The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Non-anime/manga-related TV, movies, books, and comics, especially but not limited to pre-2000 titles
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llj
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Re: The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Post by llj »

I've wanted to see The Man Who Fell to Earth for a long time now. I've only seen a handful of Nicholas Roeg movies but this one is his most well known, so I feel like I'm missing out on a key piece in his career.
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Re: The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Post by usamimi »

llj wrote:I've wanted to see The Man Who Fell to Earth for a long time now. I've only seen a handful of Nicholas Roeg movies but this one is his most well known, so I feel like I'm missing out on a key piece in his career.
Oddly enough, the only other movie of his I've seen is The Witches (which I LOVED as a kid).
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Re: The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Post by llj »

Off the top of my head, I remember seeing Roeg's Insignificance and Walkabout in the past 5 years. Insignificance is interesting on a certain level, but messy and unfocused. Walkabout, however, is a beautiful film, and pretty much a masterpiece. Check it out someday if you can.
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Re: The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Post by usamimi »

llj wrote:Off the top of my head, I remember seeing Roeg's Insignificance and Walkabout in the past 5 years. Insignificance is interesting on a certain level, but messy and unfocused. Walkabout, however, is a beautiful film, and pretty much a masterpiece. Check it out someday if you can.
Thanks for the rec! I'll have to add it to my "to watch" list. :D
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Re: The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Post by greg »

My week of soaking up all sorts of DVDs continues.

Darjeeling Express. I just finished watching this movie. I enjoy Wes Anderson movies for the ride to another world, rather than for a convincing plot or whatever. Typical dry humor Anderson quips: "Do you want to read my short story?" "How long is it?" "What?" "I said, 'How long is it?'" "Oh, nevermind." The movie did a good job at portraying India as an interesting country to visit, but I know better. My wife has read several books on people's travels to India and she's read all sorts of horror stories, and I've read up myself on what an unbelievably filthy country it is. India is the type of beauty I'd rather admire from afar.

633 Squadron. I stayed up last night to watch a movie I recently bought on Amazon (along with The Shining) called 633 Squadron. It's a WWII movie that is said to be one of the inspirations of the Death Star trench run in Star Wars. An RAF squadron of De Haviland Mosquitoes is tasked with flying up a Norwegian fjord to take out a rocket fuel factory. The factory is impervious to bombs, so they have to bomb an overhang of rock to bring the mountain down on top of the factory. There's a task force of Norwegian resistance fighters who are supposed to take out the flak cannons, but they are ambushed. So the Mosquitoes have to fly a suicide mission through the fjord while being shot at by AA guns, and being chased by Messerschmits. The movie production people couldn't get Bf-109 Messerschmitts, so they had to use BF-108s instead. If you've never seen this movie, you can understand its similarities to the end of Star Wars just by reading this synopsis. The movie is from 1964, in color, and is only an hour and a half long. Some of the pilots in the movie remind me of characters from the original Area 88 OVA, mainly the grisly Greg Gates and that one guy with the hook for a hand.
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Re: The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Post by greg »

I finally watched The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies last night. I loved it. Somebody on another forum complained about the part where a tower fell and formed a bridge. I didn't think it was too unrealistic, seeing as how it was deteriorating. Good thing Legolas can walk across snow with barely leaving a footprint. In Return of the King, I thought that the whole "sliding down the oliphaunt's trunk" was a bit absurd, but I did not see anything on that level in this movie. It was handled very well. One thing that didn't make sense was how Thorin was walking around in armor while he was lusting after his gold, but he took it off when he went to battle. That was a bit weird, but whatever.

Before going to see it, I purposely did not read much about this movie because I didn't care to read the negativity. People hate the embellishing and fanservice, but Tolkien himself embellished his stories with appendix after appendix. So what if Legolas wasn't in the book? It was his kingdom in Mirkwood Forest, so there has been so much fan speculation that it makes sense to include him in these movies. In the book, Bilbo gets knocked out during the big battle, and then later when he comes to, his friends are dead or dying. When I first read the book, I thought that this was a bit strange, as though Tolkein just didn't feel like writing about the battle and decided to skip it. That may be fine in the book, but it doesn't make for good cinema. I am all for the embellishment.

I'd like to see it again, but it's starting to fade from Japanese theaters and the price of a movie here is too expensive. I can go see a discount movie on the first of every month, but this movie may be gone from theaters by February 1st.
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Re: The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Post by _D_ »

Kingsman The Secret Service was a blast! Like a parody of old Bond, Avengers and other 60s shows and movies. Went to see 7th Son. What a disappointment. Ripped the heart and soul out of the Delaney books. Basically kept a few names, place names and a tiny bit of one plot line, then rewrote the whole thing. Terrible! No wonder it sat in the can for 18 months. Looks like it gets pulled from our local theatre after only 2 weeks in release. Saw 5 films a couple weeks ago at a film festival: Blade Runner, Kill Bill 1 + 2 and Alien and Aliens. Saw the last 4 in back to back fashion. Especially for Kill Bill, that's how Tarantino prefers you to watch them...as one long epic. Also great to catch all the other films he pays homage to, especially all the little things like music from The Green Hornet (1966), One Armed Boxer vs. The Master of The Flying Guillotine (1975) and many Shaw Bros. Martial Arts films. Noticed the street sign by the church in the opening scene said it was Aqua Caliente. That's the name of the village the bandit Indio takes his men (and the Man With No Name) to in "For A Few Dollars More". You got to watch a lot of film of various genres to catch all the references...
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Re: The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Post by _D_ »

greg wrote:I finally watched The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies last night. I loved it. Somebody on another forum complained about the part where a tower fell and formed a bridge. I didn't think it was too unrealistic, seeing as how it was deteriorating. Good thing Legolas can walk across snow with barely leaving a footprint. In Return of the King, I thought that the whole "sliding down the oliphaunt's trunk" was a bit absurd, but I did not see anything on that level in this movie. It was handled very well. One thing that didn't make sense was how Thorin was walking around in armor while he was lusting after his gold, but he took it off when he went to battle. That was a bit weird, but whatever.

Before going to see it, I purposely did not read much about this movie because I didn't care to read the negativity. People hate the embellishing and fanservice, but Tolkien himself embellished his stories with appendix after appendix. So what if Legolas wasn't in the book? It was his kingdom in Mirkwood Forest, so there has been so much fan speculation that it makes sense to include him in these movies. In the book, Bilbo gets knocked out during the big battle, and then later when he comes to, his friends are dead or dying. When I first read the book, I thought that this was a bit strange, as though Tolkein just didn't feel like writing about the battle and decided to skip it. That may be fine in the book, but it doesn't make for good cinema. I am all for the embellishment.

I'd like to see it again, but it's starting to fade from Japanese theaters and the price of a movie here is too expensive. I can go see a discount movie on the first of every month, but this movie may be gone from theaters by February 1st.
The problem with these Hobbit films is that because of the embellishments we are not going to get any more films! Christopher Tolkien put his foot down...HARD! So, until he dies and the rights get transferred to someone else, no Silmarillion, no Children of Hurin, no nothing...

This also happened with other authors like Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth [The Seeker]) and Michael Moorcock (The Final Programme [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070289/?ref_=nv_sr_1]) and now I suspect, Joseph Delaney won't fall prey to it again either. Only authors with clout can make Hollywood stop the alterations since they have final say. The list is short though. JK Rowling, Stephen King and George RR Martin come to mind. I'm thinking a lot of authors are more wary than ever after the many fiascos that others have had to endure...
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Re: The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Post by danth »

I've been watching the hilarious Kung Fury trailer over and over again. If you love 80s action movies, 80s anime, or 80s music, you are going to love this. The movie is coming out on youtube next month and it's going t be amazing!
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Re: The Latest Movies (Non-Anime) You Are Watching Right Now

Post by llj »

_D_ wrote:
The problem with these Hobbit films is that because of the embellishments we are not going to get any more films! Christopher Tolkien put his foot down...HARD! So, until he dies and the rights get transferred to someone else, no Silmarillion, no Children of Hurin, no nothing...

This also happened with other authors like Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth [The Seeker]) and Michael Moorcock (The Final Programme [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070289/?ref_=nv_sr_1]) and now I suspect, Joseph Delaney won't fall prey to it again either. Only authors with clout can make Hollywood stop the alterations since they have final say. The list is short though. JK Rowling, Stephen King and George RR Martin come to mind. I'm thinking a lot of authors are more wary than ever after the many fiascos that others have had to endure...
In a way, I understand how authors are protective of their properties. But in another way, a large part of me believes that literal cinematic adaptations of books does a disservice to the people involved in making the movie. Some of the best book-to-movie adaptations were the ones that underwent a lot of changes. The Godfather springs to mind. And, no matter what negatives a movie does to the story, the book is still the book.

Heh, if I were an author of a book series that had movie studios knocking on my door, I would probably sign off on a movie deal and happily let them do what they want with it as long as I get paid a handsome sum. I guess I would be called a sellout, though.
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