What films have you watched recently?

Offset

Haych said:

Superintelligence (Prime)

A super-intelligent AI, voiced by James Corden

Your first four words were filled with promise.  And then...

Haych

Offset said:

Haych said:

Superintelligence (Prime)

A super-intelligent AI, voiced by James Corden

Your first four words were filled with promise.  And then...

I know, it didn't blow my skirt up either, but it is what it is, unfortunately.

Kalimna

Watched the first Zombieland with my near-13 year old last night. A truly ridiculous Zombie-fest with a similar style (in places) to Deadpool. It is also damn good fun, and a Zombie Bill Murray is always going to be worth watching.
Some interesting Zombie despatching, soundtrack, and 4 leads clearly enjoying themselves.
Switch your brain off fun, 8/10

Hurling_Fruitmig

I dragged myself to an actual cinema to see Have you got it yet?, a film documenting the life and work of Syd Barrett and his role in the British psychedelic movement. It covered a lot of old ground, but also debunked a few myths, and introduced some new images and film of Syd, Pink Floyd MK1, and life in 60s London and Cambridge.

It was equal parts informative, uplifting, and sad especially when the ‘in memoriam’ section at the end reminded you how many of the interviewees had died since work on it began over a decade ago. It also felt like it had been partly conceived by co-director Storm Thorgerson as an opportunity to say goodbye to a lot of old friends.

LastMantra

Interesting that syd had a band called "the megadeaths" . 

BigBearKris

"Still: A Micheal J. Fox story" (2023).

Funny, well presented and very inspirational. He's such an interesting person to listen to, open and kind. I liked it.

7.1/10

rze99

Moonage Daydream

Documentary 2022 Netflix. 

Superb transporting Bowie mashup documentary combining live performances interview segments and stills many of which I’d never seen before. 

And… what a soundtrack! 

Wonderful and highly recommended. Use the biggest screen and best sound you can. 

10/10 

Philly_Q

Phenomena (1985)

A teenage girl with a mysterious power over insects investigates a series of brutal murders in Switzerland, with the help of a paraplegic entomologist and an extremely intelligent chimpanzee...

I've seen this film several times, in various versions and at least twice on a big screen, but for some reason seeing this new restoration (in Italian) completely blew me away.  It's utterly bonkers and makes not a jot of sense, but it's totally gripping from beginning to end, 14 year old Jennifer Connelly commands the screen (although the chimp's performance is amazing), and even when specific moments are laughable - which they frequently are - the film is still completely brilliant.

I don't know what it is about the films Dario Argento made between 1974 and 1987, but there is some kind of magic about them which other filmmakers don't have (and which he, sadly, lost long ago).  They're incredible.  I was absolutely buzzing after watching this.

Brio

To Catch A Killer 2023
Baltimore. New Year's Eve. A talented but troubled police officer (Shailene Woodley) is recruited by the FBI's chief investigator (Ben Mendelsohn) to help profile and track down a disturbed individual terrorizing the city.
I liked it. Moves well and nothing too glaringly unrealistic.
I like Ben Mendelsohn so that helps.
A solid 7/10.

SteveRobinson

Happy New Year, Colin Burstead (2018) iPlayer

I didn't enjoy this film. There's no plot to speak of and a lot of the dialogue is indistinct. 

Offset

Philly_Q said:

Phenomena (1985)

A teenage girl with a mysterious power over insects investigates a series of brutal murders in Switzerland, with the help of a paraplegic entomologist and an extremely intelligent chimpanzee...

I've never read a film synopsis that's made me 100% determined to watch said film at the earliest available opportunity.

* EDIT - and what a soundtrack!

jonnyburgo

Evil Dead Rise, I'm a big fan of the originals and rated the 2013 remake, this one was not great, fairly standard and lacked some of the crazy inventiveness and energy if the 80s classics. Aah well...

Philly_Q

Offset said:

Philly_Q said:

Phenomena (1985)

A teenage girl with a mysterious power over insects investigates a series of brutal murders in Switzerland, with the help of a paraplegic entomologist and an extremely intelligent chimpanzee...

I've never read a film synopsis that's made me 100% determined to watch said film at the earliest available opportunity.

* EDIT - and what a soundtrack!

Don't blame me if you don't like it!

jonnyburgo

Philly_Q said:

Offset said:

Philly_Q said:

Phenomena (1985)

A teenage girl with a mysterious power over insects investigates a series of brutal murders in Switzerland, with the help of a paraplegic entomologist and an extremely intelligent chimpanzee...

I've never read a film synopsis that's made me 100% determined to watch said film at the earliest available opportunity.

* EDIT - and what a soundtrack!

Don't blame me if you don't like it!

I saw that in its 80s incarnation as Creepers back in the day, it was probably cut to ribbons by the BBFC

JezWynd

rze99 said:

Elvis 

2022

The movie is really about Tom Parker's obsessive control of Elvis spanning over 20 years. It's told in a cartoonish gaudy dizzying strip type style over essentially three acts. The main characters are thinly drawn and reduced and the other key individuals hardly represented e.g. Pricilla get about 5 lines. Dialogue is impoverished and the music only at times worthwhile. There's some good acting in there and It's entertaining but not at all rewarding. 
Not recommended
5/10

Yes, agreed. Although the montage early in the movie where Elvis discovers/invents R'nR is a dazzling piece of filmmaking but after that it's all downhill and Hanks in a fatsuit has seldom been more miscast.

Brio said:

Ford vs Ferrari annoyed me by missing this:

"As project engineers, they chose Eric Broadley, whose Lola GT was considered groundbreaking, and John Wyer, who had won Le Mans with Carroll Shelby driving for Aston Martin as the race manager. This established a four-pronged team with Lunn and Broadley designing and building the cars, Wyer establishing the race team and Shelby acting as the front man in Europe. With ten months until the 1964 race, a workshop was established in Broadley’s garage in Bromley, south of London. But when established as Ford Advanced Vehicles moved the operations to Slough."

That is from Ford's history of the GT40.

Sexy chrome cars shining in the sun and Slough somehow don't work; you can see why they simplified the story, though, yeah, it's always annoying when history is bent to suit the format.

My vampire choice - For camp it has to be The Fearless Vampire Killers.

LastMantra

Agent Elvis is good! 

Philly_Q

jonnyburgo said:

Philly_Q said:

Offset said:

Philly_Q said:

Phenomena (1985)

A teenage girl with a mysterious power over insects investigates a series of brutal murders in Switzerland, with the help of a paraplegic entomologist and an extremely intelligent chimpanzee...

I've never read a film synopsis that's made me 100% determined to watch said film at the earliest available opportunity.

* EDIT - and what a soundtrack!

Don't blame me if you don't like it!

I saw that in its 80s incarnation as Creepers back in the day, it was probably cut to ribbons by the BBFC

The Creepers version is drastically cut.  The original Italian version of Phenomena was 116 minutes, the international version was 110 minutes... Creepers was 83 minutes!  Over half an hour of cuts.  Of course that wasn't censorship, it was heavily edited for US release and in the UK we got that truncated version.

That said, when Arrow released it on 4K last year I bought the version with the Creepers cover art, for nostalgic reasons!  The recent 4K and Blu-ray sets from Arrow include all three versions of the film.

SPECTRUM001

The Whole Truth (2016).

Classic Film Noir staring Keanu Reeves and Renee Zellwegger. 

Nothing groundbreaking, but watchable nonetheless. Some twists and turns, and typically awful Keanu acting.

Thoroughly enjoyed it !

6/10

Philly_Q

I won't waffle on like I did about Phenomena, but three more Dario Argento films today.  From the ridiculous to the sublime...

The Phantom of the Opera (1998)
Casting handsome, long-haired Julian Sands as a non-deformed Phantom was an interesting idea...he looks like an elf from LOTR or a member of a symphonic metal band.  The Phantom is given a Tarzan-like origin story, although he's raised by sewer rats rather than apes.  The film is not quite as bad as I remembered - the sets and costumes look good, at least.  But it's hampered by some awful CGI, the "comedy" is mostly excruciating, the gore and sex scenes feel like filler... worst of all it's totally lacking in drama and excitement.

Suspiria (1977)
Argento's masterpiece.  I've seen it umpteen times and it just keeps getting better.  Completely mad, completely brilliant.  Seeing it in Italian was a bit of a novelty.

Inferno (1980)
The sequel (of sorts) to Suspiria is set mostly in New York.  I tried hard to pay attention in order to make sense of the ideas, and succeeded to some extent.  However, whereas Suspiria doesn't really have a plot but seems like it has... Inferno basically hasn't got one at all.  Second-tier Argento, but very entertaining nevertheless.  The Keith Emerson score is pretty good too.

ICBM

Priest Of Love

1981 drama about the last years of D.H. Lawrence, with Ian McKellen as Lawrence, Janet Suzman, Ava Gardner, John Gielgud and Penelope Keith.

From the cast I was expecting it to be fantastic, but it’s really quite ordinary even allowing for looking a bit old-fashioned now, with the remarkable exception of the opening sequence (naked men swimming!) - McKellen and Suzman are pretty good, Gardner isn’t bad, but the rest of the cast are two-dimensional and caricatured, even Keith and Gielgud. Good location photography, especially in Italy - but overall it’s not a very deep or revealing film and I didn’t get any sense of what really inspired Lawrence.

6/10

(Netflix)

Also there’s a problem with the frame rate, fast motion sequences ‘stutter’ annoyingly which doesn’t help.