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Thread: Movies - Take Two. Action!

  1. #926
    Quote Originally Posted by hippypants View Post
    Spellbound Alfred Hitchcock about a therapist trying to help a patient with amnesia. Nice Salvador Dali sequence near the ending.

    .
    I've seen a bunch of Hitchcock pictures in the last coupel years, but I don't think I've seen that one yet. I liked Psycho, Strangers On A Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, Family Plot, and...oh, dammit, which was the one with Carey Grant as the retired cat burglar? Oh yeah, and The Man Who Knew Too Much.

    It's only when you see some ofthose pictures that you realize how influential Hitch was. Things like the "zoom in, dolly out" (or is it zoom out, dolly in) shot in Vertigo (which got reused in lot sof other movies, probably most famously in Jaws) or the appropriation of plot elements. Throw Mama From The Train is essentially a comedic remake of Strangters On A Train (they even admit it inside the movie!), whiel Body Doble is effectively a mashup of Vertigo and Rear Window.

  2. #927
    Member Lou's Avatar
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    Darc

    Caught on Netflix.In Japan, a white woman is forced into whoring for the Yakuza to pay off debt. She is subsequently violently killed in front of her 8 year old son.
    Son remains in Japan, grows up, and seeks revenge. Nothing new here. Just a typical one man versus the mob flick. However, this was mindless fun. There is a
    ton of violence, and large breasted topless women here. No Oscar here, but still pretty fun.
    A Comfort Zone is not a Life Sentence

  3. #928
    Member since 7/13/2000 Hal...'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    which was the one with Carey Grant as the retired cat burglar?
    To Catch a Thief.

    Oh yeah, and The Man Who Knew Too Much.
    Which one? There were two. One made in '34 and the other with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. The first one was better, if only because Doris Day isn't singing "Que Sera, Sera" 100 times in it.


    Things like the "zoom in, dolly out" (or is it zoom out, dolly in) shot in Vertigo
    The effect is called the dolly zoom, regardless of the direction. In Vertigo, Hitch zoomed out and dollied in (incidentally, it wasn't Hitch who invented the technique but one of his crew). Other directors have done the opposite. If you dolly in and zoom out, the image takes on a more typical look since you can see more of the surrounding area around the actor; it can also give a sense of 3D since you'll get a deeper field of view. Jimmy Stewart hanging off the roof in Vertigo is a prime example. In the opposite way, the image will flatten and the subject will appear more isolated. Think Roy Scheider in Jaws, when he sees the kid being eaten by Bruce.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lou View Post
    Darc ...There is a ton of violence, and large breasted topless women here.
    Large breasted topless Japanese women???
    “From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe

  4. #929
    Quote Originally Posted by Hal... View Post
    To Catch a Thief.
    Thank you. I don't know why I couldn't remember that title, that's like one of the more legendary ones. Anyway, that was another one that I liked.


    re: The Man Who Knew Too Much
    Which one? There were two. One made in '34 and the other with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. The first one was better, if only because Doris Day isn't singing "Que Sera, Sera" 100 times in it.
    I've only seen the one with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. I know Ben Manciewicz said on TCM that there's a lot of debate about which version is better.



    The effect is called the dolly zoom, regardless of the direction. In Vertigo, Hitch zoomed out and dollied in (incidentally, it wasn't Hitch who invented the technique but one of his crew). Other directors have done the opposite. If you dolly in and zoom out, the image takes on a more typical look since you can see more of the surrounding area around the actor; it can also give a sense of 3D since you'll get a deeper field of view. Jimmy Stewart hanging off the roof in Vertigo is a prime example. In the opposite way, the image will flatten and the subject will appear more isolated. Think Roy Scheider in Jaws, when he sees the kid being eaten by Bruce.
    I just remember seeing the effect in various places as a kid, like the Jaws bit, or in Michael Jackson's Thriller video and not being able to understand how it was done. I've read the Wikipedia page on it, so I kinda have a vague understanding now.

    I had to look Hitch's movies up on Wikipedia, to remind myself which ones I've seen.

    Rope: Didn't like as much, though I liked the technical aspect using all those unbroken single takes, with no edits (or almost no edits, I think there's something like five cuts in the entire picture)

    Lifeboat: I kinda liked it, but the back half of the picture bugged me, though I understand Hitch's reasons for having the story develop that way (i.e. "Never trust the enemy").

    Shadow Of A Doubt, Dial M For Murder, and Topaz I liked quite a bit.

    North By Northwest by was really good too, very suspenseful. I love that, reportedly, he actually came up with the idea for the chase across the Mount Rushmore faces first, then turned to a screenwriter and said "OK, get me to Mount Rushmore", so the rest of the movie was constructed to lead up to the Mount Rushmore finale. Martin Landau was great as the baddie in that one.

    As a side note, I remember watching reruns of Alfred Hitchcock Presents back in the 80's (as well as watching the new version of the show that was produced at the time, both, I thought were really good). I always loved his sort of sardonic comments about his sponsors and the ad breaks. He'd say something like "Before our story begins, I'm very sorry that I must present to you something most horrific and terrifying. It is called a commercial". There was one where he's on aboat with an old style, pre-SCUBA deep sea diver. Deep sea diver goes over the side of the boat, and Hitch immediately shuts off the air compressor (supplying air to the diver). He apologizes for the noise the machine made, and then explains the diver is his sponsor who insisted on demonstrating his latest hobby to the public. You then see this rope being yanked on from below the surface, and Hitch explains that the sponsor is signaling him that he's not getting any air, and that "I shall ignore him for the time being", then goes into his usual introductory spiel.

  5. #930
    Member Lou's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hal... View Post


    Large breasted topless Japanese women???
    Yeah. There was a combination of both Japanese and American women being forced to work the strip/sex club.
    A Comfort Zone is not a Life Sentence

  6. #931
    All Things Must Pass spellbound's Avatar
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    Watched The Song Remains The Same last night. As far as I can recall, I hadn't seen it since it was in theaters in the '70s. Still a good rock and roll movie.
    We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
    It won't be visible through the air
    And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973

  7. #932
    This guy digs multilayered movies with hidden messages. Big Kubrick fan.


    Last edited by Crawford Glissadevil; 09-02-2018 at 10:40 AM.

  8. #933
    Member since 7/13/2000 Hal...'s Avatar
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    This is mostly a reply to GuitarGeek so feel free to skip it. Yeah, I know what you're thinking: "Jesus! Look how long this post is. Of course I'm going to skip it!"

    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    I've only seen the one with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day.
    Did you like it?

    I know Ben Manciewicz said on TCM that there's a lot of debate about which version is better.
    There's really nothing wrong with the second one but Doris singing "Que Sera, Sera" once was more than enough. And I felt the last time was just downright annoying.

    I've read the Wikipedia page on it, so I kinda have a vague understanding now.
    It helps to know something about photography in general. The size of the aperture in the lens affects how much light gets to the film. It also affects depth of field, which is how much of the image in front of and behind the subject is in focus.

    If the aperture is wide open a lot more light gets in and so you need to increase shutter speed - in bright light. This is especially useful for shooting sports; you don't want your subjects to be blurry, right? But if shooting close ups, only the subject will be in focus; most everything in front of and behind the subject will not. A wide aperture is also very useful for shooting in low light. Of course, you also need to slow down the shutter speed so that your subject is properly exposed; too fast a shutter speed and your subject will be too dark. Movie cameras have a fixed shutter speed, which for the most part is 1/24th of a second (which equates to 24 frames per second, which also equates to 1˝ feet of film per second; or at least that's how they're exhibited in a theater) so being able to change the shutter speed is impossible on a movie camera; you'd have to change cameras (in the very early days of cinema, the shutter speed was controlled by the camera operator who turned a crank to advance the film).
    To get an idea of how aperture can affect exposure, watch the indoor scene from Barry Lyndon, where the only light source was candles. You'll notice that the scene is actually quite dark for a movie. But what makes it so amazing is that you can still see everything. And more importantly, it looks very natural (you may also notice that everyone seems subdued; I'd have to research it but I suspect that the actors were told not to move too quickly, possibly because Stanly Kubrick was using a slightly slower camera). Normal lenses would have never worked so Kubrick bought some lenses that were specially made for NASA. I don't know what the largest aperture is in a movie camera lens but in a still camera lens, a typical f-stop for a 50mm lens is 1.8 (fyi, the f-stop is the ratio of the widest aperture to the focal length). Kubrick's NASA lenses had an f-stop of 0.7! That's f'n wide!

    In the past, because of the limitations of technology, movies were rarely shot at night. They were shot during the day and then either underexposed or underdeveloped. Have you ever seen an old western with a night scene and noticed the shadows? WTF? lol However, film noir directors used the problems of shooting at night to an advantage. It's what gave the movies their dark appearance. And, more importantly, their atmosphere.

    Anyway, if the aperture is at the minimum, less light gets in so you need a slower shutter speed. However, the depth of field will be at infinite so everything is in focus.* This is useful for landscape photography.
    *An easy demonstration of this, especially for people who need glasses to read, is to take a piece of paper and puncture it with a pin or needle and then look through that hole at something really close. You'll find that you don't need your glasses to see clearly when looking through that hole.

    All of this is, however, specific to fixed lenses. For zoom lenses, it's basically the same except that zooming in and zooming out changes things that I can't explain because (a) it would require me to think about it deeply to properly explain it and (b) there are some important aspects to it I've forgotten. lol But in the most general sense, zooming in reduces light getting to the film so you need a larger aperture which is partly why, when the camera's zoomed in, the image gets "flattened". And because of their physical limitations, the problem with zoom lenses is they have a smaller choice of apertures. Also, if you've got the camera set to the smallest aperture but are zoomed in, there's very little light getting to the film so it's going to be underexposed and the only way to counteract that is to use a shit ton of light and/or a fast film. And the problem with fast film is that it's "grainy".

    But how cinematographers are able to maintain proper exposure while dolly zooming I have no clue. If, like in Jaws, the director dollies out and zooms in, the exposure should go from normal to slightly dark. Maybe what they do is go from a slight over exposure to a slight under exposure and then fix it in post. But I'm guessing.

    I had to look Hitch's movies up on Wikipedia, to remind myself which ones I've seen.
    These are the ones I've seen. The ones in italics are worth a look. The ones in bold I consider his best:
    The Lodger. This is a silent movie.
    The Man Who Knew Too Much
    The 39 Steps
    Sabotage
    The Lady Vanishes

    Rebecca
    Foreign Correspondent
    Suspicion
    Shadow of a Doubt
    Lifeboat

    Spellbound. I didn't not like this one.
    Notorious. Didn't like this one, either, but I may have been too quick to judge. I should watch it again since it stars two of my favorite actors: Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.
    The Paradine Case. I remember very little about it which is not a good sign.
    Rope.
    Stage Fright. I remember very little about it which is not a good sign.
    Strangers on a Train. I know a lot of people like this movie but the scene where the carousel goes out of control I found ridiculous.
    Dial M for Murder
    Rear Window
    To Catch a Thief
    The Trouble With Harry. Hitch's most beautiful movie, it's charming and funny. Shirley MacLaine is adorable and Jerry Mathers is too cute. Wonderful change of pace for the master of suspense.
    The Man Who Knew Too Much. Could have been a great movie if it wasn't for Doris having to sing every 15 minutes.
    The Wrong Man. Should have been a good one, what with Henry Fonda in it. But, nope. It just falls flat.
    Vertigo. How this is regularly considered one of the greatest movies ever made in BFI's decennial poll is a complete mystery to me.
    North by Northwest
    Psycho. Hitch's best, imo.
    The Birds
    Marnie. This is one of my ex's favorite movies. I found it tedious.
    Torn Curtain. Should have been much better considering Paul Newman & Julie Andrews are in it.
    Topaz. I remember little about it which is not a good sign.
    Frenzy. Not quite on par with Hitch's best, but a very good movie nonetheless.
    Family Plot. I go back and forth on this one.
    “From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe

  9. #934
    Member since 7/13/2000 Hal...'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lou View Post
    Yeah. There was a combination of both Japanese and American women being forced to work the strip/sex club.
    That sold it! lol
    “From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe

  10. #935
    Quote Originally Posted by Hal... View Post





    These are the ones I've seen. The ones in italics are worth a look. The ones in bold I consider his best:
    The Lodger. This is a silent movie.
    The Man Who Knew Too Much
    The 39 Steps
    Sabotage
    The Lady Vanishes

    Rebecca
    Foreign Correspondent
    Suspicion
    Shadow of a Doubt
    Lifeboat

    Spellbound. I didn't not like this one.
    Notorious. Didn't like this one, either, but I may have been too quick to judge. I should watch it again since it stars two of my favorite actors: Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.
    The Paradine Case. I remember very little about it which is not a good sign.
    Rope.
    Stage Fright. I remember very little about it which is not a good sign.
    Strangers on a Train. I know a lot of people like this movie but the scene where the carousel goes out of control I found ridiculous.
    Dial M for Murder
    Rear Window
    To Catch a Thief
    The Trouble With Harry. Hitch's most beautiful movie, it's charming and funny. Shirley MacLaine is adorable and Jerry Mathers is too cute. Wonderful change of pace for the master of suspense.
    The Man Who Knew Too Much. Could have been a great movie if it wasn't for Doris having to sing every 15 minutes.
    The Wrong Man. Should have been a good one, what with Henry Fonda in it. But, nope. It just falls flat.
    Vertigo. How this is regularly considered one of the greatest movies ever made in BFI's decennial poll is a complete mystery to me.
    North by Northwest
    Psycho. Hitch's best, imo.
    The Birds
    Marnie. This is one of my ex's favorite movies. I found it tedious.
    Torn Curtain. Should have been much better considering Paul Newman & Julie Andrews are in it.
    Topaz. I remember little about it which is not a good sign.
    Frenzy. Not quite on par with Hitch's best, but a very good movie nonetheless.
    Family Plot. I go back and forth on this one.
    Of the ones I've seen, I mostly agree. I have to admit, one of the reasons I liked Family Plot was Karen Black's line, "I don't know what's come over me. Suddenly, I'm tingling all over".

    I was trying to catch The Trouble With Harry a couple months ago, because one of the premium channels on our service was showing it. Like with the James Bond and Godzilla movies, the Starz group of channels seem to keep the Hitchcock movies in circulation, so it'll turn up again soon enough.

  11. #936
    Member Vic2012's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hal... View Post
    I know what you're thinking: "Jesus! Look how long this post is. Of course I'm going to skip it!"
    That is exactley what I was thinking. It took me an hour to isolate that quote going through all that verbage.......lol

  12. #937
    Member Vic2012's Avatar
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    I did skip it, btw.

  13. #938
    Member Lou's Avatar
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    American Poltergeist

    Could only make it through a half hour of this insufferable dreck! I didn't think the acting in any movie could be as bad as that in Human Centipede 3.
    These actors said, "Hold our beers! "
    A Comfort Zone is not a Life Sentence

  14. #939
    These are my fav Hitchcock movies, the ones I tend to watch most often.

    39 Steps
    Foreign Correspondent
    Saboteur
    Rope
    Strangers on a Train (Throw Momma From the Train spoof)
    Dial M for Murder (remade as A Perfect Murder)
    Rear Window (see The Bedroom Window, which also references several other Hitch movies)
    Man Who Knew Too Much (2nd--I skip the song ) (Foul Play is a loose remake/spoof)
    Vertigo (High Anxiety Mel Brooks spoof)
    North By Northwest (Silver Streak remake/spoof)
    Psycho (Halloween/Dressed to Kill)
    The Birds
    Frenzy

    Body Double as mentioned references several Hitch films (since DePalma's career goal was apparently to be a poor man's Hitch) I'm sure there are other remakes/spoofs/homages I'm forgetting.

    Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and The Birds are absolutely essential of course. North by Northwest is his best movie imo, basically flawless and a top 5 all timer for me. Never get tired of watching it.

    I've got most of his post British movies on a great Blu Ray box collection (15 movies I think) and several of the early ones on beautiful restored Criterion editions. It's interesting to see how he expanded some ideas in movies like 39 Steps, Foreign Correspondent, The Wrong Man etc in later movies like North by Northwest. The innocent or good guy being mistakenly or coincidentally wrapped up in trouble or danger was a big theme of his.
    Last edited by DocProgger; 09-03-2018 at 12:54 AM.

  15. #940
    Quote Originally Posted by DocProgger View Post
    Strangers on a Train (Throw Momma From the Train spoof)
    There's a lot of movies that, though they have different titles and all the character names are different, they're effectively remakes of an earlier picture, with only enough changed to get around plagiarism laws. The thing I loved about Throw Mama From The Train was, they basically put it right out in the open, "Yes, we're basically remaking Strangers On A Train", by having Danny DeVito cop the idea for the picture's major plot point from seeing Strangers On A Train. I thought that was brilliant, they didn't even pretend it was an original plot. They basically said "This is pretty much the same movie, only we're playing it for laughs...oh, and we've got Branford Marsalis, too!").
    =
    Man Who Knew Too Much (2nd--I skip the song ) (Foul Play is a loose remake/spoof)
    Damn, I didn't even think about it, but you're right. Foul Play is pretty much The Man Who Knew Too Much, but again, played for laughs!
    Psycho (Halloween/Dressed to Kill)
    I imagine Hitch might be rolling over in his grave because of it, but I think the shower scene essentially spawned the entire slasher flick genre...also the concept that the killer in those movies is theoretically punishing someone for being impure or wicked or whatever. I also remember back when Jamie Lee Curtis did the first couple Halloween pictures and Terror Train, more than one media outlet noting the irony that the daughter of the actress who did the famous shower scene ended up starring in those kind of movies.

    Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and The Birds are absolutely essential of course. North by Northwest is his best movie imo, basically flawless and a top 5 all timer for me. Never get tired of watching it.
    All of which, I'm happy to say< I've seen and enjoyed and wouldn't mind seeing again. But the thing about something like Psycho is, that's one of those movies where you know the ending going in, because it's so iconic that it gets talked about, there's deliberate allusions in other people's works, etc. So unless you saw it when it first came out, you're kinda screwed, because you already know what's going to happen.

    It's like The Empire Strikes Back, I'm still bugged that i didn't get to see it when it came out, as it's original theatrical run coincided with our family moving from Missouri to Ohio, and as such, things like going to the movies were put on hold until we got settled. I think I got to see it during it's second theatrical run, something like 9-12 months after the first run, by which time, I found out about the now legendary plot twist (delivered via a certain legendary line uttered by James Earl Jones) from a kid who lived down the street (who, btw, also insisted the third movie was going to be called Splinter In The Mind's Eye).


    I've got most of his post British movies on a great Blu Ray box collection (15 movies I think) and several of the early ones on beautiful restored Criterion editions. It's interesting to see how he expanded some ideas in movies like 39 Steps, Foreign Correspondent, The Wrong Man etc in later movies like North by Northwest. The innocent or good guy being mistakenly or coincidentally wrapped up in trouble or danger was a big theme of his.
    I've yet to see any of the British movies, other than Lifeboat, but I'm sure I'll get to them soon enough. I recognize the title The 39 Steps, so I know that's another one of the ones that considered a classic.

    Edit: Actually, I believe ther eason I know the title 39 Steps is because there's actually bene three movies made by that title (all based on a novel written in 1915, according to Wikipedia), and I saw the 1978 version about 35 years ago. The only thing I Remember is the scene with Robert Powell hanging off the hands of Big Ben, which is the first place I remember hearing the word "bloody" used as an exclamation, which my mother told me at the time was how Englishmen say swear, because they're too polite to use actual cuss words, as in "You bloody fool!" or whatever.

  16. #941
    Of the "spoof" or comedic remakes, I think Silver Streak really did a good job of referencing the original (N by Northwest) but still being a pretty good flick on its own right. The whole travel by train theme of course; the innocent guy (Wilder) falling for the girl (Jill Clayburgh)who's working for the suave bad guy who's posing as an international art dealer but is really a criminal and terrorist; Wilder even being mistaken as a killer which forces him to go on the run while still trying to save the girl; they even managed to fit in a small airplane scene in a rural area. And it's both humorous and a decent "action adventure" flick, which is the key to why N by NW is so good.
    Last edited by DocProgger; 09-03-2018 at 01:03 AM.

  17. #942
    Member nosebone's Avatar
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    Brian De palma was an obvious Hitchcock fanboy.
    no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone

  18. #943
    Member since 7/13/2000 Hal...'s Avatar
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    Even tho I haven't seen that many of Hitch's British movies, I'm of the opinion his Hollywood movies are better; indeed, I think the zenith of his career is Dial "M" for Murder thru The Birds. And while I think Psycho is his best film, the ones I find the most enjoyable to watch (and the ones I've seen the most) are Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry, North by Northwest, and The Birds. When I was a teenager, tho, my favorite Hitch movie was Suspicion. An excellent movie for which Joan Fontaine won the Oscar. In fact, I just found out recently that she's the only actor or actress to win an Oscar for a role in a Hitch movie. Cary Grant should have been nominated for his role in it, too. He would have lost but still...

    Quote Originally Posted by DocProgger View Post
    Of the "spoof" or comedic remakes, I think Silver Streak really did a good job of referencing the original (N by Northwest) but still being a pretty good flick on its own right.
    Loved that movie when I was a kid! I believe it was the first on screen pairing of Gene Wilder & Richard Pryor.
    “From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe

  19. #944
    Irritated Lawn Guy Klonk's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nosebone View Post
    Brian De palma was an obvious Hitchcock fanboy.
    Now there's a post I can finish reading!
    "Who would have thought a whale would be so heavy?" - Moe Sizlak

  20. #945
    Member hippypants's Avatar
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    The Man from Laramie--western starring Jimmy Stewart in one of the lesser known westerns but worth watching. In the end it's a revenge/mystery, but enjoyable and shot in New Mexico.


    The Punisher--I think there were two of these films? This is one starred Thomas Jane, who was the best actor in the film, but it wasn't a very good film even from comic book standards. Pretty silly.


    Eric Clapton: Life in Twelve Bars--one of the better bios on Clapton (though I've not seen many). But address many of the things I'd wondered about his personality. He had a pretty lousy childhood, the drug & alcohol abuse, and the death of his son. I caught it off Showtime as we've gotten a free Showtime promo going over Labor Day. It's been fun to watch, however, I can't imagine subscribing. Why would I want them to pick the movies I watch over picking the ones via Netflix I wanna watch?


    Alive--A Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the snow swept Andes are forced to use desperate measures to survive after a plane crash. It's worthwhile and didn't make a horror show out of their cannibalism.

  21. #946
    Quote Originally Posted by hippypants View Post
    The Man from Laramie--western starring Jimmy Stewart in one of the lesser known westerns but worth watching. In the end it's a revenge/mystery, but enjoyable and shot in New Mexico.
    Great western. I've got that on bluray, gorgeous widescreen cinemascope technicolor transfer. I think that is one of those Mann/Stewart westerns which are right up there with the Boetticher/Scott series as some of the best westerns ever done.

  22. #947
    Member since 7/13/2000 Hal...'s Avatar
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    Some documentaries I watched over the past week, all of which can be found on Netflix:

    The Seven Five. During the '80s & '90s, the NYPD's 75th was the most crime ridden police precinct in the nation (just to give you an idea, in 1993, there were a total of 10,355 felonies with 126 of those being murder; at the time the population of the 75th was 150-200K). This documentary focuses on a cop and his partner. If you have an interest in cops & robbers in NYC you'll like this. I thought it was really good.

    Long Shot. A Netflix original, this is a 40 minute documentary about a young Hispanic man in L.A. who's arrested for murder. This was really good. It could have been better had the director been a little more strict with the chronology of the narrative.

    Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of The National Lampoon. Mentioned previously in this thread, I thought this was pretty good. Learned a lot, too.

    Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. That's Hedley! Geezer brought this to my attention. I wouldn't call it fascinating but it was really interesting.

    Newtown. This one focuses on a few of the parents and some siblings of the children killed at the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012. Very well made and deeply affecting, I came away wondering what the point was. I don't think I learned anything new and there was no real agenda from the filmmakers other than to document how losing a child in a brutal tragedy affected these people. As the credits started rolling, I saw that the director's name is Kim Snyder and immediately had two thoughts: "that figures" and "I wonder if that's a woman" (that may seem odd but Kim is a unisex name, so you never know). Sure enough, it is. Significance? If you've ever lived with a woman who wanted the two of you to "share your feelings," you'll understand. Again, deeply affecting but...
    “From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.” – Philip Marlowe

  23. #948
    Jaws is on right now. Is the fin, like in "the pond" scene(didn't look like a pond to me but I'm from Vegas, what would you expect), where Scheider's son is in there and it's mostly just the fin going by. Is that the same shark that was used for the famous scenes or just some trick with just a fin? Damn, it's only been a few weeks since I watched that making of movie and I can't remember if they talked about that or not.

    As for Hitchcock, I'm sadly rather uninformed as the only one I've seen is Psycho. I'm a slacker, I guess. What I want to know is the SFX for the Birds. For that time period, however they did it, it's quite amazing and I've only seen about two minutes of the movie.
    Carry On My Blood-Ejaculating Son - JKL2000

  24. #949
    Quote Originally Posted by TheLoony View Post

    As for Hitchcock, I'm sadly rather uninformed as the only one I've seen is Psycho. I'm a slacker, I guess. What I want to know is the SFX for the Birds. For that time period, however they did it, it's quite amazing and I've only seen about two minutes of the movie.
    Some of the effects in The Birds are a little clunky looking and dated now, but yeah, at the time, pretty darn good. I still remember as a kid the first time I saw it being shocked at the quick shot of the farmer's gouged out eye socket which was pecked out. That stays with you for awhile....

    When I go back and watch The Birds periodically now, its not so much for the "horror" but 1) to see the psychological interplay between Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, and his jealous mother 2) the fear mongering discussion as to why this is happening in the town cafe and 3) to just marvel how gorgeous Tippi Hedren was, as I remember being immediately infatuated with her. And I guess so was Hitch... . And of course her daughter, Melanie Griffith, was a looker in her prime also. That good Minnesota stock.

    add--from Wiki:

    "Nonetheless, Hedren recalled the week she did the final bird attack scene in a second-floor bedroom as the worst of her life. Before filming it, she asked Hitchcock about her character's motivations to go upstairs, and his response was, "Because I tell you to." She was then assured that the crew would use mechanical birds. Instead, Hedren endured five solid days of prop men, protected by thick leather gloves, flinging dozens of live gulls, ravens and crows at her (their beaks clamped shut with elastic bands). In a state of exhaustion, when one of the birds gouged her cheek and narrowly missed her eye, Hedren sat down on the set and began crying. A physician ordered a week's rest. Hitchcock protested, according to Hedren, saying there was nobody but her to film. The doctor's reply was, "Are you trying to kill her?" She said the week also appeared to be an ordeal for the director."

    (keep in mind, this was Tippi's film debut)
    Last edited by DocProgger; 09-03-2018 at 09:54 PM.

  25. #950
    Quote Originally Posted by hippypants View Post
    The Punisher--I think there were two of these films? This is one starred Thomas Jane, who was the best actor in the film, but it wasn't a very good film even from comic book standards. Pretty silly.
    Yeah, I believe that's the circa 2004 or so version. There was a film done in the early 90's with Dolph Lundgren in the lead role. There's a couple cool action scenes, as I recall, but probably not much better than the one you saw. I mean, Dolph Lundgren is in the lead, how good could it be?
    Why would I want them to pick the movies I watch over picking the ones via Netflix I wanna watch?
    Showtime has aired some good series over the years, notably Penn And Teller: Bullshit!, Queer As Folk, The L Word, and Weeds. I dunno, I find premium channels extremely convenient, though you don't get things like audio commentaries and such.

    Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of The National Lampoon. Mentioned previously in this thread, I thought this was pretty good. Learned a lot, too.
    I saw that a year or two ago. Thought that was a great picture. I was vaguely aware of a lot of the stuff they talked about in that film, but didn't know the in depth stories. Loved the bit about Thurgood Marshall attempting to bring the FBI to bare on the Lampoon, after they published a satirical piece involving him, only to find out they hadn't done anything illegal.

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