[Closed] Recent Viewing

A friend who's massively into Sci-Fi read the book and was really looking forward to the film, he felt let down.

I remember the special effects being good but not much else apart from Travolta playing the baddy in lashings of latex.

The score is very good, but I can imagine if it wasn't one of the first things you've heard from Thomas Newman, it might not stand out so much in relation to scores he did later. I remember being very taken with the film's music - it was one of those early soundtracks I 'had to get'. I should give it another whirl soon.

As for the film, I think I enjoy COOL HAND LUKE and THE GREAT ESCAPE more these days. Particularly LUKE, which presents such a powerful metaphor for young men who don't know what to do with their lives - they are in a prison of sorts, and one they may never escape. In general though I find the average person - particularly the average male - finds the story of male friendship and (SPOILER) eventual escape (END SPOILER) in SHAWSHANK very moving.

On the weekend, I watched Jacque Tati's PLAYTIME, the climax of his Hulot series. As good HULOT'S HOLIDAY and MON ONCLE are, PLAYTIME has the director with access to more finance and adventurous scale than ever. A masterpiece on par with 2001, CITIZEN KANE, LA DOLCE VITA and THE CONVERSATION, though thankfully a very amusing one.

Saw

Master and Commander
Good movie even though I didn't fully embrace it, it has a terrific accurate telling of the life on a battleship, it does wonders for actors Crowe and Bettany and its really wonderfully told. But I couldn't fully care for the characters on screen. Perhaps because its a little too long? I don't know. Still great and once again accurate film (8 out of 10)

V for Vendetta
What Master and Commander lacked V for Vendetta fully has. My god, where to begin? The script is brilliant, the dialogues are out of this world. Clever, witty and meaningful and caring. The monologue alone that Hugo Weaving does with all the words starting with a V is sublime. The whole look and design of the movie. The finale that blows you away and the music that is absolutely brilliant in context. This movie sucked me in and never let me go. (10 out of 10)

2 Good movies eh

A Home At The End Of The World
Starring a not-too-bad Colin Farrell and an ineffectual Sissy Spacek (Wow! Haven't seen her for a long time!), I'm actually not entirely sure what the film is about.
We follow Bobby from being a rather dreamy type kid in 1967 to being a rather dreamy kind of bloke in 1985 (or so). He's free and happy and innocent. He moves in with his gay best friend and his 30-something ornage-haired female flatmate who promptly wants (and gets) his baby. But they still love each other, even though it's all so hard.
SO they buy a house, and love each other and then orangey leaves because it's too hard (although they really love ach other) and so that's all good.
Or something.
No idea what I'm supposed to take away from this film.
Something like "as long as you love each other, it's all good", I guess.

2 out of 5
There is no score to speak of. Some topical rock and pop songs set the mood.

Saw THE WAGES OF FEAR by Clouzot, the thriller about poor men who must drive truckloads of nitro-glycerin through rugged South American terrain. It starts with a very gradual, playful New Wave feel, but when it gets going, the tension mounts very surely. Two of the most tense sequences I've seen in a film - (i) obliterating the boulder; (ii) when Yves Montand is backing the truck over the wooden ledge. Quite an ending! No wonder people got upset when Kubrick used 'The Blue Danube' in 2001 if that was one of its most recent cinematic uses! Great acting throughout the film, particularly from Montand. And this is definitely a film that make a powerful point about capitalism.

Clouzot's film was remade as THE SORCERER by William Friedkin in the 70s, starring Roy Scheider. It's also hard to believe that there weren't a few influences on Spielberg's DUEL as well. I would place WAGES OF FEAR with THE CONVERSATION, DUEL, SEVEN, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, COLLATERAL, REAR WINDOW, M, TOUCH OF EVIL, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and others as one of the great thrillers. Well worth a look - hopefully one day it will get a super-duper cleaned up DVD release, as the one I saw was a bit messy.



I found my opinion of those movies was like yours, only in reverse. To me, MASTER AND COMMANDER is one of the few perfect epic films made in the last decade (10 out of 10), while V FOR VENDETTA (5-6 out of 10) I just couldn't engage with Natalie Portman's performance, and the emphasis on fetishistic thrilling violence in all the engagements between V and the authorities reminded me of the one scene in THE MATRIX that really felt wrong. (The shoot-up in the foyer scene.)

THE WAGES OF FEAR

God I'd love to watch that film again, one of my favourites.

Michael, have you seen SORCERER? Does it compare favourably? I'm only familiar with Tangerine Dream's score which, oddly enough, is one of the earliest scores I ever bought.

MASTER AND COMMANDER is the ONE sequel I've really like to see.



I've only seen one scene, a lengthy setpiece where Roy Scheider tries to drive his truck over a wooden bridge. Utterly gripping, and I do plan to watch the film. I thought with respect to Clouzot, I should watch his version first, and only recently found a copy.

John Rambo


the first half is boring, bad directed and full of cliches (Im sure Stallone did this intentionatly).

The action is very well directed,and extremell violent. i was really shocked with I saw.

The ending is a great conclusion to the saga.

A dissapointing movie, saved for his last 20 minutes.

The Satan Bug is pretty laughable, and the majority of the score is sevicable ( by Goldsmith's exceptional standards ) but that THEME, the main titles is pure genius!

Score album? Song album?

That'll teach me for thinking this was the NP thread

Didn't like the film then D ?

Last night:

Torchwood

It was the series two finale and it turned out a lot better than the finale for series one. A bit of a shock towards the end...

There have been some really good episodes in this second series and Ben Foster's incidental music has been quite good. It would be interesting to hear any CD of music from this show - if it were to appear.

Martijn, have you seen any of Series 2? This was much better than the first series. Although there are serious issues when you see how different the characters behave in the second series (much more likeable compared to the first series), it needed to be done to make viewers sympathetic to the Torchwood gang.

SPOILER ALERT






By the time the end of the second series I actually liked a few of the characters - and that made the death of 1 (or more) of the team all the more emotional.

For the film. But i won't expand further on the overrated flick 'cause i don't want my friend Michael getting all confused at a nice Saturday such as this

Yeah, lets shake things up a little!

Dude!

What they do is mostly quite good. (except for my Intolerable Cruelty)
But yeah, you don't have to ofcourse.