What have you watched recently? 3D!

gmisk

Spontaneous (8/10)

Really good fun!
Odd mix of dark comedy and rom com.
The two leads are excellent.

I didn't know anything about it, best to go in blind.

Blurb below

When students in their high school inexplicably start to explode, seniors Mara and Dylan struggle to survive in a world where each moment may be their last. As an unexpected romance blossoms between them, they soon discover that when tomorrow is no longer promised, they can finally start living for today.

gmisk

olvias wrote: »

I watched Top Secret! Possibly one of the funniest films ever made.

Hilarious up there with airplane and naked gun as one of the funniest films of all time

Harry Palmr

olvias wrote: »

I watched Top Secret! Possibly one of the funniest films ever made.

They'll never top the cow disguise scene!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

gmisk wrote: »

Spontaneous (8/10)

Really good fun!
Odd mix of dark comedy and rom com.
The two leads are excellent.

I didn't know anything about it, best to go in blind.

I saw the trailer for this a while ago and thought it looked.... interesting. Didn't realise it was already out.

gmisk

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I saw the trailer for this a while ago and thought it looked.... interesting. Didn't realise it was already out.

It is definitely interesting...it's online.
I doubt it will be for everyone but I really liked it, hard to categorise

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

gmisk wrote: »

It is definitely interesting...it's online.
I doubt it will be for everyone but I really liked it, hard to categorise

It looks like something that would be right up my street. Think I'll stick it on over the weekend.

barrymanilow

Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior

Mad Max 3 Beyond the Thunder dome

Re-watched these after not seeing them for decades,

Mad Max 3 is the one where they obviously had earned a decent budget and could pull in some star power but The road warrior is the superior film. Tongue in cheek enough to get away with its own ridiculousness it taps along at a good pace and is eventful and packed with as much spectacle as was probably doable/affordable in a time where there was no CGI, just creative costume departments and lots of stunt men flinging cars up ramps and lighting themselves on fire. The feral wolf child is an ingenious character and he lends the film another dimension in his interactions with Max.Good craic 8/10

Honest Thief - 2020

Liam Neeson should have refused this one. The plot and script are beyond dire.
Absolute muck.

3 / 10

glasso

glasso wrote: »

Honest Thief - 2020

Liam Neeson should have refused this one. The plot and script are beyond dire.
Absolute muck.

3 / 10

Surely slandering Liam is an automatic 2 week forum ban????

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Surely slandering Liam is an automatic 2 week forum ban????

"Honest Thief" makes "Taken 3" look like Oscar Best Picture material.

Harry Palmr

Westworld (1973) Dir Michael Crichton

Who also wrote this prototype when AI goes 'worng' thriller. Still enjoyable 88 minutes with James Brolin and Richard Benjamin as the visitors and Yul Brynner as the cyborg gunslinger. The odd thing is why Crichton thought a high tech machine with futuristic sensors would see the world through crummy low definition dot matrix rather than simply show clear high definition vision like actual humans (plus heat sensing)!

From such low grade seedlings CGI was grown.

barrymanilow

The Rover



An A24 film. Violent , fairly crazy and bleak except for a few hints of humanity here and there. The Film plays out in the Australian outback during what seems like the death throes of a civilization on the brink of collapse. Maybe a Mad Max crossover with a bit more realism and less chapless pants. We follow a psychotically intense Guy Pearce who is determined to get back what is his at any cost . Robert Patterson is in it and he acts very well. Not too much going on in it , but a compelling enough well put together show for what appears to be a fairly low budget.

7/10

IAMAMORON

Den of Thieves
2018

A classic example of an underrated movie. I have two major benchmarks when deciding if a film is any use. The first of these is, would I watch it again? The second is , did I check my watch?

This film passes both with great entertainment. Okay, cards on the table here, it is certainly no masterpiece and has some mammoth jaw dropping plot holes. However it manages to bridge the gap between fast and furious cheese and the subtlety required to engineer a decent heist movie with some panache. All the performances are great, in particular the chuntishness of the Gerard Butlers's Los Angeles version of the Sweeney, it really made the movie a triumph. I really enjoyed it and it is on the list for a rewatch.

The Hunt (Danish: Jagten) - 2012

Meant to watch this for quite a while. Very original piece about a teacher who gets accused of acting inappropriately with a very young child (who has made it up - all this is quickly covered in the movie - not really a spoiler). The movie focuses on what happens after that. Recommended.

7.5 / 10

al87987

glasso wrote: »

The Hunt (Danish: Jagten) - 2012

Meant to watch this for quite a while. Very original piece about a teacher who gets accused of acting inappropriately with a very young child (who has made it up - all this is quickly covered in the movie - not really a spoiler). The movie focuses on what happens after that. Recommended.

7.5 / 10

I think that it is a bit of a spoiler tbh. I've seen it and wouldn't want to know that before watching. Great film.

Den of thieves is also a guilty pleasure and a good rewatchable.

I watched Citizen Kane for the 1st time in preparation for Mank. Thought it was a bit of a slog, film looks pretty good all things considered. Filled in a few Simpsons references that passed me by at the time but it failed to make much of an impression, seemed pretty standard biopic stuff. Can't really understand the hype.

El Gato De Negocios

Scrooge (1951)

Classic version of A Christmas Carol starring Alistair Sim as Scrooge. Had never seen it and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Quite dark in places and Sim is fantastic in it, particularly when he has his change of heart. Definitely one that will join the Christmas rotation along with Its a Wonderful Life, Die Hard and Home Alone.

Falling Down (1993)

Michael Douglas stars as a mentally unhinged office drone who finally loses his marbles on a sweltering hot day in LA. Douglas is excellent, he plays "D-Fens" with a coldness that is palpable and Robert Duvall is as likable as ever as the cop on his tail. It would be hard to see this being made today considering many of the people attacked are ethnic minorities and the movie plays into some typical stereotypes (Korean shop owners overcharging). Parking the racist undertones this is a watchable story of a man who has finally had enough and takes a walk over the edge.

Tony EH

al87987 wrote: »

I watched Citizen Kane for the 1st time in preparation for Mank. Thought it was a bit of a slog, film looks pretty good all things considered. Filled in a few Simpsons references that passed me by at the time but it failed to make much of an impression, seemed pretty standard biopic stuff. Can't really understand the hype.

'Citizen Kane' improves greatly when you know the background to the film and how it was made. But, yeah, without that knowledge, it can be a bit of a mystery as to why it is held in such high regard.

beauf

The Cruel Sea (1953 film) War film about the Battle of the Atlantic. Just a classic movie. Most will probably see it as typical stiff upper life war movie. But its not really. It more about the human endurance, and sufferings in the battle of the Atlantic. Where was is 99% boredom and 1% terror. Never comes on TV so I got it on BR.

barrymanilow

Tenet

I was a bit disappointed with this. As a fan of Christopher Nolans films I had been looking forward to this. For me it was a bit of a clunky mess. I never cared about or had any emotional investment in the central characters and I never cared about what they were doing and why. Some of the time travel / action pieces were amazing at times but sometimes kind of baffling to the point where they seemed ridiculous. Some of the plot devices which took up large chunks of the film seemed wholly unnecessary. I found it bloody hard to follow and I can usually stay with most heady films. A line of mumbled dialogue that you miss could mean whole scenes not making sense , I felt like I had wandered into an applied physics lecture and was sitting down the back struggling desperately to follow. I don't think I'd ever watch it again. Still, hats off for the sheer ambition of the thing and Robert Patterson shone out in it.

6/10

al87987

al87987 wrote: »

I think that it is a bit of a spoiler tbh. I've seen it and wouldn't want to know that before watching. Great film.
.

I would disagree in this case. any description of the movie covers this and it's the setup for the actual premise of the movie, literally covered in the first 10 minutes. most people at least check the ratings and intro description (not full plot) of a film before watching it.

if you type in the movie name into google the summary wiki result that you see straight off in search results, without even going into a link is this

wikipedia.org › wiki › The_Hunt_(2012_film)
The Hunt (Danish: Jagten) is a 2012 Danish drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg and starring Mads Mikkelsen. The story is set in a small Danish village around Christmas, and follows a man who becomes the target of mass hysteria after being wrongly accused of sexually abusing a child in his kindergarten class.

Tony EH

'Dying Room Only'

Cloris Leechman and Dabney Coleman are an argumentative middle aged couple driving through Arizona on their way home to California. They stop off at a middle-of-nowhere motel to get something to eat, when the husband (Coleman) disappears.

A low budget TV movie based on a Richard Matheson short story that clocks in at an agreeable 75 minutes and plays through its yarn in a pleasing fashion. This 1973 effort (along with 'Duel') is probably one of the best examples of it's type, when American TV networks were pumping out a "movie of the week" and trying to keep people out of cinemas. It's nothing special, it has to be said. But it's nice seeing the old familiar faces, like Ned Beaty, Dana Elcar and Ross Martin, and it has that old 70's look that just isn't around any more. There's fine acting all round and a tense, uncomfortable, atmosphere throughout most of its runtime, even if the conclusion is a bit of a let down.


6/10

flasher0030

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Den of Thieves
2018

A classic example of an underrated movie. I have two major benchmarks when deciding if a film is any use. The first of these is, would I watch it again? The second is , did I check my watch?

This film passes both with great entertainment. Okay, cards on the table here, it is certainly no masterpiece and has some mammoth jaw dropping plot holes. However it manages to bridge the gap between fast and furious cheese and the subtlety required to engineer a decent heist movie with some panache. All the performances are great, in particular the chuntishness of the Gerard Butlers's Los Angeles version of the Sweeney, it really made the movie a triumph. I really enjoyed it and it is on the list for a rewatch.

I watched this on foot of your recommendation, and I would certainly vouch for it. Great entertainment. It’s a longish film at 2.5 hours but flew by. Great movie to watch with a couple of beers on a Saturday night where you’re not looking at the clock for work in the morning.
Lots of comparisons to Heat, which are fairly justified. But Den of Thieves stands on it’s own 2 feet as a very good movie.

I generally don’t go looking for plotholes and didn’t notice anything major in Den of Thieves. But I was watching another heist movie heist movie last night – actually called Heist with Robert De Niro. I enjoyed it for what it’s supposed to be at a very simplistic level, but you couldn’t ignore the plotholes in that. Kinda funny.

Kidnapper releases hostages from a bus and walks out as one of the hostages and hops into a police car and sails of into the sunset. To put that into a modern film is extremely lame.
And the twist that kidnapper’s “pregnant” sister takes $3m of the bus to bring to the hospital. Where did she keep the money. She’s going around a police station after coming off a hijacked bus with a big black bag full of $3m, and nobody asks any questions.
Why would DeNiro kill his henchman Derek at the end and effectively be done for murder. Could have just as easily ordered him not to kill our hero. And everybody just goes home.
Anyway could go on.

barrymanilow

Yes good shout on Den of Thieves , watched after seeing it here , good solid fun Heist film.

RocketRaccoon

Folks has anyone a recommendation for any thrillers released in the last 2 years or so? Thinking along the lines of Prisoners, Zodiac etc.

IAMAMORON

RocketRaccoon wrote: »

Folks has anyone a recommendation for any thrillers released in the last 2 years or so? Thinking along the lines of Prisoners, Zodiac etc.

These are labelled as Turkeys by Rotten Tomatoes yet I found them very watchable.

2013 - The Counselor - Ridley Scott - very underrated, not brilliant but very watchable.

If you are into David Fincher I presume you checked out the Netflix series Mindhunter? If you have not watched it yet I would highly recommend it, really good.

I thought Doctor Sleep the Stephen King adaptation of his sequel to the Shining not bad at all, albeit it is a supernatural thriller, I thought it was unfairly panned by a few critics, certainly worth a look.

RocketRaccoon

RocketRaccoon wrote: »

Folks has anyone a recommendation for any thrillers released in the last 2 years or so? Thinking along the lines of Prisoners, Zodiac etc.

No great thrillers last couple of years


Searching
Ava (watchable - not as bad as critics make out)
Revenge - 2017
The nest (not a thriller really but watchable imo)
The Hunt (2020 - watchable)

not the forum for asking for suggestions really.

barrymanilow

RocketRaccoon wrote: »

Folks has anyone a recommendation for any thrillers released in the last 2 years or so? Thinking along the lines of Prisoners, Zodiac etc.

Look to foreign shores ;

The accused 2018 Argentinian film

The invisible guest , 2016 Spanish film,

Marshland 2014 spanish film

Not exactly like the ones you mentioned but fairly decent crime thrillers

Homelander

Ava isn't that bad. It's fairly dumb but it's got charm and is an easy watch, I expected worse from the negative reviews.

The Hunt is a great movie but not sure I'd call it a thriller, almost more of a comedy.

Dragged Across Concrete, Devil All the Time, or The Informer might be worth a look.

Homelander

Homelander wrote: »

Ava isn't that bad. It's fairly dumb but it's got charm and is an easy watch, I expected worse from the negative reviews.

The Hunt is a great movie but not sure I'd call it a thriller, almost more of a comedy.

Dragged Across Concrete, Devil All the Time, or The Informer might be worth a look.

If Imdb has it down as a thriller that's good enough for me

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8244784/

Of course you have both thrillers and psychological thrillers . Both are thrillers.

al87987

RocketRaccoon wrote: »

Folks has anyone a recommendation for any thrillers released in the last 2 years or so? Thinking along the lines of Prisoners, Zodiac etc.

Wild tales - Amazing Argentinian movie that sounds right up your street.