What have you watched recently? 3D!

Watched the Hustler (1961) last night, Paul Newman as a pool hustler doing the rounds around NYC.

Good film and holds up pretty well. 8/10

Paddleton – 8/10

A recent Netflix film that instantly got buried under the vast array of Netflix original shows that bombard your screen every time you log in. This is a heartfelt cancer comedy starring Ray Romano and the brilliant Mark Duplass. The film is mainly the two misfit main characters having inane conversations bought to life by some gorgeous cinematography and melancholy music. Given the subject at hand it obviously takes a very dark turn towards the end, but it doesn’t push the sentimentality too far. It’s a stripped back, naturalistic film and I found it incredibly touching.
It’s worth watching for the half time team talk scene alone.


Gangs Of New York – 5/10

One of few Scorsese films I hadn’t got around to seeing and I was shocked at how awful this was. It has the big production values, but it just doesn’t feel like a Scorsese flick. It plays out in such an unbelievable and stagey way that none of it ever rings true. I thought Di Caprio seemed like bad casting but that was before Cameron Diaz shows up. She is woefully miscast. Someone with her physical appearance does not belong anywhere near the streets of 1800’s New York, she looks so out of place.

Daniel Day-Lewis is good but not great. Jim Broadbent is incredible, possibly the most convincing thing in the entire film although criminally underused. He is the only person who seems authentic in the way you’d expect from a Scorsese film.

Shoddy editing, some strange effects, terrible writing full of plot contrivances and the most anti-climactic of endings. This is as close to a Turkey as I’ve ever seen from Marty.

Solaris (1972 original)
Stalker


These are two 70s Russian sci-fi films by director Andrei Tarkovsky. I'd be meaning to sit down and watch them for years.

Man they really challenge a 2019 attention span. They move at a glacial pace and do not deliver the crowd pleasing tropes of modern hollywood stuff.There is a drawn out motorway driving scene in Solaris that goes on and on for ages . I read this was intentionally put in there by Tarkovsky to clear the cinema early of people who wouldn't be able to appreciate the film.

Both are dense with philosophical themes and long dialogues around the big questions . Some of the cinematography in Stalker is stand out and some of the scenes in both are memorably intense and very Soviet.

I must say that they are powerful films and I'm glad I watched them , not light entertainment by any means. Amazing how Tarkovsky pulled off both so well with what looked like a budget of under a few hundred euro I'd say.

next on the list , Jim Carreys Mask

Mizu_Ger wrote: »

Timecrimes

Spanish Sci-fi suspense/thriller. Not sure what i can say about this without spoiling anything, but I loved it. A real low budget sci-fi concept film that plays on the conventions usually found here. Maybe a little like Primer, but less disorienting!

Free Solo

Janey Mac!!! I have no head for heights, so rock climbing in general is not my thing. What Alex Honnold attempts is crazy. Even after watching this it's hard to understand what was driving him. The photography is great and the relationship he has with his girlfriend is interesting. On the face of it there's no room for that kind of distraction in what he does, but they, somehow, have stayed together. I thought her attempts to get him to express his feelings would have driven him away (especially at key points in his exploits).

Timecrimes was very good, I think you will like The Invisible Guest, Wild Tales and Mirage if you enjoyed this one. They similar-ish.

Free solo is amazing, 1 thing I learned from it too is to eat my food straight from the pan when cooking for 1.

Arcadia (2017)
Director Paul Wright makes great use of 100's of film clips from the last 100 years, taken from the BFI national archive and others from around England, Scotland and Wales to create a stunning visceral and visual narrative story exploring how its people have changed their relationship with the countryside and landscape they exist in. Some stunning footage of rural festivals based on ancient pagan celebrations. The soundtrack by Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp) is also brilliant. Highly recommended. Great and fascinating watch what with all the brexit noise going on. This is a view of a Britain that is literally gone. This could well still be on the BBC player if you can hack into it. Its just simply stunning. 10/10



The Ritual (2017)
Starts off well enough in first 20 minutes, then rapidly veers off into the pit of the terrible. Writing and acting becomes dreadful stuff. Really goes into the ditch around the 40th minute mark. Its all just been done to death anyways. Mish mash of everything from Blair Witch Project to Deliverance to whatever else you can think of that you would be better off watching instead of this. Awful waste of time. 2/10

A Field in England (2013)
A proper film about a bunch of boyos lost in the wilderness then it all goes rightly pear shaped. Wheatley's best work IMO. Nothing ever came like it before and nothing has come like it since. Totally original modern film tinted with glorious weirdness but totally accessible with the great acting and enjoyable dialogue. The rewards from watching this thing a number of times are great. Great writing and proper characters to go with the total weirdness. "WE are not running away.... WE are going for beer!!" 9/10

Widows (2018)
The main characters in this thing, how they interact within the story, how they are portrayed within the style of the film and its genre, its just all over the shop. This thing wants to be a gritty heist/political crime film but our 4 main protagonists have no experience of any sort of criminal enterprise, no experience of even knowing each other and we are supposed to believe they can all carry off some huge dangerous heist as a team? There is a scene in this, the gang are looking for a getaway driver, then a professional babysitter enters the room (a character the majority of the gang has never even met) the gang then ask this babysitter - "Hey can you drive?", - "Yes" the babysitter replies. - "Good stuff you're our getaway driver". I'm all for letting things go, but not to this extent in a film that wants to be a supposedly grim and gritty stylistic crime thriller. It don't work. The whole thing is done like a p!ss pull of some sort. Every single male character in this is either a total eegit or a total bastard. And some of the actors are badly cast. Daniel Kaluuya plays the role of a sinister villain like a lettuce leaf trying to play the role of a T-Bone steak. Its just terrible. Real cartoon stuff. Elizabeth Debicki did her best but that was about it. Weak/10


Taxi Driver (1976)
Just stuck it on again one of the nights recently. Its just so brilliant. Its probably the best movie from the 1970's when that decade was making so many classics. I seen it a good few times but this was the first time I copped the first of the two appearances of Scorsese in it, always knew the one where he played the passenger spying on the wife, there's another one of him sitting down looking at Cybill Shepherd as she walks into the campaign office. Never clocked that before until this recent watch. Its just aged so well, it still holds up today even though that grim world of downtown Manhattan from that particular time is completely gone. Just written so so well, the first person almost dreamlike viewpoint of the lone person hitting the edge. Top class. 10/10

Glass

This was a dissapointment. Unbreakable and Split were highly entertaining and well put together. The Horde is a great character. I was looking forward to this sequel but they just really made a hames of it. Ridiculous plot and plot devices , awful pacing , lacked the class of the previous two, thumbs down unfortunately.