What have you watched recently? 3D!

al87987

Unstoppable 7/10

Denzel and Chris Pine try stop a runaway train in Tony Scotts last movie, enjoyable enough fast paced action flick that comes in at a nice 96 minutes.

Before sunrise 9/10
Watched again for the first time in a few years, Richard Linklater's tale of an american guy and French girl that meet on a train and spend one night together walking around Vienna. One of the best. Great dialogue and acting.

Ford vs Ferrari 6/10
Type of film i should like but couldn't get into it at all, didn't care about any of the characters or the story really, baffled by the high praise and critical reviews, inifinitely worse than Rush imo.

Marriage story 9/10
Great tale of a married couple splitting up. Thought it went really well into the nuts and bolts of how awful a divorce can be. Driver should get the oscar and maybe even Scarlett Johansson too. Far better than i thought it would be.

Del.Monte

Back to YouTube over the last couple of evenings and I kicked off with an ancient movie about British India from 1959.

North West Frontier (1959) starring Kenneth More, Lauren Bacall, Herbert Lom and Wilfrid Hyde-White.

A small group of English people and a young Indian prince make a mad dash across India on an ancient train pursued by hordes of Muslim tribesmen intent on their destruction. Has aged surprisingly well and held my attention for the two-hour plus duration. Rail enthusiasts might also enjoy. 10/10

Last Rights (2005) 3-part mini series from Channel 4.

Suitable rewatch for the times we live in. Highly satisfying - ultimately - political thriller set in Britain after a new right wing party comes to power and sets about turning back the clock on democracy. 9/10

Tony EH

Del.Monte wrote: »

North West Frontier (1959) starring Kenneth More, Lauren Bacall, Herbert Lom and Wilfrid Hyde-White.

A small group of English people and a young Indian prince make a mad dash across India on an ancient train pursued by hordes of Muslim tribesmen intent on their destruction. Has aged surprisingly well and held my attention for the two-hour plus duration. Rail enthusiasts might also enjoy. 10/10

Oh wow...I haven't seen that picture in years. I have fond memories of my old man and me sitting down one rainy Sunday to watch this on the telebox many years ago.

He used to tell me he looked like Kenneth More when he was younger. :pac:

santana75

The best of Enemies

Came across this by chance on Sky the other night. Sam Rockwell was in it, so me being the simple man that I am, I see Sam Rockwell I watch. Im glad I did because its a great little film. Its about racism in the deep south during the early 70s, based on a true story. I dont know how this one disappeared at the cinema because its a lot better than most films I've seen in theatres recently. Sam Rockwell is great, as expected, but so to is everyone else. Wes Bentley shows up as one of Rockwell's characters klans men, and he is very good. Almost didnt recognize him at first, its been a while since American Beauty. Glad to see him back after a rough patch of drug addiction. Anyway you could do a lot worse than this movie, its very entertaining but not too heavy for such a serious subject matter. The ending is magnificent.

pixelburp

Diego Maradonna (2019)

As one contributor to the film observed, the story of Maradonna's life can be neatly surmised with his turbulent time living in Naples. A fascinating, hands off journey of a gifted athlete slowly consumed by his own hype; an ego out of control as he fell into an orbit of Italian organised crime, an orbit that arguably ruined his career & personal life. With modern sports stars such an insulted, heavily curated brand nowadays, it's fascinating and almost heartbreaking to watch a time before then, of a single individual living such a lonely and self-destructive life within the spotlight, surrounded by so many well wishers or vultures, but few friends. Another fantastic entry in Asif Kapadia's growing CV of documentaries on flawed talent.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I watched Ryan's Daughter there and my word it's bloody long! The scenery looks amazing, especially considering it was filmed 50 years ago, but other than that it's a whole lot of nothing. I had a look at the trivia section on IMDb and the making of the film sounds way more interesting than the story in the film itself. Robert Mitchum was growing weed in the hotel garden, the guy that played the British soldier had had an affair with Sharon Tate and she was killed while they were filming Ryan's Daughter so he was a mess and in the end his entire performance was dubbed by someone else. Several people involved retired from the industry after filming ended because the experience was so bad.

Del.Monte

Ah no, Ryan's Daughter is one of the best Irish films ever made and it would be one that I'd have to bring to my desert island.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0qXgUvQo2s

Superb scenery, storyline, cast and haunting soundtrack what more could you ask?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Del.Monte wrote: »

Ah no, Ryan's Daughter is one of the best Irish films ever made and it would be one that I'd have to bring to my desert island.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0qXgUvQo2s

Superb scenery, storyline, cast and haunting soundtrack what more could you ask?

Why is it 3 hours and 16 minutes long though!

Weirdly enough I watched the whole thing, I did it in several sittings but I finished it, so there was obviously something keeping my interest.

shrapnel222

Richard Jewell

strong drama very well put together by Clint Eastwood. great performances by the main protagonists

7.5/10

shrapnel222

Queen & Slim

strange road movie with 2 people who've just met being on the run together from the get go. Quite subdued characters all in all, and as it's a pretty long movie, it has a lot of quiet moments in what i imagine is a very frantic time, which works pretty well.

Enjoyed it although it took a bit of time to get into it, but can't rate it that highly either

5/10

Decuc500

Tommaso

Abel Ferrara visited the IFI for his latest and gave a lively (to say the least) Q&A afterwards.

Willem Dafoe plays an American film maker living in Rome, working on a screenplay while trying to cope with being free from substance abuse. Ferrara's former partner and daughter play Dafoe's family in the film so it's not too hard to see this is partly autobiographical.

I thought it was a superb, semi-improvised drama. It turned a bit surreal towards the end. Dafoe was excellent as always. Great to see an Abel Ferrara film on the big screen. He’s an uncompromising talent, always doing his own thing.

Very weird to see one of my former work colleagues appearing in the movie!

shrapnel222

Waves

film of 2 halves following the lives of a Miami family of 4. Really enjoyed the spiralling first half. 2nd half was more subtle but still enjoyable.

5/10

Dades

Just watched Zombieland: Double Tap.
Had only heard lukewarm things about it so hadn't much expectations.

Loved it. A lot of fun without trying to up the stakes on the last one.
It's all about the cast who are obviously the reason the first was so good.

The Luke Wilson + buddy cameo was genius.

al87987

Rewatching some of my fav movies:

I saw the devil- 9/10
Korean movie. Ultimate revenge film, very violent and bat**** crazy in a lot of places. Very fun but not for the squeamish.

Incendies - 9/10
Twins trace their mothers story after her death. Canadian film in French. Crazy story, great payoff.

The prestige - 9/10
Rival magicians try to one up the other, Christopher Nolan flick so plenty of time jumping.

Prisoners -8/10
Two missing girls, father will do anything to find them. Hugh jackman and Jake Gylenhaal immense.

shrapnel222

A hidden life

visually stunning. this is almost a silent movie with background noise and voiceovers. at 3 hours long it's a handful but i thought it was superb, and incredibly tender, and the contrast between his 2 worlds is heartbreaking.

Great film and most likely a marmite film, you'll either love it or hate it.

8/10

shrapnel222

Dark waters

small town vs big chemical company drama, although very formulaic is still quite an enjoyable watch.

6/10

NIMAN

This thread is great for discovering good films that I missed when out.

I'll be checking out Prisoners and A Hidden Life soon.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Thoroughbreds

Two teenage girls (Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy) rekindle their friendship a few years after one of them did something that ended it. It's hard to say much more about it without giving the entire plot away. It's very darkly funny and it's mostly just the two main characters, but the script, performances and directing are all so good that you could watch them for hours. Anton Yelchin features in a supporting role, his last film before his death.

cdgalwegian

NIMAN wrote: »

This thread is great for discovering good films that I missed when out.

I'll be checking out Prisoners and A Hidden Life soon.

In that case Incendies mentioned above should be checked out as well. Terrific story, switching between an unnamed North African/Middle East country's civil war (Algeria?) and Canada, with a great finale.
A Denis Villeneuve film. It's a bit long, but well worth it.

Fysh

I caught The Sugarland Express on Mubi, Spielberg's feature directorial debut. It's a very confident film for a first feature length film, and a good showcase of Spielberg's strengths as a director...

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Apostasy

Released a couple of years ago it's written and directed by a man who grew up in the Jehovah's Witness faith, leaving as a young adult.

The film focuses on a single mother raising her two daughters in the faith. The youngest has just turned 18 and is a devout follower having struggled most of her life with the fact she was given a blood transfusion as a baby to save her life. The older sister is at college and starting to question their beliefs when she falls pregnant and is immediately disfellowshipped from the faith. Part of this punishment means her family have to shun her too and aren't allowed any communication or contact with her.

It's a real slow and quiet film but it draws you in and while it never really openly questions the faith in it's dialogue or ridicules it's members it still manages to paint a less than pleasant picture of this cultish organisation. The three women carry the whole thing and they all give really controlled and effective performances.

It's probably not everyone's cup of tea but I think it's worth checking out if you can.

briany

Real Life (1979)

Comedy starrying Albert Brooks and Charles Grodin. Albert Brooks, playing a fictionalised version of himself, leads a film crew in an effort to document a year in the life of a typical American family. Things don't go quite according to plan...

Where's this one been hiding? Really funny, smart send-up of reality TV and cinema verité documentaries.

dreamers75

The VelociPastor

Read the synopsis a few weeks ago and was compelled to watch it.

After losing his parents, a priest travels to China, where he inherits a mysterious ability that allows him to turn into a dinosaur. At first horrified by this new power, a hooker convinces him to use it to fight crime. And ninjas.

Whoever wrote that synopsis nailed it 100%, it is exactly that. Still thinking about it now, nothing is explained, nothing makes sense. 3 thumbs up from me

Freaks

In the mould of Brightburn but felt very rushed towards the end, i get that the kid (very well played) is going tru a lot of emotions but it kinda starts slow then zips along to completion at around 60 minutes in.....another 20 minutes and maybe paced out the last section as it was basically videogame type stuff. There was no sense of dread in the

escape section

Good film but really feel a few tricks were missed, hiding the powers of others then seeing them all in a frenetic end was a wasted oppurtunity imo.

Sugarlumps

Along came Polly – Philip Seymour Hoffman is an odd choice, always wondered how he ended up in this. Nice pick me up film. Ferret steals the show.

Fysh

I watched The Pleasure Of Being Robbed by the Safdie brothers on Mubi (just before it left). While less intense and frenetic than either Good Time or Uncut Gems, it definitely feels like a companion film to Uncut Gems in particular. The protagonist, Eleonore, is a thoroughly unlikeable small-time thief who may or may not have some sort of behavioural disorder, and the entirety of the film is dedicated to following her largely-aimless and unstructured life in New York.

Eleonore is very much living for the present moment, so there's a certain tension of waiting endlessly to see the repercussions of her actions, but it's a different sort of tension to the manic stress induced by Uncut Gems.

It's not exactly a big or boisterous film, but it's nicely observed and there's a lovely sequence towards the end

where we see Eleonore imagining herself free to interact with animals in the zoo and befriending a polar bear

which shows a bit more of her interior life.

Dades

Le Mans '66 (Ford v Ferrari across the pond).

I should have loved this as a classic car nut, but thought it was just "pretty good".

60's setting was really well realised and the acting was up there... just something missing either in the story or the direction that kept it from hitting another level for me.

Tony EH

'Beverley Hills Cop'

Classic 80's cop movie (can you call 80's films classics? Um, I spose you can) with comic undertones and a young Eddie Murphy who was at the top of his game, fresh off of the success of '48 hrs.' and 'Trading Places'. This type of stuff was perfect for a 1980's Murphy and he leads the charge here brilliantly, with jokes that land but are never over the top or cringy in a story that suffices well enough. Although 'Beverly Hills Cop' will probably play better to people who remember it as a video treat 30 odd years ago, it's well worth checking out if you weren't around then or never saw it before. Easily one of the best films of its type.

8/10


'Beverley Hills Cop II'

A pretty shameless sequel that essentially plays as a repeat of the 1984 movie in many ways, but it's not entirely without its own entertainment value. It is, however, a pretty mediocre effort and even though Murphy is, again, pretty good as is most of the rest of the cast, it just cannot match the first film or capture its charm.

5/10


'Beverley Hills Cop III'

While No. 2 was average, 'Beverley Hills Cop III' (released ten years after the first film) is just awful. It's indicative of everything that was wrong with a lot of 90's movies, in that it's overblown, feels awfully shallow and it's deeply unsatisfying. Murphy tries in spurts, but he just seems tired here as he goes through the motions and there's an absolutely wretched performance by Theresa Randle that has to be seen to be believed. The script is simply dreck and it's hilarious to think that this was the one that was picked out from a string of rejections. It's almost as if John Landis just didn't care and after about 30 minutes in, neither did I.

2/10

pixelburp

There are only 2 Beverley Hills movies Tony, what are you even talking about?

Same way there are only 3 Alien movies, 2 Chris. Reeve Superman movies, or 2 Godfathers

Tony EH

Must have been some awful dream then Pix.

I think the second one is pretty good. Very entertaining and lots of funny bits in it. Not quite as sharp as the first but still pretty cool if you ask me.

The third is indeed brutal!