What movies have you seen recently?

[DreadedSteeler]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Been watching quite a few films lately and i'd say the best of the bunch were:

Captain Phillips
Disconnect
Prisoners
The Place Beyond the Pines

[Beantown]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

The Way Way Back - Better than Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. Still would only give it an, eh, 7.5 maybe. Some of those characters were just annoying as hell. Also, Steve Carrell as an *******/jerk/overbearing character doesn't do it for me. Can't buy it anymore.

Taken 2 - Taken without the drama/suspense. Was an okay action movie, nothing more.

[TripleCrown9]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Started re-watching the Jurassic Park trilogy last night. I love these movies.

This guy's my favorite.

Spoiler

[SPTO]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

So unfortunately I couldn't do the movie I wanted to do on Monday since someone deleted it on the PVR "sigh" I will get a modern movie done this coming Monday anywho on to the my Wednesday classic:

The Raid (1954)

This was a deceptively simple Civil War drama/western that would've been less good if it didn't have such a well seasoned and good cast as it starred Van Heflin, Anne Bancroft, Richard Boone, Lee Marvin and Peter Graves among others.

The story is basically this: Heflin and some guys are confederate soldiers who break out from a Union prison and escape to Montreal where they meet up with a larger group of Union soldiers. Heflin is a major who comes up with the plan of staging raids in the northenmost parts of the Union in order to hopefully divert soldiers from the south as Sherman is marching through Georgia.

Heflin then goes to St. Albans, Vermont posing as a Montreal banker to get the lay of the land but at the same time he becomes involved with a boarding house owner in Anne Bancroft and her son as well as another border who used to be a Union soldier but lost his arm (Boone)

To make a long post short, (too late I know) Marvin wants to do the raid as planned but to kill EVERYONE while Heflin is trying to urge restraint as this is only the first of many planned raids. Marvin gets completely drunk and kills a Union soldier than at church service he kills someone and starts going all crazy whereupon Heflin has to kill him in public which further solidifies him as a great citizen of the town.

Heflin and Co. still decide to go on with the raid a couple days later though.....


Now what makes this a bit different than most other civil war movies is that the old Hollywood line of "every Confederate is baaad" is replaced with a more even handed accounting. The soldiers both Union (represented by Boone's character) and Confederate don't have fervor for the history book notion of the war but rather of the war being a fight of honor and personal redemption and/or revenge. There are lots of quiet moments that make this work like when Heflin first goes into St. Albans and quietly fumes over the Unionist morale. An auction for a Confederate flag and sword is advertised in a window and you could see the disgust on his face.

Richard Boone's character goes through quite a cycle as he starts off as a former union soldier who lost his arm not because he was brave but because he was a coward eventually though, when the confederates are attacking he literally takes up the fight against them and earns redemption in his mind as he is now a true hero.

The movie follows through the even handed approach as the ending sees Heflin and his confederates actually be successful with their raid. In other movies he would've been caught and the raid would've been foiled.

I give this a solid ** 1/2 stars

[LambertandHam]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

I was surprised when I saw that Netflix has The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and Fistfull of Dollars up. I haven't seen either in a while, still great movies. I can't seem to get into Westerns that often, only a few like

- The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

- Fistfull of Dollars

- Tombstone

- Open Range

etc.

I want to go back and watch Yojimbo now, especially after Fistfull of Dollars.

[almibar]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Talk about a flashback of great movies. You folks created a great list of some awesome movies, and not so awesome movies. The recently watched a bunch of different movies that have recently come to DVD. I watched The Man Of Steel, which was fantastic. I hope they continue with the story just as they did with the Batman movies, but time will tell. I also watched The Wolverine, and though it was a good movie, I would agree it was lacking a bit. They could have done so much more with the movie, and I was a bit disappointed overall to be honest.

[Lieutenant Dan]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

SPTO, this is for you.

I'd like to detour just a bit and ask your opinion on the acting style of the 40's and 50's in particular vs 'modern' Hollywood.

When I come across so many older films, the acting style seems more in line with stage/plays; people are more deliberate, less subtle, and sometimes it can feel a bit more like recitation than emoting. People also seemed to project vocally much more, which I'm supposing had more to do with microphone tech being more primitive in those days.

Don't get me wrong; it has it's charms. But it is so different than 'modern' film acting to me. Do you see the difference I'm talking about and how do you feel about it? OCCASIONALLY, this style can actually turn me off of some older films.

In the 1950's you even get a mixture of the two styles as Brando and Dean created a bit of a crossover, with their method acting and often quieter delivery vs their co-stars more 'traditional', stagey approach.

What say you?

[Dogslax41]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Tried to search but couldn't find anything form anyone.

Escape Plan

Anyone seen it? Wife is out of town and this is one of those that would not make the lets watch TV together list that I was considering mindlessly PPVing tonight.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

It wasn't terrible. Clearly it owes more to the 80s/early 90s style of action movie compared to most of today's stuff, but I saw it in the theater and had fun watching it.

[Quint75]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

I was surprised when I saw that Netflix has The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and Fistfull of Dollars up. I haven't seen either in a while, still great movies. I can't seem to get into Westerns that often, only a few like

- The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

- Fistfull of Dollars

- Tombstone

- Open Range

etc.

I want to go back and watch Yojimbo now, especially after Fistfull of Dollars.

Yojimbo is awesome, and IMO superior. Just as Seven Samurai is superior to The Magnificent Seven.

[SPTO]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

SPTO, this is for you.

I'd like to detour just a bit and ask your opinion on the acting style of the 40's and 50's in particular vs 'modern' Hollywood.

When I come across so many older films, the acting style seems more in line with stage/plays; people are more deliberate, less subtle, and sometimes it can feel a bit more like recitation than emoting. People also seemed to project vocally much more, which I'm supposing had more to do with microphone tech being more primitive in those days.

Don't get me wrong; it has it's charms. But it is so different than 'modern' film acting to me. Do you see the difference I'm talking about and how do you feel about it? OCCASIONALLY, this style can actually turn me off of some older films.

In the 1950's you even get a mixture of the two styles as Brando and Dean created a bit of a crossover, with their method acting and often quieter delivery vs their co-stars more 'traditional', stagey approach.

What say you?

I know what you're talking about it's extremely noticeable with films from the '30s and into the early '40s but even in the '30s there were actors who weren't very stagey or projecting vocally such as Bogart, Stanwyck, Bette Davis, James Stewart and Spencer Tracy.

It's usually the supporting actors that had that kind of problem especially within the gangster/crime and romance genres. There's a LOT of emoting going on that's very over the top and in the gangster/crime cycle of the '30s you had guys talking in very exaggerated accents and delivery. Bogart sometimes fell victim to that. To get a sense of what i'm talking about check out Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar (1931) or James Cagney in just about every movie he did in that decade.

There was also a time when the screwball/madcap comedy was very popular and the actors were encouraged to talk VERY fast which made for rapid fire dialogue that would undercut the actual plot because everything is going at a breakneck pace.

You are right that in the '50s and even a little earlier (late '40s) acting styles were starting to change and you were getting more of a method style going on. James Dean, Marlon Brando and Paul Newman were at the cutting edge of that movement. By that time some of the older generation of actors had already begun slowing down their speech pattern and being more emotive rather projecting. The list of actors I mentioned above as well as Kirk Douglas, Gary Cooper and Robert Mitchum were able to transition pretty well because they were more down to earth in their delivery. (Kirk Douglas took a while though as he was always "BIG" with his style)

Another thing that puts older movies at a disadvantage IMO is the scoring/background music as most of the time the score could be VERY overbearing depending on the movie you're watching and it can make the presentation seem a bit on the precious side.

To me, I can switch back and forth between modern movies and moves from back then though I find if I'm watching more movies from one era then switching back it takes a while to get into the groove.

[Lieutenant Dan]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

GREAT reply, SPTO. Thank you...you were right on the money and I agree with every word.

[daflyboys]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

Just as Seven Samurai is superior to The Magnificent Seven.

The Magnificent Seven really is not good as movies go....it just has the fame of compiling so many then famous tough guys on one screen....somewhat like The Dirty Dozen (though, that is a better storyline....just had bad editing).

[Quint75]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

The Magnificent Seven really is not good as movies go....it just has the fame of compiling so many then famous tough guys on one screen....somewhat like The Dirty Dozen (though, that is a better storyline....just had bad editing).

And, IMO, Seven Samurai is one of the greatest films of all time.

[redsrule]

Re: What movies have you seen recently?

It wasn't terrible. Clearly it owes more to the 80s/early 90s style of action movie compared to most of today's stuff, but I saw it in the theater and had fun watching it.

Same here. I went with my dad to see it (he's a big Stallone fan) and we both enjoyed it.