What have you watched recently? 3D!

adrian522

A Real Pain (2024) (3.5/5)

I thought this was good. Both Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are playing fairly typical roles for them, almost typcast sort of roles. Culkin really carries the movie and I think its a great performance. As mentioned above the story isn't exactly revolutionary but it is pretty well done. I think it would have fallen flat with lesser actors in those roles. worth a watch.

La Chimera (2023) (4/5)

This was my second time watching this movie. Its one of the best movies I saw last year. Stars Josh O'Connor of challengers fame. It's set in 1980's Italy and follows a group of misfits who make their money finding and stealing from ancient tombs. It really puts you in the time period and its very well made, some fantastic music also.

Nikel Boys (2024) (5/5)

Saw this in the cinema last week and its an early contender for film of the year. Its a story about a "reform school" in 1960's Florida. Its mainly shot from first person perspective which is somewhat unique, some great performances.

Panic Room (2002) (3.5/5)

Fincher movie I hadn't actually seen before, starring Forest Whittaker and Jodie Foster and a very young Kristen Stewart. Its a good thriller and worth a watch, you could see how it could have gone very poorly in other hands. The whole thing is set in the one location, but it carried very well by Foster. I enjoyed it.

My Favourite Cake (2024) (3/5)

Iranian movie, following the story of a woman deciding to try to find love late in life. Its very well paced and never boring. THe Iranian regime seemed to do their best to prevent this movie from coming out but the film makers managed to get a copy of the movie out of the country and are now on trial (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/dec/19/were-charged-with-propaganda-vulgarity-and-spreading-prostitution-the-directors-of-my-favourite-cake)

Just the back story there was enough to make me want to watch it.

Tony EH

‘Apocalypse Now’

Francis Ford Coppola has had an interesting career, to say the least. Capable of producing genuine, undisputed, classics like ‘The Godfather’ and ‘The Conversation’, he is also the guy who helmed terrible efforts like ‘Twixt’, or the astonishingly poor ‘Megalopolis’ which is, possibly, going to be his final film.

But the film which absorbed him for the entirety of the second half of the 1970’s may be his most interesting and certainly I feel his absolute masterpiece.

In the late 60’s screenwriter John Milius had tried to enlist for the war in Vietnam and like a great many of his generation it had become the backdrop for everything in his life. He was washed out, however, because of his asthma and so would never be able to serve as the marine he wanted to be. But he had been writing for a number of years after leaving USC and threw himself into that area, despite having no real ambition in that direction.

Work on ‘Apocalypse Now’ began in 1969 when Coppola offered Milius $15,000 to produce a script about Vietnam after Milius had told Coppola that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas had suggested the idea to him a couple of years earlier. Milius adapted Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ using the current war in Vietnam as a setting and thus found that he could make the story his own, in many ways, where he could expand Conrad’s effort into a broader tale. Fellow USC alumni George Lucas had expressed an interest in directing.

After multiple drafts were completed, Milius handed the script over to Coppola who began a series of rewrites, much to Milius’ chagrin and into the bargain, both guys found out that nobody was interested in producing a movie about the Vietnam war, which had since seen its bloodiest year in 1968 with the Tet offensive and the expansion of American involvement. In the States the war was also more unpopular than ever. Subsequently, in the early 70’s, George Lucas had also withdrawn his interest, mostly because his ‘THX-1138’ had been poorly received at the box office despite getting good reviews from a number of critics and he didn’t want to be attached to another potential bomb so early in his career. But Lucas’ vision for the film was also vastly different to the one that John Milius had in his head. Increasingly Lucas had also been turning his attention more and more to ‘American Graffiti’.

U.S. military involvement in Vietnam came to an effective close in 1973, after a ceasefire was signed at the Paris Peace Accords. Although America would maintain personnel in various capacities until 1975. But it was in 1974 that Coppola began to express a real interest in producing the film himself.

His sequel to ‘The Godfather’ had made him very rich and had opened up many a door in Hollywood. It was United Artists that had agreed to put up some money and with his own fortune Coppola was able to use his American Zoetrope studio as the main producer. Unfortunately, though, the U.S. Military had absolutely zero interest in offering any help with a movie about a war they were happy to be getting out of and declined to allow Coppola use their equipment. However, Coppola had already decided to shoot the movie in the Philippines where there was an abundance of ex-U.S. Army equipment and President Marcos had no qualms about letting the producers use it for the right price. However one of the conditions was that the Army could use the equipment to fight an insurgency that was occurring and they would abandon the shoot at a moment’s notice and head off to fight for real.

Despite the idea floating around for a number of years already, production began in earnest on Coppola’s Vietnam epic in 1975. Sam Bottoms, who would play Lance Johnson, was still 19 and Laurence Fishburne (Mr. Clean) was only 14. He lied to get his part, but everyone knew his wasn’t 17 years old as he had said. By the time ‘Apocalypse Now’ hit the cinema screens, he was. This is an indication on just how crazy the shoot was for the film. Where everyone was promised that shooting would take a few weeks in the Philippines, it turned into a few years instead.

On the face of it Apocalypse Now’s story was rather straight forward. An American Army Captain and assassin, Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen in a career best) is tasked with sailing up river with a group of U.S. Navy personnel in a small patrol boat. Once there he is to locate and terminate a U.S. Army Colonel, Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), because the Army has said that he had “gone totally insane”. Kurtz has been using his rag tag Montagnard & Khmer army to cause havoc and has ended up being as much of a liability to the Americans as he was a horror to his Vietnamese enemy. His methods had become “unsound” and therefore he had to go.

One would be forgiven in thinking that such terse plotting would have been a relatively quick shoot. More complicated films have been made in much less time. But ‘Apocalypse Now’ turned into an arduous cinematic legend, with Coppola nearly going bankrupt & insane, the budget ballooning out of control, hurricanes wrecking the place and Martin Sheen having a heart attack.

It’s difficult to imagine any film maker even bothering to go through years of torment simply to make a picture, but Coppola had thrown so much into ‘Apocalypse Now’ that he, literally, had no choice. To pull out would have meant losing everything, his home, his fortune and maybe his family. So he, and subsequently everyone else, had to soldier on as it were.

But the endurance paid off in the most handsome way possible and resulted in not only Coppola’s finest work, but in one of the greatest movies that’s ever been put onto a screen. Everything about it is captivating, from Vittorio Storaro’s stunning cinematography, the creepy sound design, the engrossing set pieces, the memorable dialogue, the great use of music and the fantastic characters. It all blends beautifully and is really a sight to see on a big screen.

Cut down from a work print of nearly 5 hours ‘Apocalypse Now’ clocks in at 2 hours and 27 minutes, but it never once feels its running time. And even when events completely slow down once Willard reaches Kurtz’s compound up river, it’s never dull. Critic Pauline Kael considered the last half hour to be the “least successful” and I agree with her in that it’s less “successful” than the preceding 2 hours. But in its own right (if one can call an adaptation of a classic work its “own right”) is possesses its own power where it becomes more of a horror movie than a war movie at that point, and Kurtz embodies Willard’s final monster that he must endure on his unusual odyssey.

But ‘Apocalypse Now’ is really a film of two parts. The first being Willard’s journey up river where he encounters strange and outlandish creatures such as Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who engages in a spectacularly staged, Wagnerian, attack on a Viet Cong held village because there’s some great surfing to be had, or Willard and the crew witnessing a completely out of place performance of Playboy Bunnies who show off their wares in an elaborately staged USO act in the centre of the jungle aptly dubbed a “weird sight in the middle of all this shit” by Clean. Along the way Captain Willard also sees the madness of the war embodied by men who fight to repair a bridge at Do Long during the night only to have the NVA (presumably) blow it up the next day in a kind of Sisyphean task that perfectly illustrates the utter redundancy of the whole war.

As if that nightmare trek wasn’t enough, the film’s second part turns into full surrealist terror. Kurtz runs his kingdom like a white saviour megalomaniac, drunk on the power that it affords him. Dead bodies litter the ground and you can almost smell the stench of death everywhere. “Sometimes he goes too far” says spaced out combat photo journalist Dennis Hopper as he tries to excuse the severed heads that punctuate the abnormal landscape of Kurtz’s camp, a number of which may even belong to his own men.

When we finally meet Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, he’s almost a let down. Shrouded in shadow (mostly because of Brando’s massive size at the time), Kurtz is an enigma; an obviously insane individual, but one who’s also well disposed to giving very clear and agreeable messages. He says at one point in a moment of lucidity that “We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write fuck on their aeroplane because it’s obscene”. Kurtz, a committed military man who was once groomed for the top brass, has gone mad because of everything he has seen during the war. The sheer hypocrisy of it all probably being the most damaging aspect and the primary cause for his fall from grace.

But, in a weird way, Brando’s take on Kurtz makes perfect sense. Coppola had originally envisioned Kurtz as a fit, fighting man. But the fact of Brando’s enormous weight meant that yet another compromise, in a movie littered with compromises, had to be made. As such Coppola and Brando made Kurtz into a man who had let himself go in more ways than one. Kurtz, an obese monster, had become one of T.S. Elliot’s hollow men and had found himself so disillusioned with everything that he just wanted to die. He ends up welcoming his assassin probably because in one of his sharp moments of comprehension he realised that he has reached a point of no return.

Brando handles Kurtz in a fairly admirable way. Threatening to slip into ludicrous pretension, he keeps his hand on the tiller just enough to make Kurtz interesting for the limited time he’s on the screen. With a slight twist Kurtz could become as camp as his Dr. Moreau and in the hands of a lesser actor the character could have easily destroyed the whole film. But we buy what Brando has to sell because of the restraint that’s used by him and all concerned.

In contrast to Kurtz, everyone else feels almost tediously real. Martin Sheen’s Willard is a man of his own troubles and we first meet him in his Saigon flophouse, fresh from a divorce and drunk out of his mind, waiting around for the Army or the C.I.A. to hand him a mission of some kind. In an interesting opening, however, we don’t actually meet Willard, we meet Sheen on his 36th birthday who, after downing two bottles of cheap whisky, proceeds to punch a mirror and slices open his hand into the bargain. Sheen, going through his own issues at the time opens up on camera in a way few other actors would allow themselves to be and is caught in a moment of real shame.

Aside from Lance Johnson and Mr. Clean, we also meet Jay "Chef" Hicks (Frederic Forrest), a wannabe saucier from New Orleans and the “Captain” of the ill-fated PBR George Philips (Albert Hall), who’s no nonsense approach acts as an attempted anchor to the madness that Willard’s mission has placed him and his men in. Other well-known faces pop up here and there too, like G.D. Spradlin and watch out for a young bespectacled Harrison Ford hot off the heels of his superstardom as Han Solo in ‘Star Wars’. Incidentally, Ford’s character was called Lucas in a humorous nod to his pal.

So long was the filming of ‘Apocalypse Now’- it was dubbed Apocalypse Later - that nearly a million feet of film was shot, which created its own headache when it came time to edit it all together into a coherent whole. Many battles were had over what was to be kept in and what was to be dropped and Coppola and others engaged in epic fights over which scene had to be trimmed or excised completely. In due course Coppola himself was forced to lose one of the most important scenes to him, a scene in which Willard and Co. stumble across a French plantation which had stood since France’s colonisation period in which the inhabitants give the audience a history lesson about France’s involvement in Indochina. At around 20 minutes it was the longest scene that had to be lost from the cut he submitted for approval. But at over 3 hours Coppola was told that theatres wouldn’t screen his movie, so he had to lose it.

This scene and some other footage were restored for the ludicrously named ‘Apocalypse Now Redux’ in 2001. But while the plantation scene is interesting as a history lesson & and an isolated scene, it mangles the whole flow of the movie completely, as does the catch up scene featuring the Playboy Bunnies who are simply choppered out in the original theatrical version. In addition, the extra scenes featuring Colonel Kilgore turn him more into a buffoon and ends up diluting the war crazed lunatic we were all used to. It’s easy to see why all these scenes ended up on the cutting room floor in the first place and their inclusion only illustrates just how perfect the original 1979 theatrical release was. Coppola took the negative response to these additions on board and ended up releasing his “final Cut” in 2019 for the films 40th anniversary in which he trimmed back the running time again to 183 minutes. Thankfully Coppola didn’t go down the George Lucas route and close off audience access to the primary effort and we can pick and choose which version it is that we want to enjoy. And for me that will always be the original cinema cut.

If ‘Hamburger Hill’, ‘Full Metal Jacket’ or ‘Platoon’ are most realistic and flat depictions of the Vietnam War out of the batch of movies made about that conflict, then ‘Apocalypse Now’ is probably the most entertaining and it effortlessly shows the sheer madness of that war through a lens of absurdity. No doubt this is helped by the deranged nature of its actual filming, which I’m sure had its own affect. But as a film onto itself, it’s a great watch, even if the viewer knows nothing about the war, and over 45 years later it remains one of the greatest of American film making achievements and something that we’ll, probably, never see the likes of again.

10/10

flasher0030

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123054424#Comment_123054424

I'm going to have to watch this again. I watched that longer version (with the French plantation scene) about 15 years ago. That was the only time I saw Apocalypse Now and I thought it was such a bore. Maybe a more patient and mature older me will appreciate it better. I guess at the time I was looking for an all-out war movie, with action, shooting and military tactics. But Apocalypse seems more of a character driven movie and slow dialogue.

flasher0030

James Bond

I watched all of the Daniel Craig Bond movies in the past week. Other than Casino Royale, I had only seen them the once when they were released, so couldn't remember most of the detail in them. Great entertainment. With the time period between the releases, I hadn't realised that the storyline flowed so well from one movie to another. But watching them almost one after the other allows for that storyline to be followed easier. Skyfall is brilliant. But the last 2 - Spectre and No Time To Die are much better than I had recalled when I saw them in the cinema. Quantum of Solace is probably the weakest. For me anyway.

adrian522

Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (5/5)

This is a documentary, but unlike any other documentary I've seen. I'll be very surprised if it doesn't win the oscar. It covers a wide range of topics and is all soundtracked by fantastic Jazz throughout.

It is mainly concerned with DR Congo, its independence from Belgium and the subsequent conflict. it also covers a lot of the goings on at the UN, the cold war (Nikolai Khrushchev features prominently, as does Fidel Castro), the CIA and the US government using Jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong for propaganda purposes. This is really excellent.

Tangerine (4/5)

Inspired to go watch this 2015 Sean Baker movie after watching Anora. The movie concerns the lives of transgender sex workers in LA on Christmas Eve. It's all shot on mobile phones apparently and it does give the feeling of fly on the wall sort of footage.

The movie is quite short at 90 Mins but I found myself very invested in it. The story is quite basic but you get drawn into the world of the characters quite easily. I wasn't really expecting to like this one but I think its a really well done movie.

steve_r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123054634#Comment_123054634

I did something similar last year - went through all the bond films. It's an interesting franchise that went from being innovative at the start to reactive at times and it's tonally quite different - contrast the campy Roger Moore films with the grittier Dalton films.

The one unexpected gem in there was On Her Majesty's Secret Service - Lazenby isn't an amazing bond but the film is really well made and holds up far better than some of the movies that came after it (which often looked quite cheap from a production perspective). Likewise I think the Dalton films would fare better today than they seem to have done at the time. Brosnan's films are all over the map but Tomorrow Never Dies with the villain as a media mogul is an interesting concept.

The Craig films are the most consistent of the franchise and the overarching plot you mentioned does help to knit them together.

odyssey06

Film adjacent… from Roger Moore with Love aired on BBC2 over xmas.

It was a biographical look at Moore's life and career, with narration by Steve Coogan as Roger Moore(!) looking back on his own life.
The concept took a bit of getting used to but then clicked and I thought it worked very well. I don't think it would work for most stars but it worked here as Moore came across as self deprecating in the footage of him.

al87987

A Real Pain - 7.5/10

Eisenberg and Culkin perform well in roles that aren't exactly a stretch for either of them. JE wrote & directed too.

Film was good and I do love a movie that is in an out in 90 minutes.

Anora - 8/10

Red Rocket is a favourite of mine, so was really looking forward to this. I think the movie is stronger in the 1st half than the 2nd but really enjoyed it.

Mikey Madison was great and should be there or thereabouts for the awards but I haven't seen the other contenders yet.

Gladiator 2 - 5/10

Not great at all. Don't really get the Denzel love either.

Juror #2 - 7/10

What a great concept for a movie. Again another one I thought started really strong and then trailed off a little. I still enjoyed it but think this could have been a classic courtroom thriller and it falls short of that.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123054615#Comment_123054615

If you do sit down to it again, do so with the original release version. It's tighter and less waffly than either of the longer cuts, whose additions really offered little. At two and a half hours, it's not a short film. But it's paced much, much, better.

In any case, it's certainly not a film for everyone. But then nothing is.

Fysh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123055000#Comment_123055000

I have never once made it through Apocalypse Now in any cut without feeling at least tempted to take a nap; to mangle a phrase from Douglas Adams, I find its pacing is not so much laid-back as horizontal.

It's a handsome film for sure, and has some bravura sequences in it that are astonishing. But personally I find Brando's Kurtz a let-down (and not just for the once-seen-cannot-be-unseen framing of the shots to enable Brando to read his lines from a script...), and the pacing of the thing even in its un-tinkered-with version is just leaden in a way that doesn't work for me, probably in part because I know at the end of it I've got That Disappointing Brando Turn waiting for me. I see that performance overall as much more of a "Coppola making do with what he's got" than Brando having anything clever or insightful to bring to bear.

I don't say all of this to try and be a clever contrarian or anything - I expect some of my issue with the film is that having heard hushed whispers about it for years, it was always going to struggle to live up to the myth. And I'm fairly sure my first viewing was of the Redux cut just to add a kick in the bits 😅

I'd say The Conversation is my favourite Coppola film, in part because it caught me completely by surprise - it has much less buzz around it than Apocalypse Now but blew me away with its mix of technical cleverness on the narrative side and a phenomenal performance from Gene Hackman.

Decuc500

Thieves Like Us

Robert Altman’s 1974 crime drama set during the Great Depression.

Altman couldn’t really do much wrong in the 70’s. Thieves Like Us meshes his documentary like style with the gangster movie.

Keith Carradine is his usual charismatic self as one of a trio of escaped bank robbers who hide out with relatives while continuing to rob banks. Shelly Duvall is the daughter of a friend they are staying with, who Carradine falls in love with. Duvall is really excellent. Naïve and childish, she doesn’t really know what she is getting into. Duvall was so great in these Altman movies during this period, you’d wonder how she didn’t become one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

File alongside Bonnie and Clyde and John Milius’s underrated Dillinger.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123055265#Comment_123055265

Well, you don't ever have to like a film. If something is not for you then it's not for you.

On Brando, he was always like that. Even on 'Mutiny on the Bounty' he turned up to the set without a single line from the script in his head. Richard Harris called him a "large, dreadful, nightmare" and I've no doubt that he was. But I still find his Kurtz fascinating. Hell, I found his Fr. Moreau fascinating. In fact, I kinda really like 1996's 'The Island of Dr. Moreau'. There's another crazy shoot. If you haven't already, check out the documentary 'Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau'.

The "Brando turn" is less used in 'Apocalypse Now', though, because he wrote most of his own dialogue. But there were still set crew members with large idiot boards off camera and he got up to his usual antics too, like shutting down production for three weeks while he and Coppola took a boat to nowhere to "discuss" Kurtz. He also gave Dennis Hopper a torrid time as well.

'The Conversation' I'd consider one of Coppola's greats too. Alongside 'The Godfather', 'The Godfather Part II' and 'Apocalypse Now'. It's strange for a film maker as feted as Coppola is that all of his greatest work is limited to one decade and he hasn't made a truly great film in over 40 years.

Kaybaykwah

OPPENHEIMER.

What a dud. awful script. Bad direction, acting is pedestrian, music is wall-to-wall thuds and screeches.

It also won the best picture awards at the Oscars, as well as best actor, best supporting such, best music, best direction, etc…

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123085367#Comment_123085367

How dare you. Don't you know our Cillian is in it, and he is so amazing, so it's an amazing film, if not the best film ever.

Kaybaykwah

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123085531#Comment_123085531

Yes, lots o’ laffs, your Cillian is in it, and Christopher Nolan is of Irish extraction. Good for them, and they are not bad eggs, in and of themselves, another lol.

But the movie is lousy, and it won’t be better 50 years from now.

jj880

Black Box Diaries [2024]

Excellent documentary about outdated sex crime law and society attitude in Japan. Trying to remember when I last watched a documentary that moved me as much as this especially a scene involving a phone call to a security guard towards the end.

Journalist Shiori Ito conducts an investigation into her own sexual assault, aiming to bring the prominent perpetrator to justice. Her pursuit evolves into a significant legal case, revealing the antiquated judicial and societal frameworks in Japan.

sprucemoose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122974100#Comment_122974100

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123028579#Comment_123028579

not a spanish speaker myself but my other half is from south america - apparently part of the problem with selena gomez's performance is that she can't really speak spanish that well and so is not convincing in her delivery. the dialogue/lyrics also seem to have just put through google translate at times and not actually adapted to make use of local phrasing - there is a slang term for pregnant that is directly translated from french but doesnt mean the same thing in spanish for example

without having watched the full thing personally, it seems like they were going for early Pedro Almodovar-style absurd camp but missed the mark completely

monkeyactive

Nosferatu 2024

Maybe a little underwhelmed by this.

I really like Eggers style and the feel of his films. But for some reason they never blow me away the way I want them to.

I never have the urge to rewatch his stuff which for me says a lot.

I think stylistically his stuff is awesome but he hasn't balanced it with the art of great storytelling or of reeling in a viewer and keeping them there.

Like the Northman this starts off great but begins to lose steam and become a bit dialogue heavy and stagnant once the plot is underway.

I appreciate his fresh take on a Vampire but it just didn work for me. I found myself yearning for the simple awesomeness of Garry Oldmans Count.

I think making a Dracula Movie covering the same ground as F F Copellas Masterpiece is a risky undertaking and I don't think it compared, in entertainment value at least.

Some truly inspired performances such as the put upon central lady driven insane by the psychic hold of the Count but as I said not enough there that I think I'll ever see myself revisiting.

Good but not Great.

Irish Aris

Second attempt on The Zone of Interest (2023). The first time, in a cinema, I was very tired and couldn't get into it at all (I think I may have dozed off for a few minutes).

This is a film that I admired more than I liked. And there is a lot to admire. The sound design has been complemented a lot and for good reason: both the peripheral sounds and the drones (I believe this is the score that Mica Levi composed) are exceptional and elevate the mundane images we see in front of us. The production design is also flawless, with the internal shots being exceptionally good. And the performances from the leading actors, particularly Sandra Hüller are very good.

The only thing that was missing for me is the emotional attachment to what was happening, no matter how ordinary. Maybe it's because the story is so well known and I could easily imagine what the off screen sounds meant. I reckon, at least to an extend, this is on purpose, and director Jonathan Glazer has hinted as much. But that made me feel like an observer, one that can't get close (for lack of a better phrase) to what is happening on screen. Thus my initial comment of admiring the film more than I liked it. Still though a very good film.

buried

The Thing (1982)

One of the greatest films made within the last 50 years, I was snowed in a couple of weeks ago with the winter weather and I said I'd give this a spin as I haven't seen it in a long time, and it seemed fitting, the whole work being about being trapped in the snow while some dastardly greedy scumlife just wants to set itself up to literally devour you and everything else it can get its greedy useless tentacles on. Just fantastic stuff, proper storytelling infused with proper science fiction horror to make the thing way more believable and entertaining than the vast majority of anything similar being made nowadays. I only recently found out this was released the same day as 'Blade Runner' and 'Road Warrior'. Imagine going to the cinema for the day and watching the three of these films in a row at their introduction to audiences.

9/10

Irish Aris

For the last few months I went through the feature films of Studio Ghibli. Before that I have only seen only two of them, Spirit Away and Howl's Moving Castle which I both liked a lot. As I did the vast majority of the catalogue here. The technique that the studio uses really appeals to me. There is such a lovely warmth in the colour palette that all the films occupy, it's like being in a museum and looking at beautiful painting after beautiful painting. So the only thing that would differentiate good and. . .less good are the stories. And the majority of the stories are just superb. it's proper storytelling and screenplay and animation design work hand in hand smoothly and effortlessly.

Lots of films that I would recommend: My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Only Yesterday, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo, The Wind Rises, The Tale Of Princess Kaguya, When Marnie Was There, The Red Turtle, and the recent The Boy And The Heron. No surprise really that Hayao Miyazaki features heavily in this list. As co-founder of the studio, he is probably responsible for the ethos applied to everything Ghibli does. At least 3 of his films (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and The Wind Rises, I would consider among the best animation films of all times. The other co-founder Isao Takahata's Only Yesterday is also on the same list.

Only one film that I really didn't like: Goro Miyazaki's Earwig and the Witch. Now, it didn't help that I watched the English version (for some reason Netflix didn't have the original Japanese version). But I think even if I had watched the original, I would have still struggled with the fact that the film abandons the traditional Ghibli style, for digital/CG animation (and I am very glad that The Boy and The Heron returned to the traditional animation). Plus the story wasn't particularly intriguing. Goro Miyazaki is also responsible for another of the weaker Ghibli efforts, the way-too-ambitious Tales Of The Earthsea.

Overall though, I am extremely glad that I watched these films. And I would like to thank everyone for the recommendations, since the catalogue became available at Netflix.

buried

Nosferatu (2024)

Was really disappointed with this. Felt more like a tacky soap opera that takes itself way way too seriously. I'm getting sick to death of these loud bassy soundtracks in modern Hollywood films that just go "BBBWWWWWAAAAAAHHHHHHHMMM" in the background in order to plaster in some tension that isn't executed in the writing. It was getting old two years ago and it needs to stop. Another thing that needs to stop is this incessant desire to have as many close up shots of characters that seems to be infesting films lately. This film is laden with them, it even got a point in this that I thought I was watching an episode of 'Peep Show' from Channel 4. These constant close up shots are a big big problem, Dune Part Two suffers from this new fandangled shtick in a similar manner. Everything looks very pretty/albeit stale when you do get some wide angle shots, nice lighting too, but there is no weight to any of it when 78% of the film is basically looking at peoples faces. No charm or craic to anything in this. Terrible shame. Herzog's version blasts this thing out of the pond. 3/10

buried

The Funeral (1996)

Abel Ferrara always gave his audiences the straight dope and this underrated period gangster drama set in early 20th Century united states gives it to you good. Fantastic film that's never given any credit but is highly watchable and re-watchable. Featuring a fantastic cast including Christopher Walken, Benicio Del Toro, Isabella Rossellini, Chris Penn, Vincent Gallo, Annabella Sciorra and a rake of other fine actors that were to make their mark in the likes of 'The Sopranos'/'Boardwalk Empire'. Whole thing revoles around the death of a member of a local mafia crime syndicate and the ultimate fallout when the dysfunctional mindset falls apart due to its psychotic desire for revenge. Absolutely brilliant film, Ferrara made many great films, but this thing is his masterpiece and was a serious influence for a raft of work that was to follow in the early 2000's including 'The Sopranos'/'Boardwalk Empire'/'The Wire' etc. 9/10

jj880

Hud 1963

Giant 1956

The Sting 1973

Got a projector for Christmas. Last few weekends my father who is 76 is over to watch movies from when he grew up. Tonight was The Sting with great performances from Newman, Redford and Robert Shaw who played Quint in Jaws. Such an excellent watch. They dont make them like that anymore. Next week its Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid 1969.

Black Swan

Avatar in Real 3D

Homelander

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123172725#Comment_123172725

It's a shame that 3D tech got ruined by 90% of movies being lazy conversions in post. Avatar made me buy a 3D TV and a 3D capable monitor to run games in 3D as well.

Unfortunately apart from Avatar there wasn't many movies worth watching in 3D. The vast majority were either barely 3D, a dark, blurry mess, or a combination of both.

jj880

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123172938#Comment_123172938

I have watched some 3D movies on my Quest headset and although Journey To The Centre Of The Earth 2008 was decent I was underwhelmed by others.

Would a VR headset show Avatar to the 3D depth you are talking about here?

Irish Aris

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

I only became aware of this film 2 years ago, when it topped the Sight and Sound's best films of all time list (as voted by directors, film critics etc.). I took the opportunity of a screening at IFI and decided to give it a try. The screening was sold out and it was great to see the IFI buzzing on a Sunday morning (there was also a sold out screening of I'm Still Here). I went in knowing nothing about the film - other than its duration of 3 hours and 20 minutes.

This is a film that requires patience. A lot of patience.

We see 3 days in the life of the title heroine, Jeanne. The vast majority of the story takes place in her apartment (the address is also on the title). The story starts in the middle of day 1, just before Jeanne has sex with a man: she works as a prostitute, though it is implied that she has a few regulars and she only sees one man per day. The film follows her in her daily routine: shopping, doing housework, preparing and cooking meals, having dinner with her son. The first 90 minutes of the film (up to the moment were the man on day 2 arrives) were for me the most difficult to get through. There is nothing really happening, we just see Jeanne doing mundane staff around the house, Some sequences are quite drawn out. The appeal for me was that I was familiar with what I was seeing, it reminded me of my own childhood and similar things that my mother would do around the house. This segment is required though, as it establishes Jeanne's routine in great detail and the subtle changes later on make more sense. For example, how she always switched the light off when leaving a room, closing doors and windows, putting the lid back on the bowl where she keeps the money.

After having sex with the man on day 2, Jeanne seems absent minded, she forgets things she does routinely. She leaves doors and windows open, leaves the light on when leaving rooms, forgets to put the lid back on the money bowl, overcooks the potatoes (and then wanders around the apartment with the pot in her hands). It is never explained what caused this state of mind, I had to go online and read about it, so there is a mystery to it. This situation continues until the incident at the end of the film (which I won't reveal in case people would like to see the film without knowing). Although this second part lasts a good 2 hours and still nothing particular happens, it is more interesting to see all these small things happening and tie them up to earlier in the film. There are a few outdoor takes here (Jeanne shopping) which provide a small variety, although again is just… well, shopping.

The film is executed well. The long takes, according to Akerman, were on purpose, as she didn't want a frantic editing. The apartment looks nice, bright, clean, very familiar and I think it is quite important in the film progression. And Delphine Seyrig carries the film beautifully.

Ultimately though, and despite all the positives, I left the cinema with a feeling of much ado about nothing (or probably much ado about little 😛). The minimalist approach kind of creates a distance and I never felt I really connected with what was happening. There is also a coldness to it: even the way the actors say their lines comes across as completely lacking emotion and at times feels "robotic" - I reckon this was on purpose and fitted the overall film approach, but didn't really appeal to me.

Thus, this goes to the category of films I admire more than I like. Still a good, interesting film and I don't regret spending the time watching it. It was definitely a good decision to see it in the cinema, I'm not sure I would have been able to maintain the same focus streaming it at home. Also a good decision to see it early on a Sunday, after a good night's sleep, as I was fresher and able to really focus. Finally, a film that I don't intend to watch again, as I don't think I would get anything more from repeated watching.

Decuc500

The Kingdom

Seen at the Dublin Film Festival.

A French drama set on the island of Corsica.

A teenage girl is sent to stay with her gangster father who is hiding out in the Corsican countryside with his gang, avoiding the police and other gangs who want to kill him. They spend a long hot summer bonding with each other, constantly on the move, as the fathers gang are carrying out revenge killings while being targeted themselves. Inevitably the girl gets involved in the violence to predictably shattering results.

This was a real slow burner of a film, really about family and the idea of being unable to escape the cycle of revenge. It was kind of gripping though and the end was satisfying. Recommended.

Decuc500

More from the Dublin Film Festival…

Chain Reactions

I don’t normally like watching documentaries in a cinema but I thought this was fantastic. It’s five people talking about how The Texas Chainsaw Massacre affected them (one of them is Stephen King) and is divided into five chapters as each person talks about the film.

TCM had a big impact on me when I first saw it so it’s fascinating to hear all these interesting insights and takes on the film. A very well put together documentary. It wasn’t just a series of talking head interviews. There’s plenty of footage and outtakes from the film. Makes you appreciate this weird and disturbing film even more, if that’s possible.

Sharp Corner

Thought this was a gem. A Canadian/Irish co-production. A couple and their young son move into their seemingly perfect new house in the countryside only to realise the bend in the road opposite the house causes frequent crashes.

The husband becomes obsessed with the crashes and the idea of saving the life of a crash victim. It starts to take over his life at the expense of his marriage and job.

It’s blackly comic and gripping. One of those dark character studies that Jack Nicholson or De Niro did in the 70’s. Ben Foster is great in the lead role.

The Ballad of Wallis Island

This was the Surprise Film. A comedy about a folk singer and his estranged ex who are booked to play a gig on a remote Island. The eccentric guy who booked them just wants to get the duo back together for his own private gig. It’s sweet and charming and very funny. Quite a good choice for the surprise film. It just premiered in Sundance.