Watch, Watched, Watching: Start another thread already

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Anyone gonna do a Barbenheimer next week ? I’m planning Oppenheimer then Barbie! 

[dog-days]

Admit I'm tempted. Especially the idea of going in sparkly pink to the Oppenheimer showing, then heading to Barbie in a suit with a cigarette and martini. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Not gonna lie, I've only seen a few of the MI movies and have found each to be kind meh, but take that with a grain of salt because I also didn't think much of the Bourne films while I love a lot of bad Bond movies. 

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not gonna lie, I've only seen a few of the MI movies and have found each to be kind meh, but take that with a grain of salt because I also didn't think much of the Bourne films while I love a lot of bad Bond movies. 

They are meh on the whole, but Fallout I think was absolutely top notch and got the action just right.
 

I find many of them just incomprehensible and stuff happens and I’m ten steps behind and only get a sense of what happened by the end, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

36 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

They are meh on the whole, but Fallout I think was absolutely top notch and got the action just right.
 

I find many of them just incomprehensible and stuff happens and I’m ten steps behind and only get a sense of what happened by the end, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

That's the problem with a lot of the films. I've seen a number of clips that are breathtaking, but I have little interest in watching the whole movie. The stunt work is top notice, but the stories are more or less the same. It's really a problem with TC movies in general lately. He use to be a sneaky good actor, however most of what he does now is big action set pieces in movies that aren't that good. TG: Maverick, for example, was not a good movie if you're just grading on story and plot, but because it's got some wowing visuals you understand why it was a massive hit (also, the pandemic helped considering it was the first big movie after people felt good going back to the theater). 

[Heartofice]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's the problem with a lot of the films. I've seen a number of clips that are breathtaking, but I have little interest in watching the whole movie. The stunt work is top notice, but the stories are more or less the same. It's really a problem with TC movies in general lately. He use to be a sneaky good actor, however most of what he does now is big action set pieces in movies that aren't that good. TG: Maverick, for example, was not a good movie if you're just grading on story and plot, but because it's got some wowing visuals you understand why it was a massive hit (also, the pandemic helped considering it was the first big movie after people felt good going back to the theater). 

I find the problem is I have no recollection of the previous movie every time I watch a new one, and even if it’s not a requirement, it would help. But actually the plots are not especially memorable, but it’s almost like it doesn’t matter because they tend to entertaining most of the way through.

Some movies are obviously better than others 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

25 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I find the problem is I have no recollection of the previous movie every time I watch a new one, and even if it’s not a requirement, it would help. But actually the plots are not especially memorable, but it’s almost like it doesn’t matter because they tend to entertaining most of the way through.

Some movies are obviously better than others 

I'm relying on what others have told me. It sounds like all the movies are exactly the same, just with better stunts. The problem for me is the first story was just average, so I don't want to see that over and over again. Bond has a lot of bad movies, but they're at least a little different outside of the tropes. 

[Theda Baratheon]

Watching Severance. Bringing up a lot of interesting questions. Enjoying it. 
 

[Veltigar]

I have been engaged in a bit of a '90s binge, just so that I'm prepared for when that decade gets cool again. I saw three films which I shall rank from great to mediocre.

The first and best film I watched as part of my '90s binge was Harrison Ford's The Fugitive. This film absolutely and unequivocally still holds up today. The action is relentless, the characterization engaging and the plotting is almost air tight. With the exception of some of the antagonist's behaviour near the end, I felt like the plot mostly progressed in a logical manner and the film really does make you feel that Harrison Ford's character only got away with it as a result of great skill and tremendous amounts of luck. 

The best thing about the film however, is Tommy Lee Jones' US Marshall, who is on the hunt for our fugitive. His character is relentless, ruthless and incredibly competent at what he does. In fact, despite the incredible escapes Harrison Ford is able to make, you never think less of Tommy Lee Jones' character. On the contrary, because he never seems to relent or phone it in, you think more highly of Harrison Ford's escapades than you would have otherwise have done. 

Our US Marshall is not a villain, but he's definitely one of the scariest antagonists ever put to screen, because he acts as an avatar or physical incarnation of pure and unadulterated state power. The best scene that sums that up comes almost at the very beginning:

Spoiler

When they are in the dam , Harrison Ford's holds a gun on Tommy Lee Jones and pleads his innocence in the beginning of the chase, to which our US Marshall  coldly replies "I don't care"

For me that is one of the best exchanges in film history (high praise I know), because it tells you a lot about Tommy Lee Jones (further exemplified later on in the film when he kills the other criminal who escaped and when he tries to unsuccessfully shoot Harrison Ford and aims straight for his head) and provokes the almost primal fear we should have of a scenario where our state turns on us without caring why.

Next on my list was Will Smith's Enemy of the State. This is definitely nowhere near as good as The Fugitive, but I think it still mostly holds up. It was an incredibly prescient film for 1998, taking the NSA as villains and presaging the erosion of privacy under surveillance capitalism and the global war on terror. I guess I give it high marks for that farsightedness and because the performances are all pretty fun. The plotting is quite horrendous however and a few of the twists in the story are farfetched in the extreme.

Spoiler

Mostly everything to do with the mob. This is painfully apparent in the moments before the final shootout, where you can see the screenwriters violently wrench the dialogue away from anything resembling an actual conversation to facilitate the final shoot-out.

The worst film I saw was Clint Eastwood's In the Line of Fire. I couldn't believe that this came out in the same year as The Fugitive. Where that film feels remarkable modern still, In the Line of Fire must have felt dated as soon as it came out. At least to me it felt very much like a throwback to a generic 1970s action film.

The plotting was bad, all the characters were cliché and the "romantic" relationship between Clint Eastwood and his love interest was really icky. In part that was due to the age difference, but in general, I think a bigger problem that I had with it is that I could not believe any actual human woman would fall for the type of person/banter on display in the film (not even if it came out of the mouth of prime Brad Pitt or prime Clint Eastwood). 

Malkovich put in a good performance, but he clearly did not understand what film he was. It was more appropriate for his Con Air turn a few years later than whatever this train wreck was trying to go for.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

The Fugitive and U.S. Marshals are both awesome and hold up pretty well. 

[Ran]

3 hours ago, Veltigar said:

Our US Marshall is not a villain, but he's definitely one of the scariest antagonists ever put to screen, because he acts as an avatar or physical incarnation of pure and unadulterated state power. The best scene that sums that up comes almost at the very beginning:

Tommy Lee Jones improvised his response to Ford in that scene. Also came up with a number of other pretty great lines, like "Think me up a coffee and one of those chocolate donuts with the little sprinkles on it." Heh.

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Tommy Lee Jones improvised his response to Ford in that scene. Also came up with a number of other pretty great lines, like "Think me up a coffee and one of those chocolate donuts with the little sprinkles on it." Heh.

Wasn't there a sequel with...was it Wesley Snipes?

[Ran]

21 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Wasn't there a sequel with...was it Wesley Snipes?

Yes, US Marshals, which Tywin mentioned. That one is not as good as The Fugitive, IMO.

[Veltigar]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Tommy Lee Jones improvised his response to Ford in that scene. Also came up with a number of other pretty great lines, like "Think me up a coffee and one of those chocolate donuts with the little sprinkles on it." Heh.

Damn, that's impressive and it's a testament to what I find fascinating about film making as an art form, that it is such a collective endeavour.

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

The Fugitive and U.S. Marshals are both awesome and hold up pretty well. 

I didn't know there was a sequel until I read about it on IMDB yesterday. I looked up the Roger Ebert review and he slammed it. I was interested in seeing it, but the score/opinions on it really aren't very good.

So, I'd be curious whether anyone feels like corroborating Tywin's claim here  Ran seems to be out. Has anyone else seen U.S. Marshals?

[Argonath Diver]

I thought US Marshals was a downgrade, but definitely haven't seen it in more than a decade. I enjoyed it regardless; its plot kept me guessing and I liked that Snipes was a bit more questionable of a protagonist. As I recall, I didn't think Downey Jr quite fit in his role and wanted a different actor. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

36 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I didn't know there was a sequel until I read about it on IMDB yesterday. I looked up the Roger Ebert review and he slammed it. I was interested in seeing it, but the score/opinions on it really aren't very good.

So, I'd be curious whether anyone feels like corroborating Tywin's claim here  Ran seems to be out. Has anyone else seen U.S. Marshals?

I don't think it's as good, but it's still a lot of fun. Snipes and Jones are both great. The films just even more ridiculous than the first, but that's par for the course for cheesy action films at that time.

12 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

As I recall, I didn't think Downey Jr quite fit in his role and wanted a different actor. 

Hard disagree here. He was perfect for playing the role of scummy cop. 

[Veltigar]

Continuing on with the 90s binge, I have also started a sub-binge of submarine movies. I first watched The Hunt for Red October and then I popped in Crimson Tide.

I'm already going to preface this by saying I'm about to unleash a somewhat controversial opinion, but here it goes, The Hunt for Red October has not aged well. It is a turkey of a film and I lost interest in it about 3/4 of the way through. I can't remember whether I ever saw it before, but it did nothing for me.

The basic problem is that the plot is just terrible. I understand Tom Clancy built his career on the back of the success of the novel that this was based on, but I sure hope that was better than the film adaptation, which is basically just a series of travel vignettes strung together by Russian Sean Connery planning the most unrealistic defection ever. I felt it was entirely artless and boring to booth. 

Crimson Tide on the other hand, now that is what I call a film! Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington are glorious together. Truly one of the great combinations of actors and I would not have minded more of them. The entire supporting cast is excellent and despite the fact that this is a Bruckheimer film directed by Tone Scot, it truly is an actor's film first and foremost. It's cleverly plotted, with a lot of exciting action set pieces and most of all it is ideologically complex. While it is clear where our sympathies ought to reside, you cannot just dismiss the opposing viewpoint at the core of the film's intrigue. I wish more films had the balls to do this!

[Theda Baratheon]

Severance was pretty good! Will Happily watch another season, interested to learn more. Raised some really interesting questions about life & moral dilemmas to think on. I really liked it. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Saw MI7, mixed feelings. I think fallout was a much better film but this is also a first part in a duology so the juries out until part 2 comes out. Without spoiling: alot of things are setup with no explanations on how they came to be and I feel this movie had waay to convoluted a plot and maybe too many characters.

On the plus side: the stunts are better than they’ve ever been before. Also how the hell is Cruise 60 years old ? Without an ounce of digital de-ageing he still looks like he’s 35 !

Edited July 16, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Ran]

Watched Asteroid City finally. I do love Anderson's aesthetics of production design, and the color palette of this particular film was luxurious. I really enjoyed it, especially its story-within-a-story approach that toys with the ideas of storytelling and acting. The humor is the typical Anderson dry wit, but I have to say that Auggie's three little triplets (Andromeda, Cassiopeia, and Pandora!) were kind of the humor highlight for me, they were just so terribly cute and just a wee bit off-kilter. 

I think I liked this more than The French Dispatch, although there were portions of that film that I think are more indelible than this one. But this film feels like it's more in the vein of Moonrise Kingdom, with its focus on so many young characters.