Last movie watched...

[Mabs]

Watched a lot of stuff over Christmas, mainly I finally got round to seeing:

The Godfather and The Godfather Part Two

Thanks Christmas, when else does one get to it down and actually watch two 3-hours+ movies?

Surprised that so many people claim the second one is better than the first - while I thoroughly enjoyed the first, I thought the sequel was patience-testingly long-winded and meandering, and at times almost soap opera-like (the 'abortion' scene was cringe-inducingly awful). I liked the Vito flashbacks but felt that the Michael 'present day' scenes were overlong, convoluted and didn't really tell us anything about the character we didn't already know.

I know these films are held up by many as timeless classics - or sacred cows even, but to be honest I didn't love either of them. I found both films a little cold and detached, and there was too much plot and not enough story if that makes any sense. So much of the films are 'who is trying to attack the Corleones/lets get them before they get us' that I feel we didn't really get to actually know any of the characters very well, or understand the structure of the family or the way of life. Michael's descent from war hero to Mafioso feels rushed and unearned. There is also a general lack of focus - and so many minor characters that it's easy to lose track of who's who.

I certainly won't be watching Part 3, which sounds godawful.

In any case, I think Goodfellas and City of God remain my definitive Gangster movies - films that really zip along with a manic energy, are endlessly rewatchable and really sell the attraction and allure of the gangster lifestyle.

For me, the abortion scene far from being cringeworthy, is one of the most powerful scenes in Part 2. It mirrors the scene in Part 1 when Michael commits murder for the first time, you can see the rage building up on his face until he errupts like a firework. A moment of earth shattering force - and you cannot take your eyes off Pacino for an instance.

The Godfather films still remain some of my favourite films from the 70's. It's not only a great gangster epic, but a great piece of family drama as a whole. Not to mention the tragedy of Michael Corleone himself, the son who finds himself taking sole responsibility of his family. And by the end of Part 2 when the camera pans in, we find him sitting there isolated, eyes heavy, he is almost a broken man as he has sacrificed his soul losing his wife and brother, casualties in his war for power.

Part 2 is indeed long, but it's best to watch the film with breaks in between. Is Part 2 better than Part 1? I can't say as I love both. But one of my favourite moments in the sequel  are the flashback scenes with De Niro. There's an almost poetic sepia toned dreamy feel to them, showing the rise of the Godfather from a young boy in Sicily to a business man in America. The ruthless streak he had to inherit from past experiences and for the protection of his family.

I find the films fascinating, there's a timeless feel to them (well Parts 1 & 2 at least). Even Part 3 does have its moments but is nowhere near as good as the first two films.

[Mardroid]

Watchmen The Director's Cut.

On Blu-Ray it looked lovely. There were even scenes at the start which had a 3-D appeal to them, even though I was not watching it in 3-D.

The sound though... the volume for speech was way too low. I've often found this with DVDs in the past but it's something I particularly  noticed this time. I had to turn the volume up much higher than normal.

Film itself: I've always liked the film, and I like this. From what I see most of the extra footage doesn't really add anything to the original though, although it was interesting enough to see. [spoiler] Laurie beating up that police officer and escaping their custody for example. Okay, I see the logic of why they'd wish to keep her, and why she'd fight to leave, but there wasn't any effort for them to chase her down later, as you'd think there'd be.[/spoiler]

Much of the extra stuff was something that would have been best kept as interesting snippets in 'deleted scenes'.

The one scene that I am very glad they included was [spoiler]the first Nite-Owl's final battle/death scene. Switching between the present day gangsters and the old super-villains, and showing that even aged and outnumbered, he can still put up a good fight. It worked really well. [/spoiler]

I generally like Director's Cuts, but, while this is no exception, I'd see the original as the definitive version that works best. (With perhaps the addition of the[spoiler] first Nite-Owl death scene[/spoiler] that I mentioned above.) Not to the extent that I'm going to hunt down the original and buy it on top of this. I'm happy enough with this.

I'm kinda glad I didn't go with my original plan and buy the even longer version with the pirate stuff, although I wish it had been included as an extra.

As for Troll-Hunter, mentioned above, I watched the rest. Another good-un,[spoiler] although it ended rather oddly.[/spoiler] I really liked the troll designs.

Interesting to see that they kept with the ultra-violet light/sunlight turning them into stone, concept that we see in The Hobbit. (It's mentioned in LotR too, but less of a factor there.) I'd never come across the sunlight thing outside of Tolkien's books, although I guess he must have gotten it from the old legends too.

[radiator]

For me, the abortion scene far from being cringeworthy, is one of the most powerful scenes in Part 2. It mirrors the scene in Part 1 when Michael commits murder for the first time, you can see the rage building up on his face until he errupts like a firework. A moment of earth shattering force - and you cannot take your eyes off Pacino for an instance.

For me it seemed far-fetched (and Kay seemed to really hate Michael all of a sudden in a way that didn't feel fleshed-out) and the scene played out like something from an American soap opera.

But one of my favourite moments in the sequel  are the flashback scenes with De Niro. There's an almost poetic sepia toned dreamy feel to them

Agreed - they're visually astonishing and really quite sumptuous from a production design point of view. However overall I found the Vito scenes too brief as they were more interesting than the present day stuff, and I had a similar problem that I had with Michael's arc - Vito just one day decides to become a murderer and criminal. Up until that point he's a pretty nice guy. I'd liked to have seen more development of Michael's relationship with Vito - AFAIK they only had a handful of scenes together.

[TordelBack]

Excalibur (1981)
Utterly - perhaps profoundly - ridiculous. Visually very interesting ... Definitely interesting, but not particularly absorbing.

It's a bit of a mess but then it has occasional bits like this in it which, if you can stomach the cheese and the Python doesn't get you, are oddly magnificent magnificently odd. Just watch Percival's continuing obeisance.

Mmmm, as I may have mentioned a mere ten times before, I've been in love with this film since we stumbled across a location shoot in Wicklow when I was 9 or 10, and we got to try on helmets and play with swords.  Despite its inappropriate high-medieval trappings and bizarre deliveries, it's a deeply mystical and mythical vision of the Arthur story, and I'd take it over any other filmic version. Yes, it's a cumbersome foolish thing, but aren't we all?

[pictsy]

Excalibur is an awesome film.  I was mesmerised by it the first time I saw it and it is far and away the best Arthurian adaptation I have seen.  I love how it went about telling its story, the acting, the sets and costumes and the ideas.  Plus it's more than a little odd, which I like.

The last film I saw was Carry On Sergeant with Doctor Who and Bob Monkhouse.  The first Carry On film (or so I'm told) is different to the later Carry On films that I am more familiar with.  I only watched it because my eldest brother was aghast to discover that his under graduate students of up to 23 years of age have no idea what Carry On films are and I happened to mention that I hadn't seen the first of them.  Still, I also mentioned I had never played AD&D (or any dice based group role playing game) and he organised a game - it was awesome, I killed a Worg almost single handedly with my Cleric and got us barred from the tavern.

[radiator]

Also rewatched Donnie Darko for the first time since it came out on DVD 11(!!!) years ago.

Thoughts on it haven't changed much since then, really. Lots of stuff to like and a nice tone of humour, but otherwise fairly overrated and a bit pretentious. IMHO tries a bit too hard for cult status.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

TB & Pictsy - the whole reason I watched it is because my other half is a giiiiaannt fan of how silly it is. I can certainly see myself coming 'round to it - not enough films are made in these times that:

a) Show off how beautiful Ireland is (although GoT does some of that)
b) Are basically batnads insane.

Also I found out that a film studio are making a doc about it due out this year:



http://www.mhp-films.com/

[GrinningChimera]

In any case, I think Goodfellas and City of God remain my definitive Gangster movies - films that really zip along with a manic energy, are endlessly rewatchable and really sell the attraction and allure of the gangster lifestyle.

Have you seen Once Upon A Time In America? Personally, as far as definitive goes, that is it.

Last movie watched by me was Apocalypse Now. The best war movie of all time ever. The whole movie just feels like a downward spiral from the start. Which is saying a lot since it starts in a pretty dark place. There is nothing glamorous about anything that happens. I remember having a discussion at school with another kid in my class about the ending (mostly on if the cow was real). I'm pretty sure we both agreed it was. This was back in the days before Wikipedia (I don't think Google was even on the radar at the time)

Anyone who has not seen this, go out and get it. You can pick it up for next to nothing these days. 9.5/10

[Mabs]

In any case, I think Goodfellas and City of God remain my definitive Gangster movies - films that really zip along with a manic energy, are endlessly rewatchable and really sell the attraction and allure of the gangster lifestyle.

Have you seen Once Upon A Time In America? Personally, as far as definitive goes, that is it.

Last movie watched by me was Apocalypse Now. The best war movie of all time ever. The whole movie just feels like a downward spiral from the start. Which is saying a lot since it starts in a pretty dark place. There is nothing glamorous about anything that happens. I remember having a discussion at school with another kid in my class about the ending (mostly on if the cow was real). I'm pretty sure we both agreed it was. This was back in the days before Wikipedia (I don't think Google was even on the radar at the time)

Anyone who has not seen this, go out and get it. You can pick it up for next to nothing these days. 9.5/10

Once upon a time in America is a fucking masterpiece and a fitting last film from Sergio Leone. The film can be seen as a dream of sorts from Noodles (De Niro) as we see him reminiscing about childhood through opium induced daze. Even the scenes of him as an older world weary person. The thing I love about the film is the fact you can draw so many conclusions from watching it. For me it is about lost dreams, choices and memories. And the music by Morricone is majestic, I mean, wow. I love that moment when we see  De Niro at the train station and Morricone's spine tingling music appears as he gazes at a picture. And then we cut to that song from The Beatles and an older looking De Niro.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgGqdAAyJSQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Awesome.

[Professor Bear]

A couple of quaint B-movie "classics":

Carry On At Your Convenience.  This is one of the series that I have an inordinate and irrational soft spot for, despite it being the film that directly targets the British working class as the butt of jokes rather than everyone else in the world ever, as is usual for the franchise, and it was a decision that cost the makers in the long run as this remains the biggest flop of the Carry On series as an increasingly-unionised British working class that comprised the series' main audience stayed away in droves when it was released in cinemas, but it's also one of the purest in the series as it's about a bloke called Boggs who owns a toilet factory in which Sid James works THE END.  This fucker wrote itself, really.
It may surprise those who have not seen it that this film is complete and utter horseshit, but as I say, at some point nostalgia takes over and it just washes over you regardless of the quality.  I suspect this plays a great part in lingering feels for the Carry On series for people in general, as some of it is just offensive to my modern eyes.

Damnation Alley - in which I suspect George Peppard was playing himself, if stories about his conduct on the set of The A-Team are any indicator.  A weekend matinee romp about some honkeys in a van taking a Sunday drive across post-apocalyptic America to Albany because the people there are so closely situated to 1970s NYC that their quality of life has not actually taken any significant nosedive since doomsday beyond that guidos have stopped coming there for stag nights so if anything things have started looking up for the place, there's a black fellow who insanely decides to come along for this ride so clearly he has never seen any kind of genre fiction in his life and he lasts roughly 30 minutes, also the radiation seems to have dissipated entirely so they stop off in New Vegas to pick up a bird who is for some reason not dead, then they meet some cannibals and then it just ends.
It's a deeply flawed film whose narrative meanders and never seems to have any clear focus despite there being plenty of things going on that could float any number of interesting character conflicts, the most obvious being Peppard/Vincent's personality clashes, though I'd have settled for just a plain old clear and present outside threat like some pursuing cannibals or even The Cursed Earth's idea of a ticking clock/errand of mercy for the crew that forces them to gel on a mission.  As it is, it just feels like the film is cruising along and happy to get wherever it's going when it gets there, which gives it an easygoing charm that lends it to episodic viewing or to watching late at night if you want to just have something on until you nod off.

[Ghost MacRoth]

(mostly on if the cow was real).

Yup.  I believe in order to get round the animal protection aspect, they simply went to the festival, where they planned to sacrifice a cow anyway, filmed it, and edited it in.

[JamesC]

A couple of quaint B-movie "classics":

Carry On At Your Convenience.  This is one of the series that I have an inordinate and irrational soft spot for, despite it being the film that directly targets the British working class as the butt of jokes rather than everyone else in the world ever, as is usual for the franchise, and it was a decision that cost the makers in the long run as this remains the biggest flop of the Carry On series as an increasingly-unionised British working class that comprised the series' main audience stayed away in droves when it was released in cinemas, but it's also one of the purest in the series as it's about a bloke called Boggs who owns a toilet factory in which Sid James works THE END.  This fucker wrote itself, really.
It may surprise those who have not seen it that this film is complete and utter horseshit, but as I say, at some point nostalgia takes over and it just washes over you regardless of the quality.  I suspect this plays a great part in lingering feels for the Carry On series for people in general, as some of it is just offensive to my modern eyes.

You forgot to mention the sub plot about the Canary that picks winning horses!

And is this the first in the series in which Joan Simms goes from crumpet to nagging wife?

[Spikes]

Carry On At Your Convenience.
It may surprise those who have not seen it that this film is complete and utter horseshit 

How very dare you, Sir! Its a bona fide masterpiece!

But seriously, I also have a huge soft spot for the Carry On films of this era. Looking to my right, I can spy at least 17 of 'em sat on my DVD shelf.

[Link Prime]

The Matrix Reloaded, just finished a few mins ago on ITV4.
Haven't seen it in almost a decade, and wasn't intending on watching it. Flicked around at first, but found myself glued once the 1st Agent Smith fight scene kicked off.

I'm amazed how polished it still looks- it's 11 years old this year after all. Some jaw dropping effects and set-pieces, in Particular the scene with Neo flying so fast he's almost warping 'reality' in his wake, and the continual duplication of Hugo Weaving, which is just, well, seamless.
Such a strange, strange film- a wealth of ideas, walking a razor edge of ingenuity and absurdity.
For me this is one of those genre tragedies of 'what could have been', the conclusion had the potential to be absolutely mind blowing.

"Something's different. I can feel them". One of the closing movie quotes that should send goosebumps up your arm.
But knowing what comes next makes makes you wrinkle your nose instead.

[HdE]

Spent an evening in watching DVDs / blu rays with the old man. Am now in that horrible 'too bleary eyed to function properly - too spngey headed to sleep' zone.

But, I can at least recommend 'Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists' as a genuine bona fide rip-roaring 90 minutes of unadulterated entertainment. Three quid at Sainsbury's - arguably the best use I've put my wages to all year! Real laugh-a minute stuff, crammed to bursting with sight gags, belly-laugh inducing jokes and fantastic stop clay-o-vision animation from Aardman. They really don't make enough movies of this sort of quality. Brilliant stuff.

Followed this up with G.I. Joe (don't ask - suffice to say, when the old man gets it into his head he wants to see a movie, there's no deterring him).

Going in with almost no expectation of quality whatsoever, I have to say it was a lot of fun! There's some really naff fake looking / too glossy CG, and it's probably accurate to call the movie 'a load of bunk'... but it IS fun, in a 'switch off brain' fashion.

Also: Rachel Nichols. Rawr.