What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

Fysh

Tony EH wrote: »

Eh?

What happened?

At a guess, I'd expect it was the part where

he docks incorrectly, goes off into his self-righteous speech, then abruptly gets killed as the airlock suddenly depressurises.

TerrorFirmer

Just watched Sharknado 2. An absolute travesty. 10/10.

Mizu_Ger

Blackhat
Feels like a generic action script that had been knocking around for a bit before Michael Mann picked it up and tried to add his style to it. It was obvious that he had not written it himself. The plot bent credibility quite a lot, as in most action films.

The digital photography was good. It creates a lot of energy in the action sequences, especially in one place where some people are running through a narrow alley and the camera is ahead of them looking back. Probably impossible to do this with a film camera.

johnny_ultimate

Eden - First there's the euphoria, then there's the downer - it's the musical biopic way. Mia Hansen Love's latest hits all the bases with her semi-fictionalised look at the French garage scene in the 90s and 00s. She does, it must be said, handle it with more grace and understatement than other comparable examples. The emotions are rarely underplayed. There's welcome use of ellipses where there could be melodrama. And underpinning it all is a rather more philosophical mood, that thoughtfully reflects on the spiritual and psychological impacts of giving oneself to music alongside the literal ones.

Yet, like Goodbye First Love, the director's style seems to me lacking in character and at times overly portentous. This suffers less from self-seriousness than that film did, but still struggles to find real energy in material that should be full of it. One would think endless discos would at least offer some opportunity for stylistic experiment, but no such luck. Indeed, the few stylised touches there are here - a pair of superimposed monologues, an opening epiphany, and, bizarrely, a matinee-serial like 'travelling the globe' graphic - jut out of an otherwise capable and naturalistic visual style. The film also does have a slight tendency to lay on the cameos thick and hard (hey, look, it's Daft Punk, just in case you didn't get it the first time!) but at least they feel reasonably logical within the lead character's journey.

Eden is simply 'decent', then: nothing necessarily gravely wrong, but lacking that special something to elevate it towards something greater.

Bonjour Tristesse - I read this book a few weeks ago, and found it quite familiar, which I put down to the numerous 'summer on the beach' works that have followed Françoise Sagan's 1954 book. Around five minutes after sitting down to watch the film adaptation, I found out why it seemed so familiar - I'd actually seen the film (not even that long ago!) and simply forgotten about it.

I liked the film a little more this time, at least! The English-speaking cast comes across as pretty strange when the French setting is otherwise retained, but Jean Seberg is legitimately magnificent here.

Paper Moon - Dug this a lot. Bogdanovich is almost alone in his capability of capturing bittersweet nostalgic Americana, while Ryan and Tatum O'Neal make for a charismatic, dynamic screen duo.

Mizu_Ger

The Homesman
Tommy lee Jones western. First thing is that it looks incredible. Great widescreen composition to the images and the outdoor settings are beautiful (if stark, they're not John Ford epic backdrops!).

The story is quite bleak, dealing with the harshness of life in the American west where people are carving out their claims and trying to make a life. Some early scenes of the women at the centre of the story are jarringly edited in during the first third, but otherwise it flows beautifully.

James Spader turns up with an awful Irish accent. Don't know what he was aiming for with that!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

The Turning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEd9tzTImNk

Basically this is a collection of short films based on the book collection of short stories by Tim Winton. All the stories are set in and around the same small coastal town in South West Australia and some are loosely connected.

They've gotten a large group of Australian talent together to act, write and direct them. Justin Kurzel, David Wenham, Mia Wasikowska are among the directors. Rose Byrne, Miranda Otto, Callan Mulvey, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and a lot of other recognisable Australian faces pop up in the various stories.

Firstly I think it's a brilliant idea. It's like a giant show reel for the Australian film industry. I got the "full cinematic version" on BluRay from Australia as the release here had a few stories cut out. It runs at about 180 minutes but as it's all short films you can stop and start if you like.

Like any collection of shorts some are better than others and having read the book a few years ago I had my favourite stories that I was looking forward to seeing on screen. Some were better realised than others. The only real problem I had with it was that there is actually one character who appears in a few different stories at various times in his life and a couple of the other stories fill in little bits of his story too. The problem with the film is that with different actors playing the character and different people writing/directing I don't think it's that easy to actually pull this story together. If I hadn't read the book I don't think I'd have realised which films were the same guy. In terms of the films it probably doesn't matter as some of the ones featuring this guy the writer/director doesn't bother putting in the bits that link the stories so overall the film doesn't have the same connected feeling of the book, if that's the right word?

But overall it's a fantastic collaborative effort and much like reading the book and wishing some of the stories were full novels there's a few of the short films I found myself wishing were full films.

Arghus

Ant-Man- It's funny how you become accustomed to new features of reality as time goes on; no matter how strange they would have seemed to you at some point in the not so-distant past . A few years ago I didn't care a damn for anything related to what we now all now knowingly refer to as The Marvel-verse: I didn't even know such a guy such as Ant-Man even existed.

Yet here I am in 2015, just after watching the latest Marvel thing. I can't remember the last one I've missed. Maybe the first Captain America? Which was eons ago at this stage : pure phase one stuff don't you know. I feel like I've spent the last few years getting acquainted with this initally foreign-to-me land of super-powers and spandex. It's shocking how now, thanks to countless movies, I can hold a casual conversation about the merits of Thor's hammer versus Captain America's shield. This proves to me the immovability of Marvel in culture at large: it feels fairly secure for now. And yet, I genuinely never feel any love for the Marvel movies. I've never seen one I thought was undeniably good. I go to see them out of a sense of obligation: they're big event movies and part of my brain always stirs at the thought that you might see something in each brand new edition... Something different.

So Ant-Man held more promise than most. The central premise is so daft that they'd surely have to treat it with a bit of levity – dear God, save me from the Saving The World final act please. The cast promised good things. I was genuinely astounded that Edgar Wright was at some point attached to direct this; someone with his kind of Maverick qualities was never going to mesh with the money-making side of all of this. But, I still hoped that his fingerprints would remain on the final product in some way. So then Ant-Man: let's be having you....

And yeah... it does have it's moments. The first half-hour/forty minutes is largely great: the comedy is strong; the tone is dry, but yet loveable. The cast is well-matched to the material, helping to bring out the Wrightian inspired pieces of imaginative visual storytelling. I have no complaints about the first act – it's legitimately enjoyable, without qualification. I also unexpectedly enjoyed the final showdown and the build up towards it. Usually this is where my soul dies during a Marvel movie. It's the custom, to see everything good about what has come before being pulped before your eyes; into a relentless CGI borefest which goes on forever - crushing your spirit and liquifying your brain. As silly and all as the final battle really was, at least it tried to depart from the apocalyptic norm – Amongst the by-now expected top-notch production values- Giant train sets or what-have you- there was an attempt to inject a tangible emotional core to the stakes for the climatic show-down. That, to be fair, is a refreshing difference.

That's what it's all about right now: Trying to spot the difference. Marvel films make me feel bad. They leave me feeling cheap and violated. I pay money in hope and, in the end, I'm always left bereft. No other blockbuster "brand" is as blatant in it's cynicism and downright laziness. Their slavish adherence to formula - not to mention their ever-willingness to plug anything related to the never-ending chain of forthcoming attractions, even at the expense of the actual movie this plugging is taking place in - really gets to me. They have pure gold in source materials and endless resources to make truly amazing movies; if they so wished. That doesn't seem to be what they want. They want the conveyor belt to move on. Whatever film you're watching now is only a mere footnote to whatever other huge film they have on the horizon. Ant-Man isn't the absolute worst in this regard but, it is, at it's core, fairly heartless and functional. The cast does it's best, but the moments of genuine life and vitality exist on either side of an excruciating exposition marathon – which seems to go on forever, inside the confines of a single building. The films vitality is straight jacketed inside the schematics, which are painfully clear here at times. Whatever good there is about Ant-Man is what's surprising, frivolous and witty. In short: what isn't Marvel. These elements are only the cherry on top. Unfortunately the cake has long gone stale. That's why Ant-Man is a true disappointment. It has moments when it shines very bright, but when necessary, all this moves aside, to give way to tiredness and just about good enough all over. And is that what you want? To praise a film that could have been great.... for being simply better than what we've come to expect? What a bummer. I think maybe the time has come to acknowledge that Marvel film is approaching creative bankruptcy, but the money keeps rolling in – thanks in part to ejits like me – so things aren't likely to change any time soon. So that's it: from now on the money stays in my pocket.

Tony EH

I agree completely about Marvel films leaving you "cold". I get the same feeling of emptiness after watching one. The last one being the recent Avengers film (I can't even remember its subtitle). I just came out of the cinema feeling numb after it.

It's very difficult to put you finger on just what it is that achieves that effect though, but time and again it happens.

I don't mind superhero films. I was a big fan of the 70's Superman films, love the Nolan Batman films and rather like some of the X-Men and Ironman series. But the likes of Thor, or Captain America, The Hulk, or those S.H.I.E.L.D guys do nothing for me.

Strangely enough though, I did like 'Man of Steel', which I watched the other day, cos it got panned in a review I saw, but it certainly wasn't half as bad as some people were making it out to be.

I dunno, maybe it's just that the Marvel films are "factory" made. They're seemingly churned out with such strict levels of procedure, that they feel about as interesting as a paper cup a lot of the time. Now, it seems that they are scraping the bottom of the barrel for "lesser" characters, hence the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and 'Antman' (Antman? WTF?). Either way, they've made billions for Marvel, so I don't see either the formula or the films going anywhere soon.

e_e

I attribute the coldness of Marvel largely to the light blue color grading and fairly flat digital cinematography. It's almost as if they design their movies for HDTVs rather than cinema screens.

Look at how dull the short clip of The Avengers looks compared to the rest of the visuals in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doaQC-S8de8

johnny_ultimate

A lot of them are just straight up badly directed. Take the action in the Winter Soldier, for example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oixZxgW7C3s

Notice how many edits there are during the actual fight. The Russos keep cutting away during individual stunts to another angle and another angle and another angle. It's unnecessarily disorientating (towards the end it feels like the guy with the two weapons appears from literally nowhere), and barely makes meaningful use of what is a pretty tiny space anyway. There's no rhythm to the cuts or camera placements. It's fast but far from exhilarating, drawing unintentional attention to the filmmaking mechanics. To me it results in a fight scene with no sense of believably or weight. The edits coming so fast and hard simply highlight how piecemeal it all is, whereas in a majority of great action sequences the directors are confident enough to show the stunt in its entirety from a single action, within practical limits. It's about emphasising the physicality, choosing the right angles and edits to smooth over the seams without losing the essence of the action. They may employ fairly rapid editing overall to keep sequences moving, but that WS scene - and there's one earlier in the film that's even worse - is IMO an example of taking it far beyond reasonable limits. And that's bearing in mind that it is probably one of, if not the most 'grounded' fight sequence in the entire Marvel catalogue, one or two physically impossible movements aside

Compare it to the scene below for example. Again it's very fast paced (even if the average shot length is probably around five to ten times that of the CA:WS scene :pac:) but look how gracefully the camera moves with the action, how it often lingers for a second or two to really take in the consequences and impact of the individual actions. Evans cuts when he needs to, not just because he can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI-V0rrlZBo

e_e

https://vine.co/v/OhunjWZaIz1

Just reminded of this.

Tony EH

Why do those Vine videos take so bloody long to load?

budgemook

Watching "The Mighty Celt" here on TV3 (quality as usual).

It's set up north - why, in the name of God, is the young fella wearing a Dublin jersey? Why?

Liam McPoyle

South Paw
Predictable but passable. JG does a good job I thought as the battered and broken fighter, the girl playing his kid was quite good too. Nothing new happens but its not the worst boxing movie Ive seen.

5.5/10

The Gunman
Sean Penn plays a former sniper that gets into a bit of a wrangle due to a job he does in the Congo. This is another Taken like flick - a grizzled, retired special forces soldier knocks the bollox off of scores of people, and thats basically it. Pretty silly but somewhat enjoyable.

6/10

Cobain : Montage of Heck

Really enjoyable documentary about the late, lamented Nirvana frontman. It features interviews with his mother, Courtney, a pre Courtney ex and Kris Novaselic (Nirvana bassist). Notable in his absence is Dave Grohl. Part produced by Kurt's daughter it tells his story from childhood to death and is quite poignant as throughout it features snippets from diaries he kept, recordings he had made and home movies, particularly moving are the ones featuring himself and his infant daughter. It doesn't hold back when exploring his and Courtney's drug use either which was refreshing. A touching insight into a hugely troubled but hugely talented (imo) soul.

8.5/10

The Usual Suspects

Nothing to be said really. Even though pretty much everyone knows the reveal at this stage its still a hugely enjoyable flick and is a bona fide classic.

9/10

budgemook

Business Cat wrote: »

Cobain : Montage of Heck

Really enjoyable documentary about the late, lamented Nirvana frontman. It features interviews with his mother, Courtney, a pre Courtney ex and Kris Novaselic (Nirvana drummer). Notable in his absence is Dave Grohl. Part produced by Kurt's daughter it tells his story from childhood to death and is quite poignant as throughout it features snippets from diaries he kept, recordings he had made and home movies, particularly moving are the ones featuring himself and his infant daughter. It doesn't hold back when exploring his and Courtney's drug use either which was refreshing. A touching insight into a hugely troubled but hugely talented (imo) soul.

8.5/10

Dave was probably annoyed about not being the drummer

Liam McPoyle

budgemook wrote: »

Dave was probably annoyed about not being the drummer

:pac:



Edited now!

fanta c

Just watched the new Mission Impossible film last night, it was a decent enough film with a bit of a story and a lot of action in between but if I have one complaint to make its the role of Simon Pegg in it.
I don't know why the directors felt they had to inject a bit of comedy in it to dumb it down every now and again, the film could have stood on it's own as an action movie with a reasonable plot without having to inject little comedy moments into it to lighten the mood.
In the end I wasn't exactly sure what sort of a movie it was trying to be. I'd give it 7.5/10

Looper007

Just had a John Carpenter weekend film marathon, has anyone had a better run then Carpenter with Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness and They live. That's as good a run as any director. Plus he wrote the Soundtrack and Scripts for most of them.

For me Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, Escape From New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China and They live are my favourites. Plus Carpenter comes of like a great guy when he's been interviewed, not a guy who is up his own backside. He's clearly a influence on films like The Guest, Cold in July and It Follows, not just from the soundtrack influence but from cinematic point too. Great to see him get his due.

Hollywood need to stop remaking his films though.

Tony EH

Sounds like a good weekend in. Big Carpenter fan myself and there's always something in his pictures that make them worth watching, but it's a pity he hasn't managed to capture that umph that made his previous work great.

I'll have to check out 'The Guest'. 'Cold in July' and 'It Follows' were very good though.

RIP Roddy Piper.

Arghus

Tony EH wrote: »

Sounds like a good weekend in. Big Carpenter fan myself and there's always something in his pictures that make them worth watching, but it's a pity he hasn't managed to capture that umph that made his previous work great.

I'll have to check out 'The Guest'. 'Cold in July' and 'It Follows' were very good though.

RIP Roddy Piper.

The Guest was probably the best craic I had at the cinema in the last year, I'd rate it a lot higher than the other two "homages" - at least in terms of pure enjoyment. Dan Stevens should be a bigger deal. Before I saw him in action I knew him as the guy from Downton Abbey, now I think Ryan Gosling is a crap version of him.

Mizu_Ger

The Guest
Plenty has been said about this already. I thought it was great fun. The last scene ended the film perfectly. Hit just the right note!

The White Ribbon
Opposite end of the scale from The Guest! Some heavy ideas put forward here around fundamentalism and innocence, and how our ideals are just that. But it's rivetting from start to finish (I didn't realise that there's no score until the end credits). The actors playing the children are just sinister enough without overtly doing anything

they could have been taken straight from the "Village of the Damned"!

. The B&W photography is beautiful too.

Sans Laisser de Traces ("Traceless" or "Immacualte")
A good French thriller about a straight-laced company man with a skeleton in the closet. When he confides in an old school friend after a chance encounter he struggles to keep his life together. It's not particularly original, but it's well paced and the performances are good. It's only 90 minutes too, so doesn't waste any time. Does everything right!

dark crystal

The OH was watching some Top Ten list thingy on Youtube and the subject was Top Ten best straight to DVD films. It included a film from 2010 called 'Frozen' which looked pretty interesting.

The premise was your basic people in jeopardy situation - think 'Open Water', but set on a freezing cold mountain ski lift instead.

It was actually really enjoyable; well written, acted and executed by all involved. Kept my interest throughout. I do like these type of films which make you question what you would do to survive in a similar situation.

Definitely reccommended.

Dr. Mantis Toboggan

dark crystal wrote: »

The OH was watching some Top Ten list thingy on Youtube and the subject was Top Ten best straight to DVD films. It included a film from 2010 called 'Frozen' which looked pretty interesting.

The premise was your basic people in jeopardy situation - think 'Open Water', but set on a freezing cold mountain ski lift instead.

It was actually really enjoyable; well written, acted and executed by all involved. Kept my interest throughout. I do like these type of films which make you question what you would do to survive in a similar situation.

Definitely reccommended.

That's a good movie alright. I watched it a while back. Given the situation i was expecting it to drag, but it flew right by.

Tony EH

Yes, 'Frozen' is a decent low budget thriller/horror. Certainly nothing spectacular or groundbreaking and to be honest, a little overrated by some, but it's certainly worth a watch.

Sugarlumps

Air force one - Hadn't watched this film since it's release so couldn't recall the plot.

The dialogue is so ham fisted, how the heck were certain prestigious actors able to keep a straight face. It's like a píss take of Team America on steroids.

I'd love to punch Harrison Ford square in the mouth.

D'Agger

Southpaw: It is what it is - a movie that you need not watch because the entire story is in the trailer. Outrageously over the top in one or two parts - the closest story to this that I could think of is that of Fight Night Champion by EA sports.

Nothing really stood out in it, basic boxing popcorn muncher

5/10 because I enjoyed my popcorn

jcsoulinger

D'Agger wrote: »

Southpaw: It is what it is - a movie that you need not watch because the entire story is in the trailer. Outrageously over the top in one or two parts - the closest story to this that I could think of is that of Fight Night Champion by EA sports.

Nothing really stood out in it, basic boxing popcorn muncher

5/10 because I enjoyed my popcorn

I'm of the same opinion, definitely don't watch the trailer for this one. The real problem l have with it is they didn't make you dislike the opposing boxer enough, He was fairly sound imo.

Seen Road House last night for the first time, So bad Its hilarious.

fin12

jcsoulinger wrote: »

I'm of the same opinion, definitely don't watch the trailer for this one. The real problem l have with it is they didn't make you dislike the opposing boxer enough, He was fairly sound imo.

Seen Road House last night for the first time, So bad Its hilarious.

really I hated the opposing boxer,

he was responsible for his wife's death

.

jcsoulinger

fin12 wrote: »

really I hated the opposing boxer,

he was responsible for his wife's death

.

Was it not one of his entourage?

fin12

jcsoulinger wrote: »

Was it not one of his entourage?

ya but he started the altercation, saying all that nasty stuff about his wife and then jake went to fight him so thats when one of his crew fired a shot but he helped get rid of the weapon and he also said something derogatory about it to jake when they were fighting in the end, he was a scumbag as far as I could tell

.