Review the Last Movie You Viewed Part VI: Satisfying the A-R crowd

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Status
Not open for further replies.

corianderstem

Blue Crack Distributor
Joined
Dec 10, 2002
Messages
64,487
Location
Seattle
There you go.
Here's your new damn thread.
The title is almost a cliche, but something delightfully (or horribly) different.
Maybe a combination of both.
 
I just saw The Life of Brian for the first time in its entirety. (Yes, I know, shame on me)

In a word, random. In two, randomly hilarious. :up:
 
I saw For Your Eyes Only for the first time in ages. As promised, this was definitely more of a stripped-down affair, no megalomaniacal villain trying to take over the world, just some Cold War espionage with a nice little MacGuffin to keep the plot moving. Some really great action scenes in a variety of exotic locales, the skiing scenes in particular still pretty breathtaking from a stunts perspective.

And the climactic fortress battle at the end wasn't your typical secret armies fighting each other blowing shit up or anything like that. Very restrained, with an extremely tense climp up a steep cliff that Bond does by himself. Bond girl Carole Bouquet is all cool French beauty, and there's another girl annoyingly played by some real-life ice skater-turned-actress.

One bad thing is the beyond-dated score by Bill Conti. Thankfully, the mountain climbing scene is mostly without music, a nice choice by the filmmakers.

I'd rate this just below The Spy Who Loved Me for the best Roger Moore outing, or maybe tied with Live and Let Die.
 
For Your Eyes Only...I've always rated it right at the top of the Moore films. Like you said, probably second to Spy Who Loved Me...

And the "annoying" figure skater = hot.
 
I saw For Your Eyes Only for the first time in ages. As promised, this was definitely more of a stripped-down affair, no megalomaniacal villain trying to take over the world, just some Cold War espionage with a nice little MacGuffin to keep the plot moving. Some really great action scenes in a variety of exotic locales, the skiing scenes in particular still pretty breathtaking from a stunts perspective.

And the climactic fortress battle at the end wasn't your typical secret armies fighting each other blowing shit up or anything like that. Very restrained, with an extremely tense climp up a steep cliff that Bond does by himself. Bond girl Carole Bouquet is all cool French beauty, and there's another girl annoyingly played by some real-life ice skater-turned-actress.

One bad thing is the beyond-dated score by Bill Conti. Thankfully, the mountain climbing scene is mostly without music, a nice choice by the filmmakers.

I'd rate this just below The Spy Who Loved Me for the best Roger Moore outing, or maybe tied with Live and Let Die.

You won't remember this, because you're an ass, but I fucking told you that this one was excellent. Topol FTW.
 
Oh, your buddy little lord piss is not here, so you have to pick up the anti-semitic slack???

If being a Lebowski fan makes me anti-semitic, than I am Lenny Riefenstahl.

Speaking of the Coens, Burn After Reading was a lot better than I thought it would be. The only thing I didn't like was Frances McDormand's obnoxiously hammy acting, even when Clooney teetered close to that same line, too, but never really crossed it.

His "special chair" could've been one of my favorite jokes ever in a Coen movie, so there's that.
 
W. 6.5/10

I actually expected it to be heinous so I suppose I can say I was somewhat pleasantly surprised. The movie and the plot itself are not fabulous and I've never liked Oliver Stone's work anyway. I kind of really hated the direction - some of the shots are things that a 10th grade film student would shoot and consider brilliant.

The good stuff - Josh Brolin was really good. I don't think he looks much like W (except the eyes - he's got that down), but he did a very believable job. James Cromwell as Bush Sr. was superb. Wonderful, wonderful job and he probably came across as the most sympathetic figure in the film (felt a bit sugarcoated to me but whatever). Most of the supporting characters were excellent, especially the guy who played Ari Fleischer.

The bad stuff - Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice is the most awful thing to hit theatres in some time. It was THAT bad. Worse than the worst SNL sketch you've seen. Beyond cringeworthy. The guy who played Tony Blair was only marginally better but didn't grate as much since he was on screen for like 90 seconds.
 
W. 6.5/10

I actually expected it to be heinous so I suppose I can say I was somewhat pleasantly surprised. The movie and the plot itself are not fabulous and I've never liked Oliver Stone's work anyway. I kind of really hated the direction - some of the shots are things that a 10th grade film student would shoot and consider brilliant.

The good stuff - Josh Brolin was really good. I don't think he looks much like W (except the eyes - he's got that down), but he did a very believable job. James Cromwell as Bush Sr. was superb. Wonderful, wonderful job and he probably came across as the most sympathetic figure in the film (felt a bit sugarcoated to me but whatever). Most of the supporting characters were excellent, especially the guy who played Ari Fleischer.

The bad stuff - Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice is the most awful thing to hit theatres in some time. It was THAT bad. Worse than the worst SNL sketch you've seen. Beyond cringeworthy. The guy who played Tony Blair was only marginally better but didn't grate as much since he was on screen for like 90 seconds.

I thought Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney, Elizabeth Banks as Laura, and Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell were great, too.

The problem I had with this movie were the dramatic tone shifts. Almost all of the scenes within the administration were played for laughs, with the "ironic" pieces of patriotic music playing throughout, but we're still supposed to sympathize with Bush in the other scenes.

I don't know... I liked when I saw it, but when I walked out and thought about the "message" and how convoluted it was, then I liked it less. I wasn't expecting it to be great in the least, so I wasn't disappointed when it turned out to just be alright.
 
OH man I forgot about Tony Blair. When they cast him did they purposely try to find someone who looked THE LEAST like Tony Blair?
 
What about part VI?

See, this is what happens when you guys go five hours without someone starting a new thread, and then a drunk person comes in and screws everything up.

Diemen, can you change the title so it's "part VI"? For the sake of consistency and to restore order and balance in the universe?
 
Maybe we can just imagine this thread in particular exists in an alternate reality where we've already only had one previous thread. Then everyone can feel better.
 
I will feel perfectly okay with whatever happens to my mediocre and inaccurate thread title.

Scouts' honor.
 
Ha! Ha ha ha ha...

At first I thought it was a reference to your earlier comment about "alternate reality," and I was all, "... there's an alternate reality crowd?"
 
Religulous.

As funny as I was expecting it to be, though I'm one of the already-converted (no pun intended). What I wasn't prepared for was how scary the film became at the end, as Maher summarizes how those who believe in an afterlife have less incentive to make the world a better place, or prevent its early demise from nuclear war or mistreatment of the environment. I wound up leaving the film angry, even more militant than I was before.

I imagine deeper discussion would be something more appropriate for Free Your Mind, but this was (to me) a very entertaining film that really does try to understand people's beliefs, what motivates them, and the ramifications of those beliefs. Maher certainly is condescending at times to those he's interviewing, but it's hard to argue that they're deserving of better treatment considering how ignorant and/or judgmental they are themselves.
 
The Verdict

This anal retentive Intererencer liked it!

So sue me - I'd rather watch a courtroom drama with a fine performance by Mr. Newman than a buddy western flick with Mac Davis songs in it (even if it was beautifully shot).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom