What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

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Masterofoneinchpunch
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Dumb and Dumber To (2014: Bobby & Peter Farrelly)

I went to see Intersteller and ending up seeing this. It was a simple reason – there were technical difficulties with Intersteller. The good aspect of this was that I ended up seeing this for free. Like rewatching Ghostbusters on its thirtieth anniversary in the theater, I saw the original Dumb and Dumber twenty years ago in the theater. Jim Carrey was fresh off the success of Ace Ventura and The Mask (it would be his third 100 million dollar movie of 1994) and could pretty much do no wrong in the public’s eye. So going to see this sequel did feel right – at least monetarily free.

The issues with this film are similar to the ones in Farrelly’s last full film The Three Stooges. The gags are there, I liked the performances and there are certainly some funny spots, but the plot needs work and it leads to a less than satisfying final act (though still better than The Three Stooges taking too much from Fletch and The Blues Brothers – though the “killing off the spouse” routine is in this film and probably should have been avoided.) But two-thirds of the film is hilarious. The pretend twenty year coma which starts off the film (and you can see in the trailer) and its related scenes still makes me laugh – yes it is stupid but it is sagacious stupid humor I appreciate dammit. So I think I like it (I’m giving it a ***/**** which is a passing grade, but warning mileage may vary with their style of humor, in fact if you do not like the first film, overtly stupid comedy or the Farrelly’s then stay away from this like a vegan to Burger King.)

I do expect the third film to come out in 2034 if everyone is alive. It could take a Bubba Ho-Tep type of plot. Jim Carrey has not aged that much in two decades, though Jeff Daniels has (and Kathleen Turner has aged the most, it took me a while to recognize her, I loved the smiley face gag though.) Bill Murray has one of the more hidden cameos of all-time. I did not know it was him until I saw his name in the credits. I wonder if he got paid?

Now this film does lead me to question who is more stupid: Harry or Lloyd? Is it easier to wax existentialist about the esoteric quandaries of quantum mechanics or to figure out just how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb? *

Yes, there is an after-the-credits sequence. It was funny that no one stayed for that except for me. I had that feeling it was going to be there (chances are increased if it is a comedy, it is now an almost certainly for a comic-book film, still waiting for one for a serious drama based off of William Shakespeare or Jane Austin.)

* One, but the light bulb must want to change.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Lawless (2012-USA) **½
Brutal, pretty decent gangster drama of moonshiners versus corrupt lawmen set during the prohibition era.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Markgway wrote:Lawless (2012-USA) **½
Brutal, pretty decent gangster drama of moonshiners versus corrupt lawmen set during the prohibition era.
My favorite aspect of it was the dapper performance (and over-the-top) from Guy Pearce.
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Masterofoneinchpunch wrote: My favorite aspect of it was the dapper performance (and over-the-top) from Guy Pearce.
Even his haircut was sinister.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Interstellar (USA, 2014) [Digital Imax] - 4/5
A bit silly with its corny "love transcends time and space" stuff where the most exiting science fiction should be, but it is a very entertaining film with some of the year's most epic scenes. Also, some parts resemble the terrific Japanese anime short Voices from a Distant Star which also deals with the topic of aging in space vs. the earth. I'm a bit bummed that I couldn't see a film print of Interstellar, but the digital Imax gave a pretty good ride anyway.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Lucky Numbers (2000-USA) **
Weatherman John Travolta gets involved in a scam to fix the state lottery.
Foul-mouthed black comedy flop with largely unappealing characters; decent cast, directed by Nora Ephron.

Redd, Inc. (2012-Australia) *½
A thought-dead serial killer kidnaps six people involved in his trial and forces them to prove his innocence... or else! Low budget splatter offers intriguing setup, but is done in by excessive gore and sadism.

The Keep (1983-USA-UK) *½
Nazis vs. an ancient demonic force? As rotten as it sounds. Only German-actor Jurgen Prochnow emerges unscathed from this hilariously bad Michael Mann picture.

Vehicle 19 (2013-South Africa-USA) **
Paul Walker drives off in the wrong rental car, finds a female hostage in the back seat. Adequate thriller, nothing more.
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Masterofoneinchpunch
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Mo wrote:...
Watched Pale Rider and The Outlaw Josey Whales. These were really good. Especially Josey Whales. I have Destry Rides Again and Winchester '73 coming in a 3 pack with High Plains Drifter. I'm pretty sure I'll like High Plains Drifter, but what about the other 2? Any chance that I'll like them? I've been thinking about getting Shane. Also what's the one John Wayne movie I have to see? I don't think I've ever seen one. And any other recommendations you can make. What's your top 2 favorite American westerns that aren't Clint Eastwood? I want to give this genre one last chance before I give up on it.
Destry Rides Again is more of a comedy/western a little before Jimmy Stewart would become a star. You will notice that Marlene Dietrich gets top bill here. Lily Von Schtupp is Blazing Saddles (another must watch comedy western) is based after Dietrich in this film. I would be curious to know if you ended up liking this.

Winchester '73: I am a big Anthony Mann (the director) fan. This is the first of several Mann/Stewart collaborations and one of the best. I'm a huge fan of this film and it is considered one of the must watch westerns (say if you were using a top 100 Western list.) Now I'm not sure you will like it as it is certainly more subtle than the later spaghetti westerns.

John Wayne: Well there shouldn't be just one film from him for you to see. Most critics would state that The Searchers is the must watch (its quite a good film and it's influence is tremendous including such films as Taxi Driver), but I think Rio Bravo (which Quentin Tarantino is a huge fan of, he made a joke of it where if a date did not like the film they were not right for him) would be a great one to start off with. You can see it's influence with so many siege films later on including John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. There are a few non-western John Wayne's which are must watches as well including The Quiet Man.

Top 2 Westerns that are not with Clint Eastwood AND that I have not written above: Seven Men From Now (1956: Budd Boetticher) and The Wild Bunch (1969: Sam Peckinpah).
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Sea of Love (1989-USA) ***
Edgy cop Al Pacino (going thru a mid-life crisis) suspects man-eating ad dater Ellen Barkin of being a serial shooter. Sexy adult thriller; sharp script, good performances.

Forget Me Not (2009-USA) **½
Teenagers begin to die (their existences immediately erased) after a game of ghost in the graveyard...
Perfectly competent horror isn't exactly great... but I'm giving it an extra half star for being a bit different and not relying on gore.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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John Wayne: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and once you've seen a few of his films and decided you like him then watch True Grit and The Shootist. Shane is brilliant and has a pretty nice Blu-ray. Zulu is rightly a classic.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Mo wrote:A 3 star rating from Markgway? I'll have to check it out.


Big thanks master! You are providing a lot here. I wrote all the titles down on my list of DVDs I need to get. Destry and Winchester I should have thoughts on in a couple weeks. I love that Lily Von Schtupp. I think I've seen Rio Bravo and The Searchers at CD Tradepost, so I may be able to get to those within a month. Might take me a while on the other 3, but I'll get to them. Speaking of siege films, have you seen Zulu with Michael Caine?
All the films Shingster stated I like as well. John Wayne won his best actor award for True Grit (now there are some arguments on why he did, but I will not get into that here, I really do like the performance and I really do like the film.) But if you end up liking John Wayne (to some like Randolph Scott he is an acquired taste) then The Shootist is quite a fun film as well. That is directed by Don Siegel (a solid director) who was a huge influence on Clint Eastwood in both getting Eastwood into directing and how Eastwood would develop his directorial style. Siegel would also direct him in Dirty Harry :D. The Shootist is also John Wayne's last film.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: this you should see whether you like John Wayne or not. It is that influential. The director John Ford is one of the most well known of American Hollywood auteurs and this one along with The Searchers is the most critical popular of his. I'm a huge James Stewart fan so that is a bonus, for me, as well. It has a quote in the film "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." that would become quite famous in its own.

Just like Shingster I also like Zulu which is a quite a good siege film and a fascinating bit of "based-on" the real-life battle.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Hang 'em High?
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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When it comes to music and westerns you can't beat the Leone/Morricone films but obviously they're not american! :D I dunno it's a tough call because music is so subjective! If you want something rousing with a thigh slapping score and plenty of action then Magnificent Seven is probably the most iconic in that regard. The Big Country (perhaps the most well-known and referenced "Amnerican" western score) and How the West Was Won are also very rousing, both very long films though!

I really, really love the music in High Noon, which uses music beautifully (a great introduction to Dimitri Tiomkin's work, as is Red River) and happens to be one of the greatest westerns ever made so definitely check that out. Stagecoach, another Wayne/Ford classic has a fun score. If you want more Morricone in an American western then Two Mules for Sister Sara as well (IIRC Tarantino lifted some music from this for Django). The Long Riders also has a beautiful, really classic & authentic "country/roots" sound thanks to Ry Cooder!

In more recent years I felt Bruce Broughton did a good job recalling the classic era with the score to Silverado and Nick Cave/Warren Ellis did good work on The Proposition and Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Rbert Ford.

Ok so if I had to recommend one American western with a great score out of the titles above it would be High Noon. Anyone interested in the western genre should watch High Noon imo, Peckinpah and Leone were seriously influenced by it.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Shingster wrote: Ok so if I had to recommend one American western with a great score out of the titles above it would be High Noon. Anyone interested in the western genre should watch High Noon imo, Peckinpah and Leone were seriously influenced by it.
One episode in Sukeban Deka II: Legend of the Girl in the Iron Mask is a remake of it :D

Small time goons announce in front of the school that a notorious gangster student is being released from jail early
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Everyone abandons Saki...
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... who is left alone defending the school (and setting up traps)
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The bad guys arrive
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Final battles
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Yeah, off topic. Couldn't help myself :lol:
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But what's the music like! :D
Mo wrote:Thanks! My favorite scores are usually loud, but with a dark tone. I'm not a fan of Hang Em High but I've seen the movie several times because of the music. I also like the heroic themes like the one in Secret Rivals/The Big Gundown. Merricone was a genius. In an interview with Sergio Solima on The Big Gundown he says that while watching The Big Gundown Merricone fell asleep while watching it. Solima wasn't too happy about this, but when Merricone woke up he immediately started working on the music. And the results were pretty spectacular. I don't want to pin myself down on a favorite but I think The Big Gundown has possibly the best overall music score ever.
Yeah Morricone was the master! He was gonna be playing live near me a few days back but he had to cancel the gig due to a spinal injury. Apparently he's gonna be OK to play London in Feb but he's not coming to Birmingham near me anymore. Hope that changes if he tours again!
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Shingster wrote:But what's the music like! :D
The music is awesome!

Clip from SD I (Saki receiving her deadly yo-yo. "From this day on, this is your weapon"):
http://youtu.be/XcEtjZ6ZQHw

Anoher clip from SD I:
http://youtu.be/4foyshWL4QU

And one from SD III:
http://youtu.be/jHYZZ74Arlo

:cool:

(yeah, I managed to turn this into Sukeban Deka discussion! Well done moderator Hung :lol: )
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Can't beat 80s cheese music, seems to have a nice transfer too!
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Electric Boogaloo (2014-Australia)
The story of Cannon Films and Golan-Globus - the eccentric Israeli outcasts of Hollywood who made it big and then fucked it up! Director Mark Hartley covers their early history reasonably well and supplies plenty of entertaining talking heads, but drops the ball around 1986, skims over much of their crucial action output, and rushes to a hasty conclusion, as if - in true Cannon style - they run out of time and money. There's something seriously awry with any Cannon discussion that fails to even mention Bloodsport - one of their biggest hits. Also skipped are the likes of Cobra (only the subsequent Over the Top is covered) and Avenging Force - or any Michael Dudikoff movie other than the original American Ninja. In fact, you wouldn't know from this that several sequels were made to Ninja or that Delta Force 2 and Braddock existed. The doc ends with the cousins' split, but doesn't tell us that Cannon struggled on for a further five years with movies like The Hitman and Chain of Command. Interesting, but hardly definitive.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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The Equalizer (2014-USA-Australia) **½
Former government agent Denzel Washington forsakes his quiet new life (reading classic books and toiling away at a DIY store) in order to kill A LOT of tattooed Russian scumbags. Violent vengeance flick starts well, with a nice dynamic between Washington and Chloe Moretz (pretty good as a teen hooker), but she disappears after the first 20m., and the rest is basically by-the-numbers comic book slaughter. Slick and watchable, but I expected more from an A picture.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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Shingster wrote:Can't beat 80s cheese music, seems to have a nice transfer too!
Mo wrote:Good music Hungfist!
While we're (I am) at it...

Yukari Oshima cameo in SDII, first episode...
http://youtu.be/S5u9d_Z22Bo

Unfortunately this is the most convincing action scene in the series, thanks to idols doing their own action. Which is not to say the rest isn't awesomely entertaining and inventive, it's just performed by 80s idols

Saki's friend advices her to ask help in saving a school from villanous girls' karate gang...
http://youtu.be/aVFr3tDlQjE

(acting gets better as the series progresses, btw :lol: )

And the aftermath, again with brialliant use of music
http://youtu.be/jlj-FRJNEBQ
Mo wrote:Blazing Magnum (1976)- this fast moving crime thriller has a cop (Stuart Whitman) searching for his sister's murderer. The first time I watched this I wasn't very impressed. It was ok. But my opinion has changed. It has an interesting story,great soundtrack, plenty of action (maybe too much) and great performances from the cast (which includes John Saxon and Martin Laundau). I rate it 8.5/10.

I'm not going to say this is a great movie or anything, but it gets big big bonus points for the car chase towards the end. It's easily one of the best chase scenes ever filmed. I didn't time it but I would say it's about 8-9 minutes long, and it's 100% thrilling action which gets more and more exciting as it goes along. And it actually stays pretty realistic which makes it even more exciting. The cars get destroyed and the chase comes to a furious crashing conclusion.

There's also a short car chase at the beginning where a police car gets hit and goes skidding across the road a good ways flipping over until it slams into the side of a building. I can't make this stuff up people!
Has this had a decent dvd release? I remember reading about it long time ago and I know there was film print playing in Helsinki a few years ago in some Italo retrospective...
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out

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What The Peeper Saw 1.5/5 A controversial film not seen in Britain for years, Britt Ekland is the step mother of the weird,sexually aware 12 year old Mark Lester...scenes include Ekland stripping for the boy and another sequence has him fondle her boobs while she's on the phone.controversey is all this has going for it though as it's a pretty poor,leaden thriller otherwise.

Avenging Force 3/5 One of Cannon's best efforts,this solid actioner has Michael Dudikoff and the sadly missed Steve James team up to take on a far right wing extreme group known as Pentangle. A high body count and well staged action sequences make this a winner. have to say though the end fight is ruined a little by the patently obvious stunt double for John P. Ryan,even his hair colour's different :icon_suspect:
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saltysam wrote:What The Peeper Saw 1.5/5 A controversial film not seen in Britain for years, Britt Ekland is the step mother of the weird,sexually aware 12 year old Mark Lester...scenes include Ekland stripping for the boy and another sequence has him fondle her boobs while she's on the phone.controversey is all this has going for it though as it's a pretty poor,leaden thriller otherwise.

Avenging Force 3/5 One of Cannon's best efforts,this solid actioner has Michael Dudikoff and the sadly missed Steve James team up to take on a far right wing extreme group known as Pentangle. A high body count and well staged action sequences make this a winner. have to say though the end fight is ruined a little by the patently obvious stunt double for John P. Ryan,even his hair colour's different :icon_suspect:
Was this the Mark Lester who directed Commando? :o :D
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saltysam wrote:scenes include Ekland stripping for the boy and another sequence has him fondle her boobs while she's on the phone.
Some 12 year olds have all the luck... ;)
grim_tales wrote:Was this the Mark Lester who directed Commando? :o :D
No. The one from Oliver!
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22 Jump Street (2014-USA) **
Obligatory sequel is an improvement, with some funny jabs at movie sequels, but still seems to think that saying 'fuck' and acting dumb is a substitute for wit.
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Hexed (1993-USA) **½
Fantasist hotel desk clerk gets involved with a psychopathic super model and murderess.
Plenty of laughs in this goofy, well-cast black comedy thriller from the creator of Sledge Hammer.
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grim_tales wrote:Was this the Mark Lester who directed Commando? :o :D
No. The one from Oliver![/quote]

Thank you :)
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