The Movie Reel

[Federberg]

Awesome...(very first sighting in the movie series)

 

[Kieran]

Awesome...(very first sighting in the movie series)

Everything about that is beautiful, and immediately we can how great Sean Connery was in the role. Suave, confident, sexually predatory, completely composed. Even the music gets a bit of a turn here..

 

[tented]

Everything about that is beautiful, and immediately we can how great Sean Connery was in the role. Suave, confident, sexually predatory, completely composed. Even the music gets a bit of a turn here..

Every actor pales in comparison to Connery when it comes to Bond.

 

[Kieran]

Every actor pales in comparison to Connery when it comes to Bond.

Totally. The Daniel Craig films were often very good but he’s a nightclub bouncer compared to Sean Connery…

 

[Jelenafan]

Totally. The Daniel Craig films were often very good but he’s a nightclub bouncer compared to Sean Connery…

Yes, it's more than just putting on formal attire and quipping corny puns.

Listen all of them had some good attributes.
Craig, as good as his "Bond" was in many ways , was a tad too heavy and traumatized for my taste; Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan did not have the gravitas of Bond, it was hard to wrap my head that they were ruthless killers if they had to be. What Sean Connery had was a genuine sense of humor about Bond, not the jokey jokey Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan versions, plus both the sophistication and the hardness of the character. You have to believe he could snap the neck of an assasin and within 5 minutes seduce a beautiful double agent and look damn good on both occasions.

Weirdly enough, I think I liked both Lazenby and Timothy Dalton more than most folks it seems. Dalton was a very good actor. Lazenby was a bit wooden but he had some presence as Bond or maybe it's just because I had a life long crush on the glorious Dianna Rigg from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and lived vicariously though him. ; )

 

[Kieran]

Yes, it's more than just putting on formal attire and quipping corny puns.

Listen all of them had some good attributes.
Craig, as good as his "Bond" was in many ways , was a tad too heavy and traumatized for my taste; Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan did not have the gravitas of Bond, it was hard to wrap my head that they were ruthless killers if they had to be. What Sean Connery had was a genuine sense of humor about Bond, not the jokey jokey Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan versions, plus both the sophistication and the hardness of the character. You have to believe he could snap the neck of an assasin and within 5 minutes seduce a beautiful double agent and look damn good on both occasions.

Weirdly enough, I think I liked both Lazenby and Timothy Dalton more than most folks it seems. Dalton was a very good actor. Lazenby was a bit wooden but he had some presence as Bond or maybe it's just because I had a life long crush on the glorious Dianna Rigg from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and lived vicariously though him. ; )

Exactly. Sean Connery has that touch of darkness about him, a toughness alongside his evident sophistication and ability to move easy in higher circles.

The Lazenby film was great. I only got to see it last year but it’s one of the best, and it’s constantly referred to in that terrible recent addition to the canon, No Time To Die. That film even had a ridiculous title. But the Lazenby one was fabulous.

Sometimes Roger Moore was like a leery pervy uncle in his Bond films. Totally non-credible as an assassin and fighter. To genteel and television, as a big screen action presence. I liked Dalton too, though there’s a classic scene in one of him films with him being pursued by enemies who are skiing after him down the side of an Alp - and he’s sliding down on a cello case with a gorgeous Bond babe..

 

[Moxie]

I swear James Bond needs his own page on here. And he'd deserve it.

I watched "Don't Look Now" for the first time in a long time. Surely one of those films that gave horror "art" status, with Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. It also gave marital love a real sexiness.

.

 

[Federberg]

Wow! Am I the only one who didn't know this??


How did John Wayne avoid military service in World War II and Korea?
Like so many right-wing hawks who later called those many young men who refused to go to Vietnam unpatriotic cowards, John Wayne avoided military service in World War 2. He could legitimately claim that he was unable to serve because he was needed for morale purposes in the movie industry, he was older (34), he had 3 children, etc.. Certainly the movie studio helped him obtain a draft deferment because they didn’t want to lose their new star, but if he had really wanted to go to war he would’ve gone. After all, stars who were far more famous at the time such as Clark Gable were much older at 43 when he was in bombers over Germany and Henry Fonda also had children when he was in Naval Intelligence. They could’ve easily weaseled out if they had wanted to. John Wayne’s real reasons for avoiding service were entirely selfish:
Wayne’s career was just gaining momentum when the war started. He feared that if he joined the army his career would derail.
Wayne, although married, was madly in love/lust with Marlene Dietrich, who made no secret of her sexual proclivities. Wayne was jealous of all the promiscuity she would joyfully indulge in with other men (and women) if he wasn’t around.
Wayne is really the lowest of the low for his hypocrisy. What a contrast he is to Brigadier General James Stewart who had a remarkable military career but never boasted about it. He even required that his military career not be mentioned when he did voiceovers for documentaries about World War 2. The most remarkable thing about this man (who was one of the few people to rise from the lowest enlisted rank to commander of over 800 men in air combat) was that the first film he made when he returned from the war is “It’s a Wonderful Life” - a film whose message is that those who served on the home front are heroic in their own way. John Wayne, racist, coward and hypocrite, wasn’t good enough to be a doormat for a humble hero like Jimmy Stewart. After all, while James Stewart was leading squadrons of bombers over Berlin, John Wayne was quoted as saying that Marlene Dietrich was 'the best lay I've ever had'. A true man of character.


Jimmy Stewart's rise from Private to Colonel
Legendary actor Jimmy Stewart piloted a bomber over Germany and retired after a lengthy military career.
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/jimmy-stewarts-rise-from-private-to-colonel/

John Wayne, courageously fighting the fight on the home front, enjoying Hollywood and cheating on his wife with Marlene Dietrich.

 

[Kieran]

Wow! Am I the only one who didn't know this??


How did John Wayne avoid military service in World War II and Korea?
Like so many right-wing hawks who later called those many young men who refused to go to Vietnam unpatriotic cowards, John Wayne avoided military service in World War 2. He could legitimately claim that he was unable to serve because he was needed for morale purposes in the movie industry, he was older (34), he had 3 children, etc.. Certainly the movie studio helped him obtain a draft deferment because they didn’t want to lose their new star, but if he had really wanted to go to war he would’ve gone. After all, stars who were far more famous at the time such as Clark Gable were much older at 43 when he was in bombers over Germany and Henry Fonda also had children when he was in Naval Intelligence. They could’ve easily weaseled out if they had wanted to. John Wayne’s real reasons for avoiding service were entirely selfish:
Wayne’s career was just gaining momentum when the war started. He feared that if he joined the army his career would derail.
Wayne, although married, was madly in love/lust with Marlene Dietrich, who made no secret of her sexual proclivities. Wayne was jealous of all the promiscuity she would joyfully indulge in with other men (and women) if he wasn’t around.
Wayne is really the lowest of the low for his hypocrisy. What a contrast he is to Brigadier General James Stewart who had a remarkable military career but never boasted about it. He even required that his military career not be mentioned when he did voiceovers for documentaries about World War 2. The most remarkable thing about this man (who was one of the few people to rise from the lowest enlisted rank to commander of over 800 men in air combat) was that the first film he made when he returned from the war is “It’s a Wonderful Life” - a film whose message is that those who served on the home front are heroic in their own way. John Wayne, racist, coward and hypocrite, wasn’t good enough to be a doormat for a humble hero like Jimmy Stewart. After all, while James Stewart was leading squadrons of bombers over Berlin, John Wayne was quoted as saying that Marlene Dietrich was 'the best lay I've ever had'. A true man of character.
Jimmy Stewart's rise from Private to Colonel
Legendary actor Jimmy Stewart piloted a bomber over Germany and retired after a lengthy military career.
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/jimmy-stewarts-rise-from-private-to-colonel/

John Wayne, courageously fighting the fight on the home front, enjoying Hollywood and cheating on his wife with Marlene Dietrich.

Yeah, the Duke ducked.

Clark Gable, David Niven, Audie Murphy, Christopher Lee are among the great stars who went to war...

 

[Moxie]

It is a must see film Kieran I am a big fan of Chistoper Nolan, he didnt disappoint,yes it does need to see it on a big screen, to get it's full impact

I finally saw "Oppenheimer." Big screen, 70mm. It's very beautiful to look at, first of all, shot by Hoyte van Hoytema. It tells a long and dense story, full of moral complication. It has its opinions, but is long enough to leave room for ambiguities. Aside from the cinematography, the acting is stellar, as is the editing. It challenges you to keep up, as it moves through history, back and forth, at a good clip, with a large cast of characters, but if you give it time, it brings it home to you.

 

[MargaretMcAleer]

I finally saw "Oppenheimer." Big screen, 70mm. It's very beautiful to look at, first of all, shot by Hoyte van Hoytema. It tells a long and dense story, full of moral complication. It has its opinions, but is long enough to leave room for ambiguities. Aside from the cinematography, the acting is stellar, as is the editing. It challenges you to keep up, as it moves through history, back and forth, at a good clip, with a large cast of characters, but if you give it time, it brings it home to you.

As you know I have seen it twice now and loved it the second time.,as much as the first time I watched it. I will buy it to add to my movie collection when it comes available

 

[Front242]

I finally saw "Oppenheimer." Big screen, 70mm. It's very beautiful to look at, first of all, shot by Hoyte van Hoytema. It tells a long and dense story, full of moral complication. It has its opinions, but is long enough to leave room for ambiguities. Aside from the cinematography, the acting is stellar, as is the editing. It challenges you to keep up, as it moves through history, back and forth, at a good clip, with a large cast of characters, but if you give it time, it brings it home to you.

Hoyte van Hoytema...that's gas. Might as well be Murphy Murphy.

 

[Federberg]

one of the most memorable lines from one of the greatest movies ever made (in my opinion)...

 

[tented]

one of the most memorable lines from one of the greatest movies ever made (in my opinion)...

I agree it’s one of the greatest. The character Duvall portrays is perfect: walking around like nothing dangerous is happening, while seemingly everyone around him is in trouble. It was a great idea to have him do this, as an unspoken explanation for his position of authority and survival.

 

[Federberg]

I agree it’s one of the greatest. The character Duvall portrays is perfect: walking around like nothing dangerous is happening, while seemingly everyone around him is in trouble. It was a great idea to have him do this, as an unspoken explanation for his position of authority and survival.

I especially liked the. Martin Sheen character's observation that the Duvall character is one of those guys who was going to sail thru the war and survive unscathed, it seemed like such a real and powerful observation. They don't write scripts like that anymore sadly..

 

[Kieran]

I watched a couple of films I love this week. I hadn’t seen Unforgiven in a long time, and I’ve always felt that it’s one of the great westerns, with a script as lean as a butchers dog, and a royal cast, all in top form.

I’m sure you’ve seen it, and hopefully enjoyed it, but the beauty of it is that it’s hard to say what is really about, there’s so much to it. Vengeance, justice, the mythologising of the west, it’s also claimed by Clint to be an anti-violence movie, while facing the obligatory predicament of having to portray terrible violence in order to make his point about the glorification of violence in movies.

But it’s so well done, it’s bleak, poetic, slowly unfolding towards one of the great movie endings, accompanied by some great writing. To me, there’s a brutal and practical Old Testament justice at work in this film. Every bad deed gets a punishment beyond its measure. And the nominal baddie is really the most moral of the characters, and the obvious hero is actually the worst, though he struggles with it. So you still root for him. It’s fatalistic, and often a bit funny.

Prometheus came swaggering in to add force and grandeur onto the declining Alien franchise. It’s almost too good. For me, this is proper sci fi, a story about a trip to space, to discover the origin of our species, The Engineers, giants humanoids depicted in ancient caves, pointing to the stars. But in reality, they’re pointing out their homeland.

You can guess the rest. We head off to find them, with Idris as the ships captain, Fassbender as a cheery creepy robot, Noomi Rapace as a proto-Ripley, and Charlise Theron under-explored as the greedy corporate raider. It’s luscious to look at, and it makes you wonder where Ridley Scott gets the time, to keep churning out top class films.

Another question relating to it is why Covenant didn’t follow this tale through to its conclusion…

 

[Fiero425]

Totally. The Daniel Craig films were often very good but he’s a nightclub bouncer compared to Sean Connery…

They needed someone like Geo. Lazenby to have sympathy for when his wife was killed by Blofeld! Can you imagine Sean weeping for anyone?

 

[Kieran]

They needed someone like Geo. Lazenby to have sympathy for when his wife was killed by Blofeld! Can you imagine Sean weeping for anyone?

He wept over his wig one day, in a storm..

 

[Fiero425]

He wept over his wig one day, in a storm..

That was a pretty bad "piece" in "Never Say Never Again!" It was basically a bad remake of "Thunderball" over 20 yrs. later! Kim Bas. was awful!

 

[Federberg]

I particularly liked the discussion about the use of the music...