What have you watched recently? 3D!

pixelburp · 08-06-2021 11:01am

Yesterday (2019)

All very Richard Curtis; meaning it was exactly as earnest, funny and borderline saccharine as I thought it was going to be. After so much seeping cynicism informing mainstream or blockbuster entertainment, I won't deny this big frosted cake of a film was highly enjoyable. Probably best not to think too hard on its premise, because I don't think Curtis did, nor was there a cynical bone in this script's body. Patel and James made for very likeable leads too.

Between Lily James, Daisy Ridley, Keira Knightley and others, I am wondering if there's some factory in England producing these actresses; or if there's just some cognitive bias going on in the casting agencies; I'd struggle a little to pick each actor out.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO · 08-06-2021 11:24am

pixelburp wrote: »

Yesterday (2019)
Probably best not to think too hard on its premise, because I don't think Curtis did, nor was there a cynical bone in this script's body.

Didn't he steal it from someone else?

gmisk · 08-06-2021 11:50am

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Didn't he steal it from someone else?

Kind of looks like it...
https://www.nme.com/news/film/original-yesterday-writer-claims-richard-curtis-took-full-credit-for-the-beatles-movie-2674416

De Bhál · 08-06-2021 12:05pm

The American (2010)

I watched this on TG4 last night.
George Clooney plays a hitman/gunsmith hiding in a hill village in Abruzzo, Italy. Watchable, but weak enough really. Heavy on scenic shots and good looking women which is all about all I could manage of a bank holiday Monday evening after a long day driving and dealing with kids.

al87987 · 08-06-2021 1:46pm

flasher0030 wrote: »

Going to get into these Korean movies. I can get Memories of Murder and The Gangster, the cop and the devil.

Any idea where I could watch the ones you suggested i.e.
I Saw the Devil.
A Bittersweet life.
Old Boy.

I saw the Hollywood version of Old School and really enjoyed it. Very good premise for a movie.

All great Korean films.

Would add The Chaser, The man from Nowhere and the other two films from the sympathy trilogy to the list. I saw the devil is my fav though

flasher0030 · 08-06-2021 1:50pm

al87987 wrote: »

All great Korean films.

Would add The Chaser, The man from Nowhere and the other two films from the sympathy trilogy to the list. I saw the devil is my fav though

Cheers for the info.
Any idea how I would get to watch the ones that I listed.

pixelburp · 09-06-2021 9:07am

gmisk wrote: »

Kind of looks like it...
https://www.nme.com/news/film/original-yesterday-writer-claims-richard-curtis-took-full-credit-for-the-beatles-movie-2674416

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Didn't he steal it from someone else?

That's disappointing but still enjoyed the film all the same. I'd ordinarily be very wary of Curtis' output as it stands, 'cos his scripts can be utterly cloying. Yesterday hit me in the feels in the way of a palette cleanser, against a deeply misanthropic Hollywood.

dougm1970 · 10-06-2021 12:36am

see some posts in thread with series....so i'll add "time"....a gripping english prison drama on bbc iplayer....with sean bean and stephen graham...and a support cast of exceptionally good actors.

flasher0030 · 11-06-2021 9:53am

The Report
Political drama about the controversy re torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. If you like political cover-ups (American style), then this one ticks along nicely.
8 out of 10

True Story
This one is really interesting up to a point. Basically the interactions between a reporter and a murder convict. But it's really interesting for most of it. Kind of tails off a little. But it is very close to an actual true story, so the writers were somewhat curtailed in their efforts. James Franco is very good in it.
6.5 out of 10

Son of a Gun
Basically a heist film, with the relationship between a crime boss and his projected protegee at it's core. Plenty of action, no let up and very entertaining. Would recommend, has a nice balance between character development and action/violence.
8 out of 10

Spiral Book of Saw
I adore the Saw films. I used to highly anticipate the release of each of the Saw installments, and gave each one the benefit of the doubt. Even when they were glaringly bad. But this does not come close to the Saw movies. It's just bad. Chris Rock just goes around shouting like in his stand-up. Gets very annoying after a while. And one of the main catches in the Saw films was the tension around the victims in the traps - i.e. what is the trap, how does the victim get out of it, and will they succeed. There are only a couple of traps in this one, and for most of them we know that the individual does not succeed before even showing the trap scene, and the prior scenes show them dead. I don't know who came up with that idea, but they should have been shown the door straight away. And the end is ridiculas .All round shlte.

14-06-2021 7:06am

Time 2021 Nobody writes British drama like Jimmy McGovern, nobody even comes close. He always captures what it is to experience true misery and the downsides of life. Through his characters and dialogue you walk in their shoes. Theres a little sprinkling of joy here and there but you know you've watched a serious bit of TV when he has written it.
This is no different, and Sean Bean and Stephen Graham are outstanding as usual in a prison drama that is very different to anything I've seen before.

Il Capo di Capi 2007 An intriguing look at the origins of Cosa Nostra and how the small town of Corleone played a key role through the hungry ruthless Toto Rina. Having been in Corleone and lived in Sicily you really do feel the chill when you go to that town. The violence and amount of murders in the 70's 80's and 90's is mind boggling because you are in the countryside, its not New York.
This series, each episode movie length, is slow moving and takes a while to get into - it starts with Toto Rina as a very young man and is spanning multiple decades, but you feel as it goes a long the actors his their stride, its absorbing and ultimately moves like a true reflection of how things are in Southern Italy, which turns over more from crime these days then a lot of small States.

El Gato De Negocios · 14-06-2021 1:14pm

Massacre Mafia Style (1974)

I picked up the Grindhouse releasing Duke Mitchell boxset aaages ago but never got round to watching so threw this on the other night. It is the perfect grindhouse movie. Bad acting, nonsensical plot, lots of violence and some boobs, the staple of any self respecting grindhouse movie. It centres around a Mafiosa who leaves Italy for America to make his fortune. Incredibly silly, incredibly cheesey but still enjoyable in a weird sort of way. The Godfather II this aint but its worth a watch for those that like this particular era of low budget film making.

johnny_ultimate · 19-06-2021 1:05pm

Irma Vep - Olivier Assayas tries to convince the world that Maggie Cheung might be the greatest movie star of a generation... and it's pretty ****ing hard to argue with him, honestly. Also a strange but absorbing satire of the French film industry, with a stone-cold stunner of an ending.

The Father - looks like a typical, Oscar-baity 'filmed play' on the surface, but there's more to this one. Director Florian Zeller carefully disorientates the viewer with both subtle and aggressive transformations to the set, the timeline and even cast members. It's all to good purpose: putting us in the mind of a man (a rightly acclaimed Anthony Hopkins) who is no longer able to trust his own mind. It left me a little cold in some regards (for all its temporal and spatial disorientation, it can feel rather rigid and conservative in some of its other filmmaking approaches) but when it works, it's an admirable and powerful effort at getting the viewer uncomfortably into the head of someone suffering from dementia.

Shiva Baby - a nightmarish portrayal of... an awkward social gathering. Director Emma Seligman's artfully uncomfortable debut follows everything going to **** for a young college student as she attends the wake of someone she barely even know. While the specifics are unique (a mix of casual sex work, Judaism and American college / family life), this is a universal portrayal of a) struggling to find direction in life and b) the horror of a social event you really, really don't want to be at.

Krisha - a perfect companion piece with the above, actually: a portrait of a family event gone very wrong. This one's rather sadder and more serious, though: while director Tey Edward Shults does capture the restless energy of a big family dinner with incredible aplomb, this goes in directions that are even more chaotic and emotionally devastating for all involved. It's all anchored by Krisha Fairchild's superbly vulnerable central performance.

NIMAN · 19-06-2021 1:08pm

Watched Rocketman last night, the Elton John film.

Wasn't the type of film I thought it was going to be, more musical. But enjoyed it anyway.

Guy playing Elton was excellent.

silverharp · 21-06-2021 1:03pm

The Hill , 1960's film starring Sean Connery, its a WW2 prisoner story of British prisoners in a British prison camp in North Africa. Apparently one of his favourite films but the audiences wanted more Bond. I could tell watching it that there was an innovative use of camera techniques.

21-06-2021 1:26pm

Recently watched Green Book, and really liked it. They handled the relationship between Don Shirley and Tony Lip with more nuance than was justified by the negative criticism; they just weren't heavy-handed about it (e.g. Tony Lip can freely enjoy his cultural traditions and 'black' soul music because his ethnic background is affirmed by the society in which he lives; whereas Don Shirley almost completely rejects black culture and assumes the habits of rich white people at that time; he doesn't have the luxury of choice, and Tony Lip is fairly oblivious to why that would be).

The criticism was probably aggravated by the fact that Green Book pipped The Black Panther to the post for Best Picture, which does indeed seem like a weird decision because Black Panther is unquestionably the better movie, in my opinion.

Retr0gamer · 22-06-2021 1:56pm

there were waaaaaay better movies than Black Panther that year. Roma was the one that was absolutely robbed and mostly due to the snobbery against digital distribution at the time.

Anyway

Godzilla (1954)

Surprised how good the japanese original is. It's a very effective message against nuclear weapons. Some dodgy acting but overall it was a very entertaining movie.

What surprised me was how emotional Godzilla's destruction was. Modern films with all their fake CGI and massive armies and no stakes at all just feel soulless and fake. With Godzilla it's obviously a man in a suit destroying miniatures and yet it felt horrifying all the same. The images of Godzilla silhouetted by the burning city evoking the WW2 firebombings was striking.

I think I'm ready for Shin Godzilla now.

The Raging Bile Duct · 22-06-2021 2:33pm

I thought Black Panther was terrible.

johnny_ultimate · 22-06-2021 2:49pm

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I think I'm ready for Shin Godzilla now.

Shin Godzilla is a true successor to the original film in spirit and theme. As much a satire of Japanese bureaucracy as it is a monster film (it's a film where characters' job titles are a sly running gag), but it probably has the single best 'Godzilla unleashed' scene of them all.

I watched Godzilla vs Kong recently, and while it at least had more colourful neon action than its dire predecessor, Shin Godzilla shows what potential the kaiju genre still has beyond Hollywood rock 'em sock 'em monsters. Hopefully the team can pull off the same trick for the superhero genre with Shin Ultraman and Shin Kamen Rider.

22-06-2021 11:34pm

The Raging Bile Duct wrote: »

I thought Black Panther was terrible.

Ah now. I can definitely see why it wouldn't be someone's cup of tea, but terrible?

I hadn't cried since Joey hopped the fence in WarHorse, but I shed a tear for Black Panther. Maybe Black Panther didn't deserve an Oscar, but it wasn't terrible was it?

The Raging Bile Duct · 23-06-2021 10:16am

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Ah now. I can definitely see why it wouldn't be someone's cup of tea, but terrible?

I hadn't cried since Joey hopped the fence in WarHorse, but I shed a tear for Black Panther. Maybe Black Panther didn't deserve an Oscar, but it wasn't terrible was it?

Different strokes for different folks I guess. I might have shed a tear out of boredom.

Retr0gamer · 23-06-2021 10:51am

Shin Godzilla

This was a very japanese film and as pointed out by Johnny Ultimate I think a lot of subtlety of it's themes commentary are lost in translation. I did however thoroughly enjoy it and it's commentary on the insanity of bureaucracy.

And as Johnny Ultimate also said, that scene when Godzilla goes wild was spectacular.

johnny_ultimate · 23-06-2021 11:09am

The only problem I have with Shin Godzilla is they probably should have cast someone with slightly better English for the role of Kayoco Anne Patterson, Special Envoy for the President of the United States :pac:

Credit to Satomi Ishihara for trying, but it's a very odd choice in the film to have that character barely able to speak a word of English.

Retr0gamer · 23-06-2021 11:32am

Yeah that was very jarring!

De Bhál · 23-06-2021 11:33am

Anthropoid

Watched this on Film 4 Sunday night.
2016 WW2 movie with Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan. Based on the true story of exiled Czech soldiers attempt to assassinate a high up Nazi commander.

Good movie, the scene where they attempt the assassination is very tense and well done. Final shoot out is well done also.

Good movie that's worth a look

dubstepper · 24-06-2021 2:19pm

Exorcist III

Good horror with George C Scott. Some great dialogue between the detective and his priest friend. You feel you are in a serial killer/detective type story but then it moves into the horror. Also has some great jumps.

7/10

dubstepper · 24-06-2021 2:23pm

olvias wrote: »

Alien, Directors Cut.

9/10. Still a superb movie, aesthetics, acting, sound, everything. Even 42 years after it was released its still a supreme movie.

The chest buster scene is iconic. Still freaks me out as the build up is brilliant. The viewer is allowed to release some of the stress of the previous scene with the friendship of the crew eating and joking, then....

pixelburp · 24-06-2021 2:30pm

That the version with the restored "egg mutation" scene?

It's crazy that after 40+ years, those imitators of Alien and other films of its type still make the same mistake: you gotta earn the twist of the knife by putting in the time with the characters first. A blatant Alien clone came out last year in "Underwater", and while aesthetically looked the part, with clear Alien (and The Abyss) influences, the script completely forgot to spend any time with the characters that we might care about their fate.

Fysh · 24-06-2021 3:38pm

pixelburp wrote: »

That the version with the restored "egg mutation" scene?

It's crazy that after 40+ years, those imitators of Alien and other films of its type still make the same mistake: you gotta earn the twist of the knife by putting in the time with the characters first. A blatant Alien clone came out last year in "Underwater", and while aesthetically looked the part, with clear Alien (and The Abyss) influences, the script completely forgot to spend any time with the characters that we might care about their fate.

It had good potential too, but the film as released had a real whiff of "at least 20-odd minutes of character development was cut from the start because it's 'boring' and not actiony enough". No idea if that's the case or kot, just what I felt.

mikhail · 24-06-2021 4:10pm

pixelburp wrote: »

That the version with the restored "egg mutation" scene?

Yes, that's the one. There's only two cuts of Alien.

It's crazy that after 40+ years, those imitators of Alien and other films of its type still make the same mistake: you gotta earn the twist of the knife by putting in the time with the characters first. A blatant Alien clone came out last year in "Underwater", and while aesthetically looked the part, with clear Alien (and The Abyss) influences, the script completely forgot to spend any time with the characters that we might care about their fate.

I am in awe of how well Alien holds the audience's attention while not so much is happening. The chest-burster scene is around an hour in, and there's very little action before that - the jump at the egg, and the acid eating through the floors. Mostly, it's just atmospheric scene setting, and as you say character building.

pixelburp · 24-06-2021 5:20pm

mikhail wrote: »

Yes, that's the one. There's only two cuts of Alien.

I am in awe of how well Alien holds the audience's attention while not so much is happening. The chest-burster scene is around an hour in, and there's very little action before that - the jump at the egg, and the acid eating through the floors. Mostly, it's just atmospheric scene setting, and as you say character building.

I'm not sure how the pacing would play with younger audiences, given so much of the first half of the movie is just a bunch of blue-collar workers bítching at each other. But then they're not boring characters either, just tired and ratty, wanting to get home and their bonus. TBH I would have been happy sticking around with this crew for another hour before the shoe dropped, there was a movie in the class warfare alone.

Maybe that's the secret sauce of all these kind of movies: that if the Big Thing never happened them, would they still be interesting to follow?

Fysh wrote: »

It had good potential too, but the film as released had a real whiff of "at least 20-odd minutes of character development was cut from the start because it's 'boring' and not actiony enough". No idea if that's the case or kot, just what I felt.

Yeah that feels about right from my PoV. Not a bad movie just lacked a little more effort. The film was supposedly shelved for 1+ years, got lost in the Fox-Disney takeover, before finally getting dumped out in that classic graveyard slot - Jan 2020.

What have you watched recently? 3D!

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