The last movie you saw...

[dinky]

forgot to mention I finished a fistful of dollars</i> the other day. today, I watched for a few dollars more</i>. still annoyed that original language isn't an option. they're both letterboxed too.

[dinky]

up to ep 10 of veronica mars. stayed-up until 5am before I could find a good break between eps. similar to the way the first time I watched 24 although not as intense. it's a teenage detective thing not an actioner.

[spudthedestroyer]

forgot to mention I finished a fistful of dollars</i> the other day. today, I watched for a few dollars more</i>. still annoyed that original language isn't an option. they're both letterboxed too.

erm.. you mean english? Clint and most of the cast spoke english and the whole thing was redubbed as is the case with 90% of all films to stabalise the audio dub. The original audio is mostly unuseable. The original language is actually english, which is what most of the cast were speaking, even if all the crew were speaking different languages. There's no such thing as an original language in those kind of movies though, like a lot of italian horror movies.

The whole thing is redubbed by the original actors and a few stand ins in post, which is the occasional issue with lip sync. Its mostly not that notable though in the MGM versions i've got, barring the odd character.

However, the english version is the most "non-dubbed" version.

[dinky]

yikes! yeah, they're mgm.

er...their lips were moving and nobody was speaking and vice versa. and when a non-english speaker was speaking, it was really off.

[spudthedestroyer]

Well the problem is, you'd have clint say something in English, have a reply in Spanish, then someone else join in in Italian. On top of that you wouldn't be able to hear anything over the crackling and noise.

Since the films are fucking amazing its not a big deal though

[dinky]

Since the films are fucking amazing its not a big deal though

they're not that</i> good. the first guy eastwood talks to in fistful</i> is incredibly annoying (the dub). anyway...since I'm not fluent in italian or spanish, I'd rather have the audio in-synch with the lips and read the subs. not that I like subs but...well...everything else reminds me of anime. (that's not a compliment, anime fans)

sequel was much better. presumably cuz the thing was dominated by two english speakers? 'course, story was better too.

I also think - and I know this is prolly blasphemous, but - the real appeal to these movies is their influence rather than enjoying them in their own right. I mean, the scene looked so much better in Back to the Future 2 than when I actually watched the whole thing. don't get me wrong. I don't mean to bag on the original. it was a great scene. but I'd have to say I prefered seeing it on Bif's TV with Bif's commentary. I also really liked the soundtrack. and I have no idea why. it just emoted cool. but I have to admit, I'd rather watch unforgiven</i> or high plains</i> or two mules</i> or josey wales</i>. I know they'd never exist without fistful</i>, but honestly, they're much easier to watch. iunno. make of it what you will.

[spudthedestroyer]

Wow. I don't agree with you on any points, they are way off if you ask me. Off the pool table and into someone's pint.

The dubbing is off a bit for some characters, but a mixed language version would have been far worse. The dubbing isn't *that* bad, its not enough to ruin the films, not by a long, long way. I mean they are essentially slient movies anyway, you know that right? They got the plot, drew up the story, and then added the lines after. There isn't much speaking in the movies as a whole. The films are good enough not to need it though, helped along by the simplistic plot. I have to wonder if there's astronomical differences between the yank and the british versions of the dvds. DVDcompare says that the uk version does whip its ass (anamorphic remasters for a start)

The dollars films are THAT good if you ask me, if they weren't they wouldn't have such a prominant status they have as masterworks (and they are, maybe that's what's annoying?), increasingly so over the three movies. The first movie really hit a cord, it was a great film. But the sequels are better, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is definitely one of the best films ever made, very high ranking. They are some of the best movies ever made, for a heck of a lot of reasons, not just the impact and influence they've had, which is indeed very high in the scheme of things.

Thanks for giving me the ability to take of that what I will, because i was going to anyway The movies are popular because of the movies. They are influential because they were brilliantly made, brilliantly directed and have amazing art direction and visuals. Not to mention some of the best soundtracks in cinema history. The plot is simple, but its timeless (it gets slightly more complex through the movies, but not amazingly so), just as it was in akira kurasawa's version. They probably have some of the best cinematography in the history of movies (there's no arguing that), which is why they are so damn influential, and why you watch them in awe. I think your way off the bat to the degree where your sounding like someone who doesn't know anything about cinema history (which i know isn't true)... one step away from declaring matrix the best movie ever made with the "bestest gun fights", where if you hit another foul people are going to start topping themselves from the boredom (usual baseball game then .)

So no, I don't think its blasphemous, it just doesn't really stand up if you think about it.

Anyway, the real question is whether Once Upon a Time in the West is the best or The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I think its TGTBTU, but that's kind of based upon the power of the previous movies, whereas Once Upon a Time in the West is just the one movie. I'd still go for TGTBTU though, but that's a hard choice.

As far as the other Leone movies go, I think that Duck, You Sucker! is bitterly underrated. I suppose you can argue its done before, but its a really great movie if you ask me.

Anyway, we'll have to disagree on this one you crazey nutcase clown

ps. drop the Back to the Future 2 bit if you make this point in future, it doesn't help the case As cool as that movie is

[dinky]

Wow. I don't agree with you on any points

really? cuz it sure sounds like you liked the music/atmosphere as well.

up to ep 20 of veronica mars s2

[spudthedestroyer]

I dunno I guess i don't agree with some of what you said then Just sounded like a total unselling of the movies. Leone's films are some of the most artistic movies that retain a high level of entertainment and commercial value.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is probably in my top ten favourite/best movies list actually Along with Alien, Brazil, Empire Strikes Back, The Shining, Dawn of the Dead et. al.

[dinky]

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is probably in my top ten favourite/best movies list actually Along with Alien, Brazil, Empire Strikes Back, The Shining, Dawn of the Dead et. al.

presumably fistful of dollars</i> is not.

anyway, I find silent movies unwatchable (including nosferatu), so I guess it's no surprise that I'm not wild about these heavily (and unevenly) dubbed movies. haven't gotten to the final movie yet. (mind you, I've seen them all many times before - just not since I graduated middle school).

[dinky]

the third disc (good, bad, ugly) was anamorphic ws and the audio was MUCH better. of course, most of the speaking parts seemed to be lipped in english. but the dubbing was just better overall. ergo, much more watchable. but I think I prefer for a few dollars more</i>. the story is just better. I wasn't wild about some of the decisions they made in the third movie. things like character motivation and decisions. and I was also bummed that lee van cleef's character wasn't col. mortimer from the second movie.

funny bit - I went through the extras (just some "deleted scenes" dubbed in italian and the theatrical trailer). well the trailer advertised blondie as the good, tuco as the bad, and Sentenza as the ugly. the latter two were reversed in the actual movie. I found that comical cuz the movie wasn't something the US studios didn't understand and simply imported. it was financed by hollywood (or so the disc says in a 'text' special feature).

should finish veronica mars s2 tonight.

fh is up, btw. lest anyone not get the good word.

[dinky]

FINALLY finished veronica mars s2. last few eps were a logistical nightmare (never dl them initially cuz they weren't listed at the top of the thread; then when I did it piecemeal through BT, I ended-up with an s1 of ep 20 instead of s2; then I STILL never dl ep 21; blah blah blah - finally sorted it all out). awesome series. love the way it has all these mysteries/cases going and the way they do (and don't) blend into each other. for example, there's this big epiphany in the s2 finale that shed light on a major event in s1 even though the s1 thing was brought to a logical conclusion - yet somehow the new light in the s2 finale works better than the previous s1 understanding of it. ok. that wasn't exactly an example of what I started with, but...broad strokes man, broad strokes.

beginning ep2 s2 of farscape.

[Jynks]

the scene looked so much better in Back to the Future 2

That is it i am boycoting all your posts for 2 months!!

[dinky]

what? imo, there's more impact to just see him get shot-up once. look dead. then get back up and unhook the steel plate. to see him goading the guy and continually get shot-up isn't bad</i>, but it's like taking a powerful moment (a moment with x amount of power) and releasing it over a longer period of time. I'd prefer to get the heavier hitting impact for a shorter duration. once he shoots him once and he doesn't die. alright. I get it. then he goads him about shooting the heart, which does serve the obvious purpose of emptying his rifle. but the big moment, when clint gets up after being shot, sacrifices quite a bit of its emotional pop for that logistical snafu. and let's face it, the movie is more about style and "the money shot" than some meticulous michael mann production. I mean...it's highly stylized to begin with. the imagery is better to have him shot-up in one standing. pancake on his back. then get up. leave the mexicans in a stupor. unhook the armor. and outdraw the pack of them (which he does anyway). and you could still shoot the gun out of ramone's hand and have that showdown as well.

plus, you get bif talking it up.

watched beerfest</i>. iunno. there's a lot of quick tittie shots. a few cheap laughs. not worth the price of admission though.

[Electro_PT]

The Inside Man

[spudthedestroyer]

Watched two movies. First up with Terry Gilliam's Tideland which i've been waiting to see since forever. And i enjoyed it, I think. I'm not quite sure what to think of it really, I did enjoy it, but its not a masterpiece as some reviewers run away with. It wasn't Gilliam of Brazil, and it certainly wasn't Gilliam of Fear and Loathing (although there's a fair amount of drugs in it ). It reminded me of Burton with Big Fish in a lot of ways, just not shit. Its got the obvious adult material in it that pushes it beyond a family movie, but most part it could very well have been a family movie, except it keeps dropping bitter bits of reality on you with the dark twsits gilliam dumps in his movies in great abundance.

For a film that has a child lead it does well, usually unless the kids are under firm direction or in a large cast they can kinda ruin a movie, but obviously with Gilliam firm direction is what you get so I guess that's it and it makes her performance very strong; the patented Gilliamesque direction is there with the not-quite-as-mesmorising wideangle lense shots packed with detail, although there's a lot of scenes with space creeping in (I think that improved visual quality is a mixed blessing, there's something about dirty prints i prefer... which ties into me being a set lover... you know, all that 80s crap ).

I won't say much on the story, other than it was a bit too much reality and not enough fantasy for my tastes, but that's because I love Terry Gilliam's fantasy movies... Jabberwocky, Brazil, et. al. There's a very small cast of characters. The plot could have been more developed perhaps, and as I said, escaped into deeper fantasy.

I think the nearest Gilliam movie would be The Fisher King.
ps. I'm happy to see British financers on the credits.


The other movie I watched was Hostage, the Bruce Willis movie that everyone gibbered about it being a Die Hard. Err.. no. Its good, its better than the usual hollywood blockbuster crap, and its certainly better than any mundane piece of brockheimer junk. Die Hard it is not though. I enjoyed it, kep my attention, some bits of action that are good. Bruce Willis really stands out, some of the plot doesn't seem very well developed, some of it went a bit cliched (once again, i won't say anything on story, but one of the hostage takers is way too over the top, and there's some silliness at the end that kind of spoils the movie). Decent enough though. Couldn't find a rip for ages, the one on fh was slow as crap (DPlane), then all of a sudden a DVDr turns up on newsgroup and the very same day the Hostage DVD rental comes through the post at the DVD online rental place i'm scamming.

Hostage was easier to watch, i liked Tideland better though, i think. It kind of had more of a point to it.

[spudthedestroyer]

Watched the first episodes of Angel. Boy do the fight scenes suck, they are really badly choreographed, it looks very tacky. Make-up sucks ass to in the first series. I can remember there being more blood but that might be later in a series or something. There's some good shots though, like the vampire falling from the building and bursting into blames. Still, worse than i remember it in the beginning

Watched some Metalocapyse. Funny show. James Hetfield and Kirk Hammet have done guest voices in it, and Mark Hamill does some. Recommended if you have heard modern heavy metal bands, its like an extreme cartoon spinal tap. Follows Dethklock, the most extreme heavy metal band ever. Lots of gore, in a similar style to monkey dust.

[dinky]

watched up to around ep. 10 in farscape s2. first ep I watched tonight was the one from one of spud's sigs: "did you send the don't shoot. we're pathetic" thing. the ep was interesting by the way, but I couldn't shake that feeling that I was watching Dark Crystal (so same basic -I've seen this show before- kind of ep from s1). I stopped after the first three-parter. critchton plants his seed in a princess (w/o the pleasure of planting - ho hum). it was cool to get some more layered scorpius mythology. I mean seeing the thing he's a halfbreed from. strong multi-ep story. most of the other s2 eps are the same "lost in space" star trek meets every other sci-fi theme ever fodder as s1.

I did notice a definite jump in interest as soon as he started wearing the peacekeeper leathers though. too true.

[maxpayne2409]

hmmm you got interested in men wearing leather dinky??? are you keeping some deep dark secret in a closet somewhere



i'll check out that metalypse then, monkey dust was ace

season 5 of X-Men cartoon is coming to a close, only about 4 eps left, gotta say its been one of the best cartoons ever for me, really enjoyed it

[dinky]

hmmm you got interested in men wearing leather dinky??? are you keeping some deep dark secret in a closet somewhere

yes. I blame spud for being FIRST come outta the closet though.