What films have you watched recently?

Keiko

Ghostbusters - Frozen Empire now it's more sensibly priced, £2 on amazon prime. I know a lot of people think it's crap, but I mostly enjoyed it, a solid 6.5 from me. Weak ending, and some potentially good ideas that went nowhere. I would put it above ghostbusters 2 but below ghostbusters 1. Not as bad as some people have been making out.

Offset

Oliver! (1968), Film4

Currently playing on the box but I've seen it a at least a dozen times over the years and know most of the songs off by heart.  Not usually a fan of musicals, but this is an absolutely brilliant film and whisks me back to my childhood (I was 8 when it was made).

Everyone in it is superb but Ron Moody and Oliver Reed in particular are outstanding.  I'd also forgotten what a terribly tragic life Jack Wild (Artful Dodger) had post-Oliver.  Very sad, but nice to remember him in this.

10/10.

goldtop

^ Not seen that since I was a kid. It properly conveyed a feeling of real malice with Bill Sykes. 

IIRC, the cinematography was fantastic, too.

Offset

goldtop said:

^ Not seen that since I was a kid. It properly conveyed a feeling of real malice with Bill Sykes. 

Yep. spot on.  Reed was really menacing and not a little scary.  Wonderful performance.  He was a bloody great actor.

sinbaadi

NOPE -Netflix

"Alien" sci-fi set in the Midwest of America. 

It's good.  It's trying quite hard to be cool.  The VFX are very good though and certainly in terms of flying saucers it's as good as anything you'll ever see. 

I just wasn't really sure why they didn't get the heck out of there or basically try anything else except for the big plan at the end.

Still, it's not like the typical blockbuster superhero stuff so gets my vote. 

8/10

goldtop

Milk & Serial (Youtube) A bunch of annoying people who make prank videos start to prank each other. It goes wrong. Made for $800 and in the form of found footage, like Blair Witch Project. Supposedly it 'went viral' last week. It's ... OK, but I couldnt get past my hatred of the prank video genre. 6/10

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

The Count Of Monte Cristo 

A glossy and very well put together adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas classic swashbuckling adventure. From the same production team that did the two-part adaptation of The Three Musketeers last year, which I really enjoyed. Like those films, it plays pretty fast and loose with the source material but keeps to the basic spirit of the novels. It also has the same big budget, full blown blockbuster visuals, set/costume design, action scenes and special effects. Really enjoyed it, classic 'leave your brain at the door' popcorn munching entertainment. 

7.5/10

Philly_Q

Abigail (Amazon Prime)

A group of ne'er-do-wells, all using assumed names, are hired to abduct a 12-year-old girl and hold her in a spooky house for 24 hours until her father pays a 50 million dollar ransom.  But all is not as it seems....

From the directors of V/H/S, Ready or Not and the last two Scream films, all of which I quite liked, and featuring a good cast with a fair bit of horror-movie experience, this was quite a lot better than I expected.  Not amazing, but I really liked it.

Offset

^^ On the watchlist.

Haych

Event Horizon

Was having a conversation with the stepson about scary movies and I recall this one giving me the willies way back when I first watched it.  My best friend at the time went to see it at the cinema when it was released and he had to sleep with the light on - he claimed it was that scary.

Still a decent movie but rewatching it I felt a little underwhelmed.  Not really that scary any more although the SS said he felt the tension and I'm not sure if some scenes had been cut.

Watched on the 4OD thing.

Offset

Haych said:

Event Horizon

Was having a conversation with the stepson about scary movies and I recall this one giving me the willies way back when I first watched it.  My best friend at the time went to see it at the cinema when it was released and he had to sleep with the light on - he claimed it was that scary.

Still a decent movie but rewatching it I felt a little underwhelmed.  Not really that scary any more although the SS said he felt the tension and I'm not sure if some scenes had been cut.

Watched on the 4OD thing.

I re-re-watched it recently and I'll admit to finding it a little underwhelming compared to the first time around, although still watchable.

boogieman

Offset said:

Haych said:

Event Horizon

Was having a conversation with the stepson about scary movies and I recall this one giving me the willies way back when I first watched it.  My best friend at the time went to see it at the cinema when it was released and he had to sleep with the light on - he claimed it was that scary.

Still a decent movie but rewatching it I felt a little underwhelmed.  Not really that scary any more although the SS said he felt the tension and I'm not sure if some scenes had been cut.

Watched on the 4OD thing.

I re-re-watched it recently and I'll admit to finding it a little underwhelming compared to the first time around, although still watchable.

Same here, it was on Film 4 recently I think?  The first time round I watched it at the cinema, and thought from all the hype that it was going to be another Alien. It does really rack the tension up quite nicely, but ultimately not a lot happens. Pretty to look at I guess. 

CaseOfAce

Somewhere (2010) now on Netflix.

Sofia (Ford) Coppola continues studies in ennui (Lost In Translation) with this take on a famous actor shacked up at the Chateau Marmont.

I'm enjoying it so far. I'm not sure it's as clever as it thinks it is. The detachment get's a little too knowing at times... but it's an interesting look at life in Hollywood when you've "made it " and as usual with these sort of films it's the visuals of what these places are like in real life (the film was shot on location there).

I guess you can check out but you can never leave ?

Philly_Q

boogieman said:

Offset said:

Haych said:

Event Horizon

Was having a conversation with the stepson about scary movies and I recall this one giving me the willies way back when I first watched it.  My best friend at the time went to see it at the cinema when it was released and he had to sleep with the light on - he claimed it was that scary.

Still a decent movie but rewatching it I felt a little underwhelmed.  Not really that scary any more although the SS said he felt the tension and I'm not sure if some scenes had been cut.

Watched on the 4OD thing.

I re-re-watched it recently and I'll admit to finding it a little underwhelming compared to the first time around, although still watchable.

Same here, it was on Film 4 recently I think?  The first time round I watched it at the cinema, and thought from all the hype that it was going to be another Alien. It does really rack the tension up quite nicely, but ultimately not a lot happens. Pretty to look at I guess. 

I remember I didn't like Event Horizon very much, but I don't remember why.  It is a Paul W S Anderson film at the end of the day, it's unlikely to be a work of genius... his films are OK but they're never going to make any awards-season shortlists.

Snap

sinbaadi said:

NOPE -Netflix

"Alien" sci-fi set in the Midwest of America. 

It's good.  It's trying quite hard to be cool.  The VFX are very good though and certainly in terms of flying saucers it's as good as anything you'll ever see. 

I just wasn't really sure why they didn't get the heck out of there or basically try anything else except for the big plan at the end.

Still, it's not like the typical blockbuster superhero stuff so gets my vote. 

8/10

Agree. Also the cameraman thing - not clear why he did that really, other than he was trying so hard to be all "out there and cool man...."
I liked it as a film though

Offset

Light (2024), Prime.

Low budget doesn't always mean bad - far from it.  However in this case, it really does.  Very, very, VERY boring.  It really is like watching a guitar neck in the hope you'll see it warp.  I fast-forwarded to see if the denouement was more interesting.  It wasn't.

I'd add that in an incisive moment of perception, the distributors released this film on April 1st.

1/10, and the '1' is a sympathy vote for the microscopic cast.

Keiko

Haych said:

Event Horizon

Was having a conversation with the stepson about scary movies and I recall this one giving me the willies way back when I first watched it.  My best friend at the time went to see it at the cinema when it was released and he had to sleep with the light on - he claimed it was that scary.

Still a decent movie but rewatching it I felt a little underwhelmed.  Not really that scary any more although the SS said he felt the tension and I'm not sure if some scenes had been cut.

Watched on the 4OD thing.

Same for me (see 3 pages back). They do edit films for TV. Make them shorter to fit in the time slot, or water down any unsuitable scenes. I also watched it at the cinema and remember it being a lot more scary. If I remember rightly it was mainly in the build up before they arrived at the event horizon itself.  Maybe a lot of the good stuff that built the tension had been cut out?  

Philly_Q

Offset said:

Light (2024), Prime.

Low budget doesn't always mean bad - far from it.  However in this case, it really does.  Very, very, VERY boring.  It really is like watching a guitar neck in the hope you'll see it warp.  I fast-forwarded to see if the denouement was more interesting.  It wasn't.

I'd add that in an incisive moment of perception, the distributors released this film on April 1st.

1/10, and the '1' is a sympathy vote for the microscopic cast.

I was thinking "did I watch this?"... and after some consideration I remembered I was so bored that I also fast-forwarded through it and missed the bit with the alien.  Assuming there was a bit with an alien.

(Edit:  It's also on Paramount+, for anyone who wants to be bored rigid and hasn't got Amazon Prime.)

Gassage

The Post

When you see ingredients such as Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg then it tends to grab your interest. And, as someone involved with journalism, this was a must watch for me.

Set in 1971, The Post depicts the true story of attempts by journalists at The Washington Post to publish the infamous Pentagon Papers, a set of classified documents regarding the 20-year involvement of the US government in Vietnam and French Indochina.

It starts slowly and builds momentum- if you want an easy watch, this isn't it! But the romance of Hot Metal presses, the sheer dedication of reporters of that time and the manner which they found and broke news simply fascinated me- a far cry from the instant news and clickbait of today.

It reminded me that some of the guys I work with regularly in the press box lived this environment- where they had exactly 300 words of copy, set in typography, printed in ink- and woe betide them if they went one word over.

It brings home what newspaper men did to produce a paper every single day- so ridiculously labour intensive. It also reminds you that, with only a handful of news sources back then, what a huge influence media had and how corrupt it could be.

Hanks is typically brilliant, Streep basically plays a slightly different version of Miranda Priestley (no bad thing).

Settle down with a nice glass of something, be in full concentration mode and you'll be fully rewarded with a brilliant and true story of bravery in the press.

9/10

Offset

^^ Ta - another one added to the watchlist,