What films have you watched recently?

Snap

Haych said:

A Quiet Place 

Reasonably good beasty movie and imaginative enough not to be just a gore fest of humans against monsters.

Very little dialogue throughout, which is kind of expected given the theme of the movie.  Tense and taut enough to be fairly gripping but annoyingly there's no back-story that explains where the beasties came from or why.

Still, it's one ticked off the list that I've wanted to watch for a while and can't say it wasn't worth it as I did really enjoy it.

I thought this film was absolute bobbins, I really did. And there's a sequel coming out!

Haych

Snap said:

Haych said:

A Quiet Place 

Reasonably good beasty movie and imaginative enough not to be just a gore fest of humans against monsters.

Very little dialogue throughout, which is kind of expected given the theme of the movie.  Tense and taut enough to be fairly gripping but annoyingly there's no back-story that explains where the beasties came from or why.

Still, it's one ticked off the list that I've wanted to watch for a while and can't say it wasn't worth it as I did really enjoy it.

I thought this film was absolute bobbins, I really did. And there's a sequel coming out!

So tell me, bobbins...... is that a good thing or bad?

IvanMC

I quite enjoyed A Quiet Place myself, while munching popcorn. I saw "The Wound" a couple of weeks ago... a Spanish film shot in 2013 (La Herida) about a lifelong sufferer from borderline personality disorder. I found it pretty interesting. The main actress was brilliant.

Lodious

Once upon a time in Hollywood.

I actually really enjoyed it. It's the first Tarantino film I've enjoyed since Jackie Brown and the first time i've thought Brad Pitt was convincing. 

Blaendulais

1917.  Technically brilliant.  Plot...didnt think it was that great tbh.  Lots WW1 cliches thrown together. Dialogue also a little predicatable but camerawork awesome.  

PS why not fly a message there.....

Haych

Bumblebee. Just no. 

I was a massive Transformers fan growing up and watched the cartoon drama, had the toys and even bought the comic. 

There was a naivety to the animated series and films that just isn’t possible when it’s made into a live action film and it just doesn’t work. 

It should have stayed as a kids cartoon.

Keiko

Hereditary. 5/10. Starts out quite promising, but then descends into sillyness and the usual boring cliche horror stuff.

Moominpapa

The Winter Guest - This is a very low key drama from 1997 directed & co-written by Alan Rickman.. It has some good moments - a couple of actually quite touching moments. There's a great interplay between Phyllida Law and Emma Thompson as mother and daughter (which they are in real life). Overall though it is little bit too earnest in its attempt to create and then neatly intertwine drama from the relationships of four pairs of characters over the course of one day. Nicely shot, though, in a small town in Scotland in winter - and Rickman's directing is very good.

robgilmo

tony99 said:

Sassafras said:

ICBM said:

ICBM said:

Arrival

Interesting and quite original - although I did think there were some parallels with Interstellar, it was better realised and more believable.

I think I need to watch it again, and that it will stand a repeat viewing without spoiling it...

8/10

That was posted two years ago but I finally got around to re-watching it... I was right. It's even better the second time, even when you know the twist. Or ironically, perhaps exactly because you know the twist, which makes the concept even more powerful. A very unusual and imaginative film.

Yes, I re-watched it a few weeks ago.
Science fiction at its best. Raises a lot of thought provoking points rather than the mindless Hollywood brain softening bubble gum. Quietly understated and all the more impressive for it. And Amy Adams is quite believable in her role.

It is good, it's very good in fact, and if you're into any branch of linguistics, be it semiotics, pragmatics or even orthographic stylistics, then there are those extra layers that make it an absolute must see.

However it pales in insignificance next to true sci-fi like Independence Day as it doesn't have Randy Quaid flying in at the end to fire a missile up the alien's bumbum.

I thought it was more to do with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in that when she learned the alien language her perception of time changed.

Haych

Searching.

Only my own thoughts, and I could be wrong, but it seems a fairly low budget film with no (need for) special effects and the cast are all unknown to me.

The story is about a widowed father whose teenage daughter goes missing after meeting with friends for the evening.  She stops responding to her father's texts and the friends who she was meeting with all deny every having seen her the previous evening.  During her father's frantic efforts to find out what has happened to her he slowly finds out that his daughter has an entirely different life to the one he saw every day.

The entire movie is shot from the view through a webcam, or online news footage with text messages, emails, FaceTime windows popping up in view.  At first I thought it was going to be really annoying watching this kind of perspective but the story really grabs your attention and drags you in and the perspective of how it's shot really adds to the film.

Despite it's low budget and unknown cast it's a really good film and there's a very clever twist towards the end that I didn't see coming.  I really enjoyed it, as did both my kids (10, 13) and my wife.  I might even watch it a second time.

JezWynd

JoJo Rabbit. Not a film that I’d have watched from the description but a friend recommended and I’m glad I went. Set in WW2, a kooky plot device has Hitler as a young German boy’s imaginary friend. What could have been quite naff is handled brilliantly. Scarlett Johansen and Sam Rockwell are both excellent as is the young boy (actually the entire cast is great; sign of a good director). Plus, best use of ‘Heroes’ in a movie. Mad, moving, entertaining. 9.5/10.

tony99

robgilmo said:

tony99 said:

Sassafras said:

ICBM said:

ICBM said:

Arrival

Interesting and quite original - although I did think there were some parallels with Interstellar, it was better realised and more believable.

I think I need to watch it again, and that it will stand a repeat viewing without spoiling it...

8/10

That was posted two years ago but I finally got around to re-watching it... I was right. It's even better the second time, even when you know the twist. Or ironically, perhaps exactly because you know the twist, which makes the concept even more powerful. A very unusual and imaginative film.

Yes, I re-watched it a few weeks ago.
Science fiction at its best. Raises a lot of thought provoking points rather than the mindless Hollywood brain softening bubble gum. Quietly understated and all the more impressive for it. And Amy Adams is quite believable in her role.

It is good, it's very good in fact, and if you're into any branch of linguistics, be it semiotics, pragmatics or even orthographic stylistics, then there are those extra layers that make it an absolute must see.

However it pales in insignificance next to true sci-fi like Independence Day as it doesn't have Randy Quaid flying in at the end to fire a missile up the alien's bumbum.

I thought it was more to do with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in that when she learned the alien language her perception of time changed.

good shout, but I've always viewed sapir - whorf of being about entrenchment of beliefs rather than change, I also thought it was only really connected to one's native language too, but I might be wrong on that

Philly_Q

The Predator
The reviewers were right about many things - this is a bit of a mess, the plot's nothing new and the editing is terrible (I had to rewind several times to watch blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments which seemed to make no sense).  But the action scenes are OK and I do enjoy Shane Black's wisecracking dialogue.  It's certainly better than the two AvP films and Predators.

There's a tagged-on final scene which hints at a sequel, but I suspect the franchise will go back on the shelf pending another reboot in a few years' time.

Dopesick

Good Time

Robert Pattinson has to raise money to get his brother out of the nick. Very enjoyable.

munckee

Watched a not seen for years film last night, A Few Good Men, flicked onto it at the start and became instantly engrossed in it, forgot what a great film it is.

Forgot Cruise can actually act!

goldtop

1917. Mixed thoughts - definitely worth watching as a spectacle (waiting to watch this sort of film at home would be a mistake). But if grandpa Mendes said all of those things happened in the space of a few hours, I think he might have been embellishing more than a bit.

Plus, as someone hinted/said above, with 1600 lives at risk, surely a low-odds make-or-break mission would have been the least likely choice?

7/10

Haych

What We Did On Our Holiday.

I saw it a few years ago but Mrs Haych hadn't seen it so we watched it together.  I remembered the main plot but forgot all the little subtleties and nuances of the film.

It has a really good cast, David Tenant, Rosamund Pike, Billy Connolly for starters with support from Annette Crosby and that guy who plays Bough in the Johnny English films.

While watching the wife and I remarked how similar the dynamic between the characters and the humour is to the TV series Outnumbered and sure enough it has the same writers, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin.

It is very funny but it also deals with some very sensetive subjects such as infidelity, divorce, mental health and death but does so in a way that never cheapens the film in any way, the writing is just brilliant.  It is also quite sad in some parts and extremely moving, but without losing that thread of humour at the right time to lift the viewer out of the sorrow of a tragic moment so you're not left feeling bereft even if the subject would normally demand it of you.

The acting is first class and the characters very well developed.  Really glad I watched it again and would recommend it to anyone.

Grangousier

Just got back from seeing The Personal History of David Copperfield, along with a Q&A with Armando Iannucci. Lots of fun, and an excellent cast. I suppose the one thing people will talk about is the colour-blind casting (literally - Dev Patel is David, his mother is played by Morfydd Clark, who also plays his love interest Dora, which is a bit Freudian come to think of it; Benedict Wong plays Mr. Wickfield, Rosalind Eleazar his daughter Agnes and so forth), but it does capture the mad energy that early Dickens has. 

Philly_Q

Grangousier said:

his mother is played by Morfydd Clark, who also plays his love interest Dora, which is a bit Freudian come to think of it

Did anyone ask about that at the Q&A?  It think it's a more curious choice than the colour-blind casting.

zepp76

I watched a film last night called US what a mind fuck! Seriously good film: