What films have you watched recently?

Moominpapa

Ran  (1985)

Not quite sure why I had never watched this before, given that (a) it's pretty major in Kurosawa's oeuvre and (b) I'm quite a fan of Japanese cinema. Just one of those weird omissions, I guess. Anyway, it was great: big, serious film-making with astonishing visuals, beautiful soundtrack, and an ending that sums up the human condition. Can't complain about that for an evening's entertainment.

HAL9000

Run Lola Run. Race against the clock to return mobsters' money or her boyfriend dies. Told in real time. I don't want to say too much as it would be too easy to give stuff away, but very well done. Easily 9/10 from me.

Philly_Q

Blood Out

For some inexplicable reason Horror Channel are showing a "Vengeance Season" of low-budget thrillers on Saturday evenings.  As an indication of the kind of quality we're talking about here, two of the films have featured acting roles for 50 Cent and two have featured Vinnie Jones.  This is not horror, and this is not thrilling.

Anyway, this one stars Luke Goss as a small-town cop whose brother is murdered by the crime gang he's a very minor member of.  The city cops (including 50 Cent) aren't interested, so Luke gets a load of bad tattoos, beats up some street kids and within seconds becomes the gang's top enforcer.  For some reason the film features a number of familiar British faces like Tamer Hassan and the aforementioned Vinnie Jones. It also features a porky, long-haired Val Kilmer doing a full-on Marlon Brando impersonation.  The producers obviously couldn't afford Kilmer or even Jones so they're in it for about five minutes each. 

The story makes so little sense that I started to wonder if I was having intermittent blackouts and missing key plot points.  I wasn't.  Complete and utter tripe.

Next Saturday:  to close the season, The Heavy starring Gary Stretch, Vinnie Jones and,sadly, Christopher Lee.  Can't wait.

Jalapeno

The Snowman (2017)

Flipping 'eck the book was hard going, the film honours that too.  You have to concentrate hard to keep up with the plot - at least the book had Harry Hole's internal dialogue to help ....

I liked it though, good police procedural/serial killer movie.

skullfunkerry

boogieman said:

skullfunkerry said:

I watched the new Invisible Man last night. My wife liked it, but I thought it was a bit shit, and was quite peeved that we'd paid £16 to rent it

£16 to rent it? Woah!!! 

Yeah - it was some "Cinema at Home" thing I think - as my wife pointed out, still cheaper than a trip to the cinema... I'd have been even more disappointed if we'd actually gone out to see it!

hollywoodrox

I just watched  “ I am Legend “ again  and the ending was different which was good as it was a bit happier. I read there is going to be a sequel version with mr Smith 

ICBM

I tried watching Clouds Of Sils Maria last night - with Juliette Binoche, who is usually pretty good in anything, playing a successful actress playing a role that’s too close to home, or something...

I gave up after about a third of the way in. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more pretentiously self-referential load of drivel in my life. So far up its own backside it was almost uncomfortable to watch. Irritating characters, creaky interaction between them, terrible dialogue, plodding direction, painfully obvious where the plot is going - absolutely dire. The final straw was a character who was clearly going to be a parody of Lindsay Lohan - laughably predictable. It got great reviews from film industry critics too - I can only assume they need to get out more than to just watch films.

I rarely can’t even be bothered to watch a supposedly ‘good’ film through to the end, but it was just a waste of time even in current circumstances.

No score

Haych

The Silence of the Lambs was last night's entertainment.

I figured since I watched Red Dragon, the prequel, last week it might be an idea to see SotL and maybe even Hannibal in sequence and get the end-to-end story.

It must be 20 years since I last saw SotL and thankfully I'd forgotten most of what happens.  Getting old has its advantages - works well with books, too!

All in all it was really good.  My criticism of Red Dragon, that it had dated quite badly, wasn't really applicable to SotL.  Obviously technology and other things have moved on in the last 30 years so things like fax machines and even cars looked "period" but it has otherwise stood the test of time much better that the prequel.

For a film that I seem to recall as quite gruesome I was surprised by how little gruesomeness it contained.  Apart from the mutilated stiffs, which really didn't take up any screen time at all, there was only the one scene having any kind of violence or gore at all, and that didn't last more than a few seconds on screen.

Over all I think I enjoyed watching it again all these years later.  I won't score it since my rating matters not a bit and it's such a well known film that most people will already have their own opinion anyway.  But, IMHO, one of the better serial killer type movies out there.

Philly_Q

ICBM said:

I tried watching Clouds Of Sils Maria last night

I gave up after about a third of the way in. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more pretentiously self-referential load of drivel in my life.

I rarely can’t even be bothered to watch a supposedly ‘good’ film through to the end, but it was just a waste of time even in current circumstances.

@ICBM I saw that was on about a week ago and considered watching it.  Glad you've saved me the trouble!

I still do disc rentals from Cinema Paradiso (after the demise of LoveFilm) and they've sent me a load of Czech and Hungarian films from the 1960s and 70s (I guess there's been a run on all the popular stuff).  All very worthy I'm sure, but quite hard to motivate myself to watch them...

EricTheWeary

I watched a bit of Grease last night. Some sexual references for something broadcast at tea time, although they might well pass younger viewers by. Once I've watched Summer Loving and Greased Lightning I've got what I want out of it but I had enormous fun reading the trivia on IMDB. 
Such a hotch potch of a film ( 30 year olds playing teenagers, random inserted sequences, magic car for no apparent reason) yet the biggest grossing film of 1978. Simpler times. 

I also tried watching the nineties British comedy Stalag Luft. Didn't finish it: slightly woolly print on YouTube doesn't help but it's a bit up it's its own arse as a comedy of manners and a sort of dawning political correctness ( well, for a film that has a cast entirely - I think - of white men). But, free to watch and I might come back to it yet:

JerkMoans

The Deer Hunter last night: first time in my life, somehow.

Mind

Blown

EricTheWeary

The Weary family have been watching The Shining. 

Possibly only me and Steven King who don’t like it. 

According to the IMDB trivia the artificial snow was re-used in The Empire Strikes Back. 

JerkMoans

EricTheWeary said:

The Weary family have been watching The Shining. 

Possibly only me and Steven King who don’t like it. 

According to the IMDB trivia the artificial snow was re-used in The Empire Strikes Back. 

According to my family I am both starting to resemble and behave like Jack Nicholson in that film. Harsh bunch.

ICBM

EricTheWeary said:

The Weary family have been watching The Shining. 

Possibly only me and Steven King who don’t like it.

No, me and MrsICBM didn't when we watched it recently either. I think I did when I first saw it thirty years ago, but it hasn't aged well. I'm usually a big Kubrick and Nicholson fan too... now it just seems dated, hammy and not scary. It probably doesn't help that the bathroom door scene has become so often parodied.

EricTheWeary said:

According to the IMDB trivia the artificial snow was re-used in The Empire Strikes Back. 

Extra footage from the flyover shots at the beginning were used for the original 'studio ending' version of Blade Runner too.

EricTheWeary

JerkMoans said:

EricTheWeary said:

The Weary family have been watching The Shining. 

Possibly only me and Steven King who don’t like it. 

According to the IMDB trivia the artificial snow was re-used in The Empire Strikes Back. 

According to my family I am both starting to resemble and behave like Jack Nicholson in that film. Harsh bunch.

Possibly not an ideal choice during Lockdown! 

My youngest son wants to watch a few classics, his choice of classic not the same as mine. I find it generally dull and just want everyone to die as quickly as possible. 

boogieman

Y’all should try Dr Sleep, the sequel to the Shining. I thought it was pretty good. 

hollywoodrox

EricTheWeary said:

The Weary family have been watching The Shining. 

Possibly only me and Steven King who don’t like it. 

According to the IMDB trivia the artificial snow was re-used in The Empire Strikes Back. 

I don’t like it either 

EricTheWeary

boogieman said:

Y’all should try Dr Sleep, the sequel to the Shining. I thought it was pretty good. 

There is a mini series version of The Shining that King was more involved in, I’ve never seen that. Reading his criticisms about the original film that Jack was too manic, the Shelley Duval character just a screaming muppet ( I may be paraphrasing) hopefully it’s more engaging. 

Having said that the helicopter shots, the steady cam work, the interior design of the hotel - it’s a technical triumph for the time and there are multiple classic shots. 

Philly_Q

EricTheWeary said:

There is a mini series version of The Shining that King was more involved in, I’ve never seen that. 

I remember it - quite possibly unreliably - as fairly weak, but to be fair it was made in an era when TV didn't have movie-like production values and budgets like it does now.

I've often read King's criticisms of Kubrick's The Shining, but I think the book and the film just have to be separated.  I don't care how faithful an adaptation it is, it's a brilliant film.  And I don't even like Jack Nicholson in most things (I think King wanted Michael Moriarty for the role, who I think would've been very good).

TheMarlin

Been watch Korean movies lately.  Found some crackers. 

Train to Busan (Korean Zombie movie)
8/10. 

The Man From Nowhere. 

Korean ex special forces guy rescued kid next door from organ harvesting gangsters. 

9/10

I Saw The Devil. 

Superb Korean serial killer hunting. Fantastic blend of drama, action, thrills, and gore. 

One of my favourite films ever. 

10/10

Oldboy (not rubbish western version). 

Awesome movie. Seen it at least five times over the years.  Hollywood can’t make movies this good!
10/10

and from Japan,

Ichi the killer
slightly weird and creepy slasher horror. 

Awful and brilliant all at the same time. 

8.5/10