What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[TabStorm]

finally watched World War Z
It was pretty good

[Stavros]

Just saw Paths of Glory with Kirk Douglas. It is probably my favorite Kubrick movie (now that I've seen them all), though I'm sure not too many rate it as highly. Whereas Dr. Strangelove posed some interesting questions about the balance of terror during the cold war, it drove home its point by being intentionally absurd. Paths of Glory on the other hand only contains the tracest amounts of humor, and is really a more serious portrayal of the hypocrisy of generals and the unrealistic expectations placed on soldiers that have been sent on a virtual suicide mission. It is obviously an anti-war movie but is so effective because of its subtlety and greater restraint. Highly recommended.

I also saw Apocalypse Now and though it had some stirring moments and was at times visually spectacular, the message wasn't coherent. Coppola wanted to make a modernized version of Heart of Darkness, but the scenes with Brando didn't provide much clarity on what Coppola wanted to say except in the most general way. Was Kurtz to be commended for his honesty? Was his killing ordered only because nobody wanted to admit that his brutal ways were an honest expression of the war we were waging?

Paths of Glory is based on true events and a book written by a US veteran of the First World War. In real life the families of the executed men sued after the war, and two were awarded the sum of One Franc in compensation. Kubrick shot most of the film in Germany and the singer in the cafe at the end became his third wife (Christiane Harlan I think). Paths of Glory was also an example of Kubrick's mania for taking take after take after take driving both Adolphe Menjou and Kirk Douglas into paroxysms of verbal fury. Although the finest of Kubrick's films when seen in isolation from the rest, it does begin Kubrick's obnoxious repetition of his negative view on life which he labours throughout the rest of his ouevre, films in which there is no sense of love among people, no sense of fellowship or community, but where love is false, if it exists at all, and people are motivated by selfishness, aggression and hate. One part of reality, but not the whole part.

Coppola either did not understand Conrad's Heart of Darkness, or Conrad's astonishing tale is simply too complex to film, as it contains at least three layers of narrative in which the actual heart of the darkness referred to may be right there on the Thames where it begins and ends, rather than in Africa. Apocalypse Now is not about Vietnam anyway, but it might be about the US experience in Vietnam, which is not the same thing.

[broncofan]

Although the finest of Kubrick's films when seen in isolation from the rest, it does begin Kubrick's obnoxious repetition of his negative view on life
.

I think I read in one of the few interviews Kubrick gave that he believed many viewers came to the theaters requiring a positive ending to feel fulfilled by a movie and that providing the opposite was more true to life. The problem with this fetish is that it is just as reductive as providing a positive ending each time, and becomes a cliché of its own eventually. I agree with the rest of what you say.

Kubrick was from what I've read a family man, although his daughter Vivian split around the time of his death and became a scientologist, never to be seen again. Disappointing that he was unable to demonstrate any of that empathy in his character's interactions. He wrote his daughter a 40 page letter to win her back to the family when she began her estrangement; though showing his trademark obsessiveness, it sounds to me like a very sentimental act. However, probably for misguided ideological reasons, none of that human love ever made its way into his films.

[bluesoul]

Is there a definitive version on Blade Runner? I looked for it in the two shops we have in my town (an HMV and a brilliant independent) but neither have it.

check Amazon.com: Blade Runner (Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition): Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Ridley Scott: Movies & TV@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Q9Llnb5fL.@@AMEPARAM@@41Q9Llnb5fL

[Stavros]

I think I read in one of the few interviews Kubrick gave that he believed many viewers came to the theaters requiring a positive ending to feel fulfilled by a movie and that providing the opposite was more true to life. The problem with this fetish is that it is just as reductive as providing a positive ending each time, and becomes a cliché of its own eventually. I agree with the rest of what you say.

Kubrick was from what I've read a family man, although his daughter Vivian split around the time of his death and became a scientologist, never to be seen again. Disappointing that he was unable to demonstrate any of that empathy in his character's interactions. He wrote his daughter a 40 page letter to win her back to the family when she began her estrangement; though showing his trademark obsessiveness, it sounds to me like a very sentimental act. However, probably for misguided ideological reasons, none of that human love ever made its way into his films.

On the one hand it might be said there aren't that many lovable people laughs in Bergman's films, but there is love in many of them, particularly in the 1950s, and he approaches his films from within the conflicts in his own life between the austere Christian discipline of his childhood, the escape into theatre, and the less-discussed issue of ambiguous sexuality -there aren't that many such complexities in Kubrick. I think he enjoyed the technology of making films more than the stories.

[Stavros]

check Amazon.com: Blade Runner (Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition): Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Ridley Scott: Movies & TV

I might go for the 'All-new final cut' but I am not buying every version, that's OTT.

[Stavros]

Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971)
I did not see the film when it was released, and I think I have the uncut version, not that it matters, I didn't miss much in the intervening years, and what I did wasn't worth seeing.

[maxpower]

I might go for the 'All-new final cut' but I am not buying every version, that's OTT.

The "Final Cut" version is supposedly Ridley Scott's final, definitive version of the film. The 1982 US theatrical version is the one where Scott had to cave to pressure from the studio. They insisted on voice-over narration by Harrison Ford because they believed the movie would be too confusing to audiences without it, and it has a more upbeat, less ambiguous ending. It's interesting to compare them. I think at this point, any Blade Runner DVD/Blu-Ray that you find will contain multiple versions of the film in the package. You don't have to get the aluminum case, though.

[broncofan]

On the one hand it might be said there aren't that many lovable people laughs in Bergman's films, but there is love in many of them, particularly in the 1950s, and he approaches his films from within the conflicts in his own life between the austere Christian discipline of his childhood, the escape into theatre, and the less-discussed issue of ambiguous sexuality -there aren't that many such complexities in Kubrick. I think he enjoyed the technology of making films more than the stories.

I've only seen the Seventh Seal and the message was at times stark and at other times uplifting. When Max Van Sydow is sitting there eating the milk and strawberries with the young family and talking about how that moment made his reprieve worthwhile, we get a sense of how human love can be a great comfort in moments of existential despair. I haven't seen any other Bergman films besides the Seventh Seal but there was sort of bittersweet ethos, emanating between despair and optimism.

With the exception of maybe Barry Lyndon, Kubrick hardly dealt with normal human interaction at all. This is clearly a shortcoming in his ability to develop a story; both in his choice of subject matter, and his evident inability to show the lighter side of humanity.

[broncofan]

I have to admit I was not awed by Bladerunner. I was interested for forty minutes and then became bored. It seemed like an interesting portrayal of the future and a relevant concept with the machines knowing their expiration date and trying to find their creator. I guess I just don't have the temperament for science fiction.