What was the last movie you saw?

[KGeo777]

Hah it is a lost cause expecting any reversal from this trajectory in media themes.
James Bond is being made by a committee in group therapy.

Firefox has that shtick too--Eastwood's character is a neurotic--he's unable to function from Vietnam experiences--and he barely makes it to the aircraft --and that is due to people setting the course for him--he does nothing on his own in the story except when he gets into the plane-(although I like the scene of him emerging in his helmet and walking to the plane) -and then he becomes more functional (technology--the aircraft is David's slingshot).

I never liked Bond though. It feels too much like a parody of hero adventure stories. I prefer non-Bond spy movies.
I'd rather watch a Euro spy or a Harry Palmer film.
There's just something about James Bond--the tone of it is too silly and I keep expecting Eric Idle to pop into a scene with "nudge nudge wink wink, know what I mean? Know what I mean?"

Just like with Luke Skywalker--there is an expectation for courageous adventure and they aren't meeting expectations. Instead it's Death of a Jedi Salesman

 

[JunkMonkey]

Have to agree here, attempts to make Bond more humanly nuanced or relatable seem besides the point to me. I was outraged when Skyfall ended, not at some villain's technicolor underwater/space/volcano lair, but in... a little chapel in rural Scotland? Really? "But we're exploring Bond's childhood, what makes him tick, what dri-" No one cares buddy. It's James Bond. It's Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, not Mr. Reflect Introspect.

Movies are made by people who expect the largest possible return for their investment. According to Forbes* Skyfall grossed $304.4 million in the US. The previous one , Quantum of Solace , grossed $168.4 million. The next highest is Spectre. Skyfall is the highest grossing Bond film to date by a HUGE margin. Worldwide - $1.111 billion! When taking into account inflation Skyfall's box office takings rank third - after Thunderball($590 million) and Goldfinger ($514.7 million) both of those are so old they were made well before the days of Home Video and would have had several re-releases to help boost their accumulative box office. Films these days don't often get re-released (Morbius aside). Follow on revenue nowadays come from DVD/Blu-Ray and streaming, not ticket sales.

I think the fact that Skyfall was such a huge commercial success tells me that the movie-going audience probably does want more than Kiss Kiss Bang Bang these days.

Just for the record I haven't watched a Bond film in years. Don't interest me at all.


*All 26 James Bond Films Ranked At The Box Office

 

[J-Sun]

Movies are made by people who expect the largest possible return for their investment. According to Forbes* Skyfall grossed $304.4 million in the US. The previous one , Quantum of Solace , grossed $168.4 million. The next highest is Spectre. Skyfall is the highest grossing Bond film to date by a HUGE margin. Worldwide - $1.111 billion! When taking into account inflation Skyfall's box office takings rank third - after Thunderball($590 million) and Goldfinger ($514.7 million) both of those are so old they were made well before the days of Home Video and would have had several re-releases to help boost their accumulative box office. Films these days don't often get re-released (Morbius aside). Follow on revenue nowadays come from DVD/Blu-Ray and streaming, not ticket sales.

I think the fact that Skyfall was such a huge commercial success tells me that the movie-going audience probably does want more than Kiss Kiss Bang Bang these days.

Just for the record I haven't watched a Bond film in years. Don't interest me at all.


*All 26 James Bond Films Ranked At The Box Office

I don't think they should look at it that way, though. I saw Skyfall, not because of Skyfall as such, but because the first Craig (modified from tradition in its way though it was) was so good and the second was good enough to not ruin it. And I haven't seen a Bond since, not because of any subsequent movies, but because of Skyfall. So Skyfall may have made money as a movie but it could be the reason subsequent ones make less and cause the franchise to ultimately make less than it might have. It's often like that with music - look at a band's best album and it's the one before their biggest seller and that biggest seller often sucks and the releases after that make less. I mean (utterly random example which popped into my head but which Wikipedia cofirms) Talking Heads' Speaking in Tongues went platinum while Little Creatures went double platinum and the two after that went gold and the band quit. I don't think Little Creatures marked the musical high-water mark for Talking Heads. There was just a lag after everyone bought it because Speaking in Tongues was so great.

 

[KGeo777]

Hollywood accounting--we lie about finances.
We do not know what really goes on with money and box office.
It is one of the worst businesses for honesty.

I'd say it is closer to the mafia but I think the mafia are more into honorable business dealing than Hollywood demonstrates.
Closer to a madhouse.

They put biological men on the covers of women's swimsuit magazine (same parent companies own the movie studios) and suggest they are meant to be women.
That is not normal business sense.
Guaranteed money in the bank, Hollywood is going to get weirder.

 

[Randy M.]

I don't think they should look at it that way, though. I saw Skyfall, not because of Skyfall as such, but because the first Craig (modified from tradition in its way though it was) was so good and the second was good enough to not ruin it. And I haven't seen a Bond since, not because of any subsequent movies, but because of Skyfall. So Skyfall may have made money as a movie but it could be the reason subsequent ones make less and cause the franchise to ultimately make less than it might have. It's often like that with music - look at a band's best album and it's the one before their biggest seller and that biggest seller often sucks and the releases after that make less. I mean (utterly random example which popped into my head but which Wikipedia cofirms) Talking Heads' Speaking in Tongues went platinum while Little Creatures went double platinum and the two after that went gold and the band quit. I don't think Little Creatures marked the musical high-water mark for Talking Heads. There was just a lag after everyone bought it because Speaking in Tongues was so great.

A differing view of Skyfall

 

[JunkMonkey]

They put biological men on the covers of women's swimsuit magazine (same parent companies own the movie studios) and suggest they are meant to be women.
That is not normal business sense.
Guaranteed money in the bank, Hollywood is going to get weirder.

Oh give it rest will you!

 

[Dave Vicks]

Watched Barry Lyndon.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Watched Barry Lyndon.

The finest historical film I have ever seen, but then I'm a Kubrick fanatic.

It made me think I was seeing the past, just as 2001: A Space Odyssey made me think I was seeing the future.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Kubrick used a special camera lens he made, for Barry Lyndon.Did you see the short film Kubrick's boxes?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Kubrick used a special camera lens he made, for Barry Lyndon. Did you see the short film Kubrick's boxes?

Can't say I've ever heard of it. Thanks for the tip! I suppose that special lens allowed him to film by candlelight, that made it look the way candlelight should.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Kubrick's boxes is a short documentary. He hired people to read books.To see if the books where worth turning into a film..

 

[Toby Frost]

If I remember rightly he used an entirely new method of lighting for Barry Lyndon, which changed the way that interior shots in historical films were made.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Picked up the films;1,2 ,3, Ed Wood,and Tommy Boy.

 

[J-Sun]

A differing view of Skyfall

I like Craig's Bond generally, and I agree that it had excellent cinematography.

 

[KGeo777]

I read they used NASA lenses for Barry Lyndon which allowed for filming with candle light-the flame has a different look to it. I finally watched it a couple of years ago--the plot is similar to the Shining once it focuses on the house. The family disintegration--the wife resembles Wendy by the end of it.
Recently I heard the term "parody of a leading man" used to describe Michael Sarrazin and Richard Jordan. Alex Cord is another like that and I would add Ryan O'Neal to the list of late 60s-early 70s actors who were inexplicably promoted for stardom. He's not much in screen presence. They say BL is Kubrick's most emotionally involving film character-wise. Not by much, the fellow who gets constantly abused by O'Neal is probably the most sympathetic character. He's eccentric/pathetic, and throwing up before the duel made him somewhat endearing.

THE NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS 1975 - I haven't seen Last House on the Left--this is a remake of it apparently. It's the examination of criminal behavior in every day cities. Exploitation with some veneer of social commentary. What better symbolic image for the concept of what lies under society than a close up of someone's skin being cut open in an actual operation? Yuck.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Didn't Kubrick film Barry Lyndon with just natural light? The scenes with the use of candlelight are simply stunning. I can't say that it's a film I go back to regularly (the ending is too downbeat for that) , but the cinematography is possibly the greatest in any movie ever.

And Rigsby appears in it! Good old Leonard Rossiter, just as he does in 2001. Not great parts, but memorable.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Tonight I watched the documentary Weiner - the spectacular collapse of a US politician campaigning become the Mayor of New York City . Fascinating stuff.

 

[KGeo777]

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion 1970 --I tried watching this before but the subtitles didn't work and I could not find an english dubbed version (it appears to have had a US or UK release). This was a Cannes favorite-maybe that was warning. It's a political satire about a high-ranking police official (Gian Maria Volonte) who commits a murder and then leaves clues so they lead back to him just so he can see how willing his colleagues are to avoid the obvious. Some of the scenes are funny--how he leads them to him and then they dismiss that as a possibility. He's also being driven mad by communists, especially a student who had an affair with the same woman he murdered (that was his motive--that she preferred the communist student to the fascist cop). The student upsets the flow of the movie (although interesting time capsule in that Italian students were shown to be fans of Mao and carried his little red book around with them). If it had been concentrating on him playing games with his colleagues--maybe it wouldn't have run out of steam. The ending just left me with a "oh, whatever" feeling.

 

[dask]

Hollywood “biography” of tunesmith Jerome Kern with great songs and dancing, sets and costumes. No pennies pinched here.

 

[Foxbat]

The Void ((2016)

I saw it mentioned here in another thread so decided to get a copy.
It’s obviously heavily inspired by Lovecraft and I also saw bits of other movies in there. The creatures looked like they’d be right at home cosying up to the Cenobites in Hellraiser or John Carpenter’s The Thing.

There’s a scene near the end that reminded me of the end of another Carpenter movie - Prince Of Darkness. And perhaps it was this thread of familiarity that made me feel that this movie was probably a real labour of love, driven by horror fans who also just happened to be film makers.

Not for everybody but if you consider your horror as seriously as a fine wine then I’d say this one is a Burgundy…deep, dark and full of body (plenty of bodies) then I’d give this one a whirl.