Films Recently Watched

  On 3/23/2013 at 12:39 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

are you referring to the House Committee on Presidential Assassinations (HSCA) in 1976?

 

They didn't "prove" that were was a second shooter, but their conclusions "strongly suggested" that Oswald did not act alone. Just being technical here though, they completely tore apart the Warren Commission and pretty much said that the the most likely conclusion based on evidence available was that there was a conspiracy, and a "high probability" that there was a fourth bullet.

 

Out of all the shady stuff the physics of the head shot and the book depository make absolutely no sense to me, and I still have yet to see or read something in-depth disproving that line of skepticism.

 

apparently the files that haven't been public yet will be open on 2017...im a little excited about that to be honest.

its a real PITA to read your posts with that avatar, your posts are good so I think you probably want people to read them. just sayin.

This talk about JFK made me want to watch it again, I remember liking it a lot as a teen.

what's wrong with his avatar?

  On 3/23/2013 at 12:42 AM, Adjective said:

 

  On 3/23/2013 at 12:23 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

<p>did you watch the directors cut?  I wish Oliver Stone did more films in that style without going overboard. Nixon is the only other one that comes close to JFK for me, then he sort of took the psychedelic cross-cutting style to 11 with U-turn

i love U-Turn.. it's TNT as fuck

I liked it, too. Kind of ridiculous but that's kinda Stone's style. It has a great score by Ennio Morricone, too.

That new Oz movie - 2/10 - This was fucking terrible. I couldn't stay awake it was so goddamn boring. Most of the background cgi in the film is atrocious. Yet, the cgi monkey gave a better performance than James Franco. The only thing that kept me awake during the second half of this film was the borderline inappropriate amount of breasts heaving out of corsets, at least for a film for children.

  On 3/23/2013 at 8:58 AM, zaphod said:

what's wrong with his avatar?

having something flashing in the corner while trying to read is kinda stressful and can induce headaches

as much as i dislike U-turn, in retrospect it's probably Stone's last 'experimental' film. Everything he's done since then seems either a rehash or a studio pile of crap. JFK and Nixon are the pinnacle of the style he was developing at the time. I just love the way both of those movies inner-cut stock footage with original photography and in some cases it's pretty seamless. Nixon especially has all these strange montages and quick changes from black and white to color which actually work pretty well, in the hands of another filmmaker they would come off as a lot more cheesy. Impressive especially during a pre-digital enhancement age. What movies that predated JFK and NIxon did this?

someone big time over sold the opening sequence of Flight to me, i was expecting some sort of intense Saving Private Ryan constant plane crash intro. What the fuck is all this heroin addict shit cut in with it? She shuts the door and we hear 90s grunge rock, is it Candle Box, Stone Temple Pilots? I can't tell....terrible. I don't know if I'll be able to make it through this one.

Yeah, Flight was pretty lame.

the plane crash in the grey was way better than the one in flight.

  On 3/23/2013 at 12:39 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

apparently the files that haven't been public yet will be open on 2017...im a little excited about that to be honest.

big time. i'm really not sure what we can expect though. i feel like there's a good chance that we're just going to get more redacted nonsense that doesn't actually tell us anything. i just get the impression that this is too big and messy for the truth to ever come out unfortunately, even 50 years on.

JFK is definitely one of my favourite films. i've actually never seen Nixon though, so i really ought to track it down.

hannibal - wow this is atrocious. maybe a sign of things to come from ridley scott. was he always a terrible filmmaker? i'm beginning to think so.

Pans Labyrinth 9/10

Everytime The Capatain appears on screen, I found myself aggitated, wondering whats gore stricken attrorcity he was going to hand out next. His sliced cheek.....urrggh

Classic film though.

  On 3/24/2013 at 6:59 PM, zaphod said:

hannibal - wow this is atrocious. maybe a sign of things to come from ridley scott. was he always a terrible filmmaker? i'm beginning to think so.

yes, Blade Runner and ALien at least in my book are total flukes. The guy has an absolutely terrible track record. I see him as the functional equivalent of Joel Schumacher

  On 3/24/2013 at 9:24 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

 

  On 3/24/2013 at 6:59 PM, zaphod said:

hannibal - wow this is atrocious. maybe a sign of things to come from ridley scott. was he always a terrible filmmaker? i'm beginning to think so.

 

yes, Blade Runner and ALien at least in my book are total flukes. The guy has an absolutely terrible track record. I see him as the functional equivalent of Joel Schumacher

he's a good visual director... or at least better than fucking schitmacher

i dunno. there's so much shit in hannibal that repeats throughout his films. stuttered skipped frame slow mo, really awkwardly handled zooms, extremely melodramatic sequences that are hilarious and out of place. i think he's just a shit director. alien was a happy accident and blade runner is so beautifully designed and seminal that people tend to overlook its weaknesses.

Fine... but he is a better filmmaker than Joel Schumacher and regardless of his consistency he has Directed some of the most visually iconic films of the past 30 years. Hannibal is a prequel to a really great movie. He probably just did it for the money and didn't give a crap.

small correction, Hannibal is not a prequel it's a direct sequel to Silence of the Lambs. For me the biggest problem with the movie is the casting of Clarice. why didn't they go for an unknown actor who had at least *some* similarities to jodie foster? She's practically supposed to be an asexual lesbian in Silence of the Lambs and they cast a very feminine acting and looking taller women who puts on a horrible southern accent. It's honestly shocking to me

i mean i agree with that but please, it's not the biggest problem. that film is a parade of examples of how not to shoot and stage a horror film. it is laughably bad.

  On 3/25/2013 at 2:06 AM, zaphod said:

i mean i agree with that but please, it's not the biggest problem. that film is a parade of examples of how not to shoot and stage a horror film. it is laughably bad.

but Alien is excellent horror. So while Ridley may be past his prime, he is certainly better than Joel. I mean c'mon guys. Please.

Kingdom of Heaven: DC is amazing.

I think 1492 is underrated, too.

I haven't seen The Duellists, but it's supposedly "quite good."

Then, of course, there's a lotta shit and some absolute shit.

Hannibal

White Squall

A Good Year

Robin Hood

yeah he's primarily a visualist. I think he's also a great sketcher right, who does a bunch of his own storyboards? That automatically elevates him. He's an artist, but maybe not a storyteller.

I too am often (usually) disappointed by his films, but I don't think he deserves to be thrown under the bus, unlike some other hacks.

I think I'm one of the few here who enjoyed Body of Lies, though I will fully admit it suffers from some of the same weaknesses as his other mediocre films.

I loved Body of Lies.

Spring Breakers - 6.5/10 - There are some great sequences in the film that reminded me of what I like about what Korine does but it didn't completely succeed for me. There's a lot of repetition and voice-over that, if cut out, would have improved the film immensely. One of the leads isn't that great of an actress and the film is helped by her exit halfway through. The funny thing is surprisingly James Franco isn't bad in this. The music/score is pretty good, too.

seven samurai. an easy, entertaining and clever 3 1/2 hours of classic kurosawa. far easier to take in than sanjuro, which i watched the day after.