DVDizzy Forum

Dr Frankenollie wrote:

When it comes to "The Godfather", I adore the first movie, but I find "The Godfather Part II" rather boring. "The Godfather" has numerous great scenes and I thought every single moment was marvellous, whereas the only two scenes I love in its sequel are when young Vito watches Don Fanucci from the rooftops (eventually killing him) and when Fredo goes fishing at the end. The rest of it didn't keep me interested and entertained like the original did.

As a former projectionist I can see your side of this very well. I didn't like all the flashback stuff they used in "The Godfather 2", it was totally confusing and rather boring. When the "Godfather Saga" came out on VHS, I bought it after I found out that it was the first two "Godfather" movies done chronologically.

It begins with a funeral procession that is attacked by an evil Don and we get to meet the mother of the future Don Corleone. It then moves a few years ahead and we see the Robert De Niro story of the youth of Don Corleone without any interruption. It really flows well and after the set up of Don Fanucci the movie moves to the famous opening of Marlon Brando as Don Corleone and we go from there.

This version of the "Godfather" runs more than 6 1/2 hours and is I really like watching the two films in this order. I have transferred it to DVD-R and it remains in my collection to this day. I get really upset when they try to show the "Godfather" film on TV and make all their unneeded edits, except for the nude scenes, of course, because this movie is so much better as the "Saga" than it is as Parts One and Part Two. Gone are the flashbacks, and the film feels more complete in this version.

As far as "Avatar" and "Titanic" go they are in my Top 50 List of Favorite movies to watch, but with over 6,000 titles in my collection it is pretty hard to put a number on any one of them. I am a collector of films by certain directors, and am a completist when it comes to Disney and James Bond films. Among my favorite directors are Billy Wilder and John Ford. I also have a few Silent Classics that I consider part of my Top 50 Films of all time. They include "Wings" the 1922 winner of Best Picture, "The Sheik" with Rudolph Valentino, "The Iron Horse", a very classic western, and several Charlie Chaplin shorts that are among my complete collection of Chaplin.

I will at this ask you to forgive me for my 'stupid' attacks on your movie likes and dislikes, they were and are uncalled for. I do offer a full-hearted apology and I will look forward to sharing reviews of movies from now on.

Ted.

Such a damn funny film.

TheValentineBros wrote:Ted.

Such a damn funny film.

+1

Inglourious Basterds - This is a great film; everyone in the film is absolutely perfect (especially Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz), and it's so over-the-top crazy but it still works wonderfully. I don't watch this too often, but whenever I do I always have a good time.

The Night of the Hunter - I'm gonna start off by saying that Robert Mitchum is the creepiest/worst priest ever. He was fantastic in the role, though. I've never seen this before, but I absolutely loved it. It reminded me so much of the German expressionism films that we learned a little bit about in my Film Noir class. I loved the use of shadow/light in this film. Seriously, this was a good one, and I'm gonna try and get the Blu-ray of this once I get enough money.

dvdjunkie wrote:As a former projectionist I can see your side of this very well. I didn't like all the flashback stuff they used in "The Godfather 2", it was totally confusing and rather boring. When the "Godfather Saga" came out on VHS, I bought it after I found out that it was the first two "Godfather" movies done chronologically. [...]

Yes, if you really want to spoil the attraction of the Godfather-movies and ruin everything that's great about them, you go the conservative, conventional route and you watch all of it in a safe, routine chronological run. The entire point of Part II was to mirror Vito's transformation from an innocent young boy to a ruthless criminal with Michael's similar development, decades later. It was meant to show how connected the life stories of Vito and Michael were, even though in the first part, Michael vowed to stay away from his father's business. To watch the entire sage chronologically eliminates all of the brilliance of Coppolla's vision. It's a chronological version that's boring. And lazy.

The Last Mistress (2007 / directed by: Catherine Breillat)



I don't watch French period costume dramas about the agonies of love very often nor do I know what kind of market there is for a movie like this in the new-millennium but I did assume that audiences felt they'd seen all this before. I came for Asia Argento, who is one of the more interesting and memorable actresses of her time, and she does not disappoint. That's why the movie kind of works. However, it should have been a lot more complex.

If I had bothered for a second to read the plot before pressing "Play" (which I didn't), I would have predicted nearly half of what happened in the movie. It's about 2 hours long, feels half an hour light of that, and replaces a lot of style for anything that feels real (which I'm maybe 60% grateful for since the dialogue is pretty silly). Save for the occasional touch of poetic or provocative violence. Or suggestion of; a surprising amount of sad women looking over rocky cliffs or down the barrel of a rifle upon the mere thought of the romantic male lead leaving them - 2. Then, of course, there's the fact that he gets them both pregnant and both the babies die. ...Romantic? Yeah, I could have done without all that. And with the bookending scenes of commentary by Middle-Aged Lady and Husband (good luck keeping names straight in this, even French and Saunders joked about the ease of forgetting which Countesses are which in period movies). And there's a church scene. I'd call it a wedding scene since the characters are there for the purpose of being wed but the entire thing focuses on some random passage from the Bible(?) with text that is incredibly sexist. (But that's religion for you.)

Anyway, Argento being in it, I realize why I sat through it. Her performance and whirlwind bad romance with Male Romantic Lead is entertaining in enough spots to make these worn-out ideas less boring to watch again. But I won't recommend this over the movies she made with her father.

Goliath wrote:

It's a chronological version that's boring. And lazy.

Spoken like a person who has never watched the "Godfather Saga". The story is the same whichever way you want to watch it, and with all the added footage in the 'Saga' it even makes the comparisons to Vito and Michael all the more alike.

Again this is one person's choice over another. I found the second Godfather movie by itself to be very confusing when they go back with out warning, and the storyline gets just a little confusing. When you watch the "Saga" it starts out with Vito Andolini as a little boy and follows it through to his youth in New York City, and how they mixed up things and got his last name as 'Corleone' instead of Andolini. There is a more in-depth storyline with the chronological version than watching the first two separately.

You have your reasons for watching the film the way you want, and I have my reasons for watching it the way I want, and we both get the same story, if not a better story, told to us.

Well AMC showed The Godfather Saga a couple of months ago, fully restored and in HD. I'm kind of sad I missed it, not because I think it being re-editited in chronological order makes it a better movie but simply out of the curiosity of seeing the 75 minutes of deleted scenes reinserted. From the description of the scenes, they sound like something that would be awesome to finally see but at the same time I fear they'll screw up the pace of the movie when reinserted (like the extended version of Aliens).

Didn't see it, so I can't really say one way or the other.

dvdjunkie wrote:Spoken like a person who has never watched the "Godfather Saga". The story is the same whichever way you want to watch it,

No. A story which you explore non-chronologically is experienced very different from one where you go from point A to B to C etc. It's like saying Memento is the same when you reverse it, whereas the whole point is to tell it in reverse order.

dvdjunkie wrote:and with all the added footage in the 'Saga' it even makes the comparisons to Vito and Michael all the more alike.

You mean it spells it out for people who want to have everything literally told to them?

dvdjunkie wrote:Again this is one person's choice over another. I found the second Godfather movie by itself to be very confusing when they go back with out warning, and the storyline gets just a little confusing.

Not really. There is nothing confusing at all about it. Only if you have the attention span of a 6 year old I can imagine you lose what it's about. No? Then I can't see where the confusing part comes in. It simply shifts between two different eras. What's hard to follow about that? I wouldn't try a Tarantino if I were you, they sometimes have THREE storylines in non-chronological order!

dvdjunkie wrote:When you watch the "Saga" it starts out with Vito Andolini as a little boy and follows it through to his youth in New York City, and how they mixed up things and got his last name as 'Corleone' instead of Andolini. There is a more in-depth storyline with the chronological version than watching the first two separately.

No, it's not more in-depth. More in-depth is watching the flashback parts of Part II and already knowing what Vito would become and thus appreciating more his journey and how he changed. Not in-depth is seeing something develop the exact same way we see every other movie develop, without any background to the characters.

dvdjunkie wrote:You have your reasons for watching the film the way you want, and I have my reasons for watching it the way I want, and we both get the same story, if not a better story, told to us.

No.

Ratings based on a 5 star method.
[Blue = 1st time rating and/or viewing]

The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012) ✰✰✰
[^ Tried, but I couldn't warm to this movie. Wished there had been a better storyline, conflict and villain(s). It's also featured a disrespectful, played for laughs portrayal of a person with Albinism. Not my type of humor.]
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) ✰✰✰1/2
[^ Nicely done reboot considering the hype of its predecessor. Still, and I know it couldn't be helped, and origin stories can only be done so many ways, but it was just too similar to Spider-Man 2002. There are parts that I liked better (I think Andrew Garfield captured a teen's awkward mannerisms superbly), but mainly I thought the weak villain brought this version down.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) ✰✰✰✰
[^ Revisited a favorite of mine. Sequel come soon!]
Beauty and the Beast (1991) ✰✰✰✰✰
[^ My little brother just got the part of the Beast in a local BatB play. It's not a Disney play, but I convinced him to watch BatB with me to get some inspiration for voices and actions.]

Bad Timing (1980 / directed by: Nicolas Roeg)



Bad title. And another bad romance pic. The rape seemed a bit odd and completely out of nowhere, even though the movie had been flirting with morality and judgment throughout- I assumed that was because Art's character was too possessive and the movie's sometime-subtitle was A Sexual Obsession. So, now he walks away from the movie being something of a badguy. Previous to the movie turning into a crime case complete with detective going on about how this happens to people who live in out-of-order environments (hippies? mamas and papas?), it made sense as a movie about two people who were too different to make a relationship work. Maybe that was too boring, I dunno. Unconventional casting works in its' favor. Garfunkel (silly name) is very interesting to watch. The situations are involving/interesting enough but the characters are difficult to care about. We seem to learn more about the characters sexually than we do any other aspect of their personalities- though not because the movie doesn't try. It does but then character sympathy (lack of) gets in the way. That said, I've always thought there's a lot you can learn about people through sex and there are some effective scenes here. During one brief, heated argument where he's being cold and she has an "I don't see what the problem is" attitude, they get very contemptuous and she somewhat unwillingly but aggressively throws herself at him (in an uncomfortable location) with the camera's focus mostly on the way she rips her panties and, I didn't expect it but, this seems to be irresistable for him. He throws her down like what their relationship really needed all along was more drama. The gentle sex got boring, did it? Since we're going that way, I think it must be said that (I'm kind of a slut, in case you haven't guessed, but) I think Garfunkel is incredibly sexy in this movie. Perhaps moreso because he's not conventionally... likeable (thought I was going to say attractive?). He has an intense face with interesting features and though he could certainly use more time at the gym, I was more than intrigued every time we saw any skin beyond face and hands. (Movies, stop trying to seduce us- we're easy enough as it is.)

Though the movie at one point received a lot of critical backlash, I thought the only fully intolerable element was its' obnoxious use of music. 1 out of every 4 or 5 songs worked and I don't think there was any real score, just short pieces every 15-20 minutes which were work to detect. Overall, it's challenging and I gather that's what people want from their dramas.

That Hamilton Woman - This was one of three Criterion DVDs I borrowed from the library yesterday, and I have to say that it was pretty good. I'm a big fan of Vivien Leigh, though I've only seen her in Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, so it's nice to see her as another character (and with her regular English accent, too). She was great as Emma Hart/Hamilton; being nothing like Scarlett or Blanche, it was definitely interesting to see her in her own English realm (even if Emma spent most of the film in Italy). And I've never seen Olivier in anything before so it was cool/interesting to finally see him act. I have no idea whether or not it's historically accurate, but I guess it doesn't need to be for a film, for the most part. I wouldn't say it's entirely captivating, but there are some nice performances and overall it was pretty good.

Beauty and the Beast - What more is there to say? I love this film; it's my third favorite DAC (behind Fantasia and The Little Mermaid), and it has a special place in my heart. I love it, much more so than Silence of the Lambs (though that's fantastic in its own right, too).

TheSequelOfDisney wrote:Beauty and the Beast - What more is there to say? I love this film; it's my third favorite DAC (behind Fantasia and The Little Mermaid), and it has a special place in my heart. I love it, much more so than Silence of the Lambs (though that's fantastic in its own right, too).

I'm sorry, people are still talking about this? If it helps, I really don't think it lost because of any anti-Disney bias. It most likely lost because - even if BatB had been a good film - Lambs was still better.

Lazario wrote:I'm sorry, people are still talking about this? If it helps, I really don't think it lost because of any anti-Disney bias. It most likely lost because - even if BatB had been a good film - Lambs was still better.

I really like both of them, but it comes down to personal preference, and I'm more likely watch Beauty and the Beast than Silence of the Lambs. For me, I have to be in a certain mood to watch Silence of the Lambs, but I can watch Beauty and the Beast any time (which has nothing to do with whether or not one movie is better than the other; it's just which one I like to watch).

I'm the reverse myself. Beauty and the Beast is so overplayed, both in my head and in the Disney community, that I can barely watch it anymore. Silence, however, I can watch at nearly any time.

TheSequelOfDisney wrote:I'm more likely watch Beauty and the Beast than Silence of the Lambs. For me, I have to be in a certain mood to watch Silence of the Lambs, but I can watch Beauty and the Beast any time (which has nothing to do with whether or not one movie is better than the other; it's just which one I like to watch).

The reason I of course brought it up is because you did. You know these 2 movies have zero relation to one another except that they were both nominated for Best Picture. An award not meant to be given over matters of preference but by virtue of what is the better film (though admittedly sometimes, for political reasons, it goes to an inferior film). So, why would you bring it up except to say "you know what, I think they might have been wrong"?

Avaitor wrote:I'm the reverse myself. Beauty and the Beast is so overplayed, both in my head and in the Disney community, that I can barely watch it anymore.

That's one word I might use to describe the movie.

Ya know- when my family went to see that movie in theaters in 1991, not a single one of us liked it. In fact, I stayed quiet during the whole thing and tried to give it a chance. You should have heard my mother. Not only did she start going on about how the movie wasn't as good as the hype - while it was playing - but I think she was closer than I've ever seen her to asking the ticket counter for our money back.

^you're family must have interesting taste.

The Amazing Spider-Man(2012)

First, I'll get it out of the way. It is *very* different from Sam Raimi's trilogy, and it is too soon for a reboot. That said, this is a good film. In terms of quality, it's comparable to the 2002 flick, but with a number of differences, naturally. The plot was decently thought out, but not complicated. Just as simple as you'd expect. Dr. Connors is no Green Goblin, but the Lizard is entirely adequate and integrated well. Not rendered well, though. the mystery surrounding the deaths of Peter's parents is left open-ended. The rest of the differences are as follows.

Peter Parker: A modern nerd rather than the classic thick-rimmed glasses, he's portrayed in the beginning as a normal teen and not as moody as he is later on, though he still has issues. instead of a school field trip, he breaks into a fancy lab and gets bitten by one spider after having several fall on him. And the spider thing has backstory here. His newly-developing powers cause him more problems until he catches the guy that shot ben. In the previous one, he almost immediately sees the benefits of having superpowers. In this film, he discovers them in a funny scene I wont spoil for you. when the suit is donned about midway, he acts like kind of a jackass to the criminals, or rather just the one he's hunting down. He's not a true hero at that point. Just a vigilante with a grudge. Unfortunately clever quips are absent in favor of that arch. Also of note *minor spoiler* is that he's not afraid of sharing his secret with Gwen.

Ben's Death: I think it was better in the previous film. Here Peter runs away and he follows and it's built up, rather than simply seeing the result of it. It just doesnt resonate the same way. But then again, he's not portrayed as the primary father figure here.

Gwen: Emma Stone really can act, and this isnt MJ. No damsel either. She works as Peter's anchor, and they have a great relationship that doesnt once fall into the traditional struggles beyond daddy seeing the boy in her room. Such chemistry! In the old trilogy, there was at least one relationship problem each film-some of which were conventional.

And speaking of conventions: this filmbypasses most of them. Dropping the comic book feel for something darker, you almost never see spidey in daylight swinging through cg backgrounds. There are plenty of those, but mostly in the second half. The film is surprisingly less reliant on visual effects for the first 75 minutes. Also worth mentioning are the expanded role of an aided civilian and some pretty beautiful visuals in some scenes. and the final battle is hardly publicized by all except a couple offscreen reporters and policemen and that's just a couple lines.

Back to comparison: This film is much more about emotion than the first spidey movie and almost reaches the same heights in that department as Spider-man 2, but not quite there yet. In the end: Apples and Oranges.

7.8

ajmrowland wrote:^you're family must have interesting taste.

No, they're mostly idiots with no taste at all.

But in this case, they were right on the money.

Well they may have rubbed off on you.

Oh, that reminds me. I saw...

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) 6/10 - Don't let the title fool you, this has almost nothing to do with The Amazing Spider-Man and is much closer to Ultimate Spider-Man if anything. Personally, I thought it was pretty bad. Not quite as bad as Fantastic Four or Ghost Rider but still pretty bad. It's probably on par with Spider-Man 3 if anything. This was less of a 'Spider-Man' movie and more of a 'Peter Parker's cliched teenage romance' movie. I just didn't really like any of the portrayals, I thought the story was robbed of any emotional weight it had going for it, and that there was just too many unintentional dumb moments due to bad writing (usually things they changed for the sake of being different from the last films but it ended up backfiring). Seriously, at least Raimi was going for campy. There was also nothing really memorable about this movie, except maybe the scene where Connors is growing his arm back for the first time but nothing really iconic like the original Spider-Man movie. The score was also terrible, which is surprising, since I usually love James Horner. Spider-man's theme sounded like a twisted version of the Superman fanfare and the romantic music sounded too much like Titanic. IDK, this whole movie just screams "We don't want the rights to revert back to Marvel so let's quickly throw together a movie."

As you can tell, I didn't really care for this movie and forgot all about it when I got home, hence the week late review.