What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

droidman123

The prey (2011)
Another cracking French thriller.a guy in jail escapes after he hears his ex cell mate is a serial killer and is going after his wife and kid. It's non stop action as the chase begins,OK some of the chase and escape scenes are a wee bit over the top,but a highly entertaining movie that will keep you glued to the screen for the 1h 44m duration
7.5/10

droidman123

droidman123 wrote: »

The prey (2011)
Another cracking French thriller.a guy in jail escapes after he hears his ex cell mate is a serial killer and is going after his wife and kid. It's non stop action as the chase begins,OK some of the chase and escape scenes are a wee bit over the top,but a highly entertaining movie that will keep you glued to the screen for the 1h 44m duration
7.5/10

Not one I've heard of , but sounds right up my street.

Harry Palmr

Darkman 1990 Sam Raimi

Raimi's salute to vintage Universal horror melodramas contains more than a whiff of Phantom of the Opera as (presumably) brilliant boffin falls foul of gangsters and seeks his revenge with the aid of his work. Full of typical Raimi visual flourishes, Darkman starts quickly and never really lets up the pace over it's 96 minutes building to an action packed last quarter hour. Neeson is a great angry angel of death but very bland in his own skin, though an intermediate state in the fairground provides the film with it's best line "take the ****ing elephant!" :pac:

MilesMorales1

Do they expect these films to be taken seriously still? I mean, these films have been winking to the camera for years now, but after watching this one, I'm convinced these films are nonsense practical parodies deals.

I mean nonsense parodies in the best possible way, cos The Fate Of The Furious is riddiculous entertainment. It's an adrenaline pumping good time.

Did this one have a proper plot? Something about family, Charlize Theron wanting to steal a nuclear submarine because reasons, family, Jason Staham going from being an enemy of the team to being a buddy ally, family. I don't know, and it doesn't matter really, cos you don't come for the plot in these things, you come for the action. Incidentally the plot makes zero sense and is full of holes.

The script is stupid and hackneyed as per usual, although its a little weaker than the last ones. Jason Staham unsurprising steals the show and gets all the best lines. Vin Diesel and the usual crew does... the fast & furious thing, which is to say, poor wooden acting and endless bleating about family, but it kinda works in context. Charlize Theron is a rubbish villain, incidentally.


However, the action is on point. The submarine action scene including infiltration of a naval base is banging, there's an action scene which isn't spoiled in the trailers but breaks the ceiling of what we expected from a fast & furious film before hand, its nuts and so cool, I loved it. Jason Staham gets the best action scene of the film though, although its actually got nothing to do with cars.

And I guess it looks nice, well filmed? Not all of it, but there's a scene in Cuba at the start specially.


So, rubbish plot, rubbish acting, rubbish context, but as always with these things, the action and 4th wall breaking nods and kinda absurd humour saves it. Recommended.

LCD

Sugarlumps wrote: »

The Shallows: Awful, bar the odd áss shot. Special effects looked extremely cheap. The seagull saved it.

Terrible movie, went from the interesting to just plain stupid

Decuc500

I watched Don’t Breathe over the weekend. Three kids break into a blind man’s house to steal a stash of money. It looked good, very nice cinematography, the design of the house was well done. The first half hour was intriguing.

Then it fell apart. I think my love for horror movies is waning as I get older. Don’t Breathe is one of those films where characters make absolutely stupid decisions just to keep the plot flowing. That nasty sub genre of ‘torture porn’ has dragged horror movies into the muck. I’ve no interest in watching people suffering for 90 minutes anymore. The ending of this film slightly redeemed what went on before but not by much.

MilesMorales1

The Sound Of Music is the first film I ever watched, or at least, have any consicous memory of seeing. My nan used to have it on tape she recorded off the BBC, and I watched it round at her house.

But its been a very long time now since I watched it, about 14 years I think, and you never know what time and nostalgia does to your opinion of something. Fortunately, The Sound Of Music was a delight when I was a child, and is still a delight in 2017!

Everyone knows the story now right? A well intentioned but 'outspoken' Nun is sent to be a governess to 7 children of a retired Austrian naval officer, and teaches them joy and love wth the power of music and singing, against the backdrop of Austria's Anchluss with Nazi Germany in 1938 and their escape from it.

So its pretty straightforward story, but well told, well acted, perfectly delightful, has a great atmosphere all the way through. The political stuff means a little more to me now than it did when I was younger, which makes it even better.

The songs are all on point, and have stuck in my mind for years and years now. It looks very nice, well filmed and shot. And really, this is such a fabulous film. I can't think why anyone wouldn't enjoy it.

SILVAMAN

Strike a Pose on Netflix.
It's the story profiling the dancers om Madonna's Blonde Ambition Tour in 1990. The dancers are most recognisable from the Vogue video. Tempus fugit!

droidman123

Wild tales (2014)
A gem of a movie from argentina.its six short stories (each one about 20/25 minutes) all with a recurring theme of desperation and revenge.every story is truly engaging and i enjoyed the movie so much.every tale is full of dark humor and your interest will never wain.check out the final scene in the last story with bobby womack playing in the backround...pure class
9/10

briany

Angst (1983)

German thriller. A young man is released after serving a jail term imposed for committing a non-fatal stabbing. The man's psychopathic tendencies have been festering while in prison, fantasising about violent acts and immediately upon his release, he resolves to find more victims.

Bleak, but also taut and occasionally chaotic. What I liked about the film was that it reminds you that committing these types of acts would probably be, in reality, a pretty messy affair, particularly if you are committing them in a whirlwind of sado-sexual impulse, as the protagonist/antogonist is.

The Sentinel (1977)

A young fashion model moves into a great new apartment in an old building. Rent is great. Neighbours are....odd.

The Sentinel is a horror film that probably gets overlooked because it came out in a decade of great horror movies, but it's pretty well-executed from start to finish. Great turn from Burgess Meredith, too, who plays one of the sinister neighbours to perfection

Trash Humpers (2009)

Harmony Korine directs. Follows around a small group of sociopathic freak weirdos as they roam the suburbs of their city (Nashville, I think) aimlessly passing time by, among other things, humping a variety of stationary objects such as postboxes, trash cans and telephone poles.

Firstly, the official synopsis for the film says that the protagonists are a group of geriatrics, but since they're clearly wearing old person masks, and in no way moved or sounded like old people, it's unclear whether the film was trying to portray them as genuinely old or as a bunch of weirdos who wore old person masks 24/7.

I watched this film over about 4 sittings, because it's not really something I feel most people would sit down to focus on for 75 minutes. There's not very much to latch onto. No plot to speak of, just a jumble of scenes (shot with an old camcorder) showing the main characters doing random, occasionally ridiculous stuff.

I would say this about Trash Humpers - it's the very opposite of a nice movie.

Nerdlingr

Get Out

My God the reviews are overhyped. It was grand. Nothing else.
The scene was set pretty well in the first half, but the second half badly let it down. All went a bit @rseways. Wasnt much of a thriller, or a horror, or some kind of suspense film, i dont know what it was really besides being average enough. 6/10

briany

The D Train (2015)

Dark comedy. Jack Black stars as Dan Landsman, a white-collar family man who, in his spare time, serves as the somewhat unpopular chairman of his old highschool class's 20th reunion committee. In order to increase his standing with his colleagues on the committee, Dan tells them he can get the coolest guy from their graduating class - Oliver Norwood, current star of a nationwide TV commercial, to attend the big night. Dan then flies out to LA to in the hopes of convincing Oliver, and events develop from there...

It's always interesting watching Jack Black play a character that isn't simply another degree of his real-life persona. Too often, when a big comedy star is in a darker-toned film, it receives a bit of a backlash or poor rating because it doesn't gel with audience or critical expectations, and that's pretty much the case here, too. But I feel this film is a fair bit better than its IMDB rating would suggest, and while its not as dark as something like The Cable Guy or Observe and Report, it had weightier feel than Black's usual fare.

dark crystal

Decuc500 wrote: »

I watched Don?t Breathe over the weekend. Three kids break into a blind man?s house to steal a stash of money. It looked good, very nice cinematography, the design of the house was well done. The first half hour was intriguing.

Then it fell apart. I think my love for horror movies is waning as I get older. Don?t Breathe is one of those films where characters make absolutely stupid decisions just to keep the plot flowing. That nasty sub genre of ?torture porn? has dragged horror movies into the muck. I?ve no interest in watching people suffering for 90 minutes anymore. The ending of this film slightly redeemed what went on before but not by much.

I watched this last night and loved it. Didn't get a torture porn vibe off it at all, bar the one scene with the syringe, which verged on the ridiculous alright.

I thought it was head and shoulders above 'Get Out', which I thought was largely dung.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Chicken

I recorded this off Film 4 a few weeks ago and watched it this afternoon. It's about a young boy, Richard, who has learning difficulties and his only friend his his chicken, Fiona. He lives in a caravan in a field with his older brother, Polly, who is basically a drunk who does odd jobs, gets paid cash in hand and heads straight to the pub. When the land they're living on is sold Polly is worried the new owners will kick them off and starts planning to move on, preferably without Richard. Richard meanwhile befriends the land owners daughter, Anabelle, but their friendship is tested as Polly's abusive behaviour worsens and Richard is torn between his loyalty to his brother and his first real friend.

It sounds like something that should be set in a block of council flats in London or a run down former mining town in Yorkshire, all grey, dark and grim but it's set against some beautiful green rolling fields and it makes a refreshing change from the aforementioned settings. It also almost makes the darkness and the violence that more shocking as you just don't expect it, weird as it sounds, to be happening somewhere so lovely. That said it's not an overwhelmingly dark and horrible film, Richard and Annabel's friendship is quite sweet at times and there's an element of hope floating about.

There's always a risk of an actor going "full retard" on something like this but the actor playing Richard gives a very strong performance and you can't help but care about him, something that is actually kind of a plot point later on. The only issue I had with this film was there's a plot "twist" quite near the end that I don't really think was necessary, I'm not sure it added anything and the story would have played out basically the same without it. All in all though it's worth a watch.

Fysh

The Transfiguration

Interesting, atmospheric, and at times very intense. I've seen this described as "Moonlight meets Let The Right One In", which sort of covers it on a superficial basis (not least because the protagonist is obsessed with vampire stories and films, and mentions Let The Right One In as one of his favourites because he sees it as being "more realistic" than many), but it's more than just the intersection of those two films. In terms of tone, I was reminded of various other films including Byzantium, Under The Skin and to some extent Snowtown.

The opening scene is fairly blunt

in establishing that Milo drinks blood from unwilling victims

, where weaker films might hinge large chunks of the film on this element. From there, the film relies on a strong performance from its lead to explore more interesting questions -

is Milo actually a vampire, or just mentally ill? Is he actually killing people, or just fantasizing about it?

MilesMorales1

A Dog's Purpose isn't a great film. It's stupid, melodramatic, boring and badly paced in parts, with an extremely hackneyed message to convey. Josh Gadd is a really bad dog (see what I did there) when I think of it now., the acting of the humans isn't great, and apparently there was animal abuse of the film set. Boo.

So the film isn't remarkable. The experience of sitting in the cinema, while so many other people watching it were weeping and crying over it, was actually quite extraordinary. Granted I'm not a dog person (I have a cat) but all those people getting so much empathy from that film, it was pretty mad. Apparently not getting it makes me weird.

Anyway, the film isn't great, although it kinda looks great with some excellent shots and composition at times, but the experience was unparalleled, really. Still not a reccomendation though.

Heckler

The Intouchables.

A french film about a guy looking after another guy in a wheelchair.

I'm laughing between the tears. Both genuinely funny and heart breaking at the same time.

A tremendous film. I absolutely loved it.

10/10

Arcade_Tryer

Nerdlingr wrote: »

Get Out

My God the reviews are overhyped. It was grand. Nothing else.
The scene was set pretty well in the first half, but the second half badly let it down. All went a bit @rseways. Wasnt much of a thriller, or a horror, or some kind of suspense film, i dont know what it was really besides being average enough. 6/10

I don't think it intended to be any of those things. It's very clear from the beginning that it is more of a black comedy, and very much a commentary on modern American life. The horror/thriller aspects are simply side effects. I thought the overall concept was good, and there were some genuinely funny moments. Without trying to sound condescending, I think this movie went over a lot of people's heads here in Ireland. It's a very American satire.

MilesMorales1

Their Finest is a film thats right up my street. I adore films that are about films and about the making of films, I adore films about Britain and British spirit in the second world war, and I positively love films that are about how films can inspire us, give us hope, and lead us to victory even against the backdrop of the deadliest conflict in history.

Yeah this is a good un.

It's a film that's practically designed to make people love it, in thats its a crowd pleaser, that doesn't shy away from the horror of war. It's gender politics are refreshing and very modern. The making of the film in the film is done very well, with more than a touch of Hail Casear in there I thought, and its done with the right amount of charm, humour, and authenticiticity without allowing any one aspect to drown the others out.

It's got terrific performances, terrific chemistry between the main cast, pretty hilarious to way more of an extent than I expected, with Bill Nighy and a surprising cameo from Jake Lacy getting the biggest laughs. I was completely invested in the love plot personally, even if others apparently weren't. It was moving, charming, funny, and basically a film that was practically designed to make me love it.

ButtersSuki

Gost In The Shell with Scarlett Johansson and Pilou Asbaek (from Borgen, with an additional 100lbs of muscle). I have to be honest, I went expecting a great ball of cack, but it's a lot better than that. It's visually stunning (the opening dive and fight/gun battle sequence in particular are amazing) and the score is excellent (I'm a little biased as I like my electronic music) and while the story itself is a little meh, there's lots to keep you engaged (the unnerving robot-geisha climbing backwards up the wall and the "Spider Tank" were pretty cool). I've also never really gotten why people say Johannson is beautiful, but stripped back and with little or no makeup in this she looks stunning. It is not a mainstream movie for many reasons, but I'm glad I saw it. A solid 6.5/10.

Fysh

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Gost In The Shell with Scarlett Johansson and Pilou Asbaek (from Borgen, with an additional 100lbs of muscle). I have to be honest, I went expecting a great ball of cack, but it's a lot better than that. It's visually stunning (the opening dive and fight/gun battle sequence in particular are amazing) and the score is excellent (I'm a little biased as I like my electronic music) and while the story itself is a little meh, there's lots to keep you engaged (the unnerving robot-geisha climbing backwards up the wall and the "Spider Tank" were pretty cool). I've also never really gotten why people say Johannson is beautiful, but stripped back and with little or no makeup in this she looks stunning. It is not a mainstream movie for many reasons, but I'm glad I saw it. A solid 6.5/10.

Out of curiosity, have you seen the original anime before?

I caught The Belko Experiment on Saturday and it was good fun, broadly speaking it's James Gunn's take on Office Space mashed up with Battle Royale. Gunn's writing chops are on fine form here - for a film with a lot of characters who get small moments, the intros are very confidently and efficiently handled, and there's never any confusion as to who is who. The tone is very well handled, managing to keep the tension throughout while also allowing humour to shine through and the violence to be frequently shocking (although

there's a glorious sequence of a death-montage set to music that manages to be hilarious

). For a story setup that was so at risk of just being a list of tropes, I thought it was really well done and held my attention throughout.

ButtersSuki

Fysh wrote: »

Out of curiosity, have you seen the original anime before?

Yup, and like all of them to varying degrees. That's largely what I based my "I expected it to be cack" comment on!

The Black Oil

Wes Craven's Swamp Thing

Basic set up: Bunch of scientists in the jungle, something about reporting to Washington, terrorists/or rather, a lunatic hell bent on getting the secret formula. Alice, the main character (an outsider) has the science smarts, some survival skills and a good pair of fists. Takes itself fairly seriously. Passable, but unremarkable. Monster suit OK. And yes, a beaker full of luminous green liquid is in there somewhere. There's a Coca Cola bit that Don Drapper would be proud of.

Turns out, this is a DC character so erm, expect them to revisit this soon?!

droidman123

25 kilates (2008)
Really enjoyable spanish (catalan) crime thriller.a father and daughter involved in small time crimes and cons team up with a debt collector to commit a big payoff sting.theres loads of stuff going on and the movie moves at a fast pace throughout,i really enjoyed it and would recommend it.ooh,and it stars aida folch (drool)
7.5/10

MilesMorales1

Lady Macbeth is a stunning unconventional period piece set in Victorian England thats set around our main character Katherine, who's been sold to her husband's family along with "along with a piece of land not fit for a cow to graze upon”. Florence Pugh does a spell binding job from start to finish of portrating our protagonist who at the beginning of the film, seems likely to suffocate or explode under the weight of the unsanitised view of a ladies existence in the time period the narrative presents us with.

But when the narrative starts to move along, Katherine is brought wonderfully (and I use that term with a certain degree of trepidation) to life and begins to force her way out of the box society has created for her, with consequences that may end up leaving the viewer confused, and Katherine with an arguably pyrrhic victory.

Anyway, compelling, gripping narrative, expertly shot and acted by the entire cast, although it has the interesting dimension of having the rest of the cast sort of revolve around Katherine. I might not ordinarily consider this a positive aspect, but Pugh does such an amazing job with her portrayal of the character, it frankly elevates the film.

Whilst a musical score doesn't play a large part it is the contrasting sounds effects and sound design that is so outstanding. The film juxtaposes the very physical, almost synthetic sounds and echoes of the prison esque, almost mausoleum house with the more natural, sensual sounds of the beautiful, desolate moors Katherine uses to escape from the musty house. The sublime use of silence and the minimum amount of movement, especially in the films first parts still stuff starts happening, encapsulates the absolute mind breaking banality that Katherine suffers after being to all intents and purposes, enslaved into a loveless marriage and imprisoned in a home she clearly despises.

Lady Macbeth, magnifcent from start to finish, and a good example of why I love the cinema so much.

david75

E.T.

Not a film to watch before bed. The first half hour is actually scary. Brought me back to being terrified as a kid watching it. I wish I could watch this film objectively. No need. It's a master class in direction production and if there's a film with a bigger heart and sadness and joy I don't know what it is.

Watched some making of doco by accident earlier and that made me put it on. Spielberg is a master. The way he directed these kids and got these performances out of them was simply brilliant.

Magic. Just magic.

And they had the good sense and decency to never make a sequel. It would have never even come close to as good as the original. In the 80s, the birth cloud of the sequel era.

This film is 10/10 for me eternally.

ButtersSuki

MilesMorales1 wrote: »

Lady Macbeth is a stunning unconventional period piece set in Victorian England thats set around our main character Katherine, who's been sold to her husband's family along with "along with a piece of land not fit for a cow to graze upon”. Florence Pugh does a spell binding job from start to finish of portrating our protagonist who at the beginning of the film, seems likely to suffocate or explode under the weight of the unsanitised view of a ladies existence in the time period the narrative presents us with.

But when the narrative starts to move along, Katherine is brought wonderfully (and I use that term with a certain degree of trepidation) to life and begins to force her way out of the box society has created for her, with consequences that may end up leaving the viewer confused, and Katherine with an arguably pyrrhic victory.

Anyway, compelling, gripping narrative, expertly shot and acted by the entire cast, although it has the interesting dimension of having the rest of the cast sort of revolve around Katherine. I might not ordinarily consider this a positive aspect, but Pugh does such an amazing job with her portrayal of the character, it frankly elevates the film.

Whilst a musical score doesn't play a large part it is the contrasting sounds effects and sound design that is so outstanding. The film juxtaposes the very physical, almost synthetic sounds and echoes of the prison esque, almost mausoleum house with the more natural, sensual sounds of the beautiful, desolate moors Katherine uses to escape from the musty house. The sublime use of silence and the minimum amount of movement, especially in the films first parts still stuff starts happening, encapsulates the absolute mind breaking banality that Katherine suffers after being to all intents and purposes, enslaved into a loveless marriage and imprisoned in a home she clearly despises.

Lady Macbeth, magnifcent from start to finish, and a good example of why I love the cinema so much.

So you're saying it was better than "The Shallows" then?

briany

Maria Full of Grace (2004)

Colombian drama. A young woman from a poor village decides to become a drug mule, smuggling cocaine from Colombia into the United States.

A simple, powerful story. Although one may not have the highest opinion of drug mules, this film adeptly puts you in their shoes, and reminds you of the decidedly grim risks they take.

MilesMorales1

ButtersSuki wrote: »

So you're saying it was better than "The Shallows" then?

I think it might have been a tad.

pixelburp

Assassin's Creed (2016)

Leaden paced, utterly pompous & over-serious, and overstuffed with tedious exposition - so much so, it started with bloody scrolling wall of text. To be fair, so did Terminator 1 but I think that's the only overlap with those 2 films. Creed was a wretchedly ugly film to boot: I don't think I've watched such a hideous movie in a long time; everything was either badly lit, or smothered with impenetrable brown CGI dust & smoke.

This had the potential to be the breakout feature for Game adaptations: it had a competent director, some genuine stars in the cast, and was based off a series that had a potentially fun blend of conspiracy, action and operatic drama. Instead we got this soggy, boring mess where everyone took the project far, far too seriously. Even the signature parkour, the feature that sets the Assassin's Creed gaming franchise apart in the first place, was broadly absent.