What have you watched recently?

Just watched Big Night, which I saw many years ago and recommended in the "Films on TV" thread. Was it as good as I remember? No: it was even better. It might be Stanley Tucci's finest hour, which is saying a lot. Tony Shalhoub's character is a bit insane, and Minnie Driver is just gorgeous as well as being the tallest person in the cast, apparently. There was some serious food porn ... but balanced nicely by the final breakfast scene with the eggs, shot in a brave single take.

the_monkey wrote: »

I will watch IM2 to see if i am just jaded by Inception .....

Don't bother. It's much weaker than the first one.

Watched Babel last night. Found it utterly compelling. Great movie.

I watched Cyrus the other night, it seemed to be teed up as a comedy and I was properly let down. Considering the cast is it (Reilly /Hill) I thought it would have been funny as hell. It wasn't. Hill does play a good weirdo in it, but all in all a waste of time.

'The Last Man on Earth'

Surprisingly good adaptation of Richard Matheson's novella 'I am Legend', which has been remade at least twice with the pretty poor 70's-tastic 'The Omega Man' with Charlton Heston and 2007's extremely mediocre 'I am Legend' with Will Smith.

The central character in this 1964 American/Italian production is Vincent Price, who seems at first to be woefully mis-cast. However, Price puts in a very good shift here. In fact, I'd say it's probably the best Vincent Price movie ever made!

A worldwide viral epidemic has wiped out humanity and replaced some humans with vampire-like creatures who now roam the streets feeding on whatever warm-blooded creature they can find. The central figure of the story is a scientist (who is immune) and he has tasked himself with trawling New York City (actually Rome!) and killing every vampire he can find. In flashback, we find out some of the history of the epidemic and how it's affected people.

It follows Matheson's general story quite closely and sticks to all the major plotlines, but there are some changes. The "vampires" of the original story aren't as nimble as Matheson has them, in fact, they're extremely zombie-like and very weak. They pose a threat to Price's character (changed from Robert Neville to Robert Morgan), but their main threat comes in the guise of their nightly torment carried out each evening outside Morgan's boarded up house. As in the book, they wail at him to "come out" and Morgan does all he can to block out their thwarting voices.

Since becoming "the last man on earth" and taking upon himself the task of wiping out the vampires of NYC, Morgan's life has become one of dull routine. He uses a lathe to sharpen stakes for his mission, seeks out fuel and food, and kills every vampire he sees. Price does a very good job of portraying a man slowly going mad in a world where his single murderous purpose just isn't enough to fill his existence.

'The Last Man on Earth' is a laudable attempt to film a story that has never really been given a good treatment. Surprising as it is, because the source material is one of the greatest pieces of fiction ever written. Matheson was also responsible for a few episodes of 'The Twilight Zone' and the excellent 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' from 1957. Matheson's book is also the major influence on another of cinema's greatest films, George Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead'. Romero freely admits to "ripping it off", but I also think that he took many influence from 'The Last Man on Earth' for his own 1968 movie too. The siege on Morgan's house in 'The Last Man on Earth' and the one at the farmhouse in 'The Night of the Living Dead' look remarkably similar and the uncoordinated movement from the creatures in both films are strikingly familiar.

This film is now in the "Public Domain" and viewable on Youtube etc and it's well worth checking out.

The town - decent

Even with all the super-duper Hi Def **** all yall director's final cut versions of 'Blade runner' floating about, I STILL prefer the original cut by far.

'The Happening'

M. Night Shyamalan has been one of those directors that has seemed to have the ability to produce interesting work, while not being terribly good films. Besides 'The Sixth Sense', none of his films have grabbed me on the whole, but have always interested me, except for 'The Lady in the Water' which was just awful. 'Signs', 'The Village' and 'Unbreakable' for instance were all interesting films, but in the end I felt let down as the promise they held never really fulfilled itself.

'The Happening' unfortunately falls into this category. It's an interesting premise, but the story that's woven just doesn't hold up in the end and there are parts in it that are just laughable. The story is one of a seemingly natural disaster whereby an unknown neuro-toxin has been released into the atmosphere along the Eastern United States and is causing people to kill themselves on a massive scale. A school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife (Zooey Deschanel) decide to "head for the hills" and escape whatever it is that's causing the problem. Without going into too much, that's it really.

The story itself probably would have been ok, if it was handled by another director, or if the studio had cast better actors. Really, the only decent actor here is John Leguizamo, but not by much and he does his best with what he has to work with. He's not around for long though and he's really only there to dump his daughter on Wahlberg and Deschanel. The worst offender is "Marky Mark", who remarkably has managed somehow cut out a career for himself in acting while being almost totally devoid of acting skills. It truly is a testament to modern Hollywood. Ok, I may be being a little hard on Wahlberg here, but he has to be seen to be believed. He's terrible. Perhaps, it's Shyamalan's fault though? The deadpan (and incredibly named) Zooey Deschanel has little to do, so it's hard to assess her with this. She's sort of just there.

In fairness, the opening is quite creepy and promises a much better film than is delivered and there are a couple of areas that are very well staged, such as the gun toting farmer scene. However, the explanation for what's supposed to be happening comes across as simply ridiculous and it never seems to gel with any kind of realism, although if handled differently could have been well done. In addition, the whole thing just very quickly runs out of steam.

Nope, the original original. Even with the voice over which I felt lent a certain noir-ish feeling to it. I really like the voice over, because it fits with the kind of 40's feeling that 2019 Los Angeles has in the film.

The happy ending was ok too.

For me the first cut just works better.

Easy - I doubt I'm the target market but is seemed ok
Devil - liked this film to be honest, quite grim and bleak

The Deer Hunter

Snowed in on Saturday night. Found the video in my attic, reconnected the VCR, 6 beers. I was a happy man

Lamper.sffc wrote: »

London Boulevard.

Stay away from this movie. You have been warned :mad:

Thinking that but still drawn to the film.

Tell me in one sentence, without spoiler, why i shouldnt see it

Sin City. Quite weird at the start but once you get into it its a good movie.