Movies you've seen recently (Part 2)

Cafe Society
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I certainly know that my opinion is a minority one. Maybe it’s age: I demand more from films these days, and that in 1995 - if I had seen it - I probably would have liked it well enough. But as I said, IMO this film hasn’t aged well.

From a contemporary NYTimes review: “But the real problem is [..] that “Goldeneye” bears no stamp of Ian Fleming beyond its title, which was the name of his Jamaican home. This film’s screenplay [..] features only flat repartee and fairly desperate homages to the Fleming style.”

..

”And so many other action films have borrowed from the Bond formula in the 33 (yes!) years since “Dr. No” that this one has a hard time looking special. A plane, a motorcycle, a huge dam, a bungee jumper and nerve gas all feature in the opening sequence, yet it still lacks the novelty that starts the best Bond films off with a bang.”

In my younger, less-jaded days I took great delight in action films, and there are still action sequences that entertain, delight, or scare me (a recent example from Weapons where the teacher is accosted at a store…actually several times, by people both sane and not; they were…fun). For older me, to be enjoyable, action scenes cannot have a foregone conclusion.

But most pointedly the parts where both my wife and I rolled our eyes were the many times where, at the end of the action sequence, any sane person would have shot their opponent and be done with it, but no…. There were so many of these in this film, we looked at each other and said “again?” And Mrs. Raza is a happy watcher of nearly any film; her bar for entertainment is, I say this lovingly, rather low, and even she was growing bored.

And all that is before we get into the vast metric tonnes of suspension of disbelief required. I’m all for accepting what we’re given in a film, but there are limits. That, on top of the many pointless action sequences that all lead to the same expected outcome, led both of us to be glad the film was over.

Again, I appreciate that I am in the minority, and I don’t mind at all that other people enjoy it.

I’ll close with a snippet from the LA Times review from 1995 (Kenneth Turan):

“Though “GoldenEye” is an acceptable Bond picture, it’s a reasonable facsimile more than any kind of original, and it’s hard not to feel a certain weariness while watching it unfold.“

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I think it is the best of the Brosnan ones, though. Die Another Day is one of the absolute worst Bond movies and it was his final one. I saw all of his in the theater and even in the theater, we thought it was atrocious. Absolutely shockingly bad.

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Yes, I agree. I think I have the same opinion about Die Another Day that Raza has about Goldeneye !

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The first half was pretty decent - up to the fencing scene, which on the one hand hand some pretty decent swordplay, but on the other hand had Madonna. After that it became abysmal.

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We watched this the next movie night after Brick. It isn’t nearly as good, but has it’s moments. It’s far too self-indulgent. In places, it seems like he’s trying to make a Wes Anderson movie. Weisz is kind of a manic pixie dream girl, but gives the best performance in the movie.

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Goldeneye has exciting action sequences. The trouble is they’re stupid. But I must admit the scene with the guy clicking the bomb oen was clever: Bond was counting all the time! When it got to “explodes” he sprung into action with no warning.

Though I will buck the trend and say Die Another Day is better than Goldeneye.

Now, as for the OP.

We have started The Winds of War, the 883 minute 1983 mini series. Technically not a movie, I think because of its scope, it could count?

Anyway I have more of a question than a comment, and it is: does it get any better? We watched the first episode and man does it drag,. We have like 20-25 minute of just the Palio and I’m not convinced that will advance the plot at all. It has a ginormous cast, but so far the only character I can stand is Pug.

Since it only cover 1939-dec 1941, is it worth slogging through?

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Big Trouble in Little China

I showed this to my son when he was 7 and he loved it then. In fact, he loved it so much that two years later when I took him and his older sister to see Labyrinth at a film fest hosted by two local movie critics (one who has been a friend of mine since first grade) and one of them mentioned that the movie that would air next week is Big Trouble In Little China my son yelled out, in a crowded theater, “Big Trouble in Little China is awesome!”

He doesn’t remember that little bit of overexuberance and he doesn’t remember the movie either, so I queued it up on Friday for us to watch. He liked it but he was “done” with it about 3/4s of the way through.

Still a good movie, imo. There is a lot of kung-fu action and a lot of mystical Asian sorcery, but I think it’s handled well, even for an American 80s action flick. John Carpenter is great at mixing action and goofy storytelling and Kurt Russell’s Jack Burton is all dimwit bravado who succeeds in saving the day despite every goofball thing that he does along the way. Dennis Dun, Victor Wong, James Hong, and Kin Cattrall round out the cast. The quotes are funny, the action is fun, and the worldbuilding is imaginative.

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Saw Return to Silent Hill
10/10 no notes, it is by far the worst movie I ever seen. And they abuse the source material in ways I couldn’t imagine. The biggest criminal offense is James finding VHS tapes dated 2017. :rofl:
Perhaps it was a so bad it’s good type of movie. I want to hear what someone thinks of the movie who isn’t familiar with the source material.

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I watched that mini series when it aired, but, man, that was a long time ago.

I watched it because I had read the book by Herman Wouk, which was great. But if I remember correctly (dubious assertion, at this point in my life), the TV series followed the book fairly closely. Once the action starts, it goes fast and furiously. I THINK you’ll end up liking the series; at least, I hope you do!

If not, feel free to blame me.

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Ok, I’ll keep going.

Only 763 minutes to go! (appx)

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What Lies Beneath (2000)

One of those major motion pictures that I have somehow avoided for a quarter of a century. It’s leaving Netflix and my wife suggested we watch it. 9 out 10 ghost stories bore the Hell out of me but this one, at least, held my interest. Michelle Pheiffer’s performance is very good; Harrison Ford’s is quite forgettable. I was really surprised to see that the screenplay was written by a pre-Avengers Clark Gregg.

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Good film, that. Very Hitchcock.

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I watched Blue Moon last night. It’s about Lorenz Hart (of Rodgers and Hart) on the opening night of the Broadway show Oklahoma!, which was the first show Richard Rodgers did with Oscar Hammerstein II as the lyricist instead of Hart.

The movie did a good job of depicting aspects of Hart’s personality (and persona), and his relationship to Rodgers. Hart was very short (less than five feet tall), gay, and an alcoholic, and while he was a brilliant wordsmith, he was also undisciplined. Rodgers was straight, married, very domestic, conventional in his personal life, and disciplined. There are stories about how Rodgers would come to work in the morning and would end waiting hours for Hart, who would eventually show up after a night of drinking with bits and pieces of lyrics on scraps of paper he had shoved in his pockets. The partnership worked, but it drove Rodgers crazy.

The movie stars Ethan Hawke as Hart. They used some sort of digital effect to make Hawke look short. I thought it worked OK. The other standout for me was Elizabeth Weiland as Hart’s protege Margaret Qualley. At first it seemed like her character was just being used as eye candy, but later there was an intimate conversation between Hart and Qualley that, to me, was the highlight of the film.

One thing the movie gets wrong, IMO, is that it keeps referring to Hart’s work as comedic. At one point, Rodgers tells Hart that people like to feel. In reality, Lorenz Hart was the master of bittersweet love songs. I just can’t see his lyrics as being unemotional or merely comedic. I can’t even believe that Rodgers would accuse him of this. Hart objected to schmaltz, something Hammerstein had no problem with, but Hart was a very emotional lyricist.

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Fun movie and I believe unique because:

It is the only time Harrison Ford played the villain.

Am I right?

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Other way around?

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Oops! You’re right. D’oh!

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Margaret Qualley is great, not surprised to hear she shines in a role.

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He was five feet tall.

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A quick scan of the internet says 5 feet tall, ‘barely’ 5 feet tall, and under 5 feet tall. (shrug emoji)

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He’s currently under 5 feet tall, so let’s go with that.