Seen any good films lately? [3]

I didn't say I stopped admiring your insight.

{{ Maybe I read it wrong Halfy but the phrase 'originally admired' denotes to me a past tense, as in you did admire but no longer do, you then go on to say the reason for this is wiki says the same.
Therefore I read the sentiment as 'I liked what you said up till I read similar on wiki so now I don't. You plagiarising bastard!' (ok I might be over-inferring that last bit!   ).
Like I say, maybe I read your meaning wrong. }}

I love this film ! I wish I could show the bit where Bob Hope & his side kick are finding out about the so called hauntings. The black guy ( I cant remember his name! ) says how scared he is & Bob tells him he's nearly gone white ! They said lines that were so funny yet probably wouldn't be allowed to say now.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{  what really struck me was how much more diverse the content was in the pre-code films.
By that I mean far more black, asian, latino characters who are not just there as background entertainers but are there as characters.
.....
They also much more reflected life from the lower ends of society looking up rather than post-Code films which  tended to be about the middle-class or higher (this may however be a result of the Great Depression being within 10-20 years of these films being made and the later films being more reflective of post-war baby-boomers).

I dont know if the Code deliberately curbed this sort of on-screen diversity or if it was just an unfortunate side effect, but its certainly a pity it took American films decades to get back just to the level of representation they had at the start.  }}}

With both race and class issues, I think it's a lot more complicated than pre- vs. post-code. On the class issues, the Great Depression is probably the biggest force. You'll see these class storylines continuing to play out all through the 30's and into the 40's in films like John Ford's "Grapes of Wrath" or any Frank Capra film.

With race I think the line you're seeing has a lot more to do with pre-WWII vs. post-WWII than pre-code. For example Bill "Bojangles" Robinson is credited with the first ever mixed-race dance number on film in 1935, and it was radical enough to be edited out in the South:



If you track Robinson's career you'd probably get a pretty good benchmark of racial tolerance in the film industry.  Interesting stuff!!

Edit: I think the Great Depression is also a big factor, alongside the code, in that film studios had to figure out a way to survive financially, like everybody else. That gave them a lot less room to be experimental. Many little studies were absorbed or went out of business while the big studios focused on filling seats and selling popcorn.

{{{  Han Solo fan movie- low budget ect obviously being a fan thing- but only watched the start and already the guy playing Han has more Hanness about him that the bland official young Han version does- how could they not find an actor like this for the part? Did they even try? }}

He certainly looks like a young Han.

They need to align text on both margins.

But much better Han, better writing - too bad they didn't get help with the fight scenes. It may be low budget, but that could have been done better. I'll watch the rest eventually, it seems to be worth it.

{Not worth watching all of- its not what it claims! Seems this is something someone spliced together, some scenes even repeat several times!
However the first 15mins anyway seems to be a self contained Han mini-story, and its certainly worth the 15 minutes of your time   }}

Yep certainly was a better "Han". I believed he was a younger Harrison Ford because of his wit & well, just about everything !!! That was pretty good Actually it was a shame he wasn't noticed & starred in the proper film !

{{ I often wonder Azreil what is going on in the heads of the people who make these big budget films when it comes to casting. Ive seen  a surprising amount of very good performances, that in my book are better than the so called professional choices- this version of Han being one of them, he's much more like Han than the official guy by a country mile.
Same with the St reboot- we get Chris Pine as someone who has Kirks name and nothing else about the character of Kirk at all- and yet you have Vic Mignona who totally embodied Kirk in the fan made St Continues! (but without just doing a straight impersonation either, he just gets the character right) Its mind-boggling why they dont pick these people. }}

Yep, he's better than Chris Pine, but still doesn't measure up to the original.

BTW, I liked Chris Pine a lot in the Wonder Woman movie.

{{Not seen enough to judge his work as an actor, just his Kirk is not Kirk, at all, even a little- he's just a dickhead in a yellow jumper. There is nothing about the performance says Kirk to me.
Whereas whilst no-one can hope to completely replace Shatners unique style or screen presence Mignona does perfectly convey the Kirk attitude, the Kirk outlook and how he moves and carries himself that in turn conveys so much of the character to the viewer. Mignona's version feels like Kirk, acts like Kirk and reacts like Kirk- JJ's version simply doesn't.

I they were going to reboot ST (tihis goes for films and Discovery) should have gone with Rodenberry's more out there 60's sci-fi ideas- like Kirk coming from a very old fashioned traditional 'Old Earthers' group who still insisted on archaic things like having a surname and not augmenting themselves with computer parts (and were the majority of humans). And Starfleet originally only recruited from 'New Humans' who were super progressives, super liberals and super intelligent (a sort of elite humans, a minority but always chosen ahead of Old Earthers)- but who every time they met a superior intelligence or race tended to go off and join up with them or get otherwise diverted. Hence Starfleet being forced to recruit 'Old Earthers' -not as smart or physically strong, more inclined to 'baser' human emotions but less inclined to wallow in their own self and searches for ultimate consciousness (very 60's!).
Or Starfleet implanting all officers with a secret transmitter chip inside their brains for emergencies and it being top secret as Starfleet was viewed with suspicion already by the populace of Earth who were not majority in favour of Earth having an armed space-fleet and Starfleet were wary of accusations of mind-control, and a large number of humans were not happy about Starfleet using New Humans only and were pretty factional on it, up to and including terrorist groups opposed to the whole idea of Starfleet.

Were a lot of potentially interesting ideas to explore and update that never were in the original series but were still part of Rodenberry's  vision (those two ideas come from the Motion Picture novelization written by Rodenberry which gives all sorts of hints as to the broader attitudes on earth in Kirk's time).
Instead they went for boring, stupid and bland without an interesting concept in  sight to explore.

( Interesting side note you can have different actors playing all the parts in different versions within Rodenberry's conceit- the introduction to the motion picture novel is written as if by Kirk, who among other things laments his 'portrayal' (in the tv series which is here given as if it was a dramatised version of events shown to the people of earth after the five year mission) as being over heroic, glamourised and not putting enough emphasis on the losses of crew suffered in the Enterprises five year mission, as well as how the mission was used as propaganda to help win over earths population to Starfleet. ) }}}

Vic Mignona was brilliant !! Its being able to capture that "essence" isn't it, that elusive "something" that makes a person. I sorta like Chris Pine but they've depicted him as far too Gun Ho. But then he is meant to be very young so, maybe he was a bit that way & learnt over time to be the great captain James T Kirk we know. But considering the abundance of actors out there, & evermore actors all trying to make it, Maybe we need more talent scouts ??

Chris Pine totally lacks Shatners charm, charisma and sparkle. Pine is just a good looking lunk and a bit common. He is good for punch-ups in bars and little else.

He was affable and believable in Wonder Woman, but was basically arm-candy. It was refreshing to see a well-known male actor playing arm-candy.

Ennio Morricone is coming to Oslo in January, got my tickets secured - time to rewatch all the classics.

Your a lucky man Ringdrotten

I just noticed how syncopated that melody is. And it keeps shifting. It's even more genius than I had realized.

The advantage this has in my view is that it doesn't waste time- you see some of the characters arriving to go on the boat, then we jump right to the night of the disaster.
The film has some characters it focuses on slightly more than others but it doesn't actually have any main characters. And in fact we never even find out the names of all the characters we follow (this gave the film initial problems on its US release where no one went and saw it because it lacked a star name or lead character). And many of the characters are not actual people who were on the ship but rather are composites of various people accounts- doing this allows them to tell more stories from the night without spreading everything too thin and it works very well in giving a broader view of what was going on whilst staying true to survivor accounts of the disaster.
And the effect of doing it this way is that when the shit hits the fan the story can easily and naturally skip between the different groups, the different classes and the events giving a sense of the scale of the disaster in a way focusing on a couple of main characters cannot and lends it a somewhat documentary air.
But the main thing that sets this version apart from all the others is that this is NOT a film about some people who happen to be on the Titanic when she sinks, this is a film about how and why the Titanic sunk- its about the sinking- that is the story it wants to tell and explains why it skips straight to the disaster and doesn't concern itself overly much with traditional character narratives- in that sense its the exact opposite of Cameron's version.
Anyway it's on my list of film greats and highly recommended. }}}

I saw this film years ago & it sent the chills right up me, & still does now ! At 30mins the atmosphere is panic & your heart starts to beat the drum faster. Its so very real feeling & naturalistic. There were faces I recognised, was that Honor Blackman at the end as the people are at prayers ? 1.55.28

{{Well spotted Az! Yes it is, in a very early role- there's a few such faces in there that went on to be bigger names. And I completely agree about the atmosphere- the benefit of not focusing on any one story gives it a very real air- and the effects for the most part are surprisingly robust even to a modern eye and especially given the massive difference in budget and time between this and Camerons Titanic- which makes it all the more impressive.}}

Interesting, I didn't know that movie existed.

I saw Alpha this evening. It is a simple story about a boy separated from his fellow auruch-hunters in Europe during one of the ice ages, but the movie is beautiful with good acting and some rapidly-escalating action scenes. Kodi Smit-Mcphee has grown quite a lot since his turn as Viggo Mortensen's son in The Road.

Interesting, I didn't know that movie existed.- Forest

{{Very much worth a watch Forest }}

I highly recommend Eighth Grade. It's a delightful movie about the hopes and worries of growing up, with an immensely likeable main character and a realistic story.

I take it nothing blows up and there's no sex and they still made a movie? The mind boggles.