Back To the Past: Jandrew Gets Cultured. Maltese Falcon, Arsenic, Blair Witch, etc.

[Jandrew]

Broadcast News was kind of bland as well. In the words of my gf, it was like watching a really long melodramatic episode of a sitcom. I felt it was roo long and stretched its story to thin. I as getting exhausted. I was engaged at first, but it started to wan away after a while. The gf actually left for a while and came back and went "jesus, thats still on?" It was better than Network, but and I liked the cast, but tbh it was just too long and it never felt completely focused to me. Romantic comedy-drama also felt misleading because I didnt really find anything funny. It was all romave drama.

Posideon Adventure tomorrow though. That should be fun.

[Jandrew]

Poetic Justice was good. I doubt many of you have seen it. John Singleton is so underrated. I liked it. Tupac and Janet Jackson did a great job and Singleton did a good job balancing the emotional bits with the more humorous/normal.

 

Tbh I couldn't get into How to Marry a Millionaire. I mainly had it on in the background. It was filler until Poseidon Adventure came on. Speaking of Poseidon Adventure, I really enjoyed it. Alot  better than the shit from 2006, which I hate that I saw before this, because since the 2006 is a 100% remake and played scene by scene, I already knew most of what was going to happen. I mean shit, both movies even had 6 survivors. That's how lazy the remake was.

 

I'll watch Dr. No tonight, I want to get into the Bonds. The only ones I've (unfortunately) seen fully are Skyfall, DAD, and World is Not Enough. So got a lot of catching up to do.

[4815162342]

The original Poseidon Adventure is a blast.

[Jandrew]

Dr. No was alright. I didnt care for the black dude being so expendable, and Dr. No had to have set an Olympic time record for fastest death during a fight. And the girl didnt really do much other than look sexy. I cant tell you her name. Also it didnt really bother me, but it was kinda strange how all the Chinese people were pretty much white. I know the time period, but it was still distracting.

Still it was a good way to start off this series. I was never bored with it, and Connery is crazy charismatic. It wasnt "bad" or "great", just "alright." Looking forward to FRWL though since I hear that one is better. And I think he gets a jetpack. I hope he gets a jetpack.

[TalismanRing]

Connery is crazy charismatic. FRWL is leaps better than Dr. No, maybe the best in the entire series though Goldfinger is more of the template for most of those that follow.  The jet pack alas doesn't come until Thunderball which is #4.

[Jandrew]

Oh hi. So Hot Sharts Part Deux was hilarious. I think I love spoofs more than I realize. It was a fun 88 minutes for sure and I laughed out loud quite a few times.

9 to 5 wasnt anything special imo. I thought it'd be up there with something like Tootsie, but imo it was like watching a long Laverne and Shirley episode. The cast was good, but the movie as a whole never meshed together for me. It was refreshing seeing Dolly Parton with her (seemingly) original face tho.

From Russia With Love was definately better than Dr. No, but it was still a little cheeseball in some spots, like his fight with the old butch lady and the village shootout. And like Dr. No, some of the stunts still looked a little too obvious. I know its 1960s, but bruh. The movie dragged in the middle, but picked back up. The train fight was so-so, but I really liked the Irish field grenade sequence and the speedboat chase. Also the Bond girl's acting was bad. Like Hepburn in Charade, she said a lot of serious things too deadpan and I couldnt take her serious. She was good looking though.

So someone tell me, back then, did they film some night scenes during the day and just lower the brightness in the editing room? Because thats what it looked like. And they didnt have green screen back then right? So why do many driving scenes look so fake? Did they film the lanscape then paste the character in front? Did the character and their car sit in front of a screen with the landscape projected on? Or did they really film the character driving/boating, etc and it just looked that way because of the cameras back then?

[4815162342]

Fun Fact: The original novel From Russia with Love was written before Dr. No. Fleming actually killed James Bond off via shoe knife poison. The public outcry was so big Fleming resurrected Bond in Dr. No.

[Plain Old Tele]

Oh hi. So Hot Sharts Part Deux was hilarious. I think I love spoofs more than I realize. It was a fun 88 minutes for sure and I laughed out loud quite a few times.

9 to 5 wasnt anything special imo. I thought it'd be up there with something like Tootsie, but imo it was like watching a long Laverne and Shirley episode. The cast was good, but the movie as a whole never meshed together for me. It was refreshing seeing Dolly Parton with her (seemingly) original face tho.

From Russia With Love was definately better than Dr. No, but it was still a little cheeseball in some spots, like his fight with the old butch lady and the village shootout. And like Dr. No, some of the stunts still looked a little too obvious. I know its 1960s, but bruh. The movie dragged in the middle, but picked back up. The train fight was so-so, but I really liked the Irish field grenade sequence and the speedboat chase. Also the Bond girl's acting was bad. Like Hepburn in Charade, she said a lot of serious things too deadpan and I couldnt take her serious. She was good looking though.

So someone tell me, back then, did they film some night scenes during the day and just lower the brightness in the editing room? Because thats what it looked like. And they didnt have green screen back then right? So why do many driving scenes look so fake? Did they film the lanscape then paste the character in front? Did the character and their car sit in front of a screen with the landscape projected on? Or did they really film the character driving/boating, etc and it just looked that way because of the cameras back then?

Aha, some Telesplaining to do!

Movies shot day-for-night all the time, especially big exteriors, mainly because it just wasn't practical (or possible) to light such a wide area, and film stock wasn't "fast" enough to get decent footage in low-light situations. The way they did it was to put a blue filter in front of the lens and under-expose a couple of stops. Depending on the day, cloud cover, how bright the sun was, the results can be pretty good to fairly unbelievable. Black-n-white movies can do the look better -- I was just watching MY DARLING CLEMENTINE the other day and John Ford had some day-for-night that looked great.

Driving: they used rear projection. Basically you put a car (on gimbals) in front of a screen, and you project driving footage onto the screen. A lot of times it looks dodgy to our modern eye because the driving footage isn't well-shot and the actor's driving movements don't really match up, but the technique can be really effective if done well and in the right situation. (There's one rear projection shot in T2 that I didn't even realize was rear projection until I saw a making-of.)

[Jandrew]

Aha, some Telesplaining to do!

Movies shot day-for-night all the time, especially big exteriors, mainly because it just wasn't practical (or possible) to light such a wide area, and film stock wasn't "fast" enough to get decent footage in low-light situations. The way they did it was to put a blue filter in front of the lens and under-expose a couple of stops. Depending on the day, cloud cover, how bright the sun was, the results can be pretty good to fairly unbelievable. Black-n-white movies can do the look better -- I was just watching MY DARLING CLEMENTINE the other day and John Ford had some day-for-night that looked great.

Driving: they used rear projection. Basically you put a car (on gimbals) in front of a screen, and you project driving footage onto the screen. A lot of times it looks dodgy to our modern eye because the driving footage isn't well-shot and the actor's driving movements don't really match up, but the technique can be really effective if done well and in the right situation. (There's one rear projection shot in T2 that I didn't even realize was rear projection until I saw a making-of.)

 

Awesome! Yeah thinking about the night scenes, they did have a blue tint to them, so thats probably exactly what they did. And thats cool about the rear projection. I would always second guess because they show the character in front of the scene, but then they cut seamlessly to the car and landscape, so I couldn't figure out if it was editing magic, or just the older cameras back then. But that's all cool to know.

 

 

I'm a little exhausted and cant do more than 2 today. I'm gonna watch Goldfinger before bed for sure, but what should I try to squeeze into this afternoon/evening people? Three Kings or Graduate? I've been wanting to check out both. Was thinking about Terminator, but im not exactly in a Terminator type mode today.

[Plain Old Tele]

THREE KINGS is great. I'm not a huge fan of THE GRADUATE, but it's one of those famous trend-setting movies that you should definitely watch at some point.

[Jandrew]

Yes Im still doing this. Was watching Goldfinger last night, but had to stop halfway through. We'll finish today and hipefully start Thunderball. We're pretty much going to watch one Bond every night before bed at this point.

Just watched War Games. Alot better than I figured it'd be. I think it would make an excellent remake today thanks to our current technology. Hell I might try to write one myself.

Netflix's streaming list is still shitty, but they added some good things I havemt seen like Three Kings, Gladiator, Driving Miss Daisy, Hook, Jumanji, Graduate, Bad News Bears, Passion of the Christ, Unbreakable, etc. HBO has some good things too, I have 33 in my watchlis including Warriors, Austin Powers, Thelma and Louise, Rock, Shining, Raging Bull, etc.

Trying to see what Im in the mood for now. Numbers Im still gonna watch Dune I promise. And ai'd love to hear more feedback from you guys since we never talk about these old movies, just Marvel movies and Hunger Games, so I'd liked to see what yall thought of War Games and what not. Oh yeah and Im thinking of doing the SW originals next weekend.

[4815162342]

Shall we play a game?

 

Yes we shall. Kinda hokey, kinda campy, but it's a fun movie with some deft emotional moments.

[DAR]

I always liked Wargames too. Had a thing for Ally Sheedy. I haven't seen it in sometime.

I'm watching something I've never seen before Fantastic Voyage. I'll let you know of it's worth a look

[Plain Old Tele]

WARGAMES was a product of its time, though. Reworking it to fit into our current geopolitical climate seems a bit dubious.

[Jandrew]

WARGAMES was a product of its time, though. Reworking it to fit into our current geopolitical climate seems a bit dubious.

They could take a new cyber-attack approach like Blackhat maybe? I was thinking they could utilize all the iphones and tablets and smart cars and airplanes today and do something with that?

Eh i guess thats technically Robopocalypse.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Jandrew

[Plain Old Tele]

They could take a new cyber-attack approach like Blackhat maybe? I was thinking they could utilize all the iphones and tablets and smart cars and airplanes today and do something with that?

Eh i guess thats technically Robopocalypse.

GAH, no, please don't write that.

[DAR]

Jandrew, Fantastic Voyage was goofy but pretty fun

[4815162342]

 I was thinking they could utilize all the iphones and tablets and smart cars and airplanes today and do something with that?

 

So an updated version of the plot of Terminator 3 where Skynet hacks the Internet and telecommunications grid to trick the U.S. government into giving it full access to the defense network

Edited April 5, 2015 by 4815162342

[Jandrew]

So an updated version of the plot of Terminator 3 where Skynet hacks the Internet and telecommunications grid to trick the U.S. government into giving it full access to the defense network

I havent seen T3, but I think ima just let the reboot idea go

Jandrew, Fantastic Voyage was goofy but pretty fun

Awesome, Ill note it.

[RobinHood26]

Haven't seen War Games in years, it's needed for a rewatch

Edited April 6, 2015 by Jay Hollywood