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Post by codystarbuck on May 8, 2023 22:48:44 GMT -5
I remember having enjoyed At the Earth's Core when I first saw it as a kid. It's an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs first Pellucidar novel, and stars Doug McClure, Peter Cushing (as an uncharacteristically bumbling and absent-minded professor) and Caroline Munro, the helicopter girl from The Spy Who Loved Me and Stella Star from Starcrash. It has adventure, a strange world located inside a hollow Earth, many fights, daring escapes, and monsters. A pretty girl for the hero to fall for, too. Everything I would have liked! I'm pretty sure it was shown at some Saturday matinee, but it could have been on TV too... It was too long ago. I'm certain that 12 year old me would still love it a great deal, but upon re-watching the film I must admit that the plot is rather thin, the fake jungle looks very fake, and the dinosaurs aren't exactly terrifying. More like ridiculous, in the case of the one that walks upright. The Mahars, those evil telepathic pterodacyls, manage to retain a measure of spookiness due to their never saying a word and mostly staying in shadows, but they're barely more than plastic statues; their range of motion is extremely limited. It might have been a good idea to show them even less than what we got here. On the plus side, I really liked the design of the Sagoths; they were like the nastier cousins of the winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz. Their speech, which seems to have gone through some electronic filter, is appropriately weird and alien-sounding. The practical effects (explosions, fire and the like) were actually often more convincing than many modern-era CGI ones; probably because actual pyrotechnic pieces were used. The character of Dian the beautiful is renamed "Dia" for some reason. I suppose "Dian" didn't sound exotic enough. She doesn't have a great deal to do in the film, but thankfully doesn't play the role of serial hostage. The actress is also very well cast; when it comes to people like Helen of Troy, Dian the beautiful or Dejah Thoris, whose looks cause empires to fall, beautiful people are called for. What came as an utter shock was the ending, which I had forgotten. Having defeated the evil Mahars and ushered in an era of peace in Pellucidar, the hero David Innes is about to wed Dia and go back to our world but the lady realizes that she couldn't live in the outside world, where everything would be too different. "No problem", I expected David to say; "I'll stay here, discover more of this fantastic place and live happily ever after with a stunning cave princess!". But no! He just kisses her goodbye and leaves! Apparently he wasn't as deeply in love as he claimed to be. The scoundrel! My favourite line from the movie is uttered by an indignant professor Abner Perry (Peter Cushing), who says to the Mahars "you cannot mesmerize me! I'm British!" It was almost Monty Pythonesque in its delivery. It starts out well, above the surface, but the budget starts letting it down, once they get to Pellucidar. Of all the Kevin Connor adaptation of Burroughs, I find The Land That Time Forgot to be the best. It helps that Michael Moorcock & James Cawthorn wrote the original script (though they lamented about how much made it to screen).
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2023 3:45:10 GMT -5
Released 25 years ago: I know comparing this film with Armageddon (released the same year) is akin to comparing apples and oranges, but I felt this was the more relatable and human film out of the two, although they were probably going for different audiences. Themes pertaining to martial law and a lottery to select people who’d be protected in underground shelters certainly left me thinking for a while.
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Post by EdoBosnar on May 9, 2023 5:02:28 GMT -5
(...) I know comparing this film with Armageddon (released the same year) is akin to comparing apples and oranges, but I felt this was the more relatable and human film out of the two, although they were probably going for different audiences. Themes pertaining to martial law and a lottery to select people who’d be protected in underground shelters certainly left me thinking for a while. I wouldn't consider it apples and oranges, given that they are thematically identical. However, I will say that Deep Impact is the far superior film, and it holds up quite well. Armageddon, on the other hand, was more or less a pretty silly action movie - entertaining while you watch it (the strong cast really carries it), but pretty forgettable. Here - in my opinion - are the most memorable and best parts of it, i.e., the 'list of demands'...
...and this immortal observation by Steve Buscemi's character...
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Post by Hoosier X on May 12, 2023 9:38:25 GMT -5
Last night I watched 28 Days Later (2002). I liked it a lot. It seems weird that I somehow hadn’t seen it before now.
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Post by berkley on May 12, 2023 15:06:59 GMT -5
Last night I watched 28 Days Later (2002). I liked it a lot. It seems weird that I somehow hadn’t seen it before now.
Good movie. Danny Boyle isn't a personal favourite director of mine but all his movies that I've seen have been well-made - even Trainspotting, though I thought it was not great as an adaptation of the Welsh novel.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2023 5:49:28 GMT -5
Released 40 years ago today, directed by John Badham: Roy Scheider plays Frank Murphy, a war veteran who is now a cop, patrolling the skies of LA in Blue Thunder, a multi-functional, military-style helicopter. Murphy learns that a subversive group, led by a guy called Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), are planning something that could have national political ramifications. As you all know, there was a spin-off TV series, which ran for only one season. The helicopter used was an Aérospatiale Gazelle. Blue Thunder had many armaments and hi-tech equipment. It even had “Whisper Mode”, which allowed it to fly quiet. I know stealth helicopters are a thing (there’s a Wikipedia page about such things), but I’m not entirely sure how quiet you could really make an airborne vehicle that has rotor blades. I did enjoy this film, but I probably enjoy the TV series a lot more. Here’s the title sequence: And here’s the TV series intro: It does feel like a lot of those super-vehicle movies/shows presented a world that is still way out there as far as technological possibilities are concerned. I also enjoyed Airwolf, but even with my limited aviation knowledge, I can’t imagine there’ll ever be a supersonic helicopter. Or how close we will ever be to a true stealth helicopter.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 13, 2023 22:52:20 GMT -5
I’m about 20 minutes into The Other Guys (2010) and it is cracking me up so far.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 14, 2023 13:44:04 GMT -5
Released 40 years ago today, directed by John Badham: Roy Scheider plays Frank Murphy, a war veteran who is now a cop, patrolling the skies of LA in Blue Thunder, a multi-functional, military-style helicopter. Murphy learns that a subversive group, led by a guy called Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), are planning something that could have national political ramifications. As you all know, there was a spin-off TV series, which ran for only one season. The helicopter used was an Aérospatiale Gazelle. Blue Thunder had many armaments and hi-tech equipment. It even had “Whisper Mode”, which allowed it to fly quiet. I know stealth helicopters are a thing (there’s a Wikipedia page about such things), but I’m not entirely sure how quiet you could really make an airborne vehicle that has rotor blades. I did enjoy this film, but I probably enjoy the TV series a lot more. Here’s the title sequence: And here’s the TV series intro: It does feel like a lot of those super-vehicle movies/shows presented a world that is still way out there as far as technological possibilities are concerned. I also enjoyed Airwolf, but even with my limited aviation knowledge, I can’t imagine there’ll ever be a supersonic helicopter. Or how close we will ever be to a true stealth helicopter. The premise of Blue Thunder never made sense. Why does a police department need a gunship? The basic surveillance mission is already handled by standard police helicopters; so, why an armed one? Airwolf was at least a covert operations weapon, stolen by its creator then "liberated" by Stringfellow Hawk and used as blackmail for force Archangel into locating the missing St John Hawk. Then, String agrees to missions as they come up, to give Archangel further incentive to find intel on St John. Supersonic is not out of reach for technology; but, it requires a lot of development. The military was developing a new generation attack helicopter, to replace the Apache and the specs were for a very high rate of speed, though still subsonic. Given time, it is possible. The "whisper mode" thing is more a muffling of the noise, rather than an elimination, as is the same with a noise suppressor ("silencer") on a firearm. The latter acts like a car muffler, with baffles and chambers to redirect the exhaust gasses to reduce their velocity and decibel level, when the leave the muzzle. My assumption would be that similar methods are done with the helicopters. The CIA used a Hughes 500P (OH-6 Cayuse Light Observation Helicopter, in the Army) in Vietnam, with sound reduction. It is believed that the modified Blackhawk helicopters for the Bin Laden raid, with similar things and I have seen pictures of other spec ops helos, used by DEVGRU (aka SEAL Team 6), on a fleet exercise. Not sure the model of helicopter, but the pictures (which were cropped to focus on the tail boom) looked more like the Hughes or similar. I know the SAS used modified helicopters (Westland Scouts or a similar model, I think) for their operations. The abandoned Comanche program was working towards a new generation stealthy, high speed attack helicopter, going back to the late 80s. They had a mock up and were working on prototypes, when the project was killed, because of cost and technical difficulties. The intent was a sleek, airframe, with armament contained within the body of the craft, to reduce drag and increase radar stealth... That's the Comanche prototype, in the foreground and an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, in the upper part of the picture, for comparison. If you look at the main and tail rotor sections, you can see some of the engineering to reduce noise and the body angling to reduce radar signature. They also used composite materials for the rotors. Top speed was about 201 mph. Hardly supersonic; but pretty good, for a helo. When the project was abandoned, they focused more on adapting existing aircraft with the technology advances, leading to the stealth modifications for the Blackhawks, used by Spec Ops.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 14, 2023 13:51:40 GMT -5
ps Finally found a photo of the older SAS helo...looks like the Westland Scout.... I have read that they have since upgraded, using the Eurocopter, among others.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2023 5:04:15 GMT -5
Thanks for the facts and pic, codystarbuckI did enjoy Airwolf a lot (even the much-maligned Season 4). I did enjoy their explanation for the supersonic helicopter: if memory serves me right, the chopper would disengage its rotors and ignite twin turbines. If that was doable in real life, would it have been done by now? They were pushing things a tad, though, in that Season 3 episode where Airwolf reached 100,000 feet. Still exciting, though.
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Post by berkley on May 16, 2023 13:48:06 GMT -5
Last week I saw Klute for the first time - it was playing at the local movie theatre near my place. Apart from a vague idea that Donald Sutherland played a detective and Jane Fonda a hooker, all I knew about it going in was that that it was a title that always used to come up whenever either of those names were mentioned in the film books and magazines I used to read in the pre-internet days, so my expectations were fairly high.
This is one instance in which I can say they were exceeded: I didn't know anything about the director, Alan Pakula, and if I had looked up his resumé beforehand I wouldn't have been expecting anything out of the ordinary, but this movie was much more stylish and searching than I had been expecting. I was also surprised by how much I liked the two leads - not that I ever felt any dislike for Sutherland or Fonda, just that neither has ever been a special favourite of mine. However, I thought they were both outstanding in this, especially Fonda, who was note-perfect in her role.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 16, 2023 20:44:49 GMT -5
Last week I saw Klute for the first time - it was playing at the local movie theatre near my place. Apart from a vague idea that Donald Sutherland played a detective and Jane Fonda a hooker, all I knew about it going in was that that it was a title that always used to come up whenever either of those names were mentioned in the film books and magazines I used to read in the pre-internet days, so my expectations were fairly high. This is one instance in which I can say they were exceeded: I didn't know anything about the director, Alan Pakula, and if I had looked up his resumé beforehand I wouldn't have been expecting anything out of the ordinary, but this movie was much more stylish and searching than I had been expecting. I was also surprised by how much I liked the two leads - not that I ever felt any dislike for Sutherland or Fonda, just that neither has ever been a special favourite of mine. However, I thought they were both outstanding in this, especially Fonda, who was note-perfect in her role. I still haven't seen that one (just never had it in front of me, at the right moment) and all I ever knew was that Jane Fonda acts like she is orgasming and then looks at her watch. Beyond that all I knew was that it wasn't like Cat Ballou. Just last year, thanks to my wife, I saw They Shoot Horses, Don't They?......man, what a dark film! I had a read a little about it and knew it was about a marathon dance competition, during the Depression, but had no idea about all of the stuff that went on to draw the crowds. In a small way, it reminded me of The Night They Raided Minskis, in that it's a similar time period and they are hustling the audience; but, that one, even with the dark ending and the cutthroat attitudes and such, still had the comedy routines, at different points, to give you a break from the darker stuff.
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Post by tartanphantom on May 16, 2023 21:34:05 GMT -5
Last week I saw Klute for the first time - it was playing at the local movie theatre near my place. Apart from a vague idea that Donald Sutherland played a detective and Jane Fonda a hooker, all I knew about it going in was that that it was a title that always used to come up whenever either of those names were mentioned in the film books and magazines I used to read in the pre-internet days, so my expectations were fairly high. This is one instance in which I can say they were exceeded: I didn't know anything about the director, Alan Pakula, and if I had looked up his resumé beforehand I wouldn't have been expecting anything out of the ordinary, but this movie was much more stylish and searching than I had been expecting. I was also surprised by how much I liked the two leads - not that I ever felt any dislike for Sutherland or Fonda, just that neither has ever been a special favourite of mine. However, I thought they were both outstanding in this, especially Fonda, who was note-perfect in her role.
Great modern noir thriller.
Sutherland's role was quite a departure from his two semi-comedic roles in M*A*S*H and Kelly's Heroes the year before. But as Klute demonstrates, he can be as hard-boiled as he can be humorous.
Fonda was Fonda-- absorbed by the role and playing it to the hilt. I never cared for a lot of her personal political viewpoints, but that doesn't mean that I can't respect and enjoy her thespian skills, which have been rock-solid ever since 1965's Cat Ballou. And love it or hate it, I have always found Fonda's speaking voice to be captivating... not sexy, not harsh, but extremely charismatic and almost instantly recognizable.
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Post by berkley on May 17, 2023 0:02:03 GMT -5
Last week I saw Klute for the first time - it was playing at the local movie theatre near my place. Apart from a vague idea that Donald Sutherland played a detective and Jane Fonda a hooker, all I knew about it going in was that that it was a title that always used to come up whenever either of those names were mentioned in the film books and magazines I used to read in the pre-internet days, so my expectations were fairly high. This is one instance in which I can say they were exceeded: I didn't know anything about the director, Alan Pakula, and if I had looked up his resumé beforehand I wouldn't have been expecting anything out of the ordinary, but this movie was much more stylish and searching than I had been expecting. I was also surprised by how much I liked the two leads - not that I ever felt any dislike for Sutherland or Fonda, just that neither has ever been a special favourite of mine. However, I thought they were both outstanding in this, especially Fonda, who was note-perfect in her role. I still haven't seen that one (just never had it in front of me, at the right moment) and all I ever knew was that Jane Fonda acts like she is orgasming and then looks at her watch. Beyond that all I knew was that it wasn't like Cat Ballou. Just last year, thanks to my wife, I saw They Shoot Horses, Don't They?......man, what a dark film! I had a read a little about it and knew it was about a marathon dance competition, during the Depression, but had no idea about all of the stuff that went on to draw the crowds. In a small way, it reminded me of The Night They Raided Minskis, in that it's a similar time period and they are hustling the audience; but, that one, even with the dark ending and the cutthroat attitudes and such, still had the comedy routines, at different points, to give you a break from the darker stuff.
I haven't seen either of those but they're on my list - although for They Shoot Horses I might read the book first, still undecided.
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Post by berkley on May 17, 2023 0:14:55 GMT -5
Last week I saw Klute for the first time - it was playing at the local movie theatre near my place. Apart from a vague idea that Donald Sutherland played a detective and Jane Fonda a hooker, all I knew about it going in was that that it was a title that always used to come up whenever either of those names were mentioned in the film books and magazines I used to read in the pre-internet days, so my expectations were fairly high. This is one instance in which I can say they were exceeded: I didn't know anything about the director, Alan Pakula, and if I had looked up his resumé beforehand I wouldn't have been expecting anything out of the ordinary, but this movie was much more stylish and searching than I had been expecting. I was also surprised by how much I liked the two leads - not that I ever felt any dislike for Sutherland or Fonda, just that neither has ever been a special favourite of mine. However, I thought they were both outstanding in this, especially Fonda, who was note-perfect in her role.
Great modern noir thriller.
Sutherland's role was quite a departure from his two semi-comedic roles in M*A*S*H and Kelly's Heroes the year before. But as Klute demonstrates, he can be as hard-boiled as he can be humorous.
Fonda was Fonda-- absorbed by the role and playing it to the hilt. I never cared for a lot of her personal political viewpoints, but that doesn't mean that I can't respect and enjoy her thespian skills, which have been rock-solid ever since 1965's Cat Ballou. And love it or hate it, I have always found Fonda's speaking voice to be captivating... not sexy, not harsh, but extremely charismatic and almost instantly recognizable.
Sutherland's deadpan style was perfect for Klute. And Fonda was even more impressive. She's an actress whose appeal has always more or less passed me by until now: I could see that she was attractive and that she knew what she was doing as an actress but somehow never felt charmed by any of her performances. This one really worked for me in a big way, though. They're showing Barbarella at the same theatre in a couple weeks so I'll see if I now view her in a different way than before or if Klute was just a one-off for me.
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