What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

ButtersSuki

jcsoulinger wrote: »

I think that's very harsh. ya its clichéd but what main stream horror film isn't these days. Its been a while since I've seen it but I remember enjoying it for what it is. I don't know what you were expecting but a 2/10 come on its deserves more than that. I seen Mama recently and insidiuous is a hell of a lot better than that IMO.

Maybe my expectation was too high as I had heard good things but it was just awful IMO - and I say that as a fan of the genre and of Byrne's. It was just horror-by-numbers, and very weak. The Paranormal Activity reference wasn't by accident. It's like they wanted to make a PA-type movie with the injection of a familial story but it just didn't work for me. You are of course entitled to disagree!

I don't know. Maybe I'll stick to Asian horror, or oldies.

crazygeryy

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Maybe my expectation was too high as I had heard good things but it was just awful IMO - and I say that as a fan of the genre and of Byrne's. It was just horror-by-numbers, and very weak. The Paranormal Activity reference wasn't by accident. It's like they wanted to make a PA-type movie with the injection of a familial story but it just didn't work for me. You are of course entitled to disagree!

I don't know. Maybe I'll stick to Asian horror, or oldies.

Just out of curiosity what was the last very good horror you've seen?

ButtersSuki

crazygeryy wrote: »

Just out of curiosity what was the last very good horror you've seen?

I'll give you 2 oldies that I re-watched with herself recently as she had seen neither. The Omen on blu ray, and The Fog (John Carpenter 1973 version), also on BR.

More modern stuff that impressed me, Ringu (I even like the US remake!), Let The Right One In, and Audition. Depending on how you categorise it, Irrrevesible.

Freaky sh*t route? Human Centipede 2 and A Serbian Film - Both F&cked up but interesting for various reasons.

Not arguing with you btw, it just didn't do anything for me at all. I'm not a snob, but for me the Paranormal Activity movies were much more original, edgy and generally better made on what I'd imagine were smaller budgets. Oh, and scarier!

crazygeryy

ButtersSuki wrote: »

I'll give you 2 oldies that I re-watched with herself recently as she had seen neither. The Omen on blu ray, and The Fog (John Carpenter 1973 version), also on BR.

More modern stuff that impressed me, Ringu (I even like the US remake!), Let The Right One In, and Audition. Depending on how you categorise it, Irrrevesible.

Freaky sh*t route? Human Centipede 2 and A Serbian Film - Both F&cked up but interesting for various reasons.

Not arguing with you btw, it just didn't do anything for me at all. I'm not a snob, but for me the Paranormal Activity movies were much more original, edgy and generally better made on what I'd imagine were smaller budgets. Oh, and scarier!

I can't argue with that. All those movies are good horrors.except serbian one. That left me traumatised and sickened.
I thought insidious was very good and original.it did go crazy in the middle but i enjoyed it.

charlie_says

Conspiracy (2001)

Superb script and performances throughout. An essential Nazi film. BBC and HBO co production

High level SS, Nazi party and government advisors meet in 1942 Wannsee Conference near Berlin. The meeting was called to essentially make the final solution an official secret and working programme instead of an experimental one running on a small scale.

The conference is the main bulk of the film with a dozen or so key figures at a table behind closed doors argue over the technical, ideological and operational aspects of the killing and sterilization of up to 11 million Jews the Nazi's were planning to implement.

Stanley Tucci is excellent as the ruthless and efficient host of the event. Nicholas Woodeson puts in a great performance as usual.

It struck me as a sort of evil holocaust version of 12 Angry Men. Worth a watch

brevity

The Conspiracy

Just watched this on Netflix and felt I should recommend it as I really enjoyed it.

A bunch of film-makers want to make a documentary about a conspiracy nut and follow him around filming him in parks arguing with people about 9/11. The conspiracy nut goes missing and they try to track him down by going through his old newspaper clippings. One of them finds out about a secret society and they try to sneak in.

This is a found footage type movie and it is used to good effect throughout. The scenes towards the end build up some great tension and over all I thought it was a fun premise.

Definitely worth a watch if you dont mind found footage movies.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_conspiracy_2013/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2330322/

mike65

Lair of the White Worm 1988 Ken Russell in his declining era could still conjure up something enjoyably mad and slightly surreal, this loose adaptation of a yarn by Brad Stoker just about gets away with it thanks largely to the magnificent Amanda Donohoe who grasps her chance to make an impression (I suspect you need to be about 15 to get the most from her performance but it still worked for this old geeza!). The "shock" visuals are incredibly gaudy but fun while the use of a holy hand grenade was surely paying homage to Monty Python.

charlie_says

Trance (2013)

Watchable psychological thriller, with great visuals and a rather good soundtrack. Art heist movie that veers into some pretty weird and wonderful twists due to a hypnotist joining the crew to attempt to jog the memory of one of the injured gang members. It kinda goes way over the top towards the end with the constant twists, but there isn't a dull moment and Danny Boyle does a slick job. Certainly not brilliant by any means, but a solid romp and very stylish.

The female lead does a grand job as the sexy hypnotist. Forget her name, but she is pretty damn good in this.

ButtersSuki

charlie_says wrote: »

Trance (2013)
The female lead does a grand job as the sexy hypnotist. Forget her name, but she is pretty damn good in this.

Rosario Dawson.

She's in some of my faves - Sin City, He Got Game, Death Proof and Clerks II.

She also is (or at least was at the time Trance was filmed) Danny Boyle's GF. Now that's punching above your weight!

1809allan

Death Hunt (1981)
Classic film with a solid cast, Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin running around the Canadian Rockies. Loosely based on a true story, it is the tale of a lone, mysterious trapper who irks some thugs in the Canadian wilderness, leading to a massive manhunt by the Mounties.

upstairs for coffee

Django Unchained

Great scenes and characters interspersed among outrageous, over the top and somewhat boring gun battles. The scene with Di Caprio and Waltz in the library is brilliant, and one I could rewatch again and again.

Tarantino's accent is peculiar as has been mentioned.

Enjoyable but overall, 6/10 for me

tunguska

Hancock

I thought this was given a bit of an unfair critical mauling when it was released originally. Was on last night on TV3 and I think its a decent film, way better than most superhero flicks at the very least. Theres some great moments here and some nice touches, dialogue is way and above any film of its type. Will smith is great and even though it kind of loses its way for the final third I reckon this deserved a lot better than poor reaction it got initially.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

tunguska wrote: »

Hancock

I thought this was given a bit of an unfair critical mauling when it was released originally. Was on last night on TV3 and I think its a decent film, way better than most superhero flicks at the very least. Theres some great moments here and some nice touches, dialogue is way and above any film of its type. Will smith is great and even though it kind of loses its way for the final third I reckon this deserved a lot better than poor reaction it got initially.

I quite liked Hancock when I saw it. It's been a while so I don't remember all of it but I do remember thinking it was very different from what I had been expecting. A bit annoyed that I didn't notice it was on last night until it was nearly over. Must watch it again.

Speaking of Charlize Theron, kind of, I watched Young Adult. I thought it was hilarious although I'm not sure it was supposed to be. If you haven't seen it Theron plays Mavis, a ghost writer for a Young Adult series of books. When she finds out her high school sweetheart and his wife have just had a baby she heads back to her hometown to win him back. Mavis is a horrible person. No getting round that fact but some of the things she says and does are just hilarious. Then they start to introduce the idea that she may actually have mental problems and then the film kind of loses it's way a bit. I really didn't get the ending. It seemed like

Mavis was starting to realise she's a horrible person and needs help but then Matt's sister talks her into accepting that it's the rest of the world that has a problem, not her. Was that supposed to be some sort of commentary on how society allows popular, pretty, powerful people to get away with these kind of things and instead of blowing smoke up their backsides we should call them out on their behaviour?

I don't know. I wouldn't say rush out right now and watch it, but it was okay. It's hard not to like anything Charlize Theron is in, she's brilliant.

Mickeroo

I liked Hancock too, the first hour is great though it loses its way a bit in the final act I thought.

krudler

Mickeroo wrote: »

I liked Hancock too, the first hour is great though it loses its way a bit in the final act I thought.

Yeah same, everything up until you find out

Theron is like him

was great then it fell apart. I thought the idea of a superhero who's a total bum was cool and Smith plays the part well.

ButtersSuki

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, a ridiculously sexy Maria Tomei and our own Briain F. O'Byrne. It's a bank robbery gone wrong tale and the consequences and fall out of same for all the main characters., told from different viewpoints and in a non-linear fashion. A little slow at the start it tuned out to be quite enjoyable and has great performances all round

though it is a little uncomfortable watching PSH shoot up

A good 7/10.

Snake Plisken

We need to talk about Kevin Just started on BBC2 for anyone who hasn't seen it very strong powerful and disturbing film, well worth a watch!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Doc Hollywood

Is it a case that they used to make better films or have we all just become cynical in our old age? Doc Hollywood is nothing special but it has a charm and a warmth to it that you just don't get in modern day Hollywood rom-coms.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

a seperation

this was even better than fireworks wednesday, everything about it was incredible. I had to pause it to take a bathroom break at one point, thinking it was surely near the end now that I must have been sitting watching it for nearly 2 hours.. when the timer popped up on the pause menu it said only 1 hour had passed.

I had planned to watch another couple of movies today while I have the apartment to myself but I don't even know what to follow that up with.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Mickybo & Me

Kind of a Northern Irish version of Into The West. Two young boys in 70's Belfast become friends and inspired by Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid they run away from their problems at home, poverty, parents and bullies, and head for Australia. They get about as far as Dundalk, I'd say.

As I said, it's a bit like Into The West but it takes a few darker turns along the way and the last 20 minutes or so are a bit of a surprise. It's interesting though because although set at the height of "the troubles" and the boys' lives are very much impacted by them the film manages to keep them in the background for the most part and when they do move to the fore it never feels like a film about "the troubles". It does a much better job of getting this balance right than something like Good Vibrations, for example.

The two young leads are very good, it's surprising to see they've gone on to do relatively little since, although one of them has popped up in a few BBC things lately.

Judgement Day

As I type this I can hear shouts of "rolling", "rolling", "action" etc. coming from the set of "Brooklyn" right outside my window in Enniscorthy - how surreal is that?

Anyway, last night I picked off another 'Irish' movie - in the interests of research - and it wasn't that bad. "The American" (1998) on YouTube - a made for TV movie based on a novel by Henry James. An interesting cast including Diana Rigg, Matthew Modine and Aisling O'Sullivan. Modine, a self-made American, is on the 'grand tour' of Europe looking for culture and anything else on offer. Unfortunately he becomes besotted with a beautiful aristocratic widow (Aisling O'Sullivan), whose strange family strive to keep him out of their inbred circle - with tragic consequences for all concerned. A harmless piece of entertainment and worth seeing for the film-makers use of Dublin for Paris if nothing else.



Don't waste your time buying a copy though. 6/10

D'Agger

Captain America: The Winter Soldier:

Didn't see the first one, went to see this with three buddies at the weekend just for something to do. Normally when you go into movies not expecting much, you get taken by suprise and tend to enjoy the movie - at least in my experience anyway. However, whilst having all the ingredients for a successful movie - very cool effects, big fight scenes etc. - the script was abysmal, it was so clichéd and utterly predictable that I ultimately found this movie to be humerous. It was like a throwback to a Stephen Segal movie - there's even a Rocky styled punch freeze-out in one scene. I laughed out loud at a number of the incredibly poor lines and moments in the movie.

If I didn't find it so funny I'd be mad because the ingredients for a very good movie were there, the performances were good, the fight scenes were fluid and quick - yet the script was abysmal and ultimately let the movie down.

6/10

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

^ I saw a review yesterday for Captain America that said the opposite of this. There was the basis for a good 70's throwback conspiracy thriller type thing and it was ruined by endless fight scenes and explosions. Suppose it depends on what you want from a Superhero/comic book film.

jester77

I had the misfortune of watching The Green Inferno, one of the worse movies I've seen in a very long time. Bad cast, bad acting and bad script.

Tony EH

Capt. America and Thor have to be the crappiest mainstream superheroes ever.

LandonRicketts

Watch Labour Day with the other half. Part Film, Part "How to bake a Peach Pie with Josh Brolin". Watchable I guess. It reminded me of a Nicolas Sparks unbelievable setup/plot but with a respected director(Jason Reitman) and a star cast.

D'Agger

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

^ I saw a review yesterday for Captain America that said the opposite of this. There was the basis for a good 70's throwback conspiracy thriller type thing and it was ruined by endless fight scenes and explosions. Suppose it depends on what you want from a Superhero/comic book film.

I listened to Mark Kermodes review and he said likewise regarding the 70's throwback - like I said - there was the makings of a very good movie there - the story itself had huge potential but ultimately the script left it down with clichéd lines and poor telling of a story - if that makes sense.

This could have been a very good movie but there were too many laughable points in it for me to take it seriously unfortunately.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

D'Agger wrote: »

I listened to Mark Kermodes review and he said likewise regarding the 70's throwback - like I said - there was the makings of a very good movie there - the story itself had huge potential but ultimately the script left it down with clichéd lines and poor telling of a story - if that makes sense.

This could have been a very good movie but there were too many laughable points in it for me to take it seriously unfortunately.

Yeah, it was Kermode on BBC News' review thing that I was watching too.

Sleepy

pixelburp wrote: »

First Blood (1982)

Just aired on TV3 tonight and I had nothing else on. It's the first of the Rambo films, and in almost every way it's a different beast from the three sequels it spawned - particularly the violent, gory fourth film released in 2008.

'First Blood' is a much smarter film than its successors might lead a person to believe and deserves analysis on its own merits really; John Rambo is a drifter, a Vietnam vet. suffering from PTSD and survivor's guilt, who gets dragged into a miniature war with some local cops and the national reserve. The PTSD angle isn't reading between the lines either, it's a central pillar of the plot and acts as a clever catalyst for the ensuing violence; a barely-coherent emotional breakdown from Rambo underlines this - Rambo's a broken man & is lashing out against a population that just doesn't seem to care. Mind you, he's still lucid enough that there's only one death in the whole film - a far cry from the aforementioned 2008 production.

The action itself is all efficiently told and the rural American setting really gives everything a rustic, gritty edge - it's Bear Grylls vs. the Police as Rambo lays traps in the forest and survives in the hills. What gives things extra credibility is that the Police themselves are not inherently evil, corrupt or detestable so we can delight in their misfortune and injury; sure, Brian Dennehy's character is a hotheaded jerk, but he's not written as someone we're to hate without question - everything that goes down is as much because of misunderstanding as anything else (ok, Rambo is attacked in the police station, but there were chances for everyone to climb down). Equally, Rambo himself is not really an audience surrogate or projection - there's no real glorification in his actions - the last scene emphasises this.

If you've ever avoided the Rambo films because of their reputation, I'd give this first one a go; it's a smart, clever actioner that touches on some deeper nerves about what can happen soldiers when they return home.

I saw this for the first time a few years back and was utterly stunned by how intelligent a film it was. Had always expected something on a par with Rocky IV but when I finally watched it I was very pleasantly surprised.

Tony EH

'First Blood' is a perfect example of a good film tarnished by piss-poor sequels and doomed to be forever associated with them.

The original 'Rocky' suffers this from malaise too.