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What have you watched recently? 3D!

johnny_ultimate

You people just keep on watching films, don't you?

We have reached the contractually-mandated 10,000 post limited in thread 2, so here's another one. It's like the first two, but with gimmicky 3D added and a no-name director taking over from the well-known one who directed the first two.

Here's the first thread: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055488699
And the second: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056732038

So... what have you watched recently?

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El Duda

I only ever saw the third one on TV when I was a kid. I loved it!

Wonder world!

NIMAN

Not a film, but started to watch PICARD the other night.
Stopped half way through Episode 1. Was awfully bored by it.

Have to come clean though, I never liked any of the ST series.

Dades

If you never liked Star Trek, Picard was going to be a tough sell!

As a TNG fan, I enjoyed it a lot.

Kunkka

Dades wrote: »

If you never liked Star Trek, Picard was going to be a tough sell!

As a TNG fan, I enjoyed it a lot.

Didn't even know this was out.

Will need to check it out.

Wombatman

Dades wrote: »

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.

Agree. It lacked a spark but was so solid in all areas I enjoyed it very much. Acting, sets, story, dialogue, racing scenes all excellent but as you say the sum of the parts just lacked the little bit of magic. Character development was first rate mind you.

shrapnel222

Dublin oldschool

enjoyable journey with a group of friends on the party scene in Dublin. Storyline is pretty weak overall, but some decent performances carry the movie well enough.

shrapnel222

where's my Roy Cohn?

i'd never heard of him but no doubt anyone into US politics/Macarthyism/etc. is well acquainted with the monster. Fascinating doc on this evil piece of **** lawyer. Doc in itself doesn't breakdown barriers but well put together nonetheless.

8mv

shrapnel222 wrote: »

where's my Roy Cohn?

i'd never heard of him but no doubt anyone into US politics/Macarthyism/etc. is well acquainted with the monster. Fascinating doc on this evil piece of **** lawyer. Doc in itself doesn't breakdown barriers but well put together nonetheless.

Must look out for this. If you haven't already seen it you might be interested in 'Angels in America ' in which Al Pacino plays Roy Cohen and Meryl Streep plays the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg (amongst other roles) Their scenes together are fantastic.

johnny_ultimate

Weathering With You - It's been over a decade since I first watched a Makoto Shinkai film, and it's curious seeing the ways he has evolved as a filmmaker... and even more curious seeing the ways he hasn't.

In some ways, Shinkai's follow-up to uber-hit Your Name is the worst side of contemporary anime and Shinkai's own work. It's full of trope-y nonsense and stereotypical anime characterisations. It's another variation on the same sort of basic ideas Shinkai has been exploring over the course of his entire career, and his refusal to move on from the angsty teenage fantasy romances is frustrating at this stage. Part of me wishes he'd just straight-up make a 90 minute music video, like he clearly wants to.

And yet... this film also runs on such earnest, pure melodrama it's hard not to get caught up in it. It hypes the emotions up to 110%, and it's a dazzling rollercoaster in that sense - gorgeous imagery, blaring J-Pop and unapologetic romanticism. It's frustrating as all hell if you actually stop to think about it, and the core environmentalism themes are caught somewhere between nonsensical and actively offensive. But it's frequently dazzling on a pure aesthetic level: maybe one of these days Shinkai will make a film that's more than that.

Enter the Dragon - I'm very fond of quite a few Chinese / Hong Kong martial arts films from the 60s/70s, but for whatever reason the most famous Hollywood one was something I'd never gotten around to. While it has its moments, Enter the Dragon does lack the formal rigour of a King Hu film or the vibrancy of the best Shaw brothers efforts. What it does have though is Bruce Lee, who is a goddamned force of nature here. He has this wild charisma about him that the film is completely reliant on, and it shines when he's allowed to do his thing: like this borderline manic stare he gives after brutally defeating an opponent. An alright film elevated by an extraordinary star.

A Hidden Life - Malick makes the most accessible film he's made since The New World. It is often unbelievably gorgeous - Jörg Widmer's cinematography has a discernibly different feel to Lubezki's work with Malick, but different in a good way. Legitimately some of the most beautiful, expressive landscape shots ever composed for film. James Newton Howard's score is lovely and moving, and there are indeed key moments when Malick achieves the sort of woozy, striking profundity he's always aiming for.

But... honestly in some key ways it's a less interesting film than his more experimental fare from recent years. As frustrating as those films often were (and I disliked as many of them as I liked), I am a great admirer of his stream-of-consciousness style of filmmaking. Some of that's here, but a lot of it is also a fairly laboured, three-hour long telling of a pretty straightforward story. When you lose the fractured, overlapping narratives of Knight of Cups or Song to Song, you lose some of the compelling challenge of figuring those films out. This one's not hard to figure out, and in a way that for me made it less interesting. It is beautiful and earnest and sometimes moving - and it is unmistakably Malickian. But in splitting the difference between early-mid Malick and late Malick, the great director has made a film that to me falls short of his best work.

On the plus side, he seems to have scaled book considerably on the 'twirling women' motif for this WW2 spiritual drama :pac:

gmisk

Dades wrote: »

If you never liked Star Trek, Picard was going to be a tough sell!

As a TNG fan, I enjoyed it a lot.

I never really watched Star trek before....really like Picard, can't say I know all the history etc but not sure it matters tbh

Decuc500

The Standoff at Sparrow Creek

A militia group meet up after a cop funeral is attacked by a lone gunman. When they find guns and ammo missing from their bunker complex they realise one of their own was the shooter. Former cop and now militia member James Badge Dale is tasked with interrogating the other members to find out who it was.

This is a backwoods Reservoir Dogs, with rapid fire Mamet-like dialogue. It's a taut and claustrophobic thriller and an impressive debut from writer/director Henry Dunham.

BigPoppaDump

I Saw The Devil.

Korean flick from around 2011. I recently picked up the stunning blu ray release from Plain Archive having (to my long standing shame) never seen it, had the house to myself so slung it on earlier.

The plot starts out as a fairly standard revenge thriller but about a third of the way through it takes a surprising turn and it morphs into something different entirely. I wont say much else as I'd hate to spoil it for anyone but for fans of foreign cinema it's a must see. Absolutely stunning performances from the two leads, some brutal violence that would make Tarantino blush and enough twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. Absolutely loved the ending. A remarkable triumph of a movie.

10/10

Dades

The Thing, 2011.

Hadn't seen it before. Really liked it. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is great.

shrapnel222

General magic

First company in Silicon valley to imagine/develop the mobile phone and tried to implement it but suffered catastrophic failure and eventually went bankrupt. Great documentary on an amazing start up. Looks like every single person employed in there went on to do great things, but this company probably just came a little too early. Enjoyable watch.

pixelburp

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Far better than a sequel to "The Shining" had any right to be, especially given its attempts to thread the needle between the novel & near-mythological film adaptation. Critically, it was confident enough in its skin to tell its own follow-up story, without feeling chained to the original Kubrick film for easy nostalgic endorphin hits - up to a particular point mind you. Tense or creepy when it needed to be, it resisted the cheap & lazy approach of Jump Scares for its excitement, instead reaching for something more chilling and tonally consistent with the the famous first film. Rebecca Ferguson managed to be both menacing and charismatic, all the while swaggering around in a daft hat, meanwhile Ewen McGregor probably gave one of his better latter day performances, playing Danny Torrence with an understated, haunted demeanour (though his generic, mid-Atlantic "American accent" still failed to convince)

[Deleted User]

Spartacus 1960 Hadn't seen this since I was a small child, and was expecting some of that old forced acting, and overly staged style which is often that era, but should of known better with Kubrick at the helm. Really outstanding piece of work, with incredible set pieces a real epic. Kirk Douglas is fantastic but the likes of Peter Ustinov even better.
One of the things missing into todays film making is epic films now use CGI instead of extras. So it never feels epic anymore. Your mind knows its not real so it just doesn't have the same effect. Having armies of 20,000 people in a shot is just mesmerising and a real joy to watch.

Cry Freedom Another epic this time of the Richard Attenborough style with more huge set piece scenes. Amazing to think this was the way in South Africa only a few decades ago, with police mowing down women and children in the streets. Powerful film overall, Denzel plays Steve Biko wonderfully. After watching this film I got the impression Biko was more important in those times in South Africa then Mandela was.

Del.Monte

"Ride in the Whirlwind" (1966) full movie on YouTube.

v1.bTsxMTU1MDUwNztqOzE4NDAzOzEyMDA7NzY4OzEwMjQ

A young Jack Nicholson stars in this low key western - stage coach robbers, vigilantes, lynchings and some great shoot-outs make this one worth watching. 7/10

shrapnel222

Mr Jones

Decent political thriller set in pre WW2 England and soviet union, which unfortunately suffers from trying to do too much. strong base storyline and very good performances for the most part, but seems to finish with a simmer.

Dades

I watched Midway last night. Normally I really go for big budget stuff like this and Roland Emmerich has some great stuff in his resume.... but not this one.

I can't put my finger on it but I just didn't give a crap about anyone in it. I couldn't tell you name of the main character. Great direction - bad writing.

[Deleted User]

Dades wrote: »

I watched Midway last night. Normally I really go for big budget stuff like this and Roland Emmerich has some great stuff in his resume.... but not this one.

I can't put my finger on it but I just didn't give a crap about anyone in it. I couldn't tell you name of the main character. Great direction - bad writing.

Yeah turned this off after 20 minutes or so. Felt like watching the intro of a Call of Duty video game or something

Sugarlumps

Pet Sematary Remake – Awful shíte, looked like it was done on the super cheap. No scares, that lead male actor, he’s a bum. And the cover of The Ramones track, get the F.

Homelander

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan

Pretty good movie, based on a heavy skirmish between Australian/New Zealand and North Vietnamese forces in 1966. Bit like a smaller scale Aussie version of 'We Were Soldiers', another great movie.

jill_valentine

Sugarlumps wrote: »

Pet Sematary Remake – Awful shíte, looked like it was done on the super cheap. No scares, that lead male actor, he’s a bum. And the cover of The Ramones track, get the F.

The pre-zombied cat is ADORABLE though.

El Duda

The Straight Story – 7.5/10

I put a question out a few months ago; ‘Is there a dictionary definition example of a film that sucks all the way through but gets great right at the end and makes it all worthwhile?’ This is as close as I have come to finding such a film. Whilst is doesn’t actually ‘suck’ all the way through, it is limp, meandering and aimless for the most part.

David Lynch has applied his schtick to a Disney film about an old man making a cross country journey on his lawnmower, and somehow managed to make it work. Prolonged moments of silence, overly long pauses in dialogue exchanges, atmospheric sound and dreamlike cinematography complement the simplicity of the plot. Richard Farnsworth’s performance has great poignancy as he was terminally ill during filming, and with a script this meditative and cathartic, its no wonder he was attracted to the role.

There is a moment right at the very end which contextualises the entire journey and not only makes it all feel worthwhile, but makes you want to watch the whole thing again.

Dades

Freaks

Had been trying to watch this for a while.
Solid movie goes to unexpected places for sure. Great performances all round.

El Duda

The Godfather: Part 2 – 9/10

I finally got around to seeing this after years of putting it off. I’d only seen the first part a few years ago and wasn’t particularly blown away by it. Marlon Brando was the best thing about it and hearing that he doesn’t make an appearance in the second part put me off.

Whilst none of the individual performances outshine Brando’s, I found this to be a much more complete and satisfying film. Pacino, De Niro and Cazale are all fantastic. The attention to detail on the sets, costumes and character interactions is astonishing. I found myself mesmerised at tiny things like the birthday cake and how it was important that everyone got to see it before it was cut. Where do these little details come from?

Everything that can be said about this film has probably been covered at length, so I’ll simply say; It lives up to its reputation.

I feel gutted for poor Fredo.

tunguska

Call of the Wild(2020)

Saw the new version at the weekend and I absolutely loved it. I've never read the book so I had no preconceptions or prejudices. I've heard that some fans of the book arent happy about it not being dark enough.......all I know is I thought it was a great movie, from start to finish it had me completely invested. Harrison ford is perfectly cast but Dan stevens was practically foaming at the mouth after having chewed all the scenery. The CGI, I had no problems with, its the spirit that the film was made in thats important and its a very genuine, big hearted movie. A rare film that you could take the whole family to.

Del.Monte

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwx6gCQyLC4

"The Last Thing He Wanted" (2020)

A Netflix Original. Watched this last night and despite finding it difficult to understand stuck with it until the inevitable but unsatisfying ending. Poor sound quality didn't help the confusing plot. 3/10

It seems that it wasn't just me and I just read a piece on Cosmopolitan titled "WTF You Just Watched: ‘The Last Thing He Wanted,’ Aka the Most Confusing Movie Ever...

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/movies/a31076405/netflix-the-last-thing-he-wanted-review-spoilers/

shrapnel222

judy and punch.

Pleasantly surprised by this one. Historical fiction set in the 17th century, which goes a bit mad in probably too many directions, yet is good fun for the most part .feels as absurd as the show it portrays.

Fysh

Nommer 37 - a Cape Town-set crime thriller that loosely retreads Rear Window, this was an enjoyable and gripping watch, let down somewhat by the fact that from about five minutes in you start to wonder why the protagonist's girlfriend Pam sticks around and puts up with Randal at all, particularly as the stakes increase and it becomes apparent the repercussions will affect her.

This is a film in which

Pam gets a finger cut off by a loanshark's enforcer, while the camera shows us how much this traumatises Randal

, and

even after finding out that Randal got his best friend killed and himself crippled in the cack-handed"let's try and rip off drug dealers" scheme that opens the film, and seeing for herself how another scheme gets a neighbouring friend killed, Pam still stays with Randal and continues to put herself at risk by helping him

. And yet.... she sticks around. It's hard to believe, because there's no grounding to the relationship or idea of what its better days might have looked like.