What was the last movie you saw?

[Andrew Lambert]

Action films have always been a bit casual with public casualties - however yes these days because of CGI its so easy to take 2 or 3 cars and then have 50 or 100 smashed in and destroyed (and of course every car explodes when hit). It does kind of make characters seem very two dimensional and strange. The more recent Superman film was very much like this with Superman having a huge mental breakdown over a few key killings, but having utterly no problem killing dozens of people in emotional outbursts and fights.

I switched off three-quarters of the way thru the Super-Bat film, in utter disgust, and must have missed that. Or mentally blocked it out.

 

[Andrew Lambert]

Action films have always been a bit casual with public casualties - however yes these days because of CGI its so easy to take 2 or 3 cars and then have 50 or 100 smashed in and destroyed (and of course every car explodes when hit). It does kind of make characters seem very two dimensional and strange. The more recent Superman film was very much like this with Superman having a huge mental breakdown over a few key killings, but having utterly no problem killing dozens of people in emotional outbursts and fights.

ps. Our avatars could be of the same race, ha ha!

 

[Overread]

I switched off three-quarters of the way thru the Super-Bat film, in utter disgust, and must have missed that. Or mentally blocked it out.

Ah no not the super/bat man film the former Superman solofilm (Man of Steel?). It was a shame because that film started out with a more serious slow character building take on Superman, but I think the fact that they tried to squash 3 films with of content into a single film really showed past the midpoint as everything got rushed and then got silly.

 

[J Riff]

The Last Scout - oh good, the last, so no sequel. And, Oblivion, Tom Cruises in cool ships, rides mean motorcycles, on a destroyed Earth, with a romantic subplot and tradgedy and 'Scavs' scampering around. It looked good. *

 

[J Riff]

Deepwater Horizon huge oilrig blows up, true story; how they do this stuff is amazing, giant mud blasts, must have been fun for the cast and stuntmen.
The Dark Tapes - I have got to do one of these paranormal romps, using a cellphone camera and getting stuff to move around the room by itself. Add scary music and sound FX and voila, horrible movie.

 

[HanaBi]

"Scum" (1979)

Life in a British borstal (a young offender's institution) during the 1970s. Just like adult prison, you have the usual mix of incompetent guards, guards that "look the other way", blinkered governors, hard-case prisoners who consider themselves the bosses (or daddies) of a particular prison/borstal wing; prisoners who just want to keep the status quo, do their time and get out; and prisoners who are weak, scared and almost suicidal at the life they now face.

Ray Winstone, makes his screen debut as Carling - a new admission to the borstal. Initially he just wants to keep a low profile, bide his time for the duration of his sentence. But inevitably he is challenged from the "daddies" and the guards - chipping away at his relatively passive demeanour, until eventually he finally breaks and we see the real Carling in devastating action!

This film looks dated and fairly mild in its dealing with violence, power-struggles and life in general at one of these places. But back in the 80s it was hugely controversial, not least for the homosexual rape scene, the general brutality between prisoners and guards; but also at how the story tends to be far more sympathetic for some of the offenders rather than the System itself. But Winstone is wonderful as the charismatic Carling - and every time I see Winstone in TV betting commercials I think of Carling and his immortal words "Where's your f***ing tool!" from the film.

3/5

 

[J Riff]

The Mummy. They find this bad mummy, see.. she was bad, and buried far from Egypt, and sure enough - still bad when discovered, and our hero is chosen, dies but keeps living... has to fight off the evil curse... things explode, other things fall down and it is action and jokes all the way. No spoilers though, there are twists and I can't remember them already, but it was as good a Mummy movie as I've seen recently.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The War Game (1965)

Made for British television but withdrawn before it was shown as being too intense for the viewing audience. It depicts a nuclear attack on Britain in documentary style. Fifty of the most unsettling black-and-white minutes you will ever see.

Monster From Green Hell (1957)

Bottom-of-the-barrel big bug movie. A couple of American science guys shoot a rocket full of test animals into space, it comes back down in central Africa with a giant wasp inside. Tons of stock footage fill up the running time. Brief glimpses of stop-motion giant wasps. Pretty dismal even for 1950's sci-fi flicks.

 

[J Riff]

Green Hell! Yep, only the shots of the super-giant bug on the horizon make it memorabobble.
The second Riddick movie - Pitch Black, non-memorable, a bit clunky, and overdone characters slow it down and make it vaguely crummy.

 

[HanaBi]

"The Music Box" (1932) - Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy

Okay, so perhaps this isn't a full-length feature film, coming in at only 30 minutes. But by many standards quantity doesn't always return good quality. And The Music Box won Stan & Ollie a well-deserved Oscar. That said, although it is a superbly choreographed short, I personally don't think its their very best (for me, that would be "Sons of the Desert")

The story is so simple yet so inventive and full of kinetic & emotive energy. Stan & Ollie have to deliver a Piano to a highly strung guy who can't stand pianos! But just to make life a little more interesting the guy's home just happens to be perched on a hill/stoop with a never-ending flight of steps, to whit Stan & Ollie have to negotiate their awkward delivery.

Some of the gags we've seen many times before in their films, but it doesn't matter because the added sparkle derives from the human emotions & expressions delivered with such panache from Stan & the long suffering Ollie - the way he looks-to-camera in a pleading kind of way just has me in stitches of laughter & empathy.

Masterful!

5/5

 

[Calum]

The Red Turtle. Another excellent work from Studio Ghibli, that breaks free from their typical conventions and delivers a deeply captivating slice of magical realism, albeit a somewhat flawed one. It starts off as very much a typical Robinson Crusoe tale with a nameless mariner stranded on a desert island. Even here however it breaks with convention.

While more Hollywood flavoured tales of isolation such as Castaway or I am Legend contrive devices like a dog or an imaginary friend for the protagonist to talk to the filmmakers resort to a more naturistic approach, allowing us to empathise with the mariner purely through his body language, reactions and visual symbolism. It’s a bold approach and one that allows us to become more directly immersed in his struggle. For instance, in contrast to Ghibli’s usual art style the mariner is drawn in a way that evokes something akin to Herge’s Tintin, which contrasts with the more detailed, busy backgrounds that evoke traditional Japanese artwork, evoking the feeling of being lost in an unfamiliar alien world.

The first half of the film is easily the best as it follows the sailor’s struggle to survive. However the cracks begin to show when the story takes a turn into the realm of surrealism, and while I won’t spoil anything the film begins to lose its sense of focus and momentum throughout the second half, particularly in regards to a tsunami which doesn’t move the story forward and only seems to be there to pad out the film’s run time. In retrospect the film could have worked better as a short, since the second half feels somewhat protracted. Despite these faults the Red Turtle is well worth the watch, with its dazzling artistry creating a mesmerizing if imperfect experience.

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

The Day the Earth Stood Still.....
The giant robot was the star of the show.
Unneccessary cameo by Cleese,Connelly not up to scratch,IMHO,Keanu Reeves his usual self.
Not a total dud,but wooden acting and direction

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

The Place Beyond the Pines
Much,much better.Not sf or fantasy though.
Crime drama,topnotch acting(Phillippe,Cooper,Mendez)
9,2 out of ten
Surprising ending

 

[Droflet]

The Day the Earth Stood Still.....
The giant robot was the star of the show.
Unneccessary cameo by Cleese,Connelly not up to scratch,IMHO,Keanu Reeves his usual self.
Not a total dud,but wooden acting and direction

Much preferred the original.

 

[WaylanderToo]

The Mummy - not bad, just not great either! Think Ang Lee's Hulk - and then think of how Marvel have fared since!

 

[HanaBi]

I haven't seen The Mummy purely because some critics see it more like The Cruise, given how he totally monopolised the entire production!

 

[dask]

The Barkleys Of Broadway. Stronger than normal storyline stringing dance routines together, with "Shoes With Wings On" a true highlight. Another is Ginger in Highland garb, proving somethings are more than timeless, they're better than ever.

 

[J Riff]

Approaching the Unknown... fastforwarding the unwatchable. )

 

[REBerg]

Hidden Figures
Excellent! U.S. astronauts would literally have never gotten off the ground without these women.

 

[Randy M.]

All the President's Men (1976; dir. Alan J. Pakula; starring Robert Redford & Dustin Hoffman)

This keeps showing up on the pay channels so my wife and I decided to watch it again, for the first time in years.

Anyway, it holds up well. Nicely filmed, moves along well without skimping too much of the detail of the investigation by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein into the break-in of the Watergate Hotel in 1972 and their subsequent exposing of a Presidential cover-up. Hoffman is fine in most things I've seen him in; this one feels a bit like typecasting, but he works well within the focus of the movie on the story. I'm lukewarm about Redford -- I don't know how anyone can carry a movie like he's capable of and yet still be one the blandest screen presences I've ever seen. Still, his quiet earnestness and intelligence also work well here. Ultimately, I think it's interesting that a handful of character actors probably come off as more memorable -- Jack Warden, Martin Balsam and John McMartin as WP editors, and especially Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee (Oscar for Best Supporting Actor) and Hall Holbrook as Deep Throat.


Randy M.