What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Watched The Young Offenders there this afternoon. It's mostly grand but I thought the last 20 minutes or so were a bit farcical compared to the rest of the film which, while a bit ridiculous, was mostly believable. The two leads are great though and there's some really funny dialogue between the two of them. The film works best when it's just the two lads together.

droidman123

I, Olga (2016)
Just finished watching this strange but captivating true story about olga hepnarova.its set in early 1970,s checkoslovkia and filmed in black and white and really captures the era well.olga is socially awkward and is bullied in school and beaten by her father,she is diagnosed as schizophrenic and the movie builds up to a horrific crime she commits.olga is played by polish actress Michalina Olszanska, who i dont think i have seen in a movie before,but she gives an outstanding performance.the movie might not be to everyones taste,but i really enjoyed it. Given the subject matter its a depressing movie to watch and if you didnt know it was made in 2016 you really would think you were watching a typical 1970,s east european movie,which i suppose is testament to directors petr kazda and tomas weinrebs talents.
7.5/10

Tar.Aldarion

Saw two films today, Personal Shopper in the lighthouse and Toni Erdmann in...my house. Both fantastic films, the former had great acting from Kristen Stewart, I could watch her all day. After Clouds of Sils Maria I was sold on her.

The latter film is outrageous, just watch it, it is spectacularly weird and delightful and will leave you feeling awkward and ecstatic in equal measure. Great performances and film, definitely a unique experience.


Going to the cinema on St Patrick's day was a great idea, so peaceful. Before this I have seen Your Name recently (great) and a guilty love - Mortal Kombat, which was great to see 20 years after in 35mm with a theatre full of nostalgic fans cheering, a great atmosphere.

Chain Smoker

Harry Palmr wrote: »

What on earth did you make of it as not even a teenager? Or were you very precocious

I dunno, I was a weird kid and paid a lot of attention to directors and history. The Conversation was on (I think) BBC2 late one night and got "film of the day" in some newspaper, I knew what the Godfather was but hadn't seen it so I stayed up and checked it out.
Don't think there's anything about the film to bar a 12 year old from enjoying it really, once you're not allergic to old ****, all the gadgetry and whatnot in it seeming actually kinda real for the time is a bit appealing too.




Little Men
Man, this was great. Third film in a row by Ira Sachs that manages to mine a huge amount out of very little. Feels like he could just quietly keep at it for decades at this stage.

Loving
I dunno, not bad but nothing special either. Solid performances all around.

Del.Monte

"Three Days of the Condor" (1975)

Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway and Max von Sydow.

Classic CIA movie that has stood the test of time well. Can't really say anything more without spoiling it for those that haven't seen it and don't watch a trailer before viewing the full movie! 9/10

Noveight

Layer Cake (2004)

Had been a number of years since I saw this so when it popped up on my Netflix I was happy to revisit.

Such a top notch film. Excellent directing to fit so much in to 1 hour 45 without the action seeming frantic or rushed.

It's such a treat I'm in envy of first time watchers. 10/10.

Quotable quote :P

XXXX: Dragan... I've got an idea. Why don't you come round for breakfast, I'll squeeze some orange juice and grind some coffee and we'll talk about this like adults, how does that sound?
Dragan: Sounds very hospitable.
XXXX: Do you know where I live?
Dragan: No.
XXXX: Well **** off then. (Hangs up)

Tar.Aldarion

Simon Amstell released a comedy mockumentary about veganism on BBC player last night called Carnage: Swallowing the Past, so I watched that. Needed a browser extension to do so.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04sh6zg/simon-amstell-carnage

Simon Amstell: Carnage
It's 2067, the UK is vegan, but older generations are suffering the guilt of their carnivorous past. Simon Amstell asks us to forgive them for the horrors of what they swallowed.

It was really well done, some good self-awareness which is often missing from people, for example Simon Amstell's quote about his film: “I have written and directed a film about veganism. I’m sorry.”

It is a great example of how to have a serious message without being preachy, and to push that "it's ok to laugh at yourself". Some really funny scenes as it goes through the past from the 1940s to 2067 and shows a changing world and the struggles in an hilarious way. Martin Freeman and Eileen Atkins appear in a short about Alzheimers, people google Beyoncé's opinion for what to do, there are support groups where people name cheeses they once ate.

I'd say it reminded me of Brass Eye more than anything in comedic style, yet satire with a more serious tone.

Sugarlumps

Ghostbusters: Utter horse shít. Hemsworth is the worst actor of all time.

BattleCorp

Sugarlumps wrote: »

Ghostbusters: Utter horse shít. Hemsworth is the worst actor of all time.

I watched it last night. Wasn't as bad as I had expected but still poor enough.

I think the whole point of Hemsworth's character in Ghostbusters is to act like an absolute 'thicko' who hasn't a clue what's going on around him but is pleasing to the female eye. Not a role that would allow anybody to exercise their acting talents.

Sugarlumps

BattleCorp wrote: »

I watched it last night. Wasn't as bad as I had expected but still poor enough.

I think the whole point of Hemsworth's character in Ghostbusters is to act like an absolute 'thicko' who hasn't a clue what's going on around him but is pleasing to the female eye. Not a role that would allow anybody to exercise their acting talents.

I get that point, but he doesn't have any acting attributes to begin with.

ButtersSuki

Elle in the Light House. As a massive fan of (pretentious) French cinema, I thought I'd love this. I didn't. The plot is ridiculous and incredulous, and I say that as someone who's watched more than his fair share of arthouse world cinema. Based on Philip Dijan's "Oh..." (who wrote Betty Blue, my all time favourite film). I should have liked this as on the surface it ticks a lot of my boxes, but it just does not equal the sum of its parts for me. 5/10, and most of that is for Huppert's performance.

droidman123

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Elle in the Light House. As a massive fan of (pretentious) French cinema, I thought I'd love this. I didn't. The plot is ridiculous and incredulous, and I say that as someone who's watched more than his fair share of arthouse world cinema. Based on Philip Dijan's "Oh..." (who wrote Betty Blue, my all time favourite film). I should have liked this as on the surface it ticks a lot of my boxes, but it just does not equal the sum of its parts for me. 5/10, and most of that is for Huppert's performance.

I agree,i was really looking forward this movie and when i watched it a few weeks ago i was very disappointed with it,boring movie and not one of hupperts finest moments

droidman123

Seeding of a ghost (1983)
Where to start, its definitly in the "its so bad that its good" type of movie.a hong kong horror tale of a guy whos wife has been raped and killed, he goes to a black magic guru to seek help to get revenge,what follows is complete mayhem albeit in a funny tongue in cheek way.theres lots of "re-animator" type effects,done in a probably sicker more revolting type of way,complete with 80,s syntheiser soundtrack.if you want to relax the brain cells and have an hour and a half to spare,theres worse movies out there

Impossible for me to rate,i really dont know what to make of it,lol its a mental film.

MilesMorales1

There's two ways to view The Great Wall, and I don't know which is the correct one. Either it's a completely serious piece of essentially chinese state film propaganda about a legendary monster, or its a dumb self knowingly silly action film.

If it is indeed the overly serious one, then The Great Wall is to use the technical term, a load of old rubbish, bilge, whatever. If its a dumb fun film, its kinda ok fun. Seen a lot worse. Along those lines.

Matt Damon doing what he thinks is a European accent is a mercenary in early China with a Spanish guy who does matador tricks to fight monsters, who when looking for gunpowder get captured by a secret chinese army department who man the great wall of china (how can that be secret then?) to defeat monsters who come along to punish China for the greed of its emperor a thousand years ago. Together with Jian Ting (Might be spelling that wrong) as a female army commander and Willem Dafoe as a fellow European in the wall, they have to find a way to defeat the monsters.

So its as simple as it can be, yet also overly convuluted. Shocking.

Anyway, back to the possible meaning of the film. Whilst the chinese cast (which is the majority of the film in fairness since this is a chinese film) are portrayed as honourable, clean living, trusting, hard fighting warriors, the europeans of the cast are displayed as ugly, dirty, smelly, sneak thieves, sly and dishonourable. Honestly, its super weird. There's several points where characters have discussions about their different value sets, and the way the Chinese army is portrayed as being so much superior to the Europeans not only in weapons and tactics but also in morale and beliefs, its pretty amusing really. I mean if this what the Chinese government considers effective propaganda, its laughable nonsense. If.

But if we take it as a dumb action film and ignore the huge leaps of logic, since its a film about monsters and weapons, its pretty ok. The monsters aren't very interesting in their behaviour or design, but they're decent enough cannon fodder to be murdered. There's weird logic leaps when extremely useful weapons aren't used until certain points in the film, and there's a severe lack of hand to hand combat which is dissapointing. The acting is also pretty terrible. Well I say that, its kinda hard to tell with a lot of the chinese cast, while Matt Damon and the european characters are boring and rubbish.

On the other hand, it looks pretty nice overall. Whilst the European characters are all pretty murky and dirty, the Chinese army has these spectacular looking uniforms in all different colours to denote which part of the army they're in, and it looks pretty neat in the battle scenes. The best parts of the battle scenes are these really, when it goes pretty mad and you can embrace it, coloured costumes doing battle with monsters.

So, the plot is either terrible nonsense... or terrible nonsense. The action is decent enough overall, even while being silly. And the acting is stilted and bad. Overall... not a recommendation!

SILVAMAN

Just watched japanese film called Departures on Netflix.
Exquisite

jcsoulinger

SILVAMAN wrote: »

Just watched japanese film called Departures on Netflix.
Exquisite

UTUBE]

And how was it????

SILVAMAN

Enjoyable and thought provoking.

david75

A simple plan - Bill Paxton Billy bob Thornton Bridget Fonda

I reckon this film was about ten years ahead of its time story wise. (released in 98) watching it now it's easy to see the tells and what's coming. Only because we've seen many films like this (done worse) in the last ten years.
This is worth looking up. BBT is so involved and convincing. The premise is great but then you think it's gone unbelievable but then at the finish you realise no, that's probably exactly how this would go if it happened to me (to a degree)

7.5/10

Tony EH

It's easily Sam Raimi's best film. By a long shot.

Liam McPoyle

Tony EH wrote: »

It's easily Sam Raimi's best film. By a long shot.

If you mean Evil Dead you are right.

If you don't mean Evil Dead you are wrong.

Tony EH

Rod Munch wrote: »

If you mean Evil Dead you are right.

If you don't mean Evil Dead you are wrong.

Never liked 'The Evil Dead'.

So, in that case, you're wrong.

david75

What else has he done?
I know his name but don't know why

Harry Palmr

Red Eye 2005 Dir Wes Craven

The genre directors penultimate film I think (?), a pot boiler set mainly on a plane which passes the time efficiently enough, though the climax is slightly undermined by it's lack of neighbourly activity! If you've seen it you know what I'm referring to.

budgemook

david75 wrote: »

What else has he done?
I know his name but don't know why

Spiderman 3

droidman123

Lauf junge lauf (run boy run) -2013

The incredible story of a young 8 year old jewish boy who escapes the ghetto in warsaw as the germans are moving in to clear it out.the movie tells the story of how he survives living in the forests of poland and the extreme hardships he faced.its very moving and sad at times and the young lad who plays the young jew is excellent.it is a well paced film and will keep your interest right through every frame.recommended-8.5/10

Harry Palmr

david75 wrote: »

What else has he done?
I know his name but don't know why

Darkman which is a great comic anti-hero adventure made before such things became everyday fare..

Disposable1

The Autopsy of Jane Doe

I highly recommend this. I am not even a horror fan and I have an irrational dislike of Emile Hirsch, but this is as good as you hope every small scale horror will be. It has an Irish interest too in the actress who plays the corpse.

R P McMurphy

Disposable1 wrote: »

The Autopsy of Jane Doe

I highly recommend this. I am not even a horror fan and I have an irrational dislike of Emile Hirsch, but this is as good as you hope every small scale horror will be. It has an Irish interest too in the actress who plays the corpse.

Michael McElhatton is also in it ... aka ratser

Disposable1

R P McMurphy wrote: »

Michael McElhatton is also in it ... aka ratser

Didn't know he is Irish! Quite pleased actually, and he has the same birthdate as me, finally found a star with the same birthday.

Tony EH

david75 wrote: »

What else has he done?
I know his name but don't know why

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Raimi#As_director

I've never been a fan.

I have a soft spot for 'Evil Dead II', which was essentially 'The Evil Dead' done again with better effects and more focus and think 'A Simple Plan' is his masterpiece. Everything else does nothing for me. I find him to be an incredibly overrated director.

One of the greatest let downs for me as a kid was to finally get to see 'The Evil Dead' after its notoriety led kid me to think that it was going to be one of the greatest horror films that I'd ever watch. It was very difficult to get here in the 80's due to the British BBFC wanted to either ban it or cut it and Ireland not having the sense to do its own thing. Eventually a gang of us got hold of an uncut video and watched it, only to find out it was a fcuking stupid comedy! What a disappointment.

In later years, I came to appreciate the effort that went into making the film, but I still think little of it. The remake from a few years ago was much, much better.