What films have you watched recently?

axisus

Had a girly evening and sat through Love Actually for the first time in years. Rather enjoyed it. Hugh Grant is charming as PM, I liked his storyline. I like the Colin Firth one with the foreign girl. Bill Nighy is brilliant as always, Kiera Knightley looks drop dead gorgeous. The one bit I find tough is when Emma Thompson finds out about her husbands 'almost' affair (excellent Alan Rickman). I literally can't watch that bit, I feel so sad for her. I always say that I have too much empathy. 

OK, don't need to see it again for another decade ...

Chuffola

I was planning to watch both knifes out films today 

First one is very good - definitely watch that.

Zoolooter

Glass Onion - couldn’t get past the first half hour. Someone else mentioned tedious, which sums it up perfectly. Lacks the class of the first film.

LastMantra

Chuffola said:

I was planning to watch both knifes out films today 

First one is very good - definitely watch that.

OK, cool, thanks. 

It must have passed me by as I only noticed it when looking at the new one. 

chris_john

Haych said:

Lethal Weapon. Mandatory viewing this time of year, as is Die Hard, which will be watched quite soon. 

Never too old for that shit.

chris_john

Watched both Knives Out movies back to back. The first one was far superior, but the sequel was still watchable.

Handsome_Chris

axisus said:

Had a girly evening and sat through Love Actually for the first time in years. Rather enjoyed it. Hugh Grant is charming as PM, I liked his storyline. I like the Colin Firth one with the foreign girl. Bill Nighy is brilliant as always, Kiera Knightley looks drop dead gorgeous. The one bit I find tough is when Emma Thompson finds out about her husbands 'almost' affair (excellent Alan Rickman). I literally can't watch that bit, I feel so sad for her. I always say that I have too much empathy. 

OK, don't need to see it again for another decade ...

Love Actually is a great film, it teaches us that being male, middle class and white makes you a god.  Andrew Lincoln's character's stalking of Kiera Knightly character leads to an attempt to split up a multiracial marriage, which is apparently the true meaning of love at Christmas.  Also it shows that even though Emma Thompson's character know's that her husband is cheating on her, she is trained well enough to know that as a second class citizen she has to accept what her husband does. 

These are beliefs that I have issues with.

Stratavarious

Small Soldiers

Gremlins with action figures..  OK, silly entertainment if with kids.  6/10

Grangousier

The Master and Margarita

"Anushka has already bought the sunflower oil."

I read the book a long, long time ago, and it is quite amazing. I don't remember whether I already knew that Alan Moore had nicked the sunflower oil gag for Swamp Thing. The other thing was that I'd seen an adaptation on Channel 4 during the 80s of all the Yeshua Ha-Nozri and Pilate bits, so I recognised those. It made the experience all the stranger. 

I rather enjoyed Glass Onion pretty much all the way through and didn't think it was slow at all. It was quite different from Knives Out, but then I think it was supposed to be. It was nice to see Blanc coming to the conclusion that this tech bro who's supposed to be a genius is in fact an idiot at the same time as we're working out the same thing about Elon Musk. 

axisus

Handsome_Chris said:

axisus said:

Had a girly evening and sat through Love Actually for the first time in years. Rather enjoyed it. Hugh Grant is charming as PM, I liked his storyline. I like the Colin Firth one with the foreign girl. Bill Nighy is brilliant as always, Kiera Knightley looks drop dead gorgeous. The one bit I find tough is when Emma Thompson finds out about her husbands 'almost' affair (excellent Alan Rickman). I literally can't watch that bit, I feel so sad for her. I always say that I have too much empathy. 

OK, don't need to see it again for another decade ...

Love Actually is a great film, it teaches us that being male, middle class and white makes you a god.  Andrew Lincoln's character's stalking of Kiera Knightly character leads to an attempt to split up a multiracial marriage, which is apparently the true meaning of love at Christmas.  Also it shows that even though Emma Thompson's character know's that her husband is cheating on her, she is trained well enough to know that as a second class citizen she has to accept what her husband does. 

These are beliefs that I have issues with.

I don’t agree with your cynical appraisal at all but hey, you are entitled to your opinion. I think you misread both themes personally.

Stratavarious

axisus said:

Handsome_Chris said:

axisus said:

Had a girly evening and sat through Love Actually for the first time in years. Rather enjoyed it. Hugh Grant is charming as PM, I liked his storyline. I like the Colin Firth one with the foreign girl. Bill Nighy is brilliant as always, Kiera Knightley looks drop dead gorgeous. The one bit I find tough is when Emma Thompson finds out about her husbands 'almost' affair (excellent Alan Rickman). I literally can't watch that bit, I feel so sad for her. I always say that I have too much empathy. 

OK, don't need to see it again for another decade ...

Love Actually is a great film, it teaches us that being male, middle class and white makes you a god.  Andrew Lincoln's character's stalking of Kiera Knightly character leads to an attempt to split up a multiracial marriage, which is apparently the true meaning of love at Christmas.  Also it shows that even though Emma Thompson's character know's that her husband is cheating on her, she is trained well enough to know that as a second class citizen she has to accept what her husband does. 

These are beliefs that I have issues with.

I don’t agree with your cynical appraisal at all but hey, you are entitled to your opinion. I think you misread both themes personally.

Interestingly, the director has changed his views on it and would do it differently.

SPECTRUM001

Mothering Sunday - Eva Husson (2021), Netflix

An elegant and ponderous film charting the life of a young maid in post First World War Thames Valley. Thoughtful acting from Odessa Young in the lead, supported by Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Olivia Colman and Glenda Jackson.

An art house film with a sensitive, relaxing and provocative atmosphere. Gorgeous cinematography, and a feeling of time well spent.

Not much happens, yet quite a lot happens. 

9/10

axisus

I sat through the thee Hobbit films with one of my daughters, the first time I have seen them since the cinema release. My recollection was that I was slightly unsatisfied at the time of release, lots of pointless stuff added that wasn't in the books, Legolas (why was he even there??) looking considerably older! Bilbo's significance pointlessly lessened etc. However, I saw the whole thing with new eyes this time, and it's an epic set of films. The story is fantastic, and the casting is quite brilliant. Ian McKellen was born to play Gandalf, but for me top billing goes to Richard Armitage as Thorin. An incredibly powerful performance that far exceeded the character in the book. Other superb actors - Ken Stott as Balin, Martin Freeman as Bilbo, Aidan Turner and Dean O'Gorman as Kili & Fili, Lee Pace as Thranduil, Luke Evans as Bard, and many others with lesser roles who absolutely looked the part.

So for me, my new score would be 9.5/10

Next up the extended Lord of the rings. I've never seen the longer cut.

Haych

Layer Cake (Netflix)

Gut Ritchie wannabe, and not terribly bad for it, about a middle man in the underground drug supply chain who wants to retire but is given a last minute assignment from his supplier that scuppers all his plans.  Hell, who am I kidding, I'm sure everyone here has seen it.

Daniel Craig is typically pouty but very good in the lead role and the cast of supporting characters are also quite perfect.

Quite sweary and violent, as one would expect for a film of its type and topic.  I quite enjoyed it despite that.

8/10

Stratavarious

Flash Gordon (1980)

Camp, crazy cinematic masterpiece. 

10/10

ICBM

JoJo Rabbit

Satirical black comedy about a Hitler Youth boy with an imaginary friend… Adolf Hitler.

I missed this when it came out, partly because of some mixed reviews, and it wasn’t in cinemas for long. And I can perhaps understand why some people didn’t like it.

But in my opinion it’s a work of genius. Clever, darkly funny, tragic and uplifting all at the same time.

10/10

(Disney+)

Haych

Paul

Revisited because my teenage daughter wanted to watch something with dad, and she chose Paul.  Seen it before too many times to have the full effect of experiencing the story and humour for the first time, but it's been long enough that it was still good, if a little bit rude, entertainment.

Well written, a quality cast, some good jokes and on the whole a decent film.  The bit at the end where Sigourney Weaver gets squished by the alien ship landing had the lass in stitches, and that set me off too.

Enjoyed it more for having some time, just she and I, with my #1 girl but a good 7/10

Netflix

hollywoodrox

https://youtu.be/TIXuN9DOyA0

axisus

Stratavarious said:

Flash Gordon (1980)

Camp, crazy cinematic masterpiece. 

10/10

I love that film! Yes the hawk men wings are embarrassingly poor, but it just a lot of daft fun. As a teen I was mesmerised by Ornella Muti in pink spandex!

Offset

axisus said:

Had a girly evening and sat through Love Actually for the first time in years. Rather enjoyed it. Hugh Grant is charming as PM, I liked his storyline. I like the Colin Firth one with the foreign girl. Bill Nighy is brilliant as always, Kiera Knightley looks drop dead gorgeous. The one bit I find tough is when Emma Thompson finds out about her husbands 'almost' affair (excellent Alan Rickman). I literally can't watch that bit, I feel so sad for her. I always say that I have too much empathy. 

OK, don't need to see it again for another decade ...

I endured it for the first time with the girls.  Absolute tripe.  Totally unbelievable.  Waste of a great cast.  Sentimental rubbish with a laughable world-view.

I don't need to see it again, ever.