What films have you watched recently?

rze99

Bullitt (1968) ITV4 tonight. 

This is must be the 10th time I've seen it. I still think it's great.
A real antidote to CGI, superhero junk. Plus the cars are so cool. The Charger Mustang Duel is still rocking now. no digital artefacts.

God, I'm old.

CavemanGrogg

Battle Royale, granted it's not the cinema masterpiece that The Green Lantern is, but it is a bloody good film, really worth watching if you can get a copy.

stufisher

@rze99 ; I don't know if your old but I do know you have good taste 
The car chase scene hasn't been bettered IMHO so no CGI needed.

I believe there's an underlying question about what is classy and believable for its era?

Marvel and DC action adventures provide 2hrs of fast action, escapism and indulgence ... Bullit, Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, Hell Drivers, Saturday Night Sunday Morning, Kes ... and an endless list of classics provide SO much more ... especially if they're B&W.

For anyone who has never taken monochrome photographs I'd encourage you to have a go ... you'll be rewarded for sure.

Stu

JezWynd

rze99 said:

Bullitt (1968) ITV4 tonight. 

This is must be the 10th time I've seen it. I still think it's great.
A real antidote to CGI, superhero junk. Plus the cars are so cool. The Charger Mustang Duel is still rocking now. no digital artefacts.

God, I'm old.

After catching it on tv I had to get the Blu-ray to watch it without ad breaks. It’s a fantastic film; I’m not usually a McQueen fan but he plays this brilliantly and the camerawork and colour are lush.

Caught Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. I think it’s Tarantino’s masterpiece; every frame could be printed and framed; it’s his love letter to the movie business. Everything about the film works really well; Leo is fab as the decaying tv star but Brad Pitt steals the movie as his stunt double. The scene on Rick’s roof when he’s fixing the aerial; it’s a nothing scene but he turns it into the epitome of American cool. And the final 10 mins are a hoot. 10/10.

oh yeah, and it turned me on to Twelve Thirty by the Mamas and the Papas. How had I let this tune pass me by!

boogieman

I’m not a great fan of Tarantino, although he has some gems in his cannon of work (Pulp Fiction for instance, just a superb film). But… his music choices are excellent and he’s really clever at finding obscure and/or forgotten things that fit the film perfectly. 

Shrews

Manhattan - Woody Allen 11/10
Ok, it is my favourite movie of all time and part of my Cheltenham Festival tradition *cough* (see the weird habits thread). But for me it is perfect. I feel like Woody's character is a good friend and I want to be part of his social scene. Black and white suits it perfectly. The shots of New York are perfect. The gentle humour, Diane Keaton's character and acting, plus the whole snapshot of the MC's life as an early 40something I find compelling. I must've watched it between 10 and 20 times, usually at the same time of year, but I always find a joke I've missed or bit of dialogue.

And the sound - not sure what you call the sound of this movie - but it's almost muffled, peaceful, tranquil I suppose. I can listen to it as background noise and feel like I'm right there with them.

And of course, the greatest opening 5 minutes in movie history!

Annie Hall - 8.5/10
Much the same as above! Completely different stories, completely different characters, but still compelling and draw you into their world. No opening sequence masterpiece though and that film just misses that unique personal connection with me to viewing a film as very good or a masterpiece. Saying that, I think it's highly likely that it will become a Cheltenham 'Eve' tradition, as an appetiser to Manhattan on Cheltenham Tuesday morning!

For the record, I'm not to fussed on other films of his. Love and Death funny, Sleeper and Bananas ok, Everything You Always Wanted...average. I did like Antz!!!

Philly_Q

Sea Fever

I read about this a while ago and was expecting something a bit spooky based on ancient myths of the sea... It's actually more of a sci-fi horror, set on board an Irish fishing boat and borrowing a few ideas from Alien and The Thing but without any monsters or special effects to speak of.  The idea's not bad, and it's intentionally low-key, but it's sorely lacking in scares and excitement.  Disappointing.

Haych

Alien

Personally, I prefer the sequel, but this is still high up there on my list of all time great movies.

One of the things I always loved about this film was the questions posed but never answered, until Prometheus and Alien Covenant came along and tried to answer those questions and ruined the franchise in the process.

A reboot of the franchise is needed methinks, to elbow Prometheus and Covenant out of the picture and retell a proper story.

Anyway, back to the film.  Yes, a goodun, although a few things don't really add up, but for the sake of a tense scene - and since it was mentioned here about a week ago the chestburster scene is now ruined for me.  

8/10

skullfunkerry

Seen a few films since I last posted in this thread…

Spider Man: No Way Home - absolutely loved it. If you don’t like the Marvel films then don’t bother with this, but if you do then it’s one of the best ones so far imo. Loved all the fan service stuff, shed some tears, and loved how it ended too. 10/10

The Adam Project - as already mentioned by a few others; we enjoyed it, but as my wife pointed out, Ryan Reynolds is just himself in every film he’s in, isn’t he? The kid was excellent, and although nothing in it broke any new ground it was definitely an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. 7.5/10

Freaks - this was on Netflix, found it by browsing the Sci-Fi films. It started promisingly, and I said to my wife it was going to end one of three ways: “Ah, I see”, “Is that it?” or “Eh?”. I’m not going to give anything away, but we both very much enjoyed it. Well acted, interesting story and just enough explanation to let you know what’s going on, but not necessarily why it’s happening. 8.5/10

We’ve also re-watched all the Batman films, in order:

Batman: Jack Nicholson steals the show, the city looks great, and Michael Keaton is pretty good, although I’d forgotten just how camp it all was. Enjoyed it though, especially Jack Nicholson, who looks like he’s having an absolute whale of a time in every scene. 7.5/10

Batman Returns: I don’t actually think I’d seen this all the way through before, amazingly. I didn’t like it as much as the first film, although it was very similar. Danny DeVito was excellent (and gross), and Michelle Pfeiffer was superb (and a little sad). 7/10

Batman Forever: I definitely hadn’t seen this before. Just shocking. I really didn’t like it; the city didn’t look as good, the Batmobile was horrible… Jim Carrey was good as the Riddler, but I hated Tommy Lee Jones’s Two-Face (although the thugs’ branded uniforms, helicopters and vehicles made me laugh). 4/10

Batman & Robin: I hadn’t seen this one either. I guess it’s even worse than the previous one, but actually I enjoyed it more. It’s so camp it’s literally like someone has made a film of the comic book, and I thought Arnie was excellent as Mr Freeze. There were some bits that I found genuinely funny too (Bane planting bombs around a door growling “Bomb!” as he sets each one absolutely cracked me up), so I’m giving it 4.5/10. Apparently George Clooney has been known to refund people who paid to watch it, but I would probably watch it again if I had to.

Batman Begins / The Dark Knight / The Dark Knight Rises - just excellent, although Christian Bale’s Batman voice is unintentionally hilarious. 10/10 for each of them.

stickyfiddle

Dude, there's no way BF is worse than B&R... Though both are best thought of as 90's retellings of the original 60's show, and squarely aimed at kids after the frankly odd Returns (which is a great Tim Burton "gothic fairytale movie vehicle" but not a v good Batman). Viewed through that lens they're actually quite fun. 

VimFuego

The Adam Project - It was OK I guess, the kid was pretty good as a young Ryan Reynolds, seemed to have his mannerisms down well. It wasn't bad, diverting enough and not actually unpleasant.

VimFuego

Haych said:

Alien

Personally, I prefer the sequel, but this is still high up there on my list of all time great movies.

One of the things I always loved about this film was the questions posed but never answered, until Prometheus and Alien Covenant came along and tried to answer those questions and ruined the franchise in the process.

A reboot of the franchise is needed methinks, to elbow Prometheus and Covenant out of the picture and retell a proper story.

Anyway, back to the film.  Yes, a goodun, although a few things don't really add up, but for the sake of a tense scene - and since it was mentioned here about a week ago the chestburster scene is now ruined for me.  

8/10

agreed. I can't recall now who said it, but a famous author once said you don't need to explain everything, you're allowed to trust that your audience to take some things just on faith, to accept some things without having every minutiae explained to them, it's fiction not a text book.

stickyfiddle

VimFuego said:

 

agreed. I can't recall now who said it, but a famous author once said you don't need to explain everything, you're allowed to trust that your audience to take some things just on faith, to accept some things without having every minutiae explained to them, it's fiction not a text book.

Oh god this. 

There seems to be an entire online cottage industry devoted to websites pointing out stupid questions about films, calling them "plot holes" when they clearly aren't - "how did they get there?" "why did that person happenn to show up?" etc etc 

It's utter nonsense. I don't remember any work of fiction ever being better for everything having been explained. Christ, in scifi most of the best bits come about are because things aren't explained. Does my head in!! 

boogieman

Alita Battle Angel. On C4. 

James Cameron produced real action/manga cartoon crossover that looked interesting and has decent fx and very high production values. A scientist (Christopher Waltz) discovers an android head in a city filled with junk and rebuilds it with a new robotic body. The android has a past that she can’t remember but turns out to be very adept at a rollerball style sport. 

Unfortunately not long after that it stops being interesting and eventually drifts off into total hackneyed rubbish (see also Avatar). It also ends very abruptly, presumably as a set up for the (rather unwise) sequel which is apparently still in the pipeline. 

I can’t quite see who this is aimed at… it’s far too childish and formulaic for adults but then it’s too violent and scary for kids. 

File under “meh”. 

fretmeister

Spiderman: No Way Home.

I enjoyed it quite a lot even though it was a bit too nostalgia driven in places.
I'm looking at it as less of a standalone film, and more of an extended introduction  / trailer to Dr Strange's multiverse film.

I have no doubt the returnees were contracted a good year in advance - TM in particular had a look of a middle aged guy who had recently dropped about 5 stone rather than someone who could normally fit in the lycra.

It would have been far funnier if he had turned up with a serious beer fueled middle aged spread but still be fully capable.

A solid 7/10 for me.

AlbertC

Killing of a Sacred Deer (Netflix) - 6/10
This was a odd one.
After a man dies on his operating table, heart surgeon (Colin Farrell) befriends his son. The son starts behaving strangely. It then becomes apparent that the surgeon's drinking may have contributed to the death. The surgeon won't admit he had anything to do with the death of father. The son punishes the surgeon by causing things to happen to his two children. How he does this is unclear - some power of thought/unexplained thing.
It all gets more and more weird with everyone (especially the surgeon) losing it and becoming disturbed and frantic. Aside from the odd story, the dialogue is delivered in deadpan and deliberate bad-acting style, which is somehow impressive seeing as they're all obviously good actors (Nicole Kidman is the surgeon's wife)
I found something very Stanley Kubrick (Shining/2001) about the way it was shot and directed. I watched it all but I'm not sure I can say I enjoyed it.

  

goldtop

^ Yup. It's a weird one, with a lot of dots to connect yourself. I sort of want to rewatch it to work things out, but it's too freaky for that.

AlbertC

goldtop said:

^ Yup. It's a weird one, with a lot of dots to connect yourself. I sort of want to rewatch it to work things out, but it's too freaky for that.

I don't think I would work it all out even if I watched it another 5 times!
I guess it's loosely about retribution but much beyond that, I'm not sure

Offset

AlbertC said:

goldtop said:

^ Yup. It's a weird one, with a lot of dots to connect yourself. I sort of want to rewatch it to work things out, but it's too freaky for that.

I don't think I would work it all out even if I watched it another 5 times!
I guess it's loosely about retribution but much beyond that, I'm not sure

It's unwatchable tripe.

Haych

The Adam Project

Hmm, what do I think of this one?  It was alright, ok, not bad.

If you accept it for what it is, as sci-fi fantasy aimed at 11 year old lads then it ticks all the boxes.  Beyond that it has no real merit or substance.

As a family film it's alright, there's nothing I noticed that was offensive, frightening or overly violent and I'm surprised it had a 12 rating on Netflix.

Ryan Reynolds does his thing quite well and I thought the kid who plays his younger self did quite a good job of imitating Ryan Reynolds mannerisms to pull off being his younger self.

It was entertaining enough but made to a formula and it's not a movie you'll ever find yourself eager to see again when one of your friends asks you round for movie night.

Adequate but forgettable.  6/10