What did you watch today? v 33.0

[The Professor]

Welcome to version 33, the Egg McMuffin of discussions. 

 

The first post in this thread will be # 14,394. 

 

The ghost of George Sanders reminds you to link your films, and that one should feel free to move on if bored. 

[Nerves]

Let's Dance (1950)

3/5 Stars

The song and dance routines are goofy. Betty's antics are so manic that it's almost like watching animation (the bright technicolor tones help). The story isn't too bad despite it's predictability.

[Nerves]

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010)

4/5 Stars

I enjoyed the film very much but I don't understand what's heroic about his life. He was a cheeky kid for sure but as an adult he seems like countless others willing to sell their souls for fame and fortune. The film doesn't make much of an attempt to delineate the different periods (WWII to the 80's). You see him age but you never get a sense of what decade it is. There's a healthy amount of nudity to help hold your attention.

[macroman]

Winnebago Man (2009)=An often laugh out loud funny documentary about the life of Jack Rebney, whose explosive, profanity-laced outbursts while filming Winnebago RV commercials in the late 80s made him a viral video star with the advent of Youtube in 2005.

  The filmmakers sought him out and found him living as a hermit on a remote mountaintop and made this film about him.  This film is interesting but also serious at times and well worth a watch.

  4 stars.

 

[Sevorin]

A likeable film about a likeable guy.

[eviltimes]

I only found it funny for about 5 minutes - after that the repetition put me off.  The film, however, is a great piece on the generational divide - the older people who used to fix consumer products when they broke, and the newer crowd who just throw the cheaply made products away and buy a new one.  Most viewers seem to miss this underlying raison d'être for the film.

[eviltimes]

Outpost   IMDb   2007   R   90 min   SD

Merc team escorts a scientist working for "very rich and powerful people" into a strife torn unidentified part of Eastern Europe to learn the secrets of an old Nazi bunker and the machine it contains. More of a sci fi approach to the otherwise fantasy of zombies, with a straightforward explanation of it all. Too bad this British film isn't very interesting. Even at 90 minutes I was hard pressed not to FF (but I didn't - hoping for something, anything to happen.)

It does have great cinematography. With that low color gloom and nice lighting -= whether in the forest of down in the bunker - they can be proud of how the film looks, anyway. Hopefully their next job will be working with better material. 6/10 for the look of the flick, but 3/10 for the totality of it all. Too bad.

[eviltimes]

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol   IMDb   2011   PG-13   133 min   BD

This somehow saves the twerp's career? A very average B quality Saturday afternoon action flick. You've seen all the good parts in the trailers and commercials. Too long. A film like this needs to be tighter - say 100 min plus credits. I think it would have made a lot more money if edited correctly and a little more humor. Although it was very profitable: $693 M world gross vs $145M budget. If it had clicked it would easily have made over a Billion. As it exists now it's one of those film where you leave feeling cheated and you'll never watch it again. I bet the TV edit will be a better movie. 5/10, could have been much, much more.

[eviltimes]

Rikyu   IMDb   1989   NR   116 min   SD     4x3 ratio   JP w/ENG subs

The true (?) story of Sen Rikyu, father of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. His long life and friendship with the Shogun Lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi - who ordered Rikyu to commit seppuku at age 70 in the 16th century due to their differences over the meaning of the Tea Ceremony.

Here we have a historical examination of the importance of this simple yet spiritually essential act of making tea and its centrality to the Buddhist tradition and at its heart - the Japanese way of life. As told through this friendship between the Priest and the warlord, we get a feeling for these two men and their intransigent differences (as with Thomas Becket and King Henry II). I like this kind of film, especially when it illuminates Japanese history. But most casual viewers will probably find it a bit dry. 8/10 for me.

[Ando]

on a marathon, et? :-D

[eviltimes]

I usually just put them all in Paracinema.

[Ando]

Menace II Society Would probably have never watched it if it was wasn't put up by some kind soul. Of course I'd always known about this classic hood-flick but since I've lived it it hardly seemed essential viewing. Looks good now. And Sam Jackson! Forgot he was in it. But Old E never looked less refreshing. Heh.

[Mr. Bad]

Cleopatra (1963) Joseph L. Mankiewicz co wrote and directed this epic, still the most expensive movie in history costing 323 million in 2012 dollars. It was a troubled production that has absurdly detailed, enormously opulent sets that dwarf the actors, making their passions seem a bit lost in the echo-y spaces. (The director was the younger brother of Herman Mankiewicz, screenwriter of Citizen Kane. There are a few definite references to that movie in Cleopatra, with one scene that has an unhappily married couple separated by a long dining table as with Kane and his first wife, and the fact that the characters seem lost in their own respective Xanadus.) Some scenes were obvious reshoots where the characters dispassionately declaim exposition dialog to fill in the story that was chopped out. Over all, the movie flows smoothly in some places and lurches and stalls horribly/hilariously in others. Some actors exhibit drastically different styles that seem to inhabit different movies. The production story on this movie is a movie in itself.

In summary, watch this in a couple of installments for the awful grandeur of it all, then watch Anthony Mann's autumnal masterpiece The Fall of the Roman Empire to see how an epic can really be done right.