What was the last film you watched?

[T42]

The Andromeda Strain (the proper 1971 version).  Probably my all-time favourite film - science fiction with a story lead by the science, complete with aliens and lasers and microscopes and atom boms and timesharing computer systems and authentic 60s lab equipment and frustrating engineering cockups.  All it needs is a better Bechdel score.

Yebbut the science is crap, and as an MD Crichton knew it.

[Riggers]

The Titfield Thunderbolt. Excellent.

I remember going to see that on Saturday Cinema in the 60s. Great film. Well, as a little chap, it had me laughing.

[Biff]

Wrong Move a Wim Wenders film. Like many of his, it is slightly gloomy, but quite thought provoking.

[Kim]

The Andromeda Strain (the proper 1971 version).  Probably my all-time favourite film - science fiction with a story lead by the science, complete with aliens and lasers and microscopes and atom boms and timesharing computer systems and authentic 60s lab equipment and frustrating engineering cockups.  All it needs is a better Bechdel score.

Yebbut the science is crap, and as an MD Crichton knew it.

It's good by Crichton standards (and mostly falls under the SF rule of one fantastical element being okay, more than one isn't).  And this is Hollywood, it's a good day if gravity is portrayed consistently, let alone the scientific method.

I also like it as an illustration of the late-60s computing Zeitgeist:  TTYs were the order of the day, except when using exotic vector displays, clunky one-button-per-thing user interfaces and lightpens.  Fluent speech-to-text was considered to be just around the corner, but voice prompts are recordings.  They have an automated system for measuring growth of cultures, and can image-process the output of the electron microscope in realtime, but at first resort to manual inspection to analyse the results.  As a child of the 80s, it's easy to overlook the technology they got right, and giggle at the whole-room glovebox and be shocked by the blatant portrayal of animal experimentation.

Also, and let's not overlook the value of this: at no point does anyone have a car chase, fistfight, or end up shagging Dr Stone.


I can think of a lot of stories that would benefit from being sent back to the 70s and given the same treatment.

[mattc]

Reservoir Dogs.

First saw this in c 1991 - at/not long after its release, I think. My companion had to leave to be sick about 15 seconds into the scene after the opening credits. I remember thinking that I was watching something different, that this was a different way of making films.

I've seen it many times since. Actually, I decided that I preferred Pulp Fiction (though I don't know that it is accurate/fair to compare the two).

However, I've just watched it with Suzy, who had somehow not seen it before tonight. Watching it with someone who was doing so for the first time made me see it very differently. It appeared to me to be raw and challenging again.

Hell of a film.

Agree with most of that! [PF is possibly my all-time favourite ...depending on what mood I'm in.]

Surprised by your first para - what on earth happened in those 15 seconds?!? It's been a while ...

[I saw a stage version once, in a tiny Norwich theatre. Odd, but fun. My friend hadn't seen the film - he was a little bemused ... ]

[T42]

Re Andromeda Strain: I read the book when it came out, and the bit about every single bacterium mutating at once is in there too so Hollywood is innocent this time around.

Worse examples happen on the box all the time: I remember a Spooks episode where they displayed a molecular structure and their scientist bod exclaimed over the chlorine bonding when there wasn't a chlorine atom to be seen.  I suppose they reckon that if you're enough of an idiot to watch the thing then you won't know an atom from a hole in the ground. And of course vaccinating someone who's on the point of dying of a disease always saves them.

What a wonderful world.

[Kim]

Re Andromeda Strain: I read the book when it came out, and the bit about every single bacterium mutating at once is in there too so Hollywood is innocent this time around.

I haven't read the book since I was a kid, so I'd forgotten that bit.  It's not explicitly described as doing so in the film (though I think it may have been in the 2008 version^[1]), though neither is it shown not to.  A single sample is shown to be composed of homogeneous cells mutating together, but given that it's a an alien crystalline lifeform (very much not a bacterium) that feeds on radiation and trace gases, that doesn't seem too ridiculous.  The only evidence for physically separate colonies mutating together is that they mutate to dissolve synthetic rubber in two places, but given everything we don't know, that could plausibly have happened by chance.

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_{[1] And it's still not even close to the worst bad science in that one.}

[Steph]

The Railway Man. A disjointed film, and rather different to the book, but very effective. I wept gallons. Just one small point: I notice it was filmed on location in Australia, Thailand and, er, Scotland. The border's moved rather a long way south when I wasn't looking, then.

[LEE]

The Hobbit 2 - The Desolation of an Evening

What a tedious and over-stretched story that was.

Firstly I'm a fan of the 3 LOTR films.  I know it annoyed some fans of the book but I think it's an incredible, epic, achievement,

The Hobbit 2 takes a bunch of characters I really don't care much about and, by the end, wish they would hurry up and die some gruesome death. 

I can't stress enough just how thin this story is stretched.

Dear Peter Jackson..here is a warning (should you ever decide to make a film of a book again).....it takes less time to read The Hobbit than watch your film version!!!!!

[CAMRAMan]

The Lego Movie. Better then some kids' films, but still drivel.

[Paul]

Reservoir Dogs...

...I saw a stage version once, in a tiny Norwich theatre. Odd, but fun. My friend hadn't seen the film - he was a little bemused ...

Yep - 90+% of the action takes place in one of 3 rooms. Again, not something I'd really appreciated until I watched it this week.

Surprised by your first para - what on earth happened in those 15 seconds?!? It's been a while ...

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After the pre-heist café scene there are credits. Straight after we see Mr Orange swimming in his own blood on the white leather back seat* of the car he and White have stolen.

*Is there a nod to this in Pulp Fiction too?

[mattc]

Ah yes, I remember it well.

The sort-of similar scene in PF is where

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the bad guys accidentally shoot some dude in the head as their car goes over a bump. Blood/brains all over the back of the car - typically Tarantino moment, simultaneously revolting and funny! This leads into the scenes with Harvey Keitel (marvellous as ever) swooping in to clean up the mess. IIRC ...

What I like about those 2 films is how the viewer is often shocked by a moment, even without much gory detail. So much is just off-screen, or suggested. If you listed every violent moment to a current teenage kid, he certainly wouldn't think they sound like "violent" films.
 _{Shame he seemed to forget what he's good at in later years ... I think we've discussed this many pages ago ...}

[tonycollinet]

Captain Phillips

It has been a while since a thriller actually had me on the edge of my seat. And Tom Hanks performance, particularly at the end is brilliant (As always)

[Juan Martín]

Me too! Captain Phillips, via DVD last night. A bit full on to be honest; I was exhausted by the end of it. Also whatever part Tom Hanks plays I am unable to disassociate his voice from Woody in Toy Story. Another thing, I watched really carefully right to the end and I didn't spot Princess Anne once. How different to the life of our own dear Princess Royal.

(Edit for typo)

[LEE]

If you want to be on the edge of your seat all night, whilst watching the HOBBIT 2, may I suggest putting about 8 cushions behind you on the sofa.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Hell Drivers

A fifties period piece with some mega stars in the making

Stanley Baker
Patrick McGoohan
Sean Connery et al.

Must have been a lot of war surplus clothing around in those days; would go for big bucks on ebay now!

Enjoyable stuff.

[jogler]

thread hijack.......

Not only war surplus clothing but vehicles also.

On a bomb site near to my prefab (granny's) home were two 5 ton trucks & a tracked Bren gun carrier,all abandoned & rusting away.A true paradise for small boys with a big imagination.

I suspect these too would be expensive to acquire nowadays;particularly the BG carrier.

[BrianI]

Pacific Rim

 

Giant Robots fighting Giant Sea Creatures!   

[Jakob]

Pacific Rim

 

Giant Robots fighting Giant Sea Creatures!   

The visuals are very very good. The story/acting however....Really expected more from Del Toro.

[Pickled Onion]

The Railway Man. A disjointed film, and rather different to the book, but very effective. I wept gallons. Just one small point: I notice it was filmed on location in Australia, Thailand and, er, Scotland. The border's moved rather a long way south when I wasn't looking, then.

Saw this at the weekend, yes it's very good.

If you're referring to the IMDB claim that it was shot in Berwick-upon-Tweed, apparently it wasn't, it was actually North Berwick, E Lothian, although Berwick-upon-Tweed was where Lomax lived.

[Woofage]

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

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Interesting plot but in the end turns into a load of sentimental old bollocks.

Worth a watch, but don't go out of your way.

[Steph]

The Railway Man. A disjointed film, and rather different to the book, but very effective. I wept gallons. Just one small point: I notice it was filmed on location in Australia, Thailand and, er, Scotland. The border's moved rather a long way south when I wasn't looking, then.

Saw this at the weekend, yes it's very good.

If you're referring to the IMDB claim that it was shot in Berwick-upon-Tweed, apparently it wasn't, it was actually North Berwick, E Lothian, although Berwick-upon-Tweed was where Lomax lived.

No. I am referring to Lindisfarne. That is where the car is parked on the sands by a little hut on stilts.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

The new Pantani film. Worth watching and a beautifully-shot well-balanced look at the life of a talented and flawed racer.

[Wowbagger]

"Frozen", a Disney animation. It is currently our grand-daughter's favourite and has played about four times today.  I have, in between other tasks and chores, seen just about all of it once through and a few bits several times. I quite enjoyed it.

[andygates]

Godzilla.