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

L8wrtr

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Fistful of Dollars
I don't know that I'd agree with Tarantino's assertion that it is the greatest achievement in the history of cinema, I would say that it is one of those rare film that changed the course of filmmaking, certainly of westerns, and turned Clint Eastwood into a household name. Brilliantly reinvented the Western genre and the influences remain today. Eastwood is spectacular, the direction is fantastic and the score is iconic. 10/10.
 

ArtisDead

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Fistful of Dollars
I don't know that I'd agree with Tarantino's assertion that it is the greatest achievement in the history of cinema, I would say that it is one of those rare film that changed the course of filmmaking, certainly of westerns, and turned Clint Eastwood into a household name. Brilliantly reinvented the Western genre and the influences remain today. Eastwood is spectacular, the direction is fantastic and the score is iconic. 10/10.
Is it better than Unforgiven?
 

L8wrtr

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Is it better than Unforgiven?
That is one contraversial question. In a vacuum? Some might take issue with me on this, but I'd say no. If you're comparing them directly, without reference to the decades that they were made in, their budgets, and advancements of filming techniques, then Unforgiven is easily superior for me, but you simply don't have Unforgiven without Fistful of Dollars or the 'trilogy'. Unforgiven is a superior script, and the cast of actors is top-to-bottom better. Fistful has an incredibly low budget, full of foreign actors who, the majority of whom are dubbed, and of course, the story itself is not original as it is essentially a remake of Yojimbo. But you can see its influences in all manner of Westerns that came afterward. Unforgiven is in a way a spectacular bookend to it.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Ocean's 8
Finally finished watching this after many attempts. I just didn't care for this one. It felt like a junior novel Ocean's tribute movie that never was able to quite capture the whit, humor and magic of the Ocean's 11. Not terrible, just not very good. 6./10
 

Moe_Syzlak

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Ocean's 8
Finally finished watching this after many attempts. I just didn't care for this one. It felt like a junior novel Ocean's tribute movie that never was able to quite capture the whit, humor and magic of the Ocean's 11. Not terrible, just not very good. 6./10
None of them worked for me other than the original O11 from Soderbergh. Though I liked 8 better than his two sequels.
 

Racerx1969

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Is it better than Unforgiven?
Objectively, probably no. The decades between them mean much improved technology and collective filmmaking experience make Unforgiven a technically superior film. But subjectively? I don't know. I like both movies and probably lean a bit towards Fistful if for nothing else than I enjoy the bit of cheesiness from the low budget. Both are winners IMHO.
 

Racerx1969

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Dr. No (1962) I finally stopped messing about and got the complete collection set (and will pass on my existing discs to family), so now I'm starting to re-watch old favorites. First of all, the remaster is amazing, this is the best quality I have ever seen this movie and I expect the rest will be the same. Second, there's more background and behind-the-scenes material than I thought existed on these older films--I'm going to have hours of fun learning about the making of the movies.

Now, to the movie itself. This one set the tone for all that followed and did a good job; it's why there are now 25 movies in the franchise. The overall story is ok--I forgot how absolutely nebulous the doctor's plot was and have to remind myself to not judge based on decades of ever-more-grandiose villains that followed. Yet, it still works in spite of that. Overall it's a fun romp for about two hours.
 

L8wrtr

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For a Few Dollars More (1965). Bigger budget, more quality actors, better overall story. Sergio takes his winning formula, refines it and adds to it in every way from sets, to action sequences to run time. A highly rewarding story of two bounty hunters on the trail of a notorious gang, each bounty hunter having his own agenda. While all the pieces are superior to Fistful, the pacing does drag in a few sections and the editing is on occasion rough, the overall story is more nuanced and ultimately rewarding imo. A must-watch for fans of the genre or film in general.
 

ArtisDead

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I watched these so-called "spaghetti westerns" multiple times growing up. They are all excellent. I prefer Hang em High which may not be considered one.
 

mnkykungfu

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The Karate Kid
10/10

The Karate Kid II
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I think you made a typo. I fixed it for you. ;)

Fistful of Dollars
Brilliantly reinvented the Western genre
....by copying an Eastern lol

the story itself is not original as it is essentially a remake of Yojimbo
Yeah, one of the few cases of copyright infringement across international lines that a filmmaker actually WON, as it was particularly egregious. We talked about this in another thread: Influence, Homage, or Theft?

Is it better than Unforgiven?
You know what IS better than Unforgiven, surprisingly? The Japanese remake, "Yurusarezaru Mono"!
 

DigModiFicaTion

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The Huntsman: Winter's War
So I went in mot expecting much, and while the movie itself isn't the greatest, the acting was good enough and it had some mildly amusing parts with the dwarves. The action scenes are ridiculous cgi messes, but thankfully there isn't reallly much of that here. The intriguing part is found in the lenses of motivation in the characters; lust of power, grief & pain, and loyalty & love. 5.85/10
 

L8wrtr

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) Possibly the most lauded of Clint Eastwood's 'Spaghetti Westerns', Sergio continues his formula; more quality actors, bigger budget, bigger set pieces, more screen time, more epic violence... as now we track THREE lone gunmen cross paths across a mythical civil war landscape in search of.. gold. I may catch grief for this but of the three lauded Dollars trilogy it is by far the least watchable in spite of many aspects being superior to the first two movies. With a bloated run time of 3 hours and a script with far loftier ambitions in terms of theme than the screen writers were able to deliver on, I find this to be a serious drop-off from the previous two: 7.5/10
 

mnkykungfu

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Labor Day was last week in the US, so here's three for that:

Salt of the Earth (1954)
The story behind who and how this got made is almost as compelling as the film itself. Told from the point of view of Mexican farmhands and especially their wives who help them unionize, it's a rough little indie and not too pretty. But it was absolutely revolutionary for its time, and still holds up.

Matewan (1987)
Based on a real shootout, this story of unionizing among West Virginia miners owes a great debt to the fantastic documentary Harlan County, USA. It's almost like a Hollywood-ized version of that doc, even though this was fairly low budget. Despite some good performances, I didn't find this one to hold up as well or be as compelling.

Cesar Chavez (2014)
Not really a biopic, this is focused on the years where Chavez and Dolores Huerta started the National Farm Workers Association out in California. I found it to be a pretty choppy and unfocused film and didn't see the bravura performance from Michael Pena that I was hoping for. Covers a lot of similar ground to Salt of the Earth, and not nearly as well.
 

ArtisDead

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The Huntsman: Winter's War
So I went in mot expecting much, and while the movie itself isn't the greatest, the acting was good enough and it had some mildly amusing parts with the dwarves. The action scenes are ridiculous cgi messes, but thankfully there isn't reallly much of that here. The intriguing part is found in the lenses of motivation in the characters; lust of power, grief & pain, and loyalty & love. 5.85/10
I was forced to endure it at the cinema. Ot has its good points as you point out but...
 

ArtisDead

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) Possibly the most lauded of Clint Eastwood's 'Spaghetti Westerns', Sergio continues his formula; more quality actors, bigger budget, bigger set pieces, more screen time, more epic violence... as now we track THREE lone gunmen cross paths across a mythical civil war landscape in search of.. gold. I may catch grief for this but of the three lauded Dollars trilogy it is by far the least watchable in spite of many aspects being superior to the first two movies. With a bloated run time of 3 hours and a script with far loftier ambitions in terms of theme than the screen writers were able to deliver on, I find this to be a serious drop-off from the previous two: 7.5/10
I was wondering when you would get around to this one. I love that the "ugly" guy used to make me fall on the floor laughing. No one could say a whole conversation with a look better than Clint...in that movie.
 

Racerx1969

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Now you guys have forced me to add that to my wishlist. 😝 Sounds intriguing, combining two of my favorite genres and with a good background and star.
 

Racerx1969

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From Russia With Love (1963) Now that the principals involved had Dr. No under their belts and more backing due to its success, the second movie really hit the franchise stride. A straight-up spy story with a bit of a twist adding SPECTRE in as a third player. Watching the documentaries, this was a worry for Broccoli, Young, Maibaum, etc. as being too complex; to me the on-the-fly/last moment rewrites worked very well. A classic Bond. On the technical aspects, the remaster again was great--the best version I've seen.
 
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