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The Last Movie(s) You Watched... (quick one or two sentence reviews)

TM2YC

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The Scribbling Man said:
They Live - Fun sci-fi/social satire that at times feels as if it's aiming for something higher than the B-movie label, and at others settles for being trashy.

I do love it but it's always been a candidate for a good remake for this reason. It's too goofy to be taken as a genuinely subversive film like say 'Fight Club' but far more intelligent and thought provoking than a movie starring Rowdy Roddy Piper has any right to be. Having said that Piper is good in the role and from his commentary with Carpenter a real passion project for the two of them. A remake could nail the concept but more likely would screw it all up.
 

The Scribbling Man

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Big Trouble In Little China - [groans and buries head in corner of sofa] 

On a carpenter binge it would seem. Might be watching Escape From New York later.

Big Trouble In Little China (continued) - [Debates film with company. Bangs head repeatedly against wall]
 

The Scribbling Man

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Escape From New York - Really enjoyed this. Great set design and music, loved the atmosphere. Reminded me of the cyberpunk PC game, Deus Ex. Definitely one of the best of Carpenter's that I've seen.
 

The Scribbling Man

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The Hidden - Another great B-movie, but the script is of a much higher calibre than you'd expect, doing an excellent job of developing its characters. The tone wavers between being a fun buddy cop movie and poignant sci-fi, but the balance is well struck. The ending is also  intriguing and open to interpretation. 

The way the concept was executed conjured up thoughts of Terminator and I'm certain that the first Men in Black film must have drawn some inspiration from this. 

I've added this to my "to-do list" as I'd love to work at toning down the more trashy elements. Some scenes go a bit nuts on the orchestra hits as well, so I'd like to see if it's possible to do some rescoring. 

Fun fact: Turns out that the writer for this co-wrote National Treasure and Rush Hour.
 

Sinbad

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^Glad you liked it, the 80s seemed chock full of these inventive sci-fi thrillers at the time, admittedly theres only a handful of great ones but even the lesser ones such as 'Dead Heat' were usually good fun too. They all seem to have endless rewatch value for me 'Dark Angel/I Come in Peace' highlighting the plight and pitfalls of inter-galatic drug dealing is another favourite.

X Men First Class

Rewatching the Xmen series of films as an introduction to them for the wife at the moment. This is one of the best even though Bacon was a somewhat weaker villain than I remembered.  X2 just pips this as the best of the bunch but I'm curious to see DOFP again as I remember preferring Apocalypse to it last time and the general consensus seems to rate DOFP best of the lot.
 

The Scribbling Man

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Sinbad said:
the 80s seemed chock full of these inventive sci-fi thrillers at the time, admittedly theres only a handful of great ones 

^^^If there's any on par with "The Hidden", do name them!^^^
 

TV's Frink

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The Scribbling Man said:
Big Trouble In Little China - [groans and buries head in corner of sofa] 

On a carpenter binge it would seem. Might be watching Escape From New York later.

Big Trouble In Little China (continued) - [Debates film with company. Bangs head repeatedly against wall]

Can't tell if you liked it or not.  I love it.
 

The Scribbling Man

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TVs Frink said:
The Scribbling Man said:
Big Trouble In Little China - [groans and buries head in corner of sofa] 

On a carpenter binge it would seem. Might be watching Escape From New York later.

Big Trouble In Little China (continued) - [Debates film with company. Bangs head repeatedly against wall]

Can't tell if you liked it or not.  I love it.

I didn't. I think it's technically well made, but has a terrible script.
 

TV's Frink

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That's it, you're out of the Academy.

In all seriousness, how does it have a terrible script?  I'm baffled.
 

The Scribbling Man

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TVs Frink said:
That's it, you're out of the Academy.

giphy.gif


In all seriousness, how does it have a terrible script?  I'm baffled.

The plot is simple: weird magical Chinese guy wants to remain immortal, so he needs to marry and sacrifice a green eyed girl. The girl he takes happens to be the fiance of the Kurt Russell's mate, so they go on a rescue mission - with Kurt essentially just in it to get his money and truck back. 

It's basically "save the girl and get out alive" - but it's overcomplicated by constant needless exposition. 90% of the dialogue is characters just telling the audience what's happening or providing information which is essentially useless. Right at the beginning of the film there's warfare between rival gangs which is also explained on the spot, but holds no real relevance to anything that follows. Any useful information is given right when it's convenient rather than earlier on in the film. With the exception of a few moments, none of the dialogue is interesting, clever, witty or does anything to make the experience fun. All of the film's charm basically comes from how weird it is - which is fine. I get why people like it. It has cool sets, effects and creatures etc. But for me it's just eye candy, and not much else.
 

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All Hail Big Trouble in Little China, one of the coolest San Francisco films from the 80s.
 

TM2YC

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The Scribbling Man said:
none of the dialogue is... witty or does anything to make the experience fun



They make me cackle :D . Jack Burton is such a lovable idiot.
 

The Scribbling Man

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Paraphrasing means you miss out things like this:

With the exception of a few moments...

Which I underlined in the original post :p

Although, I can't say either of the above clips worked for me in the context of the film. I did like:



I can't find it on YouTube, but the random giant bug coming out of a hole and eating a guy followed by the exchange between Kurt Russel and the Chinese Wise dude made me chuckle.
 

TV's Frink

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I feel like all the things you complained about are kinda the point, but then again I don't understand movies that well.  Shrug.
 

The Scribbling Man

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Superman (1978) - Haven't seen this since I was a kid....

Enjoyable, but problematic. Incredible effects and generally quite fun, but I look forward to checking out musicEd's "Up, Up and Away" Edition at somepoint.

Fun fact: Screenplay was co-written by Mario Puzo, who wrote The Godfather. 

The Thirteenth Floor (1999) - Pretty decent, low budget sci-fi flick released the same year as The Matrix and only a year after Dark City. All three films explore very similar themes and share visual similarities. Thirteenth Floor in particular was based on a novel (Simulacron 3) written back in the 1950's - Pretty mind boggling to think that such a concept could be explored at that time.

 There's a 2 part German serial from the 70's called "World on a Wire" which was also based on the same novel as TTF, and is well worth checking out. It also shares some similarities with the Matrix (eg. Jacking out of the simulation using a phone booth).
 

TV's Frink

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A cult classic beloved by many gets a sequel years later, featuring the former star in a supporting role, fantastic visuals and music, a compelling continuation of the original sci-fi story, and an overall great experience that made me glad I got a chance to revisit the world created by the original.

Unfortunately that describes Tron Legacy, and what I actually watched was Blade Runner 2049.

Overall, this movie was fine. I feel exactly the same about it as the original - it’s fine, maybe even good, but massively overrated. Oh and it’s too long. At 2 hours and 45 minutes, probably a good 45 minutes too long.

And it's got a huge (literally in two cases) female exploitation problem.  Tons of completely unnecessary nudity.  Be aware that I have argued this point way more than I would have preferred on OT, so I won't be responding to similar complaints about my comment here.

7/10 on its own merits, 6/10 due to my heightened expectations from the reviews of others.
 

Ryantology

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Rewatched Flight of the Navigator for the first time in a long time. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
 

Ryantology

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Rewatched Flight of the Navigator for the first time in a long time. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Spider-Man: Homecoming
While the beginning of the movie dragged on a bit, and the ferry scene was pretty much the train scene from SM2, once the concluding act kicked in I really liked the movie. This is the best Peter Parker I've seen, but I wouldn't say the best Spider-Man movie I've seen. 8/10
 

Sinbad

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Logan
Finished mine and the wifes x-men marathon, I like/really like all the other movies (apart from origins Wolverine) but this one is way too jarring. I'm ok with the violence turned up to 10 but Xavier swearing like a sailor and the incredibly downbeat storyline just seems to ignore everything that came before it. it could have been done with a little more light and shade, downright depressing end to Wolverine's X Men tenure..
 
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