What have you watched recently: Electric Boogaloo

Baked.noodle

The Beast of War (1988)

Set during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, this sometimes brutal, fascinating and consistently entertaining face off between a mostly degenerate Russian tank crew and a mostly noble Afghan Mujahideen is probably the best war film I've seen in years.

Judgement Day

"Quatermass II" (1955) on YouTube via Wii.

This is the BBC six-part TV series - not to be confused with the 1957 Hammer movie of the same name. Not a patch on "Quatermass and the Pit", and the limitations of no budget movie making are cruelly shown up in this effort which cost £7,552 (imdb) for 3 hours of movie compared to £75,000 for the 1957 (85 minute) Hammer production. In common with the "Doctor Who" TV series, the BBC got away with sci-fi when the monsters/aliens etc. were kept to a manageable size or are largely referred to rather than seen - but when the monsters were large or large scale destruction was called for the game was up.
As I said, not a patch on "Quatermass and the Pit" but worth a look if you're into that sort of thing. 6/10. Whole series on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wu5ysngp_c

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

This was not at all what I had been expecting. I knew it was based on a book but I had no idea what it was about and based on the TV ads they were showing when it was in the cinema I was expecting a sort of typical coming of age teen movie type thing.

I found the story really engaging and the characters were all likable and it was even a bit emotional at times without ever seeming like a deliberate manipulation of your emotions. I won't say too much about the plot because there's a few surprises in it (if you haven't read the book, obviously) but overall I think this probably deserved more attention than it got and is a pretty worthwhile film.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

mesrine: killer instinct

even though it's more of a clip show than public enemy #1, it's still my favourite of the two, maybe it's slightly more happy go lucky

i'd hoped to watch both of them tonight, but it's a bit late now to stick on a 2 and a half hour long movie. shame, will have to wait till tomorrow evening and hope flatmate buggers off instead of trying to watch something herself.

johnny_ultimate

Branded to Kill - Seijun Suzuki's absurdist hitman film is quite unlike anything else. Narrative coherence is well down the list of priorities for the director, instead focusing on a visually and musically arresting subversion of the action genre. Following Tokyo's increasingly unhinged No. 3 hitman, it's sometimes very funny (especially a quick trio of assassination attempts) and acts as a carefree deconstruction of cinematic heroism. It's not exactly accessible, and the film doesn't reveal plot developments willingly, so it requires a bit of work. But ultimately there are avant garde, new wave, monochrome & widescreen thrills a-plenty.

Sugarlumps

Flight:

Normally I find it very tough to sit through a Denzel film, his acting is as predictable as stale cheese. It was late and I needed something to fall asleep to. Turned out to be a very good flick, I actually enjoyed his performance.

salacious crumb

Sugarlumps wrote: »

Flight:

Normally I find it very tough to sit through a Denzel film, his acting is as predictable as stale cheese. It was late and I needed something to fall asleep to. Turned out to be a very good flick, I actually enjoyed his performance.

I felt exactly the same.
Plus added bonus of naked Catarina from My Name is Earl. Win :pac:

brevity

Headhunters: Been meaning to watch this one for a while and it did not disappoint. What I really enjoyed about it is how the tone changed throughout the movie. There were instances of black humour, hopelessness, desperation and the relationship between Roger and his wife was well developed.

On hearing that this is supposed to be remade as an American movie I did find myself doing some casting all the way through it.

Star Trek: Into Darkness: I enjoyed the first Star Trek but I found this one a bit muddled and over the top. A lot of needless scenes were foisted in to the movie (the opening, the generals daughter etc.)
Benedict Cumberbatch was great as Khan I thought, the rest was a bit meh.

Pacific Rim: I'm not sure what I expected from this movie really. It looked good and the robots and monsters worked kinda well but the acting was really bad as was the script. I didnt really care for any of the characters. It was all so terribly clichéd.

Judgement Day

"Quatermass 2" (1957) on YouTube via Wii. Don't know what came over me but I decided to watch the Hammer version last night and while it was a slightly slicker version than the BBC series it was difficult to see what the extra £70k (the difference in production cost) was spent on. The aliens were still crummy but they only played a minor role in any event, and the only redeeming feature was that it was shorter than the series, coming in at only 85 mins compared 180 mins. Watch if you must. 5/10.



An Alien on the loose - need I say more?

A V A

just watched 'The Company You Keep , great film

krudler

watched In The Loop again, so, so good, endlessly quotable, gets funnier with ever viewing. "I'm room meat!"

Gamayun

Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971)

Hammer Horror featuring a gender-bending Dr. Jekyll, Burke and Hare and Jack the Ripper. I was expecting a campy crudfest but it's actually a well made, fun, film and there's even a brief scene featuring some lovely seventies boobage! Hooray!

The Black Oil

Blue Jasmine

There was a trailer for a James Gandolfini film shown before this. A reminder we'll never see him again.

This was my first encounter with Woody Allen - I have Zelig on my DVD to do list. I would have liked to see a bit more of Alec Baldwin's character other than him cooking the books and cheating, and it did lag a little the odd time for me. However, it's a strong film and very much worth the price of admission for Blanchett's performance and how we see her character unravel.

Baked.noodle

Conspiracy (2001)

A dramatic recreation of the Wannsee Conference where the Nazi Final Solution phase of the Holocaust was devised.

This film is chilling, and really gets into your head. Kenneth Branagh does an amazing job portraying Reinhard Heydrich, and the support cast do an excellent job. It's unbelievable how little time some of these bastards did.

crazygeryy

Baked.noodle wrote: »

Conspiracy (2001)



This film is chilling, and really gets into your head. Kenneth Branagh does an amazing job portraying Reinhard Heydrich, and the support cast do an excellent job. It's unbelievable how little time some of these bastards did.

Looks good.gets a great review on imdb anyway. Will check it out over the weekend.

bellinter

The Iceman

I'm at the stage with Michael Shannon where I could watch him reading the phone book for two hours and probably enjoy it. I also just about thought Man of Stell was okay because of him. But not this. If ever a performance was wasted on a film, this has to be it.

He's an ice cold killer is probably all we learn about him in the film. Avoid.

firestarter51

iceman was great due to shannon, david schwimmer was funny with the ymca tash.
the internship, not great some funny bits, it reminded me of a sunday evening feel good movie

Duggy747

Armageddon

Load, brash, trashy nonsense full of Michael Bay-tastic camera shots and so full of inaccuracies and mistakes it would make a scientist vomit.

By gum, I still like it though. It's a guilty pleasure of a film for me. :pac:

The rushed and frantic editing that gets worse as the movie progresses is really more noticeable since Bay himself admitted to what happened a few months back.

Close Encounters of The Third Kind

Always enjoy this film but the GF hadn't seen it. Of course, she fell asleep at the exact, climatic moment when they finally make contact with the aliens at Devil's Tower :pac:

She did want to see that whole segment so we watched that bit again the next night. Just as enjoyable again to watch and John Williams really is a bottomless pit of memorable soundtracks and melodies.

Judgement Day

Close Encounters.....possibly the most boring Sci Fi movie of all time? No blasting, mayhem, monsters etc.etc.

mewe

Duggy747 wrote: »

Close Encounters of The Third Kind

Always enjoy this film but the GF hadn't seen it. Of course, she fell asleep at the exact, climatic moment when they finally make contact with the aliens at Devil's Tower :pac:

She did want to see that whole segment so we watched that bit again the next night. Just as enjoyable again to watch and John Williams really is a bottomless pit of memorable soundtracks and melodies.

I'm sure she told ya she loved it too.....and of course she was bein completely honest...:pac: Great movie.

brevity

Hangover 3

I actually kinda enjoyed this, wasn't expecting to be blown away but it wasn't terrible by any means, and certainly worth more than the 18% Rotten Tomatoes gave it.

IMO it was a much more enjoyable watch than 2, which wasn't great. It didnt feel like a Hangover movie and is almost all the better for it.

Duggy747

mewe wrote: »

I'm sure she told ya she loved it too.....and of course she was bein completely honest...:pac: Great movie.

Well, she did ask me to put it on the next day. Normally if she didn't like a movie she'd either never mention it again or go on Facebook on the tablet while we watch :pac:

mewe

Duggy747 wrote: »

Well, she did ask me to put it on the next day. Normally if she didn't like a movie she'd either never mention it again or go on Facebook on the tablet while we watch :pac:

Jaysus,she doesn't mince her apples! :pac:

Goldstein

Just saw a trailer for Captain Phillips. Sigh. Didn't know Hollywood was giving the rip-off treatment to the excellent A Hijacking. If there's one film I'd bet on Hollywood missing the entire point of it'd be this one. I can just see the action scenes, clichés and melodrama now. Talk about whoosh.

mike65

Gamayun wrote: »

Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971)

Hammer Horror featuring a gender-bending Dr. Jekyll, Burke and Hare and Jack the Ripper. I was expecting a campy crudfest but it's actually a well made, fun, film and there's even a brief scene featuring some lovely seventies boobage! Hooray!

Clever casting for that film - Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick look like brother and sister so the transformation works very well.

---

Dark Star (1974) Dir John Carpernter.

Carpenters UCLA 1971 "featurette" was expanded to become the directors first feature. It cost about 80k and you can tell and yet you'd have to be a bastard to complain so charming is it. Co-screenwriter (and art director) Dan O'Bannon would take part of the basic story and re-work it as Alien. The critter in Dark Star is rather more comic though menacing enough when you're dangling in a lift shaft!

One curious but acceptable tweak to the print is the blurring of the wall where the crew sleep, in a film with no swearing, explicit violence, sex or nudity the sight of a load of posters of pin up girls would have robbed the film of its now PG rating.

crazygeryy

Goldstein wrote: »

Just saw a trailer for Captain Phillips. Sigh. Didn't know Hollywood was giving the rip-off treatment to the excellent A Hijacking. If there's one film I'd bet on Hollywood missing the entire point of it'd be this one. I can just see the action scenes, clichés and melodrama now. Talk about whoosh.

I hope they do give it good treatment because a hijacking was bloody boring.i couldn't warm to it at all.

Snake Plisken

Argo Caught this tonight and have to say really enjoyed it Ben Afflick has made a terrific well directed movie why he didn't even get nominated for an Directorial Oscar is a crime, I suppose winning Best picture made up for it! Well worth a watch for those who haven't seen it.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Goldstein wrote: »

Just saw a trailer for Captain Phillips. Sigh. Didn't know Hollywood was giving the rip-off treatment to the excellent A Hijacking. If there's one film I'd bet on Hollywood missing the entire point of it'd be this one. I can just see the action scenes, clichés and melodrama now. Talk about whoosh.

I don't think they're ripping off "A Hijacking" as Captain Phillips is a true story. It's just bad timing from Hanks and co. over here as so many people will have seen A Hijacking first and it's inevitable that comparisons will be made.

johnny_ultimate

Tickle_Me_Elmo beat me to it. It is not in any, way, shape or form a 'rip-off' - there just happens to be two films based on modern day piracy released in close succession to each other. Since A Hijacking wouldn't have been on the radar of most Western viewers until some time this year, it goes without saying that the wheels would have been a'spinnin' on the production of Captain Phillips well in advance of that, possibly even in advance of the book release in 2010. Would be wildly optimistic to imagine Hollywood, with all its bureaucracy, could have A Hijacking facsimile ready to go in a few months.

Yes, it's a shame that many viewers will never have seen or even heard of A Hijacking, but calling it a rip-off is a very unfair claim, regardless of the films' quality. Different true stories, different films, some similarities to be expected given the subject matter.

FortuneChip

bellinter wrote: »

The Iceman

I'm at the stage with Michael Shannon where I could watch him reading the phone book for two hours and probably enjoy it. I also just about thought Man of Stell was okay because of him. But not this. If ever a performance was wasted on a film, this has to be it.

He's an ice cold killer is probably all we learn about him in the film. Avoid.

It's not quite a phone book, but...
LOTS OF FOUL LANGUAGE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dngOH9G4UPw

Totally agree about The Iceman though, I found it really disappointing.