What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

GreNoLi

Jupiter Ascending, so bad it's ****e, felt sorry for all the people who put the effort into the set design, makeup etc..

tunguska

Paranorman

I enjoy the odd kids flick but I find most of them overly knowing. Thought Mega mind was great, ditto for How to train your Dragon. So when I came home last weekend and saw that Paranorman was on I decided to give it a shot. I found it to be pretty good, right up til the end where I think it went from pretty good to brilliant. Extremely well done final 20 minutes or so, actually genuinely moving. Caught me off guard completely with how powerful it was and the overall message of the film.
A great little film.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

tunguska wrote: »

Paranorman

I enjoy the odd kids flick but I find most of them overly knowing. Thought Mega mind was great, ditto for How to train your Dragon. So when I came home last weekend and saw that Paranorman was on I decided to give it a shot. I found it to be pretty good, right up til the end where I think it went from pretty good to brilliant. Extremely well done final 20 minutes or so, actually genuinely moving. Caught me off guard completely with how powerful it was and the overall message of the film.
A great little film.

I caught this by accident a while ago, was also pleasantly surprised by it. As you say it's good for the most part then really good towards the end.
Just as you mention Mega Mind there I love it too. I think it came out around the same time as Despicable Me which has a similar premise and seemed to get all the love. I much prefer Mega Mind though. I've watched it a few times since but have no desire to revisit Despicable Me or any of it's sequels/spinoffs.

Mike Litoris

Sugarlumps wrote: »

Last Days in Vietnam
Amazing documentary, there's one part where a heroic Vietnamese helicopter pilot saved his family - and cheated death - by hurling his wife children onto a fleeing U.S. warship during the Fall of Saigon, then leaping into the sea as the aircraft disintegrates into the waters behind him.

That part was totally gripping. Great doc.

tunguska

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I caught this by accident a while ago, was also pleasantly surprised by it. As you say it's good for the most part then really good towards the end.
Just as you mention Mega Mind there I love it too. I think it came out around the same time as Despicable Me which has a similar premise and seemed to get all the love. I much prefer Mega Mind though. I've watched it a few times since but have no desire to revisit Despicable Me or any of it's sequels/spinoffs.

Yeah I thought mega mind was unfairly overlooked at the time. For the crazy train scene alone.....

johnny_ultimate

Dear White People - a fresh, intelligent exploration of contemporary racial identity - and indeed wider identity too (the film's progressive approach to the characters' sexuality is also very refreshing). It's not a treatise - it asks interesting questions and doesn't pretend to be able to provide satisfactory answers, because there are none. Instead it takes the time to explore what makes its characters who they are (although the two elder college administrators are less convincingly drawn). It encourages embracing one's own identity instead of going along with the crowd, while also praising the benefits of shared culture and community. It re-purposes a college setting, and totally shifts the dynamics to quite fascinating effect. Its climax would seem ridiculous if it wasn't for the fact it has actually happened a distressing number of times.

The film is giddy with ideas and themes - sometimes to its detriment, but it is rarely less than thought provoking, albeit provocative in a more unusual, subtle way than say Spike Lee's cinematic rants. Yet Justin Simien, despite affectionately namechecking Lee on several occasions (alongside several gags taking aim at Tyler Perry), doesn't have that filmmaker's aesthetic eye. While there are definitely scenes filmed with wit and clever visual nuances, overall it lacks coherence - the opening sequences, for example, suggests Wes Anderson style hyper-stylisation, but it's all but abandoned as soon as its introduced. Some scenes suffer from a more blandly televisual look, and a few odd soundtrack choices even suggest a soap opera during some more earnest moments.

That's really the only thing that lets down an otherwise very impressive - if often mostly wordy - debut feature with some equally impressive performances (Tessa Thompson and Tyler James Williams both great as effectively the film's leads). Above all it's content to shake the audience out of their comfort zone, and open a discourse that is considerably more complex. It's a rallying call against stereotypical representations in cinema, but also calls on viewers to not conform to groupthink. As a character observes, no point treating these issues as black and white when the reality is grey.

fin12

batnolan wrote: »

Chef

This movie was heralded as a great independent film. It's not. It's average.

ya i went to watch that on netflix and I just gave up watching it, thought it was so crap.

fin12

Child 44 with Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman, brillant film. Tom Hardy what an actor.

Gwynplaine

The Theory of Everything. Watched this over the weekend. A superb film. Highly recommended 9.5/10.

St. Vincent. Bill Murray plays a contrary old git in this. Some very funny parts. 7/10.

fin12

Oh saw Suite Francaise recently, that film was very good and Matthias Schoenaerts is gorgeous, plays the german soldier. So sad when two people love each other and cant be together. I like listening to the German Language in films aswell.

Decuc500

Sisters – Early Brian De Palma thriller. Interesting to see the beginnings of the themes and styles of filmmaking he would go on to develop in his later films.

Bringing Out The Dead – I haven’t seen this since it was released in cinemas. I thought it was terrific. A very underrated Scorsese/Schrader effort. Very stylish and exciting and surprisingly funny.

Sleep Tight – A dark Spanish movie from the director of Rec about an apartment caretaker trying to make the tenants lives miserable because he himself is unhappy. There are certain films where the viewer sides with the anti-hero and wants to see him succeed even though he’s behaving in a detestable manner. This wasn’t one of those films.

It was a depressing and mean-spirited film with an all too predictable ending. Not a very enjoyable experience and way too cynical and nasty for my tastes.

johnny_ultimate

Beyond Clueless - A film essay for dummies. And I don't mean that in an entirely negative way.

Charlie Lyne's film looks at the very American tradition of 1990s teen movies. Broken into roughly thematic chapters and narrated by Fariuza Balk, clips from more than 200 films are edited together here. Perhaps the greatest value is seeing just how similar many of these films are when placed in such close proximity to each other, with images, tropes and themes recurring ad nauseam. With its dreamy soundtrack, and lively editing, the film has an identity of its own. While many of the conclusion Lyne reaches are super obvious - Idle Hands is about masturbation and repressed sexuality?! - at the same time he does apply some critical rigour and interpretation to the material. The sections on gay panic within Eurotrip and Jeepers Creepers is particularly interesting.

The great film essayists have little to trouble them here, however, for one simple fact: the vastest majority films being analysed and shown are, well rubbish. It's applying critical rigour to films that are unworthy of that luxury, and while it's interesting to see a thematic analysis of Slap Her, She's French, the fact remains it's a thematic analysis of Slap Her, She's French. The form also wears thin - the 'extended clip followed by montage' is about all you get. But then none of these films are formally interesting in the first place. It's a film inevitably limited by the very material its looking at, despite the director's clear enthusiasm for the material. His readings of the films are sometimes simplistic and occasionally unconvincing, but hey it's nice to see some pretension applied to the least pretentious films.

MagicMarker

Hey!! I'll have nothing said against Idle Hands!!

Dirty Dingus McGee

I watched Return of The Jedi for the first time at the weekend.

Enjoyable film.Not as good as the first 2 but very good nontheless.I wish

they hadn't shown Darth Vaders real face at the end though.

I'll have to watch the 3 prequels now.

Tony EH

Don't.

You have been warned.

MagicMarker

The Hunt - Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. The little girl was excellent. I don't think I've felt so helplessly angry while watching a movie. The scenes where

the girl is telling people he didn't do anything, but they wouldn't listen!, and the scene in the nursery with the guy questioning her, basically putting words in her mouth

:mad:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Original) - I'd already seen the remake, which I loved. The remake is obviously very good as well, but I think seeing the Fincher version first meant the original was never going to compare.

The Girl Who Played With Fire - Pales in comparison to the first movie, feels like a tv series that was edited together to make a movie. Everything that makes the first movie great is missing here.

hefferboi

Just watched Sin Nombre

A friend gave me a dvd of it, never heard of it before but it was a fantastic watch. Couldn't believe how well it looked until I saw that Cary Fukunaga directed it. Definite recommend.

Dr. Mantis Toboggan

MagicMarker wrote: »

The Hunt - Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. The little girl was excellent. I don't think I've felt so helplessly angry while watching a movie. The scenes where

the girl is telling people he didn't do anything, but they wouldn't listen!, and the scene in the nursery with the guy questioning her, basically putting words in her mouth

:mad:

.

It was a fantastic movie. You had to feel for Mads Mikkelsens character. Helpless anger is the only way to describe the emotions felt about his accusers.

The end was fantastic too. A real thought provoking movie.

Heckler

The Libertine

Dir: Laurence Dunmore

With: Johnny Depp, John Malkovich, Samantha Morton,

A no doubt dramatised tale of the Earl of Rochester, this seldom seen movie shows that Depp is far from a one trick pony. His disintegration from a shagging fop to a piss pantsed rotten nosed syphillitic pity is masterful.

Great supporting cast but this was Depps movie and should have garnered him an academy nod.

Cartel Mike

The guest dvd


Load of ........ Actually bought this dvd for €12.99 which was the first crime , then I opted to watch it instead of Angel heart which was on Film 4 , that was the second.
Whichever critics hyped this trash when it came out need to take a long look at themselves, I fell for the hype hook line and sinker.

Its like a bad spoof/kids version of terminator but it had absolutely nothing (and I mean nothing) going for it . If you haven't seen it please don't waste an hour and a half of your life , but if you need something to remind you just how short and precious life is ...this will do that alright.

2/10

quickbeam

Cartel Mike wrote: »

The guest

2/10

I saw it when it came out, and really loved it. Different strokes, I guess.

MagicMarker

Headhunters.

Awesome.

Harrocks

Watched Foxhunter and Birdman on the bank holiday.Foxhunter was a slow burner it gave me an uncomfortable feeling throughout 7/10.Birdman on the otherhand just annoyed the heart out of me how did it win oscars?3/10.I just want to be entertained by a movie.

Links234

Watched Memories of Matsuko this morning, that was actually quite a bit of a tougher watch than I had expected, kinda depressing

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I watched The Way Way Back the other night.

Not great. It's one of those "coming of age" films where nothing really happens except almost literally nothing happened. There's loads of films like this where the main character spends a summer somewhere or makes an unexpected friend or whatever and comes out the other end older and wiser but usually there's some charm or warmth or even humour. There's none of that here. The main kid is pretty terrible too. I know they were going for a shy and socially awkward kind of thing but he just comes across as not being able to act. Sam Rockwell's character is vaguely amusing but he seems entirely out of place with the rest of the cast. I'd far rather have watched 90 minutes of the guys at the water park interacting.

The Kings of Summer, released the same year, is a far superior "young boy grows up over the summer" film.

The Black Oil

Spooks: The Greater Good.

Quite enjoyed it. I'd happily watch another, though this, as one might expect from a TV show, lacks any real cinematic heft.

Much of its premise can be summed up by its title, The Greater Good. This is in essence the heart of the awful decisions Harry Pearce has always had to carry. He rightly sums things up with 'it's my job'. As with this genre, you can only do this with a character of his calibre.

The bad guy isn't all the interesting here, and it's fairly light on action, but when you have Pearce, who cares? There's the usual elements such as dodgy agendas, people at loggerheads and some nice nods to the series. I did enjoy the umbrella thing and Harry's no nonsense visit - you'll know what I mean if you see it. It's also a film very much built on glances and eye contact.

Now, quite why anyone would cast Kit Harington in anything I've no idea. Though I will give him

the neck shot at the end.

MagicMarker

Selma.

I've made it to 45 minutes.

Bored to tears.

SarahBM

Watched Oblivion with Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman. Not bad. I thought lots of background story was kind of brushed over, which makes me think it would make for a good 3 parter maybe. I'll have to watch again though as my Mam (who dosed off half way through) started bombarding me with questions towards the end.

Went to see Far from the Madding Crowd last night. I really liked it. All the leads were very good, Michael Sheen really stood out for me. I wish I had gotten a chance to read the book before hand but I just didn't get the time.

Looking forward to spooks during the wk

fin12

Just watched The first series of The Affair, really liked it, watched the whole thing in a day, that's how much I liked it.
Really like the actress in it, Ruth Wilson and Joshua Jackson who plays Cole is gorgeous, Looking forward to Season 2.

FloatingVoter

Welcome to Me. Kristen Wiig in the most tedious (and possibly offensive) waste of my time that I can recall. Unless you have the option of seeing this for free - do not waste time or money on it.
And I normally like her in stuff. Its a bit like a party political conference - a boring person talking endlessly about themselves.