What films have you watched recently?

ICBM

Hector

A very low-key film about a homeless man travelling from Glasgow to London to try to make contact with his family. That’s it really. Very downbeat as you would expect...

Not a ‘great’ film, but perfectly observed and acted. If you like that sort of thing it’s faultless.

9/10

(iPlayer)

HAL9000

The First of the Few - Biopic of RJ Mitchell with Leslie Howard. A bit of flag waving, and certainly of its time. Enjoyable enough but a bit wooden. 6/10.

Support your Local Sheriff - Comedy western starring James Garner who kinda drifts into becoming sheriff in a lawless town. 7/10.

Danny1969

Bad day for the cut - Netflix

Mild mannered aging farmer still lives with his mum in Ireland - she gets killed and he's thrust inside a shit storm 

Quite violent but some great black humour too .. recommended 

Moominpapa

Rurouni Kenshin (2012) In Meiji-era Japan ex-assassin tries to make amends for his bloody past. Film adaptation of a popular manga that began in the mid 90s. Completely over the top as you would imagine, but engaging enough if you've had a couple of drinks and don't want to think too much.

EricTheWeary

Wonder Woman 1984.

Nice to see Asim Chaudhry getting a bit of work. 

Such a mess of a film. A huge bunch of 80s choons might have made it more fun but we didn’t even get that. 

boogieman

Aquaman, on Prime. Kahl Drogo as a half human son of mermaid queen Nicole Kidman and a lighthouse keeper who has to beat the underwater baddies to save the world. Absolute hokum, sort of a wet version of Star Wars crossed with Stingray and Sinbad the Sailor. The plot’s a real mess and I honestly don’t know how the cast managed to keep a straight face, the dialogue makes some of George Lucas’ worst moments sound like Shakespeare. Loads of CGI. Watch out for the comedy roaring sharks

I still watched it. Fuck knows why. 

HAL9000

The Shawshank Redemption - Surprisingly Mrs9000 had never seen it. I’ve probably seen it three or four times but it’s still a joy to watch. Easy 9/10 from me.

equalsql

HAL9000 said:

The First of the Few - Biopic of RJ Mitchell with Leslie Howard. A bit of flag waving, and certainly of its time. Enjoyable enough but a bit wooden. 6/10

I love that film, terribly English but Leslie Howard and David Niven are just superb in it. Actually filmed during WW2. The Spitfire was a game changer at that time and this story about its development  is terrific cinema.

Moominpapa

Deliver Us From Evil (2020) If you are into really hard-boiled gangster, spy, & crime type action movies and are fed up with being constantly disappointed by the sub-par American fare in those genres, I urge you to check out Korean cinema. They have been turning out excellent action movies for a couple of decades now and they rarely disappoint. This is another satisfying foray into the "ex-special unit person who needs to protect someone from their past" story. Great cast, well-handled action scenes, and engaging characters - especially Park Jung-min as a transgender person helping the hero. Highly recommended.

JezWynd

equalsql said:

HAL9000 said:

The First of the Few - Biopic of RJ Mitchell with Leslie Howard. A bit of flag waving, and certainly of its time. Enjoyable enough but a bit wooden. 6/10

I love that film, terribly English but Leslie Howard and David Niven are just superb in it. Actually filmed during WW2. The Spitfire was a game changer at that time and this story about its development  is terrific cinema.

Leslie Howard is worthy of a biopic of his own - he seemed to be a one man propaganda industry during the war years. His type of englishness seems very outdated today but at the time he must have been a welcome riposte to the ranting German bloke across the channel.

LastMantra

JezWynd said:

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.

I'm not sure it's really meant to be historically accurate.
Visually pretty cool though. 

Haych

Grosse Point Blank

Not seen this in years. The memory from when I saw it many years ago hasn’t really aged well, it’s not quite as good as I remember it. Still not a bad film though but the younger me thought it was better than it is. 

John Cusack is always great and it has the bonus of having his sister in it to boot, and she’s fabulous. 

7/10

On Disney +

The Bank Job

Based on a true story of I don’t know what. Must check out the background on Wikipedia. 

Jason Statham is a small time crook set up to rob a bank in London so that sensitive and compromising photographs can be recovered from a safe deposit box before they can do any damage. And because the owner of those photographs is using them as a bargaining chip to avoid the criminal justice system. 

Almost certainly sexed up for the sake of the film but the film works very well. 

8/10

On Prime. 

Brio

The Bank Job

Based on a true story of I don’t know what. Must check out the background on Wikipedia. 

Princess Margaret.

Philly_Q

Moominpapa said:

Deliver Us From Evil (2020) If you are into really hard-boiled gangster, spy, & crime type action movies and are fed up with being constantly disappointed by the sub-par American fare in those genres, I urge you to check out Korean cinema. They have been turning out excellent action movies for a couple of decades now and they rarely disappoint. This is another satisfying foray into the "ex-special unit person who needs to protect someone from their past" story. Great cast, well-handled action scenes, and engaging characters - especially Park Jung-min as a transgender person helping the hero. Highly recommended.

Thanks for mentioning that, I hadn't heard of it.  Just watched it, and it's excellent - although, as you say, the storyline is pretty familiar!

Logie

Into the Wild, based on the life of Christopher McCandless, who just left home after graduation and disappeared. Really good watch, even my wife stayed awake and it was gone 11 pm by the time it finished

Haych

Brio said:

The Bank Job

Based on a true story of I don’t know what. Must check out the background on Wikipedia. 

Princess Margaret.

Yeah, I did read the back story of the plot on wikipedia but the film was obviously very sexed up, beyond unproven allegations that the two events were connected there isn't any substantial link, apparently.

SPECTRUM001

HAL9000 said:

The Shawshank Redemption - Surprisingly Mrs9000 had never seen it. I’ve probably seen it three or four times but it’s still a joy to watch. Easy 9/10 from me.

It really holds up well doesn’t it. I must have seen it a good four times as well, and it still feels fresh.

My first viewing was in a flight to San Francisco, probably around 1995. They put the lights down and showed a film to the whole cabin - remember that ??! 

Not a dry eye on the plane !

SPECTRUM001

All About Eve

Never seen it before - and quite surprised how much I enjoyed watching Bette Davis. She oozes class, and curiously has a mix of quoting real peers (eg Gregory Peck) within a fictitious tale set in 1950s New York Theatreland.

George Sanders is great too, and Anne Baxter attempts but fails to steal the show portraying Eve.

If you like the ‘film within a film’ genre, you should enjoy this one.

7/10

ICBM

Stan & Ollie

Comedy-biopic about the last years of the famous duo with Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly. Coogan (who I'm not really a fan of, in his own material - although he's much better playing a part) and Reilly are amazingly accurate and obviously put a huge amount of work in to get their mannerisms and act just right, and there's enough of an edge to it that it's not completely sentimental, but I didn't find it totally compelling somehow - if anything I thought the most interesting performance was the smaller role of Rufus Jones as their devious agent. But very good, anyhow.

8/10

(iPlayer)

HAL9000

JezWynd said:

equalsql said:

HAL9000 said:

The First of the Few - Biopic of RJ Mitchell with Leslie Howard. A bit of flag waving, and certainly of its time. Enjoyable enough but a bit wooden. 6/10

I love that film, terribly English but Leslie Howard and David Niven are just superb in it. Actually filmed during WW2. The Spitfire was a game changer at that time and this story about its development  is terrific cinema.

Leslie Howard is worthy of a biopic of his own - he seemed to be a one man propaganda industry during the war years. His type of englishness seems very outdated today but at the time he must have been a welcome riposte to the ranting German bloke across the channel.

Interestingly Leslie Howard was killed when the civilian plane he was flying in was shot down by the Germans (it was understood by both sides that civilian aircraft were off limits). It has been theorised (but never proven AFAIK) that it was targeted for exactly that reason - that Leslie Howard was a one-man propaganda machine.