Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Correct ... and correct

Director: Richard Fleischer
Writer: Earl Felton(screenplay), Jules Verne (book)
Cast: Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas, Peter Lorre
Genre: Adventure, Sci Fi Fantasy

In 1954 Walt Disney personally produced the Jules Verne's classic 19th century novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. As with other of Walt's personal movie projects, no expense was spared. Shot in expensive 3 strip Technicolor and in anamorphic wide screen CinemaScope.

The special effects were impressive, especially the actual undersea footage which was shot on location in the Bahamas. I must say it looks real good! I'm sure audiences were thrilled to see men walking on the bottom of the sea and encountering sunken treasure and strange creatures. The submarine too is a very cool design, very detailed and Disney even had a 'real' sub built for the movie.
The sub is styled after an 1890's steam ship, hence some consider this movie an early precursor of the steampunk genre.


James Mason is Captain Nemo, and while he seems like a good choice and gives his usual fine performance, the script doesn't really give him much chance to develop any depth. For depth albeit of a comic nature there's Kirk Douglas. Who knew tough guy Kirk Douglas could be so personable and funny on screen. Peter Lorre too, gets to do some comic scenes and is a memorable character. Equally screen worthy is Esmeralda the seal.


I liked this for it's set design and visual look, but I wasn't engaged in the storyline as it's not that compelling. But if you watch this for fun you should have a good time.

Attachments

       

Been many moons since I watched that one - probably saw it about a dozen times growing up but never revisited as a fully fledged adult which says it all really.

Thanks Chyp for the help!

I was underwhelmed by it too, except the production values. I'd only seen once as a kid and remembered nothing about it, which is one good aspect of getting older...all the old movies from my childhood are new again to me!

i love seeing movies I haven't seen since I was a kid and having that "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that" moment over and over again lol
Though it's only been about 10 yrs since I saw 20,000 and got nostalgic since, like Chyp, saw it dozens of times as a kid. Especially on Sunday night's Wonderful World of Disney.

__________________
What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

We never got to watch Wonderful World of Disney when I was a kid. We had only one TV and my dad watched Gunsmoke or some other cop/western show that was on at the same time. I've seen almost none of the Disney movies from my childhood.

I felt the same as you about La Jetee, and I believe I rated it the same.

There was a lot of stuff that my dad enjoyed as much as we did. I think the only two shows he insisted on were Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk. Oh, and Bowling For Dollars. Otherwise he enjoyed the cop shows, comedies and various variety shows that were always on.

Oh yeah, we watched Hee Haw, but I actually liked it

Benny Hill?

__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

I had a friend in high school who was into Benny Hill. When I was a kid I had never even heard of it.

me too. Found it on cable the other day and enjoyed watching it and was chuckling at all the pompadour hairdoes. And it was Jim Stafford as the musical guest which was kinda cool.

LOOOVED Benny Hill!!
"And a little farther down,
was little Father Downe"
King of the Vaudeville comedy.
I was gonna remark in the Musical HoF how much I loved seeing him in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang playing the toy maker.

Also, Benny Hill was late night, after the 11 O'Clock News on a local UHF channel. We'd huddle around the TV in the basement desperately trying not to laugh TOO loudly so my mom wouldn't come down and see the barely dressed women on that show.

Just watched La Jetée yesterday. Because of its short length, I actually watched it twice in a row... I liked it; interesting, fascinating, kind of haunting and thought provoking, yet I wasn't exactly blown away either. I do admire its style and themes and ideas and it worked better with my second watch. It's almost poem-like and I like that. Anyways, I would probably give it around - the second watch made it go up half a popcorn.

__________________
/watching movies for mark f/
MovieMeditation's Cinema Reviews // Film Diary 2015 // Letterboxd Profile // MovieMeditation's Top 50 Horror

Sometimes a second watch, makes a movie go up in popcorns for me too. But if I watch a movie too many times, I start to get tired of it and it goes down a pocorn. Once is usually all I will watch a movie unless it's been years and years, then I might rewatch it. La Jetee is certainly worth watching for any movie buff.

I think this is my first time ever doing something like this, actually... watching a movie/short twice in a row with no breaks.

Usually, I'm baffled when I hear people loved a movie so much they just played it from the beginning again. I always want time to digest a movie, to think about it and to know where I stand. And then I won't watch it until a long time after because I want to get excited about watching it again.

That said, as a movie critic, I've watched a few films twice with only a few days or a week in between, because I loved it, first and foremost, and therefore also want to make the review perfect - especially if it's a movie that's hard to grasp.

But with La Jetée I simply felt like I wasn't paying enough attention and I wasn't sure if I caught it all either, especially because the ending came kind of as a surprise and I wanted to see the build up once again. With a run-time going less than 30 minutes, I saw no problem there and I'm glad I did watch it again.

I heard Hitchcock say, that the audience is always one step ahead of the story, and they anticipate what's coming next. I know I do that all the time.

*SPOILER* La Jeete....I knew he would be the man who the little boy had seen die on the airport jeete...but I thought the mysterious woman who's image was burned in his mind and the woman he meet and fall in love with...would end up being his mother! I figured it was a French art film, so expected that. I was a bit disappointed when that didn't happen, which made the ending a little weaker for me. Proving Hitch was right.

Director: Bert I. Gordon
Cast: Tommy Kirk, Johnny Crawford, Beau Bridges
Genre: Comedy Sci Fi

About: A group of unruly teens roll into a small town where they steal and then eat a chemical formula that makes them grow 30 feet tall. Once they've gotten big, they take over the town and hold the sheriff's daughter hostage.

Review: There's a whole lot of shaking going on, as teens are dancing and gyrating around. This is one of those cheaply made teen exploitative movies, that were churned out by the 100's for amorous young people to watch through steamy windshields at local drive-in theaters, that once dotted everytown America.

The real reason to watch this today is the historic look back to 1965, the movie is litteraly a time machine with it's pulse on the first stirrings of the Baby Boomer generation. The other reason to watch this is the cheese cake factor as we see closeups of young woman dancing to pop music and get very excited about it. They sure can dance too! I especially liked the scenes in the Whiskey a Go-Go club. No not the real one in LA, but a small club in the small town that the delinquent teens invade.


The sci fi element is a funky purple chemical concoction cooked up by boy science whizz, who's called Genius and played by little Ronny Howard. Yup, it's that Howard, the one who will grow up and become a director.

First a cat, then a dog are made giant, but the fun doesn't really start until a pair of dancing ducks are made big. Oh there's a scary giant tarantula spider scene in it, with a life or death struggle. But other than that everything is played for laughs and eye candy.

A very young Beau Bridges heads up the naughty giant teens. Tommy Kirk is the nice guy who has to battle a giant Beau with a sling shot....just like David and Goliath. Loosely based on H.G. Wells novel, Food of the Gods, but don't expect sci fi, instead look for blondes in bikinis

Attachments

   

Director: Mel Gibson
Writers: Robert Schenkkan, Andrew Knight
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey
Genre: Drama, History, War

About: A U.S. WWII Army Medic, Desmond Doss, who felt it was his duty to serve in the war, but refused to handle a gun as a religious conscientious objector. Instead of fighting, he signs up as an Army Medic, but soon faces court martial charges for disobeying the direct orders to train with a rifle. He's branded a coward and beat to a bloody pulp by the other recruits. However once he's sent to the Battle of Okinawa, he repeatedly risk his own life to save others.

Review: Army Medic Desmond Doss is a hero in the truest sense of the word. His story is amazing and deserved to be told...Too bad Mel Gibson made a hack job of Hackshaw Ridge.

I've seen plenty of war movies, some bad, some good, but it's hard to believe Mel Gibson thought his battle scenes were exciting or realistic. They are neither. The idea of a war scene is to make us feel the sheer horror of war that these men faced, and to make us feel like we are actually there. But I found myself laughing at the silly use of rats, maggots and spaghetti legs!

Spaghetti legs is what I call the special effects for the soldiers with their legs blown off. And there's lots of legs being blown off with spaghetti hanging everywhere! Who knew soldiers were full of spaghetti! I mean it really was a stupid effect. You don't have to be medically astute to image what a missing limb looks like on a wounded solider. Other movies get it right. Why couldn't Mel.

Then there's the silly rat-maggots scenes, which look like something out of a bad 1970s horror movie. And poor Mel went back to those effects, time after time again. I guess he thought they were neat. His battle scenes are cheesy popcorn, Hollywood fluff. On top of that was the video game style of filming/editing, with soldiers dying every split second. Watching the battle of Okinawa was like watching somebody playing a video game.

In battle, soldiers aren't lined up 100 per 10 square feet. They are spread out so they aren't easy targets for enemy fire, but not in Mel's movie. Of course it takes money and a thoughtful director to make a war scene vast enough to look real.

If you want to see a war battle that looks real, with wide angle scope, using actors over acres of land, watch Paths of Glory (1957)...or even Saving Private Ryan (1998) which gave the impact of how horrible war is on a huge scale.

Mel Gibson's battle scenes look like a cartoon. I believe Mel has been in one too many popcorn action flicks and doesn't know the difference between realism and fun-blow-em-up movies like Lethal Weapon...

The real story of a conscientious war objector who refuses to carry a rifle because of his religious beliefs, and is then harassed and almost court martialed....but instead ends up in battle as a medic and becomes one of the most decorated war heroes of WWII is an Amazing story. Even more impressive is how he risked his life, time and time again to save the lives of others, including enemy soldiers....that's an amazing story! It's too bad that Mel Gibson's handling of that amazing story, turned this movie into another blockbuster CG action flick. Mad Mel strikes again.

Attachments

 

You ever been in a war, CR? No?

Good. Then shut your mouth. Hacksaw Ridge was awesome.

Yeah, story is beautiful, but the graphics are too explicit. Gibson overdid it.

__________________
You can call it the art of fighting without fighting.