence of the Lambs, and a bunch of other stuff. Could've spent the day there.

Edit: it's on again in three hours  

Edited September 27, 2021 by BFTD

[Archie McSquackle]

LA Confidential - I'd forgotten just how great a film this is with marvellous performances all round.

[Shandon Par]

36 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Is that you turning up to price the exterior paint job?

Yeah, in my sister in law’s Aston Martin. She seemed to be blessed with more brains than her sister/my wife. 
 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

20 minutes ago, Shandon Par said:

Yeah, in my sister in law’s Aston Martin. She seemed to be blessed with more brains than her sister/my wife. 
 

Based on your stories, that’s not difficult.

[Arch Stanton]

45 minutes ago, Archie McSquackle said:

LA Confidential - I'd forgotten just how great a film this is with marvellous performances all round.

Robbed at the Oscars by Titanic.

[8MileBU]

Oasis: Knebworth 1996

10/10 just for the sheer nostalgia.

[Archie McSquackle]

Robbed at the Oscars by Titanic.

There is no comparison.

[Mark Connolly]

7 minutes ago, Archie McSquackle said:

2 hours ago, Arch Stanton said:

Robbed at the Oscars by Titanic.

There is no comparison.

Correct.

Have you ever seen a goal clip set to the music from LA Confidential?

[moniton]

Saw " The Many Saints of Newark" on Sunday night, good addition to the Sopranos story. Only gripe would be that the New Jersey police didn't seem interested in the various murders/running gun battles in the street. Still a solid 7/10 and it was good to be back in the cinema.

[NotThePars]

Two middle of the decade blockbusters today.

Godzilla (2014) dir. Gareth Edwards

I get the criticisms of this but I completely disagree. Rewatching it again on a bigger screen and a good soundsystem made me appreciate the scale Edwards conveys and the restraint he shows towards showing the monsters. The last 20 minutes are a joy that wouldn't have happened if he'd went gung-ho much earlier. That's before you get to scenes like the HALO jump which is class.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) dir. George Miller

Nothing I can say that hasn't been said a million times before. Amazing cinematography and use of colour that looks even better in crisp 45 Ultra HD. The movie's also amazing at worldbuilding without overly expositional dialogue. You get the sense of this post-apocalyptic wasteland and how the elites come to control it in a few scenes without anyone really devoting much time to telling you. All the while it's great fun from start to finish and clearly effectively storeboarded and not CGI'd out of its nut like so many of its peers.