Pranzo Oltranzista
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- Oct 18, 2017
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I was considering this as my next watch after having seen Mandy... I might go for either The Beyond or Beyond the Door instead.
Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Movie-mber Edition
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I was considering this as my next watch after having seen Mandy... I might go for either The Beyond or Beyond the Door instead.
I have to give praise to Andrew Patterson's 2019 debut The Vast of Night. I watched this last night on Amazon Prime and it is pretty stunning. Filmed in 2016 for about $700,000, and wasn't released at all until 2019 (and not released to streaming until 2020). It's a low-key sci-fi movie set in the 1950s in a small New Mexico town where a teenage girl working as a switchboard operator hears a strange sound over the radio and investigates it. The movie is a tight 85ish minutes, slow-burning and character driven, with some insanely creative camera work and pretty riveting and thought-provoking dialogue and conversation. It's ambitious on a small scale, which I appreciate. Think of a micro-sized version of Arrival, or a better, more subtle, indie version of Super 8.
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I just watched Beau Geste and liked it. A few things were confusing, but I think that that's mostly because I didn't pay attention as closely as I should've to certain scenes (especially the early childhood scenes). I'll probably appreciate it even more on a re-watch. Thanks for the recommendation.
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The Small Town [Kasaba] (1997) directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Set in a small provincial Turkish town, The Small Town follows a family through the seasons and explores the dynamics between the family members. Filmed in black and white and with long static shots, this is Ceylan’s first film and already exhibits the style and confidence which would make him the acclaimed director he is today. Great visual poetry throughout and touches of dry comedy too. One of the first scenes has a schoolhouse full of young children reading a Durkheimian text on the role of nationalism; I barely could read Durkheim during my university studies! The pace, like all of Ceylan’s films, is slow and deliberate but patient viewers will be rewarded with a film that leaves a lot to chew on and great visuals.
Set in a small provincial Turkish town, The Small Town follows a family through the seasons and explores the dynamics between the family members. Filmed in black and white and with long static shots, this is Ceylan’s first film and already exhibits the style and confidence which would make him the acclaimed director he is today. Great visual poetry throughout and touches of dry comedy too. One of the first scenes has a schoolhouse full of young children reading a Durkheimian text on the role of nationalism; I barely could read Durkheim during my university studies! The pace, like all of Ceylan’s films, is slow and deliberate but patient viewers will be rewarded with a film that leaves a lot to chew on and great visuals.
ItsFineImFine
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- Aug 11, 2019
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The Match Factory Girl (1990) - 7/10
It is a bit on the nose isn't it and I actually preferred the other two later Aki Kaurismäki films I saw (Le Havre & The Other Side of Hope) because they felt more human and with a bit more vitality to them. This one feels almost nihilist in comparison. It's short and feels like a must-watch at that length but I think he just improved and became more dynamic with those later films while retaining the same style. Black comedy at its most patient because it doesn't really become comic until right at the end.
Extraction (2020) - 7/10 for action 4/10 for everything else in-between
The director is a stunt coordinator and it shows because he does a fairly good job with the action and a lame job with all the dialogue and everything in between. It's that syndrome where someone who doesn't know how to make a deep film tries to copy what they've seen and tries to turn a mindless action film into a deep film. I mean, Thor being a badass is really enough here so some of the other acting he tries to extract, especially from a few of the Bengali actors, feels pretty budget. Unfortunately it also means that the film becomes longer than it needs to be which makes almost all the action turn repetitive, films like Dredd and The Raid are almost 20 minutes shorter and more focused.
I will say though that I was wondering when the crazy chick from Paterson would show up in something else I watched and I didn't expect her to show up in an action film as the female badass so that was a nice surprise, I should re-watch Paterson.
Another Year (2010) - 7/10
A Mike Leigh film which is bleak in some aspects but he does put some fairly happy normal content people in it to balance it out. It would make an insufferable viewing because of the Mary character if you sat through the whole thing at once so I finished this in parts over a week. Can say I've seen few characters in a drama who wear their feelings as blatantly on screen with zero attempt at hiding it as Mary does here, it's quite fascinating. The best part between all the bleakness and themes on aging though are just seeing when the more normal family members are together and hanging out.
It is a bit on the nose isn't it and I actually preferred the other two later Aki Kaurismäki films I saw (Le Havre & The Other Side of Hope) because they felt more human and with a bit more vitality to them. This one feels almost nihilist in comparison. It's short and feels like a must-watch at that length but I think he just improved and became more dynamic with those later films while retaining the same style. Black comedy at its most patient because it doesn't really become comic until right at the end.
Extraction (2020) - 7/10 for action 4/10 for everything else in-between
The director is a stunt coordinator and it shows because he does a fairly good job with the action and a lame job with all the dialogue and everything in between. It's that syndrome where someone who doesn't know how to make a deep film tries to copy what they've seen and tries to turn a mindless action film into a deep film. I mean, Thor being a badass is really enough here so some of the other acting he tries to extract, especially from a few of the Bengali actors, feels pretty budget. Unfortunately it also means that the film becomes longer than it needs to be which makes almost all the action turn repetitive, films like Dredd and The Raid are almost 20 minutes shorter and more focused.
I will say though that I was wondering when the crazy chick from Paterson would show up in something else I watched and I didn't expect her to show up in an action film as the female badass so that was a nice surprise, I should re-watch Paterson.
Another Year (2010) - 7/10
A Mike Leigh film which is bleak in some aspects but he does put some fairly happy normal content people in it to balance it out. It would make an insufferable viewing because of the Mary character if you sat through the whole thing at once so I finished this in parts over a week. Can say I've seen few characters in a drama who wear their feelings as blatantly on screen with zero attempt at hiding it as Mary does here, it's quite fascinating. The best part between all the bleakness and themes on aging though are just seeing when the more normal family members are together and hanging out.
Chili
Time passes when you're not looking
- Jun 10, 2004
- 8,787
- 4,922
I enjoy the mystery and how the clues are slowly added throughout the film. The scene at the fort may have been inspired by a real incident (from a book by Fredric Martyn: Life in the Legion). The legion apparently used something similiar in Norway in WWII to evade German forces. Interesting story from the filming in the desert...Gary Cooper was told that his daughter was ill, so he rode 19 miles to the nearest phone to check on her...riding a camel there and back! (She was ok).
Edit: I was taken (read in a Gary Cooper biography). According to his website and his daughter, the camel story was a studio PR rouge.
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Pixie, Directed by Barnaby Thompson, 7.0
A woman and two men find themselves on the run in the Irish countryside after a heist gone wrong.
Nothing better than a budget UK gangsta movie. Especially when they're Irish.
Check it out, won't disappoint.
Wonder Woman, Directed by Patti Jenkins, 6.5
A struggling yet charismatic businessman over-reaches and goes off the walls, endangering the planet.
Honestly, if this ain't a Donald Trump parody, I don't know what else would be....
Pedro (The Mandalorian)Pascal as the Donald
A woman and two men find themselves on the run in the Irish countryside after a heist gone wrong.
Nothing better than a budget UK gangsta movie. Especially when they're Irish.
Check it out, won't disappoint.
Wonder Woman, Directed by Patti Jenkins, 6.5
A struggling yet charismatic businessman over-reaches and goes off the walls, endangering the planet.
Honestly, if this ain't a Donald Trump parody, I don't know what else would be....
Pedro (The Mandalorian)Pascal as the Donald
My Sister’s Good Fortune [Das Glück meiner Schwester] (1995) directed by Angela Schanelec
Following the long tradition of European ménage à trois films, My Sister’s Good Fortune is the story of a photographer (Wolfgang Michael) who is in love with his girlfriend (Angela Schanelec) as well as her sister (Anna Bolk). Both sisters provide different aspects of desire within the love triangle, novelty versus stability, poetics versus rationality, and he ultimately tosses a coin to determine who he should end up with. Shot in a cold and detached way with long static close ups and set in rainy cold gritty Berlin (one of my favourite cities in the world), the film on paper should be my jam as it uses an aesthetic which suits my sensibilities. However, perhaps because this film was dialogue heavy and where they speak quickly in German and I was missing things in the subtitles, I didn’t get much from this film unfortunately. The performances are by no means at fault, as they were great, but I just struggled to get into this film, despite it’s short 82-minute run time. My first film from Schanelec who is part of the Berlin school of filmmakers which includes contemporaries such as Christian Petzold and Maren Ade, whose work I enjoy, I am keen to see if any of her other work resonates with me.
Following the long tradition of European ménage à trois films, My Sister’s Good Fortune is the story of a photographer (Wolfgang Michael) who is in love with his girlfriend (Angela Schanelec) as well as her sister (Anna Bolk). Both sisters provide different aspects of desire within the love triangle, novelty versus stability, poetics versus rationality, and he ultimately tosses a coin to determine who he should end up with. Shot in a cold and detached way with long static close ups and set in rainy cold gritty Berlin (one of my favourite cities in the world), the film on paper should be my jam as it uses an aesthetic which suits my sensibilities. However, perhaps because this film was dialogue heavy and where they speak quickly in German and I was missing things in the subtitles, I didn’t get much from this film unfortunately. The performances are by no means at fault, as they were great, but I just struggled to get into this film, despite it’s short 82-minute run time. My first film from Schanelec who is part of the Berlin school of filmmakers which includes contemporaries such as Christian Petzold and Maren Ade, whose work I enjoy, I am keen to see if any of her other work resonates with me.
I can't find a movie as compelling as the Maggie Haberman (NY Times White House correspondent) twitter feed these past few days. Reality has a way of giving fiction a comeuppance sometimes.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
ItsFineImFine
Registered User
- Aug 11, 2019
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All That Heaven (1955) - 6.5/10
I can't complain about a movie being melodramatic if the genre is melodrama BUT I can comlain about the tedious trope of 'what will other people think if we have this relationship'. Just a full two hours almost of this with insufferable overacting from almost everyone outside of the two leads (one of them being uncharismatic American Cary Grant) and two dimensional characters.
At least the colours looked nice. Damn Chrizo's as James Acaster would say.
I can't complain about a movie being melodramatic if the genre is melodrama BUT I can comlain about the tedious trope of 'what will other people think if we have this relationship'. Just a full two hours almost of this with insufferable overacting from almost everyone outside of the two leads (one of them being uncharismatic American Cary Grant) and two dimensional characters.
At least the colours looked nice. Damn Chrizo's as James Acaster would say.
Chili
Time passes when you're not looking
- Jun 10, 2004
- 8,787
- 4,922
The Four Feathers-1939
Story of a man's quest to prove he's wasn't a coward. The adventure is beautifully filmed on location with a real cast of thousands (in colour).
Impressive climax. The table talk boasting of old battles sounds like a Monty Python skit (well back in those days, we had it rough...).
Enjoyed it.
The Four Feathers-1939
Story of a man's quest to prove he's wasn't a coward. The adventure is beautifully filmed on location with a real cast of thousands (in colour).
Impressive climax. The table talk boasting of old battles sounds like a Monty Python skit (well back in those days, we had it rough...).
Enjoyed it.
I was thinking of The Four Feathers just the other night while I was watching Beau Geste. I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch it again, but I definitely want to now.
Pranzo Oltranzista
Registered User
- Oct 18, 2017
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- 2,900
Went back to Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy. I've used parts of these films in a horror class before, but it must have been 25 years since I've sit and watched them entirely. Of course, you need a little clemency in order to appreciate them, not only because they're low-budget, but also because Fulci certainly has more flaws than skills as a director. Abysmal acting, with lines being at times said in Italian, and at times in English, and all badly dubbed afterwards, makes it hard to take these films seriously. Still, they're absolutely unique (the first two at least) and of great importance to horror cinema. Fulci came to the genre late, after already having a lot of films to his credits (including a few giallos), he was already reknown for not shying away from depicting ultraviolence, and it is clear he had a good understanding of what he wanted his brand of horror to look like.
Images as spoilers ----- gore ----- be warned
City of the Living Dead (Fulci, 1980) - First, the ending. It is said that the footage was damaged in the editing room and that they ended up with nothing that could make sense, so they rolled with it. This sums up pretty nicely the entire work of Fulci. "It's no good? Oh I guess I've tried, let's do another!". Fulci shot 2 films in 1980 and a 6 episodes TV mini-series, but he didn't have time to go back and redo 3 takes to make his film almost watchable. His carefree guerilla approach to moviemaking makes pretty much everything he touched disappointingly uneven. He doesn't care much about filming movies, he films moments or scenes, and at that he is one of the greatest directors horror has known. This first entry in the trilogy is pretty much a collage of scenes that don't add up very well together, but a few of them propose strong imagery rarely equaled (the high-point here being, for me at least, the raining maggots). His obsession with the gaze, sight, occularisation, and the eyes show a great understanding of the horror genre inner workings - and in that, he doesn't care much for suspense. Fulci's horror is pure abjection. One of the first lines of dialogues in this one sums up everything you have to know to appreciate Fulci's signature: the psychic medium screaming "I see! I see!". 4.5/10
The Beyond (Fulci, 1981) - Haven't seen everything by Fulci, he did do a lot of crap I have no intention to ever laid eyes on, but this is by far the best and most interesting film I've seen from him. Again, the long-hair-don't-care Fulci approach is obvious, and kind of frustrating: the film is often gorgeous, with detailed work on sets, lightning and framing, but here and there you have an out-of-focus shot, or a corpse obviously breathing or blinking (!), and he just won't care going back to correct it. Still, The Beyond's visual and atmospheric conceptions are stricking and unique. The introduction in glorious black & yellow feels like a return to classic horror cinema, until the Fulci signature gore enters the show and reminds you what you're in for. Again, the film reaches for pure abjection, and focus is even more clearly put on vision: from the first victim lamenting in terror "The eyes! The eyes!" to the iconic eye-gouging effects, through the numerous close-up shots of the eyes of the characters, and mainly the blind ones (and Emily the blind girl noting: "I've been looking for you"). Nobody else could have done this film, and as flawed as it is, it remains a horror masterpiece. 7.5/10
The House by the Cemetery (Fulci, 1981) - Very weak conclusion to the trilogy, to the point you get to wonder why it is considered as part of it - the first two have strong thematical links and a pretty straightforward inclusion of the gates of hell, nothing you can find in this one. Here, Fulci tries to go for a more suspenseful approach, and he's not really good at it. The film was supposed to be inspired by both Lovecraft and Henry James (weird combination), and ends up as a very confused mess. You get used to the ridiculous levels of bad acting in Fulci's horror films, but you are not prepared for Bob the 9 years old in this one. His dubbed English voice is the worst thing I've ever heard. 2.5/10
Images as spoilers ----- gore ----- be warned
City of the Living Dead (Fulci, 1980) - First, the ending. It is said that the footage was damaged in the editing room and that they ended up with nothing that could make sense, so they rolled with it. This sums up pretty nicely the entire work of Fulci. "It's no good? Oh I guess I've tried, let's do another!". Fulci shot 2 films in 1980 and a 6 episodes TV mini-series, but he didn't have time to go back and redo 3 takes to make his film almost watchable. His carefree guerilla approach to moviemaking makes pretty much everything he touched disappointingly uneven. He doesn't care much about filming movies, he films moments or scenes, and at that he is one of the greatest directors horror has known. This first entry in the trilogy is pretty much a collage of scenes that don't add up very well together, but a few of them propose strong imagery rarely equaled (the high-point here being, for me at least, the raining maggots). His obsession with the gaze, sight, occularisation, and the eyes show a great understanding of the horror genre inner workings - and in that, he doesn't care much for suspense. Fulci's horror is pure abjection. One of the first lines of dialogues in this one sums up everything you have to know to appreciate Fulci's signature: the psychic medium screaming "I see! I see!". 4.5/10
The Beyond (Fulci, 1981) - Haven't seen everything by Fulci, he did do a lot of crap I have no intention to ever laid eyes on, but this is by far the best and most interesting film I've seen from him. Again, the long-hair-don't-care Fulci approach is obvious, and kind of frustrating: the film is often gorgeous, with detailed work on sets, lightning and framing, but here and there you have an out-of-focus shot, or a corpse obviously breathing or blinking (!), and he just won't care going back to correct it. Still, The Beyond's visual and atmospheric conceptions are stricking and unique. The introduction in glorious black & yellow feels like a return to classic horror cinema, until the Fulci signature gore enters the show and reminds you what you're in for. Again, the film reaches for pure abjection, and focus is even more clearly put on vision: from the first victim lamenting in terror "The eyes! The eyes!" to the iconic eye-gouging effects, through the numerous close-up shots of the eyes of the characters, and mainly the blind ones (and Emily the blind girl noting: "I've been looking for you"). Nobody else could have done this film, and as flawed as it is, it remains a horror masterpiece. 7.5/10
The House by the Cemetery (Fulci, 1981) - Very weak conclusion to the trilogy, to the point you get to wonder why it is considered as part of it - the first two have strong thematical links and a pretty straightforward inclusion of the gates of hell, nothing you can find in this one. Here, Fulci tries to go for a more suspenseful approach, and he's not really good at it. The film was supposed to be inspired by both Lovecraft and Henry James (weird combination), and ends up as a very confused mess. You get used to the ridiculous levels of bad acting in Fulci's horror films, but you are not prepared for Bob the 9 years old in this one. His dubbed English voice is the worst thing I've ever heard. 2.5/10
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- Aug 24, 2011
- 28,784
- 13,803
Just watched "Waterworld" for the first time ever and...thought it was pretty good! I always heard this movie was awful. Maybe that's because of the insane budget at the time ($170+ million!) in 1995. Jurassic Park was only $105 million for comparison and came out 2 years earlier. Either way i don't understand the terrible reviews. It's an adventure movie with a kind of cool concept i guess. Sort of a poor-man's Mad Max + Indiana Jones (sort of). Not as good as either of those two movies but still an entertaining movie. Forgot it was Costner right after he drank his piss 
. The supporting cast helped move the movie along and Dennis Hopper was a good villain in a cartoon-sort of way.
Not to mention, the director of "Waterworld" Kevin Reynolds, also directed my favorite movie of all time...."The Counte of Monte Cristo"! Not a great movie, but i conceptually it felt like they wanted to do something kind of cool and had everyone buy into it. I liked it and would give it a 7/10 any day of the week.
. The supporting cast helped move the movie along and Dennis Hopper was a good villain in a cartoon-sort of way. Not to mention, the director of "Waterworld" Kevin Reynolds, also directed my favorite movie of all time...."The Counte of Monte Cristo"! Not a great movie, but i conceptually it felt like they wanted to do something kind of cool and had everyone buy into it. I liked it and would give it a 7/10 any day of the week.
ItsFineImFine
Registered User
- Aug 11, 2019
- 3,745
- 2,389
Missing (1982) - 7.5/10
A more human and conventional Costas-Gavras film while retaining the political theme and continuing to show the horrors of militant governments (and America's role in aiding them in this case). I guess it's a tired trope to focus on the emotional element of one single character to show the bigger political picture but it always works fairly well. I'd say the second half is much better than the first and its unfocused nature costs it a a little bit, previous Costas-Gavras films might have been a bit more aggressive in their style but it made them more unique and provided a rhythm.
Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) - 6.5/10
Involves following four main characters around so it's always going to be difficult to juggle their separate storylines while tying them together and I don't think Ang Lee does a very even job of it. There are some great scenes here and there and it's either too boring or too soapish in other parts. A decent but skippable watch imo.
A more human and conventional Costas-Gavras film while retaining the political theme and continuing to show the horrors of militant governments (and America's role in aiding them in this case). I guess it's a tired trope to focus on the emotional element of one single character to show the bigger political picture but it always works fairly well. I'd say the second half is much better than the first and its unfocused nature costs it a a little bit, previous Costas-Gavras films might have been a bit more aggressive in their style but it made them more unique and provided a rhythm.
Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) - 6.5/10
Involves following four main characters around so it's always going to be difficult to juggle their separate storylines while tying them together and I don't think Ang Lee does a very even job of it. There are some great scenes here and there and it's either too boring or too soapish in other parts. A decent but skippable watch imo.
Went back to Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy. I've used parts of these films in a horror class before, but it must have been 25 years since I've sit and watched them entirely. Of course, you need a little clemency in order to appreciate them, not only because they're low-budget, but also because Fulci certainly has more flaws than skills as a director. Abysmal acting, with lines being at times said in Italian, and at times in English, and all badly dubbed afterwards, makes it hard to take these films seriously. Still, they're absolutely unique (the first two at least) and of great importance to horror cinema. Fulci came to the genre late, after already having a lot of films to his credits (including a few giallos), he was already reknown for not shying away from depicting ultraviolence, and it is clear he had a good understanding of what he wanted his brand of horror to look like.
Images as spoilers ----- gore ----- be warned
City of the Living Dead (Fulci, 1980) - First, the ending. It is said that the footage was damaged in the editing room and that they ended up with nothing that could make sense, so they rolled with it. This sums up pretty nicely the entire work of Fulci. "It's no good? Oh I guess I've tried, let's do another!". Fulci shot 2 films in 1980 and a 6 episodes TV mini-series, but he didn't have time to go back and redo 3 takes to make his film almost watchable. His carefree guerilla approach to moviemaking makes pretty much everything he touched disappointingly uneven. He doesn't care much about filming movies, he films moments or scenes, and at that he is one of the greatest directors horror has known. This first entry in the trilogy is pretty much a collage of scenes that don't add up very well together, but a few of them propose strong imagery rarely equaled (the high-point here being, for me at least, the raining maggots). His obsession with the gaze, sight, occularisation, and the eyes show a great understanding of the horror genre inner workings - and in that, he doesn't care much for suspense. Fulci's horror is pure abjection. One of the first lines of dialogues in this one sums up everything you have to know to appreciate Fulci's signature: the psychic medium screaming "I see! I see!". 4.5/10
The Beyond (Fulci, 1981) - Haven't seen everything by Fulci, he did do a lot of crap I have no intention to ever laid eyes on, but this is by far the best and most interesting film I've seen from him. Again, the long-hair-don't-care Fulci approach is obvious, and kind of frustrating: the film is often gorgeous, with detailed work on sets, lightning and framing, but here and there you have an out-of-focus shot, or a corpse obviously breathing or blinking (!), and he just won't care going back to correct it. Still, The Beyond's visual and atmospheric conceptions are stricking and unique. The introduction in glorious black & yellow feels like a return to classic horror cinema, until the Fulci signature gore enters the show and reminds you what you're in for. Again, the film reaches for pure abjection, and focus is even more clearly put on vision: from the first victim lamenting in terror "The eyes! The eyes!" to the iconic eye-gouging effects, through the numerous close-up shots of the eyes of the characters, and mainly the blind ones (and Emily the blind girl noting: "I've been looking for you"). Nobody else could have done this film, and as flawed as it is, it remains a horror masterpiece. 7.5/10
The House by the Cemetery (Fulci, 1981) - Very weak conclusion to the trilogy, to the point you get to wonder why it is considered as part of it - the first two have strong thematical links and a pretty straightforward inclusion of the gates of hell, nothing you can find in this one. Here, Fulci tries to go for a more suspenseful approach, and he's not really good at it. The film was supposed to be inspired by both Lovecraft and Henry James (weird combination), and ends up as a very confused mess. You get used to the ridiculous levels of bad acting in Fulci's horror films, but you are not prepared for Bob the 9 years old in this one. His dubbed English voice is the worst thing I've ever heard. 2.5/10
Thanks for reminding me what I spent three nights in November watching. I just went back to compare my reviews and I gave all three 3/10. I watched The Beyond in Italian without subtitles, though, so maybe that's why it didn't stand out to me as it did to you. I'm surprised, though... how could you not like a 9-year-old named Bob yelling in dubbed English "Mommy, it's coming to get me!"?
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Pranzo Oltranzista
Registered User
- Oct 18, 2017
- 3,981
- 2,900
Well, dialogues really ain't much in his films, so I'm not sure it would help much. As for Bob, he is a terrible, terrible actor, his lines were dumb as f***, but most of all, the sound of his English voice was just emetic.
Pranzo Oltranzista
Registered User
- Oct 18, 2017
- 3,981
- 2,900
Just watched "Waterworld" for the first time ever and...thought it was pretty good! I always heard this movie was awful. Maybe that's because of the insane budget at the time ($170+ million!) in 1995. Jurassic Park was only $105 million for comparison and came out 2 years earlier. Either way i don't understand the terrible reviews. It's an adventure movie with a kind of cool concept i guess. Sort of a poor-man's Mad Max + Indiana Jones (sort of). Not as good as either of those two movies but still an entertaining movie. Forgot it was Costner right after he drank his piss
Not to mention, the director of "Waterworld" Kevin Reynolds, also directed my favorite movie of all time...."The Counte of Monte Cristo"! Not a great movie, but i conceptually it felt like they wanted to do something kind of cool and had everyone buy into it. I liked it and would give it a 7/10 any day of the week.
It's one of those movies that became cool to hate on. It started during production, with rumors of set issues (a hurricane destroyed one set) and it going way over budget. It was called a flop in the making before it ever hit the screen and that bad buzz kept people away at the box office. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think that people also assumed that Costner directed it, so they viewed it as an ego project, and some people just wanted him to fail because he'd become such a huge star, especially with the ladies. Anyways, I liked it in the theater and have liked it each time that I've seen it since. It's very imaginative and different, mostly because of the watery setting. It's dumb, but dumb fun, IMO.
If you want to try your luck with another Costner film that has a similar reputation, watch 1997's The Postman. It's also post-apocalyptic, but on dry land and a little more drama than action. I think that the same people who trashed Waterworld trashed it. I, personally, have always liked both.
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Official Secrets (2019) directed by Gavin Hood
Just before the US and UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, a document is sent throughout UK’s intelligence services from the NSA to spy on other states in order to blackmail them to vote in favour of the Iraq war in the UN. A translator, named Katherine Gun (Keira Knightley) at the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) who’s profession is to translate intelligence receives this memo and leaks it to the press. Based on a true story that I only vaguely recall, the film then documents her legal battle against the state and their Official Secrets Act which legally blocks any form of whistleblowing and even legal consul for Top Secret matters. While the film is a fairly standard whistleblower procedural film and doesn’t deviate much from that formula, it is carried by a captivating story that left me shocked that this actually happened and by strong performances, especially by Knightley. A solid political thriller.
Just before the US and UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, a document is sent throughout UK’s intelligence services from the NSA to spy on other states in order to blackmail them to vote in favour of the Iraq war in the UN. A translator, named Katherine Gun (Keira Knightley) at the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) who’s profession is to translate intelligence receives this memo and leaks it to the press. Based on a true story that I only vaguely recall, the film then documents her legal battle against the state and their Official Secrets Act which legally blocks any form of whistleblowing and even legal consul for Top Secret matters. While the film is a fairly standard whistleblower procedural film and doesn’t deviate much from that formula, it is carried by a captivating story that left me shocked that this actually happened and by strong performances, especially by Knightley. A solid political thriller.
Chili
Time passes when you're not looking
- Jun 10, 2004
- 8,787
- 4,922
I liked that the camera tells much of the story, several scenic location shots including along the Nile. It is on youtube.
Tasty Biscuits
with fancy sauce
Probably more in the 3.5 range for me, but aside from that, agree with all of the thoughts above.
Gunga Din (1939) - 8/10 (Loved it)
In Colonial India, three British soldiers and friends (Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Victor McLaglen) take on a murderous religious cult with the help of their local water bearer (Sam Jaffe) who secretly wants to be a soldier, himself. Based on a couple of Rudyard Kipling poems, this blockbuster has it all: action, adventure, comedy and tragedy. It became a bit of a template for action movies to come and the last half is especially reminiscent of and inspired Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. There's an Indian temple, a murderous cult that worships the same goddess Kali, a high priest, a rickety bridge and even a pit of vipers. Before and after those parts, there are several large battles that involve hundreds of extras, including many on horseback. The soundtrack, especially during the battle scenes, is really good. Cary Grant is great and provides most of the humor as a soldier who loves fist fights and searching for gold. He and his friend also like to make fun of the third friend for falling in love and try to get him to give her up so that the three of them can stay together. In other words, they're typical guys and it's a real guy/buddy film, with their water bearer Gunga Din eventually joining them. It's just a fun action-adventure classic.
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Pranzo Oltranzista
Registered User
- Oct 18, 2017
- 3,981
- 2,900
6 Underground (Bay, 2019) - Too bad this type of action films can't come up with a compelling story no matter how hard they try, cause apart from being vain and dumb (that voice over was too much), there's a lot of fun in this film. The comedy components ain't laugh-out-loud material, but enjoyable enough, and the action sequences are pretty cool, especially the whole intro. 4.5/10
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