What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

Joanne218

recently watched an independent movie staring Jason Segal called "Jeff who lives at home". It is worth a watch if your into low budget movies.

e_e

Tony EH wrote: »

Always thought he was a complete chancer. A bullshit artist with a bit of genuine flair. But, way too in love with taking the mickey.

Kind of liked 'Dogville' though.

It's that prankster element to his art that I actually like more. It's when he plays it totally straight (like in the second half of Melancholia) that I find him boring.

Looper007

grohlisagod wrote: »

Just back from Locke. Interesting concept, well executed. Another excellent performance from Hardy. Well worth it.

one of the biggest surprises of 2014 so far, an excellent one man show from Tom Hardy supported from great voice work from Andrew Scott and Olivia Coleman. It shot into my top ten so far this year, really great stuff.

Looper007

Lawless (2012)

John Hillcoat and Nick Cave's follow up to the Stunning Australian western The Proposition, although Hillcoat did direct inbetween these films the haunting and downbeat The Road, which is a neglected film to say the least. First off, it ain't no where the masterpiece that was The Proposition and for that it was critically knocked by many who saw it at the time (me been one), looking back on it now thanks to DVD, it's a good but flawed film with some top performances from Tom Hardy and Guy Pearce (camping it up Villain), Shia LeBeouf even gives a good performance, Jessica Chastain Mia Wasikowska and Gary Oldman are a little underused sadly. But it's a interesting subject with a good soundtrack that probably couldn't live up to the hype that it had before it released. 7/10

triseke

White Dog (1982)

Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

Ivansxtc (2000)

Tipsy McSwagger

A Prophet

Second time to watch it and it's definitely a masterpiece.

cursai

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2317225/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt

The Machine. Very enjoyable and thought provoking. Kinda like Deus Ex(videogame) meets Charlie Brooker the writer meets The Terminator.

tunguska

Joanne218 wrote: »

recently watched an independent movie staring Jason Segal called "Jeff who lives at home". It is worth a watch if your into low budget movies.

I came across that by accident a few months back and I really liked it. I think that was down to Jason Segal though, he plays the good natured everyman brilliantly.

tunguska

The Internship

I know this got a tonne of sh1t when it was released, people just seemed to be violently opposed to it. I didnt bother going to see it in the cinema, the reviews were that bad but watched it the other night and I really liked it. I know its movie making by numbers, I know its a big Google whore fest, and I know its as predictable as the outcome of the Scottish premier league. Despite all that though I just thought it had an innocence about it and its heart was in the right place. Plus Vince Vaughan and Owen Wilson spark off each other brilliantly, they just crack me up. Its definitely a feel good movie and I think you could do a lot worse.

Watchmen

Like the Internship this also got a tonne of abuse upon when it was released and like the Internship people seemed to be angry at its mere existence. Fair enough the violence is a bit extreme and could've easily have been toned down without compromising the integrity of the story. But I just think theres so much great stuff going on here. The acting is first rate, Patrick wilson is solid and so to is Matthew Goode, but its Jackie earl haley and Jeffery Dean Morgan who stand out for me. Theres some amazing scenes and set pieces but at the same time theres some really poignant moments aswell, like that scene were Rorschach shakes Nighthawks hand and tells him that he's a good friend, that was something very small but significant and its stuff like that which separates Watchmen from every other superhero film.
I've seen The Avengers movie, superman, Ironman, Batman, captain america, The hulk, Thor............the whole lot of them, and they're all essentially the same movie, which is kind of depressing. But Watchmen is in a different league, its a smarter, deeper, more interesting and subsequently more entertaining film than any of its peers.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

The Guard

Disappointed, to be honest. It felt like someone watched a lot of Tarantino films and tried to relocate them to the Wesht of Ireland.

Judgement Day

"Easter 2016" (1982) on DVD. BBC Northern Ireland 'Play for Tomorrow' series. A strong cast but a strange tale.

Denys Hawthorne, Lise Ann McLaughlin, Gerard McSorley, Colm Meaney, Kenneth Branagh. Interesting to see Colm Meaney in one of his earliest screen roles.

Set in Northern Ireland’s only integrated teacher training college in 2016 just prior to the centennial of the Easter Rising . A dangerous struggle develops between the principal of the college and the security director who values security more than education. 7/10. A keeper!


Would you trust a college security officer who wore this type of gear?

Birneybau

Sounds positively bizarre. You certainly dig them out J.D. : )

pixelburp

Judgement Day wrote: »

"Easter 2016" (1982) on DVD. BBC Northern Ireland 'Play for Tomorrow' series. A strong cast but a strange tale.

Maybe you've answered this before Judgement, and without breaking the forums charter, how do you come to even learn of these titles, not to mention laying your hands on them? They seem like truly forgotten/forgettable productions no one could just know of in passing...

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Just switched off The Artist after an hour.

So boring.

Bad day for films for me

Baked.noodle

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Judges judging Judges. Some great court room drama. It will engage you to the end. 9/10

Judgement Day

pixelburp wrote: »

Maybe you've answered this before Judgement, and without breaking the forums charter, how do you come to even learn of these titles, not to mention laying your hands on them? They seem like truly forgotten/forgettable productions no one could just know of in passing...

Years of experience and buckets of natural talent. But seriously it just down to my fetish for collecting and collating everything - birds, railways, movies etc.etc. I have an embryonic blog on Irish movies here: http://irelandsmovies.wordpress.com but it's still at a very skeletal stage and I'm adding to and padding it out every day.

Richard

Judgement Day wrote: »

Gerard McSorley

Todd Unctuous! Knew I recognised the name!

ButtersSuki

Contraband Mark Wahlberg (sans Bwoston accent) is a bad boy smuggler turned good who has to do one last job to help his (extended) family.Standard enough fare if you can leave aside potholes the size of Wahlberg's ego. 5/10.

p to the e

tunguska wrote: »

Watchmen

I honestly think history will be a lot kinder to Watchmen than when it was released. I never saw it as a run of the mill super hero flick and I'm sure it was never intended as so. Having recently rewatched it myself I was still seeing things I missed on the first viewing. Also Rorshach is perfectly cast and one of the finest characters in a movie in years.

Looper007 wrote: »

one of the biggest surprises of 2014 so far, an excellent one man show from Tom Hardy supported from great voice work from Andrew Scott and Olivia Coleman. It shot into my top ten so far this year, really great stuff.

I was lucky enough to have not seen any trailers when I went to see this and had just heard it all took place within a car so was mightily intrigued. It peaked your interest right from the start as you're not sure what's going on and it's amazing how, as the film progresses, you're hoping concrete gets poured.

Looper007 wrote: »

Lawless (2012)

I saw a premier screening of this in Cineworld and after they had a live screening of a Q&A session with John Hillcoat and Nick Cave. Hillcoat said that the film is quite jovial at times because he needed to do something along those lines after the infinite bleakness that was 'The Road'. It seems that it really affected him. 'The Proposition' is also one of my favourite films.

Corkfeen

Mickeroo wrote: »

No been able to bring myself to watch Antichrist yet, been on my to do list since it came out but I'm not sure I'm cut out for those kinds of films anymore

You should sit down and have a relaxing evening watching something light. I'd recommend Martyrs.

old hippy

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

Just watched Withnail and I for the first time in years. Was too young on first watching to really appreciate it, thoroughly enjoyed it this time around.

I saw it a few months after it was released on VHS. I have to say, first time round I didn't appreciate it. It was made 16 years after the 60s ended and I was of the opinion "what's the point". It's now, what, over 25 years since the film was made and I've probably watched it ten times over the years.

Gamayun

Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981)
B movie with Lance Henriksen. James Cameron is credited as director on this despite most of his duties being hijacked by the producer Ovidio G. Assonitis. There's lots of B movie tropes here, such as gratuitous nudity and silly comedy-sketch-style scenes; and the piranhas themselves are laughable, resembling those wind up chattering-teeth toys. This is on the entertaining side of crap though and there's some fun to be had if you're in the right mood.

Tremors (1990)
Classic comedy-horror homage to 1950s creature-features. Good fun.

Kiraware Matsuko no isshô AKA Memories of Matsuko (2006)
Zany tragicomedy cum drama from Japan (with a few musical numbers thrown in). I really enjoyed this. Great visuals and a terrific performance by the lead, Miki Nakatani . It possibly a tad overlong and there's a musical theme which I felt was overused but otherwise great.

Sleepy

CBGB
Really enjoyed this, Alan Rickman plays Hilly Kristal, the owner of the iconic CBGB club in New York's Bowery and recognised by many as the "Godfather of Punk". The sound-track is obviously fantastic and there's lots of lovely "is that X?" moments (you'll never look at Rupert Grint in the same light again!).

NyOmnishambles

Watched Iron Giant for the first time last night after seeing it referenced here a lot over the years

I really enjoyed it and liked the style of it, the era it is set in lends it a nice charm too
I think you could show it to children of all ages and they would find something to like about it

Hopefully it gets the rumoured first class Blu-Ray release it deserves

Tony EH

Sleepy wrote: »

CBGB
Really enjoyed this, Alan Rickman plays Hilly Kristal, the owner of the iconic CBGB club in New York's Bowery and recognised by many as the "Godfather of Punk". The sound-track is obviously fantastic and there's lots of lovely "is that X?" moments (you'll never look at Rupert Grint in the same light again!).

Is there anything from the NYHC movement?

If not, then they're doing it wrong.

Judgement Day

“Cry of the Innocent” (1980) on YouTube last night.

Another movie that I watched in the interest of research. I had seen it years ago but had forgotten just how bad it was.

Based on a Freddie Forsyth novel, shot on location in Ireland and with an 'interesting' cast including Rod Taylor, Joanna Pettet, Cyril Cusack, Walter Gotell, Jim Norton and Nigel Davenport.

Steven Donegan (Rod Taylor), is an American insurance executive whose life is turned upside down after his wife and children are killed when a private plane crashes into their seaside cottage in the west of Ireland. But this was no accident and Donegan - a former US Green Beret - sets out to track down those responsible. Apart from a little bit too much stage Irishness, the action is pedestrian at best - I nodded off briefly - and I was glad when the credits came up. Avoid, 2/10 - and that's for glimpses of Dublin City fado, fado.

johnny_ultimate

East of Eden - A CinemaScope treat on the big screen. This selective adaptation of Steinbeck's novel is over wordy and eventually veers towards the cheesy, but the thematic strength of the material (playing hard and loose with biblical references), gorgeous classical Hollywood visuals and some exemplary performances - particularly from James Dean, Raymond Massey and Julie Harris - make this a compelling watch.

Gertrud - Carl Th. Dreyer was one of the greatest filmmakers to have ever lived, and his final production can happily be added to the list of great and important 'last films'. Initial impressions are this is quite a theatrical production - it's adapted from a play, the spaces are stage-like and the dialogues lengthy. But it quickly becomes apparent how deeply cinematic it is, with Dreyer's extraordinary use of lighting, visual motifs and devastatingly long takes. A slow and challenging film in many respects, it offers the viewer a rich and bittersweet meditation on life and love as our protagonist Gertrud (Nina Pens Rode) reflects on her past, present and future. We're left a huge amount of room to navigate this ourselves, where the characters are fascinatingly multifaceted and the tone in constant flux between tragedy, joy, regret, transcendence.

Exhibition - I really disliked Joanna Hogg's last film Archipelago, perhaps the worst kind of art film: glacially paced and self-important, but offering little in the way of insight or payoffs for the patient. Exhibition is glacially paced and self-important too, but in contrast it offers lots in the way of insight and payoffs for the patient. It's a portrait of a couple - artists referred to as only D (Viv Albertine) and H (Liam Gillick) - but it's also a portrait of their soon to be ex home, a vast, modernist home built by architect James Melvin. These walls, windows and doors have absorbed their secrets, their memories, their troubles, their isolation, their moments of bliss.

The film is layered with fascinating ambiguities, and results in a subtle and deeply controlled piece of work that proposes and explores a range of ideas and themes. It's clinically made film in many respects - the house itself ensures that, and Hogg predominantly uses static, sharply geometric camera angles. But there's a very human tale bubbling beneath it all, full of nostalgia, eroticism, passions and long histories. Sudden bursts of surrealism keep things interesting in the second half, while also allowing the viewer pointed glimpses at the characters' deepest fears and desires. Kudos are particularly due to the sound design team, who maintain a sense of claustrophobia, isolation and unease through the constantly present but very much muffled sounds of the outside world.

This isn't going to be for everyone, and I say that as someone who hated this director's last film. But Hogg's Exhibition is an intellectually engaging and impressively complex film that really drew me into its offbeat rhythm.

Living in a Coded Land - Pat Collins' essay film is a meditative, associative journey through the landscapes and stories of Ireland. Overflowing with serene visuals and poetic observations, it above all takes a good long look at what our landscapes and the people who occupy them can tell us. The freewheeling film thus explores a whole range of topics from class division to emigration - often backed by the voiceovers of poets, musicians and academics, but just as often explored through careful visual links & cues. Perhaps lacking a little bit of the formal invention and playfulness that separates the best essay films - like those from Chris Marker or Agnes Varda - it is still a rich and diverse slice of proudly Irish filmmaking, embracing cinema's poetic capabilities in a way so often lacking in our national cinema.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

East of Eden - A CinemaScope treat on the big screen. This selective adaptation of Steinbeck's novel is over wordy and eventually veers towards the cheesy, but the thematic strength of the material (playing hard and loose with biblical references), gorgeous classical Hollywood visuals and some exemplary performances - particularly from James Dean, Raymond Massey and Julie Harris - make this a compelling watch.

I watched this once years ago right after I had read the book and hated it. It cuts out so much from the book, which I loved, so naturally I wasn't impressed.

I watched it again more recently and taking it on it's own, without the book fresh in my mind, it's not so bad. I still think Julie Harris' casting as Abra was terrible though. She's supposed to be a teenager and she looks about 40! Also it's obvious in quite a few scenes that the other actors hadn't a clue how to act opposite James Dean, made for a couple of awkward scenes. Cal trying to give his dad the bean money in particular.

johnny_ultimate

I haven't read the book, but to me it sounds like they made the right choice by focusing on one aspect of the novel. Better to do that than force an epic, multi generation tale into a form that doesn't suit it! As a general rule I tend to prefer adaptations that distill their source down to something that will work better as a film.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I haven't read the book, but to me it sounds like they made the right choice by focusing on one aspect of the novel. Better to do that than force an epic, multi generation tale into a form that doesn't suit it! As a general rule I tend to prefer adaptations that distill their source down to something that will work better as a film.

I agree this particular novel was way too long to be a film. It was more that they left out the main point that the book makes at the end that annoyed me. As I said though, watching it again a few years later without the book fresh in my mind it's not a bad adaptation at all.

The book would make a fantastic mini series though, if someone wants to kickstart that