The Last Movie You Watched?

The Saloon
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[quote=“korano, post:20, topic:1923”]

Dan Duryea plays a good enough role. He’s not a great actor but he’s pretty darn good in the films he’s in. He’s never really given a chance to do too many lead roles. I think he’s a good actor. Not great. but not too many actors can be called “great”[/quote]

Love Duryea. I agree he was much better as a supporting player, but never had enough opportunities to prove himself in any case (he was consigned largely to TV roles from the late Fifties onwards). I particularly like him in Criss Cross as the preening gangster who baits Burt Lancaster, and as gunman Waco Johnny Dean in Winchester 73 (interestingly, he has a role in a 1967 TV remake of the latter film).

22

“Black water” an australian film about 3 people trapped in a swamp land in a tree by a hungry salt water crocodile. similar to “open water” which i thought was the better film but this has some good moments of suspense and the climax is well done, supposedly based on a true story but i take that with a pinch of salt. very watchable.

23

Niagara - noir-esque thriller with some spectacular imagery (the vertiginous falls, the curvature of Monroe) and an edgy performance from Joseph Cotten as an unbalanced murder-plot victim who turns the tables but loses the plot.

Enjoyable, but the conventional couple employed to offset Cotten and Monroe are far too bland.

24

“Doomsday” it was ok with some gory moments and a good climax straight out of “Mad Max 2”. watchable.

25

Saw The Kidnap Syndicate… underrated euro-crime, much better than I thought it would be. Fernando Di Leo in top form, and best Luc Merenda performance i’ve seen so far.

And Alice Sweet Alice, the movie really starts getting interesting an hour into it, impressive American giallo.

26

“Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story”. i was pleasantly surprised by this, i was not expecting much but this is a very funny spoof of musical biopics especially " I walk the line" but also " la Bamba" “The Buddy Holly Story” and others. This is laugh out loud funny at times and John C Reilly gives the best performance of his career. Even most of the songs are good. good film. ;D

27

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage
Not bad but still overrated IMO. And the way Argento describes women is very :-!

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[quote=“Silence, post:27, topic:1923”]The Bird With the Crystal Plumage
Not bad but still overrated IMO. And the way Argento describes women is very :-![/quote]
It’s movie from 70s you know. You’ve got to get used to stuff like that if you want to watch gialli. And this particular movie is very subtle in that aspect. [and it’s not overrated btw :wink: ]

1 Like
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Yeah I think it’s my favourite gialli.

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BLADE RUNNER

Watched the latest release, the Ultimate, Definite or whatever version

It’s a vast improvement over the Director’s cut, released only a year or two ago. The film has never looked better, with dark, but warm colours and incredible detail. You can see every drop of rain, and every line in people’s faces. Only problem: flesh colours occasionally seemed a bit too red (or was it meant to be this way?).

The audio was a vast improvement too, but that is not saying much, since the audio of the previous release was almost non-existent. Actually the DD 5.1 is still a bit of a letdown. Vangelis’ score (some hate it, I love it) comes through very strong, but the voices sound either a bit shrill or hollow. The audio has been created out of an original six track, and sometimes you notice the voices move from one side to another.

The film is still quite an experience, even when you watch it for the fifth or sixth time. The book might have been a problem here: it’s not one of Philip K. Dick’s best, a nice collection of ideas and vignettes, but with a muddled narrative. Surprisingly it doesn’t really harm the movie, or the experience: it’s still a delicious ‘trip’, one of the greatest in film history, I wish I still smoked that old stuff …

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[quote=“scherpschutter, post:30, topic:1923”]BLADE RUNNER
The book might have been a problem here: it’s not one of Philip K. Dick’s best, a nice collection of ideas and vignettes, but with a muddled narrative.[/quote]

I have to disagree there. I think the book is excellent. And the film is one of those adaptations where I just look at the book as a starting point. It’s a different animal altogether with the social angst of the original being dropped in favour of the hardboiled noir approach. Doesn’t matter in the slightest. The film works well on its own level.

Interesting to hear the latest version is better for you Scherps. I never saw the director’s cut as I have become suspicious of such constructs. They are always presented as the ‘better’ version but my experience is that they rarely are. Sometimes cuts imposed on a director’s vision help the film in a way the director is unable to see. An outside set of eyes can often be more objective and spot when something is superfluous. Some novelists need a good editor in the same way. (JK Rowling anyone?) We’ve talked about this before I know but for me Apocalypse Now is a perfect example of this. The Redux version, with all its reinstated scenes adds nothing to the original. Rather it detracts from it.

32

I meant to say the DVD looks better, I doubt if the version is better.
I thought it worked quite well as a noir thriller, but in the DC the voice over (and the ending) were dropped.

I lost track a little between all those versions (there will be articles floating around on the Net I suppose) but in this version - in an introduction Scott says it’s his favourite - there’s again no voice over. It harms Harrison Ford’s character: the film still often feels like a noir thriller (high tech noir?), but the protagonist seems a bit lost in the incredible sets. (oddly enough I was asking myself repeatedly: what the hell Ford is doing in this movie?) I don’t know how to typecast this version: there are still traces of the social angst and some of the philosophical ideas of the original story, there are still traces of noir, but it’s not really a philosophical film, nor is it a real noir. But it still is a great trip.

33

That it is.

34

“Talladega Nights” it was ok but nowhere near as funny as " Anchorman"

35

[quote=“scherpschutter, post:30, topic:1923”]BLADE RUNNER

Watched the latest release, the Ultimate, Definite or whatever version

It’s a vast improvement over the Director’s cut, released only a year or two ago. The film has never looked better, with dark, but warm colours and incredible detail. You can see every drop of rain, and every line in people’s faces. Only problem: flesh colours occasionally seemed a bit too red (or was it meant to be this way?).

The audio was a vast improvement too, but that is not saying much, since the audio of the previous release was almost non-existent. Actually the DD 5.1 is still a bit of a letdown. Vangelis’ score (some hate it, I love it) comes through very strong, but the voices sound either a bit shrill or hollow. The audio has been created out of an original six track, and sometimes you notice the voices move from one side to another.

The film is still quite an experience, even when you watch it for the fifth or sixth time, but even after the changes Scott made, it stills fails to make much sense. There are some interesting ideas, but as usual, when he wants to be intelligent, Scott fudges the issues he raises. The book might have been a problem here: it’s not one of Philip K. Dick’s best, a nice collection of ideas and vignettes, but with a muddled narrative. Scott (or the studio?) tried to make a sort of noir out of it first, which worked quite well, but eventually went for higher aspirations, which doesn’t work at all.

Surprisingly it doesn’t really harm the movie, or the experience: it’s still a delicious ‘trip’, one of the greatest in film history, I wish I still smoked that old stuff …[/quote]
Awsome film, with no doubt the best Sci-Fi film I have seen so far. And the version you have seems awsome too (I have Director’s Cut).

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@Scherpschutter
What’s the difference between the version you describe and director’s cut? I’m not talking about audio or visaul quality. Are there any additional scenes or changes in the movie itself?

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[quote=“alk0, post:36, topic:1923”]@Scherpschutter
What’s the difference between the version you describe and director’s cut? I’m not talking about audio or visaul quality. Are there any additional scenes or changes in the movie itself?[/quote]

It’s about a minute longer (1:51:48/1:52:40), so there must be some minor differences; to me it looked like the same cut, but I saw the DC two years ago, so I can’t really say. This one’s called The FINAL cut and has no voice over, nor a finale with Ford and Young ‘riding in the wind’. It has the scene with the unicorn and a final scene in which Ford finds some kind of paper, folded in the form of a unicorn.

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Must be one of the best yes
Could be an interinting election too
This one’s nominated, along with that other Scott SF movie Alien

39

Here are some comparisons; the discs compared are NTSC, I watched a PAL version, which may have caused some of the shrill sounding voices:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews24/bladerunner.htm

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And here you should be able to find everything you need:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content/id/66485/blade-runner-the-final-cut-five-disc-ultimate-collector’s-edition.html