Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 81

Do I need to watch Split?

 

Yeah

 

nah

 

No @ split

 

It seems like opinions are split.

 

"need to", no.

 

no

 

You don't need to, but I'd be interested to hear what you think. What's an hour and a half of your summer?

 

Bout 90 minutes

 

The Prestige - 8/10
Shivers - 6/10
The First Great Train Robbery - 7/10
Teen Wolf - 4.5/10
Joe Kidd - 7/10
Baby Driver - 9/10
The Burning - 5.5/10
Cube - 6.5/10
The Magnificent Seven (2016) - 7.5/10

An overall average week with only two films being standouts but there were at least some interesting films. The Prestige has been on my to watch list for a while now and despite my high expectations not quite being met it was still a solid film despite me seeing some of the plot twists a mile off. After having seen several Cronenberg films before it was interesting to watch his debut film Shivers where you can see the kind of ideas that he fleshed out in far better films but it was entertaining enough but can't say that I took all that seriously. The First Great Train Robbery stars two of my favorite actors (Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland) and is loosely based on the Great Gold Robbery of 1855 where what was deemed impossible (stealing gold from a moving train) actually succeeded and though script wise it isn't all that deep it is interesting to see the plans being made and the robbery take place with some solid action thrown in. Teen Wolf was utterly predictable and lacking in any kind of comedy or drama but it was nonetheless hard to hate and Michael J. Fox was likable enough. Joe Kidd is a Clint Eastwood Western that pales in comparison to other Western films he has starred in but the action is great (difficult not to like Eastwood driving a train into a saloon just so he can get the upper hand on a few enemies) and Eastwood himself along with the likes of Robert Duvall are great to watch. Baby Driver is however by far and away the best film of the week and easily one of the best mainstream original films I have seen for a while. With a brilliant cast, an even better soundtrack that is actually a part of the solid plot/script without feeling shoehorned in, it looks fantastic thanks to its style and editing then there are the car chases which give classics like Bullitt and The Driver a run for their money and not just because they are exciting but because they are also in camera and not reliant on CGI or gimmicks. The Burning is your typical early 80s slasher film with plenty of violence, heavy use of practical effects (some of which are laughable) and plenty of sex/nudity but least it is entertaining and despite being a blatant rip off of Friday the 13th it manages to be no worse than that film. Cube was an interesting experience, yes it is badly acted and the script is thin but I have always enjoyed films that take place in a singular location and this played the confined space and paranoia very well. The Magnificent Seven from last year may well not be the classic that is the 1960 film or be as highly regarded as Seven Samurai upon which both are based on but I nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed it and it was great to see an ensemble cast in an action orientated Western that didn't need to rely on gimmicks like aliens or excessive use of CGI.

So an enjoyable and interesting week despite only a couple of outstanding films.

 

I think I nearly turned The Magnificent Seven off. I wanted to like it, but don't remember it being good at all.

 

Magnificent Seven pales next to the original, but was still well-acted and solidly executed. It was an enjoyable 2 hours.

 

Saw my first movies from Jarmusch, Tarkovsky and D.W. Griffith today. Kicking the ass of my biggest movie blind spots.

 

which Jarmusch? I've only seen Only Lovers Left Alive and Paterson

I feel like paradoxically the more movies I see the more blind spots I have

 

Which ones? I've been meaning to watch more Griffith forever. Only seen Intolerance so far.

 

Dead Man, Stalker (the restoration on the big screen) and Broken Blossoms. They were definitely my 3 biggest 0-fers on directors.

I also saw The Big Sick, which was great.

 

Broken Flowers?

Edit: nvm

 

I'll probably watch Paterson this week

 

Dead Man is one of my favorite Jarmusch films. That and Ghostdog are great subversive genre works. Jealous you saw the Stalker restoration. It's been years and I did not grasp it when I saw it, excited to pick up that blu in a couple weeks. What did you think of Broken Blossoms? That and True Heart Susie are the unseen Griffiths I'm most interested in.

 

I've never seen a movie whose entire thesis is "racism is bad" be so racist as Broken Blossoms, but it actually was a really good tragic love story. Despite the yellow-face, Barthelmess really gives a performance with a lot of feeling. What other Griffith have you seen? Just on the 1001 list I'm doing I know I need Intolerance, The Birth of a Nation, Way Down East and Orphans of the Storm.

I did think Dead Man was good, but it was a little too deliberately/willfully weird for me to connect that much with. Goddamn beautiful to look at though, and the Neil Young score was great.

 

Baby Driver had some great music and action. Not sure about everything else though.

 

The Year of Living Dangerously was very good. Normally a guy as slow and deliberate as Weir wouldn't be my thing but he is so good with atmosphere. Gibson and Linda Hunt are excellent. I think I'm kind of a fan of that decidedly 80s genre where they send a western reporter to another part of the world to cover a revolution. They made so many of them.

Loooooved Key Largo. I'm already a John Huston fan but this one had so much atmosphere and I loved the single location and the mood of the storm. Plus Bogart rarely had a bad guy as charismatic as Edward G. Robinson to play against.

Written on the Wind is wonderful. I haven't seen a Sirk I didn't love yet. Nobody had a handle on color the way he did.

 

I watched Johnny Guitar for the first time this morning and it's instantly one of the best films I've ever seen. The Olive blu-ray from last year is one of the best looking color transfers I've seen and it's packed with great supplements too.

 

I have not seen this one yet but I've honestly been meaning to for years. I agree that Sirk is incredible, especially in his use of color. Oddly enough, the only Sirk I didn't love was the only non-color one I've seen.

 

This is just my fourth from him but it might be my favorite, either that or Imitation of Life. This one is a little more over the top in terms of character machinations but it works. It's like as much Sirk all at once as Sirk could get.

What was the black and white one?