What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

Tony EH

wheresmahbombs wrote: »

Just finished watching Whiplash a few minutes ago. Brilliant film.

Terence Fletcher comes across as ruthless and heartless

at first glance, but as the film progresses, the reason why he treats his students like this unravels. He tries to push the limits of his students and get them to excel in what they are doing. However, Terence's style of tuition is not suitable for everybody. Mentally and emotionally sensitive people will likely not get along with a teacher like him. In such cases, high resilience is crucial

.

Terence, in spite of his attitude, makes the film for me.

A good film, no doubt, but a terrible flight of fancy. There's one thing being a bully and pushing students, unreasonably, it has to be said. But,

anyone chucking a chair at somebody is a psycho territory and I guarantee you would be on the end of a nasty lawsuit in real life.

Tony EH

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Speaking of which, I watched a very small part of White Chicks at some stage last week as I was flicking through the channels (it was on Comedy Central). It was heavily edited. Why bother showing a film like this if you're going to edit it; esp. as you have previously shown this in its unedited form?

It was this scene - and they cut it at 00:55:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixxKKPkxz5o

I've shamed myself.

I actually laughed at that.

ButtersSuki

Tony EH wrote: »

I've shamed myself.

I actually laughed at that.

White Chicks is so bad it's good. Some real WTF moments in it. A guilty pleasure, largely for its unashamed stupidity and non-PC inappropriateness.

johnny_ultimate

The ending to All The President’s Men is a perfect punctuation mark. Watergate was a slow-burn story: it wasn’t just one smoking gun headline (well, Saturday Night Massacre aside) but a steady release of pressure over several years. The ending really emphasises that, but also emphasises the sheer dogged determination of Woodward, Bernstein and their contemporaries. The events recounted directly in the film are ultimately just for a few stories... all that effort, the dead ends, strokes of luck, negations with sources wasn’t the end of the scandal. You might finally break that great story, but the WaPo needs another headline the following day too.

It’s one of the few ‘what happened next’ endings I like, and keeping with the formal ingenuity at play throughout the film.

Tony EH

'Ken Park'

Larry Clark gives us another teenage apocalypse, hot on the heels of 'Kids' and 'Bully'. But, unlike those previous horror shows, 'Ken Park' plays out with no plot and is laced with unsimulated sex, abuse, drugs and depression. It's hard to believe anybody's life is truly like this, though I'm aware that there are people out there that would mirror the on screen characters very closely. But Clark's films portray nothing else. There's no light at the end of anyone's tunnel in his three benchmarks films and if there is, it's at the end of a bong, a roll of tinfoil, or dangerous promiscuity.

Opening with the suicide of the titular character, 'Ken Park' settles into a slice of life focusing on the daily brutality meted out to the youngsters who were in his circle of friends or acquaintances. Each of the have their own cross, of varying weight, to bear.

Shawn is carrying on with girlfriend's mother, who uses him sexually in a vain effort to stave off her own aging. He probably has the least of the teens worries to contend with, to be honest, but there's delicate hints that the husband knows something is up and is biding his time before acting.

Claude lives with his trailer trash parents, both of whom are twisted in their own ways, fuelled by alchohol and impending destitution. His recently unemployed father, who seemingly despises Claude, is abusive and disparaging toward him. His mother, heavilly pregnant, is whimpish and deliberately oblivious to the state of her household. There are obvious issues she won't address properly and deeper ones she's unaware of.

Peaches, the only girl of the group, lives with her widower father. A religious nut in the usual Hollywood vein, who dishes out his own relatively subtle tortures and harbours what appears to be an innate sexual attraction to his daughter, who reminds him a bit too much of his dead wife.

Then there's Tate who probably deserves an entire movie about just him. Tate lives with his grandparents, who he hates, despite the fact that they are a nice old couple who take care and watch after him. His grandmother especially dotes on him, but has none of her affection returned. Tate is deeply disturbed and suffers from a violent psychopathy, which he takes out on his poor three legged hound, and subjects his grandparents to ill tempered outbursts, which they have no idea how to handle.

All of the young actors handle their parts well - in more ways than one where Tate is concerned - and Clark manages to get decent performances out of them. The adults are are largely non-stars, apart from Amanda Plummer, and this lends a certain heft to their parts. Everybody is in for a penny, in for a pound, in 'Ken Park' and I suppose that was the only way a film like this was going to work, and work it does on certain levels. But it's too easy to question what the whole point was at the finale.

Ken Park, himself, plays no real part in the film and only serves as bookends. It's difficult to know what effect his suicide has on the teens in the film, because Clark doesn't tell us and, more than likely, the teens would carry on like they do in any case. Their casual sex and drug taking are conduits away from their awful family lives and not a consequence of teenage tragedies elsewhere.

'Ken Park' is a tough film to watch and certainly not one for people who are sensitive to pornographic images. Although, while it doesn't leap the wall into outright pornography, it does dance along it waving its parts at you. But it's sexual scenes, though very explicit, are not merely there for the gratification of the viewer. It's violence, on the other hand, is fairly low key, though nonetheless tragic. But, the "worst" thing about the film - like the aforementioned 'Kids' and 'Bully' - is what it has to say about sections of society, that thankfully most of us will never experience.

6/10

Del.Monte

"The Foreigner" (2017)



Just started yet another free trial with Netflix with this one and was very pleasantly surprised. Not a fan of Pierce Brosnan by any means but he's spot on as Grizzly Adams/Liam Hennessy and the movie cracks along at a decent pace with Jackie Chan working his way through assorted freedom fighters/baddies with style. The plot is interesting but yet easy to follow and is a tribute to the storyteling ability of Stephen Leather author of the original book "The Chinaman". 9/10.

El Duda

47 Meters Down - 4/10

What was intended to be a straight to DVD release somehow got backing from a studio and ended up in cinemas. This is low budget, shark schlock with horrible acting and the most inane plot imaginable. There a few scenes which do manage to dredge up some tension but this is just so shoddily put together it has no lasting impact. Matthew Modine quite literally phones it in.

The plot holes are so big that this film was already sinking before the sharks arrived.

Project X - 2/10

It seems to have been made with the sole intention of targeting the '10-13 year old boys sleepover' demographic. Its a teenagers misguided fantasy come to life. If you take Superbad and subtract all of the charm, humour, wit, plot, structure, character and narrative... you end up with this abomination.


Your Name - 9/10

Having seen Spirited Away and now this as my first Japanese animations, I have realised how wrong it was for me to overlook all of these great works of art. The animation style is just dazzling. Highly complex images filled with great detail, that hold so much warmth and depth. The hand drawn style is just so much more pleasing to the eye than the CGI equivalent.

Your Name is a 'body swap' film which brings lots of fresh ideas to the table. Without giving anything away, it throws a few curveballs at you manages to emulate the 'body swap' plot to something way more profound and meaningful. Even if I wanted to go into spoiler territory, this isn't an easy film to explain. I think you have to see it for yourself and make your own assumptions/interpretations.

Great score, great songs, amazing visuals and lots of heart. I found the ending to be very touching and incredibly deep. Although it touches on a lot of cultural themes specific to Japan, the main message of the film is a bit more universal. It's surprisingly relatable despite the cultural barrier.

johnny_ultimate

Anon - Anon is a terrible film. There is a sense that something has gone tragically, catastrophically wrong somewhere along the line. It is a film devoid of life and joy, and that's only partially because it was designed that way.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the conceit. A whodunnit in a world where 'smart eyes' have largely cured the world of unsolved crime and deprived humanity of the concept of anonymity. It's on the nose, but there's the sliver of a curious idea in there. But as soon as we jump into the first 'smart' POV of Clive Owen's character, it's clear the concept has profoundly failed. Those POV shots are so haphazardly staged, so stiffly, artificially staged that you can never believe this is the the perspective of a genuine human being. It's like a Playstation 2 game devoid of the polygonal charm.

Andrew Niccol, so very far from his relative glory days of Gattaca, completely misses the potential the story he's created, instead surrendering to the easy option of a cheap, implausible thriller. The acting is so stilted - from Clive Owen right down to the supporting cast - I have to assume it was intentional, but for the life of me I can't figure out why it was beyond some vague and under-articulated point about the dehumanising nature of technology. The world, too, is cold and inhuman - grey tones, brutalist architecture and lifeless penthouses are the orders of the day - but over-designed beyond any sort of credibility or wit. This never for a split second feels like a world people actually live in: it is instead an unintentional parody of a dystopia.

Also: the 1990s erotic thriller genre called, and it wants its laughable sex scenes back.

Towards the end of the film, Anon finally finds its feet as its protagonist loses his through some perspective trickery. It's a potentially interesting escalation of the film's core conflicts, but the visuals so trite and his character arc so lazily realised that it's only impressive in comparison to what came before. Quickly it settles into its rhythm again, for a preposterous third act that doesn't end anywhere near quickly enough.

It is sometimes a valuable experience to watch a legitimately terrible film. To really remind you of the valley between even 'mediocre' and 'poor'. In that sense, Anon has something to teach us all - even if it's a class I very much recommend you skip.

p to the e

Swingers (1996) - Recorded this a few nights back and finally got around to watching it. Very enjoyable watch even though not a hell of a lot happens in it. The premise is basically following several out of work actors, mainly Jon Favreau (well he did write it), as they plan their nights out, look for "babies" and try to be "money".

Vince Vaughan is so "money" in his role as the best friend that he'll basically copy it for the next decade. There's several genuine laugh out loud moments and one or two cringe inducing scenes worthy of David Brent.

Arcade_Tryer

p to the e wrote: »

Swingers (1996) - Recorded this a few nights back and finally got around to watching it. Very enjoyable watch even though not a hell of a lot happens in it. The premise is basically following several out of work actors, mainly Jon Favreau (well he did write it), as they plan their nights out, look for "babies" and try to be "money".

Vince Vaughan is so "money" in his role as the best friend that he'll basically copy it for the next decade. There's several genuine laugh out loud moments and one or two cringe inducing scenes worthy of David Brent.

Did you wait three days before reviewing? You gotta wait three days.

Del.Monte

Continuing my Netfix trial I came upon "Unlocked" 2017.

If you like CIA/MI6/Terrorism type movies this is one for you. Reasonably convoluted plot with good acting and likeable characters - even the baddies - and the action never lets up. 8/10

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

Sugarlumps

Funhouse - Tobe Hooper.

Four teenage friends spend the night in a carnival funhouse and are stalked by a deformed man in a Frankenstein mask.

Little gem, pretty dark in places. Only time in a film where I can recall a group of teenagers mutter - "if we stay together it's safer".

Blown Away Quality 90's flick with Tommy Lee flaunting a strange Irish accent as a mad bomber on a revenge mission against Jeff Bridges a bomb disposal expert with a shady past. Amazing set pieces and special effects. Really well directed for what it is.

Cass 2008 Hooligan flick that I'd never heard of before but is quite good about a black guy in London brought up by white parents who becomes the leader of the toughest firm in the country the West Ham ICF during the Thatcher era. True story, fades a bit towards the end but worth a watch.

Death and the Maiden 1994 Essentially a play put on screen by Polanski with Sigorney Weaver and Ben Kingsley. Excellent dialogue, and fantastic performances by both. Set in a South American country where there is a new regime, Weaver has been tortured for years as a political prisoner and Kingsley drives her husband home one night after he gets a flat tire. Weaver thinks Kingsley was her torturer and things go from there....

Stripes 1981 Harald Ramis and Bill Murray early 80's vehicles which is very funny in parts. John Candy and some other familiar faces ham it up in tale of a bunch of misfits who join the army and go through basic training. A bit too long but funny stuff, Murray at his original best

ButtersSuki

After re-watching/watching The Shining (Extended Cut) recently I've gone deep down the rabbit hole that is the online analysis of the movie. Having already watched Room 237 and other analyses, I'm now at the point where I think I'm obsessed with it....ish. Anyway, I've read and watched some poor analyses as well as good ones, but Rob Ager's work is quite interesting, example below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW2GrG7Zk0U

Well worth a look if you're interested, as is his thesis (links below or in the video).

buried

The Death of Stalin (2017) - Tricky enough to do a comedy film of any sort but with such a subject matter this really pulls it off with some real good laughs in parts. Steve Buscemi and Simon Russell Beale show off some great work here. 7/10

Blade of the Immortal (2017) - Was really lookng forward to this, bought the steelbook blu-ray and all, but I was dissapoint. Looks good, great colours and fight scenes but the story was far too long, especially in a tale where right from the first scene you are informed that the main character can not be killed. All the tension was removed and I lost interest fast. 4/10

Sword of Doom (1966)- Classic Samuai film where no hero's exist and the main protagonist is a vile demented dead pan evil bastard. I loved it, can't wait to watch it again. Criterion Blu ray release does a fantastic job as always. 8/10

The Vietnam War (2017) - Ken Burns and Lynn Novick 18 hours of historical documentation film making of the Vietnam war that was shown on PBS last year. Got this on DVD and it is absolutely brilliant. The photo archive footage mixed with film archive footage alongside modern interviews with people from all sides and angles of the terrible conflict, this all mixed in with music from the time and a fantastic original soundtrack by the likes of NIN's Trent Reznor and The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo Yo Ma. This is a great work. The interviews with the actual people are brilliant and mixed in really expertly with the film's narrative at all sections of the entire work. This really is a 18 hour film. Highly recommended. Brilliant stuff. For 40 euros you won't go wrong 10/10

ButtersSuki

Started into my Kubrick boxset that I purchased years ago and has sat wrapped until this evening
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stanley-Kubrick-Masterpiece-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B00LUNV2RQ/ref=tmm_blu_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1525213123&sr=1-1

with Full Metal Jacket on Blu Ray tonight (the version of The Shining in this set is the edited version, the one I reviewed recently was a separate purchase). I saw this in the cinema on release as a very underage teen and this has been my first full rewatch since, though I have dipped in and out of it when it's been on tv over the years. Brilliant performances from R. Lee Ermey and Vincent D'Onofrio in particular, it's an uneasy watch in places but compelling nonetheless. An easy 8/10. There's a commentary on the extras which I hope to double back on after I finish the set.

buried

ButtersSuki wrote: »

Started into my Kubrick boxset that I purchased years ago and has sat wrapped until this evening

Barry Lyndon Do it, Do it

branie2

Truth or Dare at the cinema this evening. I thought it was very good, as did my friends.

ButtersSuki

buried wrote: »

Barry Lyndon Do it, Do it

I have seen it, but I was far too young to appreciate it. I'm determined to do the entire box set before I get distracted by other stuff this time around!

ButtersSuki

buried wrote: »

The Vietnam War (2017) - Ken Burns and Lynn Novick 18 hours of historical documentation film making of the Vietnam war that was shown on PBS last year. Got this on DVD and it is absolutely brilliant. The photo archive footage mixed with film archive footage alongside modern interviews with people from all sides and angles of the terrible conflict, this all mixed in with music from the time and a fantastic original soundtrack by the likes of NIN's Trent Reznor and The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo Yo Ma. This is a great work. The interviews with the actual people are brilliant and mixed in really expertly with the film's narrative at all sections of the entire work. This really is a 18 hour film. Highly recommended. Brilliant stuff. For 40 euros you won't go wrong 10/10

Reznor and Atticus Ross have been doing some great soundtrack work in recent years in fairness - and on films you'd never really expect them to be scoring too; have the soundtracks to Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl at home which i bought on the strength of their names being attached to them. They don't do things by half either, the above are 3 disc and 2 discs respectively.


Thanks for the review and recommendation, off to amazon now to look for it.

He (Reznor) also pops up in The Defiant Ones on Netflix, which I watched but didn't comment on. Will do tomorrow.

Wombatman

Hostiles - 2017

I do love a good Western. The certainly wasn't one. Story all over the place leading to clunky dialog and paper thin, often stereotypical, characters. A Bale vehicle breakdown.

Some lovely cinematography and a fine score though.

5/10

The Black Oil

San Andreas

I was hoping to give this 3/5, sadly not. On the plus side, the chemistry between the two parents is OK and the daughter character largely rescues herself, with a young guy catching her eye. I bet someone got a kicking out of writing 'you suck' re the tool of step Dad. Paul Giamatti plays the scientist/seismologist bloke, was hoping he'd link up with the Rock somehow. I did wonder whether it was trying to comment on technology re when mobile phones went dead, may have just been a note for the daughter to show her knowledge with survival skills. CGI was OK, passible. Trying to think of the last disaster film I watched that had a decent sense of threat...

Phase IV (1974)

More serious than I was expecting and an altogether different beast to San Andreas on the disaster front. Strange, but oddly fascinating.

CrankyHaus

buried wrote: »

The Vietnam War (2017) - Ken Burns and Lynn Novick 18 hours of historical documentation film making of the Vietnam war that was shown on PBS last year. Got this on DVD and it is absolutely brilliant. The photo archive footage mixed with film archive footage alongside modern interviews with people from all sides and angles of the terrible conflict, this all mixed in with music from the time and a fantastic original soundtrack by the likes of NIN's Trent Reznor and The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo Yo Ma. This is a great work. The interviews with the actual people are brilliant and mixed in really expertly with the film's narrative at all sections of the entire work. This really is a 18 hour film. Highly recommended. Brilliant stuff. For 40 euros you won't go wrong 10/10

It's fantastic. I particularly liked the depth of and range of the Vietnamese interviews. A masterpiece.

ButtersSuki

Watched all of these on Netflix recently but didn't post at the time, so here's my thoughts:

The Defiant Ones Whilst undoubtedly entertaining and slickly-produced, I just felt a bit underwhelmed by what isn't too far removed form a 4hour+ puff piece on Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine - maybe I just knew too much about both of them to get anything new from it? Worth a watch nonetheless if for no other reason than getting the views of some of the other artists on either or both of the main protagonists and for insights into them and theri creatve processes as much as Dre and Iovine. My biggest criticism of it would be that's it's too nice (again, puff piece) and would have been far better served showing the other side a little more (we get glimpses, but that's it). Still a 7/10.

Chris Rock: Tamborine and Ricky Gervais: Humanity which I'm going to write a joint review on as they have a lot in common, starting with the obvious older comedian taking a shedload of money from Netflix to do a one or so hour long stand up routine to a crowd of superfans. Both shows are undoubtedly funny in parts, but both efforts overall (and I'd be a fan of both, particularly Gervais) just felt a little too self-assured, lazy, and by no means either's finest stand up work (and I've seen both live numerous times, and own all of their available stand up DVDs). I'd give Rock's show a 5/10 and Gervais's a 6/10.

MeTheMan

Blade runner 2049.

I don't know whether I fell asleep in the middle of it or what, but I don't have a notion what it was about. The other end made some sense to me but I spent most the film scratching my head. Might try it again on a less tired night.

policy75

Happy! : I bull**** you not but I have watched without question the best TV series ever (opinion). Just look at Episode 1 of Series 1 (sadly only series 1 available to date) and refute my claim. Just the first 10 minutes and you are hooked. Quentin Tarantino but the humour is simply much better

barrymanilow

It follows ,

An arty horror film , was on Netflicks at least up to a few weeks ago . I'm not into horror films at all but this one had a good premise and was pretty stylish , kept me entertained for a while.

8/10

TomSweeney

Logan

I don't like superhero films, but a colleague told me this one is not so much a superhero film .....

utter utter utter GARBAGE!!! That's 2h17m of my life I'll never recover, he owes me a beer.

I just don't understand how grown adults can like this crap - then again, I like Star Wars - no accounting for taste I guess ... but F*CK ME !!! it was terrible terrible SH1TE!!!

True Confessions 1981 Crime drama set around the 50's with De Niro, Duvall, Charles Durning, Burgess Meredith, Cyril Cusack a real all star cast about corruption between the church and real estate developer Durning. Great performances by all, some nice dialogue but for some reason the film never gets out of 3rd gear and kind of mosey's on through to the finish

bladespin

policy75 wrote:

Happy! : I bull**** you not but I have watched without question the best TV series ever (opinion).

Thanks for this, nearly slipped the radar, it's brilliant!