Which movie did you watch today and how would you rate it?

[Archimedes]

On Deadly Ground - 1/10

Hilariously awful Steven Segal movie from the 1990s. Michael Caine is an evil capitalist who is cutting corners in order to get his new oil rig in Alaska working on time and Segal learns of this and is out to foil his plans. While Segal starts out as some sort of guy into hippy spiritual shit, wearing native style clothing just to hammer the point home that he's at one with nature and all that shit, about halfway through the movie one point he just decided that extreme violence is the answer to the issue at hand and turns into a murder machine, loads up with as much weaponry and explosive as he can carry and kills the shit out of a lot of people and destroys Michael Caine's new oil refinery, killing Michael Caine's evil capitalist by drowning him in his own crude oil.

Naturally, after all this, he is invited to give a speech to the Alaskan congress about environmental issues. A really hamfisted speech about environmentalism and corruption shoehorned in at the end of the movie just in case we couldn't pick up on the already extremely unsubtle themes of the movie.

I do love how in Hollywood movies, people can make effective silencers by duct-taping any random shit to the barrel of a gun. In this case, he tapes an empty 2 litre Coke bottle to his gun which works perfectly good as a silencer. And it being a Steven Segal movie, we had to have a scene where he single handed beats the snot out of loads of bad guys. So even though the evil mercenaries all all tooled up with guns and stuff, at one point, for no particular reason, a bunch of them attack him one at a time, coming at him with nothing but knives, so our hero can improvise some handheld weaponry from a pipe he rips from a piece of machinery, using it to beat them senseless. Because Steven Segal. He also gruesomely impales a henchmen through the head on his own knife. Which was nice.

I only give it 1/10 because it's truly awful, but it's awful in such a way to make it perfectly watchable for the full length of the movie.

 

[MarkW]

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

9/10

The middle film in John Ford's "cavalry trilogy" has been a favorite of mine for a long time. It's noteworthy for Winton Hoch's Oscar-winning cinematography, and even more for one of John Wayne's finest performances. Wayne, who was in his early 40s at the time, is entirely convincing, and often very moving as the 60ish Nathan Brittles, a cavalry captain at a small outpost who finds himself in a position to deal with a Cheyenne and Arapaho uprising in the wake of Custer's Last Stand. Reportedly, Ford was persuaded to cast Wayne in the challenging role after seeing the Duke in Howard Hawks' Red River--Ford's reported comment was "I never knew the big SOB could act."

John Agar and Joanne Dru, who play a pair of bickering young lovers, are annoying and detract a little from the film, and some may not enjoy Victor McLaglen's boisterous, hard-drinking sergeant (he played essentially the same part in all three films in the trilogy). But Ben Johnson, in his first major role, is superb as Sergeant Tyree, the troop's hard-riding point man and scout, while other members of Ford's stock company, like Mildred Natwick and Arthur Shields, hold their ends up capably.

 

[repoman]

The bar fight scene from On Deadly Ground. One of the best ever. In the terrible, but utterly watchable way you said.

 

[Daioh]

Are You Being Served?
2/10
Did you know that this T.V show had a movie as well?
I didn't
And I am almost wishing I still didn't
This movie is like taking an episode (not even one of their better ones) and streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetching it out to a movie
This results in loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong stretches of absolutely nothing
Now it does have the odd funny line or scene
But be prepared to be bored out of your skull

 

[Thomas II]

Must watch!

 

[DrZoidberg]

Nightcrawler (8/10)

One of the creepiest films I've ever seen. Simply because the protagonist (Jake Gyllenhall) is a psychopath, and we get to follow him in his adventures. He's not out of control evil. He's just very goal oriented and lacks social skills. Utterly and completely. It's painful to watch. When he was trying to woe a date I had to hide behind a pillow out of shame. Gyllenhall is great, and was so transformed that I failed to recognise it was him the entire movie. It wasn't until I looked it up afterwards the penny dropped.

Not to much a feel-good movie as a feel-bad movie. You'll feel dirty afterwards. I promise.

 

[MarkW]

Airport

4/10

Amazingly, this 1970 potboiler received a whopping ten Oscar nominations, with Helen Hayes even taking home Best Supporting Actress for playing a congenital stowaway. A more accurate evaluation came from the leading star, Burt Lancaster, who described it as "the biggest piece of junk ever made." Depicting a very eventful, troubled evening at fictitious Lincoln International Airport, the film often suggests that the biggest crisis is not the aircraft stuck in a snowdrift and blocking a runway, or the suicidal man who has smuggled a bomb on another flight, but the marital difficulties of two of the main characters (played by Lancaster and Dean Martin). It has a certain interest today as a period piece, from a time when air travel was a very different experience than it is today, and George Kennedy and Lloyd Nolan, in supporting roles, manage to emerge with their dignity intact.

 

[laughing dog]

The Intern 7/10

Robert DeNiro plays a widowed 70 year old who wins a senior internship at an internet startup run by the overwhelmed Anne Hathaway. She does not want an intern, but DeNiro eventually wins her trust through his diligence and helpfulness.

Mildly amusing with some diverting side plots.

 

[credoconsolans]

The Intern 7/10

Robert DeNiro plays a widowed 70 year old who wins a senior internship at an internet startup run by the overwhelmed Anne Hathaway. She does not want an intern, but DeNiro eventually wins her trust through his diligence and helpfulness.

Mildly amusing with some diverting side plots.

I imagine that the man gives some sympathetic reason for wanting an internship at his age? Otherwise, all I can think of is that he's keeping some young person, trying to GET experience, from having the opportunity.

 

[MarkW]

Fletch

7.5/10

An amiable and entertaining crime comedy, this is probably Chevy Chase's best film. While it's a little too low-key at times, Chase is a likable lead, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson a sympathetic heroine and there's a pretty good supporting cast including an early-in-career Geena Davis.

 

[Archimedes]

Empire Strikes Back - 8/10

Yeah, great stuff and all the usual. Not the masterpiece some people make it out to be but definitely the strong point in the original trilogy. It was one of Lucas's special editions (I can't keep track of the various "special" editions of Star Wars that have been released in the 30+ years since they came out theatrically and don't care any more) I was watching, and I was kinda laying back and only half-watching them while fucking around online on my iPad so I didn't notice if the special effects and shit added after the fact was at all distracting and it didn't seem to be until I noticed a scene with Boba Fett speaking with a Kiwi accent and it stuck out like a sore thumb even though I haven't seen this movie in 20 years and I couldn't remember Boba Fett's voice if you asked me, but it sounded odd so I wondered if they got that New Zealand actor back from the prequels to replace the original voice, so I had to Google it and yes they did.

Is that really necessary? I'm gonna next watch Return of the Jedi which I also haven't seen since the 90s and I'm now dreading to see what shit has been awkwardly shoehorned into that movie after the prequels in the new "special" editions.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Empire Strikes Back - 8/10

Yeah, great stuff and all the usual. Not the masterpiece some people make it out to be but definitely the strong point in the original trilogy. It was one of Lucas's special editions (I can't keep track of the various "special" editions of Star Wars that have been released in the 30+ years since they came out theatrically and don't care any more) I was watching, and I was kinda laying back and only half-watching them while fucking around online on my iPad so I didn't notice if the special effects and shit added after the fact was at all distracting and it didn't seem to be until I noticed a scene with Boba Fett speaking with a Kiwi accent and it stuck out like a sore thumb even though I haven't seen this movie in 20 years and I couldn't remember Boba Fett's voice if you asked me, but it sounded odd so I wondered if they got that New Zealand actor back from the prequels to replace the original voice, so I had to Google it and yes they did.

Is that really necessary? I'm gonna next watch Return of the Jedi which I also haven't seen since the 90s and I'm now dreading to see what shit has been awkwardly shoehorned into that movie after the prequels in the new "special" editions.

What the special editions taught us was that George Lucas talent is to find talented people to work with. He himself is a talentless moron. The less creative control he has the better. What made Star Wars work is that Lucas didn't have the confidence or pondus to just make it the way he wanted. The quality of Star Wars films has an inverse relation to his confidence level.

 

[Archimedes]

To follow up Empire Strikes Back, tonight I watched

Return of the Jedi - 8/10

Just like I think Empire gets a praise that's a bit over the top, I think this one gets unfair negative criticism. Good rip roaring adventure fun.

Turns out it's the 2011 Blu-Ray versions I'm watching. I got a USB stick with the original trilogy on them and didn't know which special edition I had but figured it out tonight.

I noticed a lot of visual crud that I'm sure wasn't in the originals. The addition of the celebration scenes at the end was okay but lots of scene had pointless crap added like editing the scene where Threepio and Artoo arrive at Jabba's palace and its now zoomed out to make the entrance seem much bigger. And random creatures and shit added to various scenes for no reason. I think they replaced the music that Jabba's band was playing also?

I know that sticking in Hayden Christiansen at the end scene with ghosts has been beaten to death so I won't bother complain about it, so instead I'll have a bitch about the fucking big NOOOO!!!!!! inserted into the scene where Vader redeems himself and saves Luke by throwing the Emperor into the bottomless pit. What the FUCK were they thinking putting that in? Some sort of lame attempt to mirror the already widely panned big NOOOO!!!! at the end of the prequels. Is Lucas just that out of touch that he doesn't know how hated and mocked the big NOOO!!! from Revenge of the Sith was when he had it shoehorned into this movie? Or was it just a big "fuck you" to his critics? It was so bad I actually laughed at it when I heard it.

Anyway, apart from all that retroactively inserted crap, a thoroughly enjoyable movie.

 

[MarkW]

What the special editions taught us was that George Lucas talent is to find talented people to work with. He himself is a talentless moron. The less creative control he has the better. What made Star Wars work is that Lucas didn't have the confidence or pondus to just make it the way he wanted. The quality of Star Wars films has an inverse relation to his confidence level.

"Talentless moron" is a bit strong, don't you think? Lucas is a very successful producer and businessman. Left to himself, he isn't really a terribly good writer or director (especially at working with actors).

 

[Archimedes]

"Talentless moron" is a bit strong, don't you think? Lucas is a very successful producer and businessman. Left to himself, he isn't really a terribly good writer or director (especially at working with actors).

Just look at Samuel Jackson's performance in the prequels. Let's face it, he's not known as an actor for his restraint or subtlety. He doesn't hold back and likes to pull an Al Pacino and just enthusiastically shout his way through his lines when necessary.

And he could have been an awesome badass Jedi knight in Star Wars.

Yet he's a total plank as Mace Windu. Dull and unemotional as fuck.

Ian McDiarmid seemed to enjoy playing Palpatine though. I wonder if he realised just how shit the prequel movies were and just decided to enjoy himself and ham his way through them.

 

[DrZoidberg]

What the special editions taught us was that George Lucas talent is to find talented people to work with. He himself is a talentless moron. The less creative control he has the better. What made Star Wars work is that Lucas didn't have the confidence or pondus to just make it the way he wanted. The quality of Star Wars films has an inverse relation to his confidence level.

"Talentless moron" is a bit strong, don't you think? Lucas is a very successful producer and businessman. Left to himself, he isn't really a terribly good writer or director (especially at working with actors).

Producer is a person who either finds cash or just keeps the talent in the right place at the right time. I guess a talent. But isn't a creative talent. Which is what art is about. Film is art.

Businessman is about doing homework and making educated gambles. Also not a creative talent. That's a talent that only matters because of the peculiarities of our artificial rules of bussiness in our modern society. It's a tragedy that businessmen get any say in art IMHO. And hardly anything we need to care about or give credit to.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Fletch

7.5/10

An amiable and entertaining crime comedy, this is probably Chevy Chase's best film. While it's a little too low-key at times, Chase is a likable lead, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson a sympathetic heroine and there's a pretty good supporting cast including an early-in-career Geena Davis.

What I liked most about the film is they bothered to actually come up with a reasonable conclusion to the caper. I'm not a big Chase fan, but the film works well, even if the soundtrack is terribly dated to the 80s.

- - - Updated - - -

"Talentless moron" is a bit strong, don't you think? Lucas is a very successful producer and businessman. Left to himself, he isn't really a terribly good writer or director (especially at working with actors).

Producer is a person who either finds cash or just keeps the talent in the right place at the right time. I guess a talent. But isn't a creative talent. Which is what art is about. Film is art.

Businessman is about doing homework and making educated gambles. Also not a creative talent. That's a talent that only matters because of the peculiarities of our artificial rules of bussiness in our modern society. It's a tragedy that businessmen get any say in art IMHO. And hardly anything we need to care about or give credit to.

He knows how to start and finish a film. The middle has been his problem.

 

[Sarpedon]

Umm, the start and finish of the Phantom Menace left much to be desired.

And Attack of the Clones. Finish wasn't so bad.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Umm, the start and finish of the Phantom Menace left much to be desired.

And Attack of the Clones. Finish wasn't so bad.

Should have been a little more specific... the original trilogy. The first of the prequel had little to be desired.

 

[Sarpedon]

Really, it should be said that Lucas is a one hit wonder. Who wouldn't go away again.