What films have you watched recently?

Philly_Q

Son of Saul

Winner of the 2015 Oscar for best foreign picture, this is the story of a Hungarian Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz who is desperate to give the body of a boy, who he believes to be his son, a decent burial.  Very different from most films about the Holocaust, the film has an intentionally claustrophobic, confusing style, with very little dialogue or explanation of what's happening.  I'm sure it's a very fine film, but I just couldn't understand what was going on and it left me largely unmoved.  Maybe I should watch it again, but not for some time.

fretmeister

boogieman said:

Inferno. Dan Brown book made into half decent film shocker! I hadn’t realised Ron Howard was the director on this one, which might explain why. 

He directed the other 2 Dan Brown films too.

shoodurs

Cockneys v's Zombies.
Half way through watching it at the time of posting this and have to say that even for a Scotsman this is brilliant lol.
Keep a look out for it on the horror channel on Virgin, great fun! 

TTBZ

Us was pretty good. Not really what I was expecting it to be, equal parts fun and creepy.

Sassafras

Pitch Perfect.
Not the funniest film I've seen but I did enjoy the singing.

DrJazzTap

Bohemian rhapsody. Or as my autotext wanted to input Bosnian radish. 
I thought the film was okay. The actor who played Brian did a good job. The film had a very Americanized ending. And I'm not sure how i felt about them using his illness to contribute towards  the big gig.
Overall an okay film, would have loved to have seen Sacha in the Freddy role. Rami did an admirable job but i still think him as mr robot.

BigBearKris

Dirt.

I'm not a fan of Motley Crue, but enjoyed the movie, quite surprisingly. Imho - better picture that Bohemian Rhapsody - characters were better written and whole story kept together. I didn't have a feeling that I am watching a performance (felt like that with Malek) but just followed the story...Bit with Ozzy at the pool was crazy though.

6.5/10

Philly_Q

American Assassin

Takes itself very seriously but the plot is really very silly in a Jack Ryan meets American Ninja kind of way.  The characters are cardboard cutouts but portrayed by decent actors (despite Dylan O'Brien looking like a junior Mark Wahlberg).  It's never boring, never eye-rollingly annoying, it's well paced and the action scenes are good.  Overall I quite liked it.  They'd clearly like to make it the first of a series but I don't know if it was successful enough.

Snap

Captain Marvel. As a MCU fan, it was average. Not as duff as Spiderman Homecoming, but maybe on a par with Ant Man. It was "alright".

Green Book - loved it.

Moominpapa

The Place Promised in Our Early Days - the first feature-length anime by the wonderful Makoto Shinkai, from 2004. Interesting sci-fi story, great direction, and gorgeous artwork. You can see his love for and debt to Miyazaki's work - especially in regard to the sky ( I don't know why it is but nobody else treats the sky as reverently as Japanese anime directors) - but you can also see him forging a style of his own. Definitely recommended.

Shrews

Bohemian Rhapsody

Eventually got round to watching this.  On first watch it just pissed me off really, why change the 'real story' ?  The real story would've been just as 'dramatic' for the audiences and it certainly didn't end with Live Aid, Queen did lots of stuff after that and when the public heard about it, it was very shocking (from memory). I worry that in years to come people will relate Freddie Mercury's life to this film and get it completely wrong!

That said, on 2nd watch I enjoyed it a lot more.

And I've watched it a 3rd time since! The full Live Aid performance on the 'Special Features' is very close to the real live performance and have played that back a few times now. It's a very enjoyable and entertaining film.

All in all, I love films with music and this one is a 7/10 for me.  It will never be more than that even if I watch it 20 times just because there was no need to change the real story at all. 

Philly_Q

Overlord

A bit smaller in scope than I expected after seeing a preview last year, but enjoyable enough.  The war movie bits actually work better than the horror bits.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

The main storyline about the quantum realm, or whatever it's called, is utter tripe, but it's all done with such style and the cast are, without exception, thoroughly excellent.  I really enjoyed it.

Myranda

TTBZ said:

Us was pretty good. Not really what I was expecting it to be, equal parts fun and creepy.

I think the marketing is "HORROR!!!!!!!!1one" so you go in expecting a Get Out style experience, but in reality it's a jumpscare style horror/comedy.

Now, that's not to say it's bad, but the marketing teams seem to have thought "He's done one type of film, so lets assume the next is the same without checking".

My review of the film is thus:

Us is brilliant fun, but like many fun films the story doesn't hold up.

A bad film in this category will have you think "why did that person do that? no person would ever do that" DURING the film which pulls you out of the narrative and impacts enjoyment, and a good film like this will have you think it afterwards. In the case of US, we watched the film through and came out singing its praise before "... huh... why was X like it was?". The story is basically "some dumb stuff happens for no logical or good reason" but it doesn't matter, it's dumb stuff happening for no reason that is highly entertaining. Perhaps this needs a specific term... Dumb-Good (aand retro-actively Dumb-Good could be applied to a lot of classic films like Die Hard... it's awful rubbish, but there's a reason that I have it on DVD and Bluray, and have seen it so many times)

Like all good (even Dumb-Good) horror comedy, you will have some jolly good jumps, and some jolly good laughs. The directing and acting is brilliant, it has an authenticity to the performance that allows you to suspend disbelief and relate to the characters. The soundtrack is probably good enough that I'll pick it up come payday. The plot is silly alternating between predictable and silly, but you wont care while watching.

8/10 - will watch again

paulnb57

The Highwaymen 2019 Netfix

Kevin Costner and Woody Harlston play two aging, retired, ex Texas Rangers, dragged out of retirement to hunt for Bonny and Clyde.....Texas Rangers are no longer politically correct, so they are hired as "Highwaymen".......based on real events, this is as much a study of the two, ageing men as it is the hunt for the Gangsters...a great watch, thoroughly enjoyed it....
9.5/10 from me!

boogieman

Stand By Me. Surprised to see this is over 30 years old now, strewth. One of the better Stephen King film transfers, it stands up really well although Kiefer Sutherland isn’t really menacing enough. Has some nicely observed insights into kids leaving childhood behind and hurtling into teenagedom. Some cracking one liners too “Did your mother have any kids that lived?” 

sweepy

Stan and Ollie, inspired casting and beautifully put together

LesbianWithAGun

Went to the cinema with my friend last week (Friday night), caught Us (2019), think we caught it the day it premiered too but I didn't know that at the time.
I streamed Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) last week.

paulnb57

Three Frontiers, Netflix.......oh dear, awful....

stickyfiddle

Snap said:

Captain Marvel. As a MCU fan, it was average. Not as duff as Spiderman Homecoming, but maybe on a par with Ant Man. It was "alright".

As a Marvel fan, this statement has me baffled...! 

stickyfiddle

Spiderman - Into the Spider-verse

Fantastic. Loved the animation style, decent story and well executed. I look forward to more. I also look forward to seeing how bad DC's inevitable Batman version ends up being...