What films have you watched recently?

SPECTRUM001

Strangers On A Train - 1951

Another great story by the rather dubious Ms Highsmith given a light and gentle suspense masterclass of script and direction by Raymond Chandler and Alfred Hitchcock.

As with watching Casablanca a couple of weeks back, I thought it faultless. 

10/10

LastMantra

Coming 2 American 
Gave up towards the end and went to bed. Fun enough I suppose, pretty much what you would expect from an EM film.

The gentlemen. 
Typical almost cartoon like guy Ritchie gangster film. Best part was probably Hugh Grant. 

Moominpapa

The Swordsman (2020) Korean martial arts film set in early 17th century. Decent & patriotic swordsman has to protect his adopted daughter from the machinations of some cruel Qing Too formulaic & stylized to be really good - War of the Arrows (2011) is a much more interesting watch - but has some good action sequences and some sympathetic characters, so OK weekend fodder. 6/10

HAL9000

Seraphim Falls (2007). Post civil war Western in which an injured Pierce Brosnan is being hunted down by Liam Neeson. Not outstanding but decent enough and perfectly enjoyable. Definitely worth a watch. 7/10.

rze99

Whiplash. 

IPlayer. 2014. 

Young jazz drummer at an elite USA music college is mentally abused by controlling professor and band leader to point of breakdown. 

8/10

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2582802/

WiresDreamDisasters

Me and the wife watched a movie called A Snake Of June the other night. By the director of Tetsuo: Iron Man, if you've ever seen that.

The Wikipedia synopsis doesn't really cover the full concept:

Set in an anonymous Japanese metropolis, the film tells the tale of shy career woman, Rinko, and Shigehiko, her hygiene-obsessed, workaholic husband. The couple explore their sexuality in a number of ways, causing their lives to be disrupted.

It's a bit more... well... a bit more Japanese than that..... if you take my meaning.

I recommend it though, for anyone who likes that kind of thing.

Haych

Homefront 

Fairly run of the mill Jason Statham punch-em-up. I quite like Statham but this one was rather meh. 

Statham is the ex DEA undercover agent who moves to Louisiana after putting away some heavy hitter meth dealers/cookers. 

Looking for a quiet life with his daughter but trouble seems to find him round every corner until somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody reports back his whereabouts to a guy on the inside whose son was killed when Statham’s last bust went wrong. 

You get the idea. 

Quite violent and overly sweary, which adds nothing to the film at all. 

Wanted to give it more than 4/10 but barely deserves that. 

Oh yeah, anyone else ever wonder how the likes of Statham and Neeson’s characters always manage to get hot-shot jobs in the American justice system despite being not at all American?

Available on Prime if anyone is quite that bored. 

Philly_Q

Archenemy

Two street kids, reluctantly involved with a drug-dealing gang, befriend a homeless bum who claims he is - or was - a super-powered being from a parallel universe.  The low budget is obvious but there are some imaginative scenes, including some animation, and it all works quite well.  It reminded me of the Henry Rollins film He Never Died, and even a little of Logan.

(On DVD - I don't know if it's on any streaming platforms)

SPECTRUM001

Whiplash - 2014

This has probably been reviewed a few times, so apologies for any repetition.

Highly engaging Oscar winning film about a music student being bullied by the ultimate tutor from hell.

Some subtle twists and question marks about motivation and the desire for success. Quite a parallel between the competitive west and historic eastern philosophy (I am kind of talking crap - but it felt that way when watching it).

7.5/10

Haych

Peppermint (Netflix)

Oh dear, where to start with this one.  Looked promising but didn't really live up to expectations, although in hindsight I think my expectations should have been much lower.

Didn't recognise any of the cast, that should have been a bit of a quality giveaway.

Thirty something wife and mother is failed by the justice system when a drug gang has her husband and young daughter gunned down after the leader of said gang learns of a plot involving the husband to steal some dosh from him.  Husband backs out of the plan but his card is still marked.

Widowed wife then disappears for five years after her family's murderers are acquitted and learns all manner of combat techniques, self defence and tactical weaponry.  She then reappears out of the blue and starts killing everybody associated with the killing of her family and the bent police and court officials in the justice system that allowed them to walk.

Not a very good film at all.  I'll allow it 3/10 for the idea.  The execution of the idea was pants, it's basically one big fight with guns, blood, sweat and swearing.  Had she come back and been subtle about what she was doing then it would probably have made for a very good film, but the brazen here-i-am-and-I'm-coming-for-you approach was beyond the realms of plausibility and just made for a not very interesting film.

Watch if you must but spending an hour and a half picking lint out of your belly button would be a much better use of your time.

Blueingreen

Angel Face.  '53 noir with Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons, directed by Otto Preminger, who also directed possibly my favourite noir, Laura.  Skimming the reviews this film seems to be a bit marmite, some claiming it as a great underrated classic of the genre others ranking it as a failure.  I was somewhere in the middle.  Mitchum is always watchable, Simmons is lovely, like Audrey Hepburn without the sugar, and there's a nice weirdness to the whole thing that keeps you watching.  The score (Tiomkin) is fabulous.  But there's an awful lot of implausibilty, the '50s Freudianism doesn't date well, and for me there's an absence of chemistry between the leads - I just don't believe Mitchum's cynical, worldly wise character would be taken in by Simmons, beautiful as she is.  A fence-sitting 7.

Haych

Next (Netflix)

Thriller staring Nicholas Cage, Jessica Biel and Julianne Moore in the lead roles.

Cage is a small time magician working in Vegas who supplements his income by gambling.  He also has the gift of being able to see two minutes into his own future and base his decision making on what he sees.

Julianne Moore is the FBI agent who is trying to find a Russian nuke smuggled somewhere into the US and is trying her best to track down Cage to assist her in finding the bomb using his unique abilities, although he wants nothing to do with her.

Jessica Biel is Cage's love interest.  He hasn't met her yet but knows he will and engineers events to do so.  When it comes to her for some reason he can see way beyond his usual two minute window into the future.

It was pretty good and quite well done, until the end which was rubbish and made me wonder what the point was in watching the rest of the movie.

6.5/10

SPECTRUM001

Blueingreen said:

Angel Face.  '53 noir with Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons, directed by Otto Preminger, who also directed possibly my favourite noir, Laura.  Skimming the reviews this film seems to be a bit marmite, some claiming it as a great underrated classic of the genre others ranking it as a failure.  I was somewhere in the middle.  Mitchum is always watchable, Simmons is lovely, like Audrey Hepburn without the sugar, and there's a nice weirdness to the whole thing that keeps you watching.  The score (Tiomkin) is fabulous.  But there's an awful lot of implausibilty, the '50s Freudianism doesn't date well, and for me there's an absence of chemistry between the leads - I just don't believe Mitchum's cynical, worldly wise character would be taken in by Simmons, beautiful as she is.  A fence-sitting 7.

@Blueingreen - thanks for posting your review. I would could like to see this - was the film shown on a 'regular' channel ?

Blueingreen

@SPECTRUM001 - I watched it on iPlayer.

SPECTRUM001

Thanks !

Brio

SAS: Red Notice.
A pretty basic action thriller. Can't moan that I didn't realise what I was getting into but although the action is pretty predictable there is one very weird change in behaviour of the leading lady and a mahooosive goofs in the plot that I'll put into a spoiler.
Turn off your brain and enjoy factor, well its better than looking at a blank screen so I'll give it 5 (Janice).

They are inside one of the gas pipelines in the channel tunnel. The are in the middle of the tunnel section under the sea. So about 10 miles from the surfaceing point in France. The bad girls escapes by using a wheeled sled and being propelled through the pipe to an inspection point in France. I's assume she is travelling at around 15 mph so that is an hour and a half to get to her exit point. The guy chasing her is on foot in a relatively cramped pipe but surfaces a couple of minutes behind her. How? He'd be a couple of hours back.

Haych

John Tucker Must Die (Prime)

Easy watching chick flick really.  Nothing as exciting as the title suggests.

A bunch of high school girls find out they're dating the same guy and plot a scheme to exact their revenge using the new girl who is pretty much unknown and not at all popular.

A few easy laughs along the way, nothing offensive to speak of and just a bit of bubblegum for the mind.

6/10

equalsql

The Man In The Hat on Prime Video.
Ciaran Hinds in a Jacque Tati style film driving his tiny Fiat 500 D through the the beautiful French landscape being chased by some seemingly incompetent gangsters in a knackered old Citroen 2CV.

Almost zero dialogue or plot but a laid back, exquisite little film to watch and melt into.

8/10

JezWynd

Apocalypto. What is it about Mel Gibson? So many of his films feature the hero strung up on  some instrument of torture having unspeakable things done to them by sneering, vicious, militaristic bad guys (who will mostly get their comeuppance). I think Mel must have issues.

Actually it was an enjoyable (sort of), interesting film and cast the Mayan empire in a completely different light from what I had previously envisaged. Mel sees it as a giant rave with the MC/DJ ripping out hearts and tossing the remains to a slathering horde of freaks. Interest has been piqued enough to want to investigate how accurate his depiction is.

And for all the edgy reality (Mayan dialogue!) the film follows the hoary old cliche of girl tied to the railroad tracks while hero races to save her, pursued by those sneering, vicious military types. 7/10.

Blueingreen

Paddington 2.  After seeing excellent reviews I actually went to see this in the cinema when it came out but walked out after about 20 minutes, partly owing to annoying behaviour by other (adult) cinemagoers during the film (talking, surfing their phones) but partly because I didn't think I was going to like it much anyway.  I decided to give it another chance and this time made it to the end, but I can't say I loved it.

For me it was a kids film that (unlike, for example,  the later Harry Potter films, or the Toy Story series) didn't offer enough to engage me as an adult. It looked fabulous, a candy coloured wonderland of old toys, old books, etc but that's where the appeal began and ended for me.  I wondered what kids would make of it:  based on my own childhood I have a sneaking suspicion that this is the kind of Blue-Petery movie adults think/hope kids will like, rather that the kind of movie kids actually like.

For me, 5/10.  For kids, wholesome entertainment that you want them to love, but I wouldn't be too surprised if many didn't.