Let's have a films thread.

[sphericalfox]

Watched the Evil Dead remake last night. Truly one of the most pointless movies I have seen in a very long time. Humourless, drab, not frightening, no shocks, and no sense of proper tension. Plenty of gore, and blood if that's your thing. Why Raimi produced this, other than a cash in, is beyond me.

[rico]

Watched The Place Beyond The Pines, a bit long but Ryan Gosling was great in this,similar character to his part in Drive

[FoxesAreBlue]

Watching a film called Trapped on Sony. All was going find and half believable until the stalling and restart of a light aircraft and then landing it on a busy freeway.

Phoe Booth is on next.

I haven't seen the film but it is very possible to stall a light aircraft engine and restart mid flight - I've don't it myself when I had lessons. You an also stall the wings and recover from that too.

As for landing on a road. Easy, a small light plane can land and stop within a very short distance, pilots land on road in emergencies all the time.

[Rincewind]

Fair enogh. The stalling was done twice second time pilot blacked out corrected the plane just in time. The mptorway landing also involved trucks exploding crashes and no injuries. Just thought it a little OTT. Made a good action sequence though.

 

Didn't mind Phone Booth I could believe that more.

[Leicesterpool]

Just got back from the odeon, went to see The Worlds End. Going into this i was quite looking forward to this as to be honest it's been a poor year of movies for 2013. This is actually first time the year i've actually been to the cinema the last time i went was back november to see Skyfall. Normally by this time i would already have seen a couple of flicks. But like i say it's been a dull year and next year is looking bleak, but has anybody seen the list for the amount movies coming out in 2015!

 

Anyway on the movie itself, erm... well i wouldn't say it's as good as Hot Fuzz and Shaun Of The Dead. For me i think the movie really did stretch, it was on for two hours! and this suppose to be a comedy normally you find a good comedy will only be on 90 minutes. (though saying that, both hot fuzz and Shaun was two hours long! and yeah maybe there was about that final 20 minutes of Shaun that really streched) Worlds End is pretty much similar in plot wise aswell. The movie at first takes a good slow place, building up the characters nice and slowly that is good. We then get to the middle part of film, which does move at the right pace, though at times i feel one or two of dialogue goes on a bit long. By the time the movie gets to the final act, really starts for me to get that little bit stretched and even boring.

 

I found the jokes more slapstick i don't recall many funny one liners. The plot like i said is pretty simliar to Shaun Of The Dead, with that little bit extra but that little extra i found complicated the film a bit more and cause of that i found it lost its comic edge.

 

Okay i'd say its a good movie to go and see if your at home and bored and wanna do something. It's not quite a movie, where you can do other things and make plans around to go and see it. The film is okay but not great and dare i say it disappointing. 

 

EDITED: For all you Jennifer Aniston fans there was trailer for a movie where she plays a stripper, and she looked WOW hot!

Edited 23 July 2013 by Leicesterpool

[21st Century Fox]

[rico]

 

looks good.also liked the directors other film, The Children of Men

[Ozwin]

How is Once Upon a Time in America not more highly spoken of?

 

Maybe it is and I've just been oblivious to it all but my god, what a movie.

[purpleronnie]

How is Once Upon a Time in America not more highly spoken of?

 

Maybe it is and I've just been oblivious to it all but my god, what a movie.

My dad's favourite film. 

[Tielemans63]

How is Once Upon a Time in America not more highly spoken of?

 

Maybe it is and I've just been oblivious to it all but my god, what a movie.

 

It is a brilliant film - I would highly recommend any Sergio Leone film, the guy was a genius. A Fistful of Dollars, The Good the Bad and the Ugly,  Once Upon a Time in the West - all top-notch films.

 

I think OUATIA gets a bad wrap because (If I remember correctly) it's about 4 hours long and very intense - it wasn't 'typical' box office material if you like.

Edited 24 July 2013 by Paddy Akinbiyi

[Orange seat]

Been twice in the last week or so. Firstly to see Dispicable me 2 with the kids, then The Worlds End with the mrs.

Dare I say it but I enjoyed Dispicable more!! Worlds End is not a patch on Shaun or Hot Fuzz. Seemed strange Simon Pegg not playing the straight guy this time

[Ozwin]

Went to see Despicable Me 2 last night actually, was a laugh. It's nice to go see a film and not have to think about anything, just mindless fun. Plus the minions man, where can I get me one of those?

[21st Century Fox]

How is Once Upon a Time in America not more highly spoken of?

 

Maybe it is and I've just been oblivious to it all but my god, what a movie.

 

It is a brilliant film - I would highly recommend any Sergio Leone film, the guy was a genius. A Fistful of Dollars, The Good the Bad and the Ugly,  Once Upon a Time in the West - all top-notch films.

 

I think OUATIA gets a bad wrap because (If I remember correctly) it's about 4 hours long and very intense - it wasn't 'typical' box office material if you like.

 

Yeah the length definitely has a lot to do with how underrated it is. There are quite a few different length cuts of it that float around which never helps. It also probably didn't help that the protagonist was a rapist. I remember reading about an idea Leone had for the opening that would've been absolutely immense if he's been able to do it, with different cars from the different eras showing the transition of time.

[Tielemans63]

Yeah the length definitely has a lot to do with how underrated it is. There are quite a few different length cuts of it that float around which never helps. It also probably didn't help that the protagonist was a rapist. I remember reading about an idea Leone had for the opening that would've been absolutely immense if he's been able to do it, with different cars from the different eras showing the transition of time.

How come he wasn't able to do it? That's a shame as it would have been iconic no doubt. I think Leone is denied the credit he deserves sometimes as a lot of his early films were made very much in the style of Akira Kurosawa films. By the time he made OUATIA he'd made some brilliantly stylish films and IMHO is up there with the stand-out auteurs.

Edited 24 July 2013 by Paddy Akinbiyi

[21st Century Fox]

How come he wasn't able to do it? That's a shame as it would have been iconic no doubt. I think Leone is denied the credit he deserves sometimes as a lot of his early films were made very much in the style of Akira Kurosawa films. By the time he made OUATIA he'd made some brilliantly stylish films and IMHO is up there with the stand-out auteurs.

 

I think it was too expensive and too complex for the time. (I'm pretty sure it got ripped off and done by someone else later on for another film). Yeah definitely, A Fistful of Dollars is just Yojimbo with cowboys and he's massively underrated probably because he's synonymous with Spaghetti Westerns, which as a genre were seen as quite trashy at the time. If only he'd lived a couple of years longer he would've made his film about the siege of Leningrad, the mind boggles at how epic that would've been. It's funny you should mention that, I once had to write a massive essay on the evidence for Leone to be considered an auteur (Probably one of the most bearable essays I ever had to write).

Edited 24 July 2013 by 21st Century Fox

[Kitchandro]

How is Once Upon a Time in America not more highly spoken of?

 

Maybe it is and I've just been oblivious to it all but my god, what a movie.

 

I was going to say it's the most underrated film I've ever seen but that's not right because everyone who has seen it thinks it's great, it's just that not many people have seen it. I think I've seen it 3 times now and I like it more every time. It's in my top 10, maybe top 5 films of all time. And I really wish I could play the flute everytime I watch it.

 

The length is off putting for quite a lot of people (and also a lot of people say how complicated it is, but I didn't find it that tricky to follow myself). But one of the main reasons its not more famous is because if I'm not mistaken the 4 hour version is very rare in the US, and the one that was released in the 80s was the much shortened, chronological version which was widely panned by critics and even Leone himself.

 

What do people think about the end? I think Leone said he always wanted it to be ambiguous, some people get pretty irate if you suggest things aren't quite what they seem, but I like the idea that a lot of it was drug induced and connected to his guilt. It gives it a deeper meaning IMO, especially the last scene, which makes more sense if you look at it that way and just seems a bit odd if you take things at face value. No matter what way you look at it the story has small unexplained holes, which I think were intentional for the very reason of it being purposefully ambiguous.

 

Once Upon a Time In America is a bit of a contrast to his Westerns IMO; I think The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is quite overrated (another amazing soundtrack though). A Fistful of Dollars wasn't brilliant either but was the better of the two. I haven't seen the other one.

[Tielemans63]

I think it was too expensive and too complex for the time. (I'm pretty sure it got ripped off and done by someone else later on for another film). Yeah definitely, A Fistful of Dollars is just Yojimbo with cowboys and he's massively underrated probably because he's synonymous with Spaghetti Westerns, which as a genre were seen as quite trashy at the time. If only he'd lived a couple of years longer he would've made his film about the siege of Leningrad, the mind boggles at how epic that would've been. It's funny you should mention that, I once had to write a massive essay on the evidence for Leone to be considered an auteur (Probably one of the most bearable essays I ever had to write).

Nice, I wrote a similar essay for in my first year at Uni too some time ago now. You're absolutely right - the genre was largely derided especially by American critics who were particularly dismissive of the value of films made in the image of an iconic American genre. My knowledge of classic westerns is quite vague but from what I have seen many of the spaghetti westerns were much better films.

As you say a great director but he's not easily categorised as an auteur as he only made about 7 or 8 films in a 30 year career.

[21st Century Fox]

Nice, I wrote a similar essay for in my first year at Uni too some time ago now. You're absolutely right - the genre was largely derided especially by American critics who were particularly dismissive of the value of films made in the image of an iconic American genre. My knowledge of classic westerns is quite vague but from what I have seen many of the spaghetti westerns were much better films.

As you say a great director but he's not easily categorised as an auteur as he only made about 7 or 8 films in a 30 year career.

 

Yeah the Spaghetti films seem a lot closer to what you can imagine the West to be. It was unfortunate for him that he got tarred with the same brush as the other European (especially Italian) films that used to get made where they had one "major" American star in a largely dubbed Italian cast, to sell it to the U.S. market but they'd invariably be poorly made imitations of Hollywood films (especially Sword & Sandal epics). 

The classic westerns were very black and white, good and bad but the Spaghetti westerns had more shades of grey. The Man With No Name was more of an anti-hero, he was a bit of a c**t and in for his own gain instead of being an allegorical, representation of American ideals like Gary Cooper. (Though funnily he flipped that around when had Henry Fonda play the bad guy in OUATITW).

 

I think that was why it ended up as such a long essay   I vaguely remember on of my points was that his films employ very operatic characteristics, especially in a film like Once Upon a Time in The West where each character has their own theme when they're on screen, as an opera singer would on stage and the themes mix with each other to match with events that are happening. (Morricone's Man With a Harmonica   ).

Edited 24 July 2013 by 21st Century Fox

[Ozwin]

Loved the ending, I don't know how you can think much, if any of the future actually happened after it. The future seemed so surreal, I thought it when it was happening, it just seemed off, the actress seemingly over the worst possible thing that could happen to a woman, Max finding him and giving him clean revenge for what he'd done, it just didn't seem right to me. Must have been a guilt induced dream or episode which is suggested in one scene when it's mentioned that he was found 'doped out of his mind.' But then it could all have happened, I guess we'll never know for sure.

Unreal movie though, nigh on 4 hours, so glad I stuck with it.

[Kitchandro]

Loved the ending, I don't know how you can think much, if any of the future actually happened after it. The future seemed so surreal, I thought it when it was happening, it just seemed off, the actress seemingly over the worst possible thing that could happen to a woman, Max finding him and giving him clean revenge for what he'd done, it just didn't seem right to me. Must have been a guilt induced dream or episode which is suggested in one scene when it's mentioned that he was found 'doped out of his mind.' But then it could all have happened, I guess we'll never know for sure.

Unreal movie though, nigh on 4 hours, so glad I stuck with it.

 

The main reason I think it's a dream is I can't see any other reason for it to go back to that scene at the end. Then I put other things together like the things you mention. Also Max's son looking exactly like him (obviously it's the same actor). The smile at the end to me signifies that in his dream/imagination he had made peace with himself and the things he'd done, because in the story he's created he's had his guilt removed, at least to the biggest extent he could imagine.

Edited 25 July 2013 by Kitchandro

[The Quick Brown Fox]

Has anyone seen Gladiator? The boxing one, not the Russell Crowe one. I thought it was a decent film, haven't seen it for years and nobody I speak to has seen it.

[MikeyT]

How is Once Upon a Time in America not more highly spoken of?

 

Maybe it is and I've just been oblivious to it all but my god, what a movie.

In my top 5 films of all time. Brilliant. 

Has anyone seen Gladiator? The boxing one, not the Russell Crowe one. I thought it was a decent film, haven't seen it for years and nobody I speak to has seen it.

The one with a young Cuba Gooding Jr. in it? Yes seen it, nut not for a long time. 

[Tielemans63]

I remember reading about an idea Leone had for the opening that would've been absolutely immense if he's been able to do it, with different cars from the different eras showing the transition of time.

Was reading an article about Leone this morning - never knew he was first choice to direct The Godfather but turned it down as he felt it glorified the mafia too much for his liking. He was also planning to do a re-make of Gone With the Wind but died whilst it was in the planning stages.

Leone aside, I've got 5 weeks off now so going to re-watch some of my old DVDs. Going to make my way through the This is Shane Meadows box set this week and then through a Coen Brothers collection I only got halfway through after that. Absolute bliss!

Edited 25 July 2013 by Paddy Akinbiyi

[rico]

Dirty Pretty Things, very good drama about illegal immigrants in London

[The Quick Brown Fox]

In my top 5 films of all time. Brilliant.

The one with a young Cuba Gooding Jr. in it? Yes seen it, nut not for a long time.

Yeah that's the one, what did you think? I enjoyed it and thought it was well worth a watch.