Films you've seen/film discussion

[DaleCooper]

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) - An early John Carpenter film which despite the low budget, some iffy dialogue and one spectacularly bad actor has stood the test of time, probably because it's a damn good story, with one scene that even now I find shocking, and a superb ending. For some reason I always remember this as being in black and white and every time I watch it I'm surprised that it's in "glorious technicolor"* 7.5/10

*I have the same problem with Let the Right One In.

 

[ComUtoR]

John Wick 2 (10/10)


I cannot fault this film. It does exactly what it sets out to do and does it very well. Yeah its totally unbelievable but sometimes you just need to switch off your brain and enjoy the pew pew.

Keanu is highly underrated. He certainly plays to the baser instincts of film goers but this looks to be the start of a decent franchise. I enjoyed the first film and it came out of nowhere. This was an entertaining sequel and done everything a sequel should do. It left me wanting more.


Moana (5/10)

Oh why did Disney return to musicals. It ruined what was a semi decent story. I enjoyed it but felt that it could be a bit more than just another generic Disney musical. Moana could have been a decent Disney princess but I think it failed to engage on any level. A good film and I did enjoy it but it still felt generic.

 

[sk688]

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (8.5/10)

Very good, great acting overall, amazing Action and comic scenes, plot slightly formulaic

 

[DaleCooper]

Fargo - A kidnapping gone wrong and a pregnant cop on the case in this Coen brothers film with outstanding performances by Frances McDormand and William H. Macy with support from Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare. 7.5/10

Barton Fink - Another Coen brothers film, this time with, to my mind, a touch of David Lynch. A New York playwright (John Turturro) is hired by a Hollywood studio, he stays in a peculiar hotel and becomes friendly with the insurance salesman (John Goodman) in the next room but things go badly wrong. 7.0/10

 

[DarloRich]

X-Men: Apocalypse - I didn't like it and felt it was almost a cliched and simplistic good v evil piece. Looks good but just feels flimsy and somewhat repetitive. Average.

 

[fowler9]

X-Men: Apocalypse - I didn't like it and felt it was almost a cliched and simplistic good v evil piece. Looks good but just feels flimsy and somewhat repetitive. Average.

Agreed.

Watched The Invasion with Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman over the weekend, bloody awfull, avoid.

Also watched World War Z and Pandorum which I quite enjoyed, not classics but a decent way to pass a couple of hours.

 

[DarloRich]

Inglorious Basterds - violent unrestrained Tarantino fest with an outstanding performance from Christopher Waltz. It is great fun but perhaps lacks a moral base or message (it isn't for the more sensitive souls on this board!)

Captain Phillips - Tom Hanks does his regular guy in bad circumstances thing that he does so well and Barkhad Abdi is very good as the pirate leader in an intense well made thriller although I am not sure it is worthy of all the praise it has had

Eye in the sky - Tense intelligent techno thriller with some interesting moral questions about what is acceptable in getting your man when he is a terrorist

The Big Lebowski - superbly bonkers coen brothers comedy brought to life by performances by Jeff Bridges and John goodman and the sharp and funny dialogue between them

 

[fowler9]

Inglorious Basterds - violent unrestrained Tarantino fest with an outstanding performance from Christopher Waltz. It is great fun but perhaps lacks a moral base or message (it isn't for the more sensitive souls on this board!)

Captain Phillips - Tom Hanks does his regular guy in bad circumstances thing that he does so well and Barkhad Abdi is very good as the pirate leader in an intense well made thriller although I am not sure it is worthy of all the praise it has had

Eye in the sky - Tense intelligent techno thriller with some interesting moral questions about what is acceptable in getting your man when he is a terrorist

The Big Lebowski - superbly bonkers coen brothers comedy brought to life by performances by Jeff Bridges and John goodman and the sharp and funny dialogue between them

Totally agree with all of what you said (Except for Eye In The Sky because I haven't seen it, ha ha). Inglorious Basterds is really good, in particular Christopher Waltz who is amazing. I could be wrong but I believe Tarantino said he could not find anyone else who could come anywhere near to being able to play the character, in part because Waltz is pretty much fluent in several languages.

I thought Captain Philips was really good despite reading that several people who were involved in the incident arguing that it wasn't quite like that. Sully is another similar film he has done which I thought was amazing, also having watched several documentaries several times over it seems pretty true to what happened. The miracle on the Hudson is an amazing story.

The Big Lebowski is amazing, John Goodman is brilliant in it.

 

[DarloRich]

Phantom - Dire submarine thriller that can't be rescued by Ed Harris or David Duchovny because of the wooden script and poor filming

The spy who came in from the cold - 1965 cold war espionage thriller staring Richard Burton based on the Le Carre novel. Obviously of a time but we'll acted and full of double and triple crosses and I think the monochrome filming makes the whole affair seem intentionally seedy and I think Burton is superb as the tired agent at the centre of it all

World war z - an adult take on the zombie genre which is both serious and full of action but while Brad Pitt puts in a good performance some of the characters are thin

Fury - well acted and a war film with a raw visceral feel and some action sequences almost of a saving private Ryan quality and tells an interesting story about male bonding and sacrifice

Battle of Britain - Rousing patriotic WW2 romp with a ensemble cast with well filmed aerial scenes and accurate aircraft usage but it seems tired now - still love to watch it mind

 

[Butts]

Battle of Britain - Rousing patriotic WW2 romp with a ensemble cast with well filmed aerial scenes and accurate aircraft usage but it seems tired now - still love to watch it mind

This is a classic - best bit when Goering asks the head of the Luftwaffe what they need to win the Battle of Britain....

"Ein staffel das Spitfeur" - probably bad grammar sorry

The guys goggles filling up with blood is impressive to a 9 year old if I remember correctly !!

 

[DarloRich]

This is a classic - best bit when Goering asks the head of the Luftwaffe what they need to win the Battle of Britain....

"Ein staffel das Spitfeur" - probably bad grammar sorry

The guys goggles filling up with blood is impressive to a 9 year old if I remember correctly !!

it does look dated these days but is still very enjoyable and any tale about the plucky British underdogs given the fiendish, evil, arrogant Huns a jolly good kicking is all right by me!

 

[DarloRich]

Totally agree with all of what you said (Except for Eye In The Sky because I haven't seen it, ha ha). Inglorious Basterds is really good, in particular Christopher Waltz who is amazing. I could be wrong but I believe Tarantino said he could not find anyone else who could come anywhere near to being able to play the character, in part because Waltz is pretty much fluent in several languages.
.

He plays Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained for which he won another oscar, a bafta and a golden globe ( as he did in Inglorious Basterds) and he is just as good in that performance

 

[fowler9]

Doctor Strange. Loved it to be honest. Not at all what I was expecting, not sure what I was expecting as I am not a historically a graphic novel fan. It was good though. Highly recommend it.

 

[DarloRich]

The Interview - Childish, immature, crude humour enlivened by two good performances from Randall Park and Diana Bang and Kim Jong-un being blown up by a tank shell

Sausage Party - Childish, immature, crude, offensive and profane humour enlivened by a bi sexual food orgy at the end.

 

[DaleCooper]

I haven't watched many films lately instead I've been revisiting the classic 70s TV series Callan but last night I watched:

Dead Man Down - Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace and Terrence Howard. It started out as a decent revenge/gangster drama with a bit of gratuitous action thrown in but the whole thing was ruined in the last 10 minutes with the most ludicrous, overblown mass shootout with about a dozen heavily armed gangsters unable to hit the hero with a single bullet, that sort of thing has it's place when it's tongue-in-cheek with a wisecracking Bruce Willis or Arnie but not in this film, it just didn't fit. At that point, despite having sat through 100 minutes, I switched of in disgust no longer caring about the outcome, perhaps they did shoot him in the end, I don't know and don't care. 4.0/10 (it would have been a 6.0 without that final scene).

The Interview - Childish, immature, crude humour enlivened by two good performances from Randall Park and Diana Bang and Kim Jong-un being blown up by a tank shell

Sausage Party - Childish, immature, crude, offensive and profane humour enlivened by a bi sexual food orgy at the end.

Sound like my kind of films

 

[DaleCooper]

Payback (1999) - Mel Gibson doing his thing, entertaining and well worth watching 7.0/10

 

[fowler9]

The remake of Ghostbusters from last year. Awful.

 

[sk688]

Logan - 8.5/10

Very good but very emotional , especially at the end . Slightly sad to see the decline of Hugh Jackman's Logan in the film , as well as Prof X . Briliant Acting though

 

[DaleCooper]

Child 44 - Set in 1950s USSR a disgraced military police office investigates a series of child murders. It's slow, dour, bleak and depressing at times but carried by Tom Hardy's remarkable performance. 7.0/10

 

[fowler9]

Child 44 - Set in 1950s USSR a disgraced military police office investigates a series of child murders. It's slow, dour, bleak and depressing at times but carried by Tom Hardy's remarkable performance. 7.0/10

Really enjoyed this. Kind of an interesting commentary on stuff that apparently really used to happen in the time of the Soviet Union as it was then.

 

[HenL]

Anyone seen Lion the cinema? Honestly, one of the best films I've seen in a long time...

 

[DaleCooper]

A History of Violence - Another on my all time favourites list it stars Viggo Mortensen in a thoughtful family drama punctuated by a few moments of brutal violence. I particularly like the ending which is so different ftom what you often get with Hollywood films. 8.5/10

 

[fowler9]

A History of Violence - Another on my all time favourites list it stars Viggo Mortensen in a thoughtful family drama punctuated by a few moments of brutal violence. I particularly like the ending which is so different ftom what you often get with Hollywood films. 8.5/10

Brilliant film mate. Love A History Of Violence.

Just watched I Daniel Blake. It is good but sadly it just wasn't shocking to me at all, I have watched it all happen, preaching to the converted. It is how people I know live and probably won't change many peoples minds. I think a better film would show how many people are literally an illness away from a comfortable existence to destitution. Without wanting to knock it I think it was too comfortably "Daniel Blake is some other and it could never happen to me". It is still very moving and a good film though.

 

[DaleCooper]

A couple of old Mel Gibson films - Conspiracy Theory and Ransom, both a solid 7.0/10. I don't think I've ever seen a bad Mel Gibson film - except Mad Max.

 

[fowler9]

A couple of old Mel Gibson films - Conspiracy Theory and Ransom, both a solid 7.0/10. I don't think I've ever seen a bad Mel Gibson film - except Mad Max.

Mad Max! Shame on you! Brilliant films. Watched Train To Busan the night before last and it is really good. A bit like Word War Z but in true Korean style they bin off the happy ending where the main characters live happily ever after. (Trying to avoid spoilers). Also watched London Has Fallen, alright. A Monster Calls is next on the list.

 

[backontrack]

Arrival: 8.5/10.0 (Amy Adams, with Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker) dir. Denis Villeneuve)

Brilliant film. A bit confusing. Very original concepts, with good effects and cinematography.


The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp: 8.0/10.0 (Roger Livesey, with Anton Walbrook and Deborah Kerr, dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)

Brilliant film. A bit confusing. Very original concepts, with good effects and cinematography, just not quite as good as Arrival.


A Damsel in Distress: 7.3/10.0 (Fred Astaire, Joan Fontaine, Gracie Allen, George Burns)

Weird film. Entertaining, however.


NT Live: Twelfth Night: 8.0/10.0

Very good Viola, Olivia and Sir Toby Jug. Malvolia (portrayed by Tamsin Greig) had great comic moments, but one porny and unfunny scene undermined those.

 

[DaleCooper]

In Bruges - Stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson with strong support from Colin Farrell's eyebrows. Excellent crime/drama/comedy; funny, violent and poignant with an appropriate ending 7.5/10

 

[heart-of-wessex]

Two of the very worst ones I can think of I've seen

Creep
As mentioned on here, I thought it was utter garbage, with the portillo style get off train, which turns into something else. Plot was strange!

Human Centipede

Words cannot describe, rented it from Blockbusters without reading into it, no idea what I had just watched!! Not recommended to anyone easily traumatised

Vote 0.001 / 10

 

[fowler9]

Watched London Has Fallen last night. Entertaining. Very far fetched but I get the feeling some in the west would be asking "What if it really happened?" which would be akin to "What if Ghostbusters really happened?".

 

[DaleCooper]

Creep
As mentioned on here, I thought it was utter garbage, with the portillo style get off train, which turns into something else. Plot was strange!

Is that the one set on London Underground? If so I saw it ages ago and also thought it was crap.

Human Centipede

Words cannot describe, rented it from Blockbusters without reading into it, no idea what I had just watched!! Not recommended to anyone easily traumatised

Vote 0.001 / 10

That always features prominently on lists of the most disgusting/weird/perverted etc. films ever made

Killing Them Softly - Andrew Dominik must be an exceptional director to make a film with Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins and Ray Liotta such a boring, pretentious, long winded piece of garbage. 3.0/10