What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[D'Jaffo]

The Witch

A family of English settlers in 1630s New England are tormented by a witch. Sounded like guff when I found it but I really enjoyed it and I’m not a huge fan of supernatural horrors.

8/10

[Christophe]

(100-104)

Death Race 2000 3/10

Trashy carsploitation film about a continental car race where you get points for mowing down innocents. Meant to be a satire of America’s love of gory and violent spectacles like football, nascar, and war, but comes across like a stupid film that is too knowing to be camp. I never got on board with trash cinema as a revivalist thing and genuinely would rather watch a slow film about an old person’s memory fading from the perspective of tin of Woodbine that watch too many of this dreck. Stallone is the best thing in it, David Carradine is the wildly uncompelling star. (YouTube)

The Promise 8/10

Got my box set of the first six films by the Dardenne brothers whose names completely eluded me until a few weeks ago. So here’s the story. Igor is a 15 year old kid whose dad is a slum landlord and puts illegals to work on a building site. A total shite. Igor, when he’s not being an apprentice in a garage or hanging out with his dodgy pals, helps collecting rent, ferrying passports around to enact various dodginess, and settling scores between bickering immigrants. One day the work inspectors come around Igor tells everyone to hide. Amidu, a Burkina Fasoan, falls off the scaffold and dies. In his last breath he makes Igor promise to look after his wife and kid. Igor hides the body and later on he and his shithouse dad bury him in cement. The rest of the film is Igor deciding whether to help Assita or whether to keep on this path. Regardless, they don’t tell her, instead telling her that he’s run off and then faking a telegram from him so they can get rid of her too. I’ll leave the plot there. It’s a really good - not perfect - film that tackles something serious in a serious way. It looks kind of grotty, all slums and dank bits of Liege in winter. Their style would refine between this and Le Fils (this is less minimalist in camerawork, there are lots of cuts) but this is a good first film (they disowned their real first two, to be fair). (DVD)

Shazam 7.5/10

Apparently this comic dates back to 1939 so it’s one of the oldest comic book characters out there - and was even more popular in the 40s than Superman was. Ironically the character was originally called Captain Marvel, but they changed it to Shazam (Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury) for reasons I don’t know but not related to the Marvel character of the same name. The thing about this character is that it seems like the most obvious superhero imaginable - what would happen if a teenage boy - the people who are reading the comics - suddenly and for no real reason obtains seemingly infinite superpowers. The idea was central to ‘Chronicle’ which is a found footage film which I really enjoyed, but was very dark and went into how wrong that could go. Think also about ‘Big’ where Tom Hanks wakes up as an adult but is still a kid inside. This was a film which played more with the latter than the former and was much more feel-good than ‘Chronicle’. The hero is an abandoned kid who keeps running away from foster homes and eventually winds up at what is essentially the perfect foster home but can’t bring himself to feel at home. And when he obtains his superpowers he and his somewhat annoying but still likeable foster-brother explore what powers he does or doesn’t have. That’s the best part of the movie but it’s really good all the way through. Zachary Levi (who was Chuck in the eponymous TV show which I really liked) was absolutely great as a grown man who is actually 15 years old and Mark Strong is an excellent villain who is obviously enjoying himself as much as Levi is. It’s remarkable how much more fun this is than the rest of the DCEU, even including Nolan’s Batman films, and after Aquaman, which had significant flaws, it does seem that Warner Brothers have found an equivalent but different feel to Marvel/Disney’s monopoly. It was really good. (cinema)

22 Jump Street 8/10

Rewatched this. What a fucking great comedy. A parody of buddy cop films, and of sequels, and yet a great buddy cop film and sequel in its own right. So many hilarious set-pieces, I absolutely love it. Jonah Hill and especially Channing Tatum are just brilliant. (Amazon Prime)

Rosetta 8/10

Another from the Dardenne boxset. A girl who lives in a trailer with her pisshead mother in a shitty bit of Belgium just wants a job and a normal life. Another very good little tale of a young woman getting pissed on by fate and society, trying to keep it together, but everything is against her. In the final third she seems to break this tight little moral code she has developed by ratting out this one person who loves her and supports her - is she desperate or is she a shithead - it’s left for you to piece together. Reminded me less of Alan Clarke this time and more of the post-war Italian realism, laden with a bit more symbolism, particularly the downbeat ending. Really good. (DVD)

[oldbitterandgrumpy]

On 4/12/2019 at 07:50, NewBornBairn said:

Stan & Ollie

 

Loved it. Coogan gets a lot of plaudits for playing Laurel but John C Reilly is also superb as Hardy. A gentle film looking at the twilight moments of their career, I just found myself enthralled throughout. 

Couldn't agree more.

[YER SISTERS YER MAW]

Patriots Day

Don't know why I've only just got round to watching this. It's a very well made film of the events. I really got into it. 8/10

[Christophe]

(105-106)

Pet Semetary 5.5/10

Mixed feelings about this. Went with Mrs Christophe’s bro who insisted on going to the cinema about 15 miles away as opposed to the one down the road (about 4 miles away). Anyway, this is a pretty pedestrian adaption of a book I’ve not read. Quite slow and relatively sparing with the special effects. Basically, four characters in the whole thing (ignoring a dead dude who keeps popping up and whose purpose is never really explained)...Reminded me of horror from them days (late 1980s)...enjoyed it for that, really...like, that adaption of IT the other year was too in your face whereas this pootles along with a few jump scares to keep you awake. Ultimately quite underwhelming, though. (cinema)

Missing Link 8/10

An absolutely lovely stop-motion plus CG comedy from the makers of ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ and ‘Coraline’. Zak Gali..Galfi..Gafli...the guy with the beard from ‘The Hangover’ plays the last Bigfoot in Washington State, Huge Action plays an English explorer who wants nothing more than to join the explorer’s club in London but every time he finds something remarkable he loses the evidence. Very funny all the way through. (cinema)

[YER SISTERS YER MAW]

Arctic

Good survival movie. Enjoyable! 7/10

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

Bad Times at the El Royale, 9/10

Fucking marvellous.

[D.A.F.C]

Black clansman, not as political and shocking as I thought it would be and a decent watch.  Big fan of denzels son from ballers and thought he was decent.

[rhliston]

Wild Rose 8/10

Story about a Country Singer from Glasgow trying to make it to the Grand Olde Opry in Nashville.

[Bully Wee Villa]

Captain Marvel on a rare trip to the pictures. For the first twenty minutes I was unsure if it might be rubbish. Once it had settled down a bit though I really enjoyed it. One of my favourite Marvel films. Looking forward to the Avengers film now. 

8/10.

[Joe Terrapin]

Sicario 2 (Day of the something or other)6/10 Netflix

Really enjoyed the first one and this one started well but I felt lost it's way with the storyline.  A few plot twists that didn't really make sense and a poor ending which makes way for a threequel.

The poor Mexican Polis must look at this in the same way British Polis look at Line of Duty.

[Dindeleux]

I watched Gotti yesterday and it was very meh. It came across as a straight to TV type movie to be honest with you but I enjoyed it enough to make it reasonable.

[YER SISTERS YER MAW]

Sicario 2 (Day of the something or other)6/10 Netflix
Really enjoyed the first one and this one started well but I felt lost it's way with the storyline.  A few plot twists that didn't really make sense and a poor ending which makes way for a threequel.
The poor Mexican Polis must look at this in the same way British Polis look at Line of Duty.

Just watched the 1st one last night. Fantastic! Will get round to the 2nd sometime this week.

[Ira Gaines]

I actually thought the second Sicario was a lot more coherent, but the plot wasn't as good which kind of evened it out. I'd say both are a very good 8/10. Sicario could have been higher I thought. Sicario 2 was probably as good as it was ever going to be.

[KnightswoodBear]

Watched Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World for the first time in ages at the weekend.  It still holds up as a fantastic film, and the sparing use of CGI over practical effects definitely doesn't age the film as badly as it might have.

Crowe in Bettany are great.  I don't think Crowe has been better in anything except LA Confidential and Gladiator. 

And it's the best Star Trek film that was never made.

[Ira Gaines]

Matriarch

Scottish horror about a couple who wind up needing help from a weirdo family. This is such a disappointment. So many blatant tropes used here, and the major events later that are so blatantly signposted are unforgivable. The payoff is very good, but it's not worth sitting through the rest of the movie to get there. I'll add that extra point for the payoff.

2/10

[MONKMAN]

I don't think Crowe has been better in anything except LA Confidential and Gladiator. 

A Beautiful Mind, he was robbed at the Academy Awards.

[Ira Gaines]

I'd say his best is L.A. Confidential. The intensity of the performance was incredible to watch alone, but it was more than that too. The entire cast were absolutely on point in that movie, but Crowe probably beat the lot.

[wellinwigan]

A Dogs way home

6/10

Watched this with the kids. Motherwell player Carl McHugh finds a stray dog and takes him home. Only for it to get lost 600 miles from home. Not bad family film 

[Arch Stanton]

...1: Bride of Frankenstein 10/10
2: Frankenstein 10/10
3: The Invisble Man 10/10
4: The Creature from the Black Lagoon 10/10
Would love to see ANYONE else beat those scores. 

Spinal Tap 11/10