What have you watched recently?

kerry4sam

Life of Brian - Monty Pyton : Always good for a chuckle By far my favourite of the Monty Pyton videos!

MiloYossarian

The Raven You'd be raven mad not to watch it. (See what I did there? It's called wordplay.) Actually not terrible. I liked it fine.

mrmorgan

Just watched cedar rapids.

A typical John c Reilly comedy who is his normal humour self. It's a watchable comedy but not the best one you'll see!

charlie_says

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia - pleasantly narcoleptic Turkish police procedural drama. The first half hooked me - the barren landscapes, blinding headlights, surreal banter and ambiguous themes. An extended midpoint stop at a rural village provides some fascinating contrasts and comparisons with the main plot. An almost dreamlike quest through the Turkish mountains as a motley crew search for a dead body. The second half is trickier to get a grasp on, but there's lots to like. There's moments of unexpected black comedy that liven up what often seems like it could be a very dour film indeed. A running plot strand about a woman who just upped and died is referenced throughout, and provides some of the most satisfying and unusual thematic resonances. Bits and pieces certainly test anyone's patience, and some of the revelations and ideas are purposefully vague to an extreme. But it mostly rewards the effort you put into it. There's still plenty of insight after dawn, but the late night sojourn the makes up the film's opening half is the film at its aesthetic best.

Based on that, I will see this.

:-)

johnny_ultimate

Earth - a 1930 silent film from the ol' Soviet Union. Memorable visuals abound, from the pre-Malick waving grass that opens the films to a surreal, hypnotic and ultimately fatal dance at dawn. It's a difficult enough film at times, and the politics - though often explicitly Marxist - are surprisingly ambiguous and complex. Life, death, religion, nature, modernity... this is a film that hits a lot of topics but rarely condescends. Won't be for everybody, but it's an unusual and sometimes hypnotic example of relatively early cinema.

charlie_says wrote: »

Based on that, I will see this.

:-)

It's not a film I'd put out a blanket recommendation of, but if it sounds like your sort of thing certainly give it a go There's much to engage the patient viewer!

G.K.

Just started watching Balibo.

Conbhar

Seen Gandhi for the first time in my near 30 years on the planet last week. Almost pissed off with myself that i left it this long to watch it, such a breathtaking film and Ben Kingsley was truly amazing as the great man.

G.K.

Finished Balibo. Probably the best film I've ever seen.

Silvics

Sordid Lives:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=ZmdeEAMiWKQ

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

h2005

Elite Squad enemy within. Was quite good I think it was made by the people who made City of God.

The Radiator

I watched 30 Rock recently

Bassboxxx

The Interrupters

A very good, meaty, hard hitting and moving doc about living a dying in Chicago and "the Interrupters" efforts to stem the flow. I genuinely couldn't find anything to complain about here.

Watch it...

Tony EH

'Phenomena'

A complete mess of a horror film by "master of horror" Dario Argento that is, for some reason, held in high esteem by some. Plagued by some dreadful acting (aside from Jennifer Connolly and Donald Pleasance), terrible dialogue, a silly story and some truly awful music choices.

The frankly stupid story sees how a young girl, Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connolly), who is sent to a school in Switzerland. The type of school that the extremely rich and la-di-da use to get rid of their kids for a few years. Corvino loves insects and has a power over them, in as much that she is able to communicate with them and get them to do her bidding! They also are willing to help her in return and it's with their help that she is tasked with solving the crimes of a serial killer that has been murdering young girls throughout the area.

As a fan of the genre, it's probably odd that I'd never seen 'Phenomena' before, but that's probably down to the fact that Argento has never really struck me as he seems to have other people. Aside from 'Deep Red' and 'Suspiria', his output doesn't do much for me and even the aforementioned films don't grab me in any special way either.

Argento is a good visual director at times, but the rest of the ingredients, like acting, plot, music etc, he tends to not be too bothered about. I also think that he owes a lot of his success to George Romero. Even though Argento had a number of well received films behind him by 1978 (with 'Suspiria' being the most successful), it was 'Dawn of the Dead' that did wonders for his career. Romero's classic zombie epic was co-produced by Argento and he had final cut on non-English speaking prints. He also had his name at the top of the credit roll, leading many people in Europe to think that 'Dawn of the Dead' was a Dario Argento film. The success of both 'Suspiria' and 'Dawn of the Dead' led to 20th Century Fox giving Argento money to finance his next film, 'Inferno'...which bombed.

Despite promising leads in a young Jennifer Connolly and horror staple, Donald Pleasance, the rest of the cast are as wooden as a "Punch and Judy" show. The dubbing of some Italian actors also allow for some unintentional humour too (as is the cast in all of Argento's films) and even Pleasance and Connolly's lines are delivered with an air of awkwardness, at times, as well.

The silly story does the project no favours either. Insects use telepathy? A human can communicate with them? Together they solve a crime? A better hook was needed as it was very difficult to get into the film.

On the plus side, there are a number of decent gory scenes, including a great disgusting cellar sequence, just before the conclusion and there's a charming chimpanzee called Inga who frankly, handles her part better than most of the human cast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mk6EjlATp4

grohlisagod

Funny Games (2007)

Unsettling psychological horror remake from Michael Haneke for English speaking audience. Not without its flaws but an interesting watch and certainly different. Good performance from Michael Pitt (Murder by Numbers) and also starring Tim Roth and Naomi Watts.

mikemac1

Florence Nightingale

BBC period drama, nobody can do these better then the BBC

Only an hour long, they could have made several episodes out of it

Was good but left a little unsatisfied, raced through everything and just too short



Iron Jawed Angels

Good cast, Hilary Swank, Laura Fraser, Julie Ormond and others

The actor who played the governer in Shawshank Redemption played the President in this, I forget his name but he did a good job

About the suffragete movement in the USA

What I liked most about this film was the sountrack, for a historical film they throw in lots of modern and strange music choices but it works.
One of the better soundtracks I've heard, the person in charge deserves credit, thumps up

johnny_ultimate

Finally got around to finishing that Terrence Malick marathon I had a year ago with a long overdue viewing of Badlands. Very much liked it. There were times watching it I was a little disappointed it was a little more conventional than most of his later work. But as it progressed, it turned out to be a very interesting, subversive film in its own right. The way the story is presented with a disturbing casualness rather than big, exaggerated drama makes it much more effective than many other 'crime spree' films. The peculiar soundtrack choices and purposefully cheesy voiceover help create a dreamy, almost lighthearted tone at odds with the dark content of the story. Martin Sheen nails Kit, and while I was left cold by Sissy Spacek's performance initially, that very same coldness ultimately comes across as creepy and unsettling. While the camera may not move quite as majestically as his later works, there's still plenty of visual beauty: the endless prairies and calmness of the landscape disrupted by acts of violence and trails of dust.

A great debut from a great director then. While it may simply lay the foundations for the distinctly Malick style (only one instance of wavy grass off the top of my head!), this is still an absolutely unique and compelling film.

mikemac1

Land of the Blind

Political satire film

Donald Sutherland, Laura Fraser, Tom Hollander, Lara Flynn Boyle, Ralph Fiennes

To do with tyranny and if you overthrow one tyrant is the new one going to be any better?
Better the devil you know maybe?

Bit whimsical at times with outlandish music and costumes and bizarre acts

It's not a serious film, it's not funny, it's just a bit weird.
I can watch satire but this did not impress

4/10
Decent but would not watch again

briany

Last night I watched The Perfect Host, about a young man who is on the run in the wake of a very recent robbery he committed. With the heat on, he attempts to blag his way into one of the homes in the upper class neighbourhood he finds himself in so he can lay low there, leading him to the home of a single man preparing for a dinner party and a pretty unusual evening.

Malown

Tony EH wrote: »

'Phenomena'

A complete mess of a horror film by "master of horror" Dario Argento that is, for some reason, held in high esteem by some.

Thought it was really good - the scene where the girl gets killed and crashes against a window with the waterfall in the background was classic.

ReacherCreature

Bourne Ultimatum & Bourne Supremacy. Always good fun.

Act of Valor. Enjoyed this, good score, nice script and some seriously good shoot outs. Hollywood severely lacks authentic gun fights and using Navy SEALs (elite fighting forces) more than makes up for crappy shootouts. Acting wasn't the best but hell they're not actors. Wish it was a little bit longer though.

Batman: TDKR, quite good but heavily overhyped for me. That said I will pick up the DVD to rewatch and absorb. The score is excellent in my eyes.

Repo Men. Decent with some good ideas and unpredictable twists. Enjoyed it but nothing more.

Heat. Masterpiece.

SmokeyEyes

We finally watched Memento, great movie and unlike anything we've seen before which is always refreshing!

Mike Litoris

Boondock Saints, after the recent comments.

Sigh, brilliant and fcukin terrible in equal measure.

mrmorgan

SmokeyEyes wrote: »

We finally watched Memento, great movie and unlike anything we've seen before which is always refreshing!

Never seen it BIR heard good things about it!

MiloYossarian

Take This Waltz It's too long. It's just too long. I have great respect for Sarah Polly as a film maker though. I think she's intelligent. The best thing about it is Michelle William's performance. Absolutely top notch, I doubt she'll get much credit for it though. It's a good film.

mrmorgan

Jaws is on now utv four

Bassboxxx

The cabin in the woods

Horror/comedy...I really enjoyed this, it had the right balance of horror and comedy, didn't try to be too much of both and end up being nothing of anything.

Charlie19

Mystic River 2003

About three young friends and how they grow up in separate ways and yet are tied together by misfortune in their hometown of Boston.

Watched this on RTE1 tonight. What an outstanding movie, its not often you come across a film this good on the box. Must of been put off my the title when it was released.

MiloYossarian

The Bourne Ultimatum I saw it in the cinema a few years back, it's not that I didn't enjoy it, it's just that sometimes I find films hard to take in at the cinema. I have to watch them again at home to get the full enjoyment out of them. That's what happened here. It's a great film. A worthy franchise closer....

mrmorgan

Matchstick men

im not nicholas cage biggest fan and it did turn me off watching this for ages but he really was brilliant in this.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325805/

its well worth a watch and sam rockwell plays a good part also.

Judgement Day

MiloYossarian wrote: »

The Bourne Ultimatum I saw it in the cinema a few years back, it's not that I didn't enjoy it, it's just that sometimes I find films hard to take in at the cinema. I have to watch them again at home to get the full enjoyment out of them. That's what happened here. It's a great film. A worthy franchise closer....

+1

I had to buy the boxed set to really take-in the whole series properly - I still go back to it when I'm in the right mood.