What have you watched recently? 3D!

JP Liz V1

Anyone But You, a rom com with (stars of the moment) Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell is decent, good chemistry and even the formula plot as in pretend to be a couple done numerous times before and has most clichés imaginable it all works and pulls you in, charming and effective

Tony EH

'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'

A film that was "harder to make than Jaws" according to Steven Spielberg, but one that's still as great as it ever was. Difficult to believe that this is over 45 years old and it remains the best first contact film yet to be made. With a great cast and engaging story all excellently directed by the man responsible for the modern blockbuster, it climaxes in one of cinema's classic moments featuring another example of simple musical genius from John Williams who's iconic 5 notes are just as memorable as the 2 note central theme in 'Jaws'.

'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' is a childlike film wrapped up in an adult(ish) story, a story of mankind's meeting with an alien lifeform which Spielberg would further refine 5 years later in the more kiddie friendly 'E.T.'. But, for me, the 1977 movie remains the more entertaining picture, even if the 1982 movie is excellent as well.

There have been numerous versions of the film released and over the years it has been fashioned into what Spielberg considers the best version, his director's cut, which features some of the material that was added in during the shoots for the special edition in 1979, but excises the lacklustre tacked on ending which shows Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) inside the alien mothership. An ill-advised move which added very little to the picture over all. In any case 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' is still one of Spielberg's best movies from a 10ish year period of time where he seemingly could do no wrong (apart from '1941').

10/10

'Teenagers from Outer Space'

A wonderful example of 1950's B movie magic that tells the story of aliens landing on earth with a mission to populate it with terrifying monsters called Gargons, which are used as food back on their unnamed home planet. One of the "teenagers" (they all look like they're well into their 20's), with the fantastic sci-fi alien name of...Derek...has misgivings about the mission and gets into hot water with his crew mates, especially Thor, who is sent to pursue him in "small town" California (it was actually shot in the middle of L.A.) with orders to either bring Derek back alive or kill him.

'Teenagers from Outer Space' can hardly be called a good movie in any sense of the word, but it is very entertaining in its own way. It has a low budget charm ($14,000) that leaves a smile on your face which shines through the wooden acting, terrible props and dreadful special effects. One such prop was obviously a child's toy gun bought in some cheap shop which was supposed to be an "atomic disintegrator" that would instantly reduce its target to a gleaming white skeleton. The skeleton itself was probably bought/borrowed from some university and it even bears stamped markings that can be clearly seen. Other cheapo not-so-special effects include the monstrous "Gargons" which were just silhouetted lobsters that have been blithely matted onto the film that emit ear piercing human screams.

'Teenagers from Outer Space' is a cult movie if ever there was one and as such has all the dubious trappings of that particular attraction, but if your bent toward cinematic oddities and drive-in trash, it might be up your alley.

'The Horror of Party Beach'

Radioactive waste is dumped into the ocean and mutates a human skeleton and some sea creatures into a "terrifying" monster that proceeds to cause havoc on a Californian beach. 'The Horror of Party Beach' is a weird mash up of the short lived 1960's beach party sub genre and 1950's sc-fi that never manages to rise above the mediocre and spends most of its time in dullness, with a ludicrous monster that looks like its mouth is permanently stuffed with sausages. Often considered one of the worst movies ever made and I can see why. But, to be honest, there are much worse movies out there.

2/10

'Humanoids From the Deep'

Shot in 1979, the Roger Corman/Martin Cohen produced 'Humanoids From the Deep' was actually an update of 1959's 'The Horror of Party Beach' designed to exploit low budget movie making's penchant for gore and naked flesh. With a name like 'Humanoids From the Deep' you kinda know what you're going to get and with that in mind, the movie doesn't disappoint with plenty of good looking girls laying bare their goods and some clever bloody special effects. The story, as much as it can be called that, sees mutated monsters rising from the depths and killing the men of a rural Californian fishing town called Noyo. While the men are attacked and killed, the women are raped with the monsters pursuing the next stage of the accelerated development...that of a human/monster hybrid. Behind the scenes there's a shadowy company called Canco who have been experimenting with a growth hormone designed to increase the size of salmon and promising to build a cannery in Noyo that has divided the population, with the local natives being particularly hostile to the idea. The subplot is there simply to give a reason for the monsters existence and when they start to attack the town it ceases to have any other purpose. And with the chaos the monsters eventually bring, who cares?

In a time when genre pictures were dominated by male film makers, Corman hired a female director, Barbara Peeters, to helm the movie but later got 'Deathstalker' director, James Sbardellati, to add in shots that Peeters later found objectionable. Sbardellati was tasked with shooting the rape scenes because Corman felt that Peeters was too tame with them, while conversely she handled the gory death scenes of the men much to his satisfaction. This, and a last minute title change from 'Beneath the Darkness', went a long way to Peeters rejecting the movie and star Ann Turkel actively going on the rampage with negative comments about it and Corman in interviews.

It's kinda hard to understand the extreme reaction that some people had toward 'Humanoids From the Deep' these days, however, especially as it was just a silly exploitation movie, and I also find it difficult to believe that some people acting in the movie didn't know what they were getting into when they signed on. After all this was a Roger Corman movie, a man who's exploitation output was well known at the time and who had been knocking out this kind of stuff since the 1950's. And, to be fair, 'Humanoids From the Deep' delivers the exploitation B movie goods, especially in the Rob Bottin designed gory effects, although the film isn't a complete splatterfest.

Strangely enough, the film was released in Europe and the UK with the more "sophisticated" title of 'Monster' and was completely uncut, whereas in America it was subject to MPAA interference and had to be trimmed. Something that was the reverse of the usual situation.

6/10

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121949608#Comment_121949608

'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' is a childlike film wrapped up in an adult(ish) story, a story of mankind's meeting with an alien lifeform which Spielberg would further refine 5 years later in the more kiddie friendly 'E.T.'. But, for me, the 1977 movie remains the more entertaining picture, even if the 1982 movie is excellent as well.

Always preferred Close Encounters myself, and saw both films young enough that you'd presume I would have gravitated towards ET - but as a kid I kinda thought ET himself was ... well, kinda dumb looking. Just a weird blob creature. Whereas I think 'cos you never really see the aliens properly in Close Encounters, they retained that sense of mystery and transcendental that was being built up across the movie. No doubt early-doors Spielberg could tap into that sense of awe and wonder he kinda lost over the years - especially when the next time he made a film with aliens it was 2005's War of the Worlds, and that was one of his most cynical and downbeat films to this day IMO.

Fysh

Hmm, it's been ages since I watched Close Encounters. I think I saw it as a kid but couldn't swear to it (whereas I definitely did see ET as a smallie), so weirdly enough my main recollection of CEot3K is watching it as an adult, and being utterly won over by it. Optimistic SF of a kind that is really hard to pull off without seeming twee or cheesy. It's probably time I revisit it.

Speaking of revisiting things, I stuck on The Crow (1994) last night, and it remains, 90s fashion and None More Goth sensibilities notwithstanding, a really good watch - not perfect or without its issues, but a very well-executed piece of entertainment nonetheless. Little things like the way most of the crooks are genuinely freaked out when they realised that Eric has come back from the dead to hunt them down, the sprinklings of humour throughout (my personal favourite is the "Are you going to disappear into thin air again?" / "...I was going to use your front door." exchange), or the way that, when Eric gets shot after his invulnerability has been disabled, he stumbles and mutters "Oh, f*ck" before falling to the ground.

It's not perfect, mind you - some of the needle-drops feel a bit on-the-nose now, and some of the bits with Sarah and her mother are slightly clunky. Top Dollar's crew and their "fire it up" chant lands as a bit silly, particularly because Top Dollar himself is well-played as a narcissistic psychopath with a strain of the Heath Ledger Joker agent-of-chaos running through him. But these are all small things, and there are few enough occurrences of them that they don't marr the experience.

The thought strikes me that it would be fascinating to see a Scott Pilgrim Takes Off-style revisit of the original story years/decades later:

Spoiler Warning

where it is Shelly, not Eric, who is brought back by the Crow, and what her perspective and actions would be.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121949764#Comment_121949764

Yeah, Close Encounters is a genuine classic. I love the way there's no happy resolution for Roy either. His marriage is finished, he'll never see his kids again. But, feck it, I'm going to space with aliens!!!!

In some parallel universe, we get to see Roy having a terrible time in space as the aliens subject him to a whole manner of awful experiments for the next 30 years and when they return him in 2005, he has no memory of what happened, just like the pilots of Flight 19 who went through a similar experience. 😁

flasher0030

Anyone watched Heart of the Hunter yet. I'm hoping to watch it tonight. Just want to see what others think.

Fysh

I had time to kill last night, and a streaming platform I use had a listing for All Hallow's Eve under the name Terrifier: The Origin so I took a punt on it.

I found it pretty disappointing, unfortunately. I like the anthology format for horror, but this doesn't really feel like any of the stories are particularly effective.

The writing and acting is ranges from so-so to outright bad. The visual execution is fine, although a bit more interested in faux-VHS throwbacks than actually crafting distinctive or evocative images. And, to be fair, it looked like the (pretty decent) effects work was generally practical rather than CGI added in post - sadly it didn't have more impact because of the shoddy writing.

As a first exposure to Art the Clown, this is an underwhelming watch - he comes off as yet another slasher villain being sold on little more than a distinctive appaearance, with no effort made at establishing a personality or story, and the most interesting aspect likely being more a contrivance devised for the framing story than something that will be developed further.

Having since read more about the other films in the series, I conclude that I'm probably not the audience for this. (I had been hoping for something more akin to the Hotell horror comics written by John Lees, which feature a similarly distinctive character and an anthology format, but much better writing...)

monkeyactive

The King

A Drama starring a young Gael Bernal Garcia and Paul Dano . I liked it . I'm always conscious of giving away too much plot in my enthusiasm to sing a films virtues. This one seems to be like a forgotten film of sorts , you'd never hear anything about it .

gym_imposter

Barbie, two stars out Of five , the dopey message began to grate quick

ellyU

Argyle, 2 of 5. Trailer was promising, unfortunately I'm dissapointed.

pixelburp

Witness (1985)

Sometimes a recommendation has to come with some form of immediate and hurried caveat - "trust me, it's better than it sounds". Where the only way to accurately describe a concept resulted in an ostensibly ludicrous or even outlandish summary: to wit, here was a thriller "about a Big City Cop hiding among the Amish while trying to solve a murder" - but trust me! The end result was far better and more effective than that logline might otherwise suggest.

It also functioned as another entry in Peter Weir's quietly excellent and understated CV; here was a story executed dead-centre and without a trace of wry cynicism or winking towards its audience. Certainly the nature of the story could have easily spawned a tone more inherently comedic, maybe even slyly interrogative of the famously anachronistic and insular culture; or indeed bounced to the other side altogether and valorised the Amish & their "simple" ways to the point of patronising them. It was a tale of clashing cultures for sure, but without critiquing either side and that was a deft balancing act. With the possible and noted exception of the unflattering portrayal of the tourists and hecklers, boldly invading the personal space of the Amish, even as they repeatedly asked to be left alone.

Instead, Weir echoed the Amish's own disdain for flourish or exuberance with a fairly robust and pragmatic examination of their communal decency - even when faced with an existential problem such as the bleeding, violent interloper of Harrison Ford's "John Book" arriving at their doorstep (was the scriptwriter 5 minutes from lunch & just came up with the name from looking across their desk? Thank god the lead wasn't Detective John Stapler I guess). This was a simple story told simply, where even its most emotive beats through the "forbidden love" angle that functioned as the film's connective tissue was executed with a surprising degree of restraint and nuance. It was lust & longing rendered with looks and frustrated distance, not melodramatic bombast.

This appearance is to this day Harrison Ford's single Oscar nomination and I can appreciate why he received it: this was a dialled back performance once it reached rural Pennsylvania, the cocksure confidence soon removed as the "fish out of water" narrative kicked in, and you saw more vulnerability and desperation in Ford's work here than you usually got with him at this point in his career - and perhaps even since then.

al87987

Witness was on our curriculum for Leaving Cert 20 odd years ago. Enjoyed it a lot and recently revisited for the 1st since then. Holds up well.

Keith Andrews

Watched Forrest Gump for the nth time. I don't know why I like this film a lot.

splashthecash

Kong v Godzilla New Empire

The action got a big much after a while for me - hard to know what way was up or down or what world you were in due to the shiny crystal thingies and gloopy portals. These monster movies just don't move the dial like they used to. Human characters were mostly forgettable with suspect dialogue…they are pretty much just there for exposition

Dark Waters

True story on Netflix about a company knowingly dumping harmful\dangerous chemicals into a small town's water supply. Mark Ruffalo leads a solid story which is very similar to Erin Brokovich. It reminded me of Spotlight with the investigative element and the story slowly being uncovered

No Escape

Owen "Wow" Wilson in a story about a guy who moves his family to Thailand for his job in a water company, only to find they arrive just as a coup starts. And the disgruntled Thai protesters are gunning for anyone foreign, especially those working for the company who they feel is exploiting them. Queue the family fleeing for their lives. Quite violent in places and does have some good tense scenes but won't be up there in my best of the year films. P.S. James Bond makes a couple of appearances

buried

Valhalla Rising (2009)

Another one of Nicholas Winding Refn's films I only saw the half once and have given it a good auld re-watch. This thing is just absolutely brilliant stuff, it was totally panned by majority movie-goers on release but this thing holds up far far better than the vast majority of works made around the time, especially when the buzz of today's cinema is the whole love affair with "visual storytelling", well, this does the whole visual storytelling in spades and then uses one of the spades to beat you over the face with it. Just fantastic stuff again from Refn and Mikkleson, where a bunch of brainwashed 12th Century European abrahamic lunatics bring into their ranks a slave warrior named "one eye" in order to help them conquer the 'holy land', they end up somewhere far better and it all goes to complete and utter $hit for them. Just holds up really well, nicely paced, and shot absolutely beautifully, all up in bonny Scotland. It's basically an occult spaghetti pagan western and its 10/10 for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc8Z9pN1GKU

p to the e

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972759#Comment_121972759

Dark Waters has been on my list for a while. I watched a great documentary about this story called "The Devil We Know" a few years back and it's absolute madness how powerful these companies are and the extent they'd go to cover up.

gym_imposter

Oppenheimer, very good and it whizzed by

Honestly believe Cillian Murphy gave the best lead performance by an actor since Daniel Day Lewis in There will be blood

flasher0030

Sleeping Dogs

With Russell Crowe. One of those killer mystery movies. Quite interesting following the plot-line along. Relying on a plot reveal at the end, that doesn't really work. Got silly for the last 5 minutes. Interesting up to that.

Damaged

A similar type movie - again hinging on a plot twist at the end - and this one definitely does not work. Samuel L Jackson is the main actor involved. A crime movie set in Scotland. It's watchable if you have 2 hours to spare and need to pass the time. But the story just goes completely ludicrous at the end.

Knox Goes Away

Michael Keaton, Al Pacino and couple of other well known faces. Yet another crime one. But this one was good I thought. Fairly cleverly done (I'm sure there are plot holes if I wanted to find them, but I was just looking for something entertaining to watch). Much more credible movie than the above two anyway, and again it retains your suspense to the end as it is not evident as to how the plotline is going to evolve.

Spon Farmer

I saw ABIGAIL today. Great fun and quite gory, though it would have been nice if the studio had promoted it a without giving away the “twist”. Don’t think I would have seen it coming.

Spon Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121970499#Comment_121970499

no filums on the Leavibg in my day…:(

Was it for media studies or part of the English course?

al87987

English course, 1 book, 1 movie and 1 Shakespeare if I remember correctly.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122057632#Comment_122057632

Yep, unless it's changed in recent years… it's the 'comparative' element of the English paper where you choose three texts to compare - one has to be a Shakespeare play, and then any two from a long list of books, films, plays etc… It's that and one separate book / play in depth.

We did 'Il Postino' during my Leaving Cert - an overly sentimental film I have zero interest in ever revisiting :)

silliussoddius

Nobody, starring Bob Odenkirk. A bit late to the game with this one as I was a bit late to the game with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. It was these shows that attracted me to Nobody, as I have gone off mindless action films. Despite this being nothing ground breaking and having a story that has been done to death; I really enjoyed it. Maybe it was Odenkirk, or just sometimes the simple things done really well is all you need.

mrcheez

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122057568#Comment_122057568

I made a point of not letting the gf know which film we were going to last Tuesday, and she hadn't seen any trailers for it before, nor knew anything about it (not seen the poster).

For the first half of the movie she thought it might be a ghost or some external evil presence and had no idea it would be the girl!

As a result she was shocked by the twist, whereas I knew all along what was coming as I'd seen the trailer AND the poster.

Bizarre decision by the studio.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122057665#Comment_122057665

Yep did the same, I do think whatever you study in leaving Cert is forever ruined. And the analyses are so basic.

Spon Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122063058#Comment_122063058

they could have easily promoted it as an evil presence or haunted house movie. Or even as kidnap thriller.

Nothing in the film itself until the reveal even hints that Abigail is more than she appears. Even the comment to Joey at the end of their first meeting seemed like it about what her father would do. Could have gone down as one of the all time great plot twists.

The film is great regardless though - a fun story with a few surprises and great set of characters and actors, Alisha Weir in particular. She is brilliant.

I probably should have watched Mathilda first :P

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122063095#Comment_122063095

We did Cinema Paradiso, and I still love it.

I actually find myself quite often thinking that that part of my education is probably the only thing that I find myself "using" in any real way in my adult life. I see so many people online moaning about films and TV while showing little to no understanding of even the most "basic" analysis we'd have done at aged 17.