What have you watched recently?

castletownman

Watched the Coen Brothers adaptation of True Grit last night for the first time. I would honestly regard it as a masterpiece of modern cinema, I thought it was that good. Bridges was superb at portraying the western caricature of a drink-riddled, gun toting bounty hunter, even if he was a little bit incomprehensible at times. Matt Damon was also excellent as the to-the-book, methodical Texas Ranger. However, 14 year old Hailee Steinfeld stole the show with as good an acting performance in a breakout role as your ever likely to see- she really belied her young age.

Engaging dialogue and powerful development of character relationships throughout. Touching ending. 8/10 for me.

castletownman

****double post*****

kearneybobs

I watched Safehouse yesterday. Thought it was entertaining. Ryan Reynolds was competent and Denzel did that thing he's started doing by doing just enough to not feel disappointed by his performance. Could see the twists coming from

the second you see Brendan Gleeson's character.

Was good but not sure I'd recommend it to anyone as a must see.

tunguska

castletownman wrote: »

Watched the Coen Brothers adaptation of True Grit last night for the first time. I would honestly regard it as a masterpiece of modern cinema, I thought it was that good. Bridges was superb at portraying the western caricature of a drink-riddled, gun toting bounty hunter, even if he was a little bit incomprehensible at times. Matt Damon was also excellent as the to-the-book, methodical Texas Ranger. However, 14 year old Hailee Steinfeld stole the show with as good an acting performance in a breakout role as your ever likely to see- she really belied her young age.

Engaging dialogue and powerful development of character relationships throughout. Touching ending. 8/10 for me.

Only saw it myself for the first time last weekend. I'd agree, bit of a masterpiece. Everything about it was perfect, acting, photography, dialogue, music, humor. Jeff bridges was his usual brilliant self, had some really funny lines and that little girl was so good its unreal.

johnny_ultimate

A Simple Life - emotionally satisfying if unremarkable tale of Andy Lau (who doesn't fight any deer here) caring for his elderly housekeeper. There's a few cheesy soundtrack misjudgements, but otherwise is poignant without being overly sentimental. Solid.

Hande hoche!

Watched 21 Jump Street today. Found it fairly amusing and entertaining. Have a lot more respect for C-Tates now. Hope they go ahead with plans for a sequel.

Woddle

One hundred mornings
An Irish version of the end of the world, not bad at all.

Also watched Cashback
Really enjoyed this, a young man learning to deal with love, a nice bit of humour aswell , brought me back to my teen days in tesco.

mikemac1

Bonanno

Made for TV film and covers the life of Joe Bonanno, head of one of the "five families"

Pretty technical and shows how all the rackets and scams worked.
The people in charge were incredibly organized, if they had ever turned away from crime and gone to legitimate businesses they could have been top executives! They got skillz

Covers issues like banishment and exile and the punishments if you failed

I realy liked this

Saw it about a decade ago on RTÉ, glad I watched this again

duckysauce

F+cked up

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2201063/

norwegian movie about a bunch of misfits , very good . Can see a US remake of it .

FishBowel

Patsy - crummy Jerry Lewis movie, lots of famous cameos.

OldeCinemaSoz

COMING HOME

A wonderful anti war film with the legendary
Jane Fonda.

An excellent statement.

9/10

DazMarz

The Dark Knight Rises

Verdict: Deeply inferior to The Dark Knight and even Batman Begins. Absolutely not a patch on The Dark Knight. Not a bad or terrible film by any means, but what has gone before was far better. Disappointing, IMO.:(

mcmacness

I just went to see The Dark Knight Rises too, I thought it was brilliant. Myself and my friend went to see it, it totally wouldn't be our kind of film but we loved it. You couldn't hear a peep from anyone in the cinema, not to gush, but I nearly felt like clapping at the end of it

Judgement Day

"Night Train" (1998) - Another charity shop purchase - €2 VHS tape. Pleasing enough movie which sees Michael Poole (John Hurt) as a crooked accountant recently released from prison and on the run from a violent Dublin crime boss Billy (Lorcan Cranitch) who wants his money back. He finds sanctuary as a lodger in the home of Mrs.Mooney (Pauline Flanagan) and her lonely daughter Alice (Brenda Blethyn). A mutual interest in foreign travel and trains leads to a developing relationship between Michael and Alice but the hitman hired by Billy is closing in ......worth watching but not a classic. 7/10.

FishBowel

At the circus - Marx Brothers movie, some very good bits but not up to their best films.

abouttobebanned

Judgement Day wrote: »

"Night Train" (1998) - Another charity shop purchase - €2 VHS tape. Pleasing enough movie which sees Michael Poole (John Hurt) as a crooked accountant recently released from prison and on the run from a violent Dublin crime boss Billy (Lorcan Cranitch) who wants his money back. He finds sanctuary as a lodger in the home of Mrs.Mooney (Pauline Flanagan) and her lonely daughter Alice (Brenda Blethyn). A mutual interest in foreign travel and trains leads to a developing relationship between Michael and Alice but the hitman hired by Billy is closing in ......worth watching but not a classic. 7/10.

Here's a bit of useless trivia for ya. The man who wrote this film lectured on my journalism course. In Colaiste Dhulaigh!! haha

FishBowel

Also the director can be seen from the street sitting in a café in Ranelagh most weeks.

cursai

Margaret........all I could think of was stupid spoiled American Jewish teenage alienated overly emotional over articulating...........anyway...........not worth an hour of time.

johnny_ultimate

cursai wrote: »

Margaret........all I could think of was stupid spoiled American Jewish teenage alienated overly emotional over articulating...........anyway...........not worth an hour of time.

Did you only watch an hour It's an extremely dense film that rewards time commitment and trusts the viewer to work through its intricacies. Payoffs come late and require effort, but are totally worth it. Overindulgent at times, with a few rough edges, but it's still the most remarkable, intoxicating American film of the year IMO.

cursai

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Did you only watch an hour It's an extremely dense film that rewards time commitment and trusts the viewer to work through its intricacies. Payoffs come late and require effort, but are totally worth it. OverinIdulgent at times, with a few rough edges, but it's still the most remarkable, intoxicating American film of the year IMO.

disagree john. Watched the whole thing. good acting. But the whole thing was unexceptional and a minefield of unexplained scenes. It's in no way dense. It's simplistic. Like any Matt Damon film. Hur hur. but seriously I don't know where the whole hype is coming from. A dull film with annoying side stories and unexplained or shallow motivations all this from a long time watcher of true blood.

Marty McFly

Took a trip to HMV today so having a nice viewing day

Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Left feeling cold by it really having read great reviews of it and heard good reports from friends I expected a decent film, okay some of it was well shot especially the scene were al lthe apes are coming down the road causing all the leaves to fall from the trees, but as a whole I expected more of a story on an epic scale I guess, John Lithgow was wasted in this film hes an actor I generally like but never got to show what he can do really also what happened him in the end they just kind of took him out of the film without ever talling you how his story ended at all. There were also plenty of plotholes in this film and im normally one to nit pick at them, but one that did get me was the strength of the apes its fact apes are a lot stronger than humans and have been known to tear limbs off so to see men be beaten by them and then get up and just walk away was a bit much. This may shock some I might have even prefered the Mark Wahlberg version than this.

Drive: I loved this film, amazing soundtrack that suited the film perfectly, superbly shot some of city shots breatakingly done, Ryan Gosling although ive never been a huge fan of his in anything ive seen him in I thought he was great in this, came across very quiet and awkward at times but at others extremely cold, calculated and menacing. Also loved the car chases scenes best ive seen since Ronin with some beautiful cars on display throughout the film. All the supporting cast just seemed to fit so well including Ron Perlman who always seems to gdo a great job for me in everything hes in. Best film ive seein some time one I think ill be giving multiple viewings.

Akira: Never really tried Japanese anime before, but heard plenty of good reports on it and Akira is a highly regarded film so figured sure why not, it did suprise me its held up very well considering it was first released in 1988, the animation is superb. The violence for me was a bit unusual given the fact its animation when your so used to seeing Pixar/Disney films , but a great film all the same think I may have to check out more anime films in the future.

johnny_ultimate

cursai wrote: »

disagree john. Watched the whole thing. good acting. But the whole thing was unexceptional and a minefield of unexplained scenes. It's in no way dense. It's simplistic. Like any Matt Damon film. Hur hur. but seriously I don't know where the whole hype is coming from. A dull film with annoying side stories and unexplained or shallow motivations all this from a long time watcher of true blood.

Ah fair enough, thought you suggested that you'd only watched an hour of it in your first post. I politely disagree with everything else you say though :P

I actually think it's anything but shallow motivations, and Paquin's character is one of the most fully-realised in recent cinema. Yeah, some of the sideplots have questionable execution - I need to watch the extended version to make up my mind on some of 'em - but the whole film, IMO, is a rich tapestry of themes and characters.

eternal

Love in the time of cholera was on tv friday night. Read the book but really enjoyed the film moreso. Loved the shaky, neediness of the protagonist and his furor into the world of sexual encounters.
Deep, intense and worthwhile.

Woddle

Haywire
Can't believe I watched the whole thing. Terrible film, a waste of a good cast.

s8n

Goon - Quite possibly the worst film I have ever seen (even worse than Hollow Man and I still know what you did last summer)

Cant fathom why this good reasonably good reviews earlier this year !!!

Marty McFly

s8n wrote: »

Goon - Quite possibly the worst film I have ever seen (even worse than Hollow Man and I still know what you did last summer)

Cant fathom why this good reasonably good reviews earlier this year !!!

Couldnt agree more bought it based on the good reviews it got, there was maybe one or two momments I found funny but generally it was terrible.

Raoul

I watched it one night I wasn't up to much, tired and didn't feel like watching anything to strenuous. I enjoyed it for what it was, totally silly and just fun. But I understand why someone wouldn't like it.

Marty McFly

Raoul wrote: »

I watched it one night I wasn't up to much, tired and didn't feel like watching anything to strenuous. I enjoyed it for what it was, totally silly and just fun. But I understand why someone wouldn't like it.

Ah I do like fun and silly at times myself but its just hard to find a proper truely funny comedy these days.

Raoul

Marty McFly wrote: »

Ah I do like fun and silly at times myself but its just hard to find a proper truely funny comedy these days.

Yeah I know what you mean. I watched Fanboys the other night aswell. Much the same as the goon in terms of what you get. Its lowbrow type stuff. And I watched the darjeeling limited which tries to be the opposite. While I realise the second is actually a far better movie than the first, I enjoyed the first more cos I could just switch off.

Basq

Didn't enjoy 'Goon' much either!

Watched two movies over the weekend 'The Green Lantern' which was an absolute bore. Was a shame due to a pretty good cast (rarely find fault in Reynolds or Skaarsgard) but it was cheesy, unoriginal and the sheer overload of CGI was very distracting. Not good!

Then to follow that up, I watched the much better 'Captain America: The First Avenger' - despite the slightly bizarre "Skinny Steve" effects, this was all quite good fun. Hugo Weaving hams it up but it's an enjoyable performance. Not quite as good as 'Thor' (which I also watched recently) but when compared to the 'The Green Lantern', it was an absolute masterpiece!