What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

Steve F

Frost/Nixon Compelling in a car crash sort of way the way Frost finally gets his man
The Green Mile No explanation necessary

Sugarlumps

In the Heart of the Sea - Lasted 20 -30 minutes, Chris Hemsworth easily one of the worst actors of all time.

The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir Documentary that explores Bob Weirs life, through the Greatful Dead. Took acid every weekend for a year. What's not to like?

8-10

Sugarlumps wrote: »

In the Heart of the Sea - Lasted 20 -30 minutes, Chris Hemsworth easily one of the worst actors of all time.

Absolute cracker of a book though by the way just in case you hadn't read it and the film was likely to put you off. I haven't bothered with the film yet because of the reviews

droidman123

A very long engagement (2004).
I have seen many great french movies and this one is up there with the best of them.very basically,its about 5 french soldiers in the trenches in ww1 who delibritely injure themselves so the can get sent home,but are court martialled and sentenced to be thrown out to no mans land to be shot down by the germans.it focus,s on the fiance of one of them after the war and her endevours to find out the truth.audrey tautou is suberb,as are every single actor/actress in the movie,theres even a cameo by jodie foster.the story can get a wee bit complicated at times,but you will be able to follow it.i assume this was a big budget movie and the cinemography is superb. A wonderful wonderful movie!

quickbeam

^^ Couldn't agree more. Fantastic movie. It was sold as: "from the makers of Amelie", and though I also loved Amelie, I think A Very Long Engagement is far superior. One of my favourite films. Requires multiple viewings too, something new out of each time you see it.

Liam McPoyle

Vacation

A reboot of the 80s comedy flicks starring Chevy Chase, I must admit, I really enjoyed it. It was on the box and I was expecting the square root of zero from it but i got some genuine lol moments from it, most of which centred around the kid brother.

It went a bit flat half way through but its still a lot of fun.

7/10

hefferboi

Goldstone

Australian made detective movie. Heard literally nothing about it and saw it got a good rating on rotten tomatoes so I said I'd try it. I was very surprised by it. Good acting, some realistic action scenes and fantastic cinematography. Would highly recommend it.

8.5/10

droidman123

droidman123 wrote: »

Just finished watching the third movie,flaskepost fra ( a conspiracy of faith 2016).fantasic again,the two main characters are fantasic actors,i wont go into detail about their personalites because its kinda part of the movies.i havnt read the books the movies are based on so i cant compare,but these three movies are highly recommended.i hope they make a fourth.just to recap,the three movies are
The keeper of lost causes (2013)
The absent one (2014)
A conspiracy of faith (2016)

Just on a lighter note,the main character, carl, is a dead ringer for andy from emmerdale!

Watched the first one last night. Very good indeed. Have the next ones lined up!

Fingers Mcginty

Blue is the warmest colour Emotionally devastating but brilliant movie. Best I've seen in a long time.
I actually saw a great Argentinian movie recently called El Clan and during the party scene there was a class song playing in the background. When I looked up the soundtrack to the film it led me to the French movie as you tube does
Anyway check both of these films out.

droidman123

Fingers Mcginty wrote: »

Blue is the warmest colour Emotionally devastating but brilliant movie. Best I've seen in a long time.
I actually saw a great Argentinian movie recently called El Clan and during the party scene there was a class song playing in the background. When I looked up the soundtrack to the film it led me to the French movie as you tube does
Anyway check both of these films out.

I have both of these movies but havnt watched them yet,must give them a go.

Fingers Mcginty

droidman123 wrote: »

I have both of these movies but havnt watched them yet,must give them a go.

You sir are in for a treat!

MichaelScarn

Halloween so tried watching 28 days later by Danny Boyle.

Complete and utter garbage. 0/10

What am I not seeing about this movie? People rate it so highly!!

Harry Palmr

28 Days is great.

MichaelScarn

There were no scares and some terrible scenes!

Maybe it hasn't aged very well?

Watching It Follows next

Snake Plisken

MichaelScarn wrote: »

There were no scares and some terrible scenes!

Maybe it hasn't aged very well?

Watching It Follows next

I still think it is great zombie movie the only issue I have with it is that Boyle stupidly filmed it on video cameras which makes the picture quality poor!

Tony EH

Never considered it a "zombie" film as such. Not in the living dead type mode, anyway, as the Rage infected people aren't dead and they eventually starve because they can't feed themselves. That's probably my biggest bugbear about '28 Days Later'. People keep calling it a zombie film. I know there's different tyoes of zomnbies in cinema, but it still irrtates me.

But yeah, Boyle's decision to use Cannon XL1 digital video cameras with a reolution of just 720x576 was a bad one of truly staggering proportion. Did nobody at rushes stop and say that it looked terrible? Surely Anthony Dod Mantle, the cinematographer, would have had a word at some point?

I never saw the film in the cinema, but I think I would have been in a bit of a funk if I paid for that on a big screen.

I have the blu ray (cos I think it's a very good film in its own right) and it takes some eye adjustment to say the least when watching it. Especially after watching something that uses 1080p blu ray specs to its fullest.

Funnily enough, the end was shot on 35mm film and looks really well.

Strange decisions.

indough

it makes perfect sense really, would have cost a fortune to shut down the streets of london in order to shoot film when alternatively they could just take out a camcorder and shoot everything quickly first thing in the morning

Tony EH

What would have made more sense would be to use the XL1's only on the scene where the London streets were closed off, after Murphy wakes up and goes on a wander. That's just a fraction of the film, barely 4 minutes and a lot of the scene is tight shots of Cillian that could have been handled with a single camera. The rest of the movie didn't involve such degrees and much of it is shot outside of London.

On the whole, I think it would have been far better for it, if 35mm was used everywhere else.

johnny_ultimate

Tony EH wrote: »

But yeah, Boyle's decision to use Cannon XL1 digital video cameras with a reolution of just 720x576 was a bad one of truly staggering proportion. Did nobody at rushes stop and say that it looked terrible? Surely Anthony Dod Mantle, the cinematographer, would have had a word at some point?

Actually, Dod Mantle very likely had a significant role in the choice camera (which is standard practice for DoPs, made in consultation with the director), and was likely chosen due to his previous work with smaller cameras in Dogme productions. Indeed, in this interview he discussed at length his reasoning behind using the XL1, as well as the risks involved.

"I saw an artistic, logical justification for shooting this film on this format because it was a very violent script - very disturbing, gritty and anarchic," Dod Mantle observes. "My main fears at the script-meetings stage concerned where the format might and might not handle it. Those fears are still with me as we go into release, and I see examples of [my concerns] on the final print. I sit in the cinema and think, 'Well, I very much would have liked to have shot that particular scene on film as opposed to any digital format.' Projected in the cinema correctly, the scenes in London, which are quite disturbing and monumental, are so strong. I always fear for the variables of quality at the release print stage. The more delicate the negative, the greater the threat of an inaccurate density in final print. Films of digital or electronic origin are always more fragile in this respect. [If the release prints] are screened at the right level and the darkness is there, even though the look is grainy and washed out like a watercolor, a lot of people really love it and find it acceptable."

While the film is by no means a 'looker' in the traditional sense, and has aged significantly in the decade-and-a-half since release, I would generally agree there is a thematic justification in shooting entirely in SD digital in that film's case, and there's equally a thematic and narrative justification for shooting (one of the) ending(s) in 35mm. It would have been a reasonably radical and risky choice at the time, acknowledged by Mantle above. It also undeniably has a very distinct aesthetic - not necessarily the same thing as saying it has a 'good' aesthetic, but certainly one that gives the film a distinctive feel and look. That is bearing in mind that 2001 was a radically different time for low(ish)-budget digital filmmaking, and the options would have been far more limited than they would have been five, ten years later.

Tony EH

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Actually, Dod Mantle very likely had a significant role in the choice camera (which is standard practice for DoPs, made in consultation with the director), and was likely chosen due to his previous work with smaller cameras in Dogme productions. Indeed, in this interview he discussed at length his reasoning behind using the XL1, as well as the risks involved.

While the film is by no means a 'looker' in the traditional sense, and has aged significantly in the decade-and-a-half since release, I would generally agree there is a thematic justification in shooting entirely in SD digital in that film's case, and there's equally a thematic and narrative justification for shooting (one of the) ending(s) in 35mm. It would have been a reasonably radical and risky choice at the time, acknowledged by Mantle above. It also undeniably has a very distinct aesthetic - not necessarily the same thing as saying it has a 'good' aesthetic, but certainly one that gives the film a distinctive feel and look. That is bearing in mind that 2001 was a radically different time for low(ish)-budget digital filmmaking, and the options would have been far more limited than they would have been five, ten years later.

I certainly understand why the decision to use the XL1's for that London scene. That I don't have an issue with at all. That makes perfect sense, even if the quality of the image is relatively bad.

However, filling out the rest of the film with such a low quality image was a questionable decision at best, when a switch could have been made rather seemlessly, or as seemlessly as possible, much in the way the film exists now, with the last 4 minutes shot in 35mm.

I don't really buy the "I saw an artistic, logical justification..." line though. Shooting the film with such a limited camera (although decent in its day) only made for a blurry print. It doesn't support "very disturbing, gritty and anarchic." Dod Mantle admits to "being in hell" with the inability to capture some shots.

In any case it is what it is, but I personally think they just backed the wrong horse and made do.

TBH, it doesn't really bother me that much. The blu is about the best the film has ever looked and having never seen it in the cinema, that's an upgrade for me over the DVD.

Harry Palmr

Vertigo 1958 Dir Alfred Hitchcock.

The critics most favourite later Hitch film but it's basically a bit mad. There's a lot to like and indeed admire (though even the restored print is a bit off in a few places) but the notion that

'Madeline's' delusions which of course are not real as she is a "plant" are transferable to Scottie is asking just a bit too much really

. Yes One can take a view of it being a giddy fantasy about heightened manipulative emotion but it felt like a er leap or two too far. Maybe Jimmy Stewart is just too rational a screen presence for it to work as intended. As ever Bernard Herrmann's score is wonderful.

Sad Professor

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Vertigo 1958 Dir Alfred Hitchcock.

The critics most favourite later Hitch film but it's basically a bit mad. There's a lot to like and indeed admire (though even the restored print is a bit off in a few places) but the notion that

'Madeline's' delusions which of course are not real as she is a "plant" are transferable to Scottie is asking just a bit too much really

. Yes One can take a view of it being a giddy fantasy about heightened manipulative emotion but it felt like a er leap or two too far. Maybe Jimmy Stewart is just too rational a screen presence for it to work as intended. As ever Bernard Herrmann's score is wonderful.

I think Stewart is perfect casting because you don't expect him to go dark like he does and that allows Hitch to stealthily set up his character's decent into obsession and madness without giving the game away too soon. Even Hitch acknowledged that the plot was ridiculous. It adds to the film's fever dream-esque quality. It's like a proto David Lynch film.

MichaelScarn

Can someone explain the ending to me? Never understood what happened.

Agent Coulson

Eddie the Eagle

Watched it today and loved it. I really wasn't expecting much from it being honest.


Hugh Jackman was great but for me Taron Egerton was fantastic as Eddie.

Fysh

American Honey

An odd sort of a setup leads to some interesting characters and a mesmerising, if lengthy, fly-on-the-wall look at what someone in the US with no significant prospects might do to try and get a better life for themselves. It's almost three hours long and yet in some ways I wish it had been longer, because I wanted to know more about so many of the characters in the film. It drags occasionally, and has a couple of odd moments (Star has the least sense of self-preservation I've seen in a character in quite a long time), but it's definitely worth the time to watch it. One of those films you kind of have to digest afterwards.

I don't really get the reasons for filming it in 4:3; I didn't feel it added anything to the film. I forgot about it soon enough, but given some of the lovely landscape shots it would've been nice to use the extra screen space.

TaosHum

Watched Primer recently.

Immediatey afterwards I watched a Youtube video explaining Primer

Jan_de_Bakker

MichaelScarn wrote: »

Halloween so tried watching 28 days later by Danny Boyle.

Complete and utter garbage. 0/10

What am I not seeing about this movie? People rate it so highly!!

Thank you!!!
Finally someone agrees with me on this one - needless to say you can skip the equally crap sequel ..

Jan_de_Bakker

American History X

Wow, I haven't seen this one in years and forgotten how good it was .
amazing film, remember walking out of the cinema as a naive 20 year old
just in shock afer it ...

droidman123

Captain fantastic (2016)

Where to start with this movie! No doubt the best English language movie I have seen this year.basically about a hippish father of six kids living self sufficiently up in the mountains who have to come down to the "real world" to attend their mothers funeral.make no mistake,this is not a comedy,its a heart wrenching Movie with stunning performances from the kids,and particularly from viggo mortenson.i sincerely hope this movie is not nominated come the Oscars next year.imo the whole oscars charade besmirches the art of acting and film making. I would urge anyone to see this wonderful movie,i guarantee you will enjoy it.

Side note; the closing credits feature an amazing version of the song "I shall be released" you will also hear a poignant version of "sweet child of mine" during the movie.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Based on the book by journalist Kim Barker who spent a time embedded as a reporter in Afghanistan in the early to mid 2000s. Tina Fey stars in a probably slightly moviefied version of her story. I wanted to see this when it was out in cinemas but for some reason it didn't actually get a Republic of Ireland release. The trailers, I think, made it look like a comedy, or at least more of a comedy than it actually is. It's not a hard hitting drama, by any means, but it has a bit more to it than the marketing people wanted you to think.