What films have you watched recently?

rze99

axisus said:

I watched Twelve monkeys again. Such a great film. Bruce Willis is superb and it's a very good story. It has a strange ambiguous ending, but I suppose that's typical Terry Gilliam. For me the one bit that jars a little is the future world scientists, who are like ridiculous caricatures, but once again, typical Gilliam. 8.5/10 even on repeated viewings.

Was Sir Chris Whitty in it?

breakstuff

axisus said:

breakstuff said:

I'm currently working my way through the Alien movies and have got up to number three.

My god, I'd forgotten what a stinking pile of dog tod it is. Shonky acting, even worse special effects and zero tension. Been a while since I watched Resurrection and can't really remember it, so hoping it's a marked improvement. Not holding my breath though.

Alien 3 really was terribly poor. The one after is better, but I think that Alien is all about the first two films.

Watched Resurrection now, and yes, marginally better, but still not a patch on the first two. 

axisus

goldtop said:

Haych said:

Aliens was a great sequel. 

Indeed it was. It managed to ratchet up the scariness, despite us already knowing what the alien looked like and how it killed.

The conceptual scariness was greatly weakened. They introduced a mother that could feel fear, and fear for it's offspring (er, hoping I'm remembering correctly, not seen it for decades). That is retrogressive compared to the unstoppable killing machine of the original alien. 

boogieman

The Alien franchise was always going to suffer from the law of diminishing returns. We already knew what the alien looked like, how it behaved and that it was going to jump out of the woodwork at some point. The original was a complete shock, never to be repeated, but it was also beautifully filmed and had a great sense of claustrophobia. 

Having said that, Aliens was still a decent film. Unlike the utter pile of shite that is Prometheus. 

Offset

boogieman said:

The Alien franchise was always going to suffer from the law of diminishing returns. We already knew what the alien looked like, how it behaved and that it was going to jump out of the woodwork at some point. The original was a complete shock, never to be repeated, but it was also beautifully filmed and had a great sense of claustrophobia. 

Having said that, Aliens was still a decent film. Unlike the utter pile of shite that is Prometheus. 

I saw Prometheus at the cinema.  It looked fantastic, but some of the plot holes were so large you could drive a truck through them. Yet despite that - plus some dubious casting (Idris, I'm looking at you) - I've probably re-watched it at least half a dozen times.  Fassbender was great.

Covenant, on the other hand, I've only watched the once.  I thought it was awful - in fact I liked it less than Alien 3.

Haych

axisus said:

goldtop said:

Haych said:

Aliens was a great sequel. 

Indeed it was. It managed to ratchet up the scariness, despite us already knowing what the alien looked like and how it killed.

The conceptual scariness was greatly weakened. They introduced a mother that could feel fear, and fear for its offspring (er, hoping I'm remembering correctly, not seen it for decades). That is retrogressive compared to the unstoppable killing machine of the original alien. 

I didn't see it like that.  The alien queen was a good idea, but it feeling fear never really came into it for me.  It was rather a base instinct to protect her hive, and outright rage that she should be threatened by Ripley, who would be prey under any other circumstance.

I haven't seen A3 for many years, I didn't enjoy it.  I recall even Geiger saying he hated it.  I've also never seen AR, but have always wanted to, I don't know why I haven't, they're all on Disney + at the moment so maybe I need to correct that.

Prometheus was ok-ish, it worked as a film in its own right and should be seen as that - as soon as you connect it to the Alien story it loses something.  Covenant was awful.  A lot of the appeal of the Alien story was that the xenomorph origin was left to the viewer to decide, Alien posed so many questions and they should have been left as questions rather than having a bunch of prequels to explain it.

Are they done yet, or are we expecting more?

axisus

Actually I'm going to put my hand up as someone who enjoyed Prometheus. Visually great, interesting story, cast OK. The MAJOR issue was pretending that it came before Alien. How thick are the director/producers to think you can say that then modernise all the technology!?!? If it predates Alien then everything needed to be 70s style computers etc. Anyway, I just see it as a standalone film that's a bit of sci-fi fun. 

Offset

AUX (2017)

Where to start... this is a British horror/action movie shot on a pretty small budget.  It starts very unpromisingly - two teenage kids discover an underground WW2 bunker which contains Something Nasty.  The acting sets the tone for most of what is to follow and it all looks very low-rent.

Things continue in this vein, but a couple of genuinely scary moments lull you into a false sense of hope.  And for some reason, John Rhys-Davies steps into the plot and lends it some much-needed...well, I was going to say 'gravitas' but that would be grossly over-stating it.

Some inexplicably dumb-arsed actions from minor protagonists litter the film and the plot is completely unbelievable even given the genre.  If you then factor in the crap acting (JRD honorably excepted even given the lines he had to deliver), the laughable dialogue (JRD's conversation with an injured black female soldier is priceless) and the incredibly ridiculous ending... well...

For reasons I can't fathom, I stuck with this to the end.  Its sheer awfulness meant it wasn't actually boring - when something is this crap it assumes a car-crash-like quality and you can't tear your eyes away.

1.5/10.

Offset

Last Sentinel (2023)

Really, really, really boring.  So boring in fact I really couldn't put myself through the misery of recollecting any of it here.

Production values were OK, but that's about it.  I'm choosing some stinkers at the moment!

1/10

boogieman

Haych said:

axisus said:

goldtop said:

Haych said:

Aliens was a great sequel. 

Indeed it was. It managed to ratchet up the scariness, despite us already knowing what the alien looked like and how it killed.

The conceptual scariness was greatly weakened. They introduced a mother that could feel fear, and fear for its offspring (er, hoping I'm remembering correctly, not seen it for decades). That is retrogressive compared to the unstoppable killing machine of the original alien. 

I didn't see it like that.  The alien queen was a good idea, but it feeling fear never really came into it for me.  It was rather a base instinct to protect her hive, and outright rage that she should be threatened by Ripley, who would be prey under any other circumstance.

I haven't seen A3 for many years, I didn't enjoy it.  I recall even Geiger saying he hated it.  I've also never seen AR, but have always wanted to, I don't know why I haven't, they're all on Disney + at the moment so maybe I need to correct that.

Prometheus was ok-ish, it worked as a film in its own right and should be seen as that - as soon as you connect it to the Alien story it loses something.  Covenant was awful.  A lot of the appeal of the Alien story was that the xenomorph origin was left to the viewer to decide, Alien posed so many questions and they should have been left as questions rather than having a bunch of prequels to explain it.

Are they done yet, or are we expecting more?

There’s at least one more sequel/prequel to follow apparently with Ridley Scott onboard somewhere on the production side. There’s also rumours of a tv series in the pipeline. 

Philly_Q

@Offset thanks for trying to fight off the drift towards this becoming "the Alien thread".

(And I know I'm as guilty as anyone of sending many a thread off topic.)

Offset

Philly_Q said:

@Offset thanks for trying to fight off the drift towards this becoming "the Alien thread".

(And I know I'm as guilty as anyone of sending many a thread off topic.)

I paid a heavy price 

chillidoggy

Offset said:

Last Sentinel (2023)

Really, really, really boring.  So boring in fact I really couldn't put myself through the misery of recollecting any of it here.

Production values were OK, but that's about it.  I'm choosing some stinkers at the moment!

1/10

Conversely, I was totally hooked by it. B-movie, yes, but a solid 8/10 from me. 

Philly_Q

Offset said:

Last Sentinel (2023)

Really, really, really boring.  So boring in fact I really couldn't put myself through the misery of recollecting any of it here.

Production values were OK, but that's about it.  I'm choosing some stinkers at the moment!

1/10

Normally I'd be tempted to watch it, but I looked at the cast and plot synopsis and thought god, everything here says boring... I mean I like Olga Kurylenko, she's been in some decent films.  But she's also been in a lot of shite.  And the rest of them, well...

rze99

Significant Other

2022 sci-horror movie / meditation on love and pain. Netflix. 

A couple with some relationship issues go on a hiking trip in the wilds of Oregon and begin to encounter sinister forces.
Starts out with some lost in the woods cliches, then gets pretty trippy and goes places you don't expect.
Quirky, low-fi, odd and quite fun at times.
6/10  

breakstuff

The Fly - Still brilliant nearly forty years later. Why can't they make horror films like that nowadays.
The scene at the end where Brundlefly holds the shotgun to its head is utterly heartbreaking.

One thing that struck me though having not watched it for a few years, is that in this era of movies largely spanning two to three hours long, The Fly does seem rather rushed, being on an hour and a half long. Not a criticism though, just an observation.

JEM

Ha! - deleted when I saw ICBM had made exactly the same comment.

Jfingers

12 Mighty Orphans - Netflix

"During the Great Depression, an American football coach starts training a team of orphaned teenagers for a state championship. However, he must deal with the disapproval of the orphanage manager."

Based on a true story, I found it quite moving. Basically a classic underdog comes good story. 7.5/10.

JEM

goldtop said:

Haych said:

Aliens was a great sequel. 

Indeed it was. It managed to ratchet up the scariness, despite us already knowing what the alien looked like and how it killed.

But where Alien had been an incredibly atmospheric, tense horror film, Aliens was an all out action movie. It's not a bad film but it's not to my taste and I don't consider it to be a patch on original.

The same applies to a lesser extent to Terminator.

* oops, apologies for dragging this back to being "the Alien thread"

Longtallronnie

Offset said:

Last Sentinel (2023)

Really, really, really boring.  So boring in fact I really couldn't put myself through the misery of recollecting any of it here.

Production values were OK, but that's about it.  I'm choosing some stinkers at the moment!

1/10

I watched that recently, purely based on the use of the Maunsel (sp?) Sea Forts on the cover art. 

Yeah, pretty shit!