What films have you watched recently?

Philly_Q

My very first movie on Netflix...

The Night Comes for Us

Not much to say here, it's really just a series of insanely violent action sequences.  I maybe could've done with just a little more story and ten - or twenty - fewer minutes of bloodletting, but it's a pretty wild ride.

boogieman

The Elephant Man. I haven’t seen it since it’s release 40 years ago and I’m glad to see it’s stood up really well. The photography is sublime and doing it in black and white was a stroke of genius, it really adds to the whole freakish, grotesque element. John Hurt and Antony Hopkins’ performances are truly extraordinary, Freddie Jones steals the show for me though. I’d also forgotten quite how many young stars there are in it, including Pauline Quirk as a teenage prossie and Dexter Fletcher as a young lad with a conscience.  10/10. 

Blaendulais

ICBM said:

The Day The Earth Stood Still

The original 1951 version - I haven’t seen the remake and I’m not really interested. I had seen it before, as usual decades ago, but I remembered most of it pretty accurately. It’s visually striking for its time and has some very memorable scenes.

It’s a little creaky in the way that pretty much any  film that old seems now, but it’s still fantastic for its age - and considering the prevailing attitudes in the early years after WWII, the message is both surprising and appropriate, but also perhaps illustrates the way society expected to conform - in the end peace will still be imposed by force, as well as cooperation.

It is an all-time classic, worth seeing if you haven’t.

9/10

Awesome movie. Klatu virada nicto.

Remake so shit its terrible

Haych

Pearl Harbour

I saw this once many years ago and even then I think I caught it part way through. Mrs Haych has been wanting to watch it again too so we put it on while we had our dinner last night. 

I don’t remember much of the first hour which supports having started watching it part way through last time. I also thought the first part of the film added nothing of substance to the story at all. 

Michael Bay seems to have done for Pearl Harbour what James Cameron did for Titanic, turned a decent story into something soppy and romantic. It was Mrs Haych who pointed out that the attack on Pearl Harbour was incidental to the storyline of the characters. Where she was watching for the romance I was watching for the history and machinery. Quite clever. 

I also disliked the way the war and era was portrayed through rose tinted glasses and I found myself thinking that it looked like a lot of fun to be back then and in the war - what on Earth!  It’s war, there can be nothing fun about it at all but the film makes it seem like a “better time” and it’s wrapped up in a warm fuzzy nostalgia. 

The special effects were really good and when the action starts it’s shot really well. 

The characters weren’t very well developed and were really only there to carry the love story. Alec Baldwin’s character was particularly irritating too. 

I really only watched it since I have a thing about WWII era aircraft - not as war planes despite being what they are but as classic machines in their own right. 

Did I enjoy the film? Yes, thoroughly. I can’t comment on it’s historical accuracy or attention to detail but as a bit of bubblegum for the mind I really liked it. But that is a problem as it shouldn’t really be a bubblegum for the mind kind of film given its quite brutal story. 

HAL9000

^ If you enjoyed Pearl Harbour, then give Midway (2019) a go. Lots of WWII aircraft to watch and, in my opinion, a superior film to Pearl Harbour.

not_the_dj

Tora! Tora! Tora! FTW...less romance, more accuracy on Pearl Harbour.

I'm keen to see the Midway film, I was watching a Midway episode of Great Events of WW2 in colour on Netflix last night.

EricTheWeary

MrsTheWeary watched Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. I’d seen it before and was in and out the room. There is a sexual reference joke late on ( although it may well pass kids by) late on that seems horrendously out of place but otherwise it’s one of those films that seem a lot better than they have the right to be. 

Oh, my youngest had watched The Breakfast Club earlier in the day and was slightly freaked out by the similarities ( JWTTJ is a direct homage, to some extent anyway, to The Breakfast Club). 

failed_astronaut

We watched 21 Bridges last night, it's free on Prime at the moment. Really enjoyable old school New York cop thriller. Chadwick Boseman is excellent and has a bit of Denzil Washington's presence.

Haych

failed_astronaut said:

We watched 21 Bridges last night, it's free on Prime at the moment. Really enjoyable old school New York cop thriller. Chadwick Boseman is excellent and has a bit of Denzil Washington's presence.

Thanks for the heads-up. My lad has been wanting to watch this so might give it a go later. 

Philly_Q

The Babysitter

A Netflix Original comedy horror about a kid who discovers his babysitter and her friends are (sort of) devil worshippers.  It's directed by McG, so many of the jokes and "scares" miss their mark but I actually enjoyed it.  And it's got Samara Weaving in it.  I love Samara Weaving.

Haych

Left Behind

Nic Cage flies a plane. A bunch of people disappear. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong.

If you value the hours, minutes and seconds of your life then do yourself a favour and avoid. 

Nuff said. 

Haych

After the drivel above the Mrs and I watched Unknown, a Liam Neeson thriller from 2011. 

Typical Liam Neeson stuff, better than Taken and less violent and no bad language to speak of. 

Liam Neeson is excellent at playing Liam Neeson but it’s quite tense and not a bad plot. You can kind of see where it’s going from early on so the twist at the end isn’t that surprising but it’s still a pretty good ride. 

Without giving anything away Liam Neeson is some kind of Doctor in Germany for a science conference. He leaves his briefcase at the airport so while his Mrs is checking in the hotel he goes back for it. On the way his taxi is involved in an accident and he spends four days in a coma in hospital. His wife hasn’t claimed him and nobody believes who he says he is when he wakes up. Can’t say any more than that really without spoiling it. 

ICBM

not_the_dj said:

Tora! Tora! Tora! FTW...less romance, more accuracy on Pearl Harbour.

Wis for that. It's very good, particular for its time in showing the Japanese military in a somewhat more human light than was typical for WWII films - while still not sympathising with them.

The only bit I don't really like is that in the airfield attack sequence there are a few shots that are clearly used more than once, filmed from different angles - it interrupts the realism slightly when you spot it.

I'm also fairly sure that Roland Emmerich nicked the way the Japanese planes seem to swarm over the airfield for the alien attack in Independence Day... it's almost identical.

boogieman

Haych said:

Pearl Harbour

I saw this once many years ago and even then I think I caught it part way through. Mrs Haych has been wanting to watch it again too so we put it on while we had our dinner last night. 

I don’t remember much of the first hour which supports having started watching it part way through last time. I also thought the first part of the film added nothing of substance to the story at all. 

Michael Bay seems to have done for Pearl Harbour what James Cameron did for Titanic, turned a decent story into something soppy and romantic. It was Mrs Haych who pointed out that the attack on Pearl Harbour was incidental to the storyline of the characters. Where she was watching for the romance I was watching for the history and machinery. Quite clever. 

I also disliked the way the war and era was portrayed through rose tinted glasses and I found myself thinking that it looked like a lot of fun to be back then and in the war - what on Earth!  It’s war, there can be nothing fun about it at all but the film makes it seem like a “better time” and it’s wrapped up in a warm fuzzy nostalgia. 

The special effects were really good and when the action starts it’s shot really well. 

The characters weren’t very well developed and were really only there to carry the love story. Alec Baldwin’s character was particularly irritating too. 

I really only watched it since I have a thing about WWII era aircraft - not as war planes despite being what they are but as classic machines in their own right. 

Did I enjoy the film? Yes, thoroughly. I can’t comment on it’s historical accuracy or attention to detail but as a bit of bubblegum for the mind I really liked it. But that is a problem as it shouldn’t really be a bubblegum for the mind kind of film given its quite brutal story. 

Mrs B and me went to Pearl Harbour when we stayed in Oahu in February. There’s nothing romantic about the place at all, it’s even more grisly when you see footage of the actual day of the attack and the carnage it caused. The USS Arizona has been left intact as a sunken memorial, complete with all the hundreds of bodies inside that couldn’t be reclaimed. It’s an extremely thought provoking and moving place to be. There’s still oil leaking out of its storage tanks, which drift upwards and sit on the water surface which the locals call  “black tears”. 

goldtop

Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands - a cult '60s film from Japan. Not sure it's quite as clever as everyone else seems to think. Jarring jazz soundtrack is the least of its problems. Perhaps the sexploitation is ironic, but it's all too weird to work out. 4/10

Mystic Pizza - '80s rom-com with big hair and Guards Red Porsche. Totally predictable and forgettable. 2/10

Haych

Kiss the Girls

Thriller based on a James Patterson novel and made way back in 1997. 

Morgan Freeman doing a decent job of portraying Dr Alex Cross. 

Throw in a madman who’s kidnapping and murdering young women and a manhunt begins. 

Ashley Judd plays the intelligent and attractive doctor who escapes the clutches of the bad guy and assists the cops in catching him. 

Reasonable film but of a standard format that these things seem to take so predictable and unsurprising ending. 

A bit heavy and dark and I seem to have watched quite a few films of the same ilk recently. Along with the Chris Carter novel I’m reading at the moment it’s giving me some seriously twisted dreams at night. 

Haych

Die Hard

Still one of the best action films ever made IMHO. Must have seen it over a dozen times and it’s still a goodun. 

It still looks good even after all these years too and the dodgy fashion of the late 80s doesn’t even seem to date the film. Bruce gets some great one liners, too. 

The Thing (2011)

It’s been a while since I saw the original so trying to compare the two films is difficult. I also didn’t realise until the end that it was made as a prequel to the original. 

It was ok but it’s all been done before and it lacked the paranoia of the original film which is what made it so good in the first place. 

It’s also a bit of a ridiculous concept anyway if you ask me, which I appreciate nobody is. 

Wild Hogs

Another film I must have seen a dozen times or more. I actually bought this on iTunes when it first came out. 

Tim Allen, John Travolta, William H. Macy and Martin Lawrence playing four middle aged friends who take off on a road trip on motorbikes across America trying to recapture a bit of their youth. 

Throw in a bit of trouble from Ray Liotta and some eye/personality candy courtesy of the very lovely Marisa Tomei and it makes for an easy watching, light hearted comedy. 

Needless to say I love it and never tire of it. 

failed_astronaut

I can't remember if there is another thread for this but has anyone been watching the wealth of music documentaries of Prime?

I watched Patty Shemel's Hit So Hard which was really good, especially when she starts slagging off "Joe One-Take". There are some really lovely scenes at Kurt and Courtney's house of Kurt goofing around with Frances Bean.

The L7 film is pretty entertaining as well. Their music kind of passed me by as a brit pop kid in the 90s but they were a great band who clearly didn't take themselves too seriously. 

artiebear

I just watched Cold War again for the umpteenth time. It's a Polish film shot in black and white. Ostensibly, its a love story set against the post war political and cultural climate behind the Iron Curtain. Beautifully shot and, for me, somewhat hypnotic. It's maybe because I travelled from West to East in the 80's and saw first hand how things worked if people dared to go up against the system.

My other choice would be "In order of disappearance " , the original Norwegian version of what was remade as Cold Pursuit (with Liam Neeson) by the same director. The original has plenty of understated dark Scandinavian humour to offset against the bloody revenge plot. The US version lost everything in translation that made the original good.

phil_b

13 Hours

Not a new film but I had never seen. Fantastic film