What films have you watched recently?

Haych

Hard Times

Four lads from a rural Irish backwater village, who are down on their luck, strapped for cash and with no prospects, hatch a plan to hijack a lorry load of viagra and sell it on the black market to give themselves a fresh start.

All seems to be going well until an American private security firm working on behalf of Pfizer to located the stolen shipment roll into town, forcing the lads to hide the drugs in the well that is the source of the village water supply, until the heat blows over which has some arousing consequences.

Light-hearted comedy featuring John Lynch, Susan Lynch and Linda Hamilton.  Very well done in a Waking Ned kind of way.

On Netflix if you fancy an easy watch for an hour and a half.

Philly_Q

Watched in the last few days:

The Queen of Black Magic

Indonesian horror about three men who return, with their families, to the orphanage where they were brought up, only to find an evil spirit is waiting to take revenge for events 25 years earlier... It's a remake of a film from the 1980s, which I haven't seen.  Yet. 

(on Shudder)

The Wind

Atmospheric horror set in the Old West.  A woman living with her husband in miles of otherwise-empty prairie land believes they are being threatened by an evil presence.  Nothing amazing or particularly original, but quite effective.

(on both Shudder and Amazon Prime)

Death on the Nile (2020)

Recommended to me when I got my hair cut this morning...  I know Agatha Christie stories are all essentially bollocks, and I don't mind Kenneth Branagh's version of Hercule Poirot... but my god this is tripe.  American actors playing British characters, British actors playing American characters, everything shot on green screen then set against awful phoney CGI backdrops...

The titular death doesn't occur until halfway through the film (almost to the second, which is weird).  By then we've suffered over an hour of pointless blather.  It gets slightly more intriguing in the second half. I don't really remember the Peter Ustinov or David Suchet versions, but they must have been better than this.

The most interesting thing is that Poirot's moustache gets its own origin story.

(on Disney+)             

CoolCat

Sister Act (1992) - Whoopi Goldberg

Watched it on TV last night. I haven't had a good laugh in a long time.

CaseOfAce

The Unbearable weight of massive talent.

Man... I so wanted this to be good BUT.. let down by the script. Maybe it'll grow on me but... the best / funniest bits are all in the trailer. What a missed opportunity - I wish the script writer off of first Deadpool could have been let loose on this. 
The CIA / McGuffin sub plot thing goes nowhere and Sharon Horgan is completely miscast as Cage's ex-wife and given zilch to do with her character / lines...

SPECTRUM001

Operation Mincemeat - John Madden (2022)

A recent release about a WW2 plan by The Allies to deceive Germany into plans to invade Italy.

Starring Colin Firth, Mathew McFaddyn and Kelly McDonald, the film is very watchable and quite unreal, except of course it is based on truth - yes indeed !

Combining suspense, subtle laughs and a grippingish plot, I did enjoy my 100 mins at the Bath Little Picture House - it felt like a holiday treat.

Which kind of sums the film up. Nothing too amazing but one you could happily consume.

7/10

Moominpapa

Shadow (2018)   This was Zhang Yimou's 'comeback' film after the disappointing reception of his Hollywood-fusion spectacular The Great Wall. Personally, I have a bit of a soft spot for The Great Wall because it is so wacky, but there's no denying it's not a great movie, especially compared to his preceding work..

Shadow is a different kettle of fish altogether. It's a fascinating counterpart to his earlier masterpiece Hero (2002). In Hero Zhang brilliantly uses a mixed palette of different vivid colours to portray different interpretations of the same set of events. Shadow is just as much a visual tour de force, but this time because of it's lack of colour. Although shot in colour, the film's palette is resolutely grey - a hundred different shades of it. With almost no exceptions, the only non-grey things we see are the faces of characters struggling with deep emotions. The film relentlessly explores literal and metaphorical meanings of 'shadow', often in very subtle ways. Highly recommended,.

DrCornelius

CaseOfAce said:

The Unbearable weight of massive talent.

Man... I so wanted this to be good BUT.. let down by the script. Maybe it'll grow on me but... the best / funniest bits are all in the trailer. What a missed opportunity - I wish the script writer off of first Deadpool could have been let loose on this. 
The CIA / McGuffin sub plot thing goes nowhere and Sharon Horgan is completely miscast as Cage's ex-wife and given zilch to do with her character / lines...

Just goes to show how different we all see things - I just got back from watching it and the Mrs and I were pissing ourselves all the way through it.

skullfunkerry

Last night I watched Fast & Furious 9. Amazingly, it was nothing like I expected: genuinely excellent acting and a very emotional backstory about Dom's long-lost little brother, and focussing more on the storyline and less on the cars - very gritty and realistic this time...

ONLY JOKING! It was exactly what you'd expect, only sillier   The stunts were ridiculous, the "plot" was fairly thin (and you just knew how it was all going to pan out), and if you didn't like the previous 8 then there's nothing here for you. I enjoyed it for what it was, which is a big dumb blockbuster. There were some laughs, and a tiny bit of self-awareness ("How come I haven't even got a single scar after all these missions?"), but it did what I wanted, which was fill my evening with colour and sound. As a film it's probably a 3/10, but I'm going to give it 6/10 because I've got a soft spot for this franchise

Snap

Boiling Point - filmed over one evening in a high pressure restaurant in London, Stephen Graham playing the lead, the head chef who seems to be steadily losing his grip. 
Good. Quite tense actually. Recommended

Offset

Snap said:

Boiling Point - filmed over one evening in a high pressure restaurant in London, Stephen Graham playing the lead, the head chef who seems to be steadily losing his grip. 
Good. Quite tense actually. Recommended

I have too much first-hand experience of watching chefs operate in a high-pressure kitchen to punish myself with this!

@heartfeltdawn - have you seen this one?!

Philly_Q

Moominpapa said:

Shadow (2018)   This was Zhang Yimou's 'comeback' film after the disappointing reception of his Hollywood-fusion spectacular The Great Wall. Personally, I have a bit of a soft spot for The Great Wall because it is so wacky, but there's no denying it's not a great movie, especially compared to his preceding work..

Shadow is a different kettle of fish altogether. It's a fascinating counterpart to his earlier masterpiece Hero (2002). In Hero Zhang brilliantly uses a mixed palette of different vivid colours to portray different interpretations of the same set of events. Shadow is just as much a visual tour de force, but this time because of it's lack of colour. Although shot in colour, the film's palette is resolutely grey - a hundred different shades of it. With almost no exceptions, the only non-grey things we see are the faces of characters struggling with deep emotions. The film relentlessly explores literal and metaphorical meanings of 'shadow', often in very subtle ways. Highly recommended,.

I'd forgotten, but I saw that at the London Film Festival.  It hasn't left that much of an impression, but I think I found the storyline frustrating although it looked great.

Philly_Q

Philly_Q said:

The Queen of Black Magic (2019)

Indonesian horror about three men who return, with their families, to the orphanage where they were brought up, only to find an evil spirit is waiting to take revenge for events 25 years earlier... It's a remake of a film from the 1980s, which I haven't seen.  Yet. 

(on Shudder)  

The Queen of Black Magic (1981)

Turns out the film I saw last week wasn't so much a remake as a sort of "tribute" - both films feature a wronged woman named Murni taking revenge through witchcraft, but the plots are very different.  This feels older than early-'80s, the budget must have been tiny but it's quite good fun.

BillDL

A 2009 movie called "Harry Brown" starring Michael Caine has been doing its rounds on very late night / early hours terrestrial Freeview channels.  I must have seen it a couple of years after its release and would never have remembered its title.  I think it's an excellent film.  The British version of Death Wish, but in more realistic conditions.

Brio

Uncharted.
I loved it. Totally over the top silliness. i liked the three leads and felt no need to wonder why things where happening. Never played any of the games but you can see thingsthat must have been inspired by them.
They seem pretty confident there'll be a sequel. 
8.5 out of 10 for the switch brain off and enjoy vibe.

skullfunkerry

Last night I watched Pig. I've got to be honest, when I first read about it, in thought it was a joke. It was really good though: Nicholas Cage was excellent, and although you could distil it down to a very bare-bones plot, it kept me engrossed throughout, and it's really stayed in my head too; I keep thinking about it. Definitely a 9/10.

LastMantra

Anyone seen studio 666? I watched the trailer and it looked kind of fun, it's about £13 to rent on prime though.

LastMantra

CBGB 

Was alright, probably worth a watch if your into that New York punk scene.

CaseOfAce

DrCornelius said:

CaseOfAce said:

The Unbearable weight of massive talent.

Man... I so wanted this to be good BUT.. let down by the script. Maybe it'll grow on me but... the best / funniest bits are all in the trailer. What a missed opportunity - I wish the script writer off of first Deadpool could have been let loose on this. 
The CIA / McGuffin sub plot thing goes nowhere and Sharon Horgan is completely miscast as Cage's ex-wife and given zilch to do with her character / lines...

Just goes to show how different we all see things - I just got back from watching it and the Mrs and I were pissing ourselves all the way through it.

hey- comedy's subjective - one man's meat is another man's etc...

I still think the best comedy Cage has ever done is the Wicker Man remake - it's absolutely brilliant. Much like A Clockwork Orange once you realise they're playing it for laughs it all makes sense...

rze99

Joker 2019

Late to this one. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a loser in Gotham City, living with his ill Mum alone in a grim block of flats. He has a job being a clown and has delusions of being a stand up comic.  He is on 13 types of medication as well as therapy and the system that supports him gets closed down at the same time he is beaten up by some kids and then loses his job. It all goes downhill from there and gets grim.

I'm not a fan of any of the Marvel stuff especially and don't have any affection for the genre, but had heard good things about the film, and the performance. All right, it's strong visually with a hugely impressive lead performance, but didn't really believe in where it went and the whole social movement of clowns, etc.  Fairly grim watch with little trace of hope, it was a bit hard work to stay on board. It's well done, but I couldn't recommend it.

6/10

stufisher

Usual array of pants choices on Freeview TV guide ... and I'm about to bin Netflix as I've seen so much crap that I've reached tipping point (killed off Prime last week) ... so I've stuck on Who Dares Wins (1982) as I've not seen it in decades.
I've just read through the trivia and stories associated with the film and there's a bucket-load of interesting stuff I knew nowt about.

Link to IMDB entry here for anyone that's interested:

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0083941/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

The film is dated now but it's still watchable and certainly better than Cap'n Metrics or plotless CGI part 53