What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[WhiteRoseKillie]

Standard. Didn't Steven Tyler run off with some lassie the same age? There seems to have been a period of time when it was genuinely considered a perk of being a rock star that you got to molest children.
I don't consider myself the most hardline of parents, but I'd like to think that if some rich drug-addled alkie arrived and offered to take my kid away on tour for sexual purposes, I might have something to say about that.

When Zeppelin returned to the states, it was her mother who dropped her off at the airport, effectively delivering her to Page. Unbelievable now, it hardly raised an eyebrow at the time.

As you say, these seem like another era, where Page, John Peel, and what seems like every middling rock band were plundering the schools for "road wives". I think Pete Townshend was the last of rock's wrong'uns to get anything like a pass.

[BFTD]

Captivity - DVD - model/socialite Elisha Cuthbert is kidnapped and kept in a dungeon by a sadistic killer.

That's pretty much all your need to know about the plot for this. The first half revolves around our (completely two-dimensional) heroine being grubbily punished for not obeying orders, before a second act twist that you'll probably see coming a mile off removes a lot of the miserable grimdark, but still doesn't go anywhere interesting. A flaccid entry into the torture porn genre that entirely forgets to include anything to build the torture around, then also gets bored with the torture.

Director Roland Joffe (who made The Killing Fields and The Mission, incredibly) apparently wanted this to highlight the plight of poor rich people like Paris Hilton, who are held captive by society and can't live their lives freely, or some other facile rubbish.

Confederate States of America - DVD - a television broadcast from an alternate present in which the Confederacy won the American Civil War.

A cute idea that was clearly made on a limited budget, but still an entertaining (and occasionally skincrawling) piece of speculative history that highlights the racist legacy of the slave trade. Full of casually racial advertisements for products, many of which actually existed in scarily recent times (Niggerhair cigarettes, anyone?)

Worth watching if the concept appeals.

[NotThePars]

When Zeppelin returned to the states, it was her mother who dropped her off at the airport, effectively delivering her to Page. Unbelievable now, it hardly raised an eyebrow at the time.

As you say, these seem like another era, where Page, John Peel, and what seems like every middling rock band were plundering the schools for "road wives". I think Pete Townshend was the last of rock's wrong'uns to get anything like a pass.

The way Peel and his widow throw his first wife under the bus in his autobiography is so grim. Just basically say IIRC “he never did anything, she was mentally ill, and she lied to him.” Cool!

[Mark Connolly]

15 hours ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

When Zeppelin returned to the states, it was her mother who dropped her off at the airport, effectively delivering her to Page. Unbelievable now, it hardly raised an eyebrow at the time.

As you say, these seem like another era, where Page, John Peel, and what seems like every middling rock band were plundering the schools for "road wives". I think Pete Townshend was the last of rock's wrong'uns to get anything like a pass.

For some reason, it really upsets Bowie fans when Lori Mattix is mentioned. Arguments range from "LOL never happened" to "she chose to be a groupie and it was a different time".

[Stellaboz]

Anyone who defends a paedo musician no matter what is probably a massive paedo themselves. 

[WhiteRoseKillie]

Bad Times at the El Royale - Disney Star. Saw the names Jeff bridges and Jon Hamm, and decided to give it a go based on that. Good decision.
The director has obviously watched a bit more QT than is strictly healthy, but this is a pretty good "strangers bring their secrets to remote hotel" offering, with plenty of flash back expedition will timed to keep the interest, and several WTF? moments along the way. Maybe twenty minutes to long, but an enjoyable couple of hours or so.

8/10. Nah, what the hell, 9 - a point for the singing.

[tongue_tied_danny]

Casualties of War

Vietnam thriller from 1989 starring Michael J Fox as a young soldier who stands up to the rest of his unit when they abduct, rape and murder an innocent female civilian.

I saw this when it first came out but I couldn't remember much about it. The story is pretty shocking, especially as it is based upon real events.  I'm quite sure this kind of thing has happened repeatedly in most, if not all, wars throughout history. 

Very good performances by Fox as the idealistic soldier who refuses to bow to peer pressure and also by Sean Penn as the deranged ring leader of the offence. 

My only minor quibble is that it looked a bit too much of an 80s production. It was too clean and the colours were too bright. I prefer war films that look more grainy and washed out.

7/10

[Twinkle]

14 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Bad Times at the El Royale - Disney Star. Saw the names Jeff bridges and Jon Hamm, and decided to give it a go based on that. Good decision.
The director has obviously watched a bit more QT than is strictly healthy, but this is a pretty good "strangers bring their secrets to remote hotel" offering, with plenty of flash back expedition will timed to keep the interest, and several WTF? moments along the way. Maybe twenty minutes to long, but an enjoyable couple of hours or so.

8/10. Nah, what the hell, 9 - a point for the singing.

Brilliant film. Cynthia Erivo steals the show with the signing. One of my favourite films of the last few years

[accies1874]

Cut it by maybe 30-40 minutes, tidy up the ending and give a nice payoff for the crossing timelines and it's a 10/10.

$100m please.

[Arch Stanton]

On 23/02/2021 at 21:07, WhiteRoseKillie said:

When Zeppelin returned to the states, it was her mother who dropped her off at the airport, effectively delivering her to Page. Unbelievable now, it hardly raised an eyebrow at the time.

As you say, these seem like another era, where Page, John Peel, and what seems like every middling rock band were plundering the schools for "road wives". I think Pete Townshend was the last of rock's wrong'uns to get anything like a pass.

While I'm certainly not defending nonceism, the age of consent in Texas at that time was 15 (which was the age of his 1st wife when they married) so Peel did nothing illegal.

[paul-r-cfc]

The White Tiger.
Cracking Indian film about a poor guy infiltrating a criminal family. Maybe a bit weak and implausible in the last act but a solid 9/10.

Didn't realise there was a film of that. Read the book last year and despite being weird as hell, I loved it. Will need to look that out.

[BFTD]

Somehow I ended up with a Catherine Keener double bill tonight.

8mm - my occasional guilty pleasure. Apparently it's been five years since I last watched it.

Trust - I didn't remember having seen this, but kept getting little twinges throughout that it seemed familiar. Turns out that I already talked about it on here six years ago.

Seems like I liked it back then, and possibly even more this time. Good work all round from all involved.

[Ira Gaines]

Trust got brought up not long ago when someone watched Megan Is Missing. I pretty much agree with that original review. I don't mind Megan Is Missing but it completely negates it's point by just going for shock value and that ends up being what people remember. Not the message.

Trust covers so much ground. Both the dangers and the aftermath are looked into in great depth and David Schwimmer does an excellent job here.

[tongue_tied_danny]

Gardens of Stone

James Caan plays an army sergeant who is wracked with angst while stationed at a stateside  military cemetery during the Vietnam war.

Not much happens but it's fairly interesting and has some good performances.

6/10

[SANTAN]

Watching This Is The End

I only ever watched it once at a mini sesh back in the day, so pretty much my first time properly watching it and I'm laughing a lot, obviously low brow yank humour mostly but it's superb none the less. 

[BFTD]

Argo - Blu-Ray - in the aftermath of the storming of the American embassy during the Iranian Islamic Revolution, CIA Agent Ben Affleck comes up with a plan to smuggle half a dozen of the embassy staff out of the country before they're discovered and executed.

This must have been on my to-watch list for the best part of a decade, and somehow I managed to avoid hearing about the real-life batshit idea that the film revolves around, which I won't mention here as it was a pleasant surprise. The film's a nicely taut thriller that does a surprisingly good job of ratcheting up the tension, and has a quality cast doing a very good job. I'm not sure that it would necessarily have won Best Picture at the Oscars if it weren't for the navel-gazing American history aspect, but it's a very enjoyable film nonetheless.

Iron Man - Blu-Ray - harrowing study of a billionaire war criminal's descent into delusional madness after a gruelling kidnapping.

Apparently we're going through the Marvel films again from the beginning. My son's a big MCU fan, so I know this film like the back of my hand at this point, but it's still an entertaining romp with a few proper laughs. I didn't think it had any surprises left, only to discover that Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine played one of the Afghans at the beginning! Even better, it gave me the opportunity to recommend RATM to the boy, and to once again point out that Black Sabbath are the greatest band of all time.

Although he did say that he thought Led Zeppelin wrote the titular end credits tune, and that it had been written for the film, which I'm thinking might have been an impressive attempt to wind up his old man. They grow up so fast.

[NotThePars]

My Octopus Teacher

Octopuses are sick but why did one of them have to befriend this guy?

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Deeply cringe but pretty funny. Also Harley Quinn shoots multiple police officers (albeit with a beanbag shotgun) and says she voted for Bernie Sanders which makes this the most radical movie of the last 30 years.

[tongue_tied_danny]

Born on the 4th of July

Oliver Stone directed this biopic of Ron Kovic, who volunteered to fight in Vietnam and then cried like a little baby girl when it went all wrong for him.

I found it hard to have any sympathy for him when he'd been so gung ho  before he signed up. 

The rules didn't change when you got shot you fucking p***k.

That said, it was a good performance by Tom Cruise in the lead role.

5/10

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

Capone.

Tom Hardy plays Capone in the last days of his life, riddled with syphilis (had spread to his brain) Hardy spends the whole film stumbling around, grunting and shitting himself, as the government try to track down the 10million Capone had allegedly hidden.

6/10.

[Ira Gaines]

You're a kinder man than me with that score