What was the last movie you saw?

Arnold Schwarzenegger sweating like a Mexican donkey through Commando. Gloriously puerile nonsense. And the ridiculous moustaches pasted onto the faces of the army of bad guys at the end deserve a special award for least convincing make-up.
 
saw GotG: Pt2 at the midnight showing on release day. If you liked the 1st one you'll love the 2nd it's basically more of the same with added extra Groot (seriously he pretty much steals the show)
 
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (2001)

Given its a MayDay bank-holiday weekend here in England, I thought I'd give Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy another dusting down. It's been a couple of years or more since I last watched, and that was purely to cleanse my eyes and mind from the godawful "The Hobbit" bogfest!

I don't know if its because I'm getting older, but I find myself liking "Fellowship" less on every repeat viewing! Back in 2001/2 it was an awesome spectacular of a film; but after watching it again earlier today, I found myself pressing the FF button on my remote far too much to really absorb myself once more. In fact out of the 3 hours I probably only watched 90 minutes of it - not good!

The much maligned "The Two Towers" is next up for this evening. I hope the I have enough battery juice in my remote because I have a feeling I'll be doing the same again!

3/5
 
I don't know if its because I'm getting older, but I find myself liking "Fellowship" less on every repeat viewing! Back in 2001/2 it was an awesome spectacular of a film; but after watching it again earlier today, I found myself pressing the FF button on my remote far too much to really absorb myself once more. In fact out of the 3 hours I probably only watched 90 minutes of it - not good!

That was actually my reaction the first time. A few years ago I picked up a VHS of it for a quarter and ended up feeling like I'd wasted my quarter because I couldn't watch the whole thing. IIRC, I got to the end but only because I fast-forwarded through much of it in that first and only viewing. (In other words, I basically quit watching it early on but wanted to see if it ever picked up and it didn't.)

That said, everyone calls The Empire Strikes Back the best of the Star Wars films but I almost always fast-forward through 90% of the Dagobah fortune-cookie scenes despite being enthralled by them in early viewings. It's still a good movie, but those scenes don't generally maintain interest anymore. (The first one was always my favorite anyway.)
 
That was actually my reaction the first time. A few years ago I picked up a VHS of it for a quarter and ended up feeling like I'd wasted my quarter because I couldn't watch the whole thing. IIRC, I got to the end but only because I fast-forwarded through much of it in that first and only viewing. (In other words, I basically quit watching it early on but wanted to see if it ever picked up and it didn't.)

That said, everyone calls The Empire Strikes Back the best of the Star Wars films but I almost always fast-forward through 90% of the Dagobah fortune-cookie scenes despite being enthralled by them in early viewings. It's still a good movie, but those scenes don't generally maintain interest anymore. (The first one was always my favorite anyway.)

Well I whizzed through "The Two Towers" last night. And I wasn't intentionally looking for the action sequences, because some of those were a little drawn out (Helm's Deep, for one). However, I did find it slightly more absorbing than "Fellowship". And tonight I will be settling down to "Return of The King" - a film I enjoyed immensely first time round - but again, I suspect I will be FF some of the battle scenes again.

As for Star Wars: for me "Empire" was the most complete instalment of the trilogy; with the former laying the foundations, and the latter not quite ending in a very satisfactory way for my liking. The opening scene in "A New Hope" will always, ALWAYS live with me because it was so bloody spectacular seeing this massive Star Destroyer hove into view above the heads of the cinema audience (back in the days when 70mm Dolby Stereo was all the rage.) However, the rest of the film was just okay, even back then. Although the space battles were impressive enough; just couldn't invest any time in the lightweight story.
 
The Bourne Ultimatum, which had been on my TV HD for months. OK apart from some OTT and too-long action sequences. I thought it was odd that there was so much reference to unexplained backstory, till I realised it was the third in the series, not the first as I'd thought. Doh!
 
Hi,

I loved all three of the first Bournes. So you can imagine my disappointment when they brought out his replacement - Aaron Cross. Bourne was just so clever and five steps ahead of everyone even with amnesia. It was one of the things that made him great. And the plots were complex and designed to surprise by showing things out of order. Cross just turned him into a joe public sort ofguy running around with no plan except to get his drugs and try not to get shot. And this new Bourne with Jason's return, isn't a lot better in my view. They should have stopped at three.

Cheers, Greg.
 
What We Do In The Shadows - This is a horror/comedy from New Zealand, about a group of vampires living in a suburban house and trying to interact with the modern world. It's very funny, with good special effects and a few moments of surprising gore. The film makes a very good job of skewering pretty much every aspect of being a vampire: hypnotising prey, turning into a bat, getting your minions to clean up after you and "being sexy". Recommended.
 
"The World's End" (2013)

The final part of the "Cornetto Trilogy" following on from the great "Shaun of the Dead" and the brilliant "Hot Fuzz". However, this flavour is definitely vanilla - bland, tiresome, lacklustre, and a pretty disappointing ending!

Simon Pegg plays a really unpleasant lead, with Nick Frost playing the straight guy for a change - and then there's the 3 supports that are all 1 dimensional, and just act as silly stooges to Pegg's lame gags.

Unlike the first two films this mix of comedy, horror and sci-fi just doesn't work - it's as if we've seen it all before (which we have) and somehow it just doesn't come off a second (or third) time.

Regrettably this final act in the trilogy has gone soft

2/5
 
Attack of the Herbals. Really. This is, I believe, a full-on Irish send-up zombie movie. It is, you see, and they get that way - zombified - via the tea, you see. Some kind of herbal tea. Well it gets very violent n' gory and all, but lots of crazy characters... someone should watch this and let us in on the jokes we didn't get by not being Oirish.
Unacknowledged - 2001 - (no review available) and:
Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs - 60s Vincent Price, say no more, it's very silly.
 
Hidden Figures (2016). This is excellent. I haven't read the book and just expect details had to be dropped or elided, but the performances by the main three actresses were very good as were the supporting performances by Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst and Jim Parsons.


Randy M.
 
"The World's End" (2013)

Regrettably this final act in the trilogy has gone soft

2/5

I tend to agree, although I honestly never found Shawn of the Dead to be that fantastic either. Hot Fuzz was brilliant and Shawn was decent, but yes The Worlds End kind of just felt rather dull. I even wonder if it was their attempt at a mock "drunk" comedy - the kind where unless you're in some way inebriated whilst watching its generally dull a ditchwater.

Also the film I wanted to see happened in the last 5 mins or so - a loan warrior in a wasteland etc.... Now that looked fun and funny!
 
Hidden Figures (2016). This is excellent. I haven't read the book and just expect details had to be dropped or elided, but the performances by the main three actresses were very good as were the supporting performances by Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst and Jim Parsons.


Randy M.

agreed - excellent movie!
 
The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954): directed by Jack Arnold, starring Richard Carlson, Richard Denning, Julia Adams.

Showed up on the old movie channel (TCM) last night. One of my favorite old creature features with an experienced cast well-directed and put through their paces. And in spite of the faults of the costume, it influences my imagination when reading Lovecraft about the "Innsmouth look."


Randy M.
 

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