What have you watched recently?

briany

Recently, I've seen :

Caché : A French film about a middle class couple who become ever more paranoid as surveillance tapes shot from the alley opposite their house begin being left on their doorstep with crude drawings attached occasionally. 7/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS4VVUYsK44

Take Shelter: A family man begins having haunting visions of a possible impending apocalypse which make him question his own sanity. Nevertheless, he takes steps to prepare himself and his family for it. 7.5/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5U4TtYpKIc

Shotgun Stories : About 3 adult brothers bitter about their father who left them at a young age and started another family. When the father dies, they gatecrash his funeral and say some unkind things about him. This kicks off a hateful but low level feud with members of the second family. Very stark, slice of life, anytown USA type of film if you like that kind of thing. 6.5/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZh6PrFW2lM

Winnebago Man : A film maker goes in search of the famous 'Winnebago Man' who was the subject of a viral video of the same name. The video consists of profanity laced outtakes from a 1980's Winnebago infomercial starring the man, Jack Rebney, and has had millions of views on Youtube. 8.5/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtCRVUdaiyw

Leningrad Cowboys Go America : A Finnish film about a semi fictional Russian polka band who go to America to make it big. Upon getting to America they realise there's not much market for that music and reinvent themselves as a rock and roll group. Think Blues Brothers if it were directed by Jim Jarmusch who, in fact, has a cameo in this film. 8/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcovyF8j50g

FishBowel

Cleopatra Jones and the casino of gold - blaxplotiation female martial arts movie from the 1970s. No classic.

johnny_ultimate

It wasn't the ideal day to sit in a darkened room for three hours, but since it was the last day of the re-release of The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp I made the only sensible choice. A beautiful restoration job: the Technicolour cinematography just shines, with nary a cigarette burn in sight! I'd never seen the film before, but it's a colourful and very entertaining film. Cynical at times but always wearing its heart on its sleeve, the protagonist Clive Candy is one of cinema's most likeable and fascinating heroes. A rather complex film thematically, and one that's not afraid to critique British culture as often as it celebrates it. Unusually for a wartime film it definitely doesn't reek of propaganda - while there's certainly a motivational message and disdain for Naziism in there, the time it takes to humanise and contextualise German characters (particularly through Anton Walbrook's character) is worthy of much applaud. A real joy, and delighted I escaped the sunshine to see it.

rednik

Haywire. Enjoyed it but easily forgotten. Good performances from a very good cast but it could have been so much better.

FishBowel

Steptoe and son movie, real comedy. The son gets married and brings two people on the honeymoon.

mikemac1

Ride with the Devil

Was looking forward to this one
Love that era around the Civil War, thought this was going to be great

Very disappointed
It's not that the charecthers are unsympathetic, well they go around committing all sorts of war crimes but I didn't care at all about any of them

Especially Toby Maguire, his awful accent and his role

Long, boring and I could care less about any of them

An extremely young Jonathan Rhys Meyers is in this

Thumbs down


Andersonville

Loved this
This is a haunting film, I think I'm going to remember this a long time

American civil war prison camp which is way overcrowded, men dying every day.
Playground mentality takes over and the strong prey on the weak, if you are bullied you'll probably lose your life.
There is "dead ground", if you walk past a barrier you will be shot. And some men do this, essentially get themselves killed as they can't deal with it.

All based on a true story, Ted Turner films are known for accuracy

I've watched all the Ted Turner war films and this was by far the most memorable

Thumbs up

Duggy747

John Carter

Action set-pieces were entertaining and well done but, Jesus, this movie grinded to a halt in between when it was left to the human actors to talk.

It's an ok movie that didn't deserve to be slaughtered in the box office but it was certainly no great shakes, either.

The whole debacle surrounding the movie has been interesting considering the amount of money spent on it's marketing which we, on this side of the ocean, barely got to see the results of.

johnny_ultimate

Hanna - An odd one. In terms of visuals and music, it's a real one off: surreal, playful and atmospheric. It's the story I'd have some issues with. Wafer-thin, and it all just seems as if the plot is contrived around a series of unusual locations (an abandoned amusement park, an over-ventilated secret base). Not that those action scenes aren't engaging, but there's just the impression that the locations came first. Hanna is an interesting protagonist, although the characters around her feel ill-defined (Cate Blanchett is menacing but uneven as the main villain). The conspiracy theory stuff is a bit ridiculous too.

Still, it's certainly different to most mainstream Hollywood films, and is often a sensory delight. That must count for something, right?

Rabidlamb

Good god this was nonsense, never seen such unexplained decision making from characters in my life, was like someone cut out 30 minutes of the film randomly.
Chap from earth lands on Mars with superhero powers (great at jumping basically), one minute he's tearing down whole armies of rampaging aliens & next one guy puts shackles on him & he's a weak kitten again, for no apparent reason.
I feel asleep about 20 minutes before the end which was the only blessing.
Worse than Haywire which was my previous standard bearer for kack.

Overall, 2/10.

e_e

Kuroneko

Atmospheric Japanese horror film, I've been told that this pales in comparison to the same director's classic Onibaba. Which is good because I have that lined up to watch and this film was still excellent to me. I loved the eerie vibe to it.

johnny_ultimate

Great film all right, you've reminded me to order Onibaba at some point too.

I see Masters of Cinema have also released a few Mizoguchi films on Blu-Ray, including the glorious Ugetsu Monogatari. So tempting! Curse you Eureka and your expensive but ridiculously high quality releases!

e_e

Heh at least they're not Criterion prices! :P

I'm so tempted to buy a multi-region player just so I can import some of the Criterion blu-rays discs. Even though I know they'll burn a hole in my pocket.

johnny_ultimate

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Great film all right, you've reminded me to order Onibaba at some point too.

I see Masters of Cinema have also released a few Mizoguchi films on Blu-Ray, including the glorious Ugetsu Monogatari. So tempting! Curse you Eureka and your expensive but ridiculously high quality releases!

To be fair to them their box sets are very reasonably priced, the Mizoguchi Collection can be got for around 40 euro which is a great price for 4 films.

e_e wrote: »

Heh at least they're not Criterion prices! :P

I'm so tempted to buy a multi-region player just so I can import some of the Criterion blu-rays discs. Even though I know they'll burn a hole in my pocket.

Amazon are great for Criterion sales, I usually leave the titles I want in my basket and wait till there's a special on. Got the American Independents boxset awhile back for 40 euro which was an absolute bargain.

I got an American Blu-Ray player last month for the many region locked titles, was using my computer connected to my TV but it was kinda annoying to do so. Player cost 69 dollars which isn't a bad price at all.

The difference between Criterion and MoC is that Criterion lock all their titles, MoC only lock titles they are forced to. This screenshot is from their excelelnt Harakiri release.

[IMG][/img]

Raoul

Just watched In Time starring Justin Timberlake.

I did enjoy the movie. I thought it was a really cool concept. When you are 25 years old you stop ageing but you only have a certain amount of time to live. This time is used as currency basically you work to get time and you pay your rent with time. When your time runs out you die.

That is the basic concept. JT gets time off a man who lived for over a 100 years and had 100 years left but the timekeepers (cops) believe JT has stolen this time. Therefore, he is being chased and is forced to become an outlaw and he holds hostage an extremely wealthy man's daughter.

Film tries to hard really, its a simple concept that is over convuluted and becomes a bit boring really and ridiculous as it is really just a film about rich V poor people in essence.

I give it a 5/10, it is watchable but not really much substance. Definitely not JT's best acting role.

e_e

Deleted User wrote: »

Amazon are great for Criterion sales, I usually leave the titles I want in my basket and wait till there's a special on. Got the American Independents boxset awhile back for 40 euro which was an absolute bargain.

This is the one I've got my eyes on. Although in hindsight it's a decent price for 11+ hours of material.

Cokeistan

Watched John Carter the other night.I thought it was a great entry to the Sci-Fi genre, really did enjoy the story and effects, thought the extremely fast alien dog was hilarious too!

For someone that doesn't like sci-fi I can't see you enjoying it too much, but it's definitely one to watch for sci-fi fans.

7.5/10

e_e

e_e wrote: »

This is the one I've got my eyes on. Although in hindsight it's a decent price for 11+ hours of material.

Wait till Amazon have a Criterion sale on, that's the kind of release you'll pick up for 25-30 euro. I know that the America: Lost and Found boxset I got for 40 was 25 dollars at one stage in their last sale.

GAAman

Folks I would suggest you look into unlocking your players before buying a different one, I unlocked my Phillips blu ray player in a minute and can watch all regions now.

Sad Professor

GAAman wrote: »

Folks I would suggest you look into unlocking your players before buying a different one, I unlocked my Phillips blu ray player in a minute and can watch all regions now.

I think you'll probably find you only unlocked it for DVDs, not Blu-ray.

GAAman

Sad Professor wrote: »

I think you'll probably find you only unlocked it for DVDs, not Blu-ray.

Hmm I am trying to remember, I know for a fact I watched American dvds on it but I think I watched Che on blu ray and it was American. Bearing in mind this was a few years ago I might be wrong

e_e

GAAman wrote: »

Folks I would suggest you look into unlocking your players before buying a different one, I unlocked my Phillips blu ray player in a minute and can watch all regions now.

I tried reading on how to do that and it just seems like a headache. Plus I don't wanna basically break whatever firmware's on my current Sony BDP since I paid about 200 for it at the time.

johnny_ultimate

Will be sticking with my PS3 for Blu-Ray for a while yet, until someone is kind enough to give me money at least.

FishBowel

Cocoanuts - the first and least-known of the Marx Brothers' movies. Creaky and too long, but the songs are good and some bits are funny.

Tony EH

GAAman wrote: »

Hmm I am trying to remember, I know for a fact I watched American dvds on it but I think I watched Che on blu ray and it was American. Bearing in mind this was a few years ago I might be wrong

A lot of BluRays are region free.

FishBowel

In harm's way - Pearl Harbour war drama with John Wayne. One of his less interesting films.

mikemac1

The Insider

Excellent film

The editing and shots were top class
Director Michael Mann did a brilliant job

Soundtrack is pretty haunting too

sillo

Moonrise Kingdom: Full disclosure:Wes Anderson is one of my absolute favourite directors. I first saw the royal tenenbaums about ten years ago and it was nothing short of transformational to me personally - at his best, the worlds Anderson crafts with such mastery are painted so vividly it's impossible to not fall in love with them.

He's had a few false starts lately - nothing has really come close to the two powerhouses of Rushmore & Royal Tenenbaums, both of which are available in amazing Criterion Collection versions now. At times he has seemed aimless, drifting to credit card collections and struggling to live up to his own hype at times.

But not any more. Moonrise Kingdom is, for me, his greatest effort to date - this tale of childhood romance between two damaged kids in 1965 is just perfect from start to finish - it fits his style perfectly, and having all the action take place on a relatively remote island (hence limiting the cast to the no more than 15 or so inhabitants) was a masterstroke.

As usual, he brings the quirks he's well known for to the direction - there's plenty of horizontal panning, a deep reliance on an incredibly strong old-school soundtrack to help craft an atmosphere. And, as always, he has attracted a pure A-list cast (Murray, Norton, Willis, Swinton) who execute flawlessly. Even Bob Balaban is perfect as the narrator (even on a par with Baldwin in Tenenbaums).

It would be unfair not to highlight the two leads - Kara Hayward & Jared Gilman - who put in great performancesin their (obviously central) roles. Given that they have literally no history on IMDB, you've got to think that casting director can add a fair chunk to their salary demands for whatever is coming next.

I'm gushing - all in all, Moonrise Kingdom is a wonderful, intelligent, poignant movie about reclaiming innocence, and the sheer power we have over each other - most tellingly it portrays the healing and destructive outcomes that can result because of the decisions we make in our lives, in our relationships.

Allowing yourself to be swept away in the emotions of this film is almost inavoidable - and why would you want to miss out on such a masterpiece. Honestly if you're leaving this movie bored....I feel sorry for you!

It will take something truly special to beat this for movie of the year. 11/10.

sillo

The Raid: Maybe watching this right after Moonrise Kingdom was a mistake. A bunch of brutal fight-scenes sellotaped together with minimal plot of characterisation. That's not necessarily bad - the execution is really, really excellent and the constant action will appeal to many, but personally it didn't do much for me.

I get the appeal though.

Cantona's Collars

Battleship: Cliched,formulaic but actually good fun,switch off the brain and enjoy stuff blowing up.

GAAman

e_e wrote: »

I tried reading on how to do that and it just seems like a headache. Plus I don't wanna basically break whatever firmware's on my current Sony BDP since I paid about 200 for it at the time.

That is fair enough, but I would be surprised if it was any different from what I had to do on mine which was to enter a code using the remote control.

Tony EH wrote: »

A lot of BluRays are region free.

That could have been what it was, I do not have it to hand now to check