What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

spring interesting boy meets girl story but not at all really - to let anything else slip would be a spoiler. well worth a watch and the German actress in it is absolutely divine. Above average movie.
7 /10

Liam McPoyle

The Punisher (1989)

The first on screen outing for Marvels eponymous bad ass was tough to get through. Starring Swedish oak Dolph Lundgren in the role of Frank Castle it picks up 5 years after his family get slain and he has managed to work his way through over 100 bad guys in his quest for revenge. A big wig gangster returns to pick up the pieces and consolidate all the mafioso but doesnt reckon on a bunch of Yakuza gangsters imposing themselves on proceedings.

This was pretty bad. Alot of 80s action flicks have some cheesey charm but this is devoid of anything remotely enjoyable that the likes of Commando et al has in spades.

Lundgren is at his unwatchable worst, the gangsters are just shyt, side story about his former partner and his new partner is face achingly boring. All in all its just a terrible movie.

Avoid.

2/10

"Sorcerer" 1977. Some of the most amazing stunts Ive ever seen, special effects free. Directed by William Friedkin, its about 4 guys who take on a job of driving nitroglycerine through the venezuelan jungle in trucks. Roy Scheider plays the lead. Great score from Tangerine dream.
There are some scenes in the jungle that for me are some of the greatest set pieces I've seen in film. I'll say no more!

Harry Palmr

Deleted User wrote: »

"Sorcerer" 1977. Some of the most amazing stunts Ive ever seen, special effects free. Directed by William Friedkin, its about 4 guys who take on a job of driving nitroglycerine through the venezuelan jungle in trucks. Roy Scheider plays the lead. Great score from Tangerine dream.
There are some scenes in the jungle that for me are some of the greatest set pieces I've seen in film. I'll say no more!

Epic. The rope bridge sequence alone is worth the 20 million dollars they spent on the film. You can just imagine how they'd basically shoot it with a green screen now. Of course in 1977 the film was damned as a poor remake of Wages of Fear but time has been kind to it.

Tony EH

One of the tensest scenes ever put on film that. I felt exhausted after watching it.

I can only imagine what it was like to film.

Del.Monte

"Lilyhammer" (2012-14) a Netflix original series- 3 seasons (24 episodes) over a couple of weeks.

In Norwegian with English subtitles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfRgVbp9gSY

Frank Tagliano is an American gangster who enters the US witness protection programme on condition that he is relocated to the town of Lillehammer in Norway. On arrival he soon resorts to type and rapidly becomes a big fish in a small pond.

Very, very funny and some wonderful acting - even the baddies are nice guys. Fargo meets the Godfather meets ...

Some episodes are weaker than others but the stand-out ones are so good that they more than make up for it. I found it so worthwhile that I deliberately watched other movies some nights to try and make the series last longer. There's talk of a fourth series. 10/10

firestarter51

Del.Monte wrote: »

"Lilyhammer" (2012-14) a Netflix original series- 3 seasons (24 episodes) over a couple of weeks.

In Norwegian with English subtitles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfRgVbp9gSY

Frank Tagliano is an American gangster who enters the US witness protection programme on condition that he is relocated to the town of Lillehammer in Norway. On arrival he soon resorts to type and rapidly becomes a big fish in a small pond.

Very, very funny and some wonderful acting - even the baddies are nice guys. Fargo meets the Godfather meets ...

Some episodes are weaker than others but the stand-out ones are so good that they more than make up for it. I found it so worthwhile that I deliberately watched other movies some nights to try and make the series last longer. There's talk of a fourth series. 10/10

Not a bad series if you just want to switch the brain off and fancy some easy watching

Not a film though !!!

Harry Palmr

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Epic. The rope bridge sequence alone is worth the 20 million dollars they spent on the film. You can just imagine how they'd basically shoot it with a green screen now. Of course in 1977 the film was damned as a poor remake of Wages of Fear but time has been kind to it.

I wonder how much blowing up an oil well cost back then, and leaving it burn for a while! Not something a director could get away with today I dont think. The balls to shoot that rope bridge sequence was quite remarkable.

Ive started going through Friedkins back catalogue, watched the French Connection a few days ago for the first time in manys a year. Im reminded again of why I love film so much.

Harry Palmr

A proper mad director! Its hard not to have time for someone who'll fire a gun on set to get the right reaction! (though as Lord Larry might say - "have you tried acting?")

johnny_ultimate

Tokyo Tribe - Sion Sono's exhausting gangster rap martial arts opera is pretty damn near placeless. It kicks off with a bold multi-storey tracking shot, as Shota Sometani (our Greek chorus and guide in a film that I conservatively estimate has four or five dozen significant speaking parts) requisitions a beat that proceeds to barely let up for two grotesque, wonderful hours.

This is Sono going all in, translating that final act of Why Don't You Play in Hell into an entire feature of endless hip hop, bloodletting, casual misogyny, neon, sexual assault, swordplay, motion sickness, kung-fu, obscenities and cute dogs. It throws everything at the screen. If it doesn't stick, Sono throws it again, with greater force.

Most viewers will be disgusted by many of the events in this film, although it's also incredibly difficult to not get all up in its catchy, hypnotic beat (it helps that the actual beats are catchy and hypnotic). One could justifiably question whether this level of excess is justified - ironic or indulgent? Sono thankfully makes it abundantly clear in the closing minutes that is indeed a scathing deconstruction of senseless hyper-masculinity and misogyny, a harsh critique of the dark side of hip hop culture (while also showing a heart warming sense of affection for its sense of community and internal honour system). Not to say the director doesn't indulge in a bit of the 'fun' along the way. The Warriors meets Attack the Gas Station meets Scarface meets Spring Breakers meets Step Up. Or something.

A legitimately breathless film and also genuinely ugly, Tokyo Tribe dials it up to ten early, discovers 11 soon afterwards, and keeps climbing upwards, manufacturers guidelines be damned. It is a completely obscene affair, that takes great pleasure in its indulgences while concurrently shaking its head in total disapproval. You'll need to catch your breath afterwards, and it is without question a ****ing mess. But it's one hell of a ride, never ever die.

Harry Palmr

North by Northwest 1959 Dir Alfred Hitchock

Once again the perils of being employed in the advertising business are highlighted as suave executive Roger Thornhill is mistaken by nefarious elements for a person they've never actually seen. After the set up plunges our hero into danger as a fugitive, the chase is on via Chicago and that dusty wheat field and then Mount Rushmoor. That Roger O. Thornhil nearly comes a cropper when he is caught in the reflection of a tv was a neat if almost certainly unintentional commentary on the evils of the small screen in a big screen movie

Ernest Lehmans screenplay is essentially a remake of Hitches version of the 39 Steps transposed to a larger canvas with the added post war glamour of widescreen, Techicolor and saucy, knowing dialogue. None the worse for it of course as the plot is basically bomb proof.

LiamNeeson

Looper007 wrote: »

Run All Night (2015)

One of Liam Neeson's better action films, probably his best since Taken (the first one not the rubbish sequels). I think its down to the tense pacing and some fine acting from Neeson, Ed Harris, Vincent D'onofrio and a nice cameo from Nick Nolte. The last ten minutes at the end

With Common's bad guy hitman chasing Neeson and Joel Kinnaman through the woods and that last shot before death was great

. The trailers did make this seem like it was the usual Neeson action fare but it has some great drama involving Harris and Neeson

The scene in the bedroom about Neeson's character having nightmares about the guys he's killed was wonderfully acted

. 7.5/10

Standby (2014)

One of the fair few Irish films that came and went in 2014, it's obviously a nod towards the Before...Trilogy but I thought this was a little gem of a film with a great double performance from Brian Gleeson and Mad Men's Jessica Pare.

Twenty-something Alan (Gleeson) is down on his luck. Stood up at the altar and recently fired from his banking job, he finds himself working with his mother as a part-time tourist advisor at Dublin Airport. It's there he comes face to face with first love Alice (Paré), stuck on standby for a flight home to New York. Their summer romance ended eight years previously with Alan promising to return to the US one day. He never did, and they haven't spoken since. Seizing his chance, Alan convinces a reluctant Alice to stay one more night in Dublin. Over the course of an unforgettable evening, they may just realise that they are more compatible than ever. But time is running out on this brief encounter.

It's not perfect by any means but it was one of those Irish films that deserved a lot better, it was a lot better then half of the romantic films that came out that year. Brian Gleeson shows he could give his brother Domhnall a run for his money and Pare is very easy on the eyes. A film with its heart in the right place and some great shots of Dublin too. 7/10

Good man yourself

the_monkey

Blade Runner

Saw this in the cinema, they were showing a few specials in this classic new cinema (http://www.phenomena-experience.com/programacion.php)

Really looked amazing on the big screen, fantastic visuals and sound - even after 33 years.

Cinema packed too with true fans of the film.

johnny_ultimate

Any true Scotsmen also in attendance by any chance?

Heckler

Mortdecai.

I know it got rubbished all round and its fashionable to slate Depp as a sell out/has been etc as of late but I enjoyed this. A throwback to english caper movies of yesteryear it gave me more laughs than the likes of the hangover, 22 jump street.

Its known Depp is a fan of Paul Whitehouse (who has a small part in the film) and his performance reminded me of Whitehouses "the 13th Duke" in the Fast Show. Sure its not going to win any awards but as a harmless bit of entertainment it was good and a whole lot better than some. I think it got slated because Depp has fallen out of favour. He's done some turkeys for sure aping the Captain Jack character but I don't think this was one.

6/10 for good fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0lrQdFmL9U

13th Duke sketches

Schadenfreudia

Better Call Saul - just finished the last episode of this season. Excellent.

It was billed as being lighter and more comedic than Breaking Bad - I can't see that, it's steeped in dark moments.

Hard to follow BB but this is as good as any series currently playing.

the_monkey

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Any true Scotsmen also in attendance by any chance?

?

edit ok, I see in relation to my comment, sorry it looks bad , I just meant the cinema was packed and the atmos was good.

gucci

Somm 2012

This is a documentary which follows four candidates that try to pass the “near impossible” Master Sommelier exam. I believe the year before the movie was put together 4 candidates from 50 was all that passed. (I might have got the numbers wrong there) It was surprisingly gripping and very interesting. This movie does not set out to eliminate the BS surrounding wine culture, but at the same time it does not embellish it either. After watching it I can give some massive respect to some people who take a massive interest and have the ability to train their nose / taste to decipher an incredible array of flavours and scents and be able to apply it to identifying regions, ages and types of wine.
(Obviously there are many BS artists who do not have the same skills but get by on confidence, hot air and waffle, I think everyone has heard one or two of them at some stage!!)

This is available on netflix and I would recommend it to anyone with a spare 80 minutes and likes a good juicy documentary (Perfect to watch if you have a bottle of wine handy too!)

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Only Lovers Left Alive.

I'm very bloody annoyed that I watched this. It was like a script that a precocious 16 year old might have written after they'd read too many Anne Rice books, it would lie languishing in a drawer for a couple of decades until they chanced across it, read it, blushed and went "ah, was I ever that young?" which would be slightly amusing because it's about vampires so they'd have a giggle to themselves and then burn it. Instead a grown up adult man wrote it and people went "I loved Ghost Dog, here's money and famous people, go make it"

In fairness the music is good, the two leads have great chemistry and it does get pretty amusing for the short time that Mia Wasikowska is around. If you didn't speak English it'd be lovely to watch with no subtitles. Unfortunately I do.

Rampage 1987

Continuing to watch my way through Friedkins catalogue of work this one is a quite disturbing film about a seriel killer and ultimately whether he should be put to death. Michael Biehn skilfully plays the prosecutor who has to push for the death penalty even though he doesn't believe in it, while also trying to make his way through the loss of his own daughter and struggling marriage. Alex McCarthur plays the killer very well, he believes he is dieing of blood poisoning so he drinks the blood of his victims. The interesting thing about this one is it leaves you with the lingering dilemma of what you think about the death penalty given the abhorrent crime committed.

To live and Die in LA 1985

If you want 80's cool this is it. William Peterson is cool as hell as a cop trying to track down William Defoe and crack his counterfeit money operation. A particularly great scene early on shows how Defoe actually makes the money, pretty outstanding. There is an awesome score from Wang Chung, and many brilliant sequences, only Don Seigal is a match for Friedkin when it comes to people running in the streets.
Never seen so many guys get kicked in the groin. John Turturro has a nice role too. Then ending to the movie is fantastic, they don't do endings like that no more!

Arghus

Wise Blood( 1979)- The tale of a mentally unstable army vet, who drifts into a strange world of charlatan preachers in the American South. Directed by and starring, in cameo, John Huston. Brad Dourif is great as the weirdo protagonist Hazel Moates, who founds the "Church without Christ", seemingly opposed to any promise of salvation or any of the normal trappings of faith. He's certainly got enough messianic zeal to pull it off and seems a great deal more genuine than the hucksters in his vicinity, who are busy shilling the tried and tested brand of godfearin', ran through with a love of the dollar.

A strange movie. Every character is busted up or deranged in some fundamental way and it's ultimately a portrayal of spiritual emptiness on the fringes of society. A pretty bleak experience overall, but some might find it hilarious, as it's largely played for absurdest laughs. Laughing through the pain kind of thing.

Citizen Four- I don't know on what side of the fence to come on in relation to this movie. I think most of us find the idea of unaccountable power reaching it's tendrils ever deeper into all our lives pretty chilling and worthy of all the debate that can be mustered about the whole damn thing. I'm also happy that a well received doc about it has been made and that it's dry, sober and technical rather, than glib and flashy But I'd be lying if I said I was anything other than bored for a good chunk of this.

Yeah I know.... sacrilege. I feel bad about it but I can't fight the fact that after an hour of watching Edward Snowden talk, in a hotel room, about security clearance and passwords, my brain was crying out for something else to care about. There's a lot of information for a viewer to digest and I'm not sure the doc was the best medium to get it all across. Maybe illumination of the dark forces of the digital world has to be like this, but I'm not totally sure if Citizen Four even has us asking the right questions of the right people. It was all a bit numbing and muddled. Also I'd have qualms about what felt to me to be at times almost deification of Snowden. Why did we watch him fix his hair for five minutes?

Worthy but dull.

Liam McPoyle

Texas Chainsaw 3D

A sequel to the original classic which disregards completely parts 2 & 3, this starts off with excerpts from the original movie during the opening credits. Directly after this a lynch mob arrive at the house of the Sawyer family and end up killing everyone and burning it to the ground. Everyone except a female infant.

Fast forward 20 odd years and the girl now works as a meat packer (oh the irony :rolleyes: ) and out of the blue she gets a letter telling her her granny just died and she has to go to Texas. Turns out granny had a fortified mansion that has been bequeathed to the girl. Cue typical party time involving booze and drugs but shock horror, ol Leatherface is alive and well and living in the basement, dun dun duuuuuuuuun!!!!


This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It is awful. It pretty much totally disregards the original in that the Sawyer family now has 12 or 13 members rather than 4 or 5 and the house that granny lives in bears no resemblance to to house in TCM.

The acting is terrible, the gore crappy, the cast hateful and the logic of the movie

the girl finds out she is part of a homicidal, cannibalistic, mass murdering clique yet decides to stay on to mind leather face at the end.

is non existent.

This is so mind numbingly awful its actually annoying me.

The only thing that I liked was that the original leatherface, Gunnar Hansen has a cameo at the very beginning as an elder member of the Sawyer tribe. Aside from that, there is nothing and I mean nothing to recommend this excretion to anyone.

0/10

Kolido

Why did you watch the whole movie if it was so bad?

Mike Litoris

Kolido wrote: »

Why did you watch the whole movie if it was so bad?

Taking one for the team. That's 90 odd minutes I ain't losing. Cheers BC.

Kolido

Kolido wrote: »

Why did you watch the whole movie if it was so bad?

Well it could be worse. I saw Ex Machina in the cinema tonight, the chick I went with rustled through a kilo of sweets for the length on my right, and on my left a big dude chainsawed his way though the most rustliest bag of sweets in production, followed by a great ravishing of chuppa chups lolly pops. First the 30-40 second wrapper extraction, followed by 5 minutes loud sucking, when finally his patience ran out and he would start crunching.

Im not sure if the movie was bad and predictable or I was just irked from the purging of sweets around me! Either way I wouldn't waste a trip to the cinema on the movie, if your a big Sci Fi fan it might be enjoyable enough to watch at home, theres some interesting predictions on artificial intelligence.

johnny_ultimate

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence:

Listening to a piece of music in Roy Andersson's absolutely sublime latest feature, a main character observes "it's so beautiful, but so horribly sad too". That almost describes the film itself, but minus the bit about it also being hilarious.

If you've seen an Andersson film before (well, one from his now completed 'human trilogy'), you know what you're in for: deadpan humour, long static shots, surreal imagery, vignettes etc etc. Yet it's a style so singular and confident it still manages to surprise, especially given the extended gap since You, The Living.

This is total cinema, the work of a director in complete control of his vision. It's not just the cinematography or pacing, but it's right down to the make-up - all the characters painted grey and zombie-like, balancing precariously on the periphery between life and death. Which suits many of the film's thematic preoccupations, these people trying to make sense of a dark, confusing world - although the film encompasses so many reflections on the human condition, an essay would be required to explore them in depth.

The film is hilarious, no question, with some of the finest deadpan humour to ever grace a cinema screen - Andersson is a master of absurdist understatement. He is also a master of the setpiece - several sequences in this are destined to be among the decade's finest (one involving an impromptu singalong in a bar, while another sees past and present collide with demented force). But there's an existential sting in the tale - while Andersson invites the audience to laugh at the often bleak situations that unfold, the tone carefully begins to fluctuate and shift as the film progresses. Towards the end, characters are forced to confront some disturbing realities and fantasies - one in particular right out of a nightmare. It's a cynical film at times, although one that eventually does end on a humorously ambivalent note that betrays a reluctant acceptance of all this horrible beauty. It's Wednesday again, after all.

Essential, brilliant filmmaking.

Liam McPoyle

Kolido wrote: »

Why did you watch the whole movie if it was so bad?

I will generally always sit through a crappy horror movie in the hopes of seeing something cool effects wise for example.

Other genres though I wont tolerate.I tried watching Guardians of the Galaxy recently for the first time and shut it off after an hour cos I thought it was dung. Controversial, I know but meh, what can you do.

Smiles35

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Swedish Version

I held off watching this becuase I didnt expect good enough actors to be in it compared to the Hollywood one. But they were fine, and it was shot well too.

In comparson to the hollywood one the most welcome addiction was the police detective seemingly bumbling along as the crime of the century unfolds before him.

OldRio

Noblong wrote: »

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Swedish Version

I held off watching this becuase I didnt expect good enough actors to be in it compared to the Hollywood one. But they were fine, and it was shot well too.

In comparson to the hollywood one the most welcome addiction was the police detective seemingly bumbling along as the crime of the century unfolds before him.

Well IMHO. The film, its director and its actors are far far better than the hollywood version.

run_Forrest_run

Searching for Sugar Man
Loved it. A really well told story.