Your opinions on these movies

SilverFoxKnows said:
also check out Ninja Scroll & Princess Mononoke. There's a new one by the same team that did Akira called Steamboy coming out on the 18th. If you don't mind picking up a whole series I also recommend Evangelion & Last Exile

Frank
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I've seen Ninja Scroll, really enjoyed it, just enough fantasy to get by.
 
silenthunterstudios said:
I understood that Harvey Keitel was nuts, but I didn't enjoy the movie, it was a waste of my time.
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This is in reference to THe Duelists. Well, I guess that you do not find western sword fighting all that interesting, as every fan of western style sword fighting of whom I have any knowledge rates this film as one of the very best ever made. "De gustibus non disputandum."

Have you seen the two part "Three Musketeers" film made in the 1970s with Richard Chamberlain as Athos, a very young Michael York as D'Artagnan, and Charlton Heston playing a superbly villainous Cardinal Richelieu? It is also considered to be a high point of western sword films.
 
FullerH said:
This is in reference to THe Duelists. Well, I guess that you do not find western sword fighting all that interesting, as every fan of western style sword fighting of whom I have any knowledge rates this film as one of the very best ever made. "De gustibus non disputandum."

Have you seen the two part "Three Musketeers" film made in the 1970s with Richard Chamberlain as Athos, a very young Michael York as D'Artagnan, and Charlton Heston playing a superbly villainous Cardinal Richelieu? It is also considered to be a high point of western sword films.
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I didn't enjoy the Duelists, I thought it sucked, that's right, sucked. They may be hokey Hollywood movies, but the best swordfighting movies I've seen have been Conan the Barbarian, and the recent LOTR. That may be the mall ninja I am trying to quell inside of me, but thats my opinion, I take offense to your comment that I don't find western sword fighting interesting. I in fact liked the sword fighting in the Duelists, I will sit and watch any sword fighting in any movie, but the rest of the movie sucked a$$ (four of my favorite movies are Alien, Black Hawk Down, Blade Runner and Gladiator, all Ridley Scott movies, the only reason I sat through Duelists is because of Ridley Scott)! As for the Three Musketeers movie, the only Musketeers movies I've seen were the most recent one, I think that Tim Roth was one of the evil musketeers (some type of Matrix fighting), the Disney one starring Kiefer Sutherland, and I think it was called the Four Musketeers, with Raquel Welch being very mean, only showing a plunging neckline and nothing more. Out of all of them, I probably wouldn't watch them again.
 
"The Four Musketeers" was the second part of the two part Three Musketeers that I mentioned. Raquel Welch played D'Artagnan's girlfriend and, while stupid, was far from evil. The evil woman was Milady de Winter, as played suerbly by Faye Dunaway with Christopher Lee playing a wonderfully evil Comte de Rochefort. The first part of the set, "The Three Musketeers" is much the better of the two as it has an upbeat ending that the second part definitely does not have.

Another film for your consideration would be "The Vikings" with Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, and Ernest Borgnine. There may be some very Hollywood tacky bits, such as Douglas' leather vest thingie that Museum Replicas now sells as original Viking wear( :mad: ), but the film is otherwise surprisingly accurate in its historical aspects. The bit about them running up and down the sides of the longships on the extended oars is actually true, there are mentions of it in the sagas. The only real departure from history was that they threw Ragnar being thrown into a wolf pit when he was really thrown into a serpent pit and died while biting the heads off of several of the serpents that were poisoning him. Oh, and you get to see Janet Leigh do something besides die in a shower.
 
I called Raquel mean because she didn't show any skin :D. As for the Vikings movie, Tony Curtis as a viking? I just don't see it. I think that the only viking movie I have ever seen is The Thirteenth Warrior, and that was really a movie about 9th century people fighting a last pocket of neanderthals. The one I have to check out is Taurus Bulba.
 
Tony Curtis is a captured Saxon enslaved by the Vikings, sort of.

God, "Taras Bulba" with Yul Brynner. I haven't thought of that one in years.
 
The Thirteenth Warrior was a very bad movie from an historical viewpoint, as bad as Gladiator and Braveheart. I do not speak to their appeal as escapism, but to their historical veracity. I could have lived with Beowulf being moved forward from the 5th or 6th Century Anglo-Saxon melieu to the Norse one that was used, but they did such a BAD job of presenting even that. Take the swords, for instance. On the other hand, no, don't bother, they were entirely too big, heavy, and unwieldy! That was how the entire movie went.

The film, The Vikings, was actually built around some factual incidents; the death of Ragnar Hairybreeks, the invasion of his sons, the portrayal of a Viking longship and of many of the Norse practices. If you want a really silly Viking movie on a par with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, try Erik the Viking. Damn but that was funny. The problem is that is available in this country only on VHS.

On Bullitt, if you cannot appreciate the real thing when you see it, I cannot help you. For me, brought up before CGI, I appreciate watching two real, live people wheeling two real, steel and rubber automobiles through the hills and flugplatzen or "flying places" of San Francisco. When those cars bottom out and you see the sparks flying, you know that it is for real and that the cars really are taking that beating. I also appreciate a very tightly drawn plot with very effectively done filming.
 
Some pretty good movies listed in this thread. Have any of you guys messed with Netflix? I got two months worth for a birthday present. The package I got was for 3 at time. You create a queue of movies you want on their site. They mail you the DVD with a postage paid return envelope. You keep them as long as you want, mail them back in and they send you the next one on your list. The corporate hdqs is in California I believe but I am guessing they have substations around the country. Mine are returned to Austin, TX. I can send one in and have the next one in only two or three days. Im not sure what the cost is. Like I said my two month period was a gift. Pretty cool.
 
My son gave me a 3 month membership for Christmas last year. It seemed like a really nice idea, but the $19.00 per month to maintain it didn't seem worth it for the number of movies that I rent.
 
You didn't think the concept of 10th century vikings fighting neanderthals was cool? To me, the weapons looked plausible, but I am not an expert on Norse culture.
 
"The Duelists" was an interesting movie, and well acted. The best part of course was the dueling (go figure). It differes from the vast majority of hollywood in the fact that the sword fighting is actually rather realistic. The only movie I've seen that comes close (and is actually quite fantastic) is "Rob Roy", which unsupprisingly was choreographed by the same guy, William Hobbs. He also happened to be the fight choreographer for "The Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers", which are mentiond above. He's got quite a list of movies to his credit.

http://imdb.com/name/nm0387643/
 
silenthunterstudios said:
You didn't think the concept of 10th century vikings fighting neanderthals was cool? To me, the weapons looked plausible, but I am not an expert on Norse culture.
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I guess being a re-enactor of Norse culture tends to make you less tolerant of stupidity in a film about that culture. I belong to the Longship Company, a group of people dedicated to studying and to re-enacting Norse history and culture of the Viking Era. We even have our own longship and a faering boat, a sort of four man dinghy, that we exhibit at living history events in the Mid-Atlantic area.
 
Planterz said:
"The Duelists" was an interesting movie, and well acted. The best part of course was the dueling (go figure). It differes from the vast majority of hollywood in the fact that the sword fighting is actually rather realistic. The only movie I've seen that comes close (and is actually quite fantastic) is "Rob Roy", which unsupprisingly was choreographed by the same guy, William Hobbs. He also happened to be the fight choreographer for "The Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers", which are mentiond above. He's got quite a list of movies to his credit.

http://imdb.com/name/nm0387643/
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Now Rob Roy, that was one of my favorites. The inside of that cow, wow, I would've probably picked death over that.
 
FullerH said:
I guess being a re-enactor of Norse culture tends to make you less tolerant of stupidity in a film about that culture. I belong to the Longship Company, a group of people dedicated to studying and to re-enacting Norse history and culture of the Viking Era. We even have our own longship and a faering boat, a sort of four man dinghy, that we exhibit at living history events in the Mid-Atlantic area.
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That's neat, where do you guys set up? I am interested in getting the standard Viking sword, any production companies I should check out? Right now I am looking at Cold Steel.
 
The longship, which we are in the process of replacing, is docked at Solomons, MD, where the Patuxent River meets the Chesapeake Bay. We have sold the Fyrdaca, our old longship and are awaiting the delivery of our new one that is being built in, of all places, the Mojave Desert. Here is the our site: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~eowyn/Longship/upcoming.events.html

We will be at the Marching Through Time event at Marietta Mansion County Park in Prince George County, MD, on the weekend of April 16-17 with the Gyrfalcon, the faering boat, MTT is a "Timeline Event" where groups representing any number of different eras in history strut their stuff. I believe that the Legio XX folks plan to be there, representing a Roman Legion at the time of the invasion of Britain in 43 CE. They are damned accurate in their presentations and may bring along some gladiator friends for a demo. Ther will likely be lots of re-enactors for American Revolution and War Between the States there as well your's truly in one or another character with either the Longship Company or the Anglo-Saxon Camp, whichever needs the turnout. Hours for the public are 11 AM to 5 PM and here is a link to a map on how to find the park: http://www.pgparks.com/places/eleganthistoric/marietta_visitor.html
 
A good movie I fast forwarded through last night, Hard Times starring Charles Bronson and James Coburn. Very entertaining portrait of the Depression. Some neat bare knuckle boxing too.
 
Thomason said:
Some pretty good movies listed in this thread. Have any of you guys messed with Netflix? I got two months worth for a birthday present. The package I got was for 3 at time. You create a queue of movies you want on their site. They mail you the DVD with a postage paid return envelope. You keep them as long as you want, mail them back in and they send you the next one on your list. The corporate hdqs is in California I believe but I am guessing they have substations around the country. Mine are returned to Austin, TX. I can send one in and have the next one in only two or three days. Im not sure what the cost is. Like I said my two month period was a gift. Pretty cool.
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From your avatar, I guess you've seen March of the Wooden Soldiers, starring Laurel and Hardy. I've never been a fan of either, but I really like that movie when I was a kid.
 
I didn't think of that avatar being a clip from that specific movie. If that shot is indeed from March of the Wooden Soldiers, kudos to Thomason.

It's one of my top 15 movies of all time. A pure gem.
 
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