What films have you watched recently?

Philly_Q

The Personal History of David Copperfield (on Amazon Prime)
Like all Dickens adaptations, Armando Iannucci's take on the story leaves out quite a lot of the book, and particularly skates over the darker aspects of the plot.  A couple of the characterisations didn't quite work for me, but it's very enjoyable and has a top notch cast.

thumpingrug

3022.  Sci-fi bollox (and im a fan).  So so many plot holes,  so badly acted, by people who ought to know better.  Still it killed an hour and a half when nothing else was on.

west

Moominpapa said:

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.

Ive seen it thrice too and love it and its premis , also  very original score adds to the intial sense of unease , so sad about the composer johhan johhansson ...  ;(

Haych

I haven't watch many films recently as I've been binge watching series 1 - 7 of Homeland on Netflix.  It's been brilliant, I think I'm going to need therapy until S8 is available.

That said, I did watch Dark Waters on Prime last Friday. 

Very good legal thriller based on true events and spanning a 20 year period from 1998.

Mark Ruffalo plays Robert Bilott, a Cincinnati attorney for a legal firm representing large chemical corporations in the US.  He is approached by a farmer from West Virginia whose livestock have been dying from strange illnesses and deformities and who blames global chemical giant DuPont, who have a landfill site next to his farm.  The farmer has failed to find any local legal traction so in desperation he reaches out to Bilott.

Bilott slowly and reluctantly starts looking into the allegations and soon finds out there is credibility to the farmer's claims.  He sues DuPont who tries to bury him in a mountain of information in the hope that it'll take several decades to sift through a room full of paperwork.

There isn't a happy ending per se, but justice catches up with DuPont and it's certainly a film that makes you look at your frying pan in a very different light!

A David and Goliath story that's well told with excellent performances from all the main players.  As with all films having a 'true story' plot I felt compelled to research the real events and the film seems to have been a decently accurate portrayal and the director resisted the temptation to over-dramatise events to make the story more exciting.

Well worth watching, if you like that kind of thing; I do and really enjoyed it.

not_the_dj

Lockdown viewing of films everyone’s seen but we’ve missed...

Bourne Identity

Quite disappointed with this. I’m aware there are multiple sequels so must have been a success, but didn’t grab us in anyway. Dull spy thriller which tries to add in a twist. 

Avatar 

Obviously made to show off 3D, and does look spectacular but like watching a game (I have always liked flying mountains though), but stupid and predictable plot, cliched characters and performances. The kids liked it though, and a nice way to waste almost 2.5 hours on a rainy Saturday. 

zepp76

not_the_dj said:

Lockdown viewing of films everyone’s seen but we’ve missed...

Bourne Identity

Quite disappointed with this. I’m aware there are multiple sequels so must have been a success, but didn’t grab us in anyway. Dull spy thriller which tries to add in a twist. 

Avatar 

Obviously made to show off 3D, and does look spectacular but like watching a game (I have always liked flying mountains though), but stupid and predictable plot, cliched characters and performances. The kids liked it though, and a nice way to waste almost 2.5 hours on a rainy Saturday. 

Yes but, Neytiri! I never thought in my whole life I’d find a big blue Alien attractive but I’ll make an exception for her. And the voice over actress Zoe Saldana is a beautiful woman in her own right.

 Her film Colombiana was rather good.

EricTheWeary

not_the_dj said:

Lockdown viewing of films everyone’s seen but we’ve missed...

Bourne Identity

Quite disappointed with this. I’m aware there are multiple sequels so must have been a success, but didn’t grab us in anyway. Dull spy thriller which tries to add in a twist. 

Avatar 

Obviously made to show off 3D, and does look spectacular but like watching a game (I have always liked flying mountains though), but stupid and predictable plot, cliched characters and performances. The kids liked it though, and a nice way to waste almost 2.5 hours on a rainy Saturday. 

I saw Avatar at the cinema and it was like a big party with kids running around, people cheering - quite a loud cinema going experience. When I eventually got to watch it without someone else’s kids walking past me every five minutes it just seemed incredibly crap and without 3D utterly pointless. I certainly didn’t make the full 2.5 hours. 

Brio

 Her film Colombiana was rather good.

She also was a high spot in The Losers.

ICBM

west said:

Moominpapa said:

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.

Ive seen it thrice too and love it and its premis , also  very original score adds to the intial sense of unease , so sad about the composer johhan johhansson ...  ;(

Same here. An immensely powerful, thought-provoking film - one of my favourite (and I think best) sci-fi films ever.

JezWynd

boogieman said:

Valerian and the city of a thousand planets. Luc Bresson sci fi film on Prime, apparently based on a graphic novel series. It’s visually brilliant, but badly let down by the simplistic plotline and the woeful casting, especially the lead male who’s supposed to be a rugged all action military type but actually looks like a sickly 15 year old with really bad hair. 

I love that movie; Cara Delevingne (cutest nose in history of noses) and Dane DeHaan make a good pairing. The scary casting is Clive Owen who looks like he's wandered in from another set and is extremely annoyed about it.

The Battle of Algiers. A movie I'd read about for years in books as a ground breaking piece of docu drama without ever actually getting around to watching. It's currently on Prime and I was blown away by it. It's interesting in so many different ways, quite apart from being a damn good story well told. It must have been challenging to make and probably only possible due to the good will of many of the participants. It's black and white and subtitled but don't let that put you off, it's a thrilling bit of film making. Currently lining up some more of Gillo Pontecorvo's movies to watch.

Brio

Keep your eyes open for Boss Level. A rather excellent Groundhog Day/Edge of Tomorrow film.

stickyfiddle

TENET

Solid 7.5/10 for me. It’s complicated and doesn’t over-explain anything but if you’re paying attention it’s not that difficult. Typical Nolan-style cleverness, so if you like that you’ll be fine, if not then stay away. I pretty much called most of the second half at the midway point but still enjoyed it. 

I also had no issues with hearing dialogue, despite countless articles maiming about it online. I wonder if the home release has a tweaked mix, or maybe if I just have my subwoofer turned way down compared to most people. It could just be that Nolan’s spec for cinemas just had it too loud for most people? 

 I actually thought the sound design was really good overall, being intentionally-disorienting at times.

Deadman

Ghosts of war.

Shit.

1/10.

not_the_dj

Little Giants. (Netflix)

90s family comedy based around American Football. 

Watched it as the Washington Football team ran a trick play on thanksgiving against Dallas that was inspired by one in this movie!

Predictable underdog story but a fun movie to watch with the kids (slapstick and fart gags). 

Skipped

The Rental (2020).

Two couples rent a house for a weekend get-away. And then notice the hidden cameras.

Decent thriller. Not a horror film IMO.

IMDB rating 5.7. My rating 5.7.

Just Mercy (2019).

True story. Young black lawyer works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner.

I love this movie.

IMDB rating 7.6. My rating 8.

Let Him Go. (2020)

Family drama. (Kevin Costner).

After the first hour, my reaction was: "Holy shit....my sister will love this movie."

After 90 minutes, my reaction was: "Holy shit.....this is close to being a horror film"

IMDB rating 6.7. My rating 7.

Moominpapa

The Wave (2015)  - Norwegian disaster movie. No, really: think Dante's Peak but with a fjord and a giant cliff which if it falls into the fjord will cause a tsunami which will flood anything below a certain elevation. You can guess the rest. Yes it is formulaic, as all disaster movies are, but this one is done really well, because, like Dante's Peak (which is one of my favourites in the genre) it takes time to build up sympathetic characters, so you actually care about whether certain people survive or not and it's not just a CGI jerkfest. Had some moments I found genuinely gripping. Highly recommended for weekend movie entertainment.

Shrews

Barbarella
This has probably been posted already on this thread (quite possibly by me!), but this film is free to watch on Amazon Prime.

This is the benchmark for all films IMO.

After all it has Jane Fonda floating around space in the noddy, getting 'tortured' by an orgasmatron, taking a pill so she can have smoking hand sex, getting pursued by the evil witch queen with clear lesbian intentions, evil kids with steel-teeth-biting dolls, some weird thing called the matmus, an evil wannabe named Duran Duran, various beauties all clearly spaced out and sat around puffing stuff, a cave bloke giving her some pleasure in the 'old fashioned way' and if your Mrs thinks you're a pervert for watching it, then there's even a semi-naked angel bloke for her to oggle at.

This film, if made into a 'Rocky Horror' type show, would sell out the West End for years. 

EricTheWeary

Shrews said:

Barbarella
This has probably been posted already on this thread (quite possibly by me!), but this film is free to watch on Amazon Prime.

This is the benchmark for all films IMO.

After all it has Jane Fonda floating around space in the noddy, getting 'tortured' by an orgasmatron, taking a pill so she can have smoking hand sex, getting pursued by the evil witch queen with clear lesbian intentions, evil kids with steel-teeth-biting dolls, some weird thing called the matmus, an evil wannabe named Duran Duran, various beauties all clearly spaced out and sat around puffing stuff, a cave bloke giving her some pleasure in the 'old fashioned way' and if your Mrs thinks you're a pervert for watching it, then there's even a semi-naked angel bloke for her to oggle at.

This film, if made into a 'Rocky Horror' type show, would sell out the West End for years. 

There was a stage musical with music by Dave Stewart. I'm not sure how successful it was but as s you're a fan of the film and you didn't know it existed I'm guessing not very.

ICBM

Amundsen

Biopic of the Norwegian explorer who was the first to reach the South Pole. I'm quite interested in exploration so this sounded like a good watch, and there was some fairly interesting stuff from a historical viewpoint, if that's your thing - not least the apparently fairly accurate portrayal of what a complete self-centred prick he was, as well as a great explorer - but overall it's just not very good as a film... the pacing is all over the place, there's really not that much drama even in the bits which should actually have been quite intense, and it's over-dramatised in others where it doesn't need to be. There might even have been some truth in the depiction of the British as cartoonish villains, but it seemed contrived and unnecessary.

5/10

(iPlayer)

EricTheWeary

Amundsen 

(iPlayer)

It’s a very good looking film( bar a little bit of obvious CGI) and apart from ‘man who got to the South Pole first’ I didn’t know any of the story and it is an interesting story. I just struggled to be gripped by it as film, I think one of those biopics that tries to be just that rather than taking a smaller part of the story and exploring ( no pun intended) the drama within. 

Based on this film he wasn’t completely without redeeming features although he does seem to have been primarily quite a lot of an arse and ruined a few other people’s lives. Not in the sense of a driven man letting nothing get in his way but just being an unnecessary arse.