What films have you watched recently?

Philly_Q

Haych said:

Philly_Q said:

Haych said:

Under Paris

.....   And it’s dubbed. Half the time it looks like they used AI to sync the dialogue and you don’t notice, but the budget obviously wasn’t that large to cover the entire movie. 

@Haych I didn't notice the dubbing issue.  Were you watching in French or English?

@Philly_Q t’was English. 

Ah!  Then no wonder.  'Tis a French film.

DrCornelius

equalsql said:

The Waterboy (1998)

Oh dear, oh dear. Honestly I have no words to really describe just how bad this film is.
I didn't think it would even be possible to make such a shyte piece of cinema.
The 'humour' is pathetically juvenile, I can't believe that an actor even as bad as Adam Sandler would have touched this turd. The script must have been written by a couple of 9 nine year old lads who had broken into their parent's liquor cabinet and got wasted on the contents.

Appalling.

-10/10

I’d give it 8 out of 10 as I like puerile humour . That brings its average score up to a solid -2

Philly_Q

Bodies Bodies Bodies (Netflix)

A group of spoiled, twenty-something rich kids, plus a couple of significant others, get together for a weekend party.  There's a storm, the power goes out, they're plunged into darkness, without phone reception... then one of their number dies violently.  The rest start to bicker and fight amongst themselves, all suspecting each other of murder.

Essentially a variation on the old Agatha Christie And Then There Were None story, this has an attractive young cast, decent performances and a nice visual style... the dialogue is heavy with satire of Gen Zers, their attitudes, insecurities and dependence on technology.  That latter, black comedy aspect didn't totally work for me, but this is mostly pretty good.

Grangousier

Watched Hit Man on Netflix. Lovely film, despite the murders - a comedy rather than a film noir. Glen Powell and Adria Arjona are great. 

fretmeister

A very odd film.

Elvis is in a care home with his black friend, former president JF Kennedy…

Amazingly low budget, only watchable because of Bruce Campbell.

Haych

The Contractor

Chris Pine is discharged from the army without pension and benefits so takes a job as a private security contractor running shady missions for the sake of “national security”. 

In his first job it all goes wrong and after offing his target his team is ambushed by local police. Two of his team are killed and he and his remaining team member are injured. 

After splitting up he tries to call in an extraction but instead his employer sends a kill team. 

Quite predictable but not especially poor. Not a massive amount of substance and The Bourne Identity it isn’t, but still watchable. 

6/10

skullfunkerry

Haych said:

Under Paris

Somehow this is number one in Netflix films and has been getting rave reviews. This won’t be one of them. 

A giant Mako shark has found its way to the river Seine and is living in the catacombs below Paris a couple of weeks before a massive triathlon event is due to start. 

A bunch of activists want to save it, the main protagonist, who resembles a young Cliff Richards and whose entire team was wiped out by the same shark by sheer coincidence three years earlier in the pacific, wants to destroy it. 

The triathlon organisers and politicians want to ignore it.  

Oh yeah, and the shark is magically able to reproduce without mating so there are hundreds of its offspring also in the river. 

To be blunt, it’s utter bollocks. It takes half the runtime to get started and the last half of the runtime for everything to predictably go wrong. 

The acting is terrible, the plot laughable and there are enough loopholes in it to knit a sweater. 

And it’s dubbed. Half the time it looks like they used AI to sync the dialogue and you don’t notice, but the budget obviously wasn’t that large to cover the entire movie. 

Save yourself and don’t bother. 

I watched it on Friday night and loved it tbh... it was atrocious, but hilariously so. Utter bollocks, but a good fun evening was had by both of us

boogieman

Snatch. Somehow I’d never seen this. Typical Guy Ritchie fodder with a tangled plot full of comedy villains. Very violent and sweary. I watched it with subtitles which helped to decode Brad Pitt’s mangled accent. Some laugh out loud moments among all the blood and guts and it moves along at a decent pace so the 2 hour running time passes quickly. I liked it. 8/10. 

EricTheWeary

The Phantom of the Open. 

BBC/iPlayer

The (true) story of Maurice Flitcroft ‘the world’s worst golfer’ from Barrow. Comedy of the heartwarming type but very funny at times. A few swear words otherwise would be suitable for family viewing. 

Offset

fretmeister said:

A very odd film.

Elvis is in a care home with his black friend, former president JF Kennedy…

Amazingly low budget, only watchable because of Bruce Campbell.

It's brilliant!  One of my faves.

Haych

Hit Man (Netflix)

Loosely based on true events, although sexed up for the sake of the film although this is readily acknowledged by the filmmakers.

Follows the career of Gary Johnson, a nondescript psychology professor who works part time with the New Orleans Police Department and who discovers he has a knack for playing a fake gun for hire.  His role is to basically entrap potential clients into hiring him and then have them arrested for soliciting a murder when the deal is done.

One client causes him to become too involved and his life becomes quite complicated quite quickly.

I really enjoyed this film, it's really good fun.

There is a caveat, though.  It takes a long time to get going and too much time is spent on Gary's backstory and the various characters he creates when tailoring a hired assassin for a client.  It's ok but adds very little to the story.

Thus the runtime is almost two hours and it feels over long.

Other than that, when it does get going, it is quite good fun to watch.

7/10

sinbaadi

Damsel. 2024

Another Netflix original, this one with Millie Bobby Brown in the lead role.  

A dark fairy tale about an arranged marriage.  Don't watch the trailer if you fancy it.

We thought it was good but it's a little predictable. 

7/10

Philly_Q

Walden (Amazon Prime)

Walden Dean (Emile Hirsch) is a solitary, mildly eccentric, youngish man obsessed with his job as a court stenographer in a small Georgia town.  When he starts behaving erratically he's diagnosed with a potentially serious medical condition, but brushes it off... then he starts thinking about some of the cases passing through the court and decides to take the law into his own hands...

I think it would be pushing it to recommend this as a "good" film.  The tone varies wildly from near-camp, to black comedy, to really quite dark; various sub-plots develop then fizzle out, whilst others appear from nowhere.  It feels almost more like a pilot for a TV series than a self-contained film.  But despite all that, I liked the characters and really enjoyed it.  It worked for me.

Timcito

Tom Brown's Schooldays (made-for-TV film, 2005). I saw this when it was made back in England and re-watched it over the weekend. It stars Stephen Fry as Dr. Arnold and Alex Pettyfer as Tom. I liked it a lot, and the ending is particularly moving. The character of George Arthur is introduced as a pure but fragile soul of beauty who takes on a kind of angelic significance with regard to Tom. Through Arthur, Tom achieves redemption like a classical hero rising up from the underworld, which in this case is the squalor and vice of Rugby School.  

sinbaadi

Air.  2023
On Prime at the moment.

Story of Nike pursuing a young Michael Jordan. 

Interesting story well told, light-hearted. 

Matt Damon, Ben Affleck situation. 

7/10

Philly_Q

Boys from County Hell (Amazon Prime)

Irish vampire movie.  In look and style it's fairly reminiscent of Grabbers, but it's neither as good nor as funny.  Not worth the £3.49.

bobblehat

Meg 2 - The Trench   - Statham with big sharks , what's not to love. Complete nonsense 9/10 

Jfingers

Prey - Disney +

Prequel to the Predator franchise. It was alright. Not to damn it it with faint praise, we enjoyed it well enough.

Not prepared to score it because then I would have to score the various sections.

SteveRobinson

Handsome_Chris said:

Mindhorn. 10 out of 10

Excellent Brit comedy that hits in all the right places if you like your comedy in the Alan Partridge vain. 

It genuinely is a good going romp.

Watched this ridiculous film tonight.

I agree with Chris.

AlbertC

Anatomy of a Fall on Prime

A French film but a lot of it is in English dialogue. 

It’s a hard one to put my finger on. It’s pretty much a did-she-or-didn’t-she courtroom drama about a suspicious death but it somehow seemed to be trying to say something more, though I’m not sure what exactly . At 2 hours 30 minutes it’s long and doesn’t always move that fast. It’s pretty good but I’m not going to sing its praises too highly. Maybe 6/10