What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

8mv

Paddington yesterday with Mrs mv and the girls. Good family film, lots of fun. I especially liked Sally Hawkins - lovely performance as usual from her.

Caught that Avengers movie on TV over the Christmas - what on Earth was the fuss about? Fairly mediocre I thought.

Tipsy McSwagger

The Drop

Disappointing, 2/5

The Boxtrolls

Very Good 4/5

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Watched King Arthur on Sky One there. I quite like it.

It's your typical swords and sandal type epic but more of the quality of say Gladiator than Pompeii or the more recent Clash of the Titans, in that there's an actual story line and they went outside to shoot it instead of sticking everyone in front of a green screen.

I find this version of the Arthur legend much more interesting than the traditional one. The idea he was half Roman half Briton and kind of stumbled into his position as King of England seems a more likely story to me than the sword in the stone magic Merlin nonsense.

mickser42

dog day afternoon on ITV ,,,, pacino is pretty good in this

SarahBM

Man of Steel - Hadn't seen it since the cinema, and I have to say I really enjoyed it more on the second viewing. I think perhaps because the action (lots of exploding buildings) was so overwhelming in the cinema. I am turning into a right auld woman! Love the story and in particular the relationship between Clarke and Johnathan. I am interested to see what the whole Batman Vs Superman thing is going to be like.
In The Name Of The King - Good cast, Jsaon Statham, John Rhyse Davies, Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta. A bit better than I expected, but I found that the story just didn't reach its full potential. and then it just ended. Like literally the sun came out and BAM - credits.
Anyway, as my procrastinating about studying for my impending exam continued, I for some stupid reason watched Transformers 3- the Dark of the Moon. My god, Shia le Beouf (I know I spelt that wrong) is soooooo annoying. What a ridiculous character. The best thing about that movie is Leonard Nemoy's voice for Sentinel Prime saying "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". And Bumblebee of course.

Dr. Mantis Toboggan

Sam Mac wrote: »

The Rover. Superb.

Worth it for the performances alone. There are some fantastic films coming out of Australia/NZ of late.
.

Great movie. Thanks for the recommendation. Best I've seen in a while.

Sam Mac

Dr. Mantis Toboggan wrote: »

Great movie. Thanks for the recommendation. Best I've seen in a while.

You are most welcome, glad you liked it!

---

Watched:

Perfect Sisters, starring Abigail Breslin and Georgie Henley.

Based on a true case about two sisters who murder their own mother while still in their teens.

It was actually pretty good, and the cast did a really good job. It didn't get much of a theatrical release in the US so I doubt it will ever come here.

Worth watching IMO. Abigail Breslin has turned into a fine actress.

brianregan09

I just watched American Mary really was taken aback at the start of it , It's about a med student who moves into the underground body modification market, Had heard it was a decent slasher flick so when i saw it on sky threw it on

As i said I was taken aback by it initially but the more it went on the more I was intrigued by it and really began to enjoy it , without ruining it the ending is pretty muted compared to the rest of it , But really enjoyable film provided you're not anyway squeamish (and no its not just aload of gore for the sake of it ) like some horror films.

7.5/10

astraj

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

The Drop

Disappointing, 2/5

The Boxtrolls

Very Good 4/5

The Drop 4/5

david75

Son of a gun
Avoid it. It's ****e.

'71
Excellent stuff

Irish Aris

I saw Polisse and Locke last night and I recommend them both, although admittedly they might not be to everybody's taste (Polisse especially).

Polisse feels like a documentary (although I believe is not) around the work and lives of the members of a Children's Protection Unit (CPU) in Paris. Both the professional and personal side of the characters is interesting and with so many characters and situations at hand, there is never a moment of boredom.

Locke is a very minimal film with the only character driving for the whole duration of the film and the story develops through a series of phone calls. An amazing performance by Tom Hardy highlights this little gem.

the_monkey

Back to the Future - an absolute classic, they don't make them like that anymore .. decided to watch it since the year thats in it , watched the 1st 2, forgot how amazing the ending of the 2nd is ..

Even tho the acting is bad and the dialogue is terrible they're still great films ..


Ill watch the 3rd tomorrow ..

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

tunguska wrote: »

The Help

Caught this last night on the bosca and I thought it was decent enough. Some great acting from everyone involved though. Bryce Dallas Howard was brilliant, Ive seen her in other films where she plays the good girl but bloody hell she was so good as the uber bitch. I know Octava spencer walked off with the oscar, and she is great, but For me Jessica Chastain was amazing. Ive seen her in a few things now and shes definitely in a different league to most actresses knocking around hollywood.
Good movie overall though.

Watched this myself tonight. Thought it was pretty good. There have been a lot of similar films to this throughout the years with the same basic theme so the story tends to loose it's impact at times but I think the superb cast here is what makes this one work so well.

EDIT: Just looking at the IMDb page for this film and it says Katy Perry was almost cast in Chastain's role but her album promotion got in the way. What a different film that would have been.

david75

Watching lone survivor. Enjoying it except mark whalberg.
Who gives this guy work? He can't act.

Films good though. Well worth a watch.

david75

The Rover.

Guy Pearce. ****in incredible.

Watch this just for him.
Excellent film too.

gucci

Hoop Dreams (1994)

I have had this on my to watch list for a long time, the fact it is so highly spoke about and is almost 3 hours long, I really wanted to make sure I was in the right humour to give it the attention it deserved. Where to start…… well it’s a sports documentery about basketball in US High school / University system, and follows 2 very promising teenagers from poor areas of Chicago as they battle to become college basketball players in order to pursue their dream of playing in NBA.
To label this as just a sports documentery really does not do it justice. As a fan of a number of sports it has long ago become apparent to me that what happens between the lines of the pitch / court / racetrack often has little consequence to the bigger story of the sport and this is where Hoop Dreams is fantastic. The 2 players that it focuses on are pushed to the limits by their families / schools and coaches in order to pursue relentless success, and a number of times you are left to question the agenda and motives behind their intentions. The challenges they face through injury and their background noise (social class, poverty etc) Its fascinating and gripping and despite being almost 3 hours long I actually was disappointed when it ended, because I wanted more!! In saying that the format and production is slighly dated, and possibly they could have trimmed half hour out of it if they needed to. Still I don’t think it takes anything away from the story, which is incredible. Well worth watching to anyone with half an interest in sports or politics, or just if you want something to make you think! 9/10 Watch it!!


Dumb and Dumber To (2014)

Not much to say on this, except it’s a decent laugh. If you loved the first, you will like this because many times it’s the exact same joke!! (like Anchorman etc) But for some reason for me in this movie it works. Its not a movie that will make many top 10 movie list, but for a cheap laugh its well worth a look. 5.5/10 Actually I will give it 6/10 because of bringing back the Mutt Mobile

even though it was just for 10 seconds but I think that’s what made it so good!!

Mizu_Ger

The Babadook
Very atmospheric thriller, both horrific and touching. I was expecting this to be a full-on horror film, but was more like a psychological thriller with some horror elements. The Mother and son were excellent.

Invaders from Mars
Watched this again (thought it was tripe first time), but this time with my son. There's nothing really objectionable in the film and he lapped it up. The silly premise and bad acting didn't bother him, but the whole story playing out from the little boy's perspective pulled him in and he loved it! Was this originally aimed at kids? I'm surprised I missed this while growing up in the 80's. Maybe a dose of nostalgia is needed for any grown-ups watching.

Paddington
Very well done. My son was laughing at the start and thrilled at the climax (hiding behind his hands

as the family raced to save him from the taxidermist

). The CGI was very well realised too.
Nicole Kidman is making some interesting films lately (this, Stoker, The Paperboy, Before I Go to Sleep).

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Mizu_Ger wrote: »

Paddington
Very well done. My son was laughing at the start and thrilled at the climax (hiding behind his hands

as the family raced to save him from the taxidermist

). The CGI was very well realised too.
Nicole Kidman is making some interesting films lately (this, Stoker, The Paperboy, Before I Go to Sleep).

There was a huge gasp from the audience when Paddington

fell just as he was about to get out of the incinerator chimney

and despite there being a fair few kids in the screening it sounded like a very grown up gasp

tunguska

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

EDIT: Just looking at the IMDb page for this film and it says Katy Perry was almost cast in Chastain's role but her album promotion got in the way. What a different film that would have been.

Thats actually a scary thought, not even trying to be funny........I dont know what it is but Jessica Chastain just has something going on with her thats magnificent.

Dirty Dingus McGee

I just watched The Muppets .

Absolutely brilliant film one of the funniest I've seen in a while.It's hard to find any faults with and I'd imagine its would be hard for anyone to dislike it either.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

tunguska wrote: »

Thats actually a scary thought, not even trying to be funny........I dont know what it is but Jessica Chastain just has something going on with her thats magnificent.

I've never seen her in anything else. I've heard her name quite a bit over the last few years but The Help is the first thing I've seen her in.

Watched The Kings of Summer tonight. Really great little film about 3 teenage boys who build a house in the woods one summer without telling anyone and run away to live in it. They're running away from their unhappy home lives but really it's just typical teen stuff so it doesn't get too heavy on the drama. There's some really funny stuff especially from the parents. Film 4 are repeating it really late one of the nights this week, it's worth setting the DVR for.

Schadenfreudia

Salt and Pepper (1968)

On MGM TV this afternoon.

Comedy with Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Michael Bates, Ilona Rodgers and John Le Mesurier. The film was directed by Richard Donner, who later would direct such blockbuster successes as Superman and Lethal Weapon.

Lots of polo-necks; as a comedy, 3/10.

david75

Time lapse.

Avoid this. It's an interesting premise but the execution is mangled.

Mr E

I liked Time Lapse a lot, actually. A clever low budget time travel movie. Well shot and well acted with nice sting in the tail.

Probably not wise to overthink it, though.

Liam McPoyle

Saw Dumb and Dumber To the other night.

Pretty meh.

Where the first one was genuinely funny in a slapstick way this one had to restort to the crass/smutty level to try and raise a laugh.

Some funnyish moments but not a patch on the original.

4/10

SarahBM

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

Well where do I start. Well first of all half the stuff in the film I don't remember being in the book. I have voiced my dislike of the Tauriel character before for the simple fact that they made her up and the love story is ridiculous! I liked her enough in this film but she real was just part of the massive amount of padding for the "trilogy". I cannot believe Jackson made these films. There must have been pressure on him from the studio to put certain things in because there was just too much that IMO was irrelevant.
The whole Gandalf side story with Galadriel, Elrond and Sauruman!!! I mean come on! We're not 5, we didn't need it all spelt out!

I don't think I have made any spoiler, and if I have Mods feel free to edit.

I'm just so disappointed.

and the biggest thing for me, the score. Made no impression at all on me. With LOTR there were certain themes that ran through all 3 films, tying races, people and events together. There was no sign of the themes from the first 2 films in the 3rd, except for a few bars of the Kili/Tauriel love theme. Come to think of it, the Misty Mountain theme from the first film which I would have thought was the hallmark of the Dwarves was nowhere to be heard in the 2nd or 3rd films.

Sorry rant over.

Harry Palmr

This is Spinal Tap - still goes all the way to 11

david75

Harry Palmr wrote: »

This is Spinal Tap - still goes all the way to 11

This is a flawless all time classic

johnny_ultimate

The Green Ray - One of modern cinema's most oft neglected masterpieces - and I say that as someone who often forgets about, and then goes 'oh yeah!' whenever I stumble across its name.

A modest yet masterful film, The Green Ray follows Delphine (Marie Rivière) over the course of an extended summer holiday. After being abandoned by a friend, her plans go to ****, and she has a sort of personal crisis as she attempts to kickstart one unsuccessful trip away after another. It's an intimate character study, full of wonderful little moments and revelations. Eric Rohmer directs without any pretension and instead a perceptive eye for those fleeting but oh-so-important moments, employing a naturalistic but often subtly beautiful visual style. It all moves along until a final epiphany that is reminiscent of the great Ordet, and one of cinema's most perfect endings.

It's on in the IFI for another couple of days, so highly recommended if you can get to it.

Force Majeure - Endearingly idiosyncratic Swedish effort from director Ruben Östlund. A family are on a skiing holiday in France, but a near-catastrophe triggers an act of cowardice that threatens to drive them apart. Intense yet also very funny, one could almost describe it as a mix between Michael Haneke and Larry David. There are indeed some hilariously uncomfortable incidents, but also a challenging and nuanced look at gender roles and modern society, and arguably their inherent absurdity. A strange but quite often brilliant film, that surprises right up until its cheekily left-field final scenes.

The Interview - What's there to say about a film where everything surrounding it is more interesting than the film itself? It's a film that manages a few very cheap laughs from time to time, but always surrenders when it teases some actually provocative satire. At least it has Lizzy Caplan in it, who has been proven to make anything at least 10% more bearable by her mere presence.

They Came Together - its parodying of rom-com convention is far from subtle, and like The Interview always stops short of real insight into the thing its making fun of. Has a crude streak that doesn't actually fit the film overall bar a handful of toilet humour sequences. But there's a handful of worthwhile moments, including an inspired riff on your standard rom-com montage sequence.

Fruitvale Station - It was important that a film like this was made, but a film that is in a way more admirable than actually 'good'. It's fine: a solid attempt at humanising a young black man appallingly murdered by police after a New Year's Eve incident aboard a train from San Francisco. But while the film is at its best as a down-to-earth character study, it suffers from feeling like a lecture at time, and not with the type of artistic passion someone like, say, Spike Lee has tackled similar subject matter with. There is no question whatsoever what transpired on that night was a disgrace, but this is a film that wants to extract every bit of melodrama and heavy-handed foreshadowing out of that, and it suffers for it.

Lon.C

Harry Palmr wrote: »

This is Spinal Tap - still goes all the way to 11

You should take a look at: What We Do In The Shadows. The best mockumentary I've seen since spinal tap.
I had beer spewing out my nose with the sandwich line in it.