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I liked it quite a bit - this coming from a huge fan of the original anime that I own on multiple formats along with several of the later DV sequels, the soundtrack by Kenji Kawai - and someone who just generally loves cyberpunk type material (Neuromancer, Snow Crash, other anime in the genre like Battle Angel, etc)

I realize there are many personal factors that contribute to satisfaction with any movie. I saw the original anime several decades ago, but I did not remember the story, so I was viewing this without any previous bias or expectations. It just seemed like they went through the motions. I felt ambivalent regarding all the major characters except Kuze. Johansson's performance felt flat, and the world did not feel real which is important for a heavy CGI presentation. I did like the Geisha bot though. :)

Rotten Tomatoes said it best and audience satisfaction ratings (RT & IMDB) seem to support: the end result lacks the magic of the movie's classic source material... although I'd have to rewatch the original anime to confirm. :)
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Does anyone else here watch indie and foreign films ?
On occasion. :)
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Been revisiting Alien: Covenant, the film is growing on me as a standalone, remains to be beautifully shot. I still don't care for the demytefying of the Alien, guess I just compartmentalise the films 1 -3, then 4 being almost a comedy, Prometheus & Covenant are inexorably intertwined, with the former being the deeper more interesting arc.

I do feel Scott crumpled, Alien survival horror, better to go back to the grass roots and come up with a solid film based on Alien Isolation. Alien Covenant as has been discussed certainly doesn't build fear or tension to any real extent. Thinking of the original masterpiece or Alien 3 next, after Covenant as the film tries to cover both the first and second films extensively, yet fall to pull off each's individual success.

Maybe Alien 3, I know it has it's faults, equally the reconstructed version interests, could have been so much more had Fox Exec's not been such idiots...

Q-6
I'll be streaming this soon. Alien 3: BARFOLA! :D The horribly oppressive atmosphere, the wretched story, destroying the happy ending of Aliens, what a way to pummel a hit franchise into rubble, then on a continued mission of destruction, the encore mallet of awfulness called Aliens 4. So aweful, they waited 15 years for the bad taste to leave the audience mouths before daring to make another. :)
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Watching:
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Any good?
 
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Does anyone else here watch indie and foreign films ?

Things from the film movement catalog. Saw Le Démantèlement (The Auction) not long ago. . Gabriel Arcand as the main character left me speechless for his skill; it was as though he had been plucked off a Quebec sheep farm for a once-in-lifetime protrayal of the hardships and satisfactions of that life and the pain of leaving it.

Docus from iTunes that someone tells me about or I bump into somehow.

Fun films like The Lunchbox (2013). Anything w/ Irrfan Khan in it anyway, he's so focused and versatile no matter the role he takes. He says he wants to do more adventure movies. I dunno about that for me but sure he could manage!

There were entire years I never saw a movie so that gives me the luxury now of seeing movies from Hollywood that have withstood the test of time for decades... but I've probably watched more "foreign" and "indie" films than ones from Hollywood so that almost makes them foreign films to me I guess. I appreciate all the comments and reviews in this thread from members who do watch a lot of American films.
 
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Black Hawk Down.

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A gritty but great modern war film in my opinion. Not sure how factual it all is, but shows how difficult a lot of the decision making is for command and how that affects the grunts on the ground.

I was there for the Blackhawk Down incident. The movie did a fairly good of depicting the event, although not all of the event was in the movie, but that is movie making.
 
That makes me sad. I had high hopes for this one.

Me too. Luc Besson referred to it as his life's work, and he's had many years to work on it. And apparently it comes from solid source material too, although I've never read the comic myself.

The trailer gave me pause. Reviews are turning me off.

I will see it regardless, but now my expectations are low.
 
I was there for the Blackhawk Down incident. The movie did a fairly good of depicting the event, although not all of the event was in the movie, but that is movie making.

wow. thanks for your service.

i have a hard time watching that film because, to me anyway, how real it feels.




on that note, i have a hard time watching saving private ryan because of the strategy they use at the end of the film to save the bridge!
 
wow. thanks for your service.

i have a hard time watching that film because, to me anyway, how real it feels.




on that note, i have a hard time watching saving private ryan because of the strategy they use at the end of the film to save the bridge!
The opening twenty minutes of saving private Ryan are pretty intense. I get the feeling Dunkirk would be the same.

Agree BHD feels pretty real to my uneducated brain. I've never served, but as you say I'm thankful to those that have/do.
 
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I was there for the Blackhawk Down incident. The movie did a fairly good of depicting the event, although not all of the event was in the movie, but that is movie making.

I was on deployment aboard the John F. Kennedy when this happened. I watched the whole world's news teams broadcast live the beach landing. I refuse to watch this movie because it will do nothing but piss me off. I haven't ever seen it, and I won't ever see it.
 
The opening twenty minutes of saving private Ryan are pretty intense. I get the feeling Dunkirk would be the same.

Agree BHD feels pretty real to my uneducated brain. I've never served, but as you say I'm thankful to those that have/do.

the opening of SPR had me cringing in my seat!

my buddy that i went with asked if i was ok. it was then i realized i was actually kinda curling up. lol.
 
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the opening of SPR had me cringing in my seat!

my buddy that i went with asked if i was ok. it was then i realized i was actually kinda curling up. lol.
The opening twenty minutes of saving private Ryan are pretty intense. I get the feeling Dunkirk would be the same.

Agree BHD feels pretty real to my uneducated brain. I've never served, but as you say I'm thankful to those that have/do.

I used to love playing games like Call of Duty, and Medal of Honor, which puts the player in the middle of many famous WWII scenarios. There is tension in those games. But the whole time I realized that while you can imagine, somewhat what it was like, as long as your life is not threatened, it can never truly capture the experience. It would be akin to playing COD and having someone standing behind you with a gun, ready to shoot you wherever you get shot in the game. ;)
 
I was wondering if anyone could help me with an early 80s film. The film begins in the consulate general's office or an embassy exchange office where balaclava wearing terrorists swoop in at the stroke of noon and shoot up the place. One of the hostages being a woman who's later executed. Later in the film's opening, her fiancee or long term partner manages to convince the FBI to give him training to avenge her death. He travels back to Europe but quickly find himself getting shafted by the Department, and later uncovers a sinister plot behind the situation, including dirty FBI agents.
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The opening twenty minutes of saving private Ryan are pretty intense. I get the feeling Dunkirk would be the same.
I've not seen Dunkirk but it's on my list of films to watch once it goes up for sale. I saw SPR in theaters and thought it was wonderfully executed, pun not intended.
 
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The opening twenty minutes of saving private Ryan are pretty intense.

the opening of SPR had me cringing in my seat!

A couple of weeks ago (of all places while we were in The Keys, we always take an AppleTV ...) anyway, we caught Hacksaw Ridge, and there are a couple of battle sequences that are as intense as the opening of SPR.

Very highly recommended, excellent work from the cast, the director (Mel Gibson), fascinating and true source material.
 
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Watched "Teen Titans:The Judas Contract" with the family. Well done, animated DC movie. Adhered to the original comics series story pretty well, even if they changed almost all of the original characters. Not really a kids movie, though. Teens, sure. Language, sexual content and animated violence. DC are doing some good things with their animated properties.

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Watched "Teen Titans:The Judas Contract" with the family. Well done, animated DC movie. Adhered to the original comics series story pretty well, even if they changed almost all of the original characters. Not really a kids movie, though. Teens, sure. Language, sexual content and animated violence. DC are doing some good things with their animated properties.

One of my fave animated shows - that my little G digs on too - is Teens Titans Go! It's such a ridiculous 180º from the original serious, somber source material and I just love the idea of "What do superheroes do when they're not saving the world".

Plus it has so many amazing meta moments ...

 
A couple of weeks ago (of all places while we were in The Keys, we always take an AppleTV ...) anyway, we caught Hacksaw Ridge, and there are a couple of battle sequences that are as intense as the opening of SPR.

Very highly recommended, excellent work from the cast, the director (Mel Gibson), fascinating and true source material.
Saw it at the cinema. It was another great modern war film.
 
I've not seen Dunkirk but it's on my list of films to watch once it goes up for sale. I saw SPR in theaters and thought it was wonderfully executed, pun not intended.

I recommend theater for Dunkirk... IMAX if you can. (It was filmed in 70mm.)
 
Saw Tron: Legacy (2010) recently but felt that was a huge bust. I did enjoy Olivia Wilde and loved Michael Sheen though (that man need to be in more genre films as he's great in every single one of them.)

Bit of an Ivan Rassimov kick today...

So far, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I have the Key (1972) - not worth even renting. I disliked this nasty take on the Black Cat when I first saw it 13 years ago and still feel the same way today. Anita Strindberg was one of the worst "actresses" of the 70s Eurocult circuit and coupling her overwrought (not even fun OTT) perf with the maudlin storyline was fatale. Not even Edwige Fenech and Ivan's 5 minute cameo helped things. Shame that this film which sports one of the best ever movie titles is one of the worst. Ivan is fun, but not in this movie enough (actually I can say about every single giallo he did with Martino. I am not sure why Sergio insisted upon dead weight George Hilton to carry most of his better thrillers while Ivan lingered in the background as awesome bad guys. He should have been the lead at least once. Oh well.

Planet of the Vampires (1965) This movie had a considerable influence on Alien and borrows just a bit from director Mario Bava's super creepy debut Mask of Satan (a.k.a. Black Sunday.) The spaceships Argos and Galliant land on a desolate planet after picking up a distress signal from somewhere on the surface. Soon formless, malevolent beings (perhaps the ghosts of the alien craft that crashed on said world many years prior) start to possess and kill both crews; but the "dead" rise with the means to infect and destroy their living peers. The ending is silly as hell, but there's a lot of fun build up and some creepy dread. Pretty amazing how special effects technician Bava made primary colors and shapes feel spooky. Worth a look if you can get past the really hokey acting (including Ivan's first role as young member of the Argos.)

Could you Be Any More Bastard Inspector Cliff (a.k.a. Super B++tch) (1973) Ivan does Clint Eastwood as an undercover narc looking to take down drug dealers and kinky blackmailers. It's all great fun and perfectly over the top (lots of nudity from Stephanie Beacham) and some insanely perfect overacting from Patricia Hayes and the dubbers. It's fun to see Ivan as a hero again (or in this case anti-hero.)

Spasmo (1976) This giallo is a super test in patience as Robert Hoffmann's Christian is uncertain if he had a hand in murders and equally weird, mannequins are all over the place; is he guilty or is someone trying to frame him. We eventually learn that there's a mental imbalance in his family and the person's sanity would decline rapidly. Guess who plays his older brother, yep, Ivan. If you don't like being strung along and tripped up while waiting for your murder mystery to be solved, you might be able to roll with this. I've seen it four times in the last 14 years so I guess that is saying something for a person like me who will rewatch a movie she loves many, many times.

Off to revisit another of Ivan's better giallos while waiting for my iPad Pro to charge.
 
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