The Last Duel - Ridley Scott, Matt Damon & Adam Driver | October 15, 2021

[Macleod]

5 hours ago, Ozymandias said:

 

Curious why you think The Counselor is so good, I think that one is seen as his worst movie.  I don't outright hate it like most people do... but it is a weird, fascinating, WTF, and occasionally insane failure imo.

 

The biggest thing I got out of The Counselor is that I really, really want to see Ridley Scott do a western.

 

What beats Alien: Covenant for Scott's-worst-dankness? 

 

In a cursory Google search for "The Counselor" and "brilliant" the following come up on the first page alone:  

 

From a well-regarded filmmaker:

https://theplaylist.net/guillermo-del-toro-counselor-defense-20190806/

From a critical review:

https://www.aspentimes.com/entertainment/activities-events/review-the-counselor-is-sexy-hilarious-and-brilliant/

 

From the top trade in the industry:

https://variety.com/2013/film/columns/the-counselor-rearview-ridley-scott-1200770790/

 

From a well-established musician, composer, filmmaker, Professor:  

https://artsfuse.org/94496/fuse-film-review-the-counselor-filled-with-dark-and-troubling-poetry/

 

And Ridley Scott already essentially did a Western: it's called THELMA & LOUISE.  

Edited October 18, 2021 by Macleod

[Firepower]

7 hours ago, Ozymandias said:

 

Curious why you think The Counselor is so good, I think that one is seen as his worst movie.  I don't outright hate it like most people do... but it is a weird, fascinating, WTF, and occasionally insane failure imo.

 

The biggest thing I got out of The Counselor is that I really, really want to see Ridley Scott do a western.

Alien: Covenant is Ridley's worst film. The Counselor is his most underrated film (and one of the most underrated films ever), to this day I don't get why it got this much hatred, people can't even explain why they hate it so much.

Edited October 18, 2021 by Firepower

[Joel M]

The world wasn't ready to see Cameron Diaz fuck a car. Still isn't.

[35MM-18]

I didn't hate The Counselor, but I found it too bleak to really give a shit about it. I'm pretty sure it got fucked by the studio, so maybe if a proper Director's Cut comes out, I'll like it more.

[Hatebox]

I preferred Covenant to Prometheus. Covenant fully owned its batshittery, while it felt a lot more accidental in its predecessor.

[Valonqar]

37 minutes ago, Hatebox said:

I preferred Covenant to Prometheus. Covenant fully owned its batshittery, while it felt a lot more accidental in its predecessor.

 

Covenant would have been great if it was just David doing batshittery and maybe Walter confronting him. But the human cast was terrible. basically, Dvaid deserves better movies than Covenant and Promnetheus cause he's a great character. You always root for David not for redshirts and obligatory Discount Ripley. 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Valonqar

[Firepower]

David could be one of the greatest movie villains of all time if he got one truly great film. Every scene in Covenant without Fassbender is hot garbage, he single handedly elevates the film to a watchable one, but it's still very disappointing how much potential it wasted and how Fox once again ruined Alien film.

 

1 hour ago, 35MM-18 said:

I didn't hate The Counselor, but I found it too bleak to really give a shit about it. I'm pretty sure it got fucked by the studio, so maybe if a proper Director's Cut comes out, I'll like it more.

There's an extended cut, 20 minutes longer I think, but it's more of the same. If you didn't like the theatrical cut, you probably wouldn't like the extended cut either.

Edited October 18, 2021 by Firepower

[Ozymandias]

Covenant should've been the movie it was supposed to be: David, Shaw, and possibly other humans somehow meeting up with them via distress signal in a Giger-esque hellscape world full of lovecraftian-like horrors.  They could've gone hog wild with that.  Covenant is mostly okay for what it is, although I really didn't like how the ominous Engineers and their city looked like Pompeii.  Also, the Alien being a creation(accidental?) result of a DNA bio-weapon mutating and cross-breading among different species worked a lot better than being created by an evil Android which felt forced.  Covenant was clearly a studio pressured  "course correction".  Prometheus had the right idea, it just need 1 more pass over the script to smooth out the rough edges and the characterization of everyone outside of David/Shaw.

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Ozymandias

[35MM-18]

8 minutes ago, Firepower said:

There's an extended cut, 20 minutes longer I think, but it's more of the same. If you didn't like the theatrical cut, you probably wouldn't like the extended cut either.

I think that was the version I saw.

[Val357]

Can't wait to buy the blu ray for this! Haven't even seen it yet and I know it'll be a keeper. I've said it before and I'm probably a broken record now: I love Ridley Scott historical epics!

[Pinacolada]

Saw this and loved it! 

 

As for The Counselor talk, let me chip in. I'm a fan of the film! I think like Michael Mann's Miami Vice and Blackhat, it has a similar cult following, albeit probably a bit smaller. I do think tha it's a movie that deserves and will get an appraisal some day. 

 

I think the first half of that movie is pretty bad. Some good stuff here and there (like Fassbender's first scenes with Bardem and Pitt respectively), but other than that, it's scene after scene of meandering stuff, sometimes with characters who serve very little purpose. And the car fucking scene was a terrible idea. If they wanted to describe it, that's fine. But they should not have shown it. 

 

HOWEVER, the 2nd half of the film (starting roughly when Pitt and Fassbender meet at the hotel) is legitimately GREAT. Like seriously. Every subsequent scene is so good, Fassbender and Ruben Blades phonecall conversation scene is a highlight, as is Fassbender's discovery and reaction to the disc he receives at the end.

 

Cormac McCarthy's screenplay is so blunt about its themes and metaphors and foreshadowings, but it works for me. It probably could've been a "better" and more restrained film if it were directed by the Coen Brothers or something, but there's something about Ridley Scott's lack of care for trimming some of the script or even properly understanding it that weirdly makes it work. Plus, from a direction and cinematography standpoint, it's absolutely gorgeous. Slick ass movie

 

 

And lowkey... didn't do that poorly at the box office either. International carried it for sure, but if the movie had domestically made back its budget at least ($25M), I think it could've been seen as a legitimate minor hit. The total it did make, $71M on a $25M budget is not that bad.

Edited October 19, 2021 by Pinacolada

[SchumacherFTW]

Such a shame this hasn't found an audience theatrically, I thought this was fantastic. Fingers crossed that people find it down the road as its a great film. 

[Ozymandias]

Seeing this in a few hours, got my anti-chud Covid Battlegear ready.

 

 

 

[RichWS]

I understand why it bombed but this was pretty great.

[Ozymandias]

A really good 8.5/10, maybe a 9/10

 

Quick thoughts:

 

-The anti-Gladiator, not an action movie at all and people going in expecting that are gonna be disappointed.

-Everyone was really good in this, especially Ben Affleck and Jodie Comer.  A nomination for either wouldn't surprise me.

-The Rashomon structure was clever and worked really well, I never felt liked it was dragging or got repetitive with the changing perspectives and added and/or changed scenes in each chapter.  The movie got progressively better as it went along.

-Some shots in this were really gorgeous, particularly the candle lit castle interiors.  

-Simply calling this a #Metoo movie is rather reductive and does the movie a disservice.  Its a richer film than that.

-How fucking nice is it to see a sword fight in a Medieval movie where plate armor actually means something?  In countless movies its treated as cosmetic paper where swords and arrows cut right through like butter.  Here, swords bounce off of breastplates and arm armor is used to block blows.  It was glorious.

-The score in this was really great, especially this track:

 

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Ozymandias

[sabrecmc]

I usually really like Gregson-Williams' scores. I'll have to check this out. Thanks for the rec.

[Ryan Reynolds]

 

[Firepower]

It's a great film overall, I didn't expect anything less from Ridley. But I disagree it's his best film since Gladiator, he's done a bunch of films which were as good, if not better. Probably the weakest part of the film is the script for Margaret's story before Duel because it removes all the nuance and replaces Damon's character with a completely different person, cartoonish cave man, and therefore removing all the humanity of his character in previous points of views and showing him in even worse light than rapist, it was a weird choice, I wish Damon and Affleck wrote the entire script.

Edited October 23, 2021 by Firepower

[AJG]

7 hours ago, Ryan Reynolds said:

 

 

HE'S A MAN OF TASTE!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

[Valonqar]

Interesting fact. RT Audience Average went up to 81% (the lowest was 79% but then went up to 80% and now 81%). My guess is that GWGB* crowd lost interest after boxoffice bomb "vindicated" them and stopped awarding 1 star. Likewise, IMDB is still stuck at 7.7. Not many votes but fewer 1 stars. So while it's underseen, whose who saw it really liked it. It didn't bomb because of bad reviews or bad WOM but due to lack of interest. Good movie, no interest. It happens. 

 

 

*GWGB = get woke go broke