What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

And Justice for All 1979

Very good legal drama with Pacino in fine form. Drags a little in the middle, but great indictment of the US court system in a subtle satirical sort of way.

The Driver 1978

Very cool action movie with Ryan O'Neal. Something about the silent types in older movies that works much better then it does these days. I would take O'Neal over Gosling any day. Movie is stylish with some great acting. Nothing too deep, but very enjoyable for what it is.

Duggy747

Yeah, Drag Me To Hell did absolutely nothing for me despite looking forward to that film on release. Have seen it since and my opinion didn't change, the scene in the car with the gypsy was the most memorable scene but the rest of the film just didn't hit it's mark for me.

Anywho, saw Antman the other night which I found middling. Some of the fight scenes had great energy to them as he changed from big to small taking out people around him, I hope they expand on that in the future.

Corey Stoll had a good crack at being the villain by going the good old 80's route of being a corporate dickhead, he was entertaining though he had some terrible lines towards the end and they hid him away in that suit.

Some of the jokes fell flat and so..........many........."small" puns got real old real quick. Strangely, when Rudd was in costume his voice rarely seemed to match what the tone of what his character was doing (Antman escapes from jail, falls off curb looking panicked but his voice is very calm)

Not bad but I pretty much forgot about it once the film was over, I think I'm just fatigued from superhero stuff at this point and generally don't care much for Marvel films anymore.

ButtersSuki

As someone who's seen an awful lot of cinema, I only got to see Schindler's List in the last couple of weeks for the very first time. I avoided it completely at the time of release as I simply couldn't buy into the hype that was around it at the time (which was insane, even by the relatively poor media and non-existant social media presence of those days). Back then there was this belief that the film was simply above criticism due to its sensitive subject matter and that both annoyed and disturbed me. Not quite sure how I ended up waiting 22 years and a VHS and DVD copies I'd never even opened before finally watching it on blu ray. I have to be honest in that I found it a lot better than I expected, but it still has an awful lot of flaws. It's brilliant in places, but clumsy, silly, patronising and condescending in others. Whilst it is Neeson's film, it's Fiennes' turn as the crazed Nazi that stays with you afterwards (on Fiennes, in one scene he looks eerily like Bradley Cooper - very strange when you see it). Ben Kingsley's restrained performance is also worthy of note - it really shows how talented he is that he can play this role and something as polar opposite as Don Logan and have both be credible. The ending is just awful and completely unnecessary (Actually both endings

the first being Neeson crying over the ring and saying "I could have saved one more" and the second being the procession to the grave and the pacing of rocks on it.

); but it has strong enough performances and the story is interesting enough to keep you engaged despite the bleakness. The complete change in Neeson's character from money-grabbing, manipulative and womanising bon viveur to saviour though is explained very poorly and handled awkwardly, and some of the scenes are frankly ridiculous and completely incredible even allowing for the regime at the time. Neeson's and Fiennes' accents both lack consistency throughout (I was waiting for Neeson to say he had "a sepcial set of skills") and bizarrely for such a heavily financed production his clothes and suits are very ill-fitting at times. It's not as grim as I was led to believe either. It's worth seeing; but it is not as many people claim the greatest/most important movie ever made. Not by a long shot. 7-7.5/10.

charlie_says

Mississippi Grind

Fun enough road trip/gambling spree/buddy movie with the excellent Ben Mendelsohn who plays a burnt out talented but compulsive gambler who teams up with a younger smooth talking player Ryan Fleck who stakes him some cash to gamble along a road trip in the South of America to a high stakes poker game somewhere in Mississippi.

Enjoyable script and a really great pumping blues soundtrack make am altogether pleasant watch. I liked the almost dead end bar scenes and the odd camaraderie of the gamblers throughout.

Will be checking out the soundtrack.

charlie_says

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I love it, think it's one of the most tonally pitch perfect horror/comedy films of recent times. It's gross without being particularly gory or repugnant. It's creepy but also hilarious. Alison Lohman is totally game, and that her character is a horrible person is a refreshing change from the bland innocents one often sees in the genre. And of course Raimi embraces his best Evil Dead instincts with super stylish filmmaking that is physically intensive and gleefully OTT.

A delightful antidote to typical mainstream horror fare, almost as if Raimi wanted to prove exactly the sort of creativity and cheekiness one could get away with while retaining a PG-13 rating.

I really enjoyed it and had several great laughs throughout. It's probably the best of Raimi's almost cartoonish like violence, refined from the Evil Dead series. I just love the whole playfulness of his style which permeates the entire film.

As mentioned above I must check out A Simple Plan.

run_Forrest_run

Under the Skin - good god, not sure what I thought of it.

Sugarlumps

13 Sins - Really enjoyable flick surprisingly.

johnny_ultimate

Sunset Song - A film of three thirds. Let's call them acts for good measure. Act One is pretty good. Act Two is magical. Act Three is ho-hum.

It's in the hour in the middle that Terence Davies' passion project really sings. It has been building up until that point, but for a good long chunk there's this hypnotic lyricism to the film, offering drama and images full of meaning and beauty. It's a love story, but one where the emotions are complicated, a vague yet oddly powerful sense of melancholy and uncertainty clouding events. Some of the moments and shots are among the year's best. Davies fans are unlikely to be disappointed - it's his usual style but on a more lavish platform than usual.

The final third is therefore troubling and a bit confusing. There's hints of what's so special about the rest of the film, but the wartime melodrama that takes over is disappointingly trite. It's not only that it's familiar, but it feels like the clichéd plot takes over (the clichés semi-forgivable due to the age of the source material). There are far fewer moments of lyricism. There's a crude 180 degree turn in one character's personality, which they could have probably pulled off with even a touch more subtlety. A bizarre flashback near the end fails to gel with the style of the rest of the film (thankfully followed by a sequence where Davies manages to capture the essence of great war cinema in two shots, without a person to be seen). It just about pulls things together for a fittingly elegiac conclusion, but definitely the last half hour or so feels sluggish.

Uneven though parts of the film are, there is one saving grace throughout (well, beyond the often breathtaking compositions, and the care Davies has clearly put into choosing his locations and art design). Agyness Deyn is the perfect fit for lead character Chris Gutrie. The character is put through the wringer several times (and again for good measure), but Deyn captures her strength, intelligence and determination with total conviction. Not only can she handle both the quiet and loud moments, but she even loads the film's occasional voiceover with a sense of poetry and meaning not often heard in that most easily abused of narrative devices. After a few weeks of especially noteworthy performances by actresses, this might just be the most accomplished of the lot. When the filmmaking backs her up, it's beautiful stuff. But that it falls short in other respects is an unfortunate thing to say about a frequently extraordinary piece of work.

e_e

High and Low 10/10

Kurosawa directs a very modern mystery (even to this day) on par with anything by Hitchcock, ****ing amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcALFnBJ54c

Chain Smoker

Annoys me that kurosawa done so few films in a modern setting, basically all my favorites are the more modern set ones.

Gamb!t

Interview with the Vampire,really hope they don't make a balls of the reboot.

e_e

The Tribe 3/10

Worthless, empty and obvious piece of arthouse "Oooh life is pain and suffering, let's take a look at some of it!" miserablism. What could have been a really intriguing and austere drama about people on the fringes just becomes a load of pretentious grandstanding.

johnny_ultimate

Rewatching the Star Wars films (THERE'S ONLY THREE) because I heard someone on the street the other day saying there's another one coming out soon? They're probably bull****ting, but whatever.

As a youngster, I was always convinced the first film was the best. Rewatching it now and honestly it's a bizarre piece of work. It's both relentless and kind of slow. There's **** loads of plot, but a lot of it isn't all that interesting. It has dozens of iconic lines - gotta love "a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" - but also the lamest pages and pages of exposition (I felt genuinely sorry for some of the actors). For all the iconic images, music and so on, the whole film feels like it's held together will blue tack, and could well fall apart at any given second. It works, just about, but even the most famous moments lack the punch and power I loved as a kid, and that's with already tempered expectations.

But rewatching The Empire Strikes Back a few hours later, and for the first time I really and truly get why it's so much better. Exponentially better, to the point the first film feels like a pretty crude first draft. Everything about it works better. The direction and script - not coincidentally with very little 'George Lucas' involved - are so much sharper and more engaging. There's genuine tension: every setpiece and dramatic moment given the punch that feels weirdly lacking in its predecessor. The way the actors interact with each other feels much warmer and more dynamic. The cinematography and art design are allowed soar - that final lightsaber duel is a mini-masterpiece of light & shadow. The tone is sharper, the laughs harder, and I cannot stress enough how much more menacing Darth Vader is with the benefit of the Imperial March cuing his every appearance (frankly, in the first he can come across as a bit preposterous).

In conclusion: I have written my younger self a strongly worded letter telling him how wrong he was in the misguided belief that a New Hope was superior. He will be punished by being forced to watch the Ewoks spin-off movie on repeat for 10 hours.

Virtanen

I watched The Voices last night, a dark comedy with Ryan Reynolds playing a serial killer who imagines his pets talk to him. Thought it was quite good, Mr Whiskers' lines were by far the most entertaining. Was also directed by Marjane Satrapi, of Persepolis fame

Tony EH

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Rewatching the Star Wars films (THERE'S ONLY THREE) because I heard someone on the street the other day saying there's another one coming out soon? They're probably bull****ting, but whatever.

As a youngster, I was always convinced the first film was the best. Rewatching it now and honestly it's a bizarre piece of work. It's both relentless and kind of slow. There's **** loads of plot, but a lot of it isn't all that interesting. It has dozens of iconic lines - gotta love "a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" - but also the lamest pages and pages of exposition (I felt genuinely sorry for some of the actors). For all the iconic images, music and so on, the whole film feels like it's held together will blue tack, and could well fall apart at any given second. It works, just about, but even the most famous moments lack the punch and power I loved as a kid, and that's with already tempered expectations.

But rewatching The Empire Strikes Back a few hours later, and for the first time I really and truly get why it's so much better. Exponentially better, to the point the first film feels like a pretty crude first draft. Everything about it works better. The direction and script - not coincidentally with very little 'George Lucas' involved - are so much sharper and more engaging. There's genuine tension: every setpiece and dramatic moment given the punch that feels weirdly lacking in its predecessor. The way the actors interact with each other feels much warmer and more dynamic. The cinematography and art design are allowed soar - that final lightsaber duel is a mini-masterpiece of light & shadow. The tone is sharper, the laughs harder, and I cannot stress enough how much more menacing Darth Vader is with the benefit of the Imperial March cuing his every appearance (frankly, in the first he can come across as a bit preposterous).

In conclusion: I have written my younger self a strongly worded letter telling him how wrong he was in the misguided belief that a New Hope was superior. He will be punished by being forced to watch the Ewoks spin-off movie on repeat for 10 hours.

Knowing the history of 'Star Wars', it's nothing short of a miracle that there's a film worth watching there at all. It really had no right to revolutionise modern cinema the way it did and I think it's a real testament to what filmmakers can do in the face of horrible odds (and I include Lucas there because he was, a one point, a great filmmaker).

It still stands up today as an entertaining piece of fantasy cinema and since I've discovered the "despecialized" editions, gets a regular spin on the tele in my gaff. My wife sometimes has a bet on, that I'll be watching either 'Star Wars', 'Jaws' or 'Day of the Dead' at any given time.

Of course, 'The Empire Strikes Back' is the better film. But, there is still a huge amount to love about the craft that went into the 1977 film. I've always marveled at the level of detail on the screen. More than enough to convince you that the world you're seeing is a real one. A functional one and that helped immensely with drawing me in as a kid and an adult.

I still love the film, despite the fact the incredible (for all the wrong reasons) prequels essentially destroyed the franchise and have done their best to put off anything to do with it again.

As for the...ahem... new one, I am quietly waiting. Part of me thinks that the magic is simply gone. Another part of me is skeptical (to say the least) about Jar Jar Abrams being at the helm (because he's previous work is nothing to go mad about). But there's still another part of me that's hoping that somehow everything will fall into place and I can actually enjoy something Star Wars that isn't older than most of the people on this website.

NachoBusiness

Was at the Daddy's Home premiere last night (Mark Wahlberg is so dreamy).

For some reason I was expecting it to be far better than it sadly turned out to be.

That said, I still think it's worth seeing for the 15-20 mins or so where it does actually threaten to be a decent film with original gags.

The final scene is a bit of a laugh with Bill Burr even unexpectedly popping up.

Looper007

Virtanen wrote: »

I watched The Voices last night, a dark comedy with Ryan Reynolds playing a serial killer who imagines his pets talk to him. Thought it was quite good, Mr Whiskers' lines were by far the most entertaining. Was also directed by Marjane Satrapi, of Persepolis fame

What amazed me was how the trailer for this film had it as laugh out loud comedy, while it does have laughs it's a pretty bleak film about mental illness and murder, it's a flawed film but at least it tried to mix things up and Ryan Reynold's show's his best stuff playing agaisn't type. He's having a good 2015.

LCD

Virtanen wrote: »

I watched The Voices last night, a dark comedy with Ryan Reynolds playing a serial killer who imagines his pets talk to him. Thought it was quite good, Mr Whiskers' lines were by far the most entertaining. Was also directed by Marjane Satrapi, of Persepolis fame

Saw this on a plane recently & thought it was good. However the trailer & the movie do not match. I wouldn't even call it a dark comedy, more of a tragedy.

Fysh

LCD wrote: »

Saw this on a plane recently & thought it was good. However the trailer & the movie do not match. I wouldn't even call it a dark comedy, more of a tragedy.

I can't agree on that, I thought there were some laugh out loud moments in it such as some of the dialogue from Mr Whiskers & the dog, and also the

closing musical number

johnny_ultimate

Immoral Tales - I have a personal rule to never quit on a film midway through, beyond extraordinary circumstances. Immoral Tales is the closest I've felt to breaking that rule in a while.

This is the sort of European film your parents joked about. It's the type the Father Ted writers were ripping the piss out of with The Passion of Saint Tibulus. There's a smidge of light, inoffensive blasphemy here alright, but mostly you just wouldn't believe the amount of nudity.

The difference between Immoral Tales and other sexually explicit films I've seen - In The Realm of the Senses, for example - is simply how ****ing shallow it is. Walerian Borowczyk's anthology film predominantly seems like an excuse to get as many women undressed as possible, offering just enough context to provoke debate over whether its pornography or art. The production values are decent enough, with some lavish costume design and crisp cinematography, but that's far from the primary concern. Its greatest value, perhaps, is as a textbook example of the male gaze. The fascination with which Borowczyk - who, as far as I can gather, is a director of at least some esteem in certain cinephile circles, hence why I ended up watching this nonsense in the first place - examines the female form borders on the shamelessly pervy, to be perfectly frank. There's also a hard-to-define sense of 70s sleaziness to the film - the same sort of thing you get in Pasolini or Fellini films at their most explicit. But whereas those directors usually offered a lot more alongside the nudity, Immoral Tales does not.

It doesn't take much imagination to imagine what happens in these four shorts - when a young man escorts his younger, suggestible cousin to the beach or another young woman is locked in a room with only a trio of cucumbers for company, your guesses on what goes down (and indeed in and out) are likely accurate ones. Themes and meaning border on the non-existent - bar a sort of crude punchline at the end of the second chapter, and the light, confused satire of religious institutions buried in the final one.

Oddly, the Arrow version just offered on Mubi covertly contains a fifth segment (right in the middle), that adds an extra 15-20 mins to the advertised running time. This is a trimmed down version of Borowczyk's most famous film, The Beast. Here, Immoral Tales reaches peak preposterousness. A beast with (spoilered for NSFW reasons, or for anybody who wants to keep the 'surprise' for themselves))

a constantly ejaculating prosthetic member

gallivants with a slowly disrobing young woman, because... em... I dunno really. It's laughable, if still explicit, stuff. Any censor-baiting, transgressive streak has been dimmed by the passing of time.

Watching Immoral Tales, you can maybe just about see the reasons why some critics and viewers may be willing to defend it. Honestly, though, I thought it was total tripe.

Nerdlingr

Project Nim

Jaysus the human race can be real f*ckwits sometimes. Documentary about a chimp taken from it's mother into a human environment/family as part of scientific experiment into how/can we communicate with chimps? , and they with us.

Maybe only one or two people involved in this whole sorry business come out of this looking good. The original human mother was especially dumb witted, and the head of the whole experiment seemed only interested to use it as a means to get 'closer' to his female researchers!!

. Very good documentary about the how one chimp's journey in the end casts a light on the human condition - everything good and bad that that entails.

8/10

ButtersSuki

LCD wrote: »

Saw this on a plane recently & thought it was good. However the trailer & the movie do not match. I wouldn't even call it a dark comedy, more of a tragedy.

NEVER watch a movie on a plane!!! They're all heavily edited, you're getting a snapshot at best of the original.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Nerdlingr wrote: »

Project Nim

Jaysus the human race can be real f*ckwits sometimes. Documentary about a chimp taken from it's mother into a human environment/family as part of scientific experiment into how/can we communicate with chimps? , and they with us.

Maybe only one or two people involved in this whole sorry business come out of this looking good. The original human mother was especially dumb witted, and the head of the whole experiment seemed only interested to use it as a means to get 'closer' to his female researchers!!

. Very good documentary about the how one chimp's journey in the end casts a light on the human condition - everything good and bad that that entails.

8/10

I watched this recently too. That surrogate mother and the lead scientist were two of the most punchable people I've seen on film in a long time. The most decent, well adjusted man in it (Bob) was still the kind of guy who

shared joints with Nim

and debated with himself for a bit over whether he had more fun with Nim or at a Grateful Dead concert. Decent documentary, but I really felt for the poor chimp

Tony EH

ButtersSuki wrote: »

NEVER watch a movie on a plane!!! They're all heavily edited, you're getting a snapshot at best of the original.

Sometimes they're uncut.

I watched 'The Godfather' trilogy on the way to and from New York this year and that was complete.

Boobies n everything! :eek:

But, yeh, most of the time it's an awful way to look at a film.

ButtersSuki

Tony EH wrote: »

Sometimes they're uncut.

I watched 'The Godfather' trilogy on the way to and from New York this year and that was complete.

Boobies n everything! :eek:

But, yeh, most of the time it's an awful way to look at a film.

Jaysus, what airline was that? I thought boobs were an absolute no no on an in
flight movie?

I was discussing this with someone a while back who worked for an entertainment provider to the airlines - huge industry and a lot of it based in Dublin btw. Anyhoo, he said the cuts/edit are normally pretty savage - up to 20mins on a film as short as 90mins sometimes and longer cuts to longer films!

The last film I watched on a plane (well technically watched on an in-flight system) was "In Bruges" so that's a good few years ago now and it was cut to shreds and had all the bad language completely overdubbed - I think even 'bastard' was changed to something less offensive. Destroyed it for me tbh and haven't watched anything on an in-flight system since.

Liam McPoyle

I flew with BA in the summer and watched Montage of Heck and The Usual Suspects, both fully uncut.

Tony EH

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Jaysus, what airline was that? I thought boobs were an absolute no no on an in
flight movie?

I was discussing this with someone a while back who worked for an entertainment provider to the airlines - huge industry and a lot of it based in Dublin btw. Anyhoo, he said the cuts/edit are normally pretty savage - up to 20mins on a film as short as 90mins sometimes and longer cuts to longer films!

The last film I watched on a plane (well technically watched on an in-flight system) was "In Bruges" so that's a good few years ago now and it was cut to shreds and had all the bad language completely overdubbed - I think even 'bastard' was changed to something less offensive. Destroyed it for me tbh and haven't watched anything on an in-flight system since.

It was Aer Lingus. I was surprised to say the least. I expected them to have the heart and soul cut out of them, but when Luca Brasi ended up sleeping with the fishes, my hopes went up and lo and behold, everything was fully intact.

ButtersSuki

Tony EH wrote: »

It was Aer Lingus. I was surprised to say the least. I expected them to have the heart and soul cut out of them, but when Luca Brasi ended up sleeping with the fishes, my hopes went up and lo and behold, everything was fully intact.

Janey Mackers ha?

I'm on two long Emirates flights over the next two days back from India, I'll actually give their system a look on the way. Although I can't really imagine an Arabian airline going all out to show boobs and let me hear some proper ass cursing and sheeeeet. :rolleyes:

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I think it was Samuel L Jackson was on Graham Norton's show one night and he was talking about watching Snakes on a Plane on a plane and how he'd had to record some different versions of the swearing for in flight versions and he though it was so dumb he just said random words for them to insert.

It's a strange thing to do anyway. What's the thinking behind it? Surely there are no underage kids flying unaccompanied that might be corrupted?

e_e

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I think it was Samuel L Jackson was on Graham Norton's show one night and he was talking about watching Snakes on a Plane on a plane and how he'd had to record some different versions of the swearing for in flight versions and he though it was so dumb he just said random words for them to insert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t6zNZ-b0A