What films have you watched recently?

Blueingreen

As Good As It Gets.  I've seen it before but not for years and had forgotten most of the detail.   On the whole better than I remembered.

Like so many not-quite-great movies, it's a game of two halves. The first half is really good.  It looks fabulous, interiors glow.  The writing is taut, the set pieces work and it's often very funny. The performances are superb, and it's not hard to see why Nicholson and Hunt both got Oscars. It plays very cleverly with genre conventions, stretching them almost to breaking point but still staying orthodox enough for us to forgive some of the implausibilities we expect in romantic comedy.

The good stuff doesn't dry up in the second half, a lot of it works, but things get much patchier.  I couldn't believe Hunt's character would take the risks she takes of alienating Nicholson later in the film.  Her son's medical treatment is at stake and nothing in the universe is more important to her.  Yeah, she's going to draw the line at sleeping with him (which he isn't expecting anyway) but she's not going to risk freezing him out and losing his support because he can be an insensitive bastard, something she knew from the word go.  I totally get that if we're going to have a happy ending she has to be an equal, not a supplicant, but they needed to find a better way of finessing that.

Still this is well above average, intelligent, unpretentious mainstream entertainment.  8/10 - 9 for the brilliant first half 7 for the weaker second.

Dopesick

The Acid House - Three short stories adapted from Irvine Welsh onto screen. Very thick Scottish accents which I just about managed to understand. Very crass and filthy but by the third story I just felt drained. 7

Upgrade - Guy gets paralysed and after getting installed with a chip to control his body, tries to get redemption for the thugs who killed his wife. Shitloads of fun with a cool ending. 8.5

I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore - Lady has her house broken into and possessions stolen. Gets help from local weirdo played by Elijah Wood to try and quell the world of assholes. Chief baddie played by David Yow of Jesus Lizard. Really enjoyed this and had a cool soundtrack as well. 8.5

LastMantra

boogieman said:

Red Sparrow. Or rather two thirds of Red Sparrow, as we gave up on this so called thriller because it actually has no thrills. To make things worse Jennifer Lawrence is terrible in this, so totally dull and lifeless she makes Keanu Reeves look like Tigger. She’s supposed to be irresistibly sexually attractive, but she just looks bored and grumpy most of the time. 

Don’t bother. 

I actually quite enjoyed it. Could have been a bit shorter I suppose. The lead is meant to have switched her emotions off, I thought she played the part quite well. She's supposed to be grumpy.

Shrews

Babel - Brad Pitt, Lady Galadriel

One of those four stories that join together at the end thingies. It's called 'Babel' because it's about miscommunication apparently. Must admit, it wasn't until it got close to the end that I pieced it together.  Decent film but once you've seen it once, you've no need to see it again. 6/10

Moominpapa

Underwater (2020) - Kristen Stewart & Vincent Cassell in what is basically an Alien rehash at the bottom of the sea. This is one for you giant OLED tv owners, because when watching it on my laptop half the film was so dark I could barely make out what was going on. Plot was fairly predictable; special effect were OK when I could see them. Decent enough fodder for a mindless movie night, but you wouldn't watch it twice.  5/10

Philly_Q

The Babysitter: Killer Queen

Comedy-horror sequel directed (like the original) by McG... for at least the first half hour I thought they had set out to make the most irritating film ever.  But it won me over.  I'm not recommending it, but go in with low expectations and it is pretty funny.

On Netflix.

boogieman

LastMantra said:

boogieman said:

Red Sparrow. Or rather two thirds of Red Sparrow, as we gave up on this so called thriller because it actually has no thrills. To make things worse Jennifer Lawrence is terrible in this, so totally dull and lifeless she makes Keanu Reeves look like Tigger. She’s supposed to be irresistibly sexually attractive, but she just looks bored and grumpy most of the time. 

Don’t bother. 

I actually quite enjoyed it. Could have been a bit shorter I suppose. The lead is meant to have switched her emotions off, I thought she played the part quite well. She's supposed to be grumpy.

Yeah I get the emotional isolation  aspect. She played it as grumpy all the way through though, her expression barely changed from one scene to the next. Did she even smile once? Considering she was trained to be a seductress that’s probably not the best look and I’m pretty sure the Charlotte Rampling character would’ve at least taught her to smile and look interested now and then. Personally I don’t find a bored, slackfaced woman terribly attractive. 

ennspek

Actually I've just realised I've already seen it. Obviously it didn't make much of an impression.

notanon

Dopesick said:

I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore - Lady has her house broken into and possessions stolen. Gets help from local weirdo played by Elijah Wood to try and quell the world of assholes. Chief baddie played by David Yow of Jesus Lizard. Really enjoyed this and had a cool soundtrack as well. 8.5

Yep that was a fun film.

goldtop

How It Ends (Netflix) - unexplained apocalypse, road trip, societal breakdown and sort-of-buddy-movie themes rolled into one bad film. Two hours of just-getting-started and then "that's all folks". Every review you can find says that the title is ironic, and it is. 1/10

ICBM

Atlantic City

1980 crime/romance drama with Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, directed by Louis Malle. I'd seen this before about thirty years ago, but I was reminded of it recently by the Bruce Springsteen song of the same name (although different story) when I was listening to his new album and a bit of a song sounded like it... if that makes sense .

Lancaster plays an ageing small-time crook who gets mixed up in something bigger via Sarandon's ex(ish)-husband who rips off some drug dealers. The plot is cleverly neat but believable, and the direction and acting is on a different level - Lancaster in particular gives a masterclass in subtlety (there's a bit where he's looking through a window blind and all you can really see are his eyes, which say more than many actors ever manage), but Sarandon is excellent too, as are all the supporting cast.

The film was nominated for all the 'big five' Oscars, but - perhaps appropriately in some ways, given the downbeat story - didn't win any... which is still a travesty. It's utterly faultless, one of the best films I've ever seen.

And although the Springsteen song was apparently not inspired by it, there's a line of dialogue which you'll spot if you're a fan, and made me think that it might be at least partly.

10/10

Longtallronnie

The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Chloe Grace Moretz gets caught with her girlfriend and gets sent to a Christian camp to pray the gay away. Thought it handled the subject very well without being overly worthy or outrageous. Worth a watch. 

Skipped

Train to Busan 2 - Peninsula (2020)

Looks like a combination of live action and  the kind of CGI that I see in ads for games.

Fast paced. Horribly  depressing.

"You must leave her. She has caught it and now  she will infect you"

"I can't leave my child"

Maybe it is just the wrong moment. Train to Busan (2016) is one of my favourite films of recent years.

Danny1969

Arkansas (Netflix) 
2 lowly drug mules get into trouble in Arkansas ... it's a good black comedy with a touch of Tarantino and a killer soundtrack  

Snap

boogieman said:

LastMantra said:

boogieman said:

Red Sparrow. Or rather two thirds of Red Sparrow, as we gave up on this so called thriller because it actually has no thrills. To make things worse Jennifer Lawrence is terrible in this, so totally dull and lifeless she makes Keanu Reeves look like Tigger. She’s supposed to be irresistibly sexually attractive, but she just looks bored and grumpy most of the time. 

Don’t bother. 

I actually quite enjoyed it. Could have been a bit shorter I suppose. The lead is meant to have switched her emotions off, I thought she played the part quite well. She's supposed to be grumpy.

Yeah I get the emotional isolation  aspect. She played it as grumpy all the way through though, her expression barely changed from one scene to the next. Did she even smile once? Considering she was trained to be a seductress that’s probably not the best look and I’m pretty sure the Charlotte Rampling character would’ve at least taught her to smile and look interested now and then. Personally I don’t find a bored, slackfaced woman terribly attractive. 

I watched it on a plane, so some of the violent scenes were cut, but I quite liked it. Better than average.

Brio

Fatman. Like a dark and non magic version of Hogfather. Way better than it sounded. Gibson is excellent.
Boss Level. Edge of Tomorrow meets video games with Frank Grillo and Mel Gibson. Excellent again.

Philly_Q

Cadaver
Post-apocalyptic horror - although it's not at all what that description might suggest - set in a huge old hotel where nothing is what it seems.  The plot is very slight, and full of holes, but it's quite stylish - very reminiscent of Silent Hill.  I wouldn't exactly recommend it, but I quite liked it.  Filmed in Prague, although it's a Norwegian film.  On Netflix.

goldtop

Mosul (on Netflix). Renegade/freelancing anti-Daesh SWAT-team working its way through the city on a single mission. Think of everything Hollywood would do in that sort of movie - the good news is that there's none of that. It's gritty (although not particularly gory), and the chaos and SNAFUs seem entirely realistic. 7/10

Moominpapa

Rewatched Arrival (2016). Loved it when I first saw it - this is my 3rd viewing and I am still getting more out of it. A really beautiful film about love as well as a pleasing meditation about language & time.

bingefeller

Shrews said:

Babel - Brad Pitt, Lady Galadriel

One of those four stories that join together at the end thingies. It's called 'Babel' because it's about miscommunication apparently. Must admit, it wasn't until it got close to the end that I pieced it together.  Decent film but once you've seen it once, you've no need to see it again. 6/10

I quite enjoyed that one, it was nice how it all came together in the end.