What have you watched recently? 3D!

al87987

Watched Another Round last night, another Danish film by Thomas Vinterberg and Mads Mikkelsen from the Hunt above.

4 teachers decide to test a theory by maintaining a consistent level of alcohol in their blood. Really enjoyed this movie, funny and well acted. 8/10

flasher0030

Changeling - with Angelina Jolie

Passable. At 2 hours and 20 minutes, I think it's at least half hour too long.
I heard there's some twist in it. Well unless it happened after the credits, there isn't.
Would be good for a drinking game - take a shot ever time she mentions "my son". You'd be plastered in a half hour.
Overall, I'd give it a thumbs up. But you may come away with a slightly underwhelmed feeling.

budgemook

flasher0030 wrote: »

Changeling - with Angelina Jolie

Passable. At 2 hours and 20 minutes, I think it's at least half hour too long.
I heard there's some twist in it. Well unless it happened after the credits, there isn't.
Would be good for a drinking game - take a shot ever time she mentions "my son". You'd be plastered in a half hour.
Overall, I'd give it a thumbs up. But you may come away with a slightly underwhelmed feeling.

That extra half hour is probably entirely made up of Angelina Jolie saying "my son". Even the trailer for that movie would have you fed up of hearing it.

Lost Bullet / Balle Perdue - 2020

Tight little French cop thriller.
Liked it. Not going to blow your mind or anything but a grand 90 minutes.
Recommend.

6.5 / 10

Tony EH

'Russian Doll'

A short series about Nadia, a New Yorker with a voice like a war crime who experiences Ground Hog day (without Punxsutawney Phil) where she has to solve a mystery as to why she keeps returning from the dead over and over again. It's familiar territory to anyone who ever saw the Bill Murray film, but it's generally well written, even if every character in it (except Alan) is an atrocious and obnoxious arse.

Worth a look and it flies by with a runtime of around 200 minutes.

8/10

fin12

A Christmas Carol in the cinema, absolute awful sh*te. One of the worst films I’ve seen in my entire life and seeing a sh*t film in the cinema is even worse. I actually mixed up the Christmas Carol from bbc trailer and thought this was what I was going to see.

Anyway the director must be a nutcase to think a film where the actors don’t speak and just dance around the place and someone narrates the whole thing is a good idea. I literally didn’t understand what was going on and couldn’t wait till was over. The most boring sh*te u will ever watch.

jill_valentine

Tony EH wrote: »

'Russian Doll'

A short series about Nadia, a New Yorker with a voice like a war crime who experiences Ground Hog day (without Punxsutawney Phil) where she has to solve a mystery as to why she keeps returning from the dead over and over again. It's familiar territory to anyone who ever saw the Bill Murray film, but it's generally well written, even if every character in it (except Alan) is an atrocious and obnoxious arse.

Worth a look and it flies by with a runtime of around 200 minutes.

8/10

Imho it lost a lot of momentum when it shifted focus to Captain Sadsack towards the end, but only because Lyonne was such a force early on. Genuinely one of my favourite things on Netflix though, I think I devoured it in one sitting.

The unexpected shift to

mild horror

later was really well done and effective.

Tony EH

jill_valentine wrote: »

Imho it lost a lot of momentum when it shifted focus to Captain Sadsack towards the end, but only because Lyonne was such a force early on. Genuinely one of my favourite things on Netflix though, I think I devoured it in one sitting.

The unexpected shift to

mild horror

later was really well done and effective.

Aye, it does meander a wee bit. But I think Captain Sadsack is there to offset the absolute wanker that every other character is. They're just horrible, horrible, people. So, while Alan is milquetoast, he is the most agreeable person too. It doesn't make him as interesting as the grotesques the show has on offer though.

But he's essential to the outcome. He makes Nadia a better person in her timeline and she makes him a more confident and outgoing person in his.

FunLover18

Watched Happy Deathday the other night and quite enjoyed it. Is the second one any good? It looks completely daft from the trailer.

CastorTroy

The sequel isn't as good but they take the premise and have more fun with it.

Songbird
An absolute turd. Lasted 20mins

Homelander

FunLover18 wrote: »

Watched Happy Deathday the other night and quite enjoyed it. Is the second one any good? It looks completely daft from the trailer.

If you like that you would really enjoy Freaky with Vince Vaughan, same director.

Tony EH

'Dr. Strange'

I swore off of Marvel a few years ago, because it was an insipid journey for me. Not being a comics fan, or to put it more correctly a Marvel fan, it's characters leave me cold, so I don't feel any enthusiasm in seeing these creations in their live action incarnations. But 'Dr. Strange' (I had no idea who he was) wasn't a bad 1:55 minutes in front of the box.

'Dr. Strange' falls into one of the two Marvel superhero categories, which is origin movie. The other being team up, which will no doubt come at a later stage, and as origin stories go (easily the best part of any superhero story) it ain't bad. The film is helped no end by a great cast, who are all game for the bit of fluff that they are in. But the story itself is by the numbers. Guy/gal gets powers and then saves the day.

'Dr. Strange' starts off showing us a brilliant, but insufferably arrogant, doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) who has a car accident that leaves his hands ruined. He spends a fortune trying to save them and as a last resort heads off to Tibet to engage in some baloney Oriental mysticism as only white westerners could envisage, all headed up by the incredibly Caucasian Tilda Swinton. After learning his skills, in double quick time, he then has to defeat the "big bad", Domammu, and his cultist minions, headed up by Mads Mikkelsen.

It's a load of old cobblers, of course, but everyone is having a laugh and the story plays itself out in a fairly agreeable way. It benefits from being a self contained story, so you don't have to have seen a multitude of other Marvel fare to understand what's going on.

Of huge benefit is the genuinely impressive special effects which are seamless, for the most part, and they allow complete buy in to the events unfolding on the screen. The humorous moments are welcome and work quite well, too, due to Cumberbatch's dry delivery. So they land gently and not with a thud, which is a general sin of modern cinema. Plus, they're sprinkled conservatively throughout and at the right moment, never interfering in the over all tone of the piece.

If there's an issue, it's one that plagues all of Marvel's movies (well the ones I have seen to date) and that the aforementioned "Big Bad" is insufficient and the conclusion feels rushed. So it all comes off as a bit...meh. It's bish, bash, bosh...done. Of course, an origin story is more about the journey, but such climaxes leave an unsatisfactory taste in the mouth.

'Dr. Strange' is enjoyable, without being particularly memorable or even that exciting. But I doubt anyone but Marvel fans will want to revisit it after they've watched it.

6/10

Tony EH

'Thor Ragnarok'

A 2 hour 'Robot Chicken' sketch and the perfect example of why Taika Waititi should never be allowed near a Star Wars movie.

I can't decide whether it's the worst Marvel movie I've ever seen, or the best.

shrapnel222

Tony EH wrote: »

'Thor Ragnarok'

A 2 hour 'Robot Chicken' sketch and the perfect example of why Taika Waititi should never be allowed near a Star Wars movie.

I can't decide whether it's the worst Marvel movie I've ever seen, or the best.

Definitely my favourite. Just pure entertainment and great fun. Really not a fan of marvel, but always enjoy rewatching this one.

Tony EH

shrapnel222 wrote: »

Definitely my favourite. Just pure entertainment and great fun. Really not a fan of marvel, but always enjoy rewatching this one.

Neither am I. In fact, on the list of my concerns it wouldn't even register. I only sat down with the nephew to look at a couple of them, as he likes all that stuff. But the tonal shift of 'Thor Ragnarok' and the rest of the series (what I've seen of it) is massive. It's actually a parody. Sure, there's comic moments in each of the them, but they never go full Ha Ha. Even the young lad was, yeah, this one's a comedy.

To be honest, the only reason I watched it was to find out what the hell was going on at the beginning of 'Avengers Whatever', because it opened with that Thanos lad knocking ten shades out of Thor and a load of people on a spaceship and I asked the kid what was happening. He said I had to see 'Thor Raganrok' first.

It's grand as comedic pisstake, but it's like making 'Dad's Army' as a sequel to 'Saving Private Ryan'.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Tony EH wrote: »

Neither am I. In fact, on the list of my concerns it wouldn't even register. I only sat down with the nephew to look at a couple of them, as he likes all that stuff. But the tonal shift of 'Thor Ragnarok' and the rest of the series (what I've seen of it) is massive. It's actually a parody. Sure, there's comic moments in each of the them, but they never go full Ha Ha. Even the young lad was, yeah, this one's a comedy.

To be honest, the only reason I watched it was to find out what the hell was going on at the beginning of 'Avengers Whatever', because it opened with that Thanos lad knocking ten shades out of Thor and a load of people on a spaceship and I asked the kid what was happening. He said I had to see 'Thor Raganrok' first.

It's grand as comedic pisstake, but it's like making 'Dad's Army' as a sequel to 'Saving Private Ryan'.

This is what bothers me about Marvel films. The fact they all have to tie into the bigger universe means it doesn't matter who they hire to write/direct there's so much predetermined stuff that has to happen or follow on from that there's very little chance for a filmmaker to put their own stamp on things. The fact that TW got to make Ragnarok the way he did is a minor miracle. But maybe that was because the Thor franchise as a whole before that wasn't that well received.

Tony EH

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

This is what bothers me about Marvel films. The fact they all have to tie into the bigger universe means it doesn't matter who they hire to write/direct there's so much predetermined stuff that has to happen or follow on from that there's very little chance for a filmmaker to put their own stamp on things. The fact that TW got to make Ragnarok the way he did is a minor miracle. But maybe that was because the Thor franchise as a whole before that wasn't that well received.

Hmmm...I'd actually say that it DOES matter who they get to direct an entry in a series of films that are so connected and is, essentially, a single long story. In fact, how Taika Watiti got the nod to direct a Marvel film is beyond me.

"Let's get that guy who made that comedy about vampires."

Film makers putting their own stamps on things is fine. But when you are doing something that's part of an established series, with an established tone, it's preferable to keep within the general tone of what had come before. I mean, sure, Marvel movies are lighthearted and a bit twee. It's based off of comic book material that was designed for 8 year old boys after all. But it's never really Monty Python.

If there's one off's or stand alone parodies and whatnot to be made, then yeah, go for it. They can do whatever they like. But if one film is semi serious and the next is a farce, that isn't going to work.

Now, sure, taken as a thing in itself, 'Thor Ragnarok' is an entertaining comedy in the Watiti mold (frankly, I think he's an extremely limited one trick pony). But stacked up against the other movies I've seen in the series, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Tony EH wrote: »

Hmmm...I'd actually say that it DOES matter who they get to direct an entry in a series of films that are so connected and is, essentially, a single long story. In fact, how Taika Watiti got the nod to direct a Marvel film is beyond me.

I think we're basically saying the same thing here.

Personally I want a different experience if I'm going to watch a superhero film, but I have long since accepted that that isn't going to happen when it comes to Marvel.

Obviously if you're making a long running series of interconnected films then you want people to be sticking to the same general tone. But that's what I mean about it not mattering who you get to write or direct because 99% of the time they're going to have very little scope for doing their own thing. Watiti is definitely the outlier in the Marvel universe.

Tony EH

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I think we're basically saying the same thing here.

Personally I want a different experience if I'm going to watch a superhero film, but I have long since accepted that that isn't going to happen when it comes to Marvel.

Obviously if you're making a long running series of interconnected films then you want people to be sticking to the same general tone. But that's what I mean about it not mattering who you get to write or direct because 99% of the time they're going to have very little scope for doing their own thing. Watiti is definitely the outlier in the Marvel universe.

Yeh. I picked you up wrong.

I agree. There are certain locked in things to observe in something like this. Good or bad as that may be.

In saying that, I don't really care. Marvel was an American thing when I was a kid so it passed me by, even though I was aware of the likes of Spiderman. But my comics were 2000AD and Warlord.

It's just I find it amusing how these crazy ideas get the go ahead. It's like asking Woody Allen to do the next Jason Bourne film.

I suppose it's in my head because Waiti is on the list for a Star Wars film and that rings a few alarms. Because if people got their knickers in a twist over the awful "comedy" in 'The Last Jedi' like chucking lightsabers and mum jokes, they better get ready for more of it, cos that's Watiti's gig too.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Tony EH wrote: »

It's just I find it amusing how these crazy ideas get the go ahead. It's like asking Woody Allen to do the next Jason Bourne film.

I suppose it's in my head because Waiti is on the list for a Star Wars film and that rings a few alarms. Because if people got their knickers in a twist over the awful "comedy" in 'The Last Jedi' like chucking lightsabers and mum jokes, they better get ready for more of it, cos that's Watiti's gig too.

I wonder if with Thor it was a last chance kind of thing. I don't think the previous films were that well received, especially the sequel, so maybe the powers that be thought what's the worst that could happen?

On the flipside of all of this I don't really understand why any director wants to get involved with these franchises. Especially ones with very distinct styles. I know it looks good on the CV or whatever but every time someone interesting gets one of these films there's a rake of stories about tension on set, or studio interference. I think I've even seen something about Patty Jenkins and the Wonder Woman sequel along those lines. And WW pretty much held the DC universe together for a while there.

budgemook

With such a long series I found it fine for Thor to be so different from the others. It kind of reminds me of the musical episode of Buffy - something a bit different and then back to normal.

crushproof

That time of year to go through some classics from my younger days. First up was Wayne's World.

Boy had this movie aged, still some great music and jokes but seems to be stuck in its early 90s vibe. A worthwhile nostalgia trip with plenty of cultural references, I totally forgot about the John Connor reference.

Party on, excellent?! Well, 28 years later, not so much. I can imagine a 12 year old watching today switching off after 10 minutes

Del.Monte

"Hard Kill" (2020) on Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP99YZiEYtk

A complete train wreck with Bruce Willis playing Bruce Willis and an assorted cast of nobodies. I only stuck with it to see if it could maintain its low standard to the end - it did.

Crap plot, poor continuity, crap dialogue, crap acting and utterly unrealistic. Since watching it I checked a couple of other sites to make sure that I hadn't imagined its awfulness - I hadn't! One comment referred to the production company boasting that it only took ten days to make......Do yourself a favour and don't be tempted to give it a whirl. It's so poor that it is impossible to give a points out of ten rating. Willis should have given up acting after "Moonlighting"

Del.Monte

Del.Monte wrote: »

"Hard Kill" (2020) on Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP99YZiEYtk

A complete train wreck with Bruce Willis playing Bruce Willis and an assorted cast of nobodies. I only stuck with it to see if it could maintain its low standard to the end - it did.

Crap plot, poor continuity, crap dialogue, crap acting and utterly unrealistic. Since watching it I checked a couple of other sites to make sure that I hadn't imagined its awfulness - I hadn't! One comment referred to the production company boasting that it only took ten days to make......Do yourself a favour and don't be tempted to give it a whirl. It's so poor that it is impossible to give a points out of ten rating. Willis should have given up acting after "Moonlighting"

I hope Bruce has royalties on Die Hard. Last thing i saw him in was his cameo in Ed Nortons film and he really stood out as awful.

Have really noticed that Bruce Willis has started doing these quick and dirty movies over the last couple of years, often where he may apparently only be in the movie for 20 minutes or so - haven't really watched any of them as they have been obvious steaming dog-poops.

Much like Nicolas Cage has been doing also.

Demi Moore must have upped the alimony claims or something.

Del.Monte

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxJpe8d2dBQ

Some days prior to watching Hard Kill I had watched an equally jaded Bruce Willis in another movie "The Cold Light of Day" (2012) but at least this time

he was killed off at an early stage in the film,

An equally jaded Sigourney Weaver (Alien) stars as the baddie in this kidnap drama with various groups trying to get their hands on a briefcase. A confusing enough plot but at least the action is more exciting than the other dirge fest. Bizarrely, Colm Meaney makes a ten second appearance at the end of the movie and it's a wrap. Strange stuff but worthy of a 2/10.

bnt

Last night I watched The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), which I found to be quite problematic when it comes to the history. The charge itself is one of the greatest military blunders in history, and most of the film is taken in setting up the personalities involved.

If the movie plot is to believed, personalities are central to what happened in reality: on the one side you have the hothead young Captain Louis Nolan, whose ego is inflated (with some justification) as the author of well-reviewed books on cavalry oerations. The Light Brigade is using a saddle he designed, and he has some wild (for the times) ideas about turning the military in a more professional operation. In this Nolan clashes with his commander Lord Cardigan (Trevor Howard), a strict disciplinarian who is at war with his commanders, which include his hated brother-in-law.

To cut a long story short, there are serious problems with discipline and communication, the kinds of things that need to work on a battlefield. When they don't, things can go badly wrong, and the history of The Charge of the Light Brigade is confusing enough already. The movie ends with all concerned survivors trying to shirk the blame, and to this day it's still a source of argument among historians.

The movie does take some liberties e.g. Fanny Duberly really did accompany her husband to the Crimean War and keep notes on events, but there's no evidence that she had an affair with Lord Cardigan. The role of Nolan in events is also contentious: he was a character in real life, but whether he really was as much to blame will never be resolved, since he was the first casualty in the Charge. The movie itself was a flop at the time, despite decent reviews, and the years have not been too kind to it. It has been read by some as a commentary on the Vietnam war - major power coming to the "rescue" of a foreign country - which is also debatable.

Mad_maxx

watched " The last Jedi " christmas eve , had not seen it before and preferred it to the first one " the force awakens "

actually thought mark hamill was good in it

santana75

Noelle

This was a surprise. Expected nothing from it really, it's a Christmas film so gave it a whirl. Turned out to be great. Its genuinely sharp and funny, not overly mawkish and sentimental. A lot of that is down to anna Kendrick who is Brilliant. Not usually a fan of her movies but she is perfect in this, dont think it would've worked without her so casting was spot on. Bill hader is good in the limited screen time he has. It looks fantastic and zips along at a nice clip. Could do a lot worse in the Christmas movie department.