What films have you watched recently?

Haych

Three Days of the Condor

Classic 70s spy thriller with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.

Redford is a bookworm CIA researcher who looks for leaks, new ideas and evidence of "stuff" in books.  After reading a novel he thinks he's found evidence of a rogue intelligence group of unknown origin so sends a memo further up the chain of command.

The message comes back that his higher-ups don't agree that there's any cause for concern but while he's out to lunch his entire office is hit and everyone is murdered.

Slowly he connects the dots with the help of Faye Dunaway, who he pretty much kidnaps off the street but decides he's not a lunatic all the same, and even ends up shagging him in the most pathetic and quite unnecessary love scene I think I've ever seen.

Pretty decent movie, the kind of thing that would be on the telly as I grew up.  Lots of nostalgia, a plot which is quite good although a bit clumsy in its execution in places, and a wonderful soundtrack which could only come from the 70s.

Oh, and Redford is a gorgeous man, what I wouldn't give to look like he did in his prime!

7/10 - on Netflix if anyone fancies it.

EricTheWeary

Munich the edge of war. 

Netflix. 

Quite thought provoking although huge spoilers if I went  into why. The hand held camera work got on my nerves a bit and it could have been shorter (and gayer, opportunity missed) but otherwise completely absorbing. 

Edit: so after watching it both MrsTheWeary and I said it would have made more sense as a gay love story/ unrequited gay love story. And then googling it turns out that it is loosely based on a story of unrequited gay love. So why Harris in the novel (presumably) or the film makers decided to make it non gay seems a mystery. The female characters are basically peripheral wives/girlfriends/ lovers with one of them given a slight additional role (in the film, not in the novel apparently) so if it was an attempt to create more female roles then it wasn't particularly successful. 

Haych

Ted 2

As if one instalment of Seth MacFarlane's crudeness wasn't enough, he gets the chance to insult and mock pretty much every walk of life through an animated stuffed bear in the second film.

While it's all in very bad taste, and deliberately so, with far too much swearing for my liking, it is actually better that the first Ted film.  Ted was just a film about a sweary, rude and selfish stuffed bear, Ted 2 actually has a story so benefits from that in droves compared to the first film.

Some of the jokes are spit your dinner out funny, too, and dare I say it - if it's even possible to tell - I do think Ted 2 is less crude than the original film.

The kids (I feel like a terrible father for letting them watch it) enjoyed it and although I've seen it before I didn't find it completely awful either.

If you accept it for what it is, a licence for Seth MacFarlane to go to town, then it's ok.  If you compare it to anything with substance and quality then you'll be disappointed.

Danny1969

Finch - Apple 

Tom Hanks stars a dying robotics engineer, 10 years after the ozone layer has been destroyed by a solar flare. Living alone with a dog he rescued he builds a robot to take care of the dog when he dies. 

Very good performance from Hank and the robot is very well done as well. 8/10 

VimFuego

Haych said:

Ted 2

As if one instalment of Seth MacFarlane's crudeness wasn't enough, he gets the chance to insult and mock pretty much every walk of life through an animated stuffed bear in the second film.

While it's all in very bad taste, and deliberately so, with far too much swearing for my liking, it is actually better that the first Ted film.  Ted was just a film about a sweary, rude and selfish stuffed bear, Ted 2 actually has a story so benefits from that in droves compared to the first film.

Some of the jokes are spit your dinner out funny, too, and dare I say it - if it's even possible to tell - I do think Ted 2 is less crude than the original film.

The kids (I feel like a terrible father for letting them watch it) enjoyed it and although I've seen it before I didn't find it completely awful either.

If you accept it for what it is, a licence for Seth MacFarlane to go to town, then it's ok.  If you compare it to anything with substance and quality then you'll be disappointed.

seen it a number of times, some of the weed gags still crack me up. I love the scene where Wahlberg is so paranoid after smoking the extra strong one and he's gripping the sides of buildings and crying makes me laugh just thinking about it.

boogieman

Army of the Dead. Utterly nonsensical zombie movie with plot holes you could drive a bus through. Still, I watched the whole thing, so it can’t have been that bad, can it.*

*with the proviso that I have a high tolerance level for rubbish films. 

Mattharrier

boogieman said:

Army of the Dead. Utterly nonsensical zombie movie with plot holes you could drive a bus through.

I started watching this, and while it wasn't bad, it just didn't grab me. On paper it should be right up my street, but I never got round to finishing it.

FarleyUK

31

Rob Zombie directed film about..... well, it's basically The Running Man done in a Rob Zombie style.

Pretty crap and stereotypical horror characters.

4/10

Snap

Nobody

Looks great, but I fell asleep after about 20 minutes - not the fault of the film, more to do with over indulgence of IPA, I think I'd have fallen asleep in a firework display.

I did shout "get em!" in the bus scene. And he did.

Haych

The Weekend Away

Two best friends who haven't seen each other in a while meet in Croatia for a weekend away.

After a night out one of them wakes up with an almighty hangover and no recollection of what happened during the night before, and her friend missing.

So starts a frantic search to find out what happened and as she does so she uncovers some uncomfortable truths.

Not a bad idea but it never seems to properly get going, if that makes any sense.  The story is quite good but the direction never capitalises on the desperation and tension that quite clearly is there.  Those scenes during which you should be screaming at the telly are there, but they're done in such a way that you're just not screaming at the telly, it's all quite weird.

Is has a very made for TV feel about it, clearly not a huge budget, although the visuals don't suffer for it, and actors I've never heard of before.

A decent effort but should have been so much better.

8/10 for the idea, 5/10 for the execution.  On Netflix.

SPECTRUM001

Haych said:

Three Days of the Condor

Classic 70s spy thriller with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.

Redford is a bookworm CIA researcher who looks for leaks, new ideas and evidence of "stuff" in books.  After reading a novel he thinks he's found evidence of a rogue intelligence group of unknown origin so sends a memo further up the chain of command.

The message comes back that his higher-ups don't agree that there's any cause for concern but while he's out to lunch his entire office is hit and everyone is murdered.

Slowly he connects the dots with the help of Faye Dunaway, who he pretty much kidnaps off the street but decides he's not a lunatic all the same, and even ends up shagging him in the most pathetic and quite unnecessary love scene I think I've ever seen.

Pretty decent movie, the kind of thing that would be on the telly as I grew up.  Lots of nostalgia, a plot which is quite good although a bit clumsy in its execution in places, and a wonderful soundtrack which could only come from the 70s.

Oh, and Redford is a gorgeous man, what I wouldn't give to look like he did in his prime!

7/10 - on Netflix if anyone fancies it.

Thanks for this - we watched yesterday afternoon.

Mrs001, a cuppa, some Welsh Cakes and a classic 70s conspiracy thriller directed by Sydney Pollack. Pretty perfect I’d say.

Brio

I watched last night after the mention on here. Hadn't seen ir on over 30 years. Still excellent. 

Offset

Brazen (2022, Netflix).  Not much to say other than formulaic, predictable, cliched and fairly tedious.  Just about made it to the end.  Mrs O and Mini-O won't be making the next film selection.  3/10.

Philly_Q

Fantasy Island

The schmaltzy 1970s TV series, re-imagined as a horror movie... Fantasy Island meets Hostel (albeit with a 15 certificate).

This starts out looking like it's going to be a lightweight but mean-spirited affair with a bunch of "lucky" tourists getting pointlessly bumped off on the mysterious island.  But it gets a bit more interesting as the various stories interconnect, and although it keeps veering off into stupidity, on the whole it was better than I expected.  It even sets up an unlikely sequel.

Haych

Offset said:

Brazen (2022, Netflix).  Not much to say other than formulaic, predictable, cliched and fairly tedious.  Just about made it to the end.  Mrs O and Mini-O won't be making the next film selection.  3/10.

We tried watching this a few weeks ago, I don't think we even made it to the 15 minute mark (our usual marker for deciding whether to continue or ditch) before deciding to turn it off.

Blueingreen

Tamara Drewe.

British whimsy. A film based on a cartoon strip (Posy Simmons in The Guardian) I've never read, which in turn was very loosely based on Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd.

This was a rewatch. I was on holiday abroad when it was released and we fancied going to the pictures and this was the English language film that was available.

Despite the British TV production values, an undercooked script, wafer thin plot and some hit and miss casting I still somehow enjoyed this as light entertainment. I’ll give it a probably over-generous 7 while admitting lots of people will think it’s utter bollocks.

stufisher

Given the current state of Europe (and the rest of the world) I'll be watching this later ... the core messages within have never been more relevant.

This is one of my favourite films and one of the most significant sci fi flicks ever made.

https://archive.org/details/thedaytheearthstoodstill1951_201912

Offset

Haych said:

Offset said:

Brazen (2022, Netflix).  Not much to say other than formulaic, predictable, cliched and fairly tedious.  Just about made it to the end.  Mrs O and Mini-O won't be making the next film selection.  3/10.

We tried watching this a few weeks ago, I don't think we even made it to the 15 minute mark (our usual marker for deciding whether to continue or ditch) before deciding to turn it off.

I probably wouldn't have made it past the first 15 minutes either were it not for the fact that the girls insisted on keeping it on.  I could have walked I guess, but my daughter is briefly home from uni and that would have been churlish.

It was a pile of shite though.

axisus

Big

Saw it when it came out and loved it. Finally saw it again, I'm having a bit of a binge on old 80s comedies, and it was still a delightful, charming film. Tom Hanks is insanely young!

The only thing I would have liked different was the end ..... [spoiler!!!!!!]

I'd have preferred his girlfriend to have also gone back to being a kid with him at the end

Anyway, it was a nice watch. Elizabeth Perkins I have never seen in anything else. She was lovely in the film, this is a really nice scene where she loosens up a bit. and at 1 minute, when she is lying on the bed, she looks ADORABLE!!!

boogieman

Hellraiser 3. I love the original, but this isn’t fit to lick its boots. Really suffers with the 90s digital look but worse than that, some (most actually) of the acting is appalling. Avoid.