What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

Nerdlingr

Nerdlingr wrote: »

Isle of Dogs

Bit disappointed with this to be honest. Thought there would be more meat to its bones. Obviously the animation and setting etc is fantastic but i dunno, just felt a bit meh..unfulfilled. Got a bit bored by it towards the end to be honest.

6/10

I love Andersons films, but when I saw the trailer I had zero interest in watching it. Just thought the concept was much more miss then hit. Hopefully his next endeavor is a return to form.

Fysh

For me Isle of Dogs was an early, but still strong, contender for favourite of the year. Lovely animation, a very well told if straightforward story, and somehow a bit more accessible and less artificial feeling than Anderson's last couple of films.

Horses for courses, I suppose

johnny_ultimate

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Hopefully his next endeavor is a return to form.

Isle of Dogs is, if anything IMO, Anderson on top form - nothing to return to! A film of boundless cinematic wit and imagination, a further extension and honing of the style he’s been developing for years, and with entire new avenues for expression freed up once liberated from live action.

johnny_ultimate

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Isle of Dogs is, if anything IMO, Anderson on top form - nothing to return to! A film of boundless cinematic wit and imagination, a further extension and honing of the style he’s been developing for years, and with entire new avenues for expression freed up once liberated from live action.

Will have to give it a go so!

ButtersSuki

2 Scoops wrote: »

The insider. Seen it years ago but forgot most of it.

Don't think I'm overstating when I say it's one of the best thrillers ever made.

Was listening to the score from same recently and must rewatch....trouble is there's so much stuff I want to watch before I start rewatching a lot of the stuff I want to rewatch.....again.:rolleyes:

Tony EH

SPOILERS


'A Quiet Place'

Relatively entertaining, if some what stupid in places, post-apocalypse nonsense that passes 90 mins by harmlessly enough. 'A Quiet Place' centres its story on a family as they survive in a world dominated by creatures that locate their prey by sound. They're swift, brutal and pretty scary. The film, rightly, resists the temptation to explain them, too, and instead drops the viewer into the mix, as we follow the family in their attempts to remain intact and as silent as they can.

This is helped by the fact that the family are made up of people we care for, as their parts are well acted, convincing and they feel real, even when the script has them do stupid things. Special mention goes to deaf actress, Milicent Simmonds, who conveys her character's emotions well, without making a sound and the technique of using absolute silence when she's the focus of attention was a good one, even if it is forgotten about here and there. Elsewhere there's a fine turn by Noah Jupe and the always great Emily Blunt. John Krasinski does well too. Plus, he's shown that he's not too bad behind the camera either.

The "gimmick" of being quiet is very well handled and aids the film immensely. The tension really does get ratcheted up because of it. But, the monsters are kind of irregular in their activities and into the bargain, I was continually perplexed at the notion of where they went to, in their own down time. They couldn't be far away, because we can see that one loud sound can bring them barrelling along in seconds.

I was also slightly irritated that nobody in the family thought of setting up some sort of sound system a couple of hundred yards from the house to distract the monsters, should the shit hit the fan. They have working electricity (with a super quiet generator, I presume???), so it would have been possible to string cable out to a speaker of some description. But, they did have an emergency fireworks system...so...

All in all though, this was quite enjoyable and I'd recommend it. There are at least a couple of well handled, tense, scenes that actually had me very excited. But, one has to keep in mind, that it is a horror movie. So a certain forgiving attitude may have to apply to its more sillier parts and an ending that left a little to be desired.


8/10




'Jurassic Park'


It's hard to believe that this is now 25 years old. A very sobering thought to one who first saw it in the cinema all those years ago, but 'Jurassic Park' - probably Spielberg's last great film - hasn't lost any of its power to entertain. Everyone knows the story, so I'll not rehash it here and besides, it's quite secondary to main point of the film...seeing dinosaurs on the rampage. But, unlike the modern travesties trading under the name Jurassic World, 'Jurassic Park' never ceases to be exciting, even when the dino's are off the screen, which is for an awful lot of the running time.

When they do make an appearance, however, they are as brilliant as they ever were and the tyranosaur's scream is just how you remember it. Piercing and chilling. The CGI and animatronics have aged slightly, but their still more than capable, which is a testament to the late Stan Winston's excellent work. and even if the dinosaur's presented in the film are entirely fictional in nature, they still have to power to awe you.

Acting wise, there's not a lot to write home about. But, everyone does the job they need to and even the trademark Spielbergian kids aren't as irritating as they sometimes are in his movies. In fact they're kind of charming in their own right and they are the centre of the film's most exciting parts, when they're attacked by the T Rex and the Raptors.

All in all, 'Jurassic Park' is still a very fine and exciting film. But unlike its historical cousin, 'Jaws', it does leave me a little bit unfulfilled at the end for a reason that I can't put my finger on.

Unfortunately, the stellar success of 'Jurassic Park' meant that it fathered the inevitable and less than stellar sequels, to which point we have now entered the "reboot" phase with the pretender to the throne 'Jurassic World'. None of the sequels - not even the Spielberg helmed 'The Lost World' - were up to scratch and the modern, rebooted, franchise is even lesser, despite its hideous box office extravagances.


8/10

pixelburp

Extinction (2018)

"Netflix Original" truly is a poisoned term now, particularly with movies - and especially with genre films. For every "Annihilation", you get and "Extinction". Apparently too this is another case of a studio (Universal) offloading a turkey that was originally destined for the cinemas, onto the service.

An absolute dud: drab, idiotic, plodding and kinda ugly to look at; and while there's a mid-film gear change that to be fair, made me go 'ooh' for about 30 seconds, it's applied without any sense or deference to logic. Worse, the script actively cheats the audience in setting up the change, just for a cheap shock.

Way more words spent describing this shovelware than it deserves; stay clear, go watch something else on Netflix.

Wombatman

Too Late - 2015 on Netflix

Just kinda stumbled across this wonderfully shot, pulp noir, L.A. detective story, with quirky dialog and some masterful performances. John Hawkes delivers as usual.

Pushed all my buttons.

9/10

Smegging hell

I recently watched My Own Private Idaho and Ida - two excellent films which, while very different, compliment one another in a way - children going on a journey to find their parents, their identity, their future. Ida will definitely be recalled as one of the films of the 2010s.

ButtersSuki

Wombatman wrote: »

Too Late - 2015 on Netflix

Just kinda stumbled across this wonderfully shot, pulp noir, L.A. detective story, with quirky dialog and some masterful performances. John Hawkes delivers as usual.

Pushed all my buttons.

9/10

I'm in on John Hawkes alone. Thanks for the mention.

ButtersSuki

Last Chance U Season 3 (and Seasons 1+2 Where Are They Now?) on Netflix. Interesting (slightly) new take on excellent documentary series about a Junior College American Football Team and the dynamics between their coaches and players. Probably suffers a little from the fact that you're so familiar with the cast from Seasons 1 + 2, but I can see how this could become as engaging as the seasons progress if they stay at the same school. For those of you not into sport, it's not about the sport; it's by far more about the relationships and interplay between the characters.

7/10 (with huge potential to go higher).


The Viet Nam War, marathon documentary series also on Netflix. Outstanding in terms of detail and new (certainly to me) information about the war, esp. the interviews with the troops and civilians on both sides.

9/10, but not for everyone - let me put it this way, this is more like a book than a film portrait, if that makes sense?


American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, from the same people who brought you The People vs. OJ Simpson. TPVOJS style and tropes are all over this, and suffers from the same flaws that show had - it looks like those bad made for TV movies that you see on Hallmark Channel and True Movies etc. Has some weird casting decisions: Penelope Cruz as Donatella Versace (complete with strong Spanish accent - I assume they're assuming Americans won't be able to tell the difference between European accents anyway :rolleyes:) being the standout.

Andrew Criss's performance as Andrew Cunana (the man who shot Versace) is mostly very good in fairness if a little uneven, channeling at times Patrick Bateman in American Psycho; and Ricky Martin (yes, that Ricky Martin) was actually ok in his role. One complaint I would have is they (like TPVOJS) play songs from outside the era (particularly after) on the radio in the background etc. on more than one occasion and it's just p*ss poor attention to detail - but that's me and my OCD-ness I guess.

5/10.


Mission: Impossible - Fallout in the cinema last night. Failed to live up to the hype for me, though the stunts as per usual M:I standards are excellent and the opening hand to hand combat scene in the men's bathroom (a la Casino Royale) is just brutal. The dialogue at times is laughable (particularly Alec Baldwin's), and it's very long by modern standards at almost 2.5hours. The story and twists (if I can call them that) are pretty obvious and telegraphed (this is not Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) but it's not awful. I'm likely not the first to suggest they're trying to mesh Bond and Bourne in the M:I series as it has evolved and to be fair, the last few M:Is have probably been better than the most recent Bond and Bourne efforts. I think if it cut out the silly jokes and corny dialogue it would have been a more satisfying watch. Sean Harris was good to a point (the ending) - he does "baddies" really well. A couple of minor irks - Henry Cavill's body shape seemed to change from brick-sh*thouse incredibly V-shaped muscular back in the opening scenes to much slimmer in the 2nd half of the movie (which they try to mask with trenchcoats and loose jackets), and his frequently changing facial hair.

6/10

Just finished watching Succession HBO's latest TV drama. Really blown away by its quality. Such a character study, with almost every part peeled away layer by layer until the finale. Its loosely based on the Murdoch family, sibling rivalries, father and child relationships in the management of a huge media corporation. The characters are mostly unlikeable but each one of them despite their many flaws also has a human, a likable aspect as bizarre as it might feel.
Knowing a family like this who are stupidly rich it is uncanny how the relationship between Logan and Kendall Roy is like it. Easily the best thing I've seen on TV in many years.

CrankyHaus

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Just finished watching Succession HBO's latest TV drama. Really blown away by its quality. Such a character study, with almost every part peeled away layer by layer until the finale. Its loosely based on the Murdoch family, sibling rivalries, father and child relationships in the management of a huge media corporation. The characters are mostly unlikeable but each one of them despite their many flaws also has a human, a likable aspect as bizarre as it might feel.
Knowing a family like this who are stupidly rich it is uncanny how the relationship between Logan and Kendall Roy is like it. Easily the best thing I've seen on TV in many years.

Thanks for the recommendation. I saw it reviewed in the papers yesterday and had it on my list. Jesse Armstrong, a writer in Peep Show and The Thick of It, and Adam McKay, the Director of the Big Short, on board had me very interested.

Blue Collar (1978). Three Detroit autoworkers rob their own Union's safe with unforeseen consequences. Great writing and performances. A good insight into the US during stagflation in the 70s, It showed the repetitive monotony of manufacturing work very well. The scene where the three leads sit morosely after a coke binge, admitting their depressions and disgruntlements ments as the clock ticks past 6am, was brilliant and is the kind of thing you really don't get in heist movies anymore.

Tony EH

'Rise of the Footsoldier'

A disjointed serious of events strung together on an "awright geezer, u know wot I mean 'arry" type of narration, where the audience sits through one nasty occurrence after another, all carried out by thoroughly despicable excuses for humanity.

Starting with a brief spell on the terraces and giving a passing mention to the dubious exploits of the Inter City Firm, a gang of West Ham football hooligans from the 80's, we follow East End hardnut, Carlton Leech (Ricci Harnett), as he drags his miserable face from one scene to the next. After several minutes with the ICF, we're whipped off to Leech's time as a bouncer and we're eventually introduced to who should have been the main focus of the film, Pat Tate (Craig Fairbrass), a small time hood with whom Leech forms a dubious relationship. Further along we bump into more thinly sketched thugs, one of which seems to be a big shot (or at least a bigger shot than the rest) Mickey Steele (Billy Murray). Obviously, none of this ends well, but it's the "footsoldier" himself that comes off the least worst. Which is just as well, as he got to write the book on which the film was based.

'Rise of the footsoldier' never seems completely coherent and makes the viewer confused as to who they are watching and why, too often. It's also littered with people that appear far more interesting than the lead and makes you feel that a film following them would have been more satisfactory, even though they are (as previously mentioned) thinly sketched. Maybe that's because the likes of Craig Fairbrass or Billy Murray just have a better presence than Ricci Harnett and when they on screen, they steal the limelight every time. NOTE: The second sequel actually does centre of Pat Tate.


The curiously named 'Rise of the Footsoldier' trundles on to its interminable ending, with which the film opened, and makes its 2 hours and 15 minutes feel like days. There's a shorter version of the film floating around too, but I get the impression that that would be all the more disjointed, as the long version feels like its skipping out on a lot, as it is. But, none of it is interesting enough for me to lament that or to check out the other two film's in the series.

It's not all terrible, though, and there's a certain watchability to the explosive violence that these repugnant animals engage in. But there's not an ounce of humanity in any of the people on the screen. So, whereas a film like 'Nil By Mouth', may show horrific brutality too, it's carried out by people who still feel like people (albeit people you wouldn't want to be around). The characters in 'Rise of the Footsoldier' are simply one note all the way through the film and they lose their control over the slightest of things, all of the time, to the point where the whole exercise just becomes exhausting.

4/10

Captain Red Beard

Bad Samaritan. Pretty decent kidnap thriller with our very own Robert Sheehan who is convincing as a likeable petty criminal. Dr Who from a few seasons back is decent enough too. Worth a watch.

pinksoir

The King of Comedy.

Top tier Scorcese that is just as true now (more so even) than when it was made. It took me a lot of time to get round to watching it but I reckon it's right up there with his best. Nice ending that has two equally satisfying (and damning) interpretations. Smart, funny, and with an inspired casting choice in Jerry Lewis. It's a biting critique of society buried in a caper and character study.

barrymanilow

Band of Brothers

Re watching it , it's just greatso many young fresh faced up and coming actors in it .

pixelburp

Ready Player One (2018)

There has been a disproportionate amount of discussion over the merits or otherwise of the original book (and I'm guilty of that), but a seed of thought while reading it truly bloomed watching the Spielberg adaptation, and that was just how unintentionally grim and dystopian the story actually is: parking to one side the fanboy pop-culture excitability, what was left onscreen was a sorry tale of a moribund dystopia, digital junkies wasting away their lives while their shantytown world slowly collapses into itself. Teenagers clinging onto nostalgic totems & icons from their grandparents' generation, surrounding themselves with colour and distraction from a world without forward momentum, or even redemption. Oh wait, here's a shoutout to Buckeroo Banzai, please applaud.

Ok ok. To be fair, Spielberg did the best he could with the clichéd, derivative source material, cramming in an admirable(?) amount of pop-culture references without the script falling apart, or the same level of obnoxious spoon-feeding the novel defaulted to; the flow of the script was smoother and gave characters more immediacy and agency than in the literary version. Ultimately though it all felt hollow, and the semi-joking perspective of the previous paragraph never really felt that far away from proceedings. The script also tried to straddle the line between Cline's fawning, hermit obsession for 80s pop-culture and a clumsy message about getting outdoors into reality once in a while - the end result coming across off a little patronising, as if old man Spielberg was giving off about the youth of today.

And that's possibly the nub of it really: with this, and other crowd-pleaser duds like The BFG, I think Spielberg is just a bit too distanced from the blockbuster genre that formed his early career. I don't want to say he's too old because his passion clearly shines in smaller projects such as The Post, Lincoln, or Bridge of Spies, but when he returns to the kind of mainstream entertainment that made his name, those efforts just come off a little stale, rote even.

pixelburp

pixelburp wrote: »

Ready Player One (2018)


And that's possibly the nub of it really: with this, and other crowd-pleaser duds like The BFG, I think Spielberg is just a bit too distanced from the blockbuster genre that formed his early career. I don't want to say he's too old because his passion clearly shines in smaller projects such as The Post, Lincoln, or Bridge of Spies, but when he returns to the kind of mainstream entertainment that made his name, those efforts just come off a little stale, rote even.

Maybe age is the problem, not because of inability or lack of passion, but when he's making something more mainstream which is generally for a younger audience he could be a bit out of touch with that age group. His perspectives, and being in tune with the younger generations mind is unlikely to be what it was when he was in his 30's or 40's.
Theres also the possibility that you/we (as I feel the same), are a bit past some of those movies maturity wise and they just don't feel the same or the same kick is not gotten out of them that would be got if you were say 12-18 years old.

I personally can't be bothered to watch much of the mainstream stuff anymore because thats the age group its aimed at and its mostly very juvenile plots, humor, etc. But as a film enthusiast it can be tempting to watch them, thankfully for me that temptation is no longer there for comic book stuff. But the reality is they are films made more or less for kids so to find them brilliant is going to be a real rarity I believe and it should be taken into account when sitting down to watch any of that kind of stuff.

pixelburp

Deleted User wrote: »

Maybe age is the problem, not because of inability or lack of passion, but when he's making something more mainstream which is generally for a younger audience he could be a bit out of touch with that age group. His perspectives, and being in tune with the younger generations mind is unlikely to be what it was when he was in his 30's or 40's.

I'd say yeah, he might well be a little out of touch, but don't necessarily buy age as an explanation; after all, George Miller went and made Fury Road, an action blockbuster now considered the gold standard of modern action cinema alongside the likes of John Wick - and did so at 73. Whereas I suspect Spielberg is a little distanced from the technique of modern, CGI heavy cinema. Between this, the BFG and Tintin movie he's obviously trying to learn the ropes, but it doesn't feel like this is his strength. The real-world scenes in Ready Player One were classic Spielberg, but once we went to the 'Oasis' it became a hot mess.

Deleted User wrote: »

Theres also the possibility that you/we (as I feel the same), are a bit past some of those movies maturity wise and they just don't feel the same or the same kick is not gotten out of them that would be got if you were say 12-18 years old.

Naw, Don't agree with that: I still enjoy most blockbusters, even if I find their rigid formulae and lack of inspiration frustrating at times. I admit to having been sucked into the 'event' format of the modern summer movie and sometimes, sure, that's kinda all I want. Mission Impossible: Fallout was probably the best action blockbuster I'd seen in a long time (probably since Fury Road perhaps?), while the MCU franchise is, if nothing else, consistently entertaining fare.

So I do like blockbusters, happily, and given I'm a 38 year old man who grew up on Transformers and as a quintessential nerd child, a Spielberg helmed Ready Player One should have been a slam-dunk. Instead I kinda felt faintly embarrassed.

JoeyJJ

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Brigsby Bear - loved it

Stumbled across this one also, enjoyable, some good casting.

Tony EH

pixelburp wrote: »

So I do like blockbusters, happily, and given I'm a 38 year old man who grew up on Transformers and as a quintessential nerd child, a Spielberg helmed Ready Player One should have been a slam-dunk. Instead I kinda felt faintly embarrassed.

I've a few years on you, but strangely enough I thought 'Ready Player One' was ok. Nothing great, but ok. It's laced here and there with some mild irritation, has a couple of annoying (and rather empty) characters, is wildly mish-mashed together and has a not terribly convincing story. But, it was ok.

Had I paid money for it, I might have a different perspective.

But, all in all, it just suffers from what most cinema does these days, in that it was merely mediocre. Not awful. Not great. Middle-the-roads.

pixelburp

Tony EH wrote: »

I've a few years on you, but strangely enough I thought 'Ready Player One' was ok. Nothing great, but ok. It's laced here and there with some mild irritation, has a couple of annoying (and rather empty) characters, is wildly mish-mashed together and has a not terribly convincing story. But, it was ok.

Had I paid money for it, I might have a different perspective.

But, all in all, it just suffers from what most cinema does these days, in that it was merely mediocre. Not awful. Not great. Middle-the-roads.

Ah I did acknowledge in the review that Spielberg did an OK job, so I don't deny the film was fine, but given the pedigree of the person directing, and the context of the adaptation generally it made the final product hard to parse without acknowledging the cultural baggage surrounding it.

fin12

Does anyone know when the Whitney film is going to be released on DVD? I missed it when it was in the cinema.

Anyone seen hotel Translavana 3? I really liked the first two just trying to decide whether to go see it in the cinema or wait till it comes out on dvd.

pixelburp

pixelburp wrote: »

Naw, Don't agree with that: I still enjoy most blockbusters, even if I find their rigid formulae and lack of inspiration frustrating at times. I admit to having been sucked into the 'event' format of the modern summer movie and sometimes, sure, that's kinda all I want. Mission Impossible: Fallout was probably the best action blockbuster I'd seen in a long time (probably since Fury Road perhaps?), while the MCU franchise is, if nothing else, consistently entertaining fare.

So I do like blockbusters, happily, and given I'm a 38 year old man who grew up on Transformers and as a quintessential nerd child, a Spielberg helmed Ready Player One should have been a slam-dunk. Instead I kinda felt faintly embarrassed.

I've always loved a good blockbuster, I think in the 80's and 90's they were much more interesting, individual and iconic. Nowadays its a churn and extremely predictable, and I find the humor so basic and forced to the point of making stuff unwatchable eg, Guardians of the galaxy I couldn't get past the first ten minutes.
I also grew up on Transformers it was my favorite cartoon as a kid, (I thought that the movies lost all the authenticity of the characters who were so individual and memorable in the cartoon)

Fury Road I think is an exception, and I wouldn't lump in with the modern churn of blockbusters that have a money making 'formula'. There is a formula today that appeals to the level of young teen as that is where the money is. Its clever and effective and profitable, but has destroyed blockbusters I believe almost totally.

Whats interesting is this new Oscars category which initially seems sad and idiotic could very well promote a bit more new thinking in that category of blockbuster and maybe the writers and studios will pursue something more unique to get the oscar prize

budgemook

fin12 wrote: »

Does anyone know when the Whitney film is going to be released on DVD? I missed it when it was in the cinema.

Anyone seen hotel Translavana 3? I really liked the first two just trying to decide whether to go see it in the cinema or wait till it comes out on dvd.

I think it's on Netflix if that helps.

buried

buried wrote: »

Gomorrah is really good. Starts off a bit clunky the first few episodes but when Salvatore Conte returns it really really takes off. It's a lot more brutal than the Suburra series. Try give it another shot!

Got around to this, thanks for the recommendation really enjoying it!

fin12

budgemook wrote: »

I think it's on Netflix if that helps.

No that’s the documentary from 2017 that’s on Netflix, thanks anyway.

Fysh

I caught Teen Titans Go! To The Movies at the cinema yesterday and had a lot of fun watching it. Like the cartoon on which it's based, it's not really interested in superheroics so much as it is daftness and gags. Particular recognition is due for the ludicrous number of background sight gags of DCU character movie posters as well as Robin's excellent final gag, but I really enjoyed the whole thing. About the only thing I might have asked for is

for the final battle to use a different song rather than repeating the same one from the opening scene

but that's an absolutely minor detail.

Edit: Also wanted to add that Will Arnett voices Slade, the villain, and at times sounds almost like it's actually Bojack Horseman, which adds an extra level of surreality to the humour...

pixelburp

Pacific Rim: Uprising

Loved the somewhat maligned first Pacific Rim, but the sequel was missing nearly all the key components that made the original work so well. Most crucially, all the ponderous weight and impact of giants smacking lumps out of each other was missing, replaced instead with mechs dancing about like generic Transformers, ruining the fantasy of it all. Few of the cast returned and the fun, silly caricatures of the first film replaced with empty vessels and a jokey script that almost never landed, though John Boyega did his level best. If there's one positive, it's that the actor has bags of charm and will hopefully find himself the lead of more films in future.