What films have you watched recently?

rze99

The White Lotus

6 part TV series Sky Atlantic

Cynically dark US satire on staff at a beautiful Hawaiian holiday resort and their interactions with unself-aware self-obsessed entitled tossers carrying vast amounts of emotional baggage with them to paradise.   Sublime scenery blends with grimly painful guest and staff interactions, with the star turn being the manager of the resort, a man on the brink, a sort of Aussie camp Basil Fawlty, a man driven to the point of insanity through fawning and slobbering to the hideous guests.
Superb
8/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13406094/

rze99

Operation Finale (2018)

Film based on real life follows the planning and execution by a bunch  of Mossad agents to capture former SS officer Adolf Eichmann (Played by Sir Ben Kingsley) in 1960 to take him to Israel to try.  The film is well acted, but the direction lacks story telling ease and,  strangely, little dramatic tension. Could have been so much better.

6/10

fretmeister

Hitman’s wife’s bodyguard.

Not very good. None of the fun of the original.

munckee

Watched the new Green Knight on Amazon prime, has Dev Patel in it and I liked it, not sure if I would watch it again but kept me interested. 

rze99

munckee said:

Watched the new Green Knight on Amazon prime, has Dev Patel in it and I liked it, not sure if I would watch it again but kept me interested. 

The guardian gave it a rave review. I have that on my shortlist 

Longtallronnie

Oasis Knebworth. Honestly wasn’t arsed about seeing it in the cinema but glad I did. 

I’ve watched various footage of the gig before that sounded pretty shit but the sound on this was epic. 

Hoping the Blu-ray release includes the full gig without the occasional voice overs though. 

SPECTRUM001

Despite the Falling Snow - 2016

A watchable film flicking between a Cold War era defector’s lost relationship and his niece’s early 90s investigation into his past.

Has Soviet spy stuff, mystery, romance and Charles Dance.

It’s ok for a Sunday afternoon.

6/10

EricTheWeary

Blood Red Sky

Netflix 

Wouldn’t have been my choice. Starts alright but descends into the kind of schlock that many people probably want out of a film like this but just bores me. Although when I did eventually think ‘aha it should be called Stakes on a Plane’ I amused myself a bit. 

Philly_Q

EricTheWeary said:

Blood Red Sky

Netflix 

Wouldn’t have been my choice. Starts alright but descends into the kind of schlock that many people probably want out of a film like this but just bores me. Although when I did eventually think ‘aha it should be called Stakes on a Plane’ I amused myself a bit. 

You got me. 

Offset

No One Gets Out Alive (Netflix),  Man oh man, where to start... well to kick off, the first hour was BORING - I mean REALLY boring.  Boring to the point I was toying with giving up, but I was keen to see if it could continue as badly (it did).  Secondly, the general flow of the plot was telegraphed in bold. large font within 10 minutes.  The only variable was the manner by which the inevitable end was reached.  Thirdly, the rationale leading up to this saggy and flaccid denouement was inexplicable, but by then I just didn't give a flying fuck.  This has garnered some good reviews  but God only knows why.  A waste of an evening - Mrs Offset gave up after 15 mins and was irritating me by playing games on her phone, but eventually the beeping and pinging of some shit bingo game proved a welcome distraction.  Absolute cobblers. 2/10.

Haych

Gone Baby Gone (Netflix)

I have watched this before but quite a few years ago.  Watching the second time round left me with a different perspective.

Directed and written by Ben Affleck (Edit: he co-wrote the screenplay, the story is based on a book) and with his brother, Casey, in the lead role it also has some other heavy hitters in the cast including Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris.

The plot centres around a four year old girl living in the seedier part of Boston who has a drug addict mother and isn't generally looked after very well.  She goes goes missing one evening and the girls aunt hires Casey Affleck and his girlfriend, who run a missing persons private investigation type thing, to work with the police to try to find the missing girl.

Her aunt figures the low lifers and scum living in the area where she went missing won't talk to the police but the young investigators seem to have connections among these type of people so they might have better chances of finding out information.

The plot is quite clever and fortunately I'd forgotten all the twists since last time I watched it but it seemed also to carry a subliminal message about the choices people make and what they're willing to sacrifice to either make what they feel is the right or wrong decision in the moment, and the morality surrounding who gets to decide at all.  It's quite powerful stuff if you think too long about it.

It was very sweary, which normally makes me recoil, but given the subject matter and types of people it focused on it would have been unrealistic if it wasn't filled with foul language to be honest.  In that respect it was very well done and not over the top at all.

Overall I really enjoyed it and much more so the second time round.  The cast did an excellent job of what is a very difficult and quite grim subject matter and all performances were on the button.

Probably the best film I've seen for quite a while, I can't think if a reason not to give it 10/10.

CHRISB50

Count Me In (Netflix)

Documentary about drummers and drumming.

Great film, very interesting.

Really enjoyed listening to them talking about their influences, and players they admired from the past. 

Featured Chad Smith, Ian Paice, Rat Scabies, Stephen Perkins, Taylor Hawkins, Ben Thatcher, Stuart Copeland and many others.

9/10

Moominpapa

No Time To Die (2021)  I don't think anyone would have envied  the task Cary Joji Fukunaga faced. Not only had Spectre been a disappointing film but also this was going to be Daniel Craig's swansong as Bond. So, no pressure then

I'm happy to say that Fukunaga stepped up to the task very well. I thought he did a great job with this. There are some elements that are weaker then one would have liked, but overall the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses. What I really liked about the film as a whole is the way that Fukunaga and his scriptwriting team took stock of all the preceding films in the Craig-era series and wrote/directed with them in mind. In some ways, then, this was treated like the last episode in a five part drama series, which gives the director and script team lots of chances to refer back over the series. Indeed there's a lot of humour in the film, quite understated and some of it quite sly. (There's a really beautiful visual reference near the end of the film to the whole Bond genre which you could miss if you aren't paying attention but when I saw it I gave a little silent cheer to Fukunaga  for seeing the opportunity and taking it.)

Lots of good performances, and a shout out to Ana de Armas (who starred with Craig in Knives Out) for a very feisty and entertaining spot, but Craig is the standout here - personally I think he plays an absolute blinder in this one. I will really miss him as Bond, but I'm very pleased that he went out on such a high note.

poopot

Just watched “free guy” …

a bit twee but was an enjoyable watch…

worth a look at least!.

rze99

King’s Choice 

IPlayer

The movie follows the terrible dilemma faced by the King of Norway when the Nazis invade to purportedly protect Norway against The UK ad offer essentially a surrender pact. Jesper Christiansson is superb as ever   But the whole production is well done and naturalistically filmed. Highly recommended. 

8/10

Haych

Gemini Man

When trailers for this were shown in the cinema a couple of years ago I quite fancied watching. It’s on Netflix now so last night gave it a go. 

Not sure what to say really. 

The plot is as you’d expect. There are no surprises or twists, the film wears its heart on its sleeve from the very beginning. 

I don’t think I need write a synopsis, anyone who vaguely knows about this film or has seen the trailer knows what it’s about. 

Despite it being very run of the mill it keeps moving at a decent pace and never gets tedious. Some of the action sequences looked weird, I’m sure many of them were done via CGI and they just didn’t look right. 

Some major continuity blunders as well. 

Overall I think somebody decided to put deep fake technology to good use and that’s about the only reason the film was made. 

Mrs Haych gave it 8/10, which I thought was waaaaay to generous. I settled on 6/10 - entertaining but mediocre. 

skullfunkerry

We watched Free Guy on Thursday night, and Chaos Walking last night.

I really enjoyed Free Guy: funny, well-paced, entertaining. Didn't do anything particularly groundbreaking, but what it did do it did well. Canning Tatum flirting with Ryan Reynolds really made me laugh 8/10.

Chaos Walking was good too: Tom Holland & Daisy Ridley star; it's set on a planet where there are no women & men's thoughts are visible. Didn't break any new sci-fi ground, but was enjoyable & didn't go utterly ridiculous at the end like a lot of films seem to - 7/10.

Blueingreen

Gosford Park. 2001. Saw this in the cinema when it came out and didn't especially like it. I've never been much of an Altman fan.  But I thought I'd give it a second chance, and am pleased I did.

It's a "golden age of detective fiction" style murder mystery in an upstairs/downstairs country house setting. But Altman focuses on character and power relationships in the English class system rather than the whodunnit (for a big section of the film it's not even clear that it is going to be a murder tale - the murder happens quite late on).

Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame is the writer but don’t let that put you off, it’s Altman’s much more sardonic view of the class system that dominates. It’s ironic that Fellowes's career was probably kick-started by an excellent script so contrary to his own snobbish prejudicies.

The sheer number of characters and the complexity of the various plot strands means close attention is needed, particularly nearer the start. A large and stellar cast is very good although only a couple get meaty enough parts to really enhance their reputation.  Emily Watson is particularly excellent.

it doesn't all work - Stephen Fry plays a hopeless gentleman detective in charge of a highly competent but ignored PC Plod: it has the potential to be a very good joke but the comedy is too unsubtle.  The main plot, designed to show the evils of an exploitative class system, is too lurid to be credible, and loses power.  But the same message is conveyed much more effectively by a large accumulation of small observations.

All in all well worth seeing if you haven't already. 7.5/10

Shrews

Borat 2

Not as funny as the first one, but did give me some laughs. I especially liked the cartoon his daughter watched with Queen Melania's vagine being grabbed by Prince Donald! Aww, such a heartwarming fairytale for a girl from Kazakhstan!

But that Rudy Giuliani scene, erm, watch it and make your own mind up.

Good fun, but that should be it now for the Borat character.  7/10 and thanks for the laughs!

Haych

Went to see No Time To Die at the cinema this afternoon. 

Mostly it’s excellent, Craig has gone out with a bang in his last outing as Bond.  Of the Craig era Bond movies this is certainly the best by a long way. 

I’m going to add no spoilers, just go watch it. The next film will be very interesting, although, even as a Bond fan I’m of the opinion that everything Bond can do has been done and maybe it’s time for Bond to finally draw his government pension and retire.