What films have you watched recently?

axisus

Haych said:

Whiplash (Prime)

Why have I never seen this before?  It’s always been on my radar in the periphery but taken me a long time to get round to watching. 

An incredibly tense and emotional. I don’t think another film has made me feel the range of emotions this one did. 

I’ve seen films with tension before; hurry up you moron the killer is coming, or the heist has gone wrong and the protagonist is caught in an awkward situation - those types of things. The tension and range of different emotion in this film was altogether very different - very hard to describe but it was gripping in a very different way. 

J.K Simmons played his part incredibly well and those scenes where he’s laying into the musicians, I felt almost like I was in the room with them. 

The performances from all the actors were flawless and the music was wonderful. 

Best film I’ve seen for a long time. 

10/10

Thanks for the reminder, been interested in that since it came out, but I have never seen it.

Haych

axisus said:

Haych said:

Whiplash (Prime)

Why have I never seen this before?  It’s always been on my radar in the periphery but taken me a long time to get round to watching. 

An incredibly tense and emotional. I don’t think another film has made me feel the range of emotions this one did. 

I’ve seen films with tension before; hurry up you moron the killer is coming, or the heist has gone wrong and the protagonist is caught in an awkward situation - those types of things. The tension and range of different emotion in this film was altogether very different - very hard to describe but it was gripping in a very different way. 

J.K Simmons played his part incredibly well and those scenes where he’s laying into the musicians, I felt almost like I was in the room with them. 

The performances from all the actors were flawless and the music was wonderful. 

Best film I’ve seen for a long time. 

10/10

Thanks for the reminder, been interested in that since it came out, but I have never seen it.

Pleasure, mate.

Just got to get round to seeing Shine and The Soloist now, none of which are available on any of the streaming services to which I'm subscribed.  Shine isn't even available on iTunes!

Lodious

Holiday in the Wild.

Rob Lowe and Kristin (Sex in the City) Davis. God this was atrocious.

I messed up the night before by choosing a godawful Disney+ cancer tourism tearfest (Clouds), so last night it was my wife's turn to pick a movie. The only remotely interesting thing about watching Holiday in the Wild is pondering why nobody canned it before it was released. I've had more surprise finding a bad joke inside a Christmas cracker than the entire plot of this film. I can't find to words to articulate just how bad it was. It's free on Netflix and I felt overcharged. 

I strongly recommend you don't watch this without a blindfold and a pair of noise cancelling headphones.

0.5/10

ICBM

exocet said:

Death of Stalin

It’s an Armando Ianucci driven black comedy project. It’s far from perfect but has high production values, a good cast and a few laugh out loud moments.

I've always found Ianucci a bit hit and miss, but this is probably his best work. And the most frighteningly, blackest thing about it is that...

... if you read up on the real history of what happened, it's barely exaggerated for comic effect at all.

Brio

where are you guys seeing Wonder Woman?

Blueingreen

My Man Godfrey (1936 version, not the remake with David Niven).

I've seen this before, but not for a long time.  I actually saw the David Niven version first, as a kid.

One of the great screwball comedies.  William Powell and Carole Lombard are both fantastic (Lombard had me thinking of the "celebrity crushes" thread -  maybe I'm a bit long in the tooth for celebrity crushes, but I'm sure my younger self would have been very taken indeed with Lombard's Manic Pixie Dream Girl character). The writing and supporting cast equally wonderful and the film looks fantastic, a reminder that you don't need modern tech for cinematography that blows you away.  It's 1936 so will be too creaky for some but if you can get past that highly recommended. 9/10

FarleyUK

axisus said:

FarleyUK said:

Wonder Woman 1984

Don’t bother. The only decent thing in it is Pedro Pascal. 

3/10. 

What about beautiful Gal Gadot? 

That’s two of the points. 

fretmeister

Rocketman.

Im not an EJ fan but this was a beltingly good film. Egerton’s performance was brilliant.

9/10

TheMarlin

WonderWoman 1984. 

Too much time spent on the dead/not-dead boyfriend, an invisible jet that doesn’t appear to need fuel or a landing strip. Poor character development, weak script, plot holes a plenty. Main bad guy was good though

About on par with Suicide Squad. Not a patch on the previous movie. 

zepp76

fretmeister said:

Rocketman.

Im not an EJ fan but this was a beltingly good film. Egerton’s performance was brilliant.

9/10

@fretmeister Good isn’t it, especially as he did all his own singing in the film.

RobertW

Blueingreen said:

My Man Godfrey (1936 version, not the remake with David Niven).

I've seen this before, but not for a long time.  I actually saw the David Niven version first, as a kid.

One of the great screwball comedies.  William Powell and Carole Lombard are both fantastic (Lombard had me thinking of the "celebrity crushes" thread -  maybe I'm a bit long in the tooth for celebrity crushes, but I'm sure my younger self would have been very taken indeed with Lombard's Manic Pixie Dream Girl character). The writing and supporting cast equally wonderful and the film looks fantastic, a reminder that you don't need modern tech for cinematography that blows you away.  It's 1936 so will be too creaky for some but if you can get past that highly recommended. 9/10

Weirdly I watched this last night. 
I caught a few minutes of a biography on Carole Lombard while on my break at work a few weeks ago, and last night while browsing youtube I came across an upload of this. I totally agree with your review, a really enjoyable movie. 
Eerily surprised to see it show up in this thread though.

axisus

After decades on the planet I finally got round to seeing the famous B&W Scrooge film with Alistair Sim. It was pretty good actually, although for me all tales of Dickens' classic seem to lack something at the end compared to the joy of the musical. I bought the DVD though so I will watch it again at future Christmas hols, it's a story that I love.

not_the_dj

Midnight Sky (Netflix)

I quite enjoyed this. Post Apocalyptic story, one lone survivor at an Artic weather station, and one crew aboard a spaceship heading back to earth without knowing about “the event”. 

Nicely shot and a great scene after a space walk (trying to avoid spoilers). 

menamestom

Solo: A Star Wars Story - Not as bad as I thought it would be after the less than great reviews.  Quite watchable if not completely memorable. 6/10

Cookiemonster

Wonder woman 1984 2/10 and that's  just for Gal Gadot. Terrible Movie. Shame really I feel like it could have been good, one of those movies where it feels like numerous writers were involved and nobody could decide on what the script actually was.  Some massive plot holes. 

Also watched the World's End with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. 
Some funny bits, Nick Frost was great, apparently Simon Pegg was in rehab around the same time and maybe that's why he seems erratic, the jokes are just not as good as Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the dead, but it does get better after the first 30 minutes 6/10

Blueingreen

RobertW said:

Blueingreen said:

My Man Godfrey (1936 version, not the remake with David Niven).

I've seen this before, but not for a long time.  I actually saw the David Niven version first, as a kid.

One of the great screwball comedies.  William Powell and Carole Lombard are both fantastic (Lombard had me thinking of the "celebrity crushes" thread -  maybe I'm a bit long in the tooth for celebrity crushes, but I'm sure my younger self would have been very taken indeed with Lombard's Manic Pixie Dream Girl character). The writing and supporting cast equally wonderful and the film looks fantastic, a reminder that you don't need modern tech for cinematography that blows you away.  It's 1936 so will be too creaky for some but if you can get past that highly recommended. 9/10

Weirdly I watched this last night. 
I caught a few minutes of a biography on Carole Lombard while on my break at work a few weeks ago, and last night while browsing youtube I came across an upload of this. I totally agree with your review, a really enjoyable movie. 
Eerily surprised to see it show up in this thread though.

It's something of a tradition in our house to watch an old classic movie on Christmas Eve.  Sometimes we watch the same one (I think we've watched The Shop Around the Corner 4 times and Meet Me In St Louis at least twice).  We've just got a trial of Prime and I noticed the Magnificent Ambersons on there, another one we've watched before on Christmas Eve: but flicking through the options we saw Godfrey.  We were a bit worried we'd remember the Magnificent Ambersons too well having watched it several times and plumped for My Man Godfrey.  Glad we did, just as good as Ambersons and less familiar.

RandallFlagg

LA 92 - 2017 documentary of the Los Angeles riots in the wake of the Rodney King arrest and horrific beating by the LAPD and subsequent not guilty verdicts for the officers involved.

50+ people dead, many lying in the streets, hundreds of buildings burning and armed military on the streets. Truly scary stuff.

Brilliant. 9/10

ICBM

Florence Foster Jenkins

The New York heiress who thought she was an opera singer... but couldn't sing. Not sure if it's actually meant to be a 'comedy', but it's quite funny. Directed by Stephen Frears so very well-made - perfectly observed period detail, brilliant acting by Meryl Streep especially, Hugh Grant and Simon Helberg, and as far as I've read reasonably accurate... but not immensely exciting. It's likeable enough but there are no real surprises or amazing revelations, just a good story to tell.

7/10

the_jaffa

6 Days

Based on the Libyan Embassy Hostage Situation and subsequent SAS Raid.

Not bad but all a bit one dimensional. Mark Strong was good as usual but other than that it didn't really develop much at all. There were worse ways to spend 90 minutes but there are probably better ones too.

6/10

Longtallronnie

Convinced the missus to watch Scott Pilgrim, she didn’t like it. I, correctly thought it was brilliant.