What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

Liam McPoyle

Red Hill

Australian movie surrounding a city cop that moves to a rural town for a better life for him and his wife. First day on the job he is thrown into a cat and mouse chase with an escaped convict who had years previously murdered his wife and attempted to kill a local cop, he returns to finish what he started.

While not a horror in the purest sense this is a suspenseful horror cum thriller. Some great performances, particularly from the police chief, a decent script and some nice tense set pieces raise this above the usual stalk and slash fare.

7/10

Body Bags

First time watching this in at least 16 or 17 years (first saw it on BBC1 late night on a Saturday night when they used to screen horror flicks fairly regularly), this is a horror anthology presented by John Carpenter (he directed 2 of the shorts) and it contains cameos from a plethora of horror movie icons such as Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper and Sam Raimi as well as a lot of other familiar faces.

Anthology movies (with the exception of the original Creep Show) are generally hit and miss affairs, this is no different.

The first one involves a young woman working in a 24 hour petrol station with the back drop being an unknown killer is stalking a little town called Haddonfield - mini nerdgasm from me for this - who encounters a couple of odd characters.

Second one involves a man losing his hair and having a new treatment done to reverse this.

Final one involves a base ball player who following an accident, has an eyeball transplant. Turns out the eye belonged to an executed serial killer, ruh roh, and he begins having visions of the killers acts.

Middle segment is the weakest, first one I liked best. Some nice special effects but its the "spot a star" factor that I enjoyed most.

Good fun but not great fun.

6/10

Squeedily Spooch

e_e wrote: »

Halloween, only saw it first around this time last year and it's really held up on the rewatch. Great stuff.

Classic film. I tried watching the Rob Zombie remake and turned it off halfway through, awful stuff. Carptener's original is fantastic though, I think it was one of the first horror films to be shot in 2.35:1 as well and uses the frame brilliantly. I must watch it again during the week, double bill of Halloween and The Thing.

ButtersSuki

A few I've caught over the last few weeks:

Jobs on TV. Ashton Kutcher in the early days of Steve Jobs biopic. Having read more than one book on Jobs I was kinda looking forward to this though in my heart I think I knew I'd be disappointed. I was. Jobs was a Class 1 Grade A a$$hole in real life; Kutcher's portrayal paints him as merely a bit of one, at times. The movie concentrates on the early years of apple, but hops around the place so much you're left wondering how the hell did this company grow - little is offered by way of explanation as to the growth. If you didn't know the back story in detail you'd think this was fiction. Plus Kutcher does this really annoying thing of grossly exaggerating Jobs walk and mannerisms to the point where it almost becomes distracting. Jony Ive is presented as a mere designer, when his place and position in apple's history is far more important. Inaccurate, flat and at times boring - which it seems to me to have been difficult to do given such an interesting subject. An ok 4.5/10 - at best.

A Good Marriage Joan Allen and Anthony LaPaglia star in an adaptation of a Stephen King book about a seemingly perfectly happily married couple. The husband however hides a deep secret which the wife discovers. She is left with a difficult decision

- to remain quiet and preserve her family or to turn him in and destroy it

. She opts for a more shall we say "creative" route. It's painfully slow and at times feels like you're watching a (bad) play. I haven't read the book on which this is based, but it simply has to be better than this. 4/10.

Tony EH

Yeh, 'A Good Marriage' wasn't great. I came away with the same impressions as you.

Plus, the obvious conclusions are always just around the corner. It's a bit of a tick the box film.

D'Agger

Had a long flight recently and watched two Movies:

Transformers: Age Of Extinction: 1/10

I was initially going to say 0/10 based on the fact that nothing in this movie appealed to me, then I realized that Nicola Peltz is easy on the eye....that's about it.

This movie is awful, I realised it 15minutes in but decided to keep watching as it was a long flight.

In summation - this movie made an 8 hour flight seem much, much longer


Zodiac:

Can't believe it took me so long to watch this movie - thoroughly enjoyed it and thought the performances were what made it for me - Ruffalo in particular

8/10

ButtersSuki

D'Agger wrote: »

Had a long flight recently and watched two Movies:

Transformers: Age Of Extinction: 1/10

I was initially going to say 0/10 based on the fact that nothing in this movie appealed to me, then I realized that Nicola Peltz is easy on the eye....that's about it.

This movie is awful, I realised it 15minutes in but decided to keep watching as it was a long flight.

In summation - this movie made an 8 hour flight seem much, much longer


Zodiac:

Can't believe it took me so long to watch this movie - thoroughly enjoyed it and thought the performances were what made it for me - Ruffalo in particular

8/10

Just out of curiosity - did you watch Zodiac on the plane's entertainment system? It's heavily edited, you really should watch the Director's Cut instead.

FortuneChip

D'Agger wrote: »

Zodiac:

Can't believe it took me so long to watch this movie - thoroughly enjoyed it and thought the performances were what made it for me - Ruffalo in particular

8/10

Follow it up with Prisoners if you haven't already seen it.
Very similar mood, and another well acted thriller.

D'Agger

FortuneChip wrote: »

Follow it up with Prisoners if you haven't already seen it.
Very similar mood, and another well acted thriller.

Have seen it and thought it was outstanding! Cheers for the recommendation though!

Judgement Day

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Is the pipe caught between a rock and a hard place so to speak?

Have you broken through from Liveline?

ButtersSuki

Judgement Day wrote: »

Have you broken through from Liveline?

Indeed, thought I deleted it in time but apparently not. Apologies!

charlie_says

The Gatekeepers

Very interesting documentary that examines Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security agency, by interviewing 6 of the previous head guys.

They are serious people and definitely pro-Israeli (as you would expect) but have very pragmatic views of the current conflict between themselves and the Palestinians. All of them are motivated, shrewd and well spoken individuals with opinions that should be heard.

Excellent interviews mixed with the usual archived footage, some disturbing mind.

Worth a watch.

D'Agger

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Just out of curiosity - did you watch Zodiac on the plane's entertainment system? It's heavily edited, you really should watch the Director's Cut instead.

Only saw this now - I did indeed, will check the directors cut...must check out more DCs too really

kearneybobs

Watched Nightwalker. Ridiculously good film. Gyllenhaal at his best. Slow start, often tense but great black humour.

Judgement Day

"The Time Shifters" (1999) on YouTube.

Made for TV and without doubt one of the worst Sci-Fi movies that I've ever seen. A cast of nobodys save for Martin Sheen - who never actually appears in the flesh but rather on some sort of tablet device. I guess they couldn't afford him.



Above: Martin Sheen, or all you get to see of him!

Synopsis from IMDB: A traveller from the future seems to be witnessing all the great disasters of the 20th century. Two reporters are trying to track this man down to see where he will show up next. The movie also works on the problem of the two reporters that want to prevent the next disaster from happening. Should they change the future when they know another disaster is going to strike?

In the words of one reviewer on IMDB 'Awful Crap'.... too bad to award any rating. I should have checked on Wiki first. Avoid at all costs!

Arghus

Stretch- Funny origin story with this one. Directed by the guy who made The Grey, which was excellent and managed to recoup some money at the box office. Starring a few big and biggish names and produced for a not astronomical sum by a producer who has made his name churning out utter schlock to huge returns. It should, in theory have seen the light of day somewhere, but instead the studio wanted shot of it as soon as they got their hands on it and instead of it's day in the sun the film was cast down into the world of relative ignominy that is VOD.

After viewing it, that decision and the convoluted back story makes sense, of a sort. I wanted to see why it was deemed so unmarketable as to be untouchable and from a certain perspective I can now understand, but have to despair over the lack of balls shown by the money men and the movie makers in that planet far, far away.

There are flashes of obscene,demented genius throughout the experience. Very strong on this front during the first half and particularly so during the opening ten minutes which was an unbelievably strong introduction- extremely caustic and cynical bile meets in a perfect combination with genuine belly laughs and visual flair. I was excited but also fearful- there's no way this quality can keep up for another hour and a half. Sure enough, it doesn't, but there's still plenty of sleazy gonzo laughs throughout that are played for their just downright wrong quality. If there's a laugh to be had in all the mayhem the film makes sure that it's a bizarre and twisted one. And those, as we all know, are the best kind.

Perhaps the film was thrown on the slagheap because it's ultimately too much of a mix, a mongrel of contrasts. Everything that's great about comes from the bizarre and anarchic, but yet by the end, things are played too safe and conventional. I suppose I should have known that was a possibility, but everything up until then had encouraged me to expect some OTT out of left field development that I couldn't have guessed at in a million years. The ending is so neat and cliched that I still amn't sure whether it's a deliberate attempt to mess with your expectations again. I don't think so really. It seems like they knew the jig was up and the ending and moments of tired conventionality were a final plea bargain for love from the men whose opinions would shape the movie's fate. Too bad then that they were doomed to failure anyway. They may as well have just get going full on schizo the whole way, then they'd have had something to be proud of. As it is it's hard to know who's going to really, really like this movie. Far, far too weird and messed up for most and yet just not crazy enough for everyone else.

Liam McPoyle

Dog Pound

Canadian drama centering on 3 teens that get sentenced to a young offenders institute for various crimes. The main character is "Butch", a troubled youth with an explosively violent temper brilliantly played by Adam Butcher.

This is based on Alan Clarke's iconic movie Scum and while not as shocking as its predecessor, it still packs a punch, alot of it down to the aforementioned Butcher in the role of "Carling".

It was on Film 4 a few nights ago so will likely be repeated sometime soon so Id recommend it for those that like prison dramas.

7/10

Harry Palmr

As seen on BBC Four

The Body (2012) Directed by Oriol Paulo. Spanish suspense drama which is ultimately a very shaggy dog tale of deceit set over a rain-lashed night with flashbacks. I can't say any more about the plot as that will ruin it. Fine performances by José Coronado as the chain smoking copper and Hugo Silva as his quarry, subtitled so you have to pay attention all the way.

briany

Shooting Bigfoot (2013)

(another) BBC 4 documentary following three disparate expeditions, to use the term very loosely, as they each seek to find, capture, film or just find any evidence whatsoever of the elusive cryptid.

An hilarious documentary at many points because the subjects are each so earnest in their pursuit and they're all such characters. The 'main' hunter is such an over the top grotesque character who quickly drops his nice guy act as soon as even the slightest thing goes wrong, and I mean something as trivial as his favorite soft drink not being on hand.

It feels almost like a mockumentary at times and there's been questions raised about what side of the line it sits on, but whatever it is, it's very entertaining. Recommended.

johnny_ultimate

Listen Up Philip - Alex Ross Perry's offers a caustic twist on the standard hip New York comedy. Jason Schwartzman plays insufferable git Philip, a 'noteworthy' but arrogant writer who has just published novel number two. Selfish and casually cruel, he leaves a trail of scorched earth in his wake. Sections of the film also spin-off to follow his long-suffering girlfriend (Elisabeth Moss) and an older writer who thinks him under his wing (Jonathan Pryce).

Can you endure a horrible character for feature length? If so, this film does offer a smart script, fascinatingly unromantic character studies and a story where happy endings are near impossible. A dry, knowing voiceover adds a suitable layer of literary playfulness, and there's plenty of amusing moments and one-liners. Some surprisingly emotional moments too, including one fantastic close-up of Moss that captures a brief but telling mood swing. Ultimately, it lacks the devastating final punch of Perry's last film The Colour Wheel, but this is still a playfully bleak and intelligent film that deconstructs some indie film tropes with viscous precision.

otnomart

Just watched Locke and with the closing titles it hit me, it is a Dogma movie!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Pure

10 year old Paul struggles to help his mum get off heroin while looking after himself and his little brother. Set in and around Upton Park, home of West Ham Football Club, it's a surprisingly hopeful film. Not at all the grey gritty urban drama you'd expect from that plot. It doesn't sugarcoat things but it's mainly told from Paul's point of view as he slowly comes to realise that his mum is in fact a junkie and pretty useless to him. He sets out to remove all the causes of her drug use so she'll get better but eventually realises he can't help her if she won't help herself. The film is essentially about his efforts to save her.

I've seen this a few times but haven't watched it for a few years now. It still holds up as a great film. Harry Eden, who was 12 at the time, plays Paul brilliantly. You're on is side from the very start and he's in virtually every scene but he carries it so well. It's a wonder he's done so little since.

The Black Oil

The Next Three Days

Curious to watch this not long after seeing Gone Girl, which I think holds things together more effectively. In this, the back half is where I feel the film lets itself down. The detective makes a leap I didn't really buy and it drives the chase. Fun to see Liam Neeson advise on the plan, albeit in a non-arse kicking capacity. Hard not to think of the A-Team. Trust is fragile.

Essien

Third Person.

Definitely falls into the category of 'not my kind of film', so it would be unfair of me to slate it as much as I'd like to.

I made it all the way to the end though, despite the film having disappeared up it's own arse.

briany

The Signal (2014)

A trio of college students come into contact with a mysterious hacker and things go awry when they attempt to track him down.

A great little sci fi movie. Good story, good setting and good acting. Not a movie that I can say a lot about for fear of giving it away. I heard it being criticised for being slow-paced, but I thought it was paced just fine.

The Black Oil

Parkland

This has an impressive cast and wastes no time in getting down to the big drama. It's also a somewhat lonely film with intimate moments - a hand gesture there, the cramped hospital room, the phone call between the Oswalds, Mrs. Kennedy with the piece of brain matter and skull. The downside, is some other elements feel merely presented rather than skilfully directed. Paul Giamti (Mr. Zapruder) and Billy Bob Thornton are perhaps the emotional and moral compass of the film. Aaron Pierce from 24 is in it, you can guess what role he plays. Worth a watch, if somewhat middle of the road

SarahBM

The Prince of Eygpt

One of my all time favourite animated films ever! A wonderful cast, spectacular animation and beautiful music. Im not a religious person but I find this to be an amazing story and they just managed to tell it in such a beautiful way.
Hans Zimmer has to go down as one of the greatest score composers of all time.
I didn't realise what a fantastic cast this film has until I stumbled upon it on IMDB!!!! Just brilliant! I cannot recommend it enough!

Also watched Rent for the first time. Needless to say I balled my eyes out, and I now have Seasons of Love stuck in my head.
Wouldnt be up there with my favourite musicals of all time, but it was very good. Very powerful. For those of you who have never seen it, its the story of a bunch of friends living in NYC in 1989, they are songwriters, actors, strippers and film makers, "artists" you might say. They are all struggling, broke and threatened with eviction. a few of them are suffering from AIDS. Its very good.

Schadenfreudia

Grand Budapest Hotel...quirky, very watchable.

figges

The Family - Luc Besson - De Niro - Pfieffer

Got hooked by the trailer on this - please dont make the same mistake.

So bad - plot so ridiculous and contrived - hoped it might be in the vein of prizzis honour but it would be an insult to that film to link it to this drivel.

Acting and cinematography are OK - the actors generally deserve some credit for not hamming it up. De Niro has a couple of nice touches. TL Jones performance is the most honest - "You paid me for this - I'll give a professional performance - now please let me go and do something with some credibility".

It sets out to make you think it will be an amusing take on gangster life but it is half hearted, half thought out, lazy half arsed effort. Avoid.

Paddy Samurai

Fury
Went to see this the weekend and liked the first 3/4's big time.It reminded me of Saving Private Ryan/band of brothers.Brad Pitt and the rest of the tank crew are all top notch.
A realistic war movie right up to the final gung-ho battle scene that let it down badly.
In the end it went from realism to fantasy.

Tony EH

That's a shame.

So, it's just more hollywood rubbish then?

Thought it was too good to be true, but I saw Brad Pitt (a 50 year old) in charge of a tank in WWII, I knew something would be amiss.

One day, somebody (who isn't German) will make a realistic WWII film.