Recently watched movies!

[kiryugoji04]

[MouthForWar]

[kiryugoji04]

[lhb412]

Captain Horatio Hornblower

Classic naval adventure film based on the classic naval adventure novels (with a screenplay co-written by the original author of said novels). It's a pretty dang good film, but on the negative side: it seems they spent much more time on the model work in the early half of the film (which is excellent) than the second half (which pales in comparison). Budget or time restraints?

[MekaGojira3k]

Watching It's a Wonderful Life. I never really watched it growing up, but I've grown to love it in the last few years.

COMMENCE THE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL/FILM MARATHONING

[lhb412]

^I'll be watching that when it comes on NBC in... 20 minutes!

[MekaGojira3k]

[lhb412]

It's a Wonderful Life

Man, if you give this your undivided attention it's emotionally draining!

Kinda odd that what is essentially a 2 hour plus Twilight Zone episode with much of the runtime devoted to rather dark stuff happening became a feel-good holiday classic. I mean, I like that it happened, but it's still one of life's little quirks.

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

Strippers vs Werewolves- Don't be fooled by the title it has very little nudity in it and is kind of lame I actually have like 20 minutes left to watch but still from what I saw it was pretty meh. Though it does have Robert Englund in it and it is British

[Dr Kain]

Citizen Kane - This is my first time seeing this movie and I thought it was really good, but honestly, I do not see why it is deemed the greatest movie ever made. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was very enjoyable. I loved how the movie was told through different characters of Charlie's life, explaining different events that happened without any exact sense of time. I also thought some of the cinematography was excellent and the story was well done. It's just that I was expecting a whole lot more out of it. In fact, I thought the movie was going to be a political movie like Manchurian Candidate, since the pictures I had always seen had him campaigning, so I was surprised to see that was only maybe 10% of the movie. Like I said, a very good movie, but not the greatest movie of all time.

[MekaGojira3k]

I've enjoyed Kane since I first watched it, and it's very good, but it's like...maybe in my top 50, and not on the high end of it.


I watched The Grinch today. I really enjoy that film.

[lhb412]

[Dr Kain]

[eabaker]

[lhb412]

Something Wicked This Way Comes

A wonderful horror movie for kids - both proper horror and proper for kids (well, kids with a tad more attention span). Apparently (according to wikipedia) this ran into some trouble in production with disastrous test screenings, editing, re-editing, getting Ray Bradbury back to do some rewrites after he had been replaced on scriptwriting duties earlier. These do show up in the final film, with some confusing editing (not being able to figure how much time is passing is a big complaint from me) and the overall feeling that the whole should be a bit tighter.

Still, pretty good.

[Dr Kain]

[MekaGojira3k]

[jellydonut25]

[sentaison]

[king_ghidorah]

[lhb412]

The X From Outer Space

By far my favorite of the Shochiku set. The story is simple: it's the swinging '60s in space and a groovy space monster shows up. The other three films in this set are more ambitious (though less epic in scope), but this one is the most consistent. I wouldn't like this one so much if I didn't just love everything about Guilala. Does the second half of the film lose steam in a narrative sense? Yes. I don't care because we're given lots of footage of Guilala stomping around some neat miniatures, displaying goofy super-powers and interacting with objects controlled by some amusingly bad wire work.

PS- If Toho and Daiei are the Coke and Pepsi of these types of films then that must mean Shochiku is Double Cola.

[king_ghidorah]

[jellydonut25]

(I apologize in advance for the long read, but a lot of these thoughts are kinda new for me...or at least my first time stating them)

The Dark Knight - While watching this, I was struck (and probably not for the first time, but who knows for sure? I don't feel like looking back through dozens/hundreds of posts to figure out if I've brought this up before) by the similarities between Nolan's Batman Trilogy and the original Star Wars Trilogy.

In that case, The Dark Knight is The Empire Strikes Back of its series, and for me that metaphor works to near-perfection. The production is slicker, more refined, and a little more cohesive, the "alliance" is more fractured, dysfunctional and upended, the bad guys have rallied their strength, tightened their forces, and gone on an all-out attack, and at the end, make no mistake, the bad guys win. Sure, the Dent Act ends up coming out of it and all that stuff, but in the REAL battle here, The Joker wins. He lives to fight another day (unfortunately never realized on film), he pushes Batman to his limits and perhaps beyond, he basically destroys Gordon's faith and the MCU, and he turns Harvey from hero to villain. He forces Batman to take the blame for five deaths!

Not only is this "Empire" in terms of production value, tone, and execution, but it also has that more open-ended feeling that lets you know there's going to be another one.
And to top that all off, it is admittedly my favorite of the series. I know that's the "popular" opinion, and it's often considered less "cool" or less "intelligent" to just "go along" with the "masses" but I don't care. Between Ledger's portrayal of the Joker, the Harvey Dent arc (which I would NEVER have thought could have been done justice in one film, but was totally proven wrong), and Bale/Caine/Freeman/Oldman all turning in fine performances once again, I can't help but love this movie.

A little too dark, a little too gritty? MAYBE...but not totally joyless, either...in the midst of epic feelings and serious drama, people lose sight of all the little moments of humor (mostly between Bale and Caine):
-"Were you mauled by a tiger?" 'It was a dog' (looks incredulous) 'It was a BIG dog'
-"I suppose they'll lock me up with you, as your accomplice" 'Accomplice? I'm gonna tell them the whole thing was your idea.'
and there's a whole bunch of other little, subtle, light-hearted moments (or moments that make light of some of the darker things) that add just enough levity to keep the movie from feeling too oppressively dark.
I haven't seen TDKR since the theater, but I kind of feel like this is an aspect that the third film lost sight of a little bit...
...which actually plays FURTHER into my Star Wars analogy...RotJ loses sight just a little bit of the interplay between the main characters and the levity of their interactions in favor of something more serious, which has the overall effect of making the moments that are perhaps unintentionally funny seem out of place and goofy instead of just part of the 'fun factor'. Much like TDKR (again keeping in mind I've only seen the damn movie once).


So, in conclusion, The Dark Knight is a fantastic film, and it is my personal opinion that 90% of the people who don't like it merely feel that way because they think it's "cool" to be contrary, because if you actually look at the movie and leave all preconceived notions aside, it might be a touch overlong, a touch over serious, and a touch overacted, but it's really nothing short of a masterpiece.

[king_ghidorah]

Agreed on all fronts

[MekaGojira3k]

I agree, but I don't know how well the comparison between Return of the Jedi and The Dark Knight Rises works. Still, I look forward to your take on that when you watch it.