What Movies Are You Watching Lately

[Kaplan]

Not as good as Friedkin's first installment (and it doesn't have anything as cool as the elevated train / car chase), but it's still a rather watchable 70s crime thriller, with great work from Hackman and Frankenheimer.

 

[Van Veen]

Executive Decision.

Another in the line of nerd-into-hero action flicks.

Our President's ex has a role as a flight attendant.

Probably the world's greatest detective is the bad guy.

Solid cast of character actors. BD Wong's flattop steals the show.

Clothing sighting: Oliver Platt's Burberry coat and club tie.

Kind of a Ned Stark situation with one of the headliners.

Eerily prescient movie about the use of a hijacked aircraft as a tactical weapon.

Ultimately: not as good Air Force One.

 

[gort]

Stephen King's the Dead Zone. Love the young Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen. I was glad I finally saw this.

 

[edinatlanta]

E.T. had me either crying or smiling the whole time. What a great movie.

 

[Van Veen]

Wife's out of town, meaning I can watch long and depressing movies.

Hard to find the words to describe this one. Absolutely brutal.

 

[Roy Al]

The Deer hunter is brutal, beautiful, emotional and sentimental - but way too long. Michael Cimino's movies need a hard hand in the editing room.

 

[Van Veen]

The length didn't bother me too much in this one. The home front stuff is just so well done that I didn't have a problem with it.

 

[wojt]

I'm probably in the minority but I enjoy long movies

 

[Roy Al]

It's not the length, it's the content.
I love long movies - if they are filled with good scenes.
Cimono is, like in Heaven's gate, just without direction (pun intended) and ruined United Artist economically - and he was the one to end of an era i Hollywood; after him directors lost freedom and control over their movies. The producers became the new directors. For better or worse.

 

[Van Veen]

"Well as long as the lady's paying for it, why not take the vicuña?"​

I found my epitaph:

"He always liked fires, and poking at them with a stick."
​

This one affirms that old maxim: "never stick your car in garage of crazy."

 

[ballmouse]

I didn't like the Deer Hunter. I don't think I even watched enough that I saw them get to Vietnam...

Wilder is probably my favorite director of all time - Sunset Blvd is a good watch.

 

[Van Veen]

The first hour is almost a short film in and of itself. It's such a perfect slice-of-life. This is the part, I assume, that people feel is too long. I was more compelled by it than the Vietnam scenes: every once in a while I was struck by the implausibility of what was going on there.

It reads like a stage play to me, which might be why the length and content didn't bother me.

 

[jcman311]

The Deer Hunter is great. Except I can't watch it anymore because the Steven character is such a little ***** that it always works me up/pisses me off.

 

[noob in 89]

# 63

Back to School (1986)

"Violent ground acquisition games such as football are in fact a crypto-fascist metaphor for nuclear war." So says Derek Lutz, the spiky-haired Marxist played by Robert Downey, Jr. Don DeLillo had already mined the concept with such poetic humor and grace in his 1972 novel End Zone, but this -- this was my first taste of it. It was funny. It was terrifying. And I still love the movie just for that.

Elsewhere, Rodney Dangerfield plays Thorton Mellon, a dude who's pretty much like Rodney Dangerfield in every capacity except one: he actually *does* get some respect. Mostly on account of his wealth. One day, he decides to enroll in his son's college. Hilarity ensues. And that's pretty much it.

Rock solid 80s movie with a bit of everything: Downey, Jr., the guy from Christine, a stuffy British guy, a smattering of *******, a vacant love interest (defining characteristic: "the tightest ass"), uhm...Sam Kinnison, and the consummate dick boyfriend, of course, Billy Zabka from The Karate Kid.

Early me: A+. Current me: A.

 

[Van Veen]

Saw this a few days ago. Another comic book sequel that stumbles without the origin story to fall back on. Not terrible, but not as compelling as the first. Slow first hour. I didn't buy into the Colin Firth resurrection storyline.

Some of the big name stars are criminally underused. I can only assume they're planning a sequel, otherwise why cast such names in such small roles?