What have you watched recently? 3D!

El Gato De Negocios

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120066588#Comment_120066588

If you haven't already, put This is England 86 and 88 on your watch list. 86 in particular is compelling, albeit difficult viewing by times.

steve_r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120076016#Comment_120076016

Yep, on the list for sure.

The Verdict - 1982

This is the story of an alcoholic lawyer (Paul Newman) who takes on a medical negligence case. Directed by Sidney Lumet, and written by David Mamet, this is a well-told story with a fine lead performance from Newman. There's also a strong supporting cast including James Mason, an actor I haven't seen a lot of, but really enjoyed in this, and The Deadly Affair (also directed by Lumet).

These legal dramas can tend to be predictable, however, I'd give the scriptwriting a lot of credit here for how the story is told - it doesn't fall victim to cliche and the characters (especially Newman) have an interesting and compelling arc. Overall I recommend it.

Intermission - 2003

I hadn't seen this for the best part of 15 years so I was curious how time had treated it. For anyone unaware of it, it's a Dublin story with an ensemble cast, including Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy and Colin Meaney (and many more).

Dublin in 2003 looks very different to Dublin today - hardly surprising given that it is 20 years old. Filmed before the smoking ban as well - which is surreal to see in the pubs!

I loved the opening scene and it's a great example of the charisma Farrell can bring to a role. It does a good job of introducing its ensemble cast, and despite limited screen time we get to know the characters quite well, which reflects well on the writing and the acting. I think where the film struggles is the lack of depth given to Farrell's character (who is pretty much a cliche troublemaker and doesn't say much outside of the opening scene), and Meaney's character (a fairly over-the-top guard). I found both of these characters a bit cartoonish compared to the rest of the characters which were a lot more grounded and relatable.

The plot is relatively contrived but still gives us an exciting story which rattles along - the film is rarely predictable and there's a real sense that anything can happen.

A mixed bag - a good nostalgia watch but don't expect perfection.

bnt

Two very different comedies over the last two days:

Ticket To Paradise (2022)

I thought it was OK, pretty mild as these things go. For me it had echoes of My Best Friend's Wedding from a different angle. The romantic tension between Julia Roberts and George Clooney was not convincing at all, perhaps because we know both actors are happily married in real life, not to each other. Romcoms are not Clooney's thing: this was his first since the superior One Fine Day (1996). At one point Roberts says something like "you've clearly never been to Hawaii", which is odd since The Descendants (2011) is one of his best roles. It hasn't escaped me that I'm talking more about the actors and their other movies than about their characters in this one: they were good, but I could never forget that I was watching today's Hollywood royalty.

The Apartment (1960)

Winner of 5 Oscars, directed by Billy Wilder, starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred McMurray. This film could be better-described as a drama with comedic overtones, since the core story is rather serious, sometimes shocking. I didn't know much about it, but its influence on other films & TV jumped out at me e.g. Mad Men, Working Girl etc. If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil it: I'll just say that the first half had me wondering how this could be a comedy, since the situation being set up has the potential to go very wrong.

shrapnel222

Triangle of sadness

Latest film from Ostlund, a director i love since force majeure. This latest film won the palme d'or last year. A satire of the super rich which imo falls a bit short. whilst there are great moments during the film, at 2h30m, it's overly long and doesn't live up to expectations. Enjoyable but slightly Disappointing.

Decuc500

Violent City

One of the many films Charles Bronson (the greatest film star of the 1970’s) made in Europe.

This 1970 ‘Euro Crime’ film directed by Sergio Sollima has Brosnan as a professional killer who is double crossed and left for dead. He goes to New Orleans to get revenge on his former boss.

The opening is set in the Virgin Islands and the first 10 minutes is a dialogue free car chase through tiny, winding village streets. It’s thrilling stuff, on a par with the car chases in films like The French Connection and The Seven-Ups.

I was expecting the film to be a bit cheesy but it’s actually really well made. There a number of impressive set pieces. You can see that it influenced Italian Giallo filmmakers. The score is by Ennio Morricone, always a bonus.

88 Films released this on Blu-ray with a 4K remastered transfer which looks incredible.

CastorTroy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120076016#Comment_120076016

I did a rewatch of This is England a couple years ago with the intention of rewatching 86 and 88 before starting 90. I still need to watch the series. Must do that soon.

Elaineharte

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120074839#Comment_120074839

Where can I get this??

shrapnel222

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093093#Comment_120093093

it's on at the cinema or can be found online in places i don't think we're allowed to talk about here

pixelburp

The Conversation (1974)

Contained possibly the best jump scare, at just the right moment, in any film not from the Horror genre.

A sad little tale of the impossibility in maintaining professionalism and emotional detachment when one's expertise requires invading the lives of others. Going double when one heard not just the salacious - but potentially criminal. This wasn't necessarily an original idea of course: many stories of voyeurism have often indulged in that creeping obsession and mania that ultimately overwhelmed their respective Peeping Toms; but here, Francis Ford Coppola's careful and subtle hand never indulged in any kind of schlock or sleaze you might see with Brian DePalma's own treatment of All Things Voyeur.

Instead, Gene Hackman's lead remained a dour, repressed & lonely man throughout; utterly at odds within his professional field of snoopers, increasingly isolated as much by his own acerbic personality as any dogged hunt for a suspected conspiracy. A growling contradiction of a man, one who bristled at the most trivial reveal of his past among peers - while he obsessively - and loudly - replayed the titular conversation on his speakers, for his own intrusive deliberation.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

A Bunch of Amateurs

This is a documentary about an amateur film society in Bradford. Around since the 1930s, they're apparently the oldest such club in the world. In recent years membership has dwindled, funds are low, and they're basically struggling to keep going.

The description of this film implies that it's about them trying to remake Oklahoma! in an effort to save the club. That is not where the focus lies, although it does feature one member remaking the opening scene of Oklahoma, but he's too old to ride a horse, so they have to green screen it.

What it's really about though is this group of people who seem to rely on the weekly club meetings as their main social outlet. We see early on two of the oldest members have sick spouses, and another younger man is a carer for his adult brother, and basically a lot of them don't seem to have much else going on outside the club.

It's fly on the wall style, and all very natural, and I found a lot of it quite moving. It doesn't actually focus that much on cinema really, and is more about the people.

Fysh

Deadstream

Caught this streaming on Shudder and am in two minds about it. It's a found footage film whose premise is that a disgraced streamer seeks to rebuild his audience by streaming himself staying alone in a haunted house for a night.

In production terms it's well done - I appreciated how the setup is used to provide and justify a number of different camera perspectives, and the story has enough developments to keep things moving once it gets going - personally I found the first half hour to be too slow.

The problem, for me, is that it's too accurate to what streamers are like - complete with the constant over the top reactions and screaming at every prompt; I find a bunch of the emergent default behaviours of streamers to be irritating to watch, and that's true here as well.

If you can see past that, however, there's a lot to like - this is very much "What if Evil Dead 2 but in the 2020s and Ash is a Youtuber trying to rebuild his audience?" as a premise, and I must admit that irritating protagonist notwithstanding there were several moments that made me laugh out loud.

If you like Evil Dead 2, there's a lot to like here. This is probably the best thing I've seen inspired by ED2 since Rob Kemp's The Elvis Dead.

Sick (2022)

A typically modest runtime slasher effort whose main distinction is its 2020 early pandemic setting. The opening is a bit different also compared to many similar genre movies. Tight enough overall. Worth a watch if you're in the mood for something like that but obviously not expecting anything ground-breaking either.

McDermotX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120107217#Comment_120107217

Funny. Actually watched this a couple nights back myself when stuck in a 'what to watch' mood. Decided to stick it on based on some references to Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness in some comments on IMDB.

I think it's largely poor, due to the annoying lead and premise, but I get it.....there are more than a few laughs, and more than a few moments where you think of Raimi's efforts, as if you were seeing them in a POV manner. I mean there are straight scenes when the ghost/witch/Mildred is jumping on his back and such or sticking her fingernail up his nose that if you closed your eyes and just listened, you'd swear it was Ash taking another few poundings.

Might be worth a watch despite the lousy premise for fans of the Evil Dead alright, but won't sit with casual viewers I'd say.

Fysh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120108433#Comment_120108433

See, I'm genuinely curious what people who are more tolerant (or even into) streamers and youtubers would make of it, because I know part of my annoyance with it was a visceral dislike of the main character - but it's a fairly solid satire of that kind of character, as far as I can tell. Now, how much overlap there is between "viewers who like PewDiePie and his ilk" and "viewers who like Evil Dead 2" is something I couldn't tell you :D

I do think it could have done with tighter editing, which I'd expect is the result of being done by the same people who wrote, directed and produced the film. As far as horror films about streamers go, I think Spree is better.

Fysh

I decided I needed something with more substance for my next watch, so I stuck on Daughters of the Dust on BFI Player (one of numerous films on the recent Sight & Sound Best Films Of All Time that's available on the subscription, for anyone interested). I've been meaning to watch it for ages, and am really glad I did - it's an excellent watch. It's the second film (after Welcome II The Terrordrome) to feature the Ibo Landing mass suicides as a narrative element, although Daughters feels like much more optimistic film than Terrordrome.

bnt

An oldie but a goodie: Caddyshack. I don’t think I ever watched the whole thing, and thought it holds together remarkably well. The story is all over the place, but that works for the characters, who are equally shambolic.

Confess, Fletch (2022)

Once one is not too precious about the originals this quite different interpretation is a perfectly good light entertainment caper. I liked it (and far more than the ass onion which is another film in the same vein)

monkeyactive

Vengeance (2022)

A very enjoyable low budget comedy/whodunnit style drama with some well earned deeper moments of poignancy as well.

Pokes a good few jibes at the US Culture Wars which is always a good thing. Line for line scene by scene its easy watching that pulls the odd chuckle.

8/10

Slydice

Watched Barbarian. It was alright but felt like it was let down in the scary making department somehow.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15791034/

Maybe in the contrast to how some scenes and the atmosphere felt really well done and then something like dropping the ball for the scary parts.

pixelburp

Mad God (2021)

The term "nightmare fuel" has become somewhat glib, maybe even overused these days within social media & pop-culture; so this film's swing into full and constant grotesquery was such I found myself genuinely wondering if it might induce nightmares - but then again: what could my own subconscious possibly conjure up during the night that'd trump this cinematic delirium of disgusting, arresting imagery?

Aggressively abstract while also relentlessly macabre, often simply upsetting in places to a degree this handily qualified as something that was "not for everyone", to put it mildly; Every scene was slathered in a sheen of viscera, every set-piece one affront to the senses after another. An overwhelming cavalcade of twisted surrealism - and I couldn't take my eyes off it. Though I will say that such was the commitment to the unreality powered by stop-motion, the few instances where flesh & blood actors were used were very jarring - it kinda broke the spell when it happened. While the last "act", such as it was, left me more confused than engaged.

By that point though, I had already found myself wondering "is this it? Is this actually going anywhere?" It wasn't as if I was expecting or demanding a coherent narrative, or some satisfying pay-off, but there was a point where the thin framing device appeared to be completely abandoned. The back-half of the movie became ... well, a bit tedious if I'm being honest. By then, the precision engineered squick had numbed my senses somewhat, so without that emotive reaction what remained became more of a meaningless slog than anything else.

Tony EH

^

Have to admit I was pretty bored to tears by that. The movie, not your post 😋. But, as a one time animator myself, I've always found a lot of stop motion animated productions devoid of entertainment, while still holding a certain fascination from a technique perspective. The Brothers Quay being a prominent example.

Animation of that type is usually fine as a small scale curiosity piece, the likes of some Pixar stuff being an exception (the good stuff anyway). But elsewhere I often find myself drifting. Even some Aardman productions could leave me looking at the clock.

Fysh

That's slightly disappointing to read about Mad God - I'll still watch it but had hoped it had more to offer.

I watched Harpoon last night on Arrow Player; it was a nicely-executed little thriller reminiscent of Shallow Grave (complete with opening monologue about friendship). It does its thing with aplomb, has good performances and production values and wraps up in a tad under 80 minutes.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Decision To Leave

I'm trying to watch some of the most likely nominees for Best International Feature at this year's Oscars. Along with All Quiet, and Argentina 1985, this one seems to be on everyone's guaranteed list.

I didn't love it. It is way too long, for starters, and I kept waiting for a bigger twist than the ones that came. It does look fantastic, and the lead actress is very good, plus Korean films do seem to do well with the Academy, so I won't be at all surprised to see it nominated. I don't think it's all that great though. I'd definitely put The Quiet Girl in the nominations over this.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120128914#Comment_120128914

Obviously your mileage may vary and the thing started strong: no question, ever after finishing it remained as close to a modern vision of Hieronymus Bosch's Hell as you'll get; but at some point it just became an aimless slog to get through.

A lot was made about how this took Phil Tippet 30 years to make - and you can really tell in places 'cos while the abstraction was the initially pull - at some point I really found myself checking my watch, my phone and wondering if this thing had any point beyond "here's another fúcked up vision", while some interstitial moments went on way too long. It's formlessness is both the strength and weakness.

BUT! Definitely worth a try though, if it's something that had already peaked your interest. As I said it's very far from being something you'd recommend to everyone, but if the trailer had you curious - it's worth a shot.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120125601#Comment_120125601

Ooh. A one time animator? Well I can't let that particular piece of personal information pass without asking for elaboration. Was it something you worked on as a pastime or professionally (or both!)?

Stop motion is possibly the most fascinating arm of animation; it takes so much time and effort - and money - to make features using the medium, they always seem destined to flop at the box-office when made as movies. Now that animation has become so cheap to make, it's the outlier that has only become more costly to produce.

Being too lazy to confirm but I think Coraline did very well, but the rest of Laika's stable nearly always underperforming (again, too lazy to confirm); if it wasn't for that Nike money one suspects Laika would have died years ago. I will always show up for their work though 'cos a world with them is better than one without. Can't say I've found their films deficient in entertainment though.

Tony EH

Oh dear, I may have given too much away already 😲 . If you don't mind, though, I'd rather not go into too much personal detail on here. It's nice to enjoy a modicum of anonymity. But suffice to say that, at one time, long ago, I dabbled in stop motion, cell, and ended up in computer animation. A number of people I worked with ended up working abroad, some in England and some over in America. But I was just too much of a home bird to pack up, so I settled for something here that was more along a traditional design route. There was never much opportunity here to pursue a career as an animator, though, especially once Sullivan Bluth shut its doors. It all seems an age away now. Anyway, staying in Ireland proved to be the right thing in the end.

As for stop motion, I agree. Whether it's a Harryhausen special effect, or a feature length movie, it is the most fascinating. But the sheer length of time need to get even 5 minutes of footage would put most people off. These days, of course, it's nearly all done with CGI and while it can be very good, indeed great, there's a charm that's inevitably lost. Plus, creating models and animating them on a PC is nowhere near as entertaining for the animator. It's just unfortunate that a lot of animation of that type lacks a coherent story or just an entertaining one.

As for 'Coraline', we're in agreement again. I found that to be a great movie (it's also one of the wife's faves), but that's mostly down to the well written story by Gaiman and at the BO it did very well for a film of its type. And Laika, too, are a promising studio even if, outside of 'Coraline', their output has been, um...patchy. I can only think of 'Paranorman' as a somewhat worthy runner up to 'Coraline', and even then I don't think I was too wrapped up in its story. 'Boxtrolls' was meh and I just wasn't gone on 'Kubo'. 'Missing Link', which was on TV over Christmas didn't do it for me either. But all of them are an interesting watch from animation POV. It's just the story department that lets them down, as was the case with 'Mad God'.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Argentina, 1985

Tells the true story of the trial of the military leaders of Argentina's last regime before democracy was stabilised in 1985.

It's a fairly standard court room drama with some really great moments, and some fairly bog standard ones. It focused a bit too much on the actual court room proceedings for me. The main prosecutor had to build a rag tag team of young administrators and volunteers to help him build the case, and bar a quick series of scenes, they just present a trolly full of evidence for him. I think if they'd taken a more Spotlight approach with it, it would have been more interesting. That said, the courtroom scenes are pretty good, and the sort of montage of victim testimonials is probably the strongest section of the film.

It's worth watching, and pretty engaging, if not a little light, given the subject matter. It won the Golden Globe for Best International film last week, and is one of the favourites for the Oscars, or at least to be nominated. I know I'm probably biased, but of the few I've seen from this category (I've seen 4 of the 5 BAFTA noms) I honestly think The Quiet Girl is the best overall package.

NIMAN

All Quiet On The Western Front.

Due to the hype its been getting in the media, plus the fact that I recently read it, decided to watch it.

Definitely a very good version of the book, but quite a few changes from it. Much preferred the book version of events.

But an excellent, and harrowing, war film.

Fysh

The Sound of Metal

Having owned the Bluray for a good while I finally stuck this on last night, and it was well worth it. Ahmed and Cooke both give great, believable performances of people who have helped each other through difficult times, but are still unprepared for the challenges that come when Ruben suddenly loses his hearing. As has been said by many, the use of sound design in the film is fantastic, but one other thing I really appreciated was the lack of use of subtitles during the ASL scenes in the early day's of Ruben's time in the commune - it's a simple trick but it really helps to sell the isolation of his position and how much strain that places on him.

It reminds me somewhat of Leave No Trace in that it's a film that is not afraid of silence, and whose central actors inhabit their characters well enough that watching them can speak volumes regardless of whether they are speaking. It also manages a really nice balance of an ending that IMO is satisfying in terms of Ruben's character without falling foul of the typical Hollywood reassuring ending.

Spoiler Warning

Ruben realises that all his manic talk about going back to their tour will put pressure on Lou that will surface as self-harm or depression again, and in doing so realises he has to accept that there is no way for him to go back to his old life. When he rips off his implants and sits watching the city around him, he finally has a moment of stillness. It's not a revelation or sudden acceptance of his deafness - just a moment of stillness where he might be able to find a better footing from which to go back to figuring out what shape his life will take now.

The Quiet Earth

For some reason this popped into my head recently so I decided to stick it on since Arrow Player have it streaming. This 1985 NZ effort is the sort of story that I Am Legend should always have been, rather than having Will Smith be out-acted by a mannequin. Very much a character piece, it gets away with some simple but clever visual effects in the couple of scenes that need them and is instead mostly interested in what happens to someone's state of mind when they are the only person alive for miles (possibly on the planet as far as they know), and goes from there. An enjoyable watch.

BruteStock

Buckwheats. Boat Drinks

Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead was a memorable flick from the 90's. Does it still hold up? Yeah kinda. Its chock full of recognizable faces. The guy from Curb who flee's to the toilet when the check comes plays a henchman to a demonically evil Christopher Walken. Buckwheats is a term for being shot up the anus. A fate befallen on Andy Garcia and his friends by Walken. Classic 90's writing and a nice throwback to crime movies of the era. The appeal of Andy Garcia hasn't lasted but everything else is a reminder how well B-movies were put together back then.

al87987

Argentina 1985

Follows the prosecutor and his team who must go after the military dictators who have just been ousted from power after 7 years.

Some fairly harrowing witness accounts of the brutality of the regime and an always great performance from Ricardo Darin means this is a great watch.

Could well win the best foreign language Oscar.